[WSIS CS-Plenary] Quick Thoughts on WSIS Geneva

[Amali De Silva]

Thank you for this report - very much appreciated by
those communicating virtually.

Amali De Silva - Mitchell

Director Vancouver Community Network, Canada
Director Freedom of Information & Privacy Association,
Canada

--- Rik Panganiban <rikp at bluewin.ch> wrote:
> Greetings to all,
> 
> I just wanted to share some quick thoughts
> immediately after 
> WSIS-Geneva:
> 
> The Good
> 
> * ICT4D Exhibitions. I found it quite inspiring
> seeing the hundreds and 
> hundreds of great exhibitions and stands in the
> ICT4D.  Comparing this 
> fair to the Geneva Telecom 2003 last month, one can
> see how colorful 
> and vibrant are the many activities being engaged in
> by civil society, 
> governments, international institutions and
> businesses.   It makes me 
> think that we need more frequent gatherings where
> people and groups 
> developing ICT applications to meet real human needs
> can assemble and 
> celebrate each others work.
> 
> * Civil Society Declaration.  Great work all around
> assembling such an 
> ambitious document, representing a diverse
> assemblage of views and 
> vision of hundreds of groups of civil society. 
> Kudos to Sally Burch 
> and Bill McIver for guiding the process, all the
> drafting committee 
> folks, and caucus and working groups for their input
> and refinements.
> 
> * Parallel CS Events:  It was incredibly frustrating
> knowing that there 
> were at any time several interesting meetings going
> on that I wanted to 
> attend.  I hope that groups will make reports,
> powerpoints, videos and 
> other materials available on wsis-online.net and
> their own websites, so 
> I can see a flavor of what I missed.  I went to lots
> of great events, 
> including the CPSR meeting on ICT governance, the
> AMARC community media 
> forum, the TRP meeting on "democracy, freedom and
> digital divide" and 
> the UBUNTU meeting on global governance and WSIS. 
> Congrats to all the 
> organizers for your great work.
> 
> The Bad
> 
> * Overpasses:  Turns out there was PLENTY of room in
> the plenary hall, 
> hundreds of available seats.  So making us come up
> with these complex 
> distribution systems, fight with each other, and put
> poor Robert 
> through the wringer, was all for nothing.
> 
> * WIFI / Internet Access. This was abyssmal how
> substandard our 
> internet access was.  I confess to being guilty of
> assuming that at the 
> information society summit that we would have in
> place adequate 
> information technology.  WIFI barely worked, even
> after having to pay 
> exhorbitant amounts for it.  SMTP NEVER worked, so
> sending email was 
> impossible for most of us.
> 
> * Noise.  The noise factor was a significant and
> constant nuisance the 
> entire week, with no soundproofing of any meeting
> spaces and frequent 
> loud music, booming noises, and the overall buzz of
> a thousand 
> conversations.   Many people commented that they had
> never been at a 
> meeting of this stature where the noise level was so
> bad.
> 
> * Official Roundtables. I understand that the
> roundtable speakers only 
> got 3 minutes to make their interventions.  What
> exactly was the point 
> of bringing all this expertise together if no actual
> dialogue was going 
> to happen?
> 
> 
> Anyway it was all in all a wonderful week spent
> seeing old friends, 
> making new contacts, going to interesting events,
> and getting renewed 
> energy to work on these important civil society
> concerns.  I wish you 
> all a much-deserved rest, and I look forward to
> getting back to work 
> with all of you in the coming year.
> 
> In Peace,
> 
> Rik Panganiban
> WFM
> 
> 
> PS My pictures from WSIS will be online soon at 
> http://mypage.bluewin.ch/rikp/WSISpics/WSISpics.html
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>   Rik Panganiban             email: rikp at bluewin.ch
>   Special Adviser            Mobile: +41 76 473 3274
>   World Federalist Movement  www.wfm.org
> =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
> 


=====

Amali De Silva-Mitchell MSc.

Tel: 1-604-736-9012 & Email: amalidesilva at yahoo.com