[Ict4women] European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT) to deliver the European Directory for Women and ICT

[Sophia Huyer]

Papirbredden Innovasjon -The Secretariat of the ECWT to deliver the  
European Directory for Women and ICT

	


The winning tender for the European Directory for Women and ICT chosen  
by the European Commission  (30-CE-0202684/00-63) was developed by  
Papirbredden Innovasjon, a regional multi-stakeholder innovation  
centre in Drammen, Norway, functioning as the Secretariat of the  
recently established European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT).   
In collaboration with T-Soft Ltd. Hungary, the technical platform  
provider of the ECWT, the bid is supported by a number of  
subcontractors, all members of the European Centre for Women and  
Technology.

The winning tender presents an innovative solution for a European  
Directory on Women and ICT which will function as a single point of  
access for information sharing and an on-line space for interaction  
between major European stakeholders (public, private, academia and  
NGOs) in the women and ICT and related sectors.

The key objective with the setting up of a European Directory is to:
- End fragmentation and replication of activities;
- Leverage resources, research and progress in support of women and ICT;
- Support a common policy framework for gender awareness in the ICT  
sector in Europe and
- Bring about measurable and significant change at EU level in regard  
to women’s participation in the use, design and production of  
information and communication technologies and services.

The Directory will provide the single point of access for users to a  
wealth of information and synergetic bundles of services from both  
public authorities (primarily national and regional), key private  
businesses and SMEs, research institutes and universities and the  
major NGOs (European and national) in the women and ICT sector key  
areas of electronic service delivery:
- a data warehouse in the area of Women and ICT; which will support  
data search, analysis of information, access to and analysis of  
statistics, etc.
- collaborationware which will secure collaboration between the  
registered stakeholders, interactivity between the Directory Members.
- access of Directory Members to ‘a knowledge-base’ in the four key  
strategic areas where the participation of women in ICT needs to be  
measurably increased (education, workforce, entrepreneurship and  
leadership).

The European Directory will be delivered embedded into a wider  
platform of web 2.0 services.

The Directory will be designed for ease of use according to the needs  
of the user communities. The system concept of the solution is based  
on the management of the community activity of collaborating entities  
(stakeholders). Based on this concept all registered entities of the  
Directory will have their own ’web-space’ (edited by themselves) which  
they can administer and manage according to the received  
authentication and with the given Web2.0 tools of the system.

Core services will be verified and rolled-out in a complementary  
manner by multi-stakeholder users from seven European countries  
representing North, South, East and West of Europe and thereafter  
tested by users from all around Europe. Members of the Directory will  
be able to reach information and services from the regional through  
the national to the EU level and have integrated access to the network  
of communities to which each user belongs.

Members of the Directory will be enabled to take an active role and  
interact with other stakeholders from the very first moment of their  
registration. This interaction between the Directory Members will lead  
to the formation of multi-stakeholder partnerships, networks and  
clusters and maximise long-term commercial sustainability of the  
Directory.

The designed solution of the Directory will meet highest security  
regulations and will be available with 24 hours support.

The European Directory will be delivered in 8 moths and tested,  
upgraded and updated in 12 months.

For more information:
Eva Fabry
Director of the European Centre for Women and Technology (ECWT)
Chair of the Global Women and Technology (GWT) Network
e-mail: eva.fabry at womeandtechnology.eu
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