Their web site project, The Impact of HIV/AIDs in Katutura, was singled out for its contribution to the elimination of the digital divide, a phrase used to describe the global inequalities in access to telecommunications technology.

SchoolNet's Ebben Hatuikulipi, Sam Nehale and Claudette Siamwanda received their prize in front of an audience of fellow participants in the historic Campidoglio, which serves as the seat of contemporary Roman government. Namibian ambassador Wilfried I. Emvula joined the team onstage for the honour. (See picture above)

Six other teams, from a field of more than 500, also received the distinction. They come from places as diverse as India, Costa Rica, Rwanda and the Philippines.

The prize includes a chance to expand the project and stabilize funding. Each of the Global Youth Incubator winners has been invited to submit a business plan to cover the next few years. Organizers will review the proposals and invite those submissions prove promising to attend business development seminars at partner institutions Santa Clara University and Carnegie Mellon University.

The sessions, to be held later this year, are expected to comprise a couple of weeks of intensive discussion and training in those business and technical skills well adapted for development projects.

The submission of a business plan will also double as an application for funding. Partners such as Unisys, Ask Jeeves, and the World Bank have earmarked close to 40,000 Euros to support the expansion plans of each Global Youth incubation prizewinner.

SchoolNet is drafting a proposal to convert its community impact research project into a module which students can use to study and report on the impact of the AIDS pandemic in their own towns and villages. The decision on funding and the invitation to participate in IT skills workshops will be announced February 15, 2003

The Global Youth Incubator is a partnership between the Digital Youth Consortium and the Glocal Forum. It aims to promote North-South coopearation by forging relationships with private, public and nongovernmental organizations.

Descriptions of the winning projects are available here:
http://www.gjc.it

Here is how Glocalforum.org describes the prize:

The Global Youth IT Incubator of the Glocal Forum has selected grassroots projects dealing with bridging the digital divide from India, Namibia, Rwanda, the Philippines and Costa Rica to be developed with the Incubatorís partners Ask Jeeves, Unisys and the World Bank after a first phase of business plan assessment. The IT Training sessions are scheduled to begin in late January 2003 at partner institutions of higher learning that are leaders in the field of IT training: Santa Clara University, Carnegie Mellon University, and Stanford University.
www.glocalforum.org

The Global Youth Incubator, in its own words:

The Incubator pursues its aims by:

* Establishing relations with potential funders, including international organizations, the private sector, NGOs, and other organizations who will contribute, through expertise and financial resources, to the success of worthwhile digital divide projects across the world.

* Promoting the formation of a network of voluntary business and technical support to contribute advice and mentoring to the selected projects, in full co-operation with the projects developers. This may include mechanisms such as Project Adoption and Business Development Reviews.

* Helping broker relations between projects as a way of encouraging emulation of successful practices from one experience to another.

In all these activities, the Incubator is conceived as a catalyse of synergies within the growing global movement on overcoming 'digital divide'.
www.glocalforum.org