Re: More participation from under-represented regions

["Edwin A. Opare" <aeopare@xxxxxxxxx>]

>The elephant in the  room is that there hasn't been any discussion about what has been done
> to get more participation from under-represented regions but nobody has
> mentioned that.

I believe there's the need for a lot more awareness creation about the IETF in the under-represented regions. That is a sure way to get more participation from there. In Ghana where I come from for instance not many people know about the IETF, let alone the wonderful work they are doing to ensure the continuous development and evolution of the Internet.

The awareness creation should start at the grassroots level : "The Universities"!. Train the soon-to-graduate Computer Scientist/Engineer on the values and essence of the IETF and it'll forever be with them even after graduation. 

To elicit participation from the under-represented regions, the universities are a sure starting point, then a lot more industry-focused awareness creation by the ISOC local Chapters.

--
Regards,

Edwin

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Melinda Shore <melinda.shore@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 5/26/13 12:08 PM, SM wrote:
> The elephant in the
> room is that there hasn't been any discussion about what has been done
> to get more participation from under-represented regions but nobody has
> mentioned that.

One of the things that's really popped out in the discussion
on the ericas list is that none of the people posting have
been from vendors/manufacturers, which right now is by far
the largest sector participating in the IETF.  The posters
have either been academics or from operators.  We can't even
get much participation from operators in North America and
Europe.  The industry sector bias in IETF participation is
possibly compounding the regional bias.

Melinda