On 5/26/13 4:01 PM, SM wrote:
Hi Edwin,
At 13:59 26-05-2013, Edwin A. Opare wrote:
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.
AfNOG has trained hundreds of people in Africa. Those people do not
participate on the mailing list.
They are network operators, system adminstrators, students and NGO
participants bootstraping parts of the experience by participating in
activities with their regional peers. A week-long series of workshops
held once a year has some worthwhile goals and notable sucesses I don't
think of it a fertile training ground for new IETF participants.
There are some people from Africa who have attended IETF meetings.
They don't participate in the IETF. Why is it that there are some
participants from South America whereas there aren't any participants
from Africa?
People come to the IETF with work because they have a problem which the
work product of their contribution through the IETF activity addresses.
That's fairly expensive, time consuming, and has uncertain results.
There are past and present contributors from various parts of the
continent, I've had the privilege of working with some of them.
Regards,
-sm