[wsfii-discuss] workshops at wsfii africa (aug/sep 2007)

Tue Mar 27 22:59:43 UTC 2007

hey everybody

first: this mail is adressed to wirelessghana-staff and CC to the
discussion and coordination lists of the WSFII community (about 400
subscribers worldwide). if you have not allready subscribed maybe u
could do these days ...

in the WIKI to plan the preperation meeting and the WSFII in ghana
(opendiv.org), we have posted some ideas also inspired by the
impressions i have made during my visit in ghana last october (thread:
meeting with marco). during a meeting between daniel paufler and me we
discussed the question of involvement of NGO staff and maybe
governmental staff working in Community Ressource Centers (CRC). there
was also the question of providing introduction workshops for local or
even national officials, or students of non-ict lessons from the
universities. these groups havent been considered consequently until
now, maybe even for good reason. some reason to involve them might be
the following:

NGOs and CRC staff
- to involve NGOs and governmental CRCs means to involve people, who are
interested to connect people in the rural part of ghana, or abroad.
- these people often play an active and very important role in bringing
knowledge and ict facilities to poor rural people, and could be reliable
partners for an expanding process for non-profit WIFI networks in ghana
and abroad.
- CRC very often have pc-pools, sometimes even internet cafes, using a
Vsat connection. so their is some ict-know-how and a serious interest in
WSFII philosophy and technology.

Officials
- there is one basic idea about involving local leaders,
university-lecturers and maybe even representatives from the ministery
of communications: they have the power either to help
non-profit-wifi-networks to spread, or to disturb or block them. on the
other hand definitly there will be a number of officials who will love
to be involved and informed. the question is what kind of roleplay WE
will offer them. i dont think it is nessecary to let them have lots of
space for presenting themselves and putting up their own agenda during
the WSFII. but to invite them for special workshops introducing the
WSFII, WILUG and wirelessghana.com (and more) shall help a lot in future.

Non-ICT-students
- especially students from the social-works-department and
socio-sciences or those who involve in the
students-representative-councils will be very interested in the WSFII.
- they could play an active role to support the building of
non-profit-WIFI-networks, either in the universities and their
neighbourhood, or in their home-communities or those communities they
will work in after studying.
- they will need the same workshops as the officials. some may have some
technical capacity or interest.

this suggestions surely sounds a little megalomaniac. nevertheless it
seems very possible in my eyes, as i already have been contacting some
people from all 3 groups when I was in ghana in october 2006, to promote
wirelessghana.com. please, share your ideas about it, and consider how
you could involve in the activities nessecary to make this happen. I
would love to come to ghana in june to help you going around and spread
the news, but still have a financial problems ...

greetings, marco pompe (berlin)