ChangeWaves

t 1,001,450 square kilometers, Egypt is the world’s 38th-largest country. In terms of land area, it is approximately the same size as all of Central America, twice the size of France, four times the size of the United Kingdom!
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East and is home to more than 1700 telecentres popularly referred to as IT Clubs.
This country famous for its ancient civilization will be home to over 40 Telecentre Leaders from Egypt, Sudan and Yemen for the next two days. They are here to attend the Telecentre Leaders Forum (TLF) for Middle East and North Africa that started this morning at the picturesque Air Defense House and Hotel in Cairo.
The forum was officially opened by Dr. Ekram Fathy from the Ministry of ICT in Cairo. In his speech, he underscored the importance of IT Clubs or telecentres in capacity building.
“Telecentres or IT Clubs are helping to train the community and government workers in computer applications,” Dr. Ekram explained.
He also noted that the IT clubs are efficient in improving services especially in rural areas with limited resources.
“Taking information to once place using a cart could take an hour but ICT is helping to reduce that gap/distance,” he explained.
He also underscored the importance of the TLF in improving networking, information and knowledge sharing which will improve the performance of telecentres.
Dr. Ekram said though participants are from different countries with different ideologies, such events help in experience sharing especially as regards capacity building through telecentres.
He also highlighted the importance of collaborative publications in networking and knowledge sharing.
Mr. Sherif El Tokaly (UNDP),  Ms Ghada Khalifa (Microsoft) and Meddie Mayanja (IDRC) are attending the event.  Participants are from the three countries of Sudan, Yemen and Egypt.
The other day’s discussions centered on;
•    Telecentre and training policy as a tool to achieve community needs, generate income
•    Telecentre monitoring and evaluation
•    Telecentre management from the private sector perspective and
•    Telecentre fundraising
•    Challenges of telecentre management and sustainability
The details of these are coming up soon.
You can see the complete agenda of the TLF here http://www.telecentre.org/events/telecentre-leaders-forum-mena