Information about OCCAM

Presentation

Since its creation, in 1997, the Observatory for Cultural and Audiovisual Communication (OCCAM) – established by UNESCO as a Project which arises from the notion that communication is a fundamental factor for social, economic and cultural development – has regarded the Euro Mediterranean area as a strategic focal point of its actions.

In its first 3 years of activity – managed directly under the administration of UNESCO – OCCAM focused on the promotion of the crucial UN values (peace, tolerance, human rights, etc.) mainly in the Mediterranean cultural area (crossroad of the three monotheistic religions and cultural pivotal point among Europe, Africa and Asia), in the fields of all audiovisual means of communication: cinema, television and the Internet.

As for cinema, OCCAM has developed and supported actions (through conferences, seminars, retrospectives on works devoted to peace and tolerance, press conferences, interviews) in all the Euro Mediterranean Film Festivals, from Venice to Cannes, from Beirut to Skopje, from Tirana to Tunis, and many more, working in close collaboration with the CICT-UNESCO – to which it is affiliated and whose President in 2000 was an OCCAM representative – and supporting the festivals associated to MCM, all in close relationship with the UNESCO Mediterranean Programme. In particular, the Euro Mediterranean Conference on Cinema, organized by OCCAM, was held for the ninth time in 2003 during the Venice Film Festival, with the European Parliament, under the aegis of UNIC Rome, UNESCO and with the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic and enjoyed over the years, of hundreds of the most distinguished personalities and thousands of specialists and participants. This Conference has always focused on subjects and themes suggested by the UN, sometimes coincident with those of the year (e.g. in 2001, “Audiovisual communication and interactivity, for a dialogue among cultures”, with many international representatives of UNDP, UNICEF, IFAD, UNESCO, etc.).

As for television, OCCAM has worked with all the major Euro Mediterranean public broadcasters, with initiatives in the framework of COPEAM – co-founded by OCCAM – and in particular for the TV program “Mediterraneo” (co-produced by RAI, ERTF, France Television, ITV, 2m and others) and for the reportages from film festivals and televisions.

As for Internet, OCCAM web-site is active since 1996 and has always paid attention to all the actions of the UN and UNESCO. Moreover, OCCAM has created an offline newsletter that updates all partners, donors and affiliates about its operations and that is now transmitted to more than 2000 addresses around the world. The contents of this newsletter constantly refer to actions of the UN or its agencies and programs.

After 3 years under the direct control of UNESCO, the OCCAM project has been validated in the year 2000 and given full autonomy, becoming an institution on its own, with a statute that broadens its mission, which becomes global.

The ties with the UN became even closer for the promotion and organization on October 28 2000 the “UN Thanksgiving Day”, in close partnership with UNIC Rome and which gathered in the main square of Milan almost 100,000 people in a very spectacular event which was covered by all major TVs and newspapers.

At the same time, OCCAM has started to define new strategies to fight poverty using new technologies: the Infopoverty Program was born, and in 2001 OCCAM on the one hand supported the pilot projects of the Honduran Solar Villages – a unique mixture of solar energy, wireless and broad band Internet – which are regarded as one of the most advanced models to fight the digital divide in rural and disadvantaged areas. On the other hand, OCCAM organized the I Infopoverty World Conference, held in May 2001 at the Università Cattolica in Milan under the aegis of UNIC Rome, UNESCO and the European Parliament and with the Patronage of the President of the ItalianRepublic. The success of the first edition of the Conference and of the simultaneous Infopoverty Exhibition – both visited by more than 3000 people and with a wide media coverage - gave way to the broadening of the actions and scopes of the pilot experiences in developing countries and to the organization on a yearly basis of the Infopoverty World Conference. The 2004 edition was staged simultaneously in different locations in 3 continents: Europe (Milan and ITU in Geneva), America (New York – UN seat; Washington – the World Bank; Rio de Janeiro; the University of Oklahoma; Silicon Valley) and Africa (Ghana, Morocco, Sudan, Tanzania). The IV Infopoverty World Conference has been included in the preparatory process to the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society and OCCAM has organized a seminar in the PrepCom in Hammamet on June 25 2004 at the presence of H.E. Montassar Ouaili, Secretary of State, Tunisia; Abdul W. Khan, Deputy Director General for Communication, UNESCO; Pierre Gagné, Acting Head, Field Operations Unit, ITU. On that occasion OCCAM launched the project for the creation of a digital village in Tunisia, and the participating authorities gave their formal approval to the initiative, as well as their support to it.

In the framework of the Infopoverty Program, OCCAM has also an active role in the support of the use of Information and Communication Technologies for education and medicine through the gathering and donation of computers to communities in the world – South Lebanon (in collaboration with Mr. Staffan De Mistura, Personal Representative there of the UN Secretary General), Morocco, Peru, Honduras, Congo - but also to specific projects such as those to promote the creation of a Balkan Television Archive and the Lebanese Cinemateque.

Since July 2002 OCCAM participated in the various PrepComs for the World Summit on Information Society both in Geneva and in Paris. On the occasion of the Summit OCCAM organized the Infopoverty Seminar, which defined the strategies to give concreteness to the Plan of Action endorsed by the WSIS.

In 2003 OCCAM was formally associated to the NGO section of the Un Department of Public Information.