APDA organized a one day workshop and Inauguration ceremony of APDA’s Web Portal (www.afghanact.org) on 1st September, 2003 at Continental Guest House Peshawar.

More than 30 participants including members of APDA, journalists, mass media representatives, representatives of Radio Liberty, CIDA representatives and members of other civil society organizations and activists took active participation in the ceremony.

Mr. Sarwar Mamound (General Coordinator) delivered the opening speech and emphasized upon the use of modern electronic communication media. He said that for information sharing, coordination and growth of civil society organizations the internet and latest e-communication technology is playing a vital role. He added that the web portal of APDA is one of the efforts to utilize these media for the stated objectives.

Mr. Tahir Saeed (Web Developer) presented the live version of the portal on multimedia projector. He demonstrated different features of the portal and explained how this web portal is different from traditional web sites. He enlightened the application of the portal for coordination, sharing information and peace building. The features included mainly; separate member accounts, discussion forums, member’s profiles, searching engine, poll system, member’s email service, events, and news groups.

During his two hour presentation he also demonstrated navigation, uploading and updating process by submitting articles and said that any normal internet aware person can upload/update contents to the portal from any where in the world.

During question answer session he replied to the questions of participants and also noted their feature requests.

At the end of the ceremony the participants commended the presentation and the efforts of APDA.

Author: Tahir Saeed