Observatory on Digital Communication


The Observatory on Digital Communication was established in 1996 by UNESCO in Milan, with the Agreements signed by the director general, Federico Mayor and Marco Formentini in June 1996. The acronym stands for Observatory for Cultural Communication and Audiovisual in the Mediterranean.
Since 2003, OCCAM has been associated with the United Nations Department of Global Communications while in 2005 it received Special Consultative Status at the UN's Social and Economic Council. Since 2006 OCCAM is leader of the e-service for development Community of Expertise within the Global Alliance for Information and Communications Technologies and Development, initiative launched by the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Kuala Lumpur.
The president of the Observatory is the architect Pierpaolo Saporito, who founded it during his presidency at the UNESCO International Council for FIlm Television and Audiovisual Communication, nominated High Level Advisor of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development.
OCCAM was founded with the mission to fight poverty as effectively as possible using the new technologies and to promote sustainable development actions in the Least Developed Countries, and works to support the UN strategies for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, former Millennium Development Goals.
OCCAM's actions, besides its function of Observatory on Digital Communication with studies and research, focuses also on two other main initiatives:
  • the Infopoverty World Conference that has been held annually since 2001 in the UNHQ in New York; it takes stock of the phenomena of the digital revolution as it can be employed to strengthen the fight against poverty;
  • the Infopoverty Programme that collects the operational suggestions emerging from the conference to turn them into projects realized in various parts of the world.
As part of the Infopoverty program, OCCAM promoted the foundation of the Infopoverty Institute at the University of Oklahoma in 2004, to spread the Infopoverty vision in the American academic world, having as its scope to improve the living conditions of the population with ICT.

Infopoverty World Conference

Infopoverty World Conference is one of the best-known initiatives of OCCAM, founded in 2001.
Since then, the conference has been held annually at the UN seat in New York. Considered as one Flagship Event, over the years it has seen more than a thousand representatives of large international organizations and institutions, avant-garde companies, universities and pioneers of the digital revolution, to find winning digital solutions for fighting poverty and sustainable development.
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 ; 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.
In 2003, the ICT Village model, a project that is still active in the Infopoverty Programme, was formalized during the first phase of the World Summit Information Society in Geneva.
In 2002 the Infopoverty Programme was born from the conference to promote the validated projects and implement them concretely in the countries most in need.
The conferences over the years have been organized in partnership with the European Parliament, Office of Milan, and have received the high patronage of the President of the Republic, the patronage of the presidency of the Council of Ministers and other national and international institutions.
The annual editions of Infopoverty held at the UN seat in New York are always in videoconference with other institutional offices in the world, such as: Brussels, European Commission; Paris, UNESCO; Milan, and numerous other locations around the globe.
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. This latest edition, like the previous ones starting in 2012, has been made accessible by the UN TV streaming site.

List of Conferences

  • I Infopoverty, 2001 Possible solutions
  • II Infopoverty, 2002 From possible solutions to actions
  • III Infopoverty, 2003 New tools and best practices for development. The role of ICTs in reaching the MDGs
  • IV Infopoverty, 2004 New frontiers of the ICTs: services for development
  • V Infopoverty, 2005 Actors and strategies for development sigital technology to fight poverty
  • VI Infopoverty, 2006 Fighting poverty to create prosperity for all
  • VII Infopoverty, 2007 Harnessing the use of ICTs toward the Millennium Development Goals
  • VIII Infopoverty, 2008 Low coast – Smart technologies to fight poverty and save the planet
  • IX Infopoverty, 2009 ICT’S good use, abuse, refuse towards the Millennium Development Goals
  • X Infopoverty, 2010 How the digital revolution can defeat poverty and Achieve the Lisbon and Millennium Development Goals
  • XI Infopoverty, 2011 E-Services: The new paradigm for development and the achievement of the MDGs
  • XII Infopoverty, 2012 Who drives the digital revolution? Development through innovation
  • XIII Infopoverty, 2013 ICT – Innovations for Nation building and the empowerment of people
  • XIV Infopoverty, 2014 How the digital innovations can accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and help the Sustainable Development Goals
  • XV Infopoverty, 2015 Next sustainable development goals: the challenge before the Digital Era
  • XVI Infopoverty, 2016 ICTs as the tools for everyone to achieve dignity and freedom
  • XVII Infopoverty, 2017 Transferring knowledge and adequate technologies: the way to combat poverty and make the world safer
  • XVIII Infopoverty, 2018 Collective creativity and digital innovation: forging inclusive partnership to sustain peace and development
  • XIX Infopoverty, 2019 How smart cities can fight poverty eliminating slums and promoting smart villages for rural development
  • XX Infopoverty, 2020 Towards the Digital Society inspired by SDGs
  • XXI Infopoverty, 2021 How to build a fairer and more inclusive Digital Society?
  • XXII Infopoverty, 2022 The Digital Citizen: Duties and Rights to Build a Fairer Future Society
  • XXIII Infopoverty, 2024 AI turmoils digital process: how to act to ensure human rights and provide e-welfare for all?"
  • XXIV Infopoverty 2025 ''How could AI fight poverty, creating well-being for all?"''

    Infopoverty seminars

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.
In particular, in 2003 the Seminar was held during the first phase of the WSIS, where the Infopoverty Programme was launched.
In 2005, in the next phase of Tunis, OCCAM organized a second Seminar during which they presented the WSIS ICT Village in Borji Ettouil as a model of large-scale application. Furthermore, a memorandum was signed with ITU and Navajo Nation for the creation of the Indigenous Portal, and managed the WSIS-TV, on ITU delegation.
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.

Infopoverty programme

The Infopoverty programme, born at the instigation of the Infopoverty Conferences as a moment of implementation of the related resolutions, deals with the development of operational projects in favor of the most disadvantaged communities, using new technologies, from solar to web, providing internet connections and digital services, oriented towards the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Many projects have been launched over the years, including ICT Villages to redeem poorer communities from poverty, eMedMed for telemedicine, World Food & Health Security e-Center for agricultural development and food security,. The Program is updated annually at each UN Infopoverty conference and illustrated with specific exposures.

ICT Villages

The ICT Village project stems from the need to provide technologies and services to the most disadvantaged communities to enable them to promote their own development. The replicable model of ICT Village focuses on three types of intervention: i) ensuring an education to young people aimed at enhancing local resources and creating jobs, ii) ensuring a basic level of health, iii) providing internet access to the whole community to strengthen its capacity for socio-economic development.
The ICT Village model, developed and launched by OCCAM has had a large echo, influencing deeply different levels of the society: the model has even been cited by the USSTRATCOM Global Innovation and Strategy Center in one of its document concerning the Village Infrastructure Kit-Alpha.
The first ICT village project was carried out in 1999 in Honduras, hit by the devastating hurricane Mitch. With the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the local University and the main international organizationsit was possible to implement two projects initially called Solar Village in the communities of San Ramon and San Francisco de Lempira. Thanks to the use of solar panels and the first satellite equipped for the Internet of OnSatNet, the supply of electricity was guaranteed, and a connection to 108 mb / sec, a real record for the time, able to provide more than 30,000 people the first e-learning and telemedicine services provided, allowing the population to use these new technologies advantageously and to connect to the rest of the world through e-commerce and e-government initiatives.
Presented and discussed in the various IWC 2001-2003, the model is proposed to the Government of Tunisia for an experimentation in the village of Borji Ettouil at the WSIS Summit in November 2003. The success of this WSIS-ICT Village - supported by the National Solidarity Fund 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. Unfortunately, with the war events of 2006, many villages have been destroyed, including Meiss al-Jabal. In Lebanon. Moreover, OCCAM promoted the birth of the Beirut Film Festival with the Ministry of Culture and the International Council for International Cinema and Television, and the reconstruction of the National Film Archive to make a contribution to the UN Peacekeeping action.
Another important project is the Navajo Nation Portal, announced in 2005 during the intervention at the WSIS in Tunis by John Shirley, president of the Navajo Nation co-signatory of the Memorandum of understanding with ITU and OCCAM, for the development of digitalization in indigenous populations, which sees the creation in many pueblos of access and training centers.
A longlasting project is the ICT Village of Sambaina, born also thanks to the support of the then president of the Malgasy Republic S.E. Marc Ravalomanana.
Here the project has been developed focusing on:
• telemedicine, with the establishment of a new digitalized health unit, especially on maternal care, achieving a reduction in pre-postpartum and early childhood mortality,
• e-learning, with classes equipped with computers and other digital devices and courses.
• center for internet access for the population of the district.
All the vast territory, after a first satellite coverage provided by Eutelsat / Skylogic, was connected in broadband using the state frequencies, so that hospitals, schools, municipalities, operated without charges, stating the principle, then decided in UN-GAID, that public services must be able to take advantage of public broadband networks.
Sambaina soon arouses international attention, including the visit of Jeffrey Sachs, director of the UN Millennium Project and special advisor of the secretary general Kofi Annan, who proclaimed him in 2006 the first and only one of its kind, Millennium Village towards which both UNDP and the Millennium Challenge Corporation USA will launch support programs.
In support of Sambaina and the other ICT Village, OCCAM launched the Ville Village Project in 2005 to encourage direct collaboration between communities in developing countries and cities in advanced countries, which have greatly encouraged the integration in the perspective of mutual cultural and social enrichment and in order to optimize the resources put in place by both local authorities and NGOs in development cooperation projects.
The first Ville-Village realization was ratified with the agreement signed by the Ambassador of Madagascar in Itala, SE Jean Pierre Razafi, on 4 December 2008, and the mayor of Lodi Lorenzo Guerini, Within this initiative the city of Lodi has been selected to better employ the features of its territory, such as the Padano Technology Park, the Hospital and the NGOs operating in its territory. Innovative digital development service centers have also been created, focusing on e-phytopathology, and e-veterinary.
The ICT Village of Mahobong, in Lesotho, experimented in 2007 the Digital Services Global Platform, both in the field of Food Security with applications of e-phytopathology and parasitology and of telemedicine, through a new ultrasound device, which allow remote ultrasounds suitable for prevent pre- and post-natal mortality and assist emergency interventions. The project realized by OCCAM in collaboration with the Department of Protection of Agrifood and Urban Systems and Biodiversity Valorization of the University of Milan and with the International Telemedicine Institute, supported by the Municipality of Milan, has allowed to export knowledge in the field of cultivation and protection of plants and food and limit production losses caused to production, giving considerable development to the communities involved.