[A2k] Press release from Alexandrina, Egypt A2K event: New Tools for the Dissemination of Knowledge: global developments and regional challenges

[James Love]

www.bibalex.org/a2k

Regional Seminar on New Tools for the Dissemination of Knowledge
and the Promotion of Innovation and Creativity
Global Developments and Regional Challenges
8 September 2006

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) held a regional seminar entitled
"New Tools for the Dissemination of Knowledge: global developments
and regional challenges" during the period 7-8 September 2006.
Academics, government officials and experts from Arab countries,
Brazil, Europe, Indonesia, South Africa and the United States of
America participated in the seminar as well as representatives of
international and regional organizations and civil society.

The seminar fulfilled a recommendation of the "Arab Regional Dialogue
on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Sustainable
Development" organized by the BA, ICTSD and UNCTAD, in June 2005,
concerning the need to raise awareness about global initiatives in
the area of open collaborative models, Creative Commons and access to
knowledge in the Arab world.

The different sessions of the seminar examined open collaborative
models and open access initiatives in fields such as scientific
research and open access publishing. They provided a general
understating of how Creative Commons works; the types of licenses it
used and its implications for cultural production in developing
countries. The seminar also considered the impact of global
intellectual property norms on education and research particularly in
view of the current trend towards the expansion of the terms and
scope of intellectual property rights. It examined the state of play
on the proposal for a Treaty on Access to Knowledge and Technology
and the prospects of achieving progress in this regard.

The participants, in the seminar, recognized the importance of open
collaborative models and open access initiatives in promoting
creativity and innovation, particularly for developing countries,
while contributing towards a wide dissemination of knowledge at a
reduced cost. They emphasized that such models and initiatives
offered many opportunities to meet the challenges faced by Arab
countries in promoting greater access to knowledge, developing
research and improving education, and thus can positively contribute
to their development process. Participants encouraged Arab countries
to play a more active role in support of access to knowledge
initiatives in international fora.

The participants examined priorities and themes for a regional
research agenda in the area of access to knowledge, to be carried out
in the forthcoming period, as well as the means to achieve progress
on the draft Treaty on Access to Knowledge and Technology.

The participants underlined that international organizations,
particularly in the area of IP, should fully take into consideration
and integrate, in their norm setting and technical cooperation
activities, the growing trend and momentum towards making information
and data available through =93commons.=94 In this context, the meeting
highlighted the significant contribution made by the proposal to
establish a Development Agenda for WIPO towards integrating the
development dimension in WIPO=92s work and emphasized the need to
achieve concrete progress, in this regard, at the forthcoming meeting
of the WIPO Assemblies (25 September to 3rd October 2006).

www.bibalex.org/a2k

---------------------------------
James Love, CPTech / www.cptech.org / mailto:james.love@cptech.org /
tel. +1.202.332.2670 / mobile +1.202.361.3040

"If everyone thinks the same: No one thinks."  Bill Walton