[drn-discuss] World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures 2005

[Rufus Pollock]

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                        For Distribution Far and Wide:
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                             WSFII PREPCON '05
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           ~ World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures ~

Every year for the last four years, Free Networkers from around the 
world have organised summits, the last one being the Freifunk.net Summer 
Convention 2004 in Djursland, Denmark where Free Networkers, free 
infrastructure pragmatists and community network builders from 32 
countries got together, shared ideas, made plans and forged alliances.

This year, we are widening the scope through an association with the 
Open Knowledge Foundation (okfn.org) - we want to invite people from all 
areas of free infrastructure development to participate in a world 
summit, trying to cross the streams Free Hardware, Free Software, Open 
Geodata, LETS trading systems, Open Licensing, Community TV/Radio, 
Public Knowledge Infrastructures, and other areas of research and 
activity that we haven't thought of yet.

                                 ~ why ~

Because Free Infrastructure developers don't really have to ask this 
question. We have this in common - that FIIs come from pragmatic 
application and problem solving rather than being led by policy or law. 
By meeting and joining forces, we can do what we do more effectively.


                              ~ structure ~

The structure is a 2 day public conference in a central London location 
during which the various FII groups can present their activities and the 
specifics of their FII domain to other groups and the public. Prior to 
that weekend event (1st/2nd October for the London WSFII) there will be 
a week during which a venue will be available to groups if they wish to 
hold preparatory meetings, workshops, talks and social gatherings.

                               ~ prepcon ~

This might not be a 'world' summit with as many international 
delegations as we had in Denmark last year. Instead, this is a call to 
FII groups to organise summits on their continents around the same time, 
to feed into a more ambitious WSFII scheduled for summer 2006 in India.

                         ~ How to get involved ~

If you are involved in research and activity in one of the knowledge 
domains we've already listed as FIIs, or you work on one we've missed 
out, please get in touch and help by proposing someone, or some group to 
come and represent that FII.

The first confirmed WSFII venue is London - which will be the Western 
European hub for this year's WSFII prepcon If you would like to set up a 
WSFII prepcon in your locality, please get in touch via the mailing 
list: http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss and we can 
set you up a subdomain.

We are developing a programme on our wiki and taking registrations for 
participation in the london WSFII on the website: http://wsfii.org, so 
we look forward to hearing from you and your FII group there.

Registration: http://okfn.org/wsfii/wiki/WsfiiRegistration
Discussion / Announcement List: 
http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/wsfii-discuss

+ The WSFII Organisers +