This is a short update on the KICTANET 2006 COCKTAIL PARTY with the theme "appreciating old friends welcoming new ones" which toopk place on Tuesday 10th. The main thrust of this cocktail party as you may all know already was to welcome the PS Ministry of Infocom Dr B. Ntume (an industrial economist formerly of the University of Nairobi) while thanking the former PS, Engineer J.Rege. The event was well attended and interesting bits of information were shared and much fun was had. Engineer Rege was toasted as among the most multi-stakeholder responsive public servants in Kenya to date much to his delight. The PS, who described himself as a jua-kali economist, invited all stakeholders to join him in his bid to create jobs and pledged to pursue the ICT policy which he said is to be tabled in Cabinet within one week and ready for the next steps within the next couple of weeks. We were all expectedly very happy about this pronoucement and hope to keep a close watch on this so as to give it the maximum support required. He also said he has an open door and a listening ear. He chalenged KICTAnet to support the President's call for support to the famine relief and to this end we are coordinating a KICTANet fund which will be handed over to the PS for onward delivery. We already have 2 very impressive donations of 50,000 from TESPOK and 10,000 from FOSSFA. Florence of KICTAnet and Damaris of TESPOK have been asked to help co-ordinate, and collect donations.