The panel made suggestions on its configuration and implementation strategy, including that ICT4D volunteering opportunities make mobilizing "national human resources" (local ICT experts) within developing countries a priority, for both men and women. The initiative was launched at the United Nations Volunteers under the leadership of Sharon Capeling-Alakija and was active from February 2001 to February 2005. Initiative staff and volunteers participated in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003. In November 2002 Kofi Annan issued a Challenge to Silicon Valley to create suitable systems at prices low enough to permit deployment everywhere. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ran a refugee camp in Tanzania where the Global Catalyst Foundation had placed computers and communications equipment for the use of the Burundian refugees confined there. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) worked with the Kingdom of Bhutan on a Simputer project. The Task Force was active, inter alia, in the process leading to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003 and WSIS II in Tunis, Tunisia, in November 2005. In order to participate in the second phase of the WSIS, the Task Force's original three-year mandate was extended by another year and expired on 31 December 2005, with no further extension. The Task Force's stakeholders, members and the experts on the panel of technical advisors, were active in working groups organized around four broad themes:   Regional activities were carried out in five regional networks—Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia, Arab States, and Europe and Central Asia.  2002, June 17–18: A session of the General Assembly of the United Nations was devoted to information and communication technologies for development, addressing the digital divide in the context of globalization and the development process. The session promoted coherence and synergies between various regional and international information and communication technologies initiatives. The meeting also contributed to the preparation of WSIS. Many countries were represented by high-level officials responsible for communications and for development. The Task Force held 10 semi-annual meetings in various places that served as important venues for exchange of best practices, and to bring the various stakeholders together to work on common themes. Most successful, in the eyes of the participants, were those meetings that were held in conjunction with a series of Global Forums:  In addition, a Global Roundtable Forum on "Innovation and Investment: Scaling Science and Technology to Meet the MDGs" was held in New York City, 13 September 2005.