Re: [Ietf-community-india] Fw: [Recentattendees] BANGKOK SELECTED FOR IETF 103

[Abhijan Bhattacharyya <[e-mail]>]

Hi Fred,
Thanks for the excellent insightful comments and suggestions. I have attended about 12 IETF meetings so far since 2012 (Paris). Given the fact that I belong to an "Indian" organization, this number should be quite significant compared to the overall level of participation from India. Out of these 12, I have been ISOC fellow for 4 times (means, I stayed in the meeting hotel). So, I can directly map the comments with my experience on the ground. In fact, since my very first meeting in "palais de congres" I used to think about our capacity in India to organize such meeting given all that I could get from a venue. The list that I prepared was basically churned out of my on the ground experience (as an Internet engineer as well as a traveler) across different host cities in different continents (including Buenos Aires). Also, I could compare the difference in experiences from city to city starting from the difficulties in booking a hotel (London was a bit difficult I must say) to general city amenities. 

Now when I think back and compare the current state of affairs in India, I feel that being an emerging economy, many Indian cities (which may not be as exposed to the silicon world as Bangalore or Hyderabad) have actually developed excellent state-of-the art facilities with plug-n-play infrastructure that works just in time. The professionalism and punctuality has been to the top standard in many events that has been recently organized in some cities in India. We need to do some homework of course to objectively compare the options against benchmarks.

Regarding the issue of culinary culture, I think we need to find a city which is highly cosmopolitan and has traditionally well mingled with Euro-American standards and is capable to serve a world cuisine with easy availability to fresh vegetables as well to meet special requirements. Given the long colonial history and given that India is largely an agrarian economy it may not be too difficult to arrange.

I had been to HICC during the ICANN meeting for couple of days. I am not sure about the room capacity and all as I restricted myself only to few interactions. But it is indeed an excellent venue. However, of course I found that there are some logistic and other related issues which need to be improved to meet the requirements  that we have been discussing on and make it at per with the other tried and tested IETF venues.

So, we need to put steady strides with bit more pondering on options that should be put on table. 

I might also come back with something which has started to ferment in my mind while writing this mail. But need some time to work that out a bit more before I write something concrete.      

Disclaimer: Please consider my contribution to this conversation as my individual opinion. Though I am using the official mail, the opinions expressed here do not represent my company stand in any way.
  
With Best Regards
 Abhijan Bhattacharyya
 Associate Consultant
 Scientist, TCS Research
 Tata Consultancy Services
 Building 1B,Ecospace
 Plot -  IIF/12 ,New Town, Rajarhat,
 Kolkata - 700160,West Bengal
 India
 Ph:- 033 66884691
 Cell:- [phone]
 Mailto: [e-mail]
 Website: http://www.tcs.com
 ____________________________________________
 Experience certainty.	IT Services
 			Business Solutions
 			Consulting
 ____________________________________________
 

-----Fred Baker <[e-mail]> wrote: -----

>To: Abhijan Bhattacharyya <[e-mail]>,
>"(naveen-IPv6)" <[e-mail]>
>From: Fred Baker <[e-mail]>
>Date: 02/05/2018 09:56AM
>Cc: Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>, Vishnu Ram
><[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>Subject: Re: [Ietf-community-india] Fw: [Recentattendees] BANGKOK
>SELECTED FOR IETF 103
>
>On Feb 4, 2018, at 7:58 PM, Abhijan Bhattacharyya
><[e-mail]> wrote:
>> Absolutely agree to Carsten and Fred.
>> 
>> We need to spot a decent venue
>> 
>> 1) in a city which has at least good single hop connectivity to
>major airport transit points;
>> 2) which should be easily accessible from the airport;
>> 3) surrounded with a combo of five star to budget hotels (3 star
>standards) with easy access to/ from the venue (means, enough public
>transport should be accessible just outside the venue without relying
>much on Internet taxi booking/ radio taxis) ;
>> 4) with an attached five start facility to host important people
>attending the meeting;
>> 5) able to host at least a 1000 heads for the plenary with decent
>audio visual and acoustics and also with enough smaller rooms to
>allow nearly 40 parallel WG meetings and ISOC functionalities;
>> 6) with decent affordable and hygienic food joints close by;
>
>Let me comment on "affordable and hygienic". We have people of all
>religious backgrounds including not having one, and their diets may
>be anything from vegan to kosher/halal/etc. We understand that in
>India you have some of that; we have all of it, in all varieties. One
>of our ladies in particular is basically allergic to planet earth and
>needs to buy all of her food at a farmer's market and prepare it
>herself (I have some sympathy for her; I have a daughter-in-law with
>the same problem -
>https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-barnes-healthy-food).
>
>> 7) in an area which is low on pollution;
>> 8) with decent nearby place where you can host a social event at an
>affordable price; (optional)
>> 9) in a city with well connected public transport and not too
>congested to make you scared to move few kilometers away;
>> 10) with some decent spots near by and also in surroundings for
>site seeing and tourist activities (optional but preferred);
>> 11) in a city which is safe for people to roam around.
>> 
>> Does the above list sound good?
>
>That's a good start. AT IETF meetings, we generally have nine tracks,
>which means that in most slots we have nine meetings running in
>parallel in different rooms. The sizes of the rooms vary (100-300 or
>thereabouts), and it's not unusual for several of them to be
>subdivisions of the larger rooms used for plenary sessions. More
>details from the secretariat or the IAD. The number of rooms isn't
>optional.
>
>Also, 1000-1500 people are going to be released to find lunch at
>11:30 or noon and expected back at 13:00 or 13:30. There are various
>ways to handle this - in some places, the hotel wheels in a cart full
>of sandwiches that people can quickly and easily purchase, and in
>other places there is a food court or equivalent that can handle it.
>The timing isn't optional, and "but in our culture we don't focus on
>time..." doesn't cut it. We fly halfway around the world to have a
>meeting. We're there for a meeting. Breakfast and dinner are more
>flexible.
>
>And no, we don't plan to spend half an hour at the start on a junior
>high science lab trying to make the electronics work. You don't
>expect that when you go to Europe or the US, and we don't expect it
>in India. Cf EDCO workshop last November.
>
>http://www.hicc.com/floor_plan/HICC-Consolidated_Map_of_Convention.pd
>f, at first glance, doesn't have rooms for 1500 people in nine tracks
>for a week. Happy to be corrected.
>
>> With Best Regards
>> Abhijan Bhattacharyya
>> Associate Consultant
>> Scientist, TCS Research
>> Tata Consultancy Services
>> Building 1B,Ecospace
>> Plot -  IIF/12 ,New Town, Rajarhat,
>> Kolkata - 700160,West Bengal
>> India
>> Ph:- 033 66884691
>> Cell:- [phone]
>> Mailto: [e-mail]
>> Website: http://www.tcs.com
>> ____________________________________________
>> Experience certainty.	IT Services
>> Business Solutions
>> Consulting
>> ____________________________________________
>> 
>> 
>> -----Fred Baker <[e-mail]> wrote: -----
>> To: Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>
>> From: Fred Baker <[e-mail]>
>> Date: 02/03/2018 01:00PM
>> Cc: Vishnu Ram <[e-mail]>, Abhijan Bhattacharyya
><[e-mail]>, [e-mail]
>> Subject: Re: [Ietf-community-india] Fw: [Recentattendees] BANGKOK
>SELECTED FOR IETF 103
>> 
>> And it shouldn't require a three day horseback ride to get from the
>airport to the hotel. We had a lot of grief over Hiroshima because
>after flying to Osaka one had to take a high speed train. Think about
>driving across Bangalore..
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> > On Feb 2, 2018, at 11:24 PM, Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]>
>wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Feb 3, 2018, at 08:13, Vishnu Ram <[e-mail]>
>wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I think we should work towards meeting the critieria in
>> >> draft-ietf-mtgvenue-iaoc-venue-selection-process-11
>> >
>> > Yes.  Note that it is not too easy to qualify for an IETF venue;
>e.g., people from Madrid have tried to get an IETF there but (at
>least last time I looked) Madrid just didn&#8217;t have the right places to
>meet at.
>> >
>> > So you really have to look at specific venues and their
>suitability; we can&#8217;t really meet &#8220;in India&#8221; but we need to meet at a
>specific hotel/conference center.  (And, of course, the city that one
>is in needs to be reachable without a three-day horseback ride, and
>needs to have enough hotels to house all the IETFers, but I think
>that&#8217;s rather easy to meet in India.)
>> >
>> > Grüße, Carsten
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Ietf-community-india mailing list
>> > [e-mail]
>> > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-community-india
>> =====-----=====-----=====
>> Notice: The information contained in this e-mail
>> message and/or attachments to it may contain
>> confidential or privileged information. If you are
>> not the intended recipient, any dissemination, use,
>> review, distribution, printing or copying of the
>> information contained in this e-mail message
>> and/or attachments to it are strictly prohibited. If
>> you have received this communication in error,
>> please notify us by reply e-mail or telephone and
>> immediately and permanently delete the message
>> and any attachments. Thank you
>> 
>> 
>
>
[attachment "signature.asc" removed by Abhijan Bhattacharyya/KOL/TCS]