Media.Knet.Ca

The Keewaytinook Okimakanak team arrived in Winnipeg and completed the set up for the upcoming Chiefs' meeting and Aboriginal Smart Fair.

Click here to see the pictures.

K-Net now has an on-line multi-media presentation about the work that has been completed under the Smart Communities project. Everyone is invited to watch and listen to the people from the Keewaytinook Okimakanak team tell their stories about the development of K-Net and the resulting Health, Education, Economic Development and Network Infrastructure applications.

You will need to download the latest version of Flash (Flash 7) to view the videos in this on-line presentation. You can get to the presentation at http://smart.knet.ca/kuhkenah_flash.html (the link to Flash 7 is available at this site)

Keewaytinook Okimakanak’s team will be sharing this information with the folks attending our Smart Fairs that are happening in each of the Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations as well as in Winnipeg. Everyone is invited to visit us on-line for the upcoming these Smart Fairs on Dec 10 and 11. Please visit the web site and leave a message in the Comments section located at http://smart.knet.ca/fair

Be sure to check out the credits in the flash presentation to see some of the great team players involved in creating another wonderful on-line product that I hope everyone will be able to use to encourage and support others as they develop ICT initiatives.

The print material that accompanies the videos is also being made available on-line at:

The executive summary and acknowledgements

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http://knet.ca/documents/Summary-acknowledgements-KNet-ver.pdf - 190K - 2 pages

An Introduction to K-Net

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http://knet.ca/documents/INTRO-KNet-ver.pdf - 657K - 8 pages

K-Net Case Study on Network Development

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http://knet.ca/documents/NETWORK-KNet-ver.pdf - 732K - 9 pages

K-Net Case Study on Economic Development -

http://knet.ca/documents/ECON-DEV-KNet-ver.pdf - 1.1M - 9 pages

K-Net Case Study on Health

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http://knet.ca/documents/HEALTH-KNet-ver.pdf - 1M - 8 pages

K-Net Case Study on Education

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http://knet.ca/documents/EDUC-KNet-ver.pdf - 793K- 8 pages

Jesse Fiddler is on his way to Geneva, Switzerland to do a number of presentations and showcase the work of Keewaytinook Okimakanak First Nations. There are over 100 events scheduled to take place this week at the United Nation's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Jesse is now scheduled to participated in a number of these events.

On Monday, Dec 8, Jesse will be at Local Content CyberFestival at the World Summit on the Information Society to do a presentation about the on-line work he has been creating over the past few years. This event is described as "Organized by cyberty.net, a Swiss not-for-profit association, the festival is devoted to promoting freedom of expression and content diversity in cyberspace. The use of local languages and the impact of ICT on cultural identity in local communities are its principle issues on the agenda of the Local Content CyberFestival."

Jesse will also be attending the Global Forum on Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society throughout WSIS as part of his work with First Nations SchoolNet and the Institute for Connectivity of the Americas. From their web site, this event is intended to "start a discussion process on the opportunities offered to indigenous groups through the Information Highway, strengthen a global network of stakeholders on ICT and indigenous peoples and foster partnerships, paving the way for the coming Summit in Tunis. The meeting will include the participation of indigenous groups from around the globe, gathered to discuss key topics such as access, territorial-based development, intellectual property and modern technologies, education, public-private partnerships. It is intended that the meeting will increase the visibility of best indigenous practices in the world, transfer knowledge and know-how, while at the same time raising key issues for policy-makers worldwide."

On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, Jesse will be on hand at the Canadian Pavilion to coordinate the presentations on Indigenous e-Culture (Wed) and e-Learning (Thurs) with live video conferencing connections between Geneva, the KO Smart Fair in Winnipeg and First Nation sites across Canada. The Communications Research Centre (CRC) is coordinating these live video conferencing connections. They are decribing this event as a means "to advancing R&D on the technologies that form the basis of new and emerging telecommunications systems across Canada. The emphasis is to develop and demonstrate how technologies can work together to form cost-effective and reliable telecommunications networks, serving all of Canada, especially the remote and underserved areas."

Smart team members from Deer Lake (Darrell Ostamas) and Fort Severn (Barney Turtle) are working with K-Net staff this week in Sioux Lookout. George Ferriera, a Phd candidate and professional videographer, traveled to Sioux Lookout on Friday to work with the K-Net team in gathering the video material and providing training support for everyone. Together, they are gathering video material from different organizations about their uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the applications that are being developed and delivered across the region. Click here to check out the pictures.

Over the past few months, George has traveled to North Spirit Lake, Keewaywin and Fort Severn to gather video material about how ICTs are being used in these First Nations. In January, he will be travelling to Deer Lake and Poplar Hill to complete the training and data collection efforts.

The video material will be used in a number of ways over the next few weeks and months. Video and editting equipment is being put into each of the KO First Nation e-Centres for the production and archiving of stories and documentaries that can be posted on-line. The evaluation of the Smart Communities project will use the video footage to present the stories as told from the people who are using these tools in their lives. Short video documentaries are being put together to be shared with others.

Using video material to tell the stories about the north, the land and the people, requires broadband connectivity in each of the communities. These tools are another way for the communities to help support the ongoing development and operation of their broadband connections.

Personal web pages at MyKnet.org continue to be the most popular on-line space for the Nishnawbe Aski to browse. In November there were over 15 million hits on this K-Net server (over 2 million more hits from the previous month)! The average daily hits on this server is over half a million hits!

All together there were over 24 MILLION hits occurring on the six most popular monitored K-Net servers throughout November. Specifically, on these six servers with traffic graphs, there were a total of 24,268,400 hits made to these on-line services provided by Keewaytinook Okimakanak. The six servers include myknet.org, knet.ca, webmail.knet.ca, hosting.knet.ca, highschool.knet.ca and photos.knet.ca. There were 437,624 visits made during this period to these six servers, indicating that people are exploring these sites more and more.

Most of the K-Net servers that are being monitored for hits, visits and usage statistics using the webalizer program again showed an increase during the month. But http://myknet.org rose by more than 2 million hits to demonstrate the rapid take up of these communication tools among users across the north.

Please note:

• other on-line K-Net services, such as K-Net chat and the video streamer are not included in these numbers;
• server traffic monitoring information is located at http://tech.knet.ca/~tech/monitoring.

Myknet.org

continues to be a popular resource for people across the region, especially the young people who are reading, writing and sharing their stories on-line. We are getting letters and e-mail messages from people who are using this on-line service for different purposes. Below is a sampling of some of the comments and stories that some people are sharing about myknet.org. It is important for everyone to understand that this service was created and is being maintained by the people who are using it. The K-Net team consists of everyone who uses these services and who helps make these resources a healthy on-line space for everyone else, especially the young people who enjoy visiting these web pages.

From one of the personal homepages …

Hello to everyone checking out my homepage. I just love this K-Net stuff. I’ve had an account for probably a year and a half now. There are so many Moose Factory people with accounts! It’s good to know what is happening with everyone. And you hear it right from them. … By viewing the homepages I’m getting first-hand information. I’m learning about people that I see around but that I normally wouldn’t talk to, simply because I don’t know them! That’s why I love it, it’s a good vehicle for communication.

I also check out the other homepages from different communities. I get to keep in touch with people from Peawanuck too. I’ve even gotten to correspond with some people from Saskatchewan and northwestern Ontario. There’s so many good homepages out there. It’s fun trying to figure out how to do the neat stuff that you see on their pages. I don’t mind sharing information once I learn it …. (November 21, 2003)

A personal e-mail message from a mother …

I would like to thank Knet for all their work with homepages and introducing all the services that they have on Knet. … some of the contents on the homepages are not so bad but a message from the youth on expressing their thoughts and feelings. About a month ago, my son posted his message about his feelings about depression. I was getting worried about what he had put there. It made me start thinking.

Then a crisis happened in his life and from there I arranged for him to start getting the help that he needs. If I didn't see what he had posted I wouldn't have gone to get help for him. He was thinking about suicide and was very close to attempting. And therefore I am happy that he’s getting the help that he needs now. Maybe it would have been too late if it weren't for Knet homepages. I applaud Knet for their internet services. Thank you very much.

I would encourage the parents to keep checking their young people’s homepages for the content.

Another personal e-mail message from a father …

A lot of people are enjoying the knet site especially myknet.org home pages. My kids are using these tools to communicate to friends, cousins and family in other communities. Knet is doing great stuff, just thought I'd share this with you

Another personal e-mail message from a mother …

I guess he noticed the smile on my face as I was going through the updates on the hp's [homepages]. I go through knet almost everyday to visit my son & daughter's hp's and among other relatives from the other communities.

Another personal homepage clip …

This KNET place iz pretty cool. Anywayz, still getting used to making pagez but check out the menu to visit sitez I already have up. There'z a new forum! Check it out and meet other savvvy Nishnobz like yourself *winking* You can read my latest THOUGHTZ at blogspot.com. Well thatz it for now.. (Nov 24, 2003)

On Thursday, November 27, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Robert Nault announced Health Canada's $3.4 million dollar contribution towards the expansion of the KO Telehealth initiative. The project will support all 24 First Nation Health Centres in the Sioux Lookout Zone to develop telemedicine resources over the next 2.5 years. The announcement took place in Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Balmertown office. It was webcast live on K-Net with the KO First Nations linked into the event via video conference.

Everyone is invited to watch this event on-line. Click here to watch the archived web cast.

The November 27 issue of Wawatay News contains three more news stories about the work being completed within the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations demonstration project.

This week's issue of the

Kuh-ke-nah page in Wawatay News include the following articles:

• Workshops lead to each community’s ICT goals
: Over the past three years a series of community engagement workshops have been held in each of the KO First Nations to review and plan for the use of ICTs in each of the major service sectors. Raymond Mason, Keewaywin’s e-Centre Manager and Darlene Rae, North Spirit Lake’s e-Centre Manager share their experiences and the information about these workshops.
• Aboriginal Smart Fair will highlight K-Net’s ICT successes
: Keewaytinook Okimakanak is hosting a special 1 day showcase to demonstrate and share the work and information about the different initiatives being undertaken in the Smart Communities project. Industry Canada and First Nations reps from across Northern Ontario, Manitoba and elsewhere are invited to participate in this Smart Fair (for more information http://smart.knet.ca/fair).
• K-Net Showcase
- contains photos from the K-Net photo gallery at

http://photos.knet.ca with images of more of the First Nation organizations who are partnering with K-Net to create innovative applications and deliver services with the communities across Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Rick Garrick is researching additional stories for future articles. If you have a story that you want to share about this project and the work that is happening in your community to get connected, please send us an e-mail.

Various newspaper articles are being scanned and stored for reference purposes

in this photo gallery.

Three Turning Point volunteers: Victoria Freeman, Mary Alice Smith, Dorothy Christian and a colleague, Jessie Sutherland, were invited to attend the Caux conference by Initiatives of Change Canada. Ms. Sutherland had attended Caux for five weeks in the summer of 2002 as a ‘Caux scholar’ and recommended Turning Point volunteers as speakers and delegates to the August 12-17 , 2003 conference. The conference provided an opportunity to share lessons learned in working with K-Net and the Turning Point web environment.

See the report from the conference written by Mary Alice Smith.

Ms. Freeman and Smith are founding coordinator/moderators. Dorothy Christian was invited as an Advisor to the Turning Point website, at its inception, and has been the main volunteer moderator of the Talking Circle for the past year. After visiting the website in January 2003, Jessie Sutherland contacted us to explore our shared interests in reconciliation between indigenous and settler peoples in Canada.

The conference host, Initiatives of Change, was founded as the ‘Moral Rearmament’ movement in the 1930’s. It is a global network of "people of different faiths engaged in the every-day process of ‘remaking the world’". IOC , maintained largely by volunteers and donations with a minimum of structured organization, "helps people to become agents of change, using their homes, through conferences, seminars, training courses, publications, music and stage productions, or some other action to address a need in their community or country. " (see attached appendices/handouts from IOC for further background).

The conference theme for the week that we attended was ‘Conflict Prevention through Human Security" responding to the 1993 UNDP Development Report. Over fifty countries were represented - "a very eclectic mix of peoples from diverse cultures, faiths, nationalities and age groups."

The invitation letter outlined the theme as follows:

• Understanding peoples’ fears and needs, and preventing outbreaks of violence can break the vicious cycle of insecurity and violence. Prevention depends on many things, including acknowledgement of past wrongs and current fears, addressing root causes, rectifying serious imbalances in the quality of life experienced, and improving environmental sustainability.
• The significance of this theme in Caux is to express how personal experience and insight can help to further the notion of human security. Central to this is the necessity for interaction amongst conference participants, and between speakers and their audience.

On Thursday, Nov 20, Kevin Pashuk (NOMS IT Director), Bob Angell (Lakehead U. IT Director) and Bill Sandblom (Laurentian U. IT Director) drove with Tom Hibbs (Corporate Accounts, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel Networks) to Sioux Lookout to meet with K-Net staff and learn about the Kuh-ke-nah Network. The team is touring Northern Ontario to meet with different community-based networks to learn about the existing infrastructure and resources available across this vast region. Check out the pictures of this crew

The role of partnerships and the sharing of resources and opportunities is one of the most important outcomes from all the work with these communication tools. This meeting provided another opportunity to see how institutions, corporations and organizations can work together to support the development of infrastructure and the access to resources so everyone benefits.

The cliche "Putting some meaning into the C that is in the middle of ICT" is the challenge that everyone faces with these new tools. It is COMMUNICATION that provides the important link between Information and Technology; it is the "glue" that makes this work worthwhile for the people and the communities. If we do not have meaningful and effective communication that helps build practical, efficient and respectful relationships then we just have a bunch of machines being used to toss a lot of information at each other and being "managed" by IT Directors and technicians located in far away places.

One important outcome of this meeting was the agreement to work together to identify strategies and access the necessary resources to support the development of adequate distance learning facilities in all the communities across Northern Ontario. This effort will require the partnership of every community and government agency to ensure equitable and affordable solutions are created. Being able to accommodate students from NOMS or Lakehead or any institution is a major challenge that will create employment in both the development of these facilities and then in the ongoing maintenance and operation of these distance learning spaces including the residential component.

The innovative communication tools and infrastructure required to provide an environment where students and community members can share and create new opportunities for everyone will position Northern Ontario as the place to be doing business. We will be able to boast full employment and healthy communities across the region by levering and sharing these resources with everyone. The Northern Ontario Medical School and our two post-secondary institutions provide a great opportunity for every community in Northern Ontario to be creating a healthy socio-economic environment for all residents!