Background

The 2003 ICT Policy Training Programme in Budapest will be a 10-day program to build skills in developing information technology policy in Southeastern Europe. The program will include an introduction to European Union lawmaking and regulation in the area. It will focus on issues of privacy, intellectual property, security—all in the context of how decisions are made and how NGOs and other elements of civil society can be involved in decision making. In terms of selecting candidates for the summer school, the organizers will be looking for potential skills as change agents in society coupled with a background or interest in the Internet and other information technologies. It is anticipated that most participants will have a legal education, but others with equivalent or comparable backgrounds will be considered.

The 2003 ICT Policy Training Program builds on a summer school training program in 2002 in Oxford University (at the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy) for media lawyers and law professionals in the Balkans. The organizer of the 2003 Summer School will be the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research through its Budapest Office, located at Eotvos Lorand University.

The 25 selected participants will receive a full-tuition fellowship to cover the cost of the training programme, travel to and from Budapest, and room and board.