Asian Pacific Women's Information Network Center (APWINC) South Korea

The Asian Pacific Women's Information Network Center or APWINC promotes the use of multimedia applications and information technologies among women. It sees its participation in AWORC as one important step towards enabling women in the Asia-Pacific region to use information and communication technologies to advance their status and rights in society.

APWINC is a young organization; it is an offshoot of the desire of many individual women and women's organizations to work together towards developing ways to promote positive portrayal of women in the mass media. On Novemebr 5-7, 1996, the Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium on Women and Media was held under the sponsorship of the Reserach Institite of Asian Women and the Korean Commission of the UNESCO. As a follow-up gathering to the Toronto Meeting on Women and Media (March, 1995) and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing: September,1995), the symposium assessed the progress that have been made by the women's movement in the Asia-Pacific region towards the dissemination of positive images of women through mass media. One of the major resolutions during the symposium was the recognition of the need to further promote women's information sharing, and women's access to the means to produce and distribute their information. This served as the inspiration for the founding of the APWINC.

One of the first major initiatives organized by APWINC was the Workshop on the Present and Future of Women's Information Network in Korea in December 1997. Members of six leading women's information centers in South Korea who participated in the workshop came up with a plan of action to promote greater cooperation and exchange among one another. Aside from APWINC, the women's information centers represented in the workshop were the Korean Women's Development Institute (kwominet), Korea Women's Associations United (WOMEN21), FemiNet Korea (FemiNet), Women Link (Womenlink), and the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center (KSVRC).

Together with the Research Institute of Asian Women at Sookmyung Women's University, APWINC is also currently in charge of the UNESCO CHAIR in Communication Technology for Women. The main mission of the UNESCO CHAIR, which was established at Sookmyung Women's University in Korea in June 1998, is to set a cornerstone for the enhancement of the social status of women in the Asia-Pacific region through the use of information and communication technologies.

APWINC has several Internet-based information services, namely; Women and Research (WomRes), Women and Media (FemMed/WomMed), Women and Education (WomEdu), Women and Culture (WomCulture), Women and Consulting (WomConsulting), and Women and Link(WomLink). These services can be accessed through the APWINC Web site.