Founding Partners

DOT would like to acknowledge the Founding Partners of our program and network; The Cisco Foundation, The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Our founding global sponsors contributed significantly to developing the best program framework centrally, designed with scalability and impact in mind, and enabling in-country partners to participate in the localization of the model.

As a founding sponsor, the Cisco Foundation has proven its understanding that good ideas aren’t enough to make things happen. Achieving innovation takes leadership, investment and the passion to see it all through. Cisco has partnered with DOT in the Middle East, Africa and most recently in the United States through the 21st Century Schools (21S) Initiative providing a leading commitment to the recovery efforts of impacted schools in the Gulf Coast.

Cisco’s core partnership combined with partnership investments by CIDA and USAID have made it possible for DOT to develop solid, flagship programs in the Middle East (Jordan), Africa (Kenya) and the United States, alongside ongoing new country operations, laying the groundwork to scale globally.

With support from the CIDA Partnership Branch, DOT Africa was launched in March 2005. In its initial phase (2005-2007), Ethiopia and Kenya have been selected as focal countries to recruit and train over 200 interns to provide ICT for development (ICT4D) capacity building to 4,000 community participants. DOT has also recently received a one year extension from CIDA for 2008 for our programs in Ethiopia and Kenya, and initial funding to develop our program in Rwanda.

CIDA also provided financial contribution to DOT’s implementation in the Middle East in 2002, including a successful tourism program in Jordan.   Recently, CIDA has sponsored the Income Generation Through ICT for Development project in Lebanon.  The project reflects CIDA’s heightened commitment to initiatives that are part of a broader development plan, locally owned and developed and supported by a coordinated effort among donor organizations.

DOT would also like to recognize USAID’s ongoing interest and support of our work. USAID was the founding and ongoing sponsor of the NetCorps Jordan program and was also the lead sponsor of our NetCorps Egypt pilot program.
 

Partners

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has participated as a supporter of DOT at both a country and a global level since our early days of operation. UNESCO has provided support to the NetCorps Lebanon program and oversaw travel expenses for Interns from Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt to participate in a knowledge sharing conference held in New York. UNESCO will also be sponsoring DOT Interns from Jordan, Kenya, Ethiopia and the USA to attend UNESCO’s ‘International Conference and Exhibition on Knowledge Parks’ held in Qatar in March, 2008.

DOT has also been selected as one of only 3 NGOs worldwide to implement IBM's new Corporate Service Corps program in 6 countries in Europe, Africa and Asia; DOT will be implementing the Corporate Service Corps program in Turkey.

The IBM Corporate Service Corps program is a corporate leadership initiative designed to help enhance global economic opportunity, provide more access to education resources, and to work on environmental issues. IBM's Corporate Service Corps will gather teams of IBM volunteers with a diversity of skills, drawn from different countries and business units, and place them in emerging markets to tackle economic and social development issues in collaboration with NGO partners from around the world.

DOT, in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Turkey, will be managing the deployment of 4 groups of IBM executives (32 in total) to Turkey over the next year. The first and second deployments will be located in Mersin, with the IBM team working on assignments with the Mersin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Cukorova Development Agency (one of two pilot regional development agencies in Turkey), the Regional Innovation Strategy and Mersin University and Innovation Centre. The first deployment is set for Oct-Nov 2008, the second deployment will be in Jan-Feb 2009 and the remaining two deployments will also be in 2009.