Re: [ericas] Starting the discussion

[S Moonesamy <[e-mail]>]

Hi Vinayak,
At 17:36 28-04-2013, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
>Partly I think these people are self-selecting. It is a chicken and 
>egg problem. People do not participate and hence do not see value. 
>There is some initial handholding

Thanks for participating.  I agree that people do not participate and 
hence do not see value.

>enough critical mass of techies related to Internet). Also I think 
>people from emerging countries should help themselves and not wait 
>for outside help. I think South America has some critical mass and 
>has some good leaders in Alejandro / Eduardo / Hugo who attend 
>meetings regularly and also participate in the regional conferences. 
>I have met quite a few active participants from South America. I am 
>pretty sure that atleast some of this success can be replicated in 
>other regions.

I agree that people from emerging countries should help themselves 
and not wait for outside help.  In my opinion there is critical mass 
in South America.  I attended a few IETF meetings.  I see people from 
South America emerging (you mentioned some of them above).

>I attended SANOG and local ISOC meetings and talked about the IETF 
>(and my experience at the meetings and the mailing lists). There was 
>a good deal of interest and a few people joined the mailing lists 
>and applied for the fellowships but again there was no initial 
>handholding and some of these people dropped off. IF anyone has any 
>suggestions on how to do this better, then they are welcome.

It might be good to identify people early and peer with them to 
overcome the barriers instead of letting people drop off.

I once participated in a standardization forum.  Someone complained 
that he applied for the ISOC fellowship several times and he never 
received any answer.  I asked what he can do to contribute to the 
IETF.  There was a heated discussion after that.  One of the 
responses I heard was "we have to go to a meeting before we can contribute".

I followed another standardization forum at a remote hub.  There were 
a few IETF working group chairs doing presentations.  At the end of 
the event I had a talk with a few participants (university 
people).  I did not see any interest in participating.  This brings 
us to the "do not see value" mentioned above.

>  India for several years. All were well attended and went off well. 
> What will also help is that if we can have a pre/post meetings (I 
> don't know how this can be done) so that there is continuous 
> interest leading to the event so it is not a one-off thing. I think 
> this happened in Beijing and there is some good participation from China.

By the way China is better organized than India.  There are some 
people from South America who have been arguing for meetings in South 
America.  The is only person I know who argued for meetings in 
India.  It can be seen as "not sufficient interest".  You might be 
able to change that. :-)

Regards,
S. Moonesamy