Observatory on Digital Communication
The Observatory on Digital Communication (OCCAM) was established in 1996 by UNESCO in Milan, with the Agreements signed by the director general, Federico Mayor and Marco Formentini in June 1996.
[16] Since its inception, the IWC has reached a high government level, thanks to the presence of high-ranking officials such as: Staffan de Mistura, general secretary personal representative; Armida de Lopez Contreras, Vice President of Honduras; John Negroponte, former US Ambassador, Israel Chris, deputy secretary US department of Commerce (which announced in 2003 the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account by the Bush administration); Sonia Mendieta de Badaroux, president of the UNESCO General Assembly; Hisanori Isomura, president of CICT-UNESCO and ambassador of Japan in Paris; Mario Baccini, Italian foreign minister; Carlos A. Braga, director of the World Bank; Donaldo Ochoa, director of the Central American Bank for Economic Integration; Giuseppe Gargani, president of the European Parliament's Media and Culture Committee; Adriana de Kanter, director of the US Department of Education; Guido Podestà, vice-president of the European Parliament; Arturo Vallarino, vice-president of the Republic of Panama; John Shirley, president of the Navajo Nation; John Gage, co-founder Sun Microsystems; Hamadoun Touré, secretary general of the ITU; Shashi Tharoor, deputy secretary-general of the United Nations Communications and Public Information; Montassar Ouali, Tunisian Minister of Communication; Enrique Planas, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Social Communication; Sarbuland Khan, Director UN – GAID; and many others.
[23] The 2018 edition of the conference, the 18th, entitled Collective creativity and digital innovation: forging inclusive partnerships to sustain peace and development, was held on 13 April 2018 as usual at the UN NY, room 12 and saw 49 speakers.
[25] As a follow-up to the Infopoverty Conferences held annually in spring at the UN seat in New York, OCCAM was invited to hold in-depth seminars at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
[69] Other Infopoverty seminars were held later, always at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, in conjunction with the work of the UN Commission for Science and Technology or the Annual Ministerial Review, accompanied by illustrative expositions at the ECOSOC biennial Innovation Fair.
The success of this WSIS-ICT Village - supported by the National Solidarity Fund[76][77] and visited by numerous government delegations and personalities, who appreciated the operational applications of telemedicine, e-learning and internet community access - allows validating their effectiveness and opens the doors to numerous invitations to replicate it over the years in various countries, including Peru, Ethiopia, Dominican Republic, Lesotho, Tunisia, Ghana, South Lebanon, Navajo Nation, Madagascar.
In particular, in the village of Meiss al-Jabal, in South Lebanon, born from a collaboration with Staffan de Mistura, High Representative of the UN Secretary General in the region, as a support action for the refugee communities, it was provided with two digitized classrooms, satellite connection and various specialized devices for remote consultation and assistance services, obtaining a rapid professionalization of the students, to offer them hope for the future.
[91] eMedMed is the project born in the context of the Union for the Mediterranean; it aims to promote a more widespread and efficient diffusion of the health service in Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Egypt, through telemedicine.
[93] The goal is to improve health conditions in the Southern Mediterranean countries through the participation of a network of clinical centers and European experts connected with local structures through a specific platform with ICT Solutions and innovative scientific m-devices.
[94] The project had the chance to collaborate with the IRCCS Bonino health facilities Pulejo of Messina and Provincial Health Authority of Catania, while numerous actors have participated in the development of the Hub: IITM (International Institute of TeleMedicine), Nile Badrawi Foundation for Education and Development in Egypt, Tripoli National Diabetes Hospital and the National Center for Disease Control in Libya, Moroccan Society for TeleMedicine and e-Health in Morocco, Association for Promoting Pulmonology and Allergology in Tunisia.
[107] OCCAM co-produced in 2010 for the UN pavilion at EXPO in Shanghai the film The Earth, Our Home[108][109] directed by Pierpaolo Saporito and Vittorio Giacci,[110] which illustrates the effects of human action on climate change.
[111] Many numerous well-known names and Oscar awards collaborated in the making of the film including Ennio Morricone composer of the musical themes of the first and last chapter, F. Murray Abraham who participated as narrator, Luis Bacalov, Michel Nyman, Arvo Part, Philip Glass, Ayub Ogada, Nello Salza, Andrea Bocelli.
[114] Since its foundation, the observatory has had a close relationship with UNESCO, which originated it in 1996 as a special project associated with the Mediterranean Program, a network of agencies and institutions aimed at supporting the Barcelona Agreement of 1995 on free trade Euro-Mediterranean.
[citation needed] These annual conferences form a forum where the various protagonists of the Region work on the role that cinema and new media can play in the process of integration of the Mediterranean, identifying and promoting concrete initiatives to support the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue;[116] in twenty years, the Euro-Mediterranean Conferences on Cinema have seen among its participants representatives of governments, international organizations, public and private institutions, experts in the new media and men and women of culture;[117] this initiative has promoted and supported important initiatives in the Mediterranean, such as: the Euromed Audiovisuel program for cinema support policy; the Copeam for public televisions; the Film Festivals of Tirana, Ohrid, Zagreb, Beirut, Gaza, Kouribka, Kalamata, Menorca; the rencontres cinèma of Hammammet; the relaunch of the Antalya Festival in Turkey, the first Euro-Asian festival.
[118] In 2016 the XXI Conference was held on 26 and 27 February in Catania with the theme of the Mediterranean in the Digital Era and focused on Health Security, Migrant Emergency and Solidarity Development in the Mediterranean Basin,[119] with important contributions from the mayor of Catania Enzo Bianco, the ministerial undersecretaries Giuseppe Castiglione, Domenico Manzione, Vito De Filippo and Benedetto Della Vedova, senior representatives of the coastal countries, partners of the eMedMed project, and the president of OCCAM and Infopoverty Pierpaolo Saporito, who underlined how the conference goes beyond cinema and television to widen the field of digital communication, and can be integrated as a regional contribution to the worldwide mission of Infopoverty.
