The Information Source for Multimedia Associations

Visit http://www.fiam.org/
Contact info@fiam.org
Editor : Nasser Boumenna
Design : Aurore Sun
VERSION FRANÇAISE : CLIQUEZ ICI

Quote of the month

"Competent (computer) grammar checking would be great in principle but there is no substitute for a high school and college education that teaches writing." (Source: Peter Neumann, scientist at SRI International and amateur grammarian, from the New York Times, April 15, 2002, 'Has Grammar Lost its Technological Edge')



To become a FIAM member... Please check Members section in our website.

IN THIS ISSUE
FIAM news
Associations news
Multimedia News
Interview : Holga Heker

FIAM Strategic Plan 2002-2005
FIAM is initiating its first strategic planning exercise and would like to associate all interested multimedia associations and organizations from around the world.
This exercise serves the purpose of ensuring that the Federation readies for the challenges ahead and elaborate objective and forward-looking strategies to tackle them. The multimedia industry is growing rapidly in several parts of the world, with software development and services strongly in the lead. FIAM would like to understand the needs of this dynamic industry, an industry that is also developing at its own pace depending on where it is situated. Multimedia associations and organizations will soon be receiving documentation pertaining to this exercise and we look forward to your participation. For more information on the Strategic Plan, please contact Nasser Boumenna, Director of Content and Strategic Development.

MONTREUX 2002
FIAM 3rd World Summit of Internet and Multimedia (Montreux, Switzerland, October 8-11, 2002) is going strong. The Summit, entitled Bridging the Digital Divide: the Multimedia Industry Speaks Out, is gearing up to be a unique venue for discussion and debate on hands on approaches to fighting the Digital Divide. A wide array of international organizations will be in Montreux to present and propose IT and multimedia projects among whom the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) which has chosen our event as preparatory to the one it is organizing on behalf of the United Nations on the Information Society (Geneva, December 2003), UNDP, OECD, WorldTel Corporation, Hewlett Packard, the European Commission and the Word Bank to name only a few. The Summit will focus on three major themes the details of which can be found on our website :

1) Bridging the Divide, Pushing for Inclusion
2) Technology and Knowledge Transfer
3) Fostering creativity and Internet and Multimedia

Confirmed keynote speakers include:

- Debra DUNN
(Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Hewlett-Packard)
- Dennis GILHOOLY
(Special Advisor to Mark Mallock Brown, Administrator at United Nations Development Program)
- Bruno LANVIN
(Executive Secretary of DOT Force, INFODEVEV Manager, The World Bank)
- Sam PITRODA
(CEO, WorldTel., UK)
- Sibisuso SIBISI
(CEO, CSIR South Africa)
- Robert STONE
(Scientific Director, Virtual Muse, UK)
- Yoshio UTSUMI
(Secretary General, International Telecommunication Union)

For more information on the Summit, you can check the program www.fiam.org or www.internetworldsummit.org.

Multimedia Market of the Americas (MMA, May 7-10, 2002)
As we write these lines, the MMA has just concluded its activities on a positive note. Two dozen IT and multimedia companies from Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Chile, Mexico and Peru) were in Montreal to meet their Quebec counterparts and evaluate what business relationships they can establish with the Quebec Internet and multimedia industry. The Quebec Council for Latin America (CQAL), in cooperation with FIAM are matching those Latin companies with Quebec firms involved in such fields as e-commerce, safe payment, on-line marketing, e-learning, Tele-health and Interactive TV and multimedia production. Several MOU and business agreements were signed between North and South American multimedia companies among which Toxic Technologies (Quebec) and Heker Multimedia (Argentina) in the area of Internet infrastructure outsourcing, Direct Vox (Quebec) and Interativa (Brazil) to translate, adapt and market software for the management of integrated documents, Agis (Quebec) with Citmatel (Cuba), CyberCorp (Mexico), Easy Informatica (Brazil) and Syspro (Argentina) in various e-commerce and multimedia applications. The four-day event was organized under the aegis of the Bolivar program which aims at opening the Latin American market to Quebec companies through the development of partnerships between multimedia and IT companies.

ASSOCIATIONS NEWS - BY COUNTRY

Spain
A new Spanish Internet organization, the National Association of Cyber-cafés headed by Javier Solà, was born in February 2002 during Mundo Internet 2002. Mission Nr. 1: to become the reference point for the over 1000 Internet cafés and similar establishments in existence today in Spain. The association would like to stress the importance of cyber-cafés as a unique meeting point for the development of the Information society and expects to work closely with government and Internet Service Providers in order to promote and develop that aspect of the industry. Its first initiative is to establish an agreement with the Spanish government to recognize and use cyber-cafés as Internet teaching centers as part of the government Info XXI digital alphabetization plan.
(Source: ZDNet, Spain, February 18, 2002)

Senegal
Not to be outdone, Senegal witnessed also a similar birth with the recent creation of the National Union of Tele-centers and Tele-services (NUTT), an organization representing Senegalese cyber-cafés and Internet centers. In countries where individuals alone can hardly afford or even acquire private telephone and Internet connections, these centers have played a crucial role in allowing users greater access to Internet and multimedia tools. These centers have also become teaching schools for those interested in learning Internet and software applications. NUTT has vowed to continue its fight against the sole Senegalese telecommunications provider, SONATEL, for the various financial and technological roadblocks they continue to encounter with them. (Source: www.osiris.sn)

Canada/Quebec
Alliance Numériqc, the Quebec multimedia association, held May 1st a day-long forum entitled "Masters of our own interactive digital content". 150 industry and government representatives split into six thematic workshops to discuss how best to establish and develop policies and mechanisms that further the production and distribution of digital content. The groups looked at digital content financing, the importance of foreign markets versus local ones, human resources capable of responding to production demand, multimedia niches for the Quebec industry to specialize in, who can profit from the so-called convergence and whether the intellectual property models in existence today can evolve for the benefit of content producers. The forum concluded the day by stressing the importance of greater integration between those developing and producing digital content and those in charge of marketing and commercializing it. Other propositions included the creation of a provincial one-stop shop for content producers needing to take care of copyright management issues, an online portal to help the commercialization of original Quebec digital content and more government incentives in the area of marketing and distribution.

Venezuela
According to Maritza Escalona, President of the Venezuelan Chamber of Electronic Commerce, the current political situation in her country in not conducive to the development of Information Technology initiatives, to which she adds the detrimental effects of the current high-tech crisis on the daily lives of Venezuelan Internet and multimedia companies. What is crucial, she argues, are national strategies to widen user access to new technologies and the Internet through prices reductions for telephone lines and Internet connections. (Source: Joaquín Núñez Quincot, ContenidoInteligente, www.cavecom-e.org)

Malaysia
PIKOM, the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia, has announced, effective March 1st, the appointment of Wong Say Ho as its new executive director. Mr. Wong's experience is broad: he has worked in the field of Information Technology as end-user, vendor and as a consultant in such fields as finance, insurance, manufacturing and e-commerce. Mr. Wong is expected to implement projects initiated by PIKOM's council while overseeing the general functions of the association that acts as the umbrella body for Malaysia's ICT industry. (Source: www.pikom.org.my)

Korea
The Korean National Computerization Agency (KNCA) is proving that transfer technology mechanisms between countries in the field of IT can work, whatever that country's level of technological development. The Agency has been mandated since November 2001 to pass its knowledge of IT development and implementation on to neighbor country Cambodia and provide consultancy services to the Cambodia National Administrative Information System Project. The Agency has to provide auditing and technical consulting services covering the areas of resident registration, real estate and vehicles based on Korea's IT experiences and technical power accumulated so far. (Source: www.nca.or.kr)

Morocco
APEBI, the Moroccan association representing Information Technology professionals, announced early this year a partnership with the University of El Akhawayn, to develop New Technology initiatives of mutual interest in the following areas: continuing education and training for the executives of APEBI company members, the joint organization of conferences and workshops related to new technologies, the initiation of research and development projects, the reappraisal and elaboration of the current IT curriculum, the use of university students in various IT projects and the possibility of creating a technological Park around the University. (Source: www.apebi.org.ma)

Can you marry the Arts, Science and Technology?
They are certainly trying in Ottawa where the Canada Council for the Arts and the National Research Council signed an agreement, April 15, to promote the interaction between the three above-mentioned domains of activity. The signing coincided with the 550th anniversary of Leonardo Da Vinci's birth whose life embodied the sought after convergence of Art and Science. The collaborative program, to start Fall 2002, will bring together leading artists as researchers into the NRC laboratories across Canada and allow them to create and think through the convergent potentialities such partnerships allow. The program is delivered with a fairly modest budget equally shared between the two organizations and a research grant in the amount of CAD$75,000 per year is awarded per artist for a two-year period. The chosen applicant joins a specific research environment using space and technical and research resources provided by NRC. (Source: www.canadacouncil.ca)

The times, they are changing!
The expression applies if you take at face value a study conducted by Penn State University's School of Information Technology on surfers Web interest. Using the Excite directory, the study found that over the past years, sex and entertainment are slowly being replaced by more 'practical' or lofty subjects. If in 1997 one in six Excite Web queries was about sex, in 2001 only one in 12 searches was exactly about that. The new areas of interest include e-commerce, travel, ticket-booking services, corporate sites and… human sexuality. (Source: VNUNet.com, March 2002)
Me too, says the US Government
Not to be left out, the US Federal Government is making a strong effort to present useful and user-friendly sites to its constituents. According to an Internet usage study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 68 million adults Americans have surfed, in 2001, federal public service sites for multiple reasons whether to download tax forms or make reservations. In 2000, a sizable 40 million people had already done so, confirming Internet's popularity as a source of information and administrative transaction. According to Pew, American surfers use their new access to government in wide-ranging ways, "finding information to further their civic, professional, and personal lives while some use government Web sites to apply for benefits, engage public officials, and complete transactions such as filing taxes". Even more interesting is the use of the Internet in the public policy arena since 42 million Americans have used government Web sites to research public policy issues while 13 million of them have participated in online lobbying campaigns. (Source: www.pewinternet.org/reports)

The Interview

We are initiating a regular series of interviews with heads of multimedia associations from around the world. The purpose of the interviews is to give you, the reader, a closer look at the people and the issues that are part and parcel of the multimedia industry in different countries and regions of the world.

This month, Mrs. Holga HEKER, President of the Argentine Multimedia Association (AADM) kindly answers our questions.

How would you define your Association?
Founded in 2000, AAdM meets the needs of a number of multimedia industry companies, agencies, designers, developers, and users in Argentina. By promoting common agendas and public policies, the Association looks forward to forge a local industry as a strong production and communicational engine. The association strives to enhance local industry positioning, developing policies in ethics, commercial and professional matters, and elaborating the mechanisms that allows the industry's self-regulation.

What best describes, in general terms, the multimedia domains of activity in which your members are active?
The Association is open to all members who share a common interest in multimedia. Our member's profile includes professionals, vendors, service companies, agencies, and users. The membership also is opened to students interested in a multimedia career.

What are, at the national level, the Multimedia areas of activity your Association has identified and is currently working on?
The Association develops activities in the following areas: Education, Training, Communication, public policy, legislative support, employment, local and international agreements, copyright and intellectual property and more.

If your Association is currently developing business relationships with other associations abroad, can you specify the reasons and the strategies?
We started to work with MMA and we have been through a great experience, collaborating with each other in commercial alliances.

Does your government play an important role in developing the multimedia industry in your country?
No, they don't.

How is your Association responding to the rapidly changing digital environment?
We know that we cannot stand still. In our society, changes are being made very quickly and we must be prepared to catch all the possibilities the market is bringing both locally and internationally. One key aspect we are focusing on is to build up an electronic administration of the Association, bringing strong services for our member online to allow them to produce.

This Newsletter © 2001-2002 FIAM (Fédération Internationale des Associations de Multimédia)
380 W. St-Antoine St., Suite 3200 - Montréal (QC) Canada H2Y 3X7
514-289-9966 / 514-987-1567 (Fax)
E-mail : info@fiam.org - Please visit www.fiam.org

Back to Top