[governance] WSIS+10 in Paris: Brief report from day 1

[Norbert Bollow]

Dear all

Here is a brief report from day 1 of the WSIS+10 review conference
in Paris.

As usual, one of the highlights of such events is the
opportunity to interact in-person with people with whom you
otherwise will only communicate electronically. Those
conversations were again the highlights of the day for me.

Unsurprisingly, many of the speeches from political dignitaries
(ministers etc.) were not particularly interesting to me.

The three interventions from civil society reprentatives (Grace
Githaiga in the opening session; Michael Gurstein followed by
Anriette Esterhuysen in the "High level" session) were however
good and interesting and made important points.

Of course other speakers also made good points. One theme that
came up in many different variations is that practices and
philosophy of the Free Software and Open Source movements are
not only applicable to computer software, but also in many other
ways, for example in regard to needed changes in education to
"break the walls of the classroom".

Personally I found the remarks of Rajendra Pachauri (the chair
of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) very inspiring
and energizing: He spoke on applying knowledge to address
important global problems, among which he emphasized not only
climate change but also poverty. Nothing about what he pointed
out is really new or surprising to anyone who is minimally well
informed, but I still found his intervention highly significant.
Perhaps the reason which makes me assign significance to his
words is not so much the content of what he said, but the fact
that (at least from my perspective) he did not come across as
some speaking with the voice of a politician, but as someone with
a mindset grounded in engineering. Also significant is the
prominence that the WSIS+10 organizers assigned to his brief
speech by putting it first in the "high level panel" before all
the ministers.

In summary, perhaps the main point of the day is that the
concept of knowledge societies really needs to be about the
sharing and application of knowledge in practical ways.

Greetings,
Norbert

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