Section 2.3 Developing Country Workshop

2012.7.16/9.10

George Sadowsky

Prologue

The idea for the formal establishment of the Internet Society (ISOC) Workshops for Developing Countries came from initial one-day workshops in 1991 and1992, conceived and executed by Enzo Puliatti and Stefano Trumpy. Puliatti and Trumpy obtained funds from United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to bring a group of the workshop participants from Africa, Asia and Latin America to INET’91 in Copenhagen and INET’92 in Kobe. They created a one day workshop program prior to the main conference. After the workshop the participants went on to attend the main conference.

Having worked for the United Nations for a number of years working in developing countries to improve their use of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), I was becoming keenly aware of the power of the emerging Internet to ameliorate the significant information poverty that existed in most developing regions of the world. A number of other participants at the conference, as well as other colleagues, believed that we could help to make this happen.

Larry Landweber, who was then Vice President of Conferences for ISOC, thought that the idea of an ISOC program to help bring the Internet to developing countries and to train the specialists necessary to sustain it was worth pursuing. Landweber himself had organized in the 1980s the initial conferences dedicated to the global spread of the Internet, and with the establishment of ISOC in 1991, his series of conferences had become ISOC’s official INET conferences. Landweber authorized the allocation of $50,000 from the ISOC budget as a contribution to the workshop.

The initial workshop (1993)

The first workshop, held at Stanford University in August 1993, set much of the pattern for the rest of the series.

The goals of the workshop were:[1]

1. To train a critical mass of trainers/professionals in network infrastructure, transport and services to be able to support an extension of meaningful networking activities leading to Internet connectivity within developing countries represented.

2. To identify and share individual and institutional contacts as well as information sources that will assist the process of development, using international connections to and on the Internet.

3. To build robust professional linkages between all participants in the programs so that the mentor-student and peer relationships formed during the workshop and conference will remain strong and of continuing usefulness well beyond the workshop and conference.

4. To increase the level of cooperation among existing projects and activities for establishing data networks in developing countries.

We decided to separate the training into three specialties: (1) establishing basic connectivity of countries to the Internet; (2) building and managing TCP/IP networks; and (3) network navigation and resource discovery. The teaching staff consisted entirely of volunteers. Steve Fram and Scott Weikert led the basic connectivity track, Randy Bush managed the TCP/IP track, and Art St. George led the track on network navigation and resource discovery on the Internet. Jo-Anne Scott managed local logistics and other support functions.

Participants included 126 individuals from 67 countries. Applications were solicited through multiple channels through email and through contacts at international organizations. Instructors met in Palo Alto in spring 1993 to inspect physical teaching space, decide about equipment that would be needed, look at housing conditions, and select the participants. The selection process took into account ability to pay, nature of prospective participant’s employment status, geographic diversity and adequacy of background to learn the material. In general, participants employed by governments and PTTs were not subsidized, whereas participants working in NGOs or otherwise connected to grass roots civil society organizations were subsidized, most including air transportation.

A significant amount of equipment was needed for the workshop. For this first workshop PCs were obtained largely from the University, and modems, routers and other equipment were obtained from various vendors. All of the setup, testing, and teardown of the teaching spaces was done by the volunteer workshop staff.

The total cost of the first workshop was approximately $300,000. Funds were obtained through a grant of $100,000 from Novell obtained through Lee Caldwell, $100,000 from INET’93 registration funds through Larry Landweber, contributions for RINAF and the International Science Foundation, and workshop fees from some participants.

Evolution of the workshops

Over time, the goals of the workshops and the specialties taught evolved in parallel with the Internet. In 1994, the workshop was conducted in Prague prior to INET’94. Participants were housed in the Krystal Hotel, and workshops were held at the Czech Technical University at Devicka. The combination of the conference and the workshops required greater bandwidth than was available, so a combination of ISOC, British Telecom and others installed the first E1 circuit into Czechoslovakia in time for the event. Fortuitously, the Krystal Hotel, which it was rumored had been the dormitory for the Czech secret police academy, had a working computer laboratory with about 20 networked computers that was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, a rarity in any hotel in the world at that time.

There were 158 participants from 69 countries that year. The teaching staff grew from 15 to 27 volunteers. The syllabus for the tracks remained mostly the same, but a new track was added to recognize the increasing importance of national network management, concentrating on technical, regulatory and political issues. The new track was organized by two Egyptians, Nashwa Abdel-Baki and Tarek Kamel, both of whom had been students in the 1993 workshop. Geoff Huston’s book, “The ISP Survival Guide,” was motivated and informed by his experiences as an instructor in the new track. The length of the workshop, which had been 5 days, was lengthened to 6 days in recognition of the need for more time to absorb all of the material that needed to be presented.

In 1995, the workshop was held in Honolulu with the substantial support provided by David Lassner of the University of Hawaii. There were 179 participants and 28 instructors.

By this time a considerable amount of training material had accumulated, and after ascertaining that almost all of the participants had access to CD-ROM drives, we decided to collect all of this material and create CD-ROMs for each participant. In 1995 this was no easy task, since CD pressing facilities were few and at the time had to be located in very stable geological areas. So we collected all of our material and sent by FedEx to a pressing facility in the U.S. midwest , and received copies for participants before the end of INET’95. The tradition of creating CD-ROMs for participants continued until 2001, when the nature of the workshop changed significantly.

It was about this time that Tim O’Reilly became a major contributor to the workshops. His company, O’Reilly Publishing, donated thousands of technical books each year to workshop participants. Among the instructions for participants was the admonition to pack lightly, because it was highly probable that they would be carrying up to 20 pounds in books back with them. Those who have visited technical library resources in developing countries will understand what a major benefit this was at the time.

In 1995 we received a grant from NATO to train a cadre of eastern Europeans to learn how to run such a training workshop. Under the leadership of Jacek Gajewski from Poland and Oliver Popov from Macedonia, a cadre of 8-10 people participated in both the regular workshop tracks and classes during the night regarding how to plan for, structure, and execute technical Internet workshops. This resulted quickly in the formation of CEENET, Central and Eastern European Network, which held its first training for the region in Warsaw in the fall of 1995.

Expansion to training in French

INET’96 was held in Montréal, Canada, and the workshop that preceded it was held using the facilities of McGill University. Alan Greenberg, who was destined to play a central role in directing future workshops, was the Director of Computing and Telecommunications at McGill at that time and represented the local host.

The major workshop innovation in 1996 was the introduction of parallel workshops in English and in French. While English had been the de facto language of the Internet community, it was increasingly clear that there were very large segments of the developing world that did not benefit from a unilingual approach. Under the leadership of Jacques Guidon and Pascal Renaud, a team of French speaking volunteer instructors was assembled, and two tracks of instruction were presented in French, making six tracks in all.

The Montréal workshop was our largest workshop composed of 243 participants representing 94 countries and 43 volunteer instructors. The amount of equipment loaned to the tracks was enormous; Cisco alone provided at least US$500,000 worth of routing equipment.

The 1997 workshop, renamed the Network Technology Workshop for Countries in The Early Stages of Internetworking, was held at the Permata Training Center near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in June 1997, preceding the INET’97 meeting. That year’s workshop brought together 133 students from 63 countries, and a training and support staff of 29 from 15 countries. All training staff were volunteers who donated their time. Because of the location of the conference relative to Francophone countries, no tracks were taught in French this year.

INET’98 was held in Geneva, Switzerland, and the workshop was held at the Cité Universtaire, where a full set of English and French tracks were taught. Sponsorship for the workshops was broad, including l’Agence de la Francophonie, France Telecom, the governments of Canada, France, and Quebec, infoDev, IDRC, NATO, the Open Society Institute, SIDA, SWITCH, UNDP, UNDP Asia-Pacific, and Union Bancaire. A total of 162 participants came from 70 countries and 41 staff came from 22 countries.

n 1998, another spinoff workshop series started. Edmundo Valente and Ermanno Pietrosemoli initiated a Spanish speaking set of training workshops, called WALC modeled after the ISOC workshop series, and run in parallel to the INET’98 workshop. The workshop was held in Rio de Janeiro and the primary language used was Spanish. Both this series and the workshop series sponsored by CEENET have continued until this day.

The 1999 workshop was held in San Jose, California prior to INET’99. For the second year in a row, the workshop was held at two sites. In addition to the site of INET’99 in San Jose, a parallel workshop was held in Venezuela. The San Jose workshop brought together 142 students from 63 countries, and a training and support staff of 34 from 18 countries. Training included four tracks in English and one track on Campus/Enterprise Network Management in French. In all, 76 countries were represented. Almost one third of the San Jose instructors were former students of the workshop program. All training staff were volunteers who donated their time.

The 1999 Latin American Workshop, held at the Universidad de Los Andes, Núcleo La Hechicera, Fac. Ciencias, in Mérida, Venezuela during July 1999, trained 198 students from 19 countries in 5 tracks of instruction. The training was held in Spanish. Edmundo Vitale and Ermanno Pietrosemoli were again the principal organizers of the workshop. They were assisted by 33 volunteer instructors from 11 countries Following the Merida workshop, 13 of the 33 instructors flew to San Jose to participate in the INET’99 meeting, joining all of the students and instructors from the USA workshop.

During the week preceding INET 2000, the Latin American Training Workshop was held in Mexico City, Mexico, and the traditional Network Training Workshop was held at the Shonan-Fujisawa campus of Keio University located about one half-hour from Yokohama, Japan. Students and staff of the workshop in Japan, as well as some of the staff members of the Mexico City workshop, attended INET 2000. Of the 104 Japan workshop participants from 47 countries, 65 come from Africa, 7 from the Americas, 18 from Asia, 13 from Europe and the former Soviet Union, and 4 from the Middle East. A volunteer staff of 30 came from 16 countries.

At the 2000 workshop in Japan, 6 tracks of instruction were offered. A fifth English track was been added to teach policy based routing, and one French track was offered, organized by Jacques Guidon. Track 1, which was in the past the elementary connectivity track, has been changed substantially; it had evolved into a track for instructors from developing countries who know the material but want to both maintain their knowledge and teach the material better in their countries and regions.

By 2001, it was becoming evident that other sources of training were developing at regional and even at some national levels, and that it was increasingly unnecessary to bring people together on a global basis for training. The 2001 workshop therefore adopted a somewhat different syllabus, combining more advanced technical training with a new orientation toward toward Internet policy and legislation and examining the interaction between the two. Participants were selected on the relevance of their interests and positions in the Internet policy space. There were about 33 participants and 6 volunteer instructors.

The general impression is that the 2001 workshop was very useful for participants. However, at that time, based upon attendance it was becoming apparent that the global INETs had served their purpose, and ISOC’s training activities were put on hold at the time until ISOC could reinvent itself and clarify its mission.

Conclusion

The strong message broadcast during the ISOC workshops has been one of sharing information freely with others, which was consistent with the culture of the early Internet, as it had developed in a research and development environment. Participants were encouraged to return to their countries and actively share the knowledge and resources that they had gained during the work. This result was achieved more often than not.

Many of the workshop participants returned home to eventually occupy leading positions in the Internet field in their country or region. At least four participants ascended to the role of Minister in their country and were able to use their knowledge to accelerate the growth of their country’s Internet and its use in social an economic development. Virtually all developing countries that connected to the Internet after 1993 did so with the help of people trained at the ISOC workshops. According to Vint Cerf, the workshop series accelerated the penetration of the Internet into developing countries by several years. These accomplishments have provided a great deal of satisfaction to the many volunteers who gave unselfishly of their time and expertise to achieve them.

[1] See message from Art St. George, INET'93(Network Training for Developing Countries), RIPE NCC, 3 February 1993 that contains the announcement and application: <http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ripe-org-closed/1993/msg00026.html>http://www.ripe.net/ripe/mail/archives/ripe-org-closed/1993/msg00026.html