[wsfii-coord] More news from the LAC region

[Sylvia Cadena]

Dear friends,

It was like a roller coaster! I've just finished up reading more that 60 
messages coming from this wsfii-coord space. There were some moments 
were I was really worried and tense, and other were calm came back. It 
was like seeing all the chapters of a soap opera, all chapters in one 
take! well, you can be all but boring!

Anyway... I'm really glad to know that finally, after ups and downs 
there is a place and date decided for this to happened, and wiki pages 
to start navigating/contributing.

Just to give you all an update of what is going on from this side of the 
world...

We now have the WNDW book already translated into Spanish. The whole 
thing. It has been a hell of a work, but I'm sure that the outcome will 
be very good, and if the authors speak Spanish they will be very pleased 
too :) The book is now getting ready for printing and on-line publishing 
and will be officially launched by the Booksprint team pretty soon. We 
will have also a launch at the WALC event in Quito at the end of July.

The process in our region was quiet different from what is happening for 
the global/international event. The training and workshops were already 
in place, but the presentations, discussions were not really happening 
in a plenary set up. So, WALC organizers take care of their training 
event as they always do, and 3 of us -also trainers at the event- took 
the responsibility of transformed the space already open there called 
the Internet & Society track, into an Internet and Society Forum/WSFII. 
The other 2 women are Valeria Betancourt and Dafne Plou, both of them 
from different APC programmes in the region.

As I've mentioned on a previous message, we have 5 topics to be 
addressed into our regional WSFII. Now we have 4 to 5 panelists 
confirmed to present in each one of those spaces, more or less 25 
different angles and contributions to the process. The WSFII sessions 
will be at the end of the day of a very busy training event called WALC, 
which has been done in the region for more than 12 years now, every 
year. The training event hosts 7 different workshops of 6 days, 8 hours 
a day. After that, 2 hours a day, we will be gathering listening to some 
theoretical presentations but mostly talking about experiences and 
lessons learned from very different and specific projects.

This year WALC also happens to share venues, resources and some experts 
with Red Clara, the consortium of advance Internet networks, known as 
Internet2 to may of us... so, we will be having quite a contribution 
from the academic sector too.

I'm sure that many people will have complaints about the process, and 
how open it was, but to be true to myself, I was, we were, as open as we 
could manage... we've invite people we know, and encourage the to invite 
people we know. We will see how it goes. But at least, we will be able 
to start moving the ball here, encouraging others to engage into the 
WSFII global process.

About a regional page on the wiki... I can't really do it. I don't have 
enough time and energy to translate the whole Spanish document to make 
sense for others... maybe after the event is finished, I've will be able 
to do so. Meanwhile, the page of the event is www.walc2006.ula.ve 
linking to the "Foro Internet y Sociedad" banner and left menu link.

I've was wondering if anyone from the WSFII organizers will be willing 
to come down to Quito and share with us during this week, July 24 to 
July 29th. We have barely raised enough money to put the panels 
together, so I can't offer any financial support from our side, but as 
Julian mention before that OSI was willing to support some of the travel 
among the different WSFIIs, maybe somebody will be interested and able 
to travel. Please let me know as soon as possible who can be the lucky 
one :) It will be great if is someone with some Spanish skills... just 
to be sure that he/she can follow what happened in the meeting.

Last comment... about the RCFIIs... good idea, but it will be great to 
discuss it later, when the other substantial stuff is defined. That is a 
project on its own.

All the best,

Sylvia

PD. Now moving to the wsfii-discuss mailing list, were I have another 
134 messages sitting! but after go to the movies to see X-Men :D

-- 
Participe en el WALC 2006
www.walc2006.ula.ve


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Sylvia Cadena - sylvia at colnodo.apc.org
J.M. Sosa 2281 / 701 Montevideo 11300, Uruguay
Tel. (+5982) 7111502
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