- Home
- Intellectual Life
- Information Society Project
- Conferences
- A2K3 2008
- Panels
- Closing the Knowledge Gap
Closing the Knowledge Gap
Closing the Knowledge Gap
Confirmed Speakers
Miriam Nisbet, Information
Society Division, UNESCO
Anil Gupta, Honey
Bee Network, India
Alan Story, University
of Kent and Copy South Research Group
Padmashree Gehl Sampath,
Open University and UNU-MERIT
Moderating: Madhavi Sunder, University of Chicago Law School
Tuesday, 9 September, 09h30 - 11h00
The “knowledge gap” refers both to a disparity in access to information and tools by the poor and to the gap in accessing, recognizing, and promoting the creativity of the developing world. How can A2K close this knowledge gap? To address this question, the panel will present a sampling of innovative new models emerging from civil society for promoting development through free and open knowledge networks in developing countries.The Honey Bee Network in India searches high and low for grassroots innovations and helps to link rural innovators together, modeling ethical knowledge extraction and distribution. UNESCO has been working in the education field for many years and has various projects including those linked to open access publishing all aimed at closing the knowledge gap within countries in the South. The Copy South Dossier more broadly asks whether the access issues of Boston and Berlin are the same as those in Bangalore, or the villages outside of it. These and other case studies will serve as a springboard for considering the larger question of how A2K can promote human capacity and knowledge production in the developing world.
The questions to be addressed will include:
- What is the relationship between access to Western knowledge and innovative indigenous industry in developing countries?
-
How can the A2K movement promote access to knowledge tools to empower creation in the South?
-
Given that the poor are not only consumers of knowledge but also producers of it, how can their knowledge be accessed in ways that promote both sharing and fair remuneration?
-
Do these goals require new frameworks outside the traditional IP paradigm? How should these frameworks function?
-
Is the preoccupation with accessing knowledge over the Internet the most relevant access issue to the Global South or should A2K advocates also pay heed to other issues, such as access to knowledge in local languages?
