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Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog
Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog


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Bahrain blogging...
Related to country: Bahrain

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Bahrain pic by HÆROLDUSWhat an interesting 48 hours! After Susheela and Andrew’s wonderful wedding on Saturday afternoon, I headed off to the airport to speak on the final day of the Fikr 6 conference happening in Manama, Bahrain. Today, I attended a morning session with John Clippinger moderated by Joi Ito, discussing the implications of technology on the region and for the future. The discussion got into intellectual property and open source, and I found particularly interesting comments made by the panelist from Saudi Aramco, the Saudi oil company, who spoke about the fact that SA was a very open partner and keen participant in many technology collaborations, attributed to the fact that they weren’t interested in owning or licensing intellectual property, but rather just getting access to the best ideas that they could implement locally. It’s nice to be in that position sitting on top of such a resource!

Later, there was a discussion on sustainable housing and building – and the future of energy in the region. One of the speakers was talking about how valuable the sun resource was in MENA - and quoted the fact that a 50x50 square km field of solar panels (current technology) could power the whole MENA region, 100x100 all of Europe, and 300x300 sq km all of the world! Everyone seemed quite intrigued by that, reflecting that only the low low cost of oil has prevented that from becoming a reality. I hope that the cost of Solar will come down to make these types of projects possible in the future…

Prince Bandar - Photo by Joi itoBefore our panel on Social Networks, the Crown Prince of Bahrain was interviewed on stage, and the conversation really heated up over a government plan to impose 200BD ($500 CDN) surcharges on companies for hiring immigrant workers. An interesting solution to a perceived challenge of immigrant workers taking jobs from locals – however, it was also acknowledged that many locals aren’t interested in certain types of hard skill jobs. The prince committed to re-opening a polytechnic college to train more locals on skills.

My panel on Social Networks included Cory Ondrejka From Linden Labs / Second Life, Eric Case from Google / Blogger.com, and Joi Ito (photo credit to Joi for the Prince Bandar photo). We discussed why Web 2.0 isn’t just about wasting time, how sites (like TIG!) can be used for youth to continue the conversations and take action on the issues discussed, the digital divide, and closed with a question of the potential negative impact of technology. (Joi and Cory saved it from being too much of a downer...) :)

Later this afternoon three different youth innovation groups presented ideas on Technology, Investment, and Education for support and endorsement from the audience – all very articulate and with great ideas! Tonight there’s a dinner hosted by the Prince and then tomorrow I have a few hours to relax and check out Bahrain’s UNESCO site before heading home…

P.S. To follow-up on my last blog, we were surprised and honoured to find out in San Jose that we weren't just a Tech Awards laureate, but the prize winner in the Education category! Congratulations to Luke and Emily for leading TIGed to make it all possible!

December 3, 2007 | 11:24 AM Comments  0 comments



What's wrong with haggis?
About this event: World Youth Congress 2005 - Scotland
Related to country: United Kingdom

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Well it's been awhile hasn't it? 5 months is really not very 'with' the whole spirit/idea of blogging. Let's move on, I'll try harder.

So the latest in a flurry of events (I'll try to back-blog about the others soon) was the World Youth Congress last week in Stirling, Scotland. Actually it still is a conference - it doesn't finish until tommorow, but that's besides the point.

We launched V5 of the TakingITGlobal site on Saturday with Jenn keynoting the plenary session of the conference, and then held a TIG members meeting, 2 discussion sessions, and then three workshops on TIG in the computer lab on Monday! What a flurry of events... and pretty tiring too. In the end though we managed to distribute thousands of promotional materials, including over 600 MDG Youth Toolkits, and get over 100 new TIG members signed up during the workshops.

So due to a flight mixup, we had some extra time in Scotland, and visited Edinburgh with Ben Quinto from GYAN... and I had some lovely Haggis with dinner. Seriously, I would have sworn that knowing what it was I would never try it -- in fact I watched friends that didn't know devour it at breakfast a year ago... but I tried it and it was actually quite delicious. So there. Next time you're at a restaurant and they have Haggis, I say go for it!

Now: In Costa Rica for EDC's Power Users of Technology summit, I'll try to be a better blogger this week/month.

August 6, 2005 | 6:27 PM Comments  0 comments

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Missing Moscow...
Related to country: Russia

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

It's great to finally be home -- but I had an amazing time in Moscow. Thanks to Irina and Svitlana for translation and surviving on even less sleep than us, our volunteer translators, and all the TIG members for coming out to all our events!

Things I'll miss:
Walking everywhere
Hot fruit buns every morning
Such a comprehensive metro system (25 cents!)
Friendly smiles and people trying out their English
Uzbek, Georgian, Russian dinner choices
Borsch every day?
Getting to use my Cyrillic character knowledge!

Things I won't miss:
Walking everywhere
The cars not stopping for people on the road :)
Underpasses
Dial-up

December 19, 2004 | 3:11 PM Comments  0 comments

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