The words of WTPF 2009

If you happen to follow this blog, you have probably noticed the relative silence in the last month or so.  I was, and still am, extremely busy primarily with working on my A-exams and moving on with shaping my dissertation ideas.  One of the upcoming highlights is me going to the World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) to observe how international telecom policy agenda is being shaped in real time and to conduct some preliminary interviews with people who steer this process.

As many other similar events (such as the IGF) the forum is not aimed at producing binding resolutions.  Instead, its explicit aim is to set the agenda for the global telecom policy making.  Here is how it is described on its website:

It (WTPF-DE) is not designed to produce prescriptive outcomes with the binding force of an international treaty; rather, it strives to foster productive debate and build multi-stakeholder consensus on constructive ways forward.

This is why I think it is particularly fascinating event and this is why it will be interesting to look at how its outcomes describe MICT, priorities of related industries, and the associated regulatory principles.  Preparing for the trip I was pleasantly surprised to discover a wealth of information that the ITU made available online.  For example, there is a repository of all the iteration of the “Report by the Secretary General of ITU”, which is the pivotal document of this meeting.  In its preamble, the report states:

Decision 9 of the Antalya Plenipotentiary Conference states that arrangements for the fourth WTPF shall be in accordance with applicable Council decisions. In accordance with Decision 498 of the 2000 session of the ITU Council, discussions at the WTPF shall be based on a Report from the Secretary-General, incorporating the contributions and comments of ITU Member States and Sector Members (available at: http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/wtpf/wtpf2009/report.html) which will serve as the sole working Report of the Forum.

Since I am interested in words and in discourse, I thought to play a little bit with what was available.  Together with Veronica, and with the help of the Many Eyes project, we created the following visualization of the current Report by the Secretary General of ITU – the report that is at the basis of the upcoming discussion.  Here is what we got:

This image shows the 150 most common words in this 53 pages long document and the relative size of the word signifies its popularity.  As we can see from a quick glimpse, this forum is going to be about ITU, Internet, networks, services, issues, international, ICTs, countries, use, resolutions…

The decision in 2006 called for convergence to be the main topic of this forum, yet, as we can see in terms of popularity, the word “convergence” is loosing to many other concepts.  This is not to say that the discussion cannot focus on convergence using different terms, but I find this detail interesting.  it is particularly interesting, because if you look at visualization of the first draft of this report (before numerous comments by stakeholders were absorbed in it) the word “convergence” was much more dominant (you can see visualizations of drafts 2 and 3 in the links).

These visualizations do not tell us much about the substantive content of these documents, but I think they are a nice way to have a brief glance at the terminology that is dominating this debate.  I hope to continue following and blogging more on this subject.

Your comments will be highly appreciated!

OLPCorps Africa – March 27 deadline

Although it received quite a lot of (somewhat just) criticism on OLPC news (here and here with the second post trying to make sense of the first one), I think this is quite an interesting move on behalf of OLPC.  I think there is a lot of the youth potential, which the author of the blog post is overlooking and I would like to share this opportunity with those of you who are interested in OLPC-related activities.  For example, I think it may particularly interest those of you who were at the last ITU YF in Bangkok and had an opportunity to be thoroughly introduced to the XO laptops.

Here is the gist of the initiative:

What?

OLPCorps Africa is a unique grant program focused specifically on learning in Africa. Student teams are equipped with the tools, resources, and know-how to develop grassroots learning environments in an African country of their choice. OLPC is drawing upon the world’s student leaders to spark a university-led grassroots initiative in this global learning movement. Through OLPCorps Africa, OLPC is creating a global network of student leaders who will create a lasting impact at the local level, build a network of student activists, and initiate a grant program that will become renown.  (source)

Eligibility? - Undergraduate and graduate students, over 18 years old, from any country.

How?

$3,500,000 for 100 teams of college students to get $35,000 in support for 10 week projects in Africa. Each group gets 100 XO laptops, assorted hardware, a $10,000 stipend, and 10-day training in Kigali, Rwanda, before being sent out to projects. (source)

When?

The workshop will begin June 8th and end June 17th. Teams should arrive at least 1 day before. However, teams are encouraged to arrive as early as the 6th in order to adjust to the time-difference and leave room for flight-delays or any other unexpected circumstances which may arise. (source)

The duration of the Grant Program is 10 weeks (June – August), including the orientation in Kigali. Teams should arrange with their local partner to stay for at least 9 weeks. (source)

Proposals deadline is March 27th.

Please consult the wiki of the project for further details.  Note that there are many people there who are looking for local partners to form a proposal team.  So, if you are in Africa, you may find good partners there.

I was also excited to see that there is a group of Cornell students who have applied for this opportunity.  I hope to get in touch with them and offer them my help.  If any of you is applying, I would be also glad to hear about that!  Please let me know if I can help, particularly with linking people who are looking for partners.

Good luck everyone!

Help me realize a dream!

For the first time in my life I am entering this kind of competition and I am really excited about it!

Microsoft and Lenovo have launched “Name Your Dream Assignment” competition.  They are going to give $50K to one of the top 20 photography projects that will win the popular vote on their website.

I just submitted mine and you can find it here (there is also a badge on the main page that is linked to my project).  Since there are space limitations for project descriptions, I also created a page here, on ThinkMacro, that has more details.  Please feel free to explore.

If you are reading this, I would really appreciate if you take a few minutes and vote for my project!

Please PIC IT!

Economic peace?

The phrase “economic peace” may not be the most popular phrase in the Middle East, since it was utilized for the election campaign of Likud.  However, economics seems to be a powerful element and things happen in spite of politics.

I am writing this because I just learned from the Good Neighbors blog about a new initiative by Wharton (I assume MBA) students, called LendforPeace.org. The initiatives seems to be a close replica of the Kiva, which I think one of the most innovative projects combining micro-finance with possibilities opened up by technological progress.  The main difference between Kiva and LendforPeace is the geographical focus.  In their own words:

LendforPeace.org is a not-for-profit Internet platform that allows individuals like you to make small loans to specific micro-entrepreneurs in the Palestinian Territories.

Our mission is to use micro-lending to promote economic opportunity and political stability in the Middle East.

The website was officially launced at the beginning of this month with a grant from Clinton Foundation after a pilot set of loans ($5000) was successfully returned in about half a year (you can learn more about it on their blog).

One of the “selling points” of the project is that it is established by two Jewish and two Palestinian students.  I presonally think that it would be even cooler if it these were two Israelis and two Palestinians in the team. Nevertheless I find these kinds of joint ventures encouraging.

What do Israeli students do online?

Apparently February 17 is the national internet safety day in Israel.  Honoring this occasion, the Ministry of Education published results of a survey among school-age students about their use of the internet (HE). They surveyed 16,702 students from 234 schools, covering grades 5, 8, and 11.

Here are some highlights:

• 95% of the students have access to computer with an internet connection.
• Most parents don’t really care what their kids are doing online or how much they spend there.  For example, 67% of the parents do not limit the time their kids can spend online, 53% do not express any interest about what they are doing there, and only 22% are using filtering software.
• Most of the students are rather pragmatic in their use of the internet.  81% of the students are looking for any information online (not surprising, but interesting number), 77% are playing online games, 68% utilize the web for their studies, 66% use it to communicate with their peers, and 63% download music.
• It also looks most of the students are rather thoughtful in their use of the internet. 72% explicitly stated that they are aware of the dangers of the internet and “consult or check” before giving away identifiable information (71% are using a screen name) and 14% of the students admitted that they are exposed to adult content.
• Online ethics and copyright awareness are not as strong.  30% of the students are convinced that they can download anything they want from the internet and similar proportion of the students are convinced that they can download papers from the internet for class submission (this one is rather worrying result in my eyes).
• Some results are not as clear.  For example, 40% of the students are convinces that internet is a free place where you can copy or use anything you want. I am not sure what exactly the Ministry people were trying to achieve in this question and how we should read it, but they presented it as a negative phenomenon.

As I said, the report is released in the context of “internet safety day.” As such, it is framed so that we would appreciate the dangers children are exposed to online.  This is particularly evident in the emphasis on the fact that parents do not care much about what their kids are doing online and an explicit attempt to emphasize that significant percentage are exposed to adult content, as well as to suggest that the kids are not careful enough in online interactions.

However, I think the results actually show that the Israeli youth are very thoughtful users of the Internet.  I have no tools to judge how many teenagers are exposed to adult content in the offline world, but 14% does not seem like a frightening figure (of course it is self reported, so the actual figure is probably higher).  At the same time, the main uses of the medium are mostly positive and most of the youths are careful about how they behave online and how they expose themselves to strangers.

The Ministry of Education is taking credit for the positive trends (even though longitudinal data would help) and probably rightfully so .  I think it is an important argument in the discussions about internet filtering under the claim of protecting the kids.  First, we can see that the situation is not as horrible as some proponents of filtering suggest (unless, of course, looking for information online is considered negative/dangerous behavior in some communities).  Second, if the Ministry of Education is right that the current situation is a result of educational efforts, it shows that resources spent in that direction do bear fruit.

Having said that, it is important to note that my entire discussion is based on a press release from the ministry. In other words, all the data above was selected and framed by the ministry to serve a purpose.  It would be of course much more useful if the ministry would publish the detailed report, including the instruments they’ve used and the responses they’ve got.  For example, it would be really interesting to see age difference in the attitudes and uses of the internet.  It would be also interesting to see how different socioeconomic groups interact with the medium.  Finally, as I have mentioned above, presenting longitudinal data (if it exists) would be very helpful. Do you think it is too much to ask for a complete report?  Or perhaps it is available somewhere out there and you could point me to it?

Oracles and the paliamentray system

As the Israeli election is approaching, I thought I should publish some of the posts that have been sitting in my drafts for a while now.  For example, I wrote this post over a month ago, but haven’t had a chance to publish it yet.  Interestingly, even though it is over a month old, I think it is still relevant.  The only thing I changed was adding a reference to Michal Shamir at the end.

Please let me know what you think about this.

Reading the Israeli press in the last month or so made an impression that the news media today are more focused on covering the future, rather than on reporting news.  For example, according to Gid’on Levi (HE) the Israeli election is already decided and Netanyahu is going to take the election with ease.  Udi Lebel, criticized the growing intervention of army officials in political processes by suggesting that Israeli should negotiate with Syria.  He opened his article with a claim that we are facing a new government with a Prime Minister (PM) who opposes such talks (HE).

These sentiments are supported by some polling data (HE), which shows that if the election would happen then (Nov, 20), Likud would have 32 seats in Knesset (6 more from the previous poll), Kadima would have 26 seats (3 less than before), and Avoda would practically disappear with only 8 seats (3 seats less than in the previous poll).  Although the data has slightly changed since then, the trends remain.

In fact, reading these articles and then the comments people leave as a response to them, definitely gives one a sense that this election is over, even before the parties have gone through the primaries.  I think it shows one of the greater weaknesses of the Israeli version of the parliamentary system (HE).  People seem to form their voting inclinations based on the person aiming for the PM post.  As if this person is going to have exclusive governing powers and the entire policy of the future government will be up to this person.  In reality, however, the PM has a lot, but not at all ultimate powers.  Because of the way the parliamentary system works in Israel, the PM is a hostage.  First of all, they are a hostage of their own party, and then of the other parties joining the coalition.

Right now, the dynamics of this campaign have been very personal.  It is definitely Zipi vs. Bibi as the “Economist” put it.  All the people who joined/left the major parties were nothing more than markers of the qualities of the candidates.  The more people (or should I say celebrities) have joined a certain party, the more credentials they are supposedly provide to the person heading that party.  It seems like neither the voters, nor the press, are paying attention to the individual admissions and ideological approaches of the newcomers and those who decided to change political affiliations.  Yet, once the election hype is over, these individual characteristics of people on each candidate’s list will become extremely important both for the political direction Israel is going to take and for the stability of the next government.

The last argument takes me back to the media and to the role of Oracles they have taken upon themselves.  Reading the predictions, I cannot help myself but seeing all good spiral of silence, agenda setting, framing, and a handful of other theoretical approaches playing off in front of my eyes.  I wonder to what degree focusing on the leaders of the parties and on the prediction contributes to making this prediction eventually come true?  I wonder if there is going to be any change in discourse once the primaries are over?  Will the actual teams matter in public discourse of these election?

One thing that becomes clearer and clearer to me is that the current version of the parialmentary system in Israel is not neccesarily the most productive model of government (and I am not alone – HE).  At the same time, it looks like changing this model may be difficult, to impossible, because the change is supposed to come from within the same milfancionting apparatus.  In one of the recent analysis of the voting patterns of the Israeli voters (HE), Prof. Michal Shamir expressed some optimism that at some point Israel can get its own Obama (I guess referring to the inspiration, enthusiasm, and hope his campaign and the begining of his presidency gave to the american people).  I would love to hope that she is right, but observing the election dynamics makes me more sceptical that the current system can produce a person who would will be free of its, not neccesarily healthy, influence.

Obama Effect 2

In one of my previous posts I described the “Obama Effect” as rhetoric of change and innovative/thoughtful use of information technology in election campaign.  Back then, I discussed a little bit the technological aspects as they apply to the Israeli case.  Now its time for a number of examples for the rhetorical aspects using the Israeli election as an example.

Recently, as Israel started warming up the election machine again, Zipi Livni was quoted saying that she would like that the atmosphere in Israel after the election would be similar to what she felt in Washington DC before the inauguration of Obama (HE). In her blog she has a video when she is briefly describing what saw and you can see that she is excited and that she really would like to be in the same place as him in terms of public support (HE).  This urged me to finish this post, which I started writing back in December.

Since she declared that she is choosing election to a shaky government, Zipi Livni became associated with an expressions such as “new politics” or “different politics”, which implied politics focused on the needs and interests of the public as opposed to those in positions of power.  I am not sure to what extent her rhetoric back then was inspired by Obama, but it was clearly going in the similar direction of “change”, particularly when it comes to the way politics is done in Israel.  She got criticized for that statement and accused for using that as a rhetorical tool only.  Nevertheless, other politicians, particularly those who are aiming for the Prime Minister (PM) seat, have gladly adopted the same rhetoric, especially after they witnessed it working in the US.

For example, on a summit of Likud party in mid-November, Netanyahu was quoted saying:

“We are not [going back] to the old politics.”

followed by a promise of open and clear election campaign (HE).  During the same week, while speaking to the Assembly of the Jewish Agency about his approach to the peace process, he was quoted saying:

“We need a new approach.  The old one did not bring results. We need to build bottom-up by making the lives of our Palestinian neighbors better.” (HE)

Even though the rest of the speech included some old statements about united Jerusalem and negotiations from a position of strength, it was indeed packed in the rhetoric of change.

During the primaries season, the intra-parties campaigns could be viewed as another example.  Michael Eitan, a Likud MK, launched his entire campaign under the slogan: “To prove that it can be done differently” and he borrows broadly in his rhetoric and uses of technology from Obama.  But not only him.  Miri Regev, a newcomer to Likud, who seems like an Israeli version of Sarah Palin, launched her primaries campaign and referred to her hopes that members of Likud will choose good people to compete with Kadima.  Among other things she said that she hopes that the party will be “smart” to bring:

“People who grew bottom-up, who have record and an alternative, and who chose the political route because they care about the Israeli people and about the country.” (HE)

In a recent article addressing the dynamics of the campaign Yoel Marku in Haaretz quoted Livni’s advisers saying that the choice is between preserving the status quo and choosing Livin, who represents the “let’s do something new” approach (HE).

Aluf Ben, in his article in Haaretz (HE), summarized the rhetoric of the two main candidates for the PM:

Candidates in the election are always trying to present “change”, particularly this year, with the meteoric rise of Barak Obma to the White House out of nowhere.  It is difficult for both Livni and Netanyahu to sell this product.

And he goes on describing how both candidates are disparately trying to reinvent themselves with little credibility.

Perhaps Shas, the ultraorthodox party went furthest.  I do not have an article to link to and what I know is from talking to people, but apparently they simply translated Obama’s “yes we can!” adding “with God’s help”.

There are definitely many more examples out there, if one is looking.  One question I keep on asking myself is whether these are the candidates who are acting under the Obama Effect, or there is a different effect in motion.  After all, I am not listening to the actual speeches, and all I know is from the media.  So, Is it possible that these are the media who are acting under the “Obama Effect” or more so “Obama Coverage Effect”?  In other words, is it possible that it is the Israeli media that are influenced by their US (and global) counterparts and prefer focusing on rhetoric focusing on change and bottom-up approaches?  After all, the Israeli media even tried to copy the model of YouTube debates, even if with partial success (HE).

What do you think?

P.S.  And just because I couldn’t help myself, the evidence to the first part of Obama effect is so overwhelming!!!  Tzipi Livni has her own vblog (HE) and Kadima website was upgraded to look more 2.0ish,  Netanyahu, who has an Obama-clone website under a domain that has nothing to do with the party, but with him as an individual, has lunched daily addresses to the nation on… YouTube of course (HE).  Avoda has also launched a refreshed website (well, that was not hard to do, compared to what they had before) though, Barak does not blog or Twitter yet.  The highlight, however, I think is this rather bizzare phenomenon of “Livni Boy”.  Well, this is not exactly a phenomenon, but just a single instance, but it is nevertheless “interesting”:

“… and communication for all”

Amit Schejter and a group of really impressive colleagues just released a new book titled “…and Communications for All: A Policy Agenda for the New Administration“.  Today (Monday) they held a one-day conference in Washington DC where they presented the book and discussed its chapters.  I really wanted to be there, but couldn’t.  Gladly, the technologies, regulation of which they were discussing, made it possible to watch the conference and even share it with you.

The first video includes some introductory comments from Sascha Meinrath and Amit Schejter, followed by a keynote from an FCC commissioner, Jonathan Adelstein.

The first panel included the following speakers:

• Marvin Ammori (University of Nebraska) – Competition and Investment in Wireline Broadband;
• Richard Taylor (Penn State) – U.S. Cable TV Policy: Managing the Transition to Broadband;
• Sharon Strover (University of Texas) – America’s Forgotten Challenge: Rural Access;
• Heather Hudson (University of San Francisco) – The Future of E-Rate: U.S. Universal Service Fund Support for Public Access.

The second panel included:

• Jon Peha (Carnegie Mellon) – A Spectrum Policy Agenda;
• Rob Frieden (Penn State) – The Way Forward for Wireless;
• Ellen Goodman (Rutgers) – Public Service Media 2.0;
• Kathryn Montgomery (American University) – Creating a Media Policy Agenda for the Digital Generation

I think this video covers both panels.

I watched substantive parts of the conference and it sounds really interesting.  According to Amit, the four commonly shared points in the book are:

1. There is a need for deliberative government policy and for clear goals for telecommunication policy;
2. The new policy direction should be technologically neutral, the segregation of media, information, and communication technology for regulation purposes has proved itself inefficient and obsolete;
3. Telecom infrastructure should serve both, the commercial aspiration and the public interest; connectivity alone is not enough, it is important that people know how to use the technology in order to be able to acquire knowledge, innovate, and take part in pubic life;
4. Telecommunication policy should be based on equal opportunity and non discriminatory practices; i other words, the idea of fairness is important for telecommunication policy.

To me it looks like an interesting reading.  Also, the New America Foundation’s YouTube channel seems to have some interesting talks, so it is worth checking out.

Visualizing the inauguration

In the spirit of recent days, AKA obsession with the inauguration, I thought to share a couple of visualizations of Obama’s speech.

The first one is using the IBM’s “Many Eyes“:

The other one is from NY Times:

I am not sure what exactly stands behind each one of the visualizations, because the results are slightly different, but I think each one is interesting in its own way.  I think this is probably just the beginning of what we are going to see being done with all the information the new administration is putting out.  As one of my friends said: “Obama is over-communicator and it suits me”.

Also, you may be interested in checking out CNN’s 3D visualization using Microsoft’s Photosynth.  This one requires installation, but once you have it, you will be able to use the tool to view a 3D picture of the inauguration compiled from pictures that regular people have taken and volunteered to CNN/MS.  Unfortunately, there are not that many pictures in the database, so the result is not as smooth as some of the demos they had when the project was still in beta.

That’s it, this is my contribution to the hype at the moment.  Now back to work.

TIGRing

Just a day before the inauguration, the Obama team has published a video about their Technology, Innovation and Government Reform (TIGR) group.  As its name suggest, that is the group that will supposedly lead technological innovation in the Federal Government.  My understanding is that they are the people running change.gov and they were behind their Citizen’s Briefing Book initiative.

This latter idea probably deserves a separate post, but in the meantime, I just wanted to share a couple of observations from visiting change.gov after consuming it primarily via an RSS feed for quite a while now.  What you miss when you consume content via RSS are the comments.   This is where it is getting interesting.  When I checked the aforementioned post, there were only 16 comments and here is what I saw.

First, it is really difficult to maintain an open platform and at the same time maintain your agenda.  Naturally, the TIGRs are using change.gov in order to share information about government activities presented in a positive light.  However, it looks like people are not necessarily interested to talk just about the topic set by the administration.  Thus, for example, there were a number of comments dealing with some controversy surrounding Bishop Robinson.  I’ve been slightly out of the loop recently, so I am not sure what the controversy is about, but people seem to care and seem to feel free expressing their dissatisfaction and critique on the transition team’s website, even when the topic is something absolutely not related.

Second, kind of related to the previous one, if you open your communication channels, there is no way you will be able to downplay criticism.  In this particular post, people have been voicing their criticism also about the technology and innovation aspects of the transition team’s conduct.  Particularly, there were some comments about people’s dissatisfaction with the way their opinions were treated in the Citizen’s Briefing Book project.  Apparently, the visitors of change.gov voted legalization of Marijuana as their top priority, but this topic was apparently neglected from the book.  I am not sure whether this opinion represents the popular opinion of the American society or just that of those who feel comfortable using the web to participate actively.  Anyhow, the TIGRs are probably factoring in additional information and not just the users’ comments.  It looks though that the users of change.gov do view themselves as representing the entire country.

Third, again related to the previous, the issue of digital divide was brought up in this discussion by the users. A user named Mona Marlow wrote:

“While I think this is a vast improvement, one aspect has been overlooked. There is a huge portion of us who live and work in rual America. We cannot view some of this “new” tech, thus miss out on alot. Due to the lack of having access to or affording the high-end internet access required to partisipate and/or view some of this new content. It would be of great help and service to “us” if there was a basic html view as well. There is not much you can do of the video content, but perhaps have a transcript of it for rual America to read.
Thank You”

The bottom line is that after almost 3 months in the air, change.gov is evolving in terms of user participation and it will be interesting to see where the new administration will take it.

In the meantime, on the other side of the Atlantic, things are also changing.  The Russian president Medvedev has also opened his website to comments, but in the meantime only in the Russian version (RU).  I couldn’t spend much time on the site, but from what I saw the comments are more on the topic.  Of course the space is moderated (RU) and on the face of it there are more and clearer restrictions than on change.gov (here).  At the end of the day, however, I don’t think we have many chances to actually know what comments are not getting published on both websites.

So, these were my few observations for the moment.  Now back to work!

P.S. By the time I finished writing this post, there were already 33 comments on that post.  They got traffic!

P.P.S. An update. Actually, on kremlin.ru the discussion is also split. They actually provide a split of the main themes of the comments. So, in the latest post (RU) 785 comments were left on the topic (development of mass/public sport) and 396, the second largest category, were about the management of the comment space.  The admins of the website have even published stats for the period between Jan.12 and Jan. 19 (may be still available here in RU):

• 7558 – Activated users
• 961 – People who have not confirmed their email addresses
• 230 – Blocked users
• 2354 – Comments published
• 982  – Blocked comments
• 396 – Comments being reviewed

According to them, comments that were not published, contained personal complains or specific requests that needed an individual answer (that is not allowed according to their comment policy).  They say however that in all(?) those comments no contact information was provided, so they will not be able to take care of those complains and requests.

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