[Advisors] Canadian Internet Forum report

[Marita Moll]

Hello all.  It was great that so many of us could meet up at the BC 
summit.  These annual (I hope) events are totally priceless for 
groups like ourselves who rarely have the opportunity to be in the 
same place at the same time. It was terrific and thanks to Bev, and 
Sue Hanley for pulling it off again this year.

I returned from Vancouver to jump right into CIRA's Canadian Internet 
Forum in Ottawa on Monday.  It was well attended -- about 450 people 
-- and lots of folks on-line.  There are always quite a few policy 
makers in the room -- although they tend to keep a low profile.

My purpose there was essentially to carry the torch for digital 
learning through community based projects like CAP.  I took advantage 
of every opportunity to ask a question or make a point about the 
learning that goes on through already well established programs.  I 
waived the few copies of the collection of stories (The road we 
travelled ...) that was launched at the Summit and they were 
immediately snapped up.  On hindsight, we could have shipped a box 
out here and handed out more.  Something to keep in mind for other 
opportunities.  I did not hand a copy to Byran Holland, CIRA CEO, as 
I did not think it was the best time.  Instead, I think we should 
send him a letter with a copy of the book enclosed.  I'll try to get 
that together in the next week or two.

Digital literacy always comes out high on the CIRA surveys of 
"challenges and opportunities for the Internet" so it's an ongoing 
topic and TC/CAP has a very valid role to play there.  CIRA doesn't 
seem to understand that digital literacy has to be designed and 
carried out community by community.  And nobody in the country does 
this better then the members of the CAP network.  We need to get the 
message through to them that CAP actually has a constituency working 
24/7 on digital literacy projects.

CAP and the book got a bit of traction on the twitter feed -- but, as 
all of our community was on the road or still in Vancouver, it was a 
bit lonely.  Could have used more on-line support  - but I know it 
was a timing issue.

That's about it for now

Marita