5th National Conference on Reconciliation: Recognizes multiple roles of ICT in reconciliation
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- Published on Wednesday, 19 September 2012 13:01
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The fifth National Conference on Reconciliation was held under the patronage of Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunge at the auditorium of the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute for International Relations and Strategic Studies ( LKIIRSS) in Colombo Tuesday evening (18th).
Organized by the LKIIRSS under the topic of the role of Information Communications Technology in Reconciliation the event was attended by a number of experts, policy makers, entrepreneurs and academia engaged in post conflict reconciliation processes through ICT in different capacities, in order to give thought-leadership in formulating more cohesive strategies in leveraging ICT as a platform for reconciliation.
Making the Keynote address Weeratunge said that access to information, with the means of ICT is vital to maintaining peace and that social network enable lateral learning and allow people to keep in constant touch. He went on to note six different ways of using ICT in regards to reconciliation, those are ICT provides information and strengthens the ties between people, allows a better ability to understand situations and act accordingly, improves decision-making with the ability to see critical information, reduces scarcity of resources helps support relationships and ICT helps people understand each other across cultures and languages.
The conference recognizes multiple roles of ICT in facilitating reconciliation in infrastructure building, uplifting the standards of ICT education at school level in order to generate an ICT literate population, creating livelihood opportunities in the IT industry and also the use of social media in building understanding and harmony amongst communities.
The institute's blog site was also launched Tuesday. Sessions were conducted by Reshan Dewapura, CEO of ICTA, Mahesh Perera, Director of IT of the Parliament, and Dr Charles Eugene of the University of Jaffna. Presentations were also made by Dr Manodha Gamage, Dr Arul Sivagananatham, Ramesh Shanmuganathan and Mano Sekaram.
Source: Defence
