[governance] IGF Workshops

Wed Nov 14 06:00:40 EST 2012

Dear all,
My impression is that the workshop quality has increased, compared to IGF 6.
I think some efforts may be done in order to merge overlapping workshops but it is important to stress the distinction between “duplicate workshops” and workshops that analyse similar issues from a different angle. Indeed, many of the workshops have similar titles but completely different contents, format, etc. 
For the sake of competition, I would say that it is better to have a wider choice of similar workshops and let the IGF participants “vote with their feet” by participating to the most valuable ones, rather than oblige workshop organisers to merge. 
Furthermore, I would like to join Stuart’s nice comment on Workshop 146 (Intellectual Property Rights and the freedom to share: are the two compatible?). Although my opinion is not really impartial, because I was directly involved in the organization of the workshop, I have to say that I received a lot of positive feedbacks and the participants where extremely pleased by three main features of the session: 1) the workshop was an interactive roundtable: panellists engaged in a question-and-answer debate since the very beginning and they were not allowed to deliver lectures (they had a maximum of 3-4 minutes to reply my questions);  2) a large portion of the workshop was dedicated to interventions from the audience. Indeed, we all know that some of the most interesting inputs to the workshops discussions frequently come from the audience;  3) we have decided to promote an intergenerational dialogue: the panel make-up included 11 panellists that were born between the 1950s and 1990s, and that was a real surplus value.
I know that is not realistic to involve youngsters in every workshop, but I believe that the promotion of an intergenerational dialogue is the best way to seize the dynamics of an intergenerational Internet. Moreover, having some new faces around can just help strengthen the “legitimacy” of the IGF discussions.  
Best regards.
Luca
PS: the workshop report will be available by the end of the week
Luca Belli
Doctorant en Droit PublicCERSA,Université Panthéon-AssasSorbonne University

> Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:46:29 +0100
> From: Stuart.Hamilton at ifla.org
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; ajp at glocom.ac.jp
> Subject: RE: [governance] IGF Workshops
> 
> Hi Adam
> 
> From the perspective of the library groups at the IGF we also felt that
> the quality of the workshops was good. We tried to put reports about the
> ones we were involved in as up as we went along, so please feel free to
> take a look here:
> 
> http://www.ifla.org/news/igf-baku-workshop-130-outcomes-digital-inclusio
> n-and-public-access-to-the-internet
> http://www.ifla.org/news/igf-baku-workshop-168-outcomes-capacity-buildin
> g-initiatives
> http://www.ifla.org/news/igf-baku-workshop-146-outcomes-intellectual-pro
> perty-rights-and-the-freedom-to-share
> 
> A background brief on libraries and public access was produced by all
> the library groups present, and ISOC, and can be found here:
> http://www.ifla.org/files/assets/clm/WSIS/libraries_public_access.pdf 
> 
> Our first Dynamic Coalition workshop also went well, so there will be
> outcomes from that to share soon enough. For those of you interested in
> issues relating to public access to the Internet please consider joining
> the DC's mailing list:  http://lists.apc.org/mailman/listinfo/pal-dc 
> 
> In general, I felt that that the sessions I got the most out of were
> those on intellectual property - there seemed to be more input from
> rightsholders this year (RIAA, Disney) and this made the discussions
> more interesting for me. It was good to get some input from the side of
> the media corps/reps as I feel previous IGF workshops on this topic have
> had quite a lot of groups from civil society in general agreement. Made
> for a better discussion.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Stuart
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: apeake at gmail.com [mailto:apeake at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Adam Peake
> Sent: 13 November 2012 11:18
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Subject: [governance] IGF Workshops
> 
> A lot of people I spoke to in Baku last week were very positive about
> the workshops, pretty common message was that the content the best of
> any IGF.  Not the main sessions, the workshops.  I was working for the
> secretariat (contract ended with the conference), I didn't make it to
> any workshop, and not much outside the main hall.
> 
> I'd love to hear of workshops and other meetings people found valuable.
> Is there something to build on for next year?  Taking stock for the
> first consultation of next year will start soon (or soon'ish).
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Adam
> 
> 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20121114/003361e3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t