ITU will celebrate 145th anniversary at World Expo 2010 in Shanghai

Thursday, 13 May 2010 00:00  |  Michael Schwartz

Shanghai’s World Expo 2010 will also celebrate 145 years of the ITU. To mark the event, World Telecommunication and Information Society Awards will be presented by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré to three highly influential figures in world telecoms - Malaysia’s PM Dato’ Tun Abdul Razak, China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou and Internet pioneer Robert Kahn.

The ceremony at which the three recipients will be honoured takes place on 17 May 2010 at 14:30 Shanghai time at the Expo Centre (an audio webcast will be available). This date marks the 145th anniversary of ITU’s establishment in 1865.

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day on the same day raises awareness of the full potential of the Internet and other ICT for the benefit of people everywhere, as well as of ways to bridge the Digital Divide The theme is "Better City, Better Life with ICT" in keeping with the over-arching theme of World Expo 2010, Shanghai.

The ITU is keen to emphasise that ICTs provide solutions to many of the problems facing cities - even as they become magnets for migrating populations - as well as contribute to making them more eco-friendly and economically viable.

For many city dwellers, it is nearly impossible to imagine life without ICTs. From television to mobile phones and the Internet, ICTs have reshaped the world, helping billions of people to live, work and play. ICTs present innovative ways of managing our cities: smart buildings, intelligent traffic management, new efficiencies in energy consumption and waste management and, not least, exchanging information and knowledge and communicating on the move in an increasingly converged information society.

While the world’s cities are undoubtedly endowed with many advantages, the disparities between the haves and the have nots among urban populations are often a vivid reminder that the vast majority is left out of the reach of development. It is ironic that even in densely populated urban centres countless millions are deprived of access to the means of communication and information that are taken for granted by others. Along with this growing digital divide, safe drinking water, sanitation, food, shelter, health care and education are basic needs that are addressed by the Millennium Development Goals, which call for significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

By tapping into the huge potential of ICTs to improve the lives of people and by providing affordable and equitable access to information and knowledge to empower everyone to achieve their aspirations, administrations can contribute towards meeting the rising expectations of an ever-growing population in the world’s cities. Acting as catalysts for a more productive and better life, ICTs open the door to myriad solutions that help achieve harmony among the spatial, social and environmental aspects of cities and among their inhabitants.

More info:

www.itu.int