Message from the CIO

Dear Colleagues:

Welcome! This letter constitutes the Annual General Meeting special edition of the "ICT-KM News," the Program's newsletter. This issue introduces the ICT-KM program, what has been achieved so far, and where it's going. Each quarter from now on, a new newsletter will appear on this page, updating you with our progress.

I am tremendously excited to be working with the ICT-KM Program, because information and communications technology (ICT) and knowledge management (KM) offer concrete ways to empower the CGIAR to reach its goals.

The CGIAR wants to move from a culture based on individual centers and the production of commodities to an approach much more based on innovative collaboration to benefit the world's poor. Innovative collaboration depends very much on how well scientists can communicate, whether the right people can find the right information at the right time, and whether people have the will and interpersonal skills to work together productively. These are precisely the kind of processes that applying ICT and KM can help.

Milestones
Since the ICT-KM program was founded last year, it's been my pleasure to watch it grow from a great idea to actually originating and supporting exciting projects and championing talents and efforts by the centers.

Early this year, we established the program's Advisory Group. Their mission is to help the CIO identify priorities within the CG system regarding ICT and KM, to support the preparation of action plans and to champion their implementation.

The Advisory Group has been working ever since, meeting in Rome in May and spending a lot of time on line. Together, we have drafted the program's strategy, the full version of which is available here. The Center Directors' committee has approved the strategy, and we are implementing it now.

Out of the strategy have come the program's goals and a series of proposed projects.

The program's first goal is to transform how the CGIAR works to preserve, produce, and improve access to the agricultural global public goods needed by the poor in developing countries. Its second goal is to establish the CGIAR as a leading knowledge broker, bringing all participants together in an open, inclusive community for global public goods research for development.

Projects
A key effort that began in the spring was defining the projects that will begin early in 2004. Most of the projects began as concept notes developed by the CIO and/or the AG. Most of these concept notes were selected in May, one of which outlined the process for choosing additional projects from the scientific community. By the end of June, we received many proposals for additional projects, of which four were selected through a formal process involving internal and external ICT-KM experts.

At this point, we have 15 final proposed projects, which are being expanded from their original short descriptions into comprehensive proposals for consideration by the CDC.We expect that process to be completed before the end of the year, and a set of integrated, coordinated projects to emerge. Early next year, the projects that are approved and funded will begin.

The projects are divided into three thrusts. The first will improve how the CGIAR communicates by implementing a high-performance ICT infrastructure both system-wide and in support of specific scientific communities of practice. The second will help to create and share knowledge by capturing information, integrating it, and providing easy access to it in the forms users need. The third thrust will help us collaborate, via new techniques and knowledge management projects, which will build a culture of cooperative global agricultural research.

Very briefly, here are some of the projects that have been proposed. If you wish to learn more, longer descriptions are available on the Web site:

• Connecting the CGIAR to global advanced research networks
• Improving connectivity to the CGIAR's mid-size locations, particularly in Africa
• Achieving better disaster resilience and data preservation
• Implementing videoconferencing systems for project collaborators
• Better geo-spatial data sharing, dissemination and analysis
• Developing the DIVA-GIS software as an inexpensive global public good
• An expert system for plant protection
• Building a CGIAR intranet
• A system-wide content management system

• A one-stop virtual library for all of our libraries' materials and more

• Developing common data standards to ease access to our knowledge
• Technologies to evaluate the use and effectiveness of our Web sites and databases
• A Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics
• Establishing system-wide online training resources
• Extensive knowledge management activities

For more details on the projects, click here.

Collaborate, create, communicate…this is our motto. We believe that expanding the CGIAR's opportunities to work together and communicate, we will produce better science to help the poor in developing countries, and we will get that knowledge to them.

Your comments are especially welcome. Please drop us an email.

Cordially,

Enrica Porcari
CGIAR Chief Information Officer

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