PhilCeCNet Chair Dr. Angelo Juan Ramos speaking at the Telecentre Forum during the eAsia 2009 Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka

eAsia 2009, Asia’s premier information and communications technology (ICT) event, was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka last December 2-4, 2009. The Philippine Community eCenter Network (PhilCeCNet) was duly represented by its Chair, Dr. Angelo Juan Ramos; Executive Secretary and Philippine Community eCenter Program Head, Dir. Maria Teresa Camba; and PhilCeC Portal Administrator and telecentre.org Community Facilitator Cuchie Echeverria.

The three-day conference cum exhibition kicked off with the inaugural ceremonies graced by no less than Sri Lanka’s fifth President, His Excellency Mahinda Rajapaksa, known as an ICT champion in the country who has mainstreamed ICT in all of Sri Lanka’s development activities. In his keynote address, President Rajapaksa stressed that ICT is the driving force of economies and acknowledged the efforts of other Asian countries in integrating ICT in their government initiatives.

Hosted by Sri Lanka’s Information and Communications Technology Association (ICTA), the conference featured a total of five tracks: eGovernment, Digital Learning, eHealth, Emerging Technologies and Telecentre. 

Telecenter leaders gather in one stage at the eAsia 2009 Telecentre Forum. (L-R) telecentre.org Program Manager Florencio Ceballos; Sherif El-Tokali of UNDP Egypt; Sriyan de Silva Wijeratne of Microsoft Sri Lanka; Dir. Tess Camba; and Ravi Gupta of CSDMS India.

Dr. Ramos and Dir. Camba were both resource persons for the Telecentre track. The former spoke on empowering people through content and services, citing “collaborative, participatory, community-based content development” as the way to go for telecenters in the Philippines; while the latter shared lessons and good practices from the Philippine CeC experience during the closing session of the Telecentre track.

Dir. Camba also disclosed that the Philippines will soon be coming up with a successor plan to the CeC roadmap and that the conduct of local exchange programs will likewise be pursued in the coming years.

Organized in partnership with India’s Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS), eAsia2009 was participated in by some 800 delegates coming from twenty-four countries. The exhibits, on the other hand, registered around 30,000 visitors over the three-day period.

The Philippines is being eyed as the next host of eAsia in 2010. However, no commitment has been given yet by any of the parties involved.