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I can not imagine where to start. APNG Camp… it is one of the inequitable experiences in my life.
Nice and sunny weather in Cairns; Really useful technical demonstrations and presentations; New
friends from all around the region; opportunity of discussing technical and policy issues with
regional peers; Learn from others experiences; Foods; Fun; Joy…. Everything. Actually it was an
incredible experience I had ever in my life.
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Pre-mind…
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I started with brows on APNG community site, as soon as I received application form for the APNG
fellowship. I created one account and had a visit around the contents there. What I realized there
was this camp was mainly limited to few countries like Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. Therefore
I thought that we can make the sound of some of developing countries. We will be able to establish
the collaboration among ourselves specially the next generation in the region. Especially I thought
we will be able to share our potentials in our countries while sharing the business opportunities.
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Pre-expectations…
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Initially I had following expectations from APNG in my country’s point of view:
- Address common problems we have in the region (especially in developing countries).
- Share the knowledge we have in addressing above problems.
- Learn from experience of other countries.
- Get known to the people from next generation of the region.
- Collect new ideas.
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Experiences…
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I would like to say it was a really great experience I ever had in my life. This was my first time in
Australia. Even I expected very cold weather at once, the environment in Cairns was perfect. I must
say that organizing committee had done a correct decision in choosing the venue, except the fact
that Cairns is far away for most of people in the region to reach.
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It was not a conference; it was not a workshop; it was not a meeting; it was not even a tutorial; Yes;
the right word to use is Camp. It included the features of all above. But it was not boring at all,
since the camp was organized in keeping inter-socio relationship all the time. We were happy all the
days and nights with people, fun, foods, drinks, visits and all other entertainments.
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What I gained…
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All the experience I gained over APNG camp is absolutely excellent and extremely useful for my
future plans. I got the confidence of communication with the community in the region. I am pretty
sure we will be able to work together for the development of infrastructure in the region. APNG
will be a nice platform for us to keep our relationship and make them stronger. APNG acts as a
really good community portal for the regional community. We could meet and hear from the people
in industry, academia, representing many countries. In addition government policy makers, students,
event organizers, technical and non-technical people from whom we could gained very important
knowledge not only in technical aspects but also in other non-technical aspects like how to organize
events, what are the policy and political issues affects in Internet development over the region.
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Even we were involving organizing conferences, workshops and tutorials for the benefit of local
community as one of the leading technical University in Sri Lanka; we did not have an idea of
organizing camp. We held all those events keeping technical aspects in mind. We did not look much
in to social aspects of the Internet. I could realize the importance of the social and other nontechnical
aspects of the Internet after this camp.
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Future plans…
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We, the participant from Sri Lanka decided to have a similar local camp in Sri Lanka. We strongly
believe that it will be helpful a lot for the collaboration among our local universities, research
institutes, industrial organizations and government bodies engaged in Internet and infrastructure
development in the country.
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Further we would like to keep our socio-techno collaboration within the country and expand it
towards the region via APNG for the development of the Internet. As a research institute we do
several researches for the better use of Internet infrastructure when the resources are scarce. We are
really interested in sharing this knowledge with other countries having similar problems. On the
other hand we are appreciating in receiving any know-how or developments in addressing above
problems in this area from any other country too.
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As we see there are several other countries that have been already established we would like to learn
the lessons from them. We are willing to invite couple of APNG representatives for the local
committee, if we could manage to organize it.
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Suggestions for the future camps…
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The fellowship program is the opportunity that allowed us to participate in this camp. Most of the
participants might not be there without this offer. It made participants from developing countries to
come and share, gain all that excellent experience. Therefore please make sure continue the
fellowship program. If APNG can increase the number of fellowship offer; that is one of the best
thing can be done.
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The community site of the APNG is a really powerful portal as I saw. However I don’t see much of
the activities on it, after the camp. I would like to suggest we must try to keep on discussing the
matters and activities of “Work Groups” on this portal. We can introduce even new topics
meanwhile.
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This was the first time APNG had so much of representation from developing countries. If we keep
on motivating people from these countries it is an essential to have couple of organizing committee
members from these developing countries too. I believe that it is not required for this time since it
was the first time we had their representation. However, I would like to suggest doing it from next
camp onwards.
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Having this sort of international event in a developing country will help a lot for those countries in
many aspects. It will help in technology and knowledge transfer and improvement of moral in local
communities. At the same time it will help other well developed Internet communities to understand
the entire regional background and opportunities available in those countries. I know there many
burdens of doing this with low financial support and low technology availability of those countries.
I we can overcome these problems and held a camp like 8th APNG camp in a developing country
that will a step in APNG history. The best place to start is India, in parallel to APRICOT 2006.
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Thanks…
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With my final word, I would like to thank to the APNG chair, Tommy Matsumoto for his great
commitments towards the development of APNG. Next I would like to devote my thanks to all the
APNG secretariats who worked so hard to make the event success. Liu Xin, your organizations in
the 5th camp is excellent. Finally I must thank all the participants and everyone who contributed to
the success of this event and make the entire week memorable in our minds. Congratulations next
camp chair Hongbo Shi and cheers every one!
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