[ericas] Fwd: Re: [88attendees] AFRICANs @ the IETF 88

Asmic Computers ZA/NG <asmicom@ngportal.com> Fri, 08 November 2013 13:23 UTC

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Subject: [ericas] Fwd: Re: [88attendees] AFRICANs @ the IETF 88
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> ---------- Original Message ----------
>  From: Asmic Computers ZA/NG <asmicom@ngportal.com>
>  To: Spencer Dawkins <spencerdawkins.ietf@gmail.com>, "Fred Baker (fred)"
> <fred@cisco.com>
>  Cc: "88attendees@ietf.org" <88attendees@ietf.org>
>  Date: 08 November 2013 at 11:53
>  Subject: Re: [88attendees] AFRICANs @ the IETF 88
> 
>  Many thanks goes to Spencer Dawkins and Fred Baker for the non-exhaustive
> list of things we should also look into. They are highly informative.
> 
> 
>  There are just so much things to talk about that time wouldn't permit us to
> do this morning.
> 
> 
>  Parts of the Agenda:::
>  1. Contributing to the IETF: The IETF 88 just showed many of us how ideas are
> turned into standards. Wouldn't it be good to see (native) African names on an
> RFC, IAB, WG-chairs, e.t.c.? One way of doing so is by having a "fighting
> spirit" with continuous mentorship/support from the IETF members & various
> bodies. Just before  the term "WebRTC or RTCWeb" came into the limelight in
> 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC), someone from Africa had earlier
> seen a need for it
> (http://conferences.sigcomm.org/co-next/2007/papers/studentabstracts/paper23.pdf).
> It was in 2007 that the idea first came up and a proof of concept was later
> developed (http://bit.ly/R3SFtc). Today, the RTCWeb Working Group is now
> standardizing it.  It started out as an application (OR an idea) -i.e.
>  getting SIP into browsers for browser-to-browser communication. I am certain
> that there are some many other ideas like that coming out of Africa. We now
> need to push ourselves further to get our names there.
> 
>  2. Getting more people involved: AT the moment, over ten people (students,
> academics, e.t.c.) from different African countries have asked me how they can
> get involved in the IETF activities. SOme other IETF 88 fellows from the
> continent have also suggested that we talk about ways of sharing our
> experiences. The situation is not peculiar to Africa. Many thanks to the task
> force from South America that now wants to guide us on possible
> ways/solutions.
> 
>  3. Re-imaging the world's view about Africa: Yes, I used the word "re-image."
> I am referring to the computing concept from "virtual images."  What people
> hear/see about the continent (mostly negative things) is different from what
> they see, when the visit (some parts of) the continent.   How do we get the
> continent to earn its own respect like Asia and South America? (Ref -
> http://www.siliconafrica.com/it-takes-a-network-to-beat-a-network/)
> 
> 
>  Please feel free to dump your thoughts as you've been doing.....
> 
>  Regards.
> 
> 
>  > On 08 November 2013 at 08:30 Spencer Dawkins
>  > <spencerdawkins.ietf@gmail.com> wrote:
>  >
>  >
>  > On 11/7/2013 8:24 PM, Fred Baker (fred) wrote:
>  > > On Nov 7, 2013, at 3:07 AM, Asmic Computers ZA/NG <asmicom@ngportal.com>
>  > > wrote:
>  > >> I would be interested in talking to you all on how we can improve on our
>  > >> representation and contributions to the IETF. It would also be good to
>  > >> discuss how we can help develop the continent via this network.
>  > > An important consideration in this is that while your presence in
>  > > meetings is valuable, your presence on mailing lists is also valuable and
>  > > comparatively inexpensive. As a first step, you might consider looking
>  > > through the set of drafts labeled draft-ietf-*.txt, which is to say
>  > > "working group drafts". Their working group will generally be the third
>  > > word, like draft-ietf-ospf or draft-ietf-v6ops. Access them online, and,
>  > > if they interest you, comment on them. The most interesting comments will
>  > > be those that improve them in some way - identify issues and suggest
>  > > text. That will get african viewpoints into discussions regarding current
>  > > work product.
>  > >
>  > > BTW, the same goes for south americans and anyone else that feels
>  > > under-represented. Get involved on mailing lists.
>  > >
>  > > Daily news can be found at https://www.ietf.org, and specifically
>  > > http://tools.ietf.org/dailydose/. It takes a minute to look at it, and
>  > > from time to time you may find something of interest to comment on. You
>  > > can also go to http://tools.ietf.org/html/.
>  > >
>  > > If you need guidance regarding a given working group, the obvious people
>  > > to get it from are the chairs, which you can reach by emailing the
>  > > -chairs@tools.ietf.org list for the working group. For example, if you
>  > > want to reach the v6ops chairs, email v6ops-chairs@tools.ietf.org. For a
>  > > list of the working groups and access to their charters and their mailing
>  > > list membership processes, go to http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/.
>  > >
>  > > The next step might include writing your own drafts and submitting them
>  > > for discussion. But you don't need to rush into that; get a sense of
>  > > what's going on and then contribute to it.
>  >
>  > I agree with Fred's suggestions, and wanted to mention a couple of other
>  > things ...
>  >
>  > If during your checking around you find problems with protocols we're
>  > working on that don't work in your particular country or environment,
>  > please tell us.
>  >
>  > I'm remembering (possibly dreaming, it's been a long week) that GeoPriv
>  > was rolling along when someone somewhere in Asia pointed out that in
>  > their country, and perhaps only in their country, some civic addresses
>  > included *alleys*, and asked how these addresses should be encoded. If
>  > we hadn't heard from participants from that country, we wouldn't have
>  > known until someone tried to deploy products in that country
>  > (inconveniently late for a standards discussion).
>  >
>  > The TSV area has been looking at a tunneling/compression/multiplexing
>  > proposal (details at http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/87/tcmtf.html, and
>  > this is likely to pop back up at IETF 89 in London, if the BOF
>  > requestors ask for that). It turns out that we got some support from
>  > African participants who find it fits their connectivity to the rest of
>  > the Internet.
>  >
>  > You might also check out the discussions to date on the diversity
>  > mailing list, where people are doing things like asking what it would
>  > take to set up regional meetings for folks who can't travel to an IETF
>  > meeting, so that more people can engage and contribute. See
>  > http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/diversity/current/maillist.html for
>  > the archive.
>  >
>  > If you're thinking about how to help people back home who weren't able
>  > to attend, you might also make use of training materials from the Sunday
>  > tutorials (for instance, the IETF 87 Newcomer's Training is at
>  > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/87/slides/slides-87-edu-newcomers-4.pdf
>  > - I just reported that the IETF 88 version returned a 404/not found).
>  > These aren't all process tutorials, either - for instance, if people
>  > care about realtime applications and infrastructure,
>  > http://www.ietf.org/proceedings/88/slides/slides-88-edu-introtorai-0.pdf
>  > would be helpful.
>  >
>  > I hope this helps you and your colleagues contribute effectively to the
>  > IETF.
>  >
>  > Spencer, in this case, writing as an AD
>  >
>