(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Connect to the Americas Summit opened in Panama City on Wednesday with a chorus of calls for the speedy roll-out of secure and affordable and access broadband connectivity and digital inclusion, which gives everyone affordable access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the region of the Americas.
President of the Republic of Panama, H.E. Ricardo Martinelli Berrocal in addressing the opening ceremony of the summit stressed the importance of making broadband inexpensive and focusing on better controls for information available on the internet.
The Connect to Americas Summit was organised by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to push broadband connectivity. It forms part of ITU’s Connect the World series, an ambitious initiative launched in 2005 aimed at connecting the unconnected by the year 2015.
In thanking ITU for organzing the Summit, President Martinelli Berrocal said that it was significant and symbolic that Panama was selected as the venue since “Panama is the heart of the Americas.”He added that the “choice of Panama to host the summit, recognizes the progress made by my Government’s digital inclusion, connectivity and Internet use.”
ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré told the delegates that there were billions of dollars in possible initiatives tabled at the Summit. He said that at the end of the process, he looked forward to existing national companies expanding globally and new ones being developed by youths, in particular.
President of Costa Rica, HE Mrs Laura Chinchilla, in delivering the keynote address highlighted the importance of strengthening security in cyberspace, especially to keep online predators at bay. President Chinchilla, who is also the patron of the ITU Child Online Protection initiative, said that the “unsuspecting curiosity” of children must be nurtured, but the world would be “guilty by omission” if measures were not put in place to address the many cyber space risks that children faced – especially child pornography.
She added that the younger generations of the planet were legitimate heirs to the fortune that offered tremendous technological developments of our time. “This great technological revolution of our time belongs to them, yet we must prevent that enjoyment from being stained. We want them to explore with ease and security, the wonderful world of the Internet, confident in their desire to learn with the protection we can give them,” President Chinchilla asserted. Policy statements were received by representatives of Heads of State and Government including Grenada and Trinidad and Tobago and the Dominican Republic.
