(Opening Panel, from left: Hernan Galperin (DIRSI, speaking); Bill Melody, Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia), Alison Gillwald (RIA!), Anders Henten (LIRNE European network) and Amy Mahan (Comunica/LIRNE coordination))

It is not that we had never met, but this was a sustained full-day engagement. The last time all the LIRNE.NET entities and their primary funder IDRC were in the same room, it was amidst the cacophony of WSIS in Tunis in November 2005. People talked but listening was not always possible.

The setting was radically different this time; it was peaceful Ottawa, the meeting had been in planning for months, and almost all the key players were there (Ben Petrazzinni was missed). IDRC had been funding the African, Asia-Pacific and Latin America & Caribbean entities for varying lengths of time under the pro-market, pro-poor framework pulled together in the aftermath of the famous Harvard gathering organized by Randy Spence. We used the opportunity of representatives of the three entities coming to Montreal for dedicated sessions at the Biennial Conference of the International Telecommunications Society, to organize a show and tell. Everyone submits technical reports and dashes off e-mails, but there is nothing really that can substitute for the face-to-face meeting to get in-depth understanding.

We had been highly productive the past few years, so it was not possible to talk about everything, the successes, the failures, the plans, the hopes. So we carved out topic areas and organized interactions that involved the regional entities and key individuals such as Bill Melody, the founder of the network, Randy Spence the champion of pro-market, pro-poor ICT policy and regulation research within IDRC prior to his retirement, Laurent Elder, who task-managed the African program before coming over to supervise the Asia-Pacific program and so on. Industry Canada, which has indirectly supported some of the work in regions other than the Asia Pacific was represented by the irrepressible Prabir Neogi. IDRC Vice President for Programs Rohinton Medhora opened the proceedings and IDRC’s Director of ICT for Development Michael Clarke closed them.

The exchanges ranged from a walk through pictures of the trials and tribulations of field research in Africa to insights of qualitative research on teleuse in Jamaica to the story of romancing the DoT [India’s Department of Telecommunications] by LIRNEasia’s Payal Malik. We talked about Poisson distributions and banded forbearance, about building in-situ expertise through an annual conference and about the problems of doing applied research in university settings. This not being a LIRNEasia event, we do not have the usual evaluation forms to analyze, but from all appearances a good time was had by all.

Of course, networks are mostly held together by personal glue, so we did that kind of thing too. The new task manager for the toughest of the LIRNE.NET territories Africa, Khaled Fourati, served as our guide as we explored the culinary delights of the Canadian capital. I took umbrage when Payal suggested that she had walked to Parliament Hill and was done with Ottawa. The resulting morning walk along the river led to the taking of this beautiful picture by Helani from the Douglas Cardinal designed Museum of Civilization. It is, in its way, our warm thank you to the taxpayers of Canada who are funding the production of public goods that will serve the bottom of the pyramid in our part of the world.

The LIRNEasia presentations at the LIRNE.NET – IDRC meeting can be downloaded below. The overview talk did not use slides, just the back of my business card that has printed on it the LIRNEasia mission statement.

–Rohan Samarajiva, Helani Galpaya and Payal Malik (LIRNEasia team at Ottawa)

Presentations

LIRNEasia‘s CPRsouth-centered capacity building | Rohan Samarajiva | Download Presentation

Tools for effective regulation using benchmarks and indicators | Helani Galpaya | Download Presentation

Romancing the DoT: LIRNEasia’s policy interventions in India | Payal Malik | Download Presentation