YEREVAN TO HOST E-SUMMIT

Armenpress
Oct 04 2006

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 4, ARMENPRESS: Ninety representatives from 35
countries have arrived in Armenia for a world e-Summit that will be
hosted by capital city Yerevan from October 5 to October 7. They will
be joined by about 300 Armenian businessmen, chief business executives
and IT experts.

The Armenian Information Technology Foundation is one of its
organizers. Its head Garegin Chukaszian told a news conference
today that the decision to choose Yerevan as the venue of the summit
was prompted by Armenia’s achievements in the previous summits, and
especially in the 2005 Tunisia summit. The Armenian summit is divided
into two separate parts. On October 5 and 6 the Council of Europe and
Armenian foreign ministry will hold Human Rights in the Information
Society: Pan-European Forum on "Empowering children and young people"
forum that will be attended by representatives of Council of Europe
member states, civil society, the private sector, academia and the
media, and other interested organizations.

The forum will stress that filtering and labeling Internet content
is not enough to ensure that children and young people can surf the
web safely – in the exercise of their rights and freedoms, including
the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information
and ideas. On October 6-7 the prize awarding committee of the summit
and the Foundation will hold a forum on development of cultural and
language diversity Internet content.

In a related development prime minister Andranik Margarian received
today Sarbuland Khan, executive coordinator of the UN Global Alliance
for Information and Communication Technologies and Development.

Launched in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on 19 June, the Alliance promotes
action to utilize new information and communication technologies to
fight poverty and promote development.

Margarian was quoted by government press office as saying that Armenia
is prepared to take active part in Alliance’s actions. Margarian
invited Khan to participate in Digitech international fair that opens
in Yerevan on October 6. Khan has accepted the invitation.

Khan was said to convey to Margarian UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan’s greetings.
From: Baghdasarian