Discussion List Archives

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

NEWS FROM INET2000 #3

NEWS FROM INET2000 #3
This morning's plenary of INET2000 opened with a round 
table discussion about the future of the Internet layer. 
It is probably incorrect to single out one of the 
speakers, but Geoff Huston made a very articulate 
statement about the trade-offs between massive 
scalability and flexibility. According to him "savage" 
assumptions about catering for size could well lock out 
future possibilities and lead to the costly need to rip 
out the system and start all over again in years to come. 
He spoke of the emergence of short term, relatively 
unregulated forces as the market takes over from former 
state monopolies and expressed concern about who will 
guarantee the longer-term perspective.
The morning's keynote speech was given by John Chambers, 
President and CEO of CISCO. Superbly at ease and extremely 
sure of himself, John expounded his vision of the "network 
effect". He stated that the economics of networking are 
determining the prosperity of countries, companies and 
individuals. He closed his presentation with a number of 
statements, one of which was "There are two great 
equalisers in life: the Internet and education."
On a quite different note, yesterday afternoon there was 
an excellent presentation of WebGrrls.nl, an organisation 
designed to help girls and women in Holland get connected 
to the Internet and use the technology. They currently 
have over 3500 members and are growing with about 50 new 
members a month. I plan to publish an interview about the 
subject.
Yesterday evening, there were a number of important smaller 
meetings including a meeting for chapters, the Internet 
Societal Task Force under the impetus of Vint Cerf and a 
group of people aiming to set up a transnational legal SIG. 
More about these things later.
Best wishes    Alan.
PS. INET2001 will be held in Stockholm from June 5-8th 2001. 
It is going to be really good, so write it into your diary!
-- 
Howard Flack        http://www.unige.ch/crystal/ahdf/Howard.Flack.html
Laboratoire de Cristallographie               Phone: 41 (22) 702 62 49
24 quai Ernest-Ansermet             mailto:Howard.Flack@cryst.unige.ch
CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland                   Fax: 41 (22) 702 61 08

Reply to: [list | sender only]
International Union of Crystallography

Scientific Union Member of the International Science Council (admitted 1947). Member of CODATA, the ISC Committee on Data. Partner with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in the International Year of Crystallography 2014.

International Science Council Scientific Freedom Policy

The IUCr observes the basic policy of non-discrimination and affirms the right and freedom of scientists to associate in international scientific activity without regard to such factors as ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political stance, gender, sex or age, in accordance with the Statutes of the International Council for Science.

Useful links