PacINET 2006 Day 1

We kicked off PacINET 2006 this morning. It was interesting to hear from the Prime Minister of Samoa on his thoughts on the need and use of ICT. In an interesting chat with him during the morning break, I found out that he initially saw the potential of and pushed Internet way back in 1995, which would make him one of the pioneers of Internet in the Pacific. John Budden gave an update on the progress of the Digital Strategy and what work is being done in that context. We also learnt about Samoa's ICT progress and their plans in the short-term. The WIT group presented their plans for the Women in Technology workshop later this week. The afternoon was an UNESCO session covering blogging and Fiji's e-chutney project. We also had a review of PacINET 2005 and what positives came out of that for Kiribati. Its pleasing to note that the wireless network installed for the Parliament building is being put to good use. All up the first day has been good, with comments from the floor contributing well to PacINET's objectives. This evening is a CROP-ICT working group meeting followed by an official function hosted by the Prime Minister for PacINET delegates.