WSF Communication Chat - December 17th, 2008

NEW PARTICIPANTS IN CHAT

- Samira Daoud I am the cooridinator of the "Globalisation and information" program for the Panos Institute West Africa, which a media support organisation. We usually support african journalists to produce a daily newspaper during the WSF named Africa Flame (printed and online)


- David Gabriel. I work for AITEC (IPAM network) in Paris and I've participated to the center fo communciation of Barcelona for the Global day of action last year...  For this year I can participate to the Com strategy in France, but specially  I want to organise a interconexion Thuesday 29th January 17h Belem (20h GTM) between Paris and other cities

- Marica from asociation A Sud, helping Monica

- Everton Rodrigues, free software movement participant and part of the brazilian internet committee agency (?). Participate in all the WSF editions in POrto Alegre and now contributing to the internet infrastrucutre project for Belem as well as to the free knowledge lab"


- Hilde Stephansen, from Norway but live in London and am currently in Belém. I work as avolunteer in the WSF office here and am involved in Belém Expanded. I am also working on a reasearch project (for a Phd at the University of London) about knowledge production, communication and documetnation in the social forum process..

Martina Pignatti, working with NOVA (Spain) to facilitate Belem Expanded connections, and with Un ponte per (Italy) to support participation of Middle-Eastern groups into the WSF process. I am based in Italy now



AFRICA FLAMME IN BELÉM
- Samira: We usually support african journalists to produce a daily newspaper during the WSF named Africa Flame (printed and online). Printed and online  Flamme Afrique Flamme Afrique... in Belem
-  Our project : 13 journalistes (8 for the print version, and 5 for the radio), but the budget until now
- Samira wants to know the possibilities and costs of printing in Belem. She'll write to Thiago that'll try to help her.


INTERNET IN BELEM
- Internet issue in Brazil is a serious issue. We have a strong monopoly in the telecom sector, as in the whole world. But unfortunatelly our divides in Brazil are huge. In Porto Alegre we had many facilities. In Belem, we're having a lot of dificulties
- In Belem, only 2 companies can provide internet connection the way WSF needs: Embratel and Oi. And those two companies presented very different budgets.
- in the begining there's the need of 2GB speed (that's what Porto Alegre had in 2005)
- But none of the two companies can provide this bandwidht in a short period of time. They want fidelity (customers for long periods)
- So the speed had to be reduced to 642mbs. But for this speed, Embratel presented a budget of 6 million Reais, while Oi can make it for 800 thousand
-  Even though, it's too expensive and there's no budget for that
- So we're checking the possibility to have 2 155mbs links and we still don't have a proposal by Oi (they delay too much on answering)
- Considering all this, we're working to get 2 links of 155mbs each, supported by brazilian federal Government
- RNP links in Belem (mentioned in previous chats a  possibility to have 2GB connection) / a RNP possui apenas 102mbs com belem and this links are totally used
- In case there Para o caso de um problema muito sério para conseguir internet para todas e todos, então, a organização do FSM terá de definir uma política de acesso. Que na minha opinião deverá dar prioridades para comunicadores (formais ou não)
- The access policy was not defined yet
-  I agree, and we have a long history to rely on (Porto alegre I II III IV Mumbay Nairobi ...) we always tried to give priority to journalist and media activists supporting the organisation (ciranda, wsf press officers...)
- Wi-fi on the whole campus: depends on the internet bandwidth available. If there's 2 links of 155mbs, maybe it's possible to have wi-fi in some spots, with some access policy


PRESS
-  Stress much more our contacts and colleagues journalists
-  "FSM info" space and the idea is to have a blog there with all the info about FSM (a general "copy and paste" tool). This could have another dimmension, if dedicated only for press issues
- (martina) you'll get soon press contacts of those who organize Belem Expanded activities arond the world
- (monica) I also wrote to our OWINFS friends, iinternational fairtraders and others networks we belong (as fair) Marica did the same
- maybe fixing a date for global press conference could speed up procedures give poeple a concrete thing to communicate about, and a deadline to contact the press as Monica was saying, in Italy we will have a national event for presenting WSF2009 on the 15th of January and we will have a press conference as well might be a good day to do the same all over the world
- (thiago)  Monica, I'll send you the most updated list of IC members contacts
-  infos we have about leaders, vips, nips and special events we'll have
- (monica) The only thing I stess is that this space has to be visible and damned communicated worlwide WELL visible so we have to ask it to our brazilian friends who are caring now the Belem website
- this space could be a blog in http://openfsm.net/projects/wsfcomrespondents/blog
- idea: invite people and mantain a blog in this space, to provide updated information to media about what's going on
- idea: deberemos nosotros enviarles a sus correos aunque sea títulos de  actividades periódicamente, para que se interesen. Según mi experiencia, los colegas quieren todo pre-digerido con la excusa de la urgencia...
- Thiago will ask the facilitators for info about intresting activities that they might have found during their work
- Thiago will check the blog usability in OpenFSM (who can post, if attachments and pictures upload are working, etc)


NEXT CHAT
26/12 - same time
proposed agenda: evaluation of press material produced by now