APNG 9th Camp report by Justinus Andjarwirawan

2007-09-04

Introduction

This is my second APNG camp. The first was the 6th which was held in Kyoto, Japan in conjunction with the Apricot 2005. At that time I presented the Internet history of Indonesia . The 9th Camp my presentation was concentrated on the Disaster Management about the mobile operators concern in the disaster information broadcast to the public. I had interest on APNG 9th camp because the Disaster Management workgroup is still open to participants and I had wanted to present my proposal which is related to this workgroup. It is a pleasure for me to be accepted as a participant in this 9th camp. The APAN's workshop was also an interest for joining this camp, as Digital Archiving is an ongoing issue in the university I work in.

Expectations

Joining the APNG camp, I expect to see many projects and researches that may assist my presented material. The DUMBOnet project and Live E! were the most interested subjects I have learnt from the camp. I can see many chances to develop those projects into many applications to support my ideas on the Disaster Management. It will be good if I can learn more about these two subjects especially which part of the project that have not been developed or researched, so that my local team can also involve in the development.

Another expectation to the camp is to bring new ideas from all the working groups for the topics that I can manage to start a local camp in the country. We need more ideas and solutions to start a local camp, which is on of the very important points of APNG's future.

Benefits from the camp

The workgroup sharing gave a lot of knowledge about technology. We were able to share some thoughts that had never come in mind before. We were also able to understand how each Asia Pacific country differs in the use of the Internet technology. The DUMBOnet and Live E! projects contribute some ideas to develop applications related to Disaster Management with mobile operators and Internet technology. The conjunction APAN meetings were also a great contribution to the participants; we had many updates on the Asia Pacific regions' network.

Suggestions for the next camp

• A longer duration of the camp (in matter of days) will be nice.
• More members from more different countries.
• Manage local tours for the camp participants.
• Should always have team building in every camp.
• Presentations made in less tracks so that everyone can listen to all participants' presentations.

Some points to note

With the working groups sessions in two different tracks I found that there was some gaps between the working groups, and we had little time to meet the other participants from the other working groups until the end of the camp. Only the team building could close the gaps between the working groups, so it is also important to have the team building more time to have the meetings and sharings, if the working groups still have to be separated in tracks because of limited time.

I would like to thank all the camp committees, secretary and everyone in the camp that made this camp a very successful event. The next thing to do for me is to think of starting up a local camp in small groups and focus in one subject or working group.

Justinus Andjarwirawan

Indonesia