[wsfii-discuss] Re: taking lead and self organization

Fri Jun 29 14:20:31 UTC 2007

Thomas, Ian, All,

I suggest we consider all our schedules in planning this event and also
the level of commitment that we can realistically put into this as we
consider the former. I recall with my communications with Marco that he
suggested that January might be a good revised date for the Summit as we
had previously planned for Africa.

However a workshop and gathering is being planned for Ghana from August
1-10 and everyone in the wsfii network is welcome to attend.

Regarding the lengthy discussion about the organizational structure of
wsfii.I feel it is very much an intellectual discussion and I would like
to hear more about how any consensus decision for managing wsfii would
be applied and implemented. The reality is we need to balance the ideals
of wsfii with the practical need to get things done in an effective way
that validates the efforts of the volunteers. Otherwise wsfii will
continue to be a disappointment for many who get involved.

In terms of the noted lack of communications from Ghana: part of the
explanation is that at the current time Kafui and his team is very busy
organizing the WODiV program in Ghana and so they are not able to keep
up with the communications in this group much less respond to it.

Marco is in Ghana now and I anticipate that he will be able to
facilitate communications between the international wsfii discussion
group and the local networks.

Thomas great comments. I discuss with my team about making a report of
WODiV done by one of our interns that includes a survey of local people
made available to the public. The report considers the application of
ICT4D and many of the issues you talk about. Possibly we should consider
how the wsfii Africa wiki can be used to further develop the comments
you make below.

Jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org
[mailto:wsfii-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On Behalf Of Thomas Maketa
Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 2:30 AM
To: Discuss list on the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure
Subject: Re: [wsfii-discuss] Re: taking lead and self organization

Sorry I did not know all the background history of the event, and I
think it will be good to put it somewhere in the website so new comers
as me understand the storyline(by the way where are we  for the refont
of the site, who is coordinating it? I proposed to translation but where
will I start? How will I access it?). 

I thorouglly agree on the integration of local people and application of
ICT4D, and it would be interesting for people on the ground to make a
little survey to have an idea on what are people needs in term of
communication and services that ICT could facilitate, communication with
family, exchange of certain information, training in certain domains not
available in their regions,...... 
Not answers like access to Internet(which means not much at all),
With these information it would help people to proposes "in self
organized way" programe filling needs where we could use tools like
webinars, VOIP, workshop on content management, network buildings,etc 
I think in that way the meeting  could have a really impact in the
community.  

I would also want to know what is the social environment of the site, is
the city deserved by electricty, are people keen to use computers, Are
computers available on the comunity? what is their  average income,
which kind of business the city have. 

People in Ghana must  participate on these discusion, we should see if
we can prepare skype conference (isnt it any open source soft that we
can use instead ?) , webinar as proposed by Ashish or other things.
But as the date is approaching (by the way what is going to be that
date???can we start interpreting results of the poll, and please people
participate to it??) 
it must be done as soon as posible so all the stakeholder "meet",
discuss agree on the vision on logistics, housing facilities (if there
is any..), ...

This date setting is very important so people can know if they will be
able to participate or not and start planning. 
On 6/28/07, Ian Howard <ihoward at netdotworking.com> wrote:
*All,

Sorry, but I was kicked from the list due to a DNS error with my MX, so
I am just now catching up on some of the discussion.

I see some strong refutation to my suggestion to not forget about the
principles of self-organization. I don't want to get into some kind of
flame war on the subject, nor argue about the virtues and faults of open
source etc., my suggestion was that I think that that value
(self-organization) should not be lost in whatever way we decide to 
organize the event. As I indicated subsequently, there are perhaps ways
to arrive at a hybridized solution, but so long as the end result is
that we have something that encourages participation and allows for
contribution from all interested. So, to be clear, I am not opposed to a
coordinator, in fact I support the idea of having some key people more
actively involved, but I am opposed to someone taking outright
authority. Whomever is appointed should be willing and interested in 
seeking input from the stakeholders, local and international.

One note, regarding Thomas' posting, from my recollection the idea to
have this conference did not originate with the local group, unless
perhaps they had an event that we have merged with WSFII and in fact,
this event began as a self-organizing event. So, it would not be right
to say that we are taking it and making it a self-organizing event. But
to return to the topic of engaging this group, again, we need to really
find a way to engage with our local people so that they can participate
in these discussions. Perhaps we can figure out a way to do that?

What we are doing here is more important than just this meeting, we are
forging two interesting paths, one, an inclusive process of
self-organizing for the international ICT4D community and second, we are
figuring out new ways to engage local groups into this process. If we 
advance these concepts, than we have done something, IMHO, much more
important than the conference itself.

Ian

Thomas Maketa* tmaketa at gmail.com
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I'm seeing a lot of people contributing to the discusion but so far the 
minutes of the ganaheein comittee is the first contribution I see from
the
ghanaien people on the ground.

I would really want to know what they think of the discusion of this
mailing
list, are they understanding that, it's how I perceive it, "WE" want to 
somehow use this event and turning it to a  self organized event,
perhaps
far from what they are planning and that they risk to lose control of it
?

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