so - I’m leaving for maryland thursday evening for the community wireless summit. I wasn’t sure how it was going to shape up, but the I’m really excited by looking at the schedule. There are lots of panels I am interested in. I didn’t participate that much as an organizer because my father has been sick - but Sascha seems to have things well in hand.
I’m really excited by my panel. And I’m glad that we have a real mix of voices.
Citizen Hackers: Their Disappearing Role in the Community Wireless Movement.
With the combination of the growth of the MuniWireless market and the growing emphasis on policy, what is the place of citizen hackers and builders in the Community Wireless Networking movement? Join us for a group debate and discussion on our changing roles.
* Michael Lenczner (Panel Coordinator), Île Sans Fil
* Anthony Townsend, NYCwireless
* Francois Proulx, Île Sans Fil
* Jon Hall, Linux International
* Aaron Kaplan, FunkFeuer.at
It should be a pretty hot discussion centering around the “what the hell are we doing?” and “what the hell do we think we should be doing” kinda thing. Jon Hall is the famous maddog hall and I’m so excited to have Anthony coming back to the CWN scene to tell us what he’s been thinking about the citizen involvement side of all the stuff he’s been looking at. Francois Proulx is a great example of a young hacker finding innovative ways to create success in the CWN framework, and Aaron is one of those mysterious Europeans that manages to put up 1000 node mesh networks when most of us in NA can’t seem to get past 50. ;-)
The other panel I’m on:
Social Networks and Wireless: An Update on the Progress and Development of Social Networking Applications.
Join Rich MacKinnon and Michael Lenczner in a lively discussion on the state of social networking applications within WiFi and whether these applications are fulfilling the promise of building community beyond basic connectivity. Are Meetro, Whisher, Plazes, Less Networks, FON, and Il Sans Fil innovating the building blocks of internet-enabled nomadic communities? Or is it yesterday’s technology dressed up as Web 2.0? Or are these more examples of today’s cool yet unsustainable tech in search of a business model?
* Richard MacKinnon (Panel Coordinator), Austin Wireless/Less Networks)
* Michael Lenczner, Île Sans Fil
I think Francois is also going to be on this panel showing off his iFind project.
I’m looking forward to eating crabs. Mina’s wife, Diane, has told me all about growing up and eating crabcakes in Maryland.
I’m also really happy about the fact that it’s not just Benoit, Alison and I going. Francois Proulx, Alexis Cornellier, and Richard Lussier are coming down. I feel so good that other people are taking the opportunity they have made at ISF to see the international context and to really be a part of the wider CWN movement. Alexis and Richard are important people at ISF and I think that it’s good for ISF and it shoudl be exciting for them to participate. And road tripping for a weekend with new people is always great. Long enough to have fun, but not so long that you can annoy / get annoyed with each other.
Thursday afternoon before we leave I’ll be speaking on a panel at McGill at the CTRL : Technology, Art, Society conference.
DEMOCRACY, ART & MEDIA: PANEL / DEMOCRATIE, ART ET MEDIAS: PANEL
With members of / Avec des membres du the Levier Project, OBORO, Centre Canadien d’Architecture (CCA), Fair Trade Media & Île Sans Fil.
Banquet Room, Thomson House, 3635 McTavish St., McGill
Free / Gratuit and open to the public / ouvert au public.
I’m looking forward to that too. No need to do the ISF dog and pony show. I think I’m actually going to do a presentation on how ISF weakens democracy because of the infrastructural influence thing and how about this “hackers vs corporations” thing around code_is_law is a profoundly undemocratic struggle on both sides. It should get the conversation going. And yes - I’ll make sure that I’m doing it partially for argument’s sake. I could also talk about Network neutrality though. (I’ve been working on a network neutrality education project for CRACIN over the last 2 months). We’ll see.
Any other news?… Oh yeah - last week I attended a small meeting with APC when they were in town. Set up by Alternatives. I had a good chat with Frédéric Dubois who now works for them whom I met at his book launch last year. Most of the Maillons member orgs were there, with the addition of Marita Moll from Telecommunities Canada. Also I got Dmitri (Vitaliev) to join us. He’s moving / moved here, so he’s looking to find out what / who’s going on.
I also had a beer with Evan Light yesterday. He’s starting his phd soon and his focus is community radio. Interesting guy and interesting work considering their (community radio’s) different conception of policy, funding, and infrastructure’s relation to content.
Okay - that’s it. And probably no more blogging for a week unless I manage to steal some time away at the CWN summit.
I’m really looking forward to a road trip, some beer, and crabcakes. I get to see some friends like Matt Westervelt and Sascha, Richard from Austin, etc. This is going to be good. With my father doing better and my sister’s babies putting on weight (and my grandmother doing well after her hip operation), it’s time to relax and have some fun.
