“Mobility” was the theme of the “Sector 3.0” Conference held in Warsaw on May 21-22 as part of the PAFF’s “ICT for Local Development” Program. Rafał Trzaskowski, Minister of Administration and Digitalization, was a special guest.
On the first day, the conference took place at the Copernicus Science Center. Thirty five lecturers were participated by 350 NGO representatives using new technologies and willing to get to know new tools that could improve the quality of their organizations’ work.The Conference was opened by Radosław Jasiński, PAFF Program Director, and Rafał Kramza, President of the Information Society Development Foundation, who emphasized the significance of the term “mobility” understood as an opportunity to act continuously, build relations effectively, communicate from any place and keep up to date.
Next, Minister of Administration and Digitalization Dr. Rafał Trzaskowski, the special guest of the event, gave an inaugural lecture. He referred to the current events in the country and shared with the conference participants his personal experiences from work at the crisis management center during the flood, pointing to the huge role of digitalization in early predicting of flood waves and thus reacting to them more adequately in advance.
Minister Trzaskowski also spoke about significant changes that have taken place in Poland in the last decade as regards digitalization. Today 72 % of people have access to the Internet at home, as compared to 26% in 2004. “However, the Internet and a computer in each house do not guarantee that everybody can use it. Therefore we must improve the digital skills; that is yet another challenge we face,” he emphasized.
“Mobility suits the current speeding world very well,” said Dr Michał Boni, Minister of Administration and Digitalization in the years 2011-2013 and moderator of the conference, at the opening of his address. Minister Boni drew the participants’ attention to current trends in the third sector development, such as crowdfunding or crowdsourcing, which are important to the citizen-state relations. Among the guests invited to attend the conference were also the following representatives of the conference partners: director Krzysztof Jonak from Intel, Director Michał Jaworski from Microsoft; President Jadwiga Czartoryska from the Orange Foundation and Blanka Fijołek from Samsung.
Later the participants of the conference listened to three lectures. Dr Jacek Szczytko, lecturer at the Faculty of Physics at the University of Warsaw in his address titled “Mobility – the future started yesterday” presented the visions of technology solutions for the future created at the beginning of the 20th century. He emphasized that it is easier to predict technology development than social changes. Amy Sample Ward, President of Nonprofit Technology Network, USA, spoke in her lecture titled “Tools for everybody? American experiences” about development trends in the American third sector and automation of activities related to it thanks to the use of smartphones and tablets. Femi Longe, co-founder and President of the Open Living Labs at the Co-Creation Hub social innovation center in his address titled “Mobile solutions regardless of size and location” shared his experience in the area of creating new solutions based on innovative technologies, which shall contribute to solving social problems in Nigeria.
After the inaugural part, the conference participants could select three out of twenty four seminars grouped into thematic blocks, at various levels of difficulty, for example on fundraising, educational tools, effective communication, network security, and mobility at work.
Next the participants took the responsibility for the course of the conference and under the formula of “un-conference session” held eight thematic debates broadening their knowledge gained during the seminars.
During the breaks between the blocks of the conference, the participants could visit 12 exhibition stands and see for example a 3D printer or talk about mobile websites. Mobile advisors of the “ICT for Local Development” Program provided assistance and encouraged to visit the stands.
The first day culminated in the ceremony of presenting the “Sector 3.0” ICT for Local Development prize in the amount of PLN 40,000, which this year was awarded to Itaka Foundation from Warsaw for extensive use of new technologies and the Internet in practical implementation of the organization’s objectives.
During the second day, the conference participants took part in ten practical workshops conducted by the conference lecturers at the seats of the Information Society Development Foundation, the “Inpris” Institute for Law and Society Foundation, and the “e-Państwo” Foundation as well as Intel, Microsoft, Orange and Samsung.
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“Sector 3.0” Conference is part of the PAFF’s “ICT for Local Development” Program implemented by the Information Society Development Foundation.