(Published on blog.meedan.net)

Meedan will be showcasing its Arabic/English cross-language social networking platform at the Toronto Open Source Showcase for Nonprofits on Monday 26 October 2009 at the Center for Social Innovation at 215 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON M5T 2C7.

Join us for a lively discussion about how Meedan is bridging social networks between the East and the West, and to experience first-hand the exciting features of Meedan's platform: beta.meedan.net

(Published on blog.meedan.net)

Meedan is organizing a workshop at the Internet Governance Forum 2009.

The Internet Governance Forum is an initiative by instituted by United Nations to support the secretary general in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Its fourth annual meeting will be held this year in Sharm El Shiekh, Egypt from 15-18 November 2009.
Under the title: “Internet Governance – Creating Opportunities for all”, this year’s event will tackle the following topics on its agenda:

I will be talking at the Intellectual Property Rights and Development workshop at the Library of Alexandria from 27 - 28 September 2009.

The workshop aims to give basic information about intellectual property, focusing on the latest topics on access to health and medicine in relation to intellectual property rights.

The workshop will cover the following topics:

• An introduction to intellectual property laws, and their impact on social and economic development
• Definitions, and topics covers by IPRs
• International treaties on IPR: Berne, Paris, TRIPS, and the international organizations involved: WIPO, WHO, WTO..
• IPR as a tool for development, and flexibilities for developing countries
• Access to health and medicine in relation to IPR
• Latest international negotiations in Geneva and other international fora on Intellectual Property related issues

I will be talking at the Copyright Protection in the Digital Age workshop at the Library of Alexandria from 29 September - 1 October 2009 in Alexandria, Egypt

This workshop will focus on copyright issues and the new tools to access and disseminate knowledge in the Arab countries.

The workshop will cover the following topics:

• An introduction to copyright laws, definitions, international treaties and works protected by copyright
• The World Intellectual Property Organization and its Development Agenda proposed by developing countries in 2004
• New tools to access and disseminate knowledge: Creative Commons licenses, Free and Open Source Software and open access
• Creative Commons licenses in the Arab world
• Licensing in the digital age
• The protection of software and databases