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Today Keewaywin started their Community ICT Strategic Planning workshop as part of the Kuh-ke-nah Smart First Nations Demonstration Project workshop. These workshops are being coordinated by Les Meekis and will be happening in each Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nation. On hand for the workshop from KO are Les Meekis, Lars Dixon, Jesse Fiddler and Dan Pellerin. Helen Aitkin and Ricardo Ramírez from Telecommons Development Group are here providing facilitation and training support for the workshop. The Keewaywin workshop started on Monday, Nov 19th. The first meeting was held at the e-center where all the staff discussed the format that they will follow over the next few days. Roles and responsibilities were clarified for everyone to make sure the workshop is successful. Monday's community meeting was planned for that evening. The community meeting was to inform the community members of the workshop agenda and to give everyone a chance to meet each other. The meeting started with Lorraine Kakegamic doing the opening prayers. Raymond Mason began the meeting by introducing the staff, members of the Smart team, and K-Net staff to the community members. Les Meekis then made some opening remarks about the Kuh-ke-nah workshop, explaning the workshop agenda and the format for the workshop. He discussed everything regarding the community services such as health, education and the local gov't/economic development and recapping upcoming events. Helen gave a demonstration using powerpoint slides to show the community the surveys that were done two years ago and again this year. These slides showed a dramatic difference over these two years in the changes in the use of technology in Keewaywin. Ricardo was also on hand to share in the discussion about some of this information. There were questions about the surveys and what the surveyers did to collect this data. They explained that Keewaywin and the other KO First Nations are like ambassadors to the other countries where they also work where many are just now beginning to explore the use of this technology as it becomes available worldwide. Dan made a presentation about the work that K-net is doing. He explained using a flipchart about the K-Net connections and how modems are used. He was very impressive and impressed a lot of people with the information about the upcoming cable hook ups to the houses. He estimated that this work should be completed in about five weeks or more. He also stessed that there will only be twenty modems available for the community through the project. That got a lot of people's attention with many already vying for one of the twenty modems that will be available. Raymond Mason asked Lorraine Kakegamic, the Education Director for the Keewaywin School. to close the community meeting with a prayer. Keewaywin's Kuh-ke-nah Smart First Nations Demonstration project workshop photos