Wamuyu, Believe it or not was turned away from the ICANN yesterday. Did not expect to be asked for proof that am part of the Kenyan IT industry. Only had a Kenyan ID & accent that could not convince those at the registration desk otherwise. Doubt that I will return. -----Original Message----- From: Wamuyu Gatheru <wamuyulearn@yahoo.co.uk> Sent: Wednesday, March 10, 2010 11:41 To: murigi.muraya@gmail.com Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] Nothing like free dinner Tim, please substantiate. Yesterday I was at the county code NSO meeting, than later at the commercial actors meeting and finally at the GAC/ICANN board meetings. No Kenyan spoke at the first two meetings (if they were present). Alice and Michael (CCK) made an important intervention on the distraction and unfairness to Kenya of the security hollabalu - but no one else was around to support them in defending Kenya. Note also that this was the meeting where the ICANN board was trying once more to conclude the EOI issue on generic TLDs - businesses from developed countries can barely wait for this decision to be made.   Actually, I think the weak Kenyan engagement is genuine and not one that we should necessarily be defensive about. Am new to ICANN and if I had not made the decision to attend the meeting a little while ago, I would never have understood its agenda and whats at stake. Those who have been involved in ICANN longer may have points to contribute on increasing Kenya's involvement.   regards, Wamuyu From: McTim <dogwallah@gmail.com> To: Wamuyu Gatheru <wamuyulearn@yahoo.co.uk> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Sent: Tue, 9 March, 2010 23:30:56 Subject: Re: [kictanet] Nothing like free dinner On Tue, Mar 9, 2010 at 11:08 PM, Wamuyu Gatheru <wamuyulearn@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

nothing to do with Kenya. There must be good reasons why European, American, Asian and Australian businesspeople and their governments have hyper involvement while their Kenyan hosts are minding their shugulis...?

Are we attending different meetings? I've been in a dozen meetings, and their have always been Kenyans in each one, many of them actively participating. -- Cheers, McTim "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel