Re: IETF Meeting in South America

[Jari Arkko <[e-mail]>]

For what it is worth, I wanted to provide my perspective on this. I of course believe that it is important that the IETF reaches out to an even more international participation than it already has. This is first of all because we really need the views from different types of organisations and different parts of the world. For instance, I recently had an opportunity to talk to a number of people about peering in different regions. It really opened my eyes about how the Internet experience can differ from what I've been used to so far. We also need to understand how regionally changing requirements for, e.g., emergency communications or whitespace management affect our work. Finally, our international coverage is not just important for our work but also for how we are perceived. For all of these reasons, reaching out to different parts of the world is important, and one aspect of that is rotating through meeting locations around the world.

I would also like to highlight one part of the message from Bob:

> The IAOC would
> also like to get feedback on how we can ensure the meeting is as successful as
> possible and on ways to grow participation in the region.

This is really important, and I hope that we get good feedback on what kinds of things would be useful to do in order to achieve this. That is, we're not just asking a binary question if the meeting is or is not ok. 

Just meeting in some place does not bring too many new participants, at least not in a lasting manner. But combined with some other actions, this may be possible. Are there specific companies or research teams that we could reach out to, and who might want to be involved in the IETF? Are there local events where where it would be useful to have someone from the IETF give a talk? Are there specific IETF or IRTF efforts where we could get more people from South America involved? Should the ISOC fellows program target something different than it has so far, or be scaled up? Other ideas?

Jari

P.S. By coincidence, I happened to visit Buenos Aires last year, and found it to be a fun city. I felt safe and despite not speaking the local language I was able to talk to the friendly locals, order food, access the network, acquire a SIM card (albeit with some bureaucratic and technical difficulties, but I think I can still dig up the MNC numbers that were needed to configure the phone correctly :-), use the airports, rent a car, and find a Finnish sauna. I think the city offers all the essential ingredients for life :-)