FIRE’s innovative work with ICTs and community media will be featured in several forums at the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, Switzerland, December 9-12, 2003.  Feminist International Radio Endeavour (FIRE) 
will also broadcast live from the official UN Conference, in a program called, “Voices on Open Source,”* featuring the voices of women from all over the world about issues related to new information & communication technologies (ICTs) combined with traditional media.

Specifically, FIRE’s internet radio experience will be featured in the following:FIRE will be broadcasting live with their program, “Voices on Open Source,” from the official UN WSIS Conference, December 10-12, from 6-8 pm (Geneva time, or 11 am-1 pm Costa Rica or CST). The program, which will be broadcast in Spanish and English includes reports, interviews, and updates about the NGO Forum and official conference focusing on the main issues of debate at the event.   

The program will be posted daily in mp3 and RealAudio in FIRE’s web radio (www.fire.or.cr or www.radiofeminist.net and OneWorld Radio).

María Suárez and Margaret Thompson, FIRE producers, will participate in a panel of feminist communicators organized by ISIS  Manila focusing on the structure of global media and alternative media struggles in the midst of corporatization and technocratization of media and ICT systems.

María Suárez, FIRE producer, will participate in a panel about Open Source issues and the women’s movement, organized by APC-Africa Women. Suárez will talk about FIRE’s strategy of “Interactive Autonomy,” along with a feminist definition of interactivity, as well as FIRE’s new feminist Open Source Server.

FIRE’s internet radio experience will be featured in “Practice Inspires” by the Latin American Association of Radio Training (ALER), a special production to be presented at the Community Media Forum during WSIS.   ALER selected FIRE’s case because of the unique way in which  it links conventional radio with internet radio in its strategy “connecting voices, technologies and actions…amplifying women’s voices worldwide.”

FIRE will be featured during WSIS in a CD-ROM “Revisiting the Magic Box: Case Studies in Local Appropriation of ICTs,” which will eventually be published  in book format by the Communication for Development Group (SDRE) of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) together with two other case studies, highlighting rural women's contribution to their community and their country. FIRE was selected as one of the three experiences because it is the first women’s internet radio station worldwide and it is based in a rural town in Costa Rica. The case study showcases the impact of FIRE in the community OneWorld Radio is also featuring FIRE in its site as a special production aimed at showcasing civil society’s contribution to the issues addressed at WSIS.  FIRE’s case was chosen among thousands worldwide because of the innovative way that FIRE has placed new technologies in the hands of women to have their own voices heard worldwide. 

FIRE will be featured as a finalist in the Gender & ICT Awards in a special publication by the Women’s Networking Support Program of the Association  for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Global Knowledge Partnership. 

FIRE was one of six finalists in the category of “Outstanding Multistakeholder Initiatives at the Regional or Global Level,” which aims to honor and bring international  recognition to innovative and effective projects by women to use ICTs for the promotion of gender equality and/or women’s  empowerment.  “Women Mayors' Link” in Romania was winner in the category that included FIRE as finalist. 

FIRE was selected with other three women’s communications projects in the world to be in the film “Password: Women” of the International Archives for the  Women’s Movement (IIAV) in the Netherlands.  The film will be produced by the Kasander Film Company of the Netherlands, with  Anja van Oostrom as Producer,  under the direction of Rinske Bosch. Filming will start in Geneva during WSIS and will continue in Costa Rica next year. The IIAV is the national centre of  expertise in the Netherlands, providing information on the position of women and women's  studies. Since 1935 the IIAV documents the struggle for liberation and equal rights of women in the Netherlands and worldwide.

*”Voices on Open Source” means that women’s voices in FIRE, like open source technology, flow freely without censorship, are “priceless”  in the sense that they cannot be bought or sold as commodities in media, and stem from the inner strength and organizational capacity that women  have in their efforts to influence agendas. 

Open Source Software (OSS) allows computer programmers to create and share these software programs at no cost with others, who in turn  are able to add or change the characteristics and codes of the programs according to their own needs, and share them further with the user  community (who are also free to change them) and OSS users around the world.  Open source technology, which is gaining in popularity  worldwide, is considered to be more stable, secure and creative than its commercial counterparts from Microsoft.