Changes

==Background==

==Background==

The [[ITU|International Telecommunications Union]] (ITU) initiated the idea of conducting the World Summit on the Information Society in 1998 via Resolution 73 of its Plenipotentiary conference. While the first draft of this resolution was talking about an information technology Summit (clearly an ITU theme), the final draft adopted by ITU went beyond mere technology and spoke about the Information Society as a whole. In 1999, the United Nations Secretary General expressed enormous support to the proposed Summit and the UN General Assembly created the framework for the Summit under Resolution 56/183. This resolution adopted the idea of a Summit in two phases (a novelty for UN Summits, due to the fact that two countries, Tunisia and Switzerland, offered to hold the Summit) and also defined the role of ITU as the lead agency for the Summit in cooperation with all other interested organizations and partners of the UN System. By 2001, ITU started the preparations for holding the WSIS (with 3 PrepComs each for the Geneva and the Tunis phase). The first phase of the Summit was held in Geneva on December 10-12, 2003 and the second phase in Tunis on November 16-18, 2005.<ref>[http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/background.html WSIS Background and Origins]</ref>

In 1998, Tunisia initiated the idea of conducting a World Summit on the Information Society at the [[ITU|International Telecommunications Union]] (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference of Minneapolis. While the first tunisian draft of the resolution was talking about an information technology Summit (clearly an ITU theme), the final draft adopted by ITU as Resolution 73 of the Minneapolis Summit went beyond mere technology and spoke about the Information Society as a whole. In 1999, the United Nations Secretary General expressed enormous support to the proposed Summit and the UN General Assembly created the framework for the Summit under Resolution 56/183. This resolution adopted the idea of a Summit in two phases (a novelty for UN Summits, due to the fact that two countries, Tunisia and Switzerland, offered to hold the Summit) and also defined the role of ITU as the lead agency for the Summit in cooperation with all other interested organizations and partners of the UN System. By 2001, ITU started the preparations for holding the WSIS (with 3 PrepComs each for the Geneva and the Tunis phase). The first phase of the Summit was held in Geneva on December 10-12, 2003 and the second phase in Tunis on November 16-18, 2005.<ref>[http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/background.html WSIS Background and Origins]</ref>

==High-Level Summit Organizing Committee==

==High-Level Summit Organizing Committee==