Resources

GraceNet is a women's network named after Grace Hopper, whose pioneering work in computer programming and cryptography provides inspiration and encouragement for women who work in computing and related fields. This network's mission is "to promote the contributions of women in technology and to leverage the intellectual and creative capital of women."

This website was conceived as a space for the virtual encounter of specialists, governments, private companies, international organisms and civil society. It aims at promoting public policies, stimulating regional cooperation, follow up and offer analytical and technical support for the elaboration and promotion of strategies for the development of the information society. <br />

Document produced during the Regional Preparatory Ministerial Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Second Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society.

This Web site provides online guidance and networking about women's ICT-based enterprises in developing countries.

The representatives of civil society organizations, networks and social movements present in the Regional Preparatory Ministerial Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society - that happened in Rio de Janeiro, in June, 2005 - presented their views in the official plenary session during the first day of the meeting, urging governments to pay attention to the need that "the strategies and plans of action for the information society in the region have as its reference guide the human rights of all people, the public interest, the empowerment of women and people from different races and ethnic groups, as well as the milennium development goals".

In the statement presented by civil society organizations in the last day of the Regional Preparatory Ministerial Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean in Rio, it was stressed that "the three pillars of the construction of information societies are not the telecommunications, the equipments and the softwares, but, instead, the info-ethics, the digital education (with a vision of its uses and social impacts) and the real and effective participation of citizenship in all the phases of the process, starting with the definition and going up to the implementation and evaluation of public policies of the information society and its impacts". The absence of gender, race and ethnicity perspective in the panels of the event has also been one of the points raised by civil society.

In 2002, MERIT/Infonomics at the University of Maastricht, the Netherlands, carried out the FLOSS developer survey supported by the European Union. This was the first survey that provided deep insights in the international FLOSS community, its divisions, its diversity of beliefs, and its functioning.

With the rapid development of new kinds of networks – both the Internet itself and the new groupings enabled by the Internet, the Oxford Internet Institute identified a need to address the impact of these trends on women in the computing professions. The document presents results of one-day forum which brought senior women in the computing industry and those whose role is to research gender and computing issues, together to explore the state of the industry in the early 21st century.

Declaration presented by NGOs, women networks and feminists of Latin America and of the WSIS Gender Caucus during the WSIS Rio Preparatory Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean organized in Rio de Janeiro, in June 2005.