Focuss.Info™ Initiative

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Who is behind the Focuss.Info Initiative?
The Focuss.Info Initiative was first initiated by the Institute of Social Studies (www.iss.nl) in the Netherlands. It has been set-up as an Initiative because thereupon organizations and individual practitioners with interests in this Initiative can easily join on a voluntary basis. The Focuss.Info Initiative is a not-for-profit entity; it consists of one project coordinator for one day per week and has currently 45 partner organizations from all over the world.

Which problems are addressed by Focuss.Info?
The Focuss.Info Initiative is trying to tackle various problems:

1. The amount of information on the Internet continues to increase and our peers are predominantly using generic content search engines such as Google to try to find quality information. However, these generic content search engines are more about the quantity of e-resources rather than the quality of it.
   Result Focuss.Info offers: Offering an alternative research tool for the field of global development cooperation
   
   
2. The United Nations are increasingly worried about Africa's brain drain and have warned that it could have dire consequences for the continent. The continuous stream of its professionals to the Global North is affecting Global South's development and prosperity.
   Result Focuss.Info offers: Connecting the Global South and Global North by using Web 2.0 technologies that allow equal opportunities to contribute information for the creation of a content-rich collection in the field of global development cooperation. Through this, the Initiative merges personal knowledge bases from the Global South and Global North which leads to knowledge exchange without any borders or limitations
   
   
3. Information literacy induces people from the Global South and Global North to locate, access, and use information in today's societies. For the UNESCO, information literacy is an important action as it provides "people with the skills and abilities for critical reception, assessment and use of information and media in the professional and personal lives".
   Result Focuss.Info offers: Focuss.Info wishes to educate students, researchers and practitioners in the Global South and Global North in the use of the Web 2.0 technologies that are free of charge by giving access to information and knowledge, and building an inclusive knowledge society which are the prerequisite of the empowerment of people
   

Our conclusion!
The Focuss.Info Initiative wishes to serve as a model for alternative collection development of e-resources in a specific knowledge domain. Thus, by promoting the usage of Web 2.0 technologies - such as social bookmarking - among peers in the Global South and Global North, this Initiative is bringing learners and information workers together to aggregate their new knowledge of valuable e-resources in a way that makes the whole - the community - ultimately greater than the sum of the parts - the individual social bookmark accounts.

But ... extra funding is required
For the next three years, the Focuss.Info Initiative offers two scenarios for the execution of the Initiative and promotion of Web 2.0 technologies such as social bookmarking:

1. Funding for an Information Professional from the Global South for five days per week, and;
2. Funding for an Information Professional from the Global North for five days per week

The Information Professional will induce and promote new Web technologies in favor of community building in global development cooperation. The Focuss.Info coordinator is favoring the scenario with an information professional from the Global South. Within this scenario, the Initiative is able to pro-actively encourage and mobilize partner organizations and individual practitioners from the more local areas in the Global South. Additionally, it gives the Global South the possibility of professionally working with the issue: knowledge creation and sharing

If you have more questions about the two scenarios or if you are interested in funding the Focuss.Info Initiative, please contact the coordinator of the Focuss.Info Initiative by sending an email to ask@focuss.info

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