PacINET
Samoa – August, 2006

Lynnold Misifea Wini and Christina Kuper Wini, from the Solomon Islands, with Dr Vinton Cerf

Three associates from DiploFoundation attended PacINET 2006 held in Apia, Samoa from August 21-26, 2006. Gisa Fuatai Purcell generated a lot of interest in her presentation about DiploFoundation’s capacity building activities. Fuatai, who was a participant in the IG Capacity Building Programme last year, was joined by this year’s participants, Lynnold Misifea Wini and Christina Kuper Wini from the Solomon Islands.

DiploFoundations’s materials on Internet Governance, including DVDs and booklets, were distributed to raise awareness and interest in IG issues and was well received.

Keynote speaker, Internet evangelist Dr Vinton Cerf, was very impressed with developments in Samoa and especially the fact that DiploFoundation was providing education on topics that are only being offered by traditional universities. Professor Kenji Saga from the Pacific Islands Digital Opportunity Committee also showed great interest in the initiatives to promote DiploFoundation in the Pacific region. DiploFoundation has trained around 20 participants from the region through its capacity building programme in the last two years.

It was also confirmed that the Solomon Islands will host PacINet 2007. Lynnold Misifea Wini and Christina Kuper Wini were directly involved in the bid to host this event. Their bid, presented by Christina in her capacity as the HostOrg interim Chair, gained unanimous support from all present at the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (PICISOC) annual general meeting.

PacINET is a regional conference for practitioners, developers, researchers and those interested in ICT from all sectors to exchange information on the system design, enabling technologies, and anecdotal experiences related to the use of ICT in the Pacific Islands. PacINET 2006 placed equal emphasis on policy and technical issues, covering a variety of topics and reaching out to a greater audience.