As Switzerland's minister for the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in 2003, Furrer has the task of planning an effective global summit that will ensure that all people in the world will have access to knowledge. The International Telecommunications Union, under the patronage of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, will host WSIS, which will address the growth of information technologies worldwide and the potential of knowledge and information to help achieve some of the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The summit will take place in a new century that has already witnessed the rapid development of an information society, which has made knowledge and information valuable commodities. Furrer, also the director general of Switzerland's Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM), believes that developing a universal information society will be the key to boosting economic development in developing nations and to ensuring economic recovery worldwide.

"We are all economically in a depression and will be next year, as well," Furrer told Earthtimes in an interview in Bucharest. "The summit will show the possibilities for economic recovery through Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs). It is a big opportunity for economic recovery, particularly in the emerging markets."

Furrer has seen the economic potential of investing in emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. "These markets are not yet saturated as they are in the United States and Europe and have enormous potential for growth," he said. "But as communication technologies grow rapidly in the developed countries, there is a great risk that many people in the under-invested, under-saturated countries will be left out of the new ëinformation society."

While these markets wait for investors, there is a fear that digital divide, or the division between developed and developing nations in access to the opportunities provided by ICTs, will grow too wide. That in mind, Furrer outlined four areas in which he believes WSIS should focus: access, inclusion, content and opportunities.

Granting access, he explained, means giving all people affordable Internet access and a good communications infrastructure. Inclusion, he continued, means ensuring the development of an information society beneficial to all. Content signifies ensuring that all cultures have access to the Internet in their language and have the security of free-flowing information. Opportunity signifies the potential for developing human capacity through education and training. Ensuring an all-inclusive information society offers, according to Furrer, the potential to promote sustainable development, democracy and good governance, among others.

A veteran in the field of communications, Furrer mused that he was drawn to his summit role as they say in German, like "Jungfrau zum kind"-- like the virgin to the child. Being the first director general of the Federal Office of Communication, he was the natural choice for the job. (OFCOM is similar, but in smaller scale, to the United States' FCC and plays the lead role in the Swiss government in telecom and media issues.)

This job has allowed Furrer to build up a solid base of contacts in the media and telecom industries and the know-how to organize a multi-stakeholder event. It has also given him close contact with Switzerland's Foreign Office. But Furrer wasn't always involved in the international arena. In the early stages of his career, Furrer served as a solicitor in a small country town, but he began feeling a bit suffocated by his surroundings. "I thought if I stayed there until 60, the roof would fall on my head. So I had to do something completely different," he recalled.

Furrer then became a radio journalist in charge of consumer programs and presented a popular consumer program called "Index." His later forays into the media brought him into the circles of politics, when he became a political correspondent at the House of Parliament. He also served as a negotiator for the European Union in issues of transportation, communications and energy for four years. Furrer, an avid athlete who has excelled internationally in rowing, was also able to incorporate his passion for the sport in to his career.

After 10 years in radio, Furrer was asked to serve as Switzerland's ambassador for sports. Serious about fitness, Furrer met Earthtimes after a brisk morning jog outside his Bucharest hotel. He is currently the president of the Swiss Rowing Federation and has managed New Zealand's rowing team. His connections to different sectors and different interests have made him ideal for his WSIS, giving him a natural ability to appeal to people in various fields.

Since "inclusion" is a key component in discussions about the information society, the term will also have a major influence in the planning of the WSIS. Furrer has emphasized that the upcoming WSIS meetings will be a success if there is a true inclusion of delegates from multiple sectors. "You can't just have a meeting of heads of states," he said, "you have to have a dialogue with all stakeholders."

The side events will play a very strong role in the declarations and action plans that will be yielded from the summits, he added. The meeting of minds that will take place between the leading IT companies, the media, policy makers and leaders of civil society will help shape an information society in which all people will benefit.

Communications technologies have the potential of strengthening public service delivery, supplying quality content and getting individuals in every continent involved in shaping their governmentsí policymaking. Furrer intends to use his contacts from his years of work in the telecom sector to create a strong presence of private sector delegates. He added that the large turnout of telecom representatives at the European regional meeting of the WSIS in Bucharest was a good start.

Incorporating the effective participation of civil society will also be a priority for Furrer, noting that its delegates will be more engaged in the proceedings than they have been in other world summits. Whereas civil society delegates at Johannesburg's World Summit on Sustainable Development complained that their portion of the summit was held at a physical, and, as some argued, symbolic distance from the political proceedings, Furrer assured that this will not be a problem in Geneva. The Geneva summit will be held, for the most part, on one site--the Palais de Sport. Simply because of the physical proximity, the dialogue between all stakeholders--from civil society to heads of state--will be easier, Furrer explained. "You have to find a compromise," he said. "The political circles should see that it is a fact of life that you need a summit to include all stakeholders."

Due to the rapid-changing nature of the information and communications industries, Furrer said he is pleased that the summit will take place in two phases, two places and two years apart. At first he was skeptical about the idea of staging the second part of the WSIS in Tunis, Tunisia in 2005, but the more he thought about it, he admitted, the more he realized it was appropriate to stage the summit this way. Throughout all the years he worked in the communications industry, Furrer noted that over the past few years, industry changes have been so monumental in the matter of months.

"The sector is so fast-moving. What did we say about 3-G communications even two years ago?" he questioned. He acknowledged that mainstream technologies, in this era, could change so dramatically in such a short space of time. He feels that it is appropriate to follow-up on the Geneva proceedings two years later since new revolutionary, life-changing technologies can arise in the time between the summits. "The Tunisians shouldnít be worried that there is nothing left to discuss," he affirmed. Also weighing in on the current, post-9/11 political situation, Furrer realized that there is a distinct possibility that a momentous political situation could happen in the gap year between the Geneva and Tunis summits, and a sequel to Geneva's summit would be necessary.

Though in his tenure as Director General of OFCOM he witnessed the complete liberalization and opening of the Swiss telecom market, he has resisted what he called the Swiss impulse to impose its models on other countries. However, he said that certain principles exercised in Switzerland, he said, could be applied to every country. Above all, he believes that there has to be a good universal service. Other countries can follow some of the political and social aims carried out in Switzerland's reform.

"You can not tell countries to liberalize everything, but you can promote the same values, like the free flow of information and inclusion," Furrer said. Bearing in mind that the second phase of WSIS will take place in Tunis, Furrer acknowledged that addressing the issue of the free flow of information would be a tricky matter. Having spent a great deal of his leisure time in Morocco, he has observed Islamic culture and understands how the issues of gender and freedom of information differ from the west in the Islamic world. Understanding this, he believes it is vital for Europeans and Americans at the WSIS to avoid using a didactic approach towards information free flow I the Middle East.

"You can't expect the gender issue, for example, being treated the same in the Middle East as it is in Sweden," he said. "There has to be a process of opening, not imposing. As Europeans or Americans, what we can not do is to go there (the Islamic world) and give them ten points to follow."