Vice-Chairman of PacINET 2010 Planning Committee's Speech at yesterday's fundraising night

A PacINET 2010 Kava Night event was organised yesterday 23rd May 2010, to raise awareness of the PacINET 2010 conference and campaign for sponsorship to run the event. Vice-chairman of the PacINET 2010 planning committee delivered the following speech.

Good evening everyone,

Honorable… etc …Ladies and Gentlemen,

I must thank you for taking the time from you normal schedules to come and join us this evening for this informal get-together. I want say a few words before we continue.

Firstly I would like to introduce you to the special group that organized this evening's gathering. It is a group of ICT volunteers; some here and some not here tonight who represent the ICT community in Vanuatu. We belong to a formal association called the Vanuatu Information Technology Users Society (VITUS) formally formed in 2006 and now has over 200 members who are mainly IT professionals in the country. This group had been involved a lot with the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet society and this year we have won the bid to host the chapter's annual ICT conference called PacINET. In fact the current Chairman of PICISOC is our very own member here in Vanuatu who was elected last year.

PacINET is a big event that is held every year since 2002 around the Pacific Islands. During these conferences, international speakers are normally invited to speak on important topics to boost ICT developments in the region. For instance Vinton Cerf who is known to be the father of internet has attended two conferences, one in Kiribati 2005 and the other in Samoa 2006.

Free hands-on technical trainings are normally offered by technical experts who volunteered for the conference. PacINET has always been the best and biggest ICT conference in the region as both technical and non-technical issues are discussed. Many governments and private institutions in the region have always taken the lead in these conferences, for example, in 2006 the Samoan Prime Minister participated in the conference in Apia, in 2008 the Prime Minister's office took the lead in organizing the conference in Cook Islands, and in 2009 the ICT department in took the lead in sponsoring the event in PNG.

In 2004 Vanuatu hosted the event here in Port Vila but at that time we have a very small group from Vanuatu who actually attended. This year we (this small group) are members of the local organizing committee and we represent both the government of Vanuatu and the private sector. We have been working hard since last year to get things ready for the conference. The dates are 13th – 17th September and our venue is USP Emalus Campus and the conference theme is "Next Generation Internet: Security and Governance". We will the conference and technical hands-on training as well which we believe will benefit our local IT professionals who could not afford these trainings overseas.

I am bringing this event to your attention as leaders of this nation. We need your support especially in financial and logistical support in order for this conference to not only be the best but also to benefit this nation in terms of ICT development. We know the government is serious about ICT that is why we have the e-government project underway. There is a possibility to have an Internet Governance forum run by international experts and would like to see high level government official attend this particular forum.

I want to finish off by saying that we will be coming around knocking on your office door and requesting your support and I believe you will respond positively as you already know the benefits of this conference. I also want ask you in advance to plan to participate in the conference when the time comes.

Thank you very much again for your attention.

PacInet Kava Night Friday 21st May - Drink and Donate

A PacINET 2010 Kava Night - Drink and Donate, event was organized yesterday 23rd May 2010, at the Vanuatu Reserve Bank's social club premises.

Those invited were from government dignitaries or those in strategic divisions of the Government and private sectors.

The program was composed of the following parts.

a) Opening Prayer b) Start Kava c) Welcome By the Governor c) Netty's speech d) Help participants understand the idea behind the conference e) Closing

The Vice-Chairman of the organising committee, Mrs Nettie Collins delivered a speech to kick-off the social and an important part of the event, i.e. to raise awareness of the PacINET 2010 conference and campaign for sponsorship to run the event.

PacINET 2010 Organising Committee Meeting minute - 22/04/2010

Date: 22 April 2010


Venue: HRD Unit, Public Service Commission


Present: Andrew Molivurae, Dan Mcgarry, Anthony Josiah and John Jack


Apologies: Daryl

Prior to the commencement of the meeting, apologies were made due to some misunderstandings which resulted in exchanges of e-mails between members of the pacinet-2010 mailing list. It was confirmed that Daryl is still member of the committee.

Agenda:

1. Minutes of Last Meeting - It was moved, seconded and agreed that this is the true minute of last meeting.

2. Matters arising from Last meeting minute

a. Domain - Thanks to Dan for completing the work on the website (www.pacinet-2010.org). It was agreed that Dan liaise with William Tiben about the contents of the web site. PICISOC will have a link to point to the PacINET 2010 website which will have all the information about the conference.

b. Kava Night - Chairman thanked all who have contributed to the kava night held at Emalus Campus. Chair-Lady of the Finance Committee will report later to PacINET 2010 about the Kava Night.

3. Date of PacINET 2010 Conference - PICISOC's board agreed that the date of the PacINET 2010 Conference be moved forward. The reason being that the IGF conference will be held on the week and some key speakers may not be available for either one of the two conferences. New date for the PacINET 2010 Conference will be 27 September to 01 October 2010.

We will keep our booking for USP Emalus Conference facilities but we will need to find a new venue while we continue our discussions with PICISOC and let them know about our findings.

4. Update Report - This agenda has been postponed for our next face-to-face meeting.

5. Letter Head - Letter head for our local correspondences will have both the PacINET 2010 and PICISOC logo. However, for all our overseas correspondences, we only use PICISOC's logo.

For our local correspondences, letter head will change when we get confirmation of sponsorship as per our minute for our meeting dated 18 March 2010.

Once letter head is ready, we can start sending out our letters to some of our corporate sponsors.

5. Theme - ISOC asks if PacINET 2010 Committee can organize a forum on IPv6 and Paul Wilson (Head of APNIC) will be the key speaker.

It was agreed that Andrew send an e-mail about suggestions to amend the theme to cater for the IPv6 forum.

Dan has already made preliminary contacts with some possible speakers. It was agreed that Dan liaise with Maureen about the speakers for the conference

6. AOB - It was agreed that we make use Skype online meeting due to non attendance of some members of the committee because of work commitment.

Daryl Moon resigns as Pacinet 2010 committee

Daryl Moon is Datec Vanuatu Ltd Engineering and Technical Manager. He got involved during the forming of the planning group with initial plans of PacINET 2010. He was leading the Communication and Marketing Group before he resigned.

Below is an extract from the e-mail he wrote to Chairman of the PacINET planning committee, as well as the Chairman of VITUS and PICISOC, Mr. Andrew Molivurae.

Apologies for my late reply to Andrew's request (below).

My reasons for resigning from the PACINET committee were (and remain) as follows:

1. Lack of communication between our committee and PICISOC. We discussed issues at great length and did a lot of work in preparation but the ideas and issues never seemed to get to the PICISCO committee for discussion/decisions. We wasted a lot of time and effort as a result. Nothing seemed to get actioned and this does not seem to have changed much and the conference date is looming fast.
2. I have a very busy full time job and cannot afford to have my valuable time away from work wasted. This impacts my family and friends and I have too little of that time now (as I am constantly reminded!).
3. Total lack of response from PICISOC board members to the attacks made on us on the PICISOC mailing list. I thought this was pretty poor that no-one ever contacted me to express any comment or apology or anything at all about the way we were treated and the comments made by other PICISOC mailing list members. We were very diplomatically trying to say "Your PICISOC website is crap and we need to do something better to market the PaciNet 2010 event" to a much wider audience. Our suggestion was a new site for the even linked back to the PICISOC website.
4. Having read Dans comments late last week I must also say that I tend to agree with his position. We are happy to assist, advise, share our experiences etc, but at the end of the day it is a Vanuatu event and not an event that should be run by expats.

I am happy to continue to provide any advice and support that you may require but not as a member of the organizing committee. It is time for some others to step up and make a contribution to their big event.

Kind regards


Daryl Moon

Dan McGarry resigned as interim VITUS secretary and member of the...

Effective immediately, I'm resigning my position as Interim Secretary of

the Vanuatu IT Users Society as well as my membership in the Vanuatu
organizing committee for the PacINET 2010 conference.

I'm sharing my reasons for doing so because I think it's in the
community's interest.

Since my arrival in Vanuatu in 2003, I've carefully adhered to one
fundamental rule: Support local initiatives, but DO NOT take the lead.
It's my firm conviction that the role of expats is to assist with
whatever needs doing, but at all costs to avoid having undue influence
over the decisions that get made.

In order for a community to function, it requires coordination,
cooperation and support. People need to talk to each other; they need to
work together; they need to help others.

With VIGNET and other sources of communication, we've been more
successful at communicating than just about any other Pacific country.
We should all be very proud of that.

We have had some modest successes in working together. Though the level
of activity is lower than many might want it to be, there have been a
few notable successes.

Support, however, is far, far too low.

Percentage-wise, involvement in IT community activities in Vanuatu is
about on par with other countries in the world. But in real numbers, the
group committed to bringing Kastom & culture into the Information Age is
unsustainably small. As things stand right now, the success of an entire
process often rests on the efforts (or lack thereof) of a single individual.

If things don't change, Vanuatu's technological progress will remain in
the hands of a few well-intentioned but overburdened individuals. I've
thought about this carefully for some months now, and it seems to me
that the necessary change is not forthcoming.

It's my sincere hope that my resignation will ultimately prove to be
mistaken. The people of Vanuatu have made me family and given me a home.
I owe this country a debt of love and gratitude that is greater than I
can express. Nothing would make me happier than to see the cleverness,
creativity and deep sense of community that make up the ni-Vanuatu
identity applied and extended into the digital world.

But right now, I'm tired. I'm also worried: I dare not work alone -or
even with such a tiny minority- because that runs counter to my
convictions against imposing outside values onto the community at large.

For that reason, I see no alternative but to step back from any official
involvement in these activities.

--
Dan McGarry                     dmcgarry@imagicity.com

Writing:                        http://scriptorum.imagicity.com/
Photos:                         http://www.imagicity.com/

1st fund-raising towards PacINET-2010.

First fundraising activity towards the PacINET 2010 event was organized on 16th April at USP Emalus Campus.

The Organizing team members contributed to food and Kava sales of the evening and raised a profit of VT31,000.

Contribution of VT1,000 is open to all VIGNET members .








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VU team in battle over pacinet-2010.org

by Matt Temar

The PACINET 2010 event organizers in Vanuatu have landed on a battle spot with their neighbor colleagues over the pacinet-2010.org website.

The local organizing committee decided to run a separate website and logo to the official PICISOC model which has been driving PICISOC for few years now.

The website and logo has drawn criticisms from the PICISOC community over its location and design which some member think it does not reflect the PICISOC spirit of ones.

Some members feared PICISOC could be fragmented over the opinion and having the information hosted somewhere does not centralize conference information.

However, spokesperson of the organizing team, Dan McGarry clarified Vanuatu's stand on the issue.

"The PICISOC board hasn't ruled on this yet, so please hold your criticisms. Naturally the Vanuatu committee will abide by whatever PICISOC decides",he said.

"Separate sites for recurring events are quite common throughout the world, from the Olympics on down", he added.

Some member's have backed Vanuatu's stand on the issue saying they see no harm with PICISOC and better to serve the purpose not only about PACINET 2010 but some Vanuatu sights that could be of significance during the conference period.

Lynold Wini from Solomon Islands who was heavily involved in organizing PACINET 2007 said, "I do see similarities between the Vanuatu case and our own in 2007. Back then we also made the arguments based on the Olympic model because we had wanted to use a different logo. However, we came to an agreement with the Board quickly to avoid potential problems".

"I see no malice in the Vanuatu initiative and perhaps it is also time PICISOC (board) addresses the expectations of its membership. We (members) have a responsibility to ensure that our expectations are aligned to ISOC/PICISOC ideals but it does looks to me that more and more people are beginning to think a like in regards to how PacINET is hosted and how we (members) do it. PICISOC must evolve and respond accordingly", he said.

Lynold stated another good point to support his statement when he wrote to PICISOC mailing list that, at this point in time and age, integration of varied systems is now easier done then said. Let innovation lead the way.

Franck Martin who is the Vice-Chairman of the PICISOC board said he is concerned about the availability of information when the domain renewal arrives and hosting provisions expires.

He was quickly responded by members that perhaps the PICISOC website can archive it once the event is over. The issue can be easily addressed by following systems administration best practices.

But there are also numerous concern about the administration of the PICISOC website.

As Daryl Moon mentioned, "We needed a place where we could present the conference in a new light and with a fresh new image. Obviously this is not welcomed. Sadly the PICISOC website does not look like it has had any major changes for many years and does not reflect well on an organization that represents the Internet in the Pacific Islands. It would be extremely difficult to attract sponsors and the wider community if it is dictated how and what tools we use".

With these being noted by the community, it is now up with PICISOC board to hand down their judgment over Vanuatu's position on the matter.

Till then, see you in the next edition.


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