Building upon the last three "National Connecting Indigenous Canadians Forums" and the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society's (WSIS) "Global Forum on Indigenous People and the Information Society's" (GFIPIS) convened in December 2003 in Geneva, members of the Aboriginal Canada Portal wish to bring together Canadian Aboriginal connectivity stakeholders together in Ottawa.

The results of last year's forum report, "Building a National Indigenous E-Strategy Blueprint" will be used as a tool to re-validate key challenges and identify key policy and programming to overcome Aboriginal connectivity obstacles.

Results will also serve as a potential Canadian contribution to ongoing WSIS Tunisia 2005 planning. As such, the Aboriginal Canada Portal and Connectivity working group (ACP&C) is proposing to co-host a two day International Indigenous Thematic Planning conference, in conjunction to this event.

This year's 4th Annual National Connecting Indigenous Peoples of Canada Forum will be held from March 14th to the 16th, 2005 and the WSIS Indigenous Connectivity PrepCom will be held from March 17th and 18, 2005 in Ottawa.

Given the significant scope, cost and rate at which technology evolves, it is crucial that all stakeholders work together to reduce duplication, maximize human and capital investments, increase awareness and develop the critical ICT capacities and skills among Aboriginal communities and peoples. To do so efficiently requires better understanding of each stakeholders strengths and possible contributions and ensure that these are well understood and communicated to all stakeholders.

In order to do the above it is important to develop a national and international Forum agenda that will enable as many Indigenous connectivity stakeholder voices as possible to discuss and provide guidance on the development of a Plan of Action. As such, this year's format will include a number of concurrent multi-stakeholder dialogue panel, where each will be discussing consultation e-services in the areas of: health, learning, culture, economic development, urban Aboriginal services, government services and new this year, youth, women and sustainable development.

Each panel discussion will, where possible, attempt to bring together Indigenous connectivity stakeholders from different levels of government, Aboriginal organizations and communities from across Canada.

The results of these discussions will then be discussed with the broader workshop participants to solicit further feedback and input, and brought back to the plenary as advice for the broader community of Aboriginal connectivity policymakers, stakeholders and practitioners for their consideration.

Please do not hesitate to contact Raymond Héroux if you have any questions at 1-888-399-0111 or at connectingaboriginalsforum2005@magma.ca

Aboriginal Canada Portal and Connectivity Working Group