The Asia-Pacific Telecentre Network (APTN) a collaborative initiative of telecentre.org and the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific (UN-ESCAP) was officially launched at the United Nations Conference Center in Bangkok on 19 November 2008, during a side event of the First Session of the Committee on ICT of ESCAP.

The network will promote innovation and knowledge-sharing amongst Telecentre organizations in the Asia-Pacific region where Telecentres are growing exponentially each year. The Secretariat of APTN will be hosted by the Information and Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) in Colombo, Sri Lanka with in-kind contribution by ICTA. The Secretariat will host a website as a part of telecentre.org site, and their first activity shall co-organize a workshop on resource mobilization for telecentre organizations in Asia-Pacific in 2009. The APTN is an outcome of ongoing efforts made at the aSIA 2008 meeting held in Kuala Lumpur in November 2008.
This is just one of the joint activities telecentre.org is developing with the United Nations´ Economic and Social Regional Commissions. The collaborative activities are coordinated with the Knowledge network for ICT disadvantage communities program at the different commissions. At the present time, United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific (UN-ESCAP), United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA), and the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and telecentre.org are working to build a global map of telecentres. They are also contributing to the debate on telecentre issues at telecentre.org online platform, and also helping to consolidate regional networks and meetings as the coming Latin American and the Caribbean Telecentre Leaders Forum that would be held in Brasilia, Brazil, in May 2009.
All of these activies show the telecentre.org collaborative spirit to share its knowledge and tools with any organization willing to work with them to bridge the digital divide, and its commitment with the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID) to do its part in the achievement of the Millennium Goals.

Read more about the network in Telecentre Magazine.
Join the network group.