Presentations, Meetings, Travel, Training keep KO Staff Busy
Since the last week in April, KO staff members have travelled to different events across Ontario and Manitoba sharing information, supporting other communities and working to further the development of broadband connectivity in First Nations.
Chief John McKay, Jesse Fiddler and Brian Beaton made the trip to Ottawa to attend the Smart Communities meetings with other project teams from across the country. Pictures of these meetings can be seen at http://photos.knet.ca/SC_meeting. Jesse set up the video conferencing connections for the Industry Canada booth at the SmartCity Summit and we were able to connect with some of the First Nations during this event. As well, we worked with some of the other Smart Communities projects to connect with the folks back in their communities to show case some of the work being done across the country. Check out the picture from the trade show at http://photos.knet.ca/SmartCity_Summit.
Dan Pellerin, K-Net’s Network Manager, travelled to Thompson in Northern Manitoba to meet with community leaders from across that part of the country who are working together to put together a business case for Industry Canada’s BRAND initiative. Dan ended up on the front page of Thompson’s local newspaper for his presentation and discussions around telehealth. Thanks to Christine Penner-Polle who conducted demonstrations and provided a great explanation about the KO Telehealth work. Check out the front page story at http://photos.knet.ca/kuhkenah11/abf.
As well, John Moreau and Barb Wong made a road trip to Southern Ontario as part of their SchoolNet / RMO work, to visit a number of First Nation schools across the province in preparation for the installation of two-way satellite connections in some of these schools. Pictures of each First Nation and school are posted at http://photos.knet.ca. In total, Barb and John were able to visit fourteen different First Nations and twenty different schools during their busy trip.
As part of the FedNor funded Internet-based Training project, K-Net staff is working with Wawatay newspaper staff to develop on-line resources that the north can use in their classrooms and communities. Alvin Fiddler and Mike Dube are working to build a linux server where they hope to create an on-line library of some back issues of Wawatay.
The week of May 5 saw Les Meekis and David McKay travelling to Poplar Hill for their community ICT planning meetings. Other unfortunate events occurred that resulted in Les developing a planning tool for First Nation workers to use to report and plan their activities for the final year of the Smart Communities Demonstration project.
Dan and Adi travelled on May 5 to Pickle Lake and Mishkeegogamong for the day. They met with Pickle Lake Town Council to discuss possible connectivity solutions. While at Mish, they visited the school to take pictures of the existing connections using the DirecPC unit that will soon be replaced by a two way satellite unit until a more permanent broadband solution is installed in their community.
NORTH Network was well represented by Irene Pal who visited Balmertown and Sioux Lookout offices to meet with telehealth staff across the province. While in Sioux Lookout, Irene provided Lars and John with training in using the Remedy software for documenting and tracking network issues. As well, Irene was able to get the technicians at NORTH Network in Toronto to fix a video conferencing problem with their quality that everyone was experiencing since January of this year.
Jesse and Steven lead a three day workshop in Sioux Lookout with four staff from Seven Generations Education Institute in Fort Frances. From the training and development workshop, Seven Generations staff were able to build a Linux server, load the KO open source e-learning platform and produce a web-based e-learning environment for their institute. Check out their product at http://7generations.knet.ca
That same week, Dan travelled to Toronto for meetings with Kativik Regional Government reps and other partners. He was accompanied on this trip by Bryan Orthner from the Smart Communities project in Northern Saskatchewan. Together they worked with John McNamara from the NORTH Network to install the new Accord bridge that will expand K-Net’s video conferencing services for network users.
On Monday May 12, representatives from RamTel came to Sioux Lookout to provide training on the installation procedures for their two way satellite systems. K-Net staff and contractors were on hand to participate in this training. As part of Industry Canada’s First Nations SchoolNet / RMO initiative, K-Net is installing 35 of these units as temporary solutions until the community develops more permanent broadband networks to serve their community members.
Finally, Dan and John joined Windigo staff member, Ernie Buswa on a trip into Cat Lake to set up their C-Band satellite dish to provide a community broadband solution once all the circuits are installed.