Dominican Republic Participates in Connecting the Americas Summit in Panama

Dominican Republic Participates in Connecting the Americas Summit in Panama
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic 7/18/2012

The topic to be debated will be “Digital Integration: Giving Voice to Those Without.”

Connecting the Americas Summit will be held in the ATLAPA Convention Center from July 17-19. The opening speech will be given by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, followed by a debate on the importance of broadband connectivity for the future development of the continent.

First Lady and Vice President-elect, Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, travelled today to Panama City to represent the Dominican Republic at the Connecting the Americas Summit, organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) where leading experts in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) from the region will be participating.

Dr. Cedeño de Fernández will be the moderator for a group discussion that will debate the following topic: “Digital Integration: Giving Voice to Those Without” in which they will be identifying political and marketing strategies that will touch on some of the most difficult issues facing political leaders and businesspeople.

In May 2007, the First Lady received the “International Telecommunications Union Award for World Society of Information” for her efforts in closing the digital gap through the installation of 86 Community Technology Centers in the same number of rural communities around the country.

The Telecommunications Development Office, through the Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Dominican Republic, formally invited Dr. Margarita Cedeño de Fernández to the summit in Panama.

The objective of the summit is to develop strategies to promote the implementation of broadband connectivity and to mobilize human, financial and technical resources necessary to overcome the digital divide in Latin American countries.

Connecting the Americas Summit will be held in the ATLAPA Convention Center from July 17-19. The opening speech will be given by Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli, followed by a debate on the importance of broadband connectivity for the future development of the continent.

This summit is the culmination of a series of high level events, in particular the recent Earth Rio+20 and the Summit of the Organization of American States (OAS) in which the potential of information and communication technologies and wideband was stressed as a path to fulfill objectives for future sustainable development.