Report-backs

APC makes recommendations to UN internet governance forum

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA --
The second Internet Governance Forum (IGF) concluded on November 15 and
the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) presents an
initial assessment of the event and makes suggestions for moving
towards the third forum in New Delhi in a year’s time.

The Rio IGF, like the first IGF in Athens, succeeded as a space for
inclusive policy dialogue. The openness of the event’s format and the
quality and diversity of the participants deepened understanding of
complex and controversial issues. The format of the workshops enabled
participants to gain a better grasp of both commonality and difference
in their positions and opinions. It is this nuanced approach that
enables the IGF to influence and inform policy without the constraints
of needing to create consensus on negotiated text.

This being said, the IGF can and should make further progress in
fulfilling its mandate. Based on the outcomes of various workshops at
the second IGF, and our assessment of the process, APC would like to
make the following suggestions: (see website)

[excerpt] It is one week after the historic first United States Social Forum. 
Both a living monument to a living justice movement inside the most
violent nation in the world, and testimony to the complexities of
sharing power across the lines of race, class, and gender- the USSF
brought tears of joy and frustration to my eyes.  This first attempt on
the part of organizers, activists, artists, academics, the grassroots,
the lobbyists, the policy wonks and the students, the native people,
the immigrants, the queer folk, the Africans in America, the poor, the
struggling working class, the lawyers, the dreamers, the haters, the
survivors of private and public wars, the women, the children- was a
resounding success.  Together we spit a new frame- that another world
is possible, but only through the redefining of the role of the United
States in that brave and beautiful new planet....

Reclaim the Media and many of our friends and allies were in Atlanta June 27-July 1 for the first United States Social Forum,
an ambitious meeting of a "movement of movements," modeled upon the
World Social Forums held for several years in Porto Alegre, Mumbai,
Caracas, Bamako and Nairobi. Thousands of social justice activists are
gathering at the forum, uniting many struggles for social, economic and
environmental justice with a shared vision of a transformed America in
a just and peaceful world. Along with our organizational partners in
the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net), RTM was there spreading the message that there's no justice without media justice.

Check out a list of media-related workshops at the forum. We've posted some USSF photos here.

P. O.O.R. .

.Scholaz til we die

The Revolution begins with I

QUEENNANDI 2007

excerpt...

The sounds of survival, thrival and subsistence brushed past
the 21 determined faces of poverty, race, disability, inmigrante and
youth scholars from POOR Magazine (and repping the SF Bayview
Newspaper) about to embark on a revolutionary journey to the US Social
Forum in Atlanta. Residue of past and present domestic violence, low
wage jobs, gentrification and homelessness clung to our bodies as we
piled into our rented van, greyhound buses and friends cars .. This was
the first trip our organization had ever taken anywhere, and the first
trip many of us personally had ever taken, which was not a result of a
poverty crime, a crisis, an incarceration or deportation.

We were in pursuit of a dream. A realization of a vision of
cooperative, non-competitive media justice and media production at the
Ida B Wells Media Justice Center at the US Social Forum. A dream we had
launched, worked on and struggled to attain for the last year.

The first conversation

" Have you heard about the US Social Forum? " almost a year ago when Gretchen Hildebran, filmmaker and alumni of POOR Magazine ´ s Race, Poverty and Media Justice Institute
asked me about POOR possibly doing some media for the forum, I
immediately reflected on other social forums that POOR Magazine never
had the financial resources to attend much less make media on.

I had heard about how media centers were structured at these
forums, how they are often completely inaccessible spaces for disabled
media producers, poor folks who are stuck in the crevasses of the
digital divide and folks who haven´t mastered the dominant (oppressors)
language due to global, local poverty, institutional racism and
classism, colonization and border fascism. In other words
notwithstanding the radical goals and objectives of the Forums held all
over the world, the media production is led by the same folks who
always make media, who always have the channels of access and privelege

" Well, why don ´ t we propose a new vision for media
production, you know, based on the model of POOR Magazine ´ s
indigenous media production. "

Gretchen being one of Mama Dee ´ s best students and a truly
creative and radical thinker responded quickly, " that would be great.
" ...

Carlsen and Kohlstedt discuss challenges and successes of the first U.S. Social Forum.

Kohn  appeals the Left with the following cautions. Subsequent commentary adds historical perspectives and more food for thought.

1. We must be allies, not enemies!

2. Identity does not equal politics

3. We need positive alternatives, not just critique

A report from the first ever convening of representatives of nine
Native American media and Telecommunications organizations in
conjunction with the 2007 National Conference on Media Reform. Participants presented their understanding, concerns and perspectives on their work in the field of Native American media and telecommunications and collectively strategized on ways to build and sustain the field. Participants were able to add to this strategy by representing the Native voice in many of the key media discussions that occurred during the conference.

APC
members and staff have recently been closely looking at some
initiatives to take the wireless communication bang into some
ICT-for-development initiatives. Some such initiatives, like Air Jaldi,
came up from the heart of the most populous region of the planet where
literally hundreds of millions are still excluded: South Asia.

In rural, remote North India

In
a remote part of India, techies from across the globe came to link up
and share ideas to build solutions that could make a big difference to
how the non-urban millions communicate.

Based in Dharamsala, in
North India's Himachal Pradesh, the Tibetan Technology Center (TibTec
-- http://tibtec.org/), a prominent player in wireless mesh network
development, hosted the 'Air Jaldi' Summit on wireless technologies in
end-October 2006.

Laird Brown of Tibtec announced that the group
has partnered with the Djursland International Institute of Rural
Wireless Broadband (DIIRWB), the European leader in community-based
WiFi development.

APC member BytesForAll's Warren Noronha, whose
participation in Air Jaldi was supported by the APC, explained
[http://www.bytesforall.net/node/196]: "The AirJaldi [1] mesh network
is located in and around Dharamsala. The network can be considered as
one of the largest mesh networks in the world. It covers over a hundred
kilometres of rough terrain with a number of mountains and hills.

"Most
of the network is situated in the foothills of the western Himalayan
ranges. The network has already provided internet access to over 2000
computers. The backbone is comprised of 30 nodes," he explained.

Geek
and Drupal developer Noronha (22), one of the volunteers of the
unfunded South Asian Network that cuts across countries like India,
Bangladesh, Pakistan and beyond, noted that the network is built using
cheap and off the shelve hardware.

Prominent personalities
present included University of Limerick professor Roger Downer;
University of Berkeley's Eric Brewer, and Vic Hayes who is regarded as
the father of WiFi.

Wi-Fi, as the Wikipedia points out, was
developed to be used for mobile computing devices, such as laptops, in
local area networks (LANs), but is now increasingly used for more
services, including internet and VoIP phone access, gaming, and basic
connectivity of consumer electronics such as televisions and DVD
players, or digital cameras.

Free Software Foundation
(http://www.fsf.org/) founder Richard Stallman was there, as was Dave
Hughes, the man who created the world's highest cyber-cafe in the
Himalayas. Others present were Malcolm Matson of OPLAN Foundation
(http://www.oplan.org/), Mahabir Pun, considered as the visionary of
Nepali WiFi networks, the geek-lady Elektra of WiFi and radio
technologies Fame (http://www.fameforusers.org/), and Cisco pioneering
engineer Jim Forster.