Media.Knet.Ca

PRESS RELEASE

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

Sioux Lookout, Ontario

102 people from all over the world have registered for Keewaytinook Okimakanak’s (KO) International SMART Communities Gathering Wednesday and Thursday this week (March 17 and 18). The conference, which explores Indigenous communities’ use of Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) in development, will take place entirely online.

Participants will log onto the conference website (http://smart.knet.ca/international) to view, listen to, and respond to the presenters. Everyone, including those who have registered along with visitors to website, can participate through the Internet using K-Net’s on-line meeting platform The conference opening and closing sessions will be live video conferences that will be webcast so everyone can watch and contribute via live chat sessions. All sessions will be archived for people to view at their convenience.

"This conference gathers together the best of KO’s SMART project and uses the best technology available to bring Indigenous communities from around the world together," said Brian Beaton, K-Net Services Coordinator.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak ("Northern Chiefs") Executive Director Geordi Kakepetum leads the work of the six First Nation Chiefs Council. From his office in Balmertown he sums up his organization’s work in ICT development: "In the early 90's, when I was the chief in Keewaywin First Nation, we were busy building our community. We had no telephones. Telephone service in Keewaywin was finally installed to the organizations and homes at the end of 2000. Some of the homes in Keewaywin were connected to the Internet before they had telephones. We are now able to host and deliver an international conference from our own communities. I understand that we have people registered for this conference from six continents from around world. This is truly an exciting opportunity for our organization and the communities we serve."

Conference Keynotes are

• Darlene Rae, e-Centre Manager for North Spirit Lake: Managing ICT Development from the Ground Up
• Heather Hudson, Professor of Communications, University of San Francisco: Bridging the Broadband Divide: Strategies for Rural and Developing Regions

There will also be five presenters from indigenous communities on three continents, including:

• Kasmira Warbrooke and Melody Hare from Tuhoe, New Zealand, on that community’s Computers in Homes project
• Domingo Camaja Santay and Andrew Lieberman from el Quiché, Guatemala, on Using ICTs to Strengthen the Training of Mayan Teachers: Lessons Learned from Enlace Quiché
• Lekoko Ole Sululu from Arusha, Tanzania, on Linking Transitional Maasai Villages to the Global Community.

The e-Centre managers from the five KO communities – Deer Lake, Fort Severn, Keewaywin, North Spirit Lake, and Poplar Hill – will speak in an online forum describing the way they have used ICTs to improve secondary education, health service delivery, and community development in their communities. K-Net staff will discuss specific aspects of the SMART project.

The Gathering is the culminating event for KO’s SMART First Nations Demonstration project. The SMART project is a three-year initiative led by the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Council in partnership with the government of Canada that blends community leadership with technological innovation. Together – with everyone – the Kuh-ke-nah First Nations are defining a new network of community development, opportunity and wellness.

Brian Beaton, K-Net Services Coordinator (807) 737-1135 ext. 51251
Geordi Kakepetum, Keewaytinook Okimakanak Executive Director (807) 735-1381

Conference website: www.smart.knet.ca/international

Keewaytinook Okimakanak website: www.knet.ca

Journalists who would like to participate in the conference should contact John Rowlandson (jrowlandson@telus.net) to receive Presentation access codes.

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The number of e-mail messages that contain infected attachments is increasing at an alarming rate. These messages are flooding everyone's inbox and creating problems for the K-Net mail server to handle all these messages.

The only way to prevent these viruses from spreading further is to make sure everyone's computer has an up-to-date virus protection program. Please run an anti-virus protection program (for example, Norton or McAfee) to make sure your computer is not infected with these viruses. Then keep these programs updated to make sure you are protected against any incoming viruses.

Luke Sainnawap from Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug shares his experience ...

"The program I find that helps me a lot is Trend - scan online [found at http://housecall.trendmicro.com/] - it is a free on-line virus scanner.

The netsky virus causes so much damage to one computer that I had to totally reformat it and reinstall XP. The music filing sharing is the killer - kaaza is a deadly program for computers. ... I am out an average of 3 times a week just doing  computer maintenance for people."

A number of messages are being sent concerning the amount of spam that is also filling everyone's mail inbox. Everyone can try to use the different filters that are available from the mail program but please understand that these filters can also remove wanted messages because of their content. It does take some trial and error to find out what works best for everyone. For myself, I manually delete all the spam messages based on the sender and subject line without even opening the message, in most cases.

I encourage everyone to share how they are coping with this latest attack on everyone's e-mail accounts.

"T-Shirts for simply telling the truth ..." is how one writer describes her K-Net experience. K-Net is awarding a specially designed tee-shirt for your K-Net story. Check out the stories posted so far ...

A collection of stories written by various K-Net users are being posted on the International On-line Conference web site under KO Smart Stories. We want to thank everyone who took the time to share their story with us. We invite everyone to continue submitting their stories to Florence Woolner (conference facilitator) for review.

Thanks for you support and kind words!!

We invite everyone to join us on-line on March 17 and 18 for this international event. Check out the agenda for the line up of exciting presenters.

Jesse Fiddler, K-Net's Multi-media Coordinator, spent part of the afternoon in his office meeting with two people located in the library in Rainy River First Nation. He was providing a training session in the use of open source Post Nuke content management software for the development of their community web site.

Using their new IP video conferencing equipment and broadband connection enabled everyone to see and hear each other. But now Jesse is able to use K-Net's new virtual training and meeting platform (Macromedia's Breeze software) to watch what the meeting participants are doing on their computers and provide directions and suggestions for creating their community web site.

Jesse has created an "On-line Helpdesk" link from the First Nations SchoolNet web site that takes users directly to this new resource. Using either the IP phone connection or the video conferencing connection enables users to get the training support required from their desktops.

This new on-line meeting place will be used to host the upcoming virtual International Conference that is happening next week on March 17 and 18. Be sure to join us for this exciting international event.

Brian Walmark, KO's First Nations SchoolNet Special Projects Coordinator is in Six Nations near Brantford at the JC Hill Elementary school for the next two days. He is conducting a web site production workshop in the use of the Post Nuke document management software for the development and maintenance of school web sites.

Click here to check out the pictures from the workshop.

Jamie Ray travelled to Rainy River First Nation at Manitou Rapids on Thursday and Friday to work with Chief Al Hunter and his team at their library where a K-Net T1 connection was recently established.

Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet program is funding the installation of a broadband connection and video conferencing equipment in a number of First Nations across Ontario.

The video conferencing equipment and T1 are now operational in the Raining River First Nation library. The local team is working to connect all the different office buildings and the local Seven Generations high school classroom to this service. These connections will share this new broadband connection and support the ongoing operation and development of this service.

On his return trip, Jamie stopped in at the Ongegaming First Nation school which will be getting broadband connection installed this week.

On Wednesday, March 10, staff from Rainy River FN worked with Jesse Fiddler using K-Net's new on-line interactive training and meeting workspace to learn how the post nuke document management system can be used for developing and maintaining their community web site. As well, the new IP video conferencing service helped to support this training session.

Brian Walmark, KO's SchoolNet Special Projects Coordinator travelled to the Batchewana First Nation Learning Centre in Sault Ste Marie to host another web site development workshop for First Nation schools in that region. Click here to see pictures from this workshop.

The Learning Centre is one of the videoconferencing sites created by the First Nations SchoolNet as a pilot project to demonstrate the educational uses of this IP application for First Nation educational environments. One application being explored by the team at the Learning Centre is to use v/c to link coop students in remote and isolated First Nations within their territory with prospective employers. For more about this story click here.

The web development workshops are resulting in more and more First Nation schools developing the skills necessary to produce and maintain their own web sites. Click here to see a list of more than 40 First Nation K-12 educational environments that are now on-line.

Graeme Everton, from New Zealand, video conferenced to the K-Net office in Sioux Lookout on Friday in preparation for the on-line International Conference.

Click here to learn more about Graeme's work in New Zealand.

From the homepage of this site ...

A site dedicated to news, views and Information about Information Technology and Telecommunications for Indigenous people.

Welcome to Te Putahi a site established to support the efforts and aspirations of indigenous people who are associated with the Information Technology and Telecommunications (IT&T) sector.

Here we intend to create a place on the Internet for indigenous people to share and support each other's efforts in learning about and using IT&T. We will publish information on IT&T news and events featuring indigenous people and seek to encourage partnerships between indigenous communities both nationally and internationally to increase the participation of indigenous people in the IT&T sector generally.

The stories that Rick Garrick produced for the Kuhkenah page in Wawatay are now available in the new publication entitled, "ICT Innovation and Personal Stories from the Little North … the land of the Ojibway, Oji-Cree and Cree people".

Click here to view the document.

Over the past year, starting in February 2003, Rick researched and wrote two stories for the Kuhkenah News page that appeared in each issue of Wawatay News. Twenty-five issues later, this biweekly feature in the Wawatay newspaper has now come to an end with the final page being published in the February 12, 2004 issue.

Each of the fifty articles that Rick produced contain interviews and information about the work being done by the Kuhkenah Network of Smart First Nations demonstration project, its partners and the people who are creating new and innovative on-line solutions across Nishnawbe Aski Nation. Rick was able to bring out the positive developments; highlighting the opportunities along with the challenges that now exist for the people living in rural and remote First Nations. His stories brought to life the work that has been accomplished in a relatively short period of time through the efforts of a large collective of creative people living and working across this vast region of Northern Ontario.

With this document, we are publishing all the stories as a collection for everyone to read and review. The table of contents contains the date that the page was published with a link to the graphic image of the actual page that is posted on-line. The twenty-five pages are on-line at http://photos.knet.ca/Kuhkenah-pages in three different sizes (thumbnail, medium and full page). The story headline for each issue follows the date.

Representatives from Cisco's Winnipeg team (Ken Batke and Shane Warnez), along with Tom Wolstencroft, Sales Rep with Cygnal Technologies travelled to Sioux Lookout today to discuss the Kuhkenah Network developments and future plans. As well, Roy Hart, Health Canada's Regional IT Director travelled from Toronto to join the meetings. Education Network of Ontario (ENO) and another Cisco rep joined the meeting via video conference.

One important objective of the meeting was discussions around the development of an IP telephony network in the Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations and offices in Sioux Lookout and Balmertown.

Roy, Ken, Shane and Tom model their new Kuhkenah Network vests. For more pictures from this meeting, click here.