Johannesburg, 24 Oct 2011
The Commonwealth Secretariat and OpenText today announced plans to introduce Commonwealth Connects, an innovative social media portal, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2011, being held in Perth, Australia, from 28 to 30 October.
Commonwealth and OpenText announced an agreement to develop Commonwealth Connects back in May to create a unique, global system designed to connect people, organisations and governments across the Commonwealth. Commonwealth Connects is a cloud-based, social platform developed through contributions of Commonwealth countries, including Canada, India, Australia and Singapore, and is based on OpenText technology.
Commonwealth's decision to create Commonwealth Connects offers a powerful Web platform and a single digital future for a community of countries that are diverse and span six continents.
“There are a whole range of important applications for Commonwealth Connects, including helping youth groups or government officials from across the Commonwealth collaborate; playing a role in election monitoring; or helping to fuel economic growth through digital business enablement,” commented Commonwealth Secretary General, Kamalesh Sharma.
“Commonwealth Connects is an innovative platform that sets the Commonwealth apart from other inter-governmental organisations,” added Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at OpenText. “No other organisation has tried to use technology to help unite this many people - two billion around the world. Commonwealth is off to an excellent start, and we're excited to see Commonwealth Connects introduced this year at CHOGM 2011.”
OpenText, a leader in providing content management, social collaboration and digital media software to national, regional and local governments around the world, has extensive experience in helping government organisations develop digital strategies to serve key stakeholders, including citizens. OpenText provides the social collaboration platform for the G-20 meetings, multiple national governments and Canada 3.0, which is dedicated to defining a digital strategy for Canada.
In addition to working together to create Commonwealth Connects, Open Text and the Commonwealth are working together to help speed technology adoption in member countries of the Commonwealth by jointly supporting the development of effective national strategies for information and communication technology (ICT) adoption and use.
For further information, please contact Rob Shaw: tel: +27 83 626-3811, fax: +27 86 646-4178, e-mail: rshaw@opentext.com.
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