[wsfii-discuss] pre- announcement todo

Wed Mar 2 16:09:51 UTC 2005

Hi all,

Great to see the ideas of the last few days coming up and I've just
been talking to Juergen about it all. He says he's happy with hosting
the 2005 event in London and likes the way its shaping up.

Also pls see below messages between Juergen and Arun about the 2006
event with Arun confirming that they would like to host it in India,
possibly in November. I also yesterday spoke to the Open Society
Institute and they signalled that they would be very interested in
getting involved in funding the 2006 event with its strong development
agenda which is all good.

Therefore if there are no objections we can now go ahead and announce
both events to a wider group of people maybe starting with potential
participants and spreading out slowly.

Here's what we thought should probably be included in an announcement
but we need to figure out a bit of detail.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

0. Titles for both events

wsfii-europe
wsfii-2005
wsfii-prepcom
wsfii-01
wsfii
wsfii-2006
others?

1. wsfii2005 format

A week of workshops/sprint followed by a 2 day public event.

2. Dates

   September 2005
Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 
             1  2  3
 4  5  6  7  8  9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30

I'd say 5th -> 9th workshop 10th -> 11th public event would be the
obvious dates - Anyone else have any ideas? Are there any clashing
'must see' things then?

3. Registration

Should there be a registration fee? Juergen suggested that they had
good experience with a very small registration fee (10 euros) in
Djursland which meant that they got an accurate idea of who was going
to come. Do we want to do this or is it gratis? Where can people
register? Do people sub to a list at this point or do we need a form
somewhere?

4. wsfii 2006 to be held in India

We just need to say that the first event is a preparatory one for the
2006 event, but leave all details out.

5. Anything else?

--------------------------------------------------------------------

It would be great to get this sorted out and sent off in the next week
if possible, so please pitch in!

chrs

~/julian

----- Forwarded message from Juergen Neumann <j.neumann at xorxe.net> -----

From: "Juergen Neumann" <j.neumann at xorxe.net>
To: "'Julian Priest'" <julian at informal.org.uk>
Subject: FW: FW: freifunk.net summer convention 2006
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 15:21:41 +0100

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Juergen Neumann [mailto:j.neumann at xorxe.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 1:59 PM
> To: 'Arun Mehta'
> Cc: 'Julian Priest'; 'sebastian at less.dk'
> Subject: RE: FW: freifunk.net summer convention 2006
>
>
> Hi Arun,
>
> > Juergen,
> > Did you get this? I didn't get a reply...
> > Arun
>
> Yes, I got your mail and I thought I had replyed ...
>
> November in Goa sounds great. We are aming to make the London
> meeting a prepconf to India. So it would be very good if we
> could manange to bring you over. More concrete input on the
> topics will follow later.
>
> First of all we would all need a "GO for GOA" - then we
> should go into details.
>
> More soon.
>
> JuergeN
>
> > On Thu, 10 Feb 2005 12:39:33 +0530, Arun Mehta
> <arun at holisticit.com>
> > wrote:
> > > Hi Juergen,
> > > I need to bring Vickram, my partner in Radiophony, into this
> > > conversation. He doesn't understand German, but I gave him
> > the gist of
> > > your message in a phone conversation earlier.
> > >
> > > We are both totally behind the idea of holding the 2006
> > convention in
> > > India. If we are talking about summer, Goa may not be
> > appropriate: it
> > > is hot then, and gets pouring rain starting in June, until
> > September.
> > >
> > > Why not somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas, mid October?
> > > Conventional telecom has serious problems in those areas,
> > whereas WiFi
> > > excels. Our friends in Nepal could build wireless bridges
> > across the
> > > border...
> > >
> > > If people would prefer Goa, then November might be a better time.
> > > Few tourists, great weather, terrific food (during the
> monsoons and
> > > shortly thereafter, eating sea food is discouraged).
> > >
> > > Vickram and I were discussing, that we might, leading up to
> > the summer
> > > 2006 convention, do a few mini-conventions. Typical scenario:
> > >
> > > An NGO wishes to interconnect the villages it works in.
> It pays for
> > > equipment (or finds its own funding for it). We raise funds
> > to bring
> > > in a couple of international experts (possibly different
> ones over
> > > time), so they get a feel for local problems, besides sharing the
> > > training load. Also, we fund the travel and stay of
> representatives
> > > from other NGOs, who take back the concept to their own
> > organisations.
> > > In order that use of the network begins right away, we deploy
> > > low-power FM radio stations in each interconnected
> village. Our NGO
> > > partners could also start applications such as telemedicine and
> > > distance learning.
> > >
> > > In this way, we will have built a constituency that supports the
> > > concept, with enough technical expertise and experience
> to benefit
> > > from all the people coming to the summer convention. The
> experience
> > > would also give us a precise idea of where the problems
> > lie, enabling
> > > us to focus the agenda of the convention better.
> > >
> > > I must also mention, Juergen, that we have one other long-term
> > > commitment in Radiophony, computer applications in disability.
> > > That will also take up some of our time, more mine than
> Vickrams, I
> > > suspect (Vickram has been focussing more on innovative
> > applications of
> > > FM radio, see separate mail I am forwarding). But we are a
> > team, and
> > > will surely hold our end up.
> > >
> > > We should plan a session at the convention on WiFi and
> > disability. For
> > > the blind and people with motor disabilities, just the
> > simple act of
> > > getting onto the Net is a serious problem, particularly while
> > > travelling. Oh, and what did you think about my post
> > relating to using
> > > a WiFi card as an input device, similar to the theremin?
> > >
> > > So, what would be the next step? Ideas on funding? Our
> resources at
> > > the moment are stretched, as a result of trying to
> > propagate low power
> > > FM radio, fighting the regulatory battle, etc. Our work in
> > disability
> > > has mostly been free so far as well.
> > >
> > > Warmly,
> > > Arun
>

----- End forwarded message -----