Media.Knet.Ca

The April 3 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. 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.

This week's articles include:

• KiHS Students Stay At Home While They Learn - representatives from each of the 13 KiHS partners First Nations form the Community Steering Committee for KiHS. They were meeting in Sioux Lookout the last week in March to discuss plans for next year's KiHS school program.
• Meekis and Ostamas Share K-Net Experiences - Les (KO's Community Manager) and Darrell (Deer Lake's Multi-media Producer) set up an information booth at this year's Connecting Aboriginal Canadians conference.
• This issue's showcase column features the year 2 Virtual Conference web site - http://smart.firstnation.ca

Various newspaper articles are being scanned and stored for reference purposes in this photo gallery.

Three new information publications describing the work being completed within the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations Demonstration project are available online and in paper format. They include:

• The 2002 Report Card on the various activities, best practices and lessons learned during 2002 (3.2M pdf file);
• An information brochure about the Kuh-ke-nah project (2.1M pdf file); and
• A brochure providing information about the Year 2 National Virtual conference portal - http://smart.firstnation.ca (1.8M pdf file).

Dr. Roger Strasser, Carol Otte and Darcia Borg from the new Northern Ontario Medical School along with Deputy Grand Chief Goyce Kakegamic and Brian Walmark from Nishnawbe Aski Nation travelled to Balmertown on March 31 to meet with Keewaytinook Okimakanak and our partners. The team along with KO staff are chartering up to Deer Lake to visit their community and the local Health Centre. Meetings with Red Lake doctors and hospital administration, along with the municipality of Red Lake is making this trip an opportunity for networking and learning about the needs of rural and remote communities.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak looks forward to partnering with NOMS in the development of a program that will see medical professionals working in the First Nations as part of their training experience.

Check out the pictures.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak is scheduled to participate in the opening video conferenced session for Canada's Information Technology (IT) week on May 2 (more information to follow). Watch the IT Week web site for additional information at http://www.itweek.ca/e/.

Canada's IT Week is a 10-day event where communities, businesses, employees, governments, teachers and students are encouraged to work in partnership and find creative ways to showcase and recognize their achievements in information and communication technology (ICT).

From May 2-11, 2003, citizens are encouraged to partake in IT Week by hosting workshops, open houses, seminars and conferences.

Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff presented a paper and a powerpoint presentation to the APEC Telecommunications and Information Working Group (APECTEL) in Kuala Kumpur, Malaysia. The March 25 Broadband Workshop agenda, provided delegates with background information about the issues and developments concerning the deployment of broadband infrastructure in rural communities.

"Why Broadband for APEC Underserved and Unserved Rural Communities - Why Not!" was a paper prepared by Brian Beaton discussing some of the socio-economic benefits for bringing broadband services into rural and remote communities. The internet based video connection with the conference site was established using a software tool called Multimedia Conferencing System (MCS) and a separate Document Conferencing software package along with a live chat session. Due to the internet connections in Malaysia, everyone was able to see and hear the presentation fairly well but the return feed to Sioux Lookout from Malaysia could not provide a video image and the sound was garbled so the live chat was used as the prompt for the exchanges. The powerpoint presentation ended up being controlled by the technician in Malaysia because the document server was not set up at the conference site.

In preparation for the session there was a three hour testing of the system the week before the event where the powerpoint presentation was sent over to the firm organizing the A/V portion for the session.  Eric Tsang from the Communications Research Centre in Ottawa attended the event in Kuala Kumpur and wrote about there being problems with the audio but overall the presentation went well. Various people from Industry Canada including Susan Johnston, Kathy Fisher and Vicki Schouten worked on including the Keewaytinook Okimakanak story on the agenda.

KO SMART Staff members participated at the 2nd Annual CAC today, showcasing the programs within the Smart communities, people from all over stopped over at our booth and asked questions about the ICTs that were on display and the demonstrations being done at that particular time.

A live webcast has been set up for people interested in seeing what is going on at the CAC at http://smart.firstnation.ca  

Check out Les Meekis' report and Darrell Ostamas' photo gallery.

Barb Wong, Keewaytinook Okimakanak's SchoolNet Program Administrator and Craig Hardy, Keewaytinook Internet High School Teacher joined other educators from across the province at Kenjgewin Teg Educational Institute's conference in Sudbury on March 20 and 21. The agenda for the eLearning Conference - "Learn Today For Tomorrow" listed a number of resource people and topics that supported KTEI efforts to work on a strategic plan for introducing elearning in First Nations across the region.

Barb set up the Keewaytinook Okimakanak information booth and met with First Nation school reps to complete their school's ICT SchoolNet survey. She was able to discuss various connectivity solutions and ICT needs with the people attending the gathering.

Craig Hardy conducted a workshop about the Keewaytinook Internet High School and his teaching experience working with the students in the Fort William First Nation classroom.

This week's issue of Wawatay contains stories about:

• How telehealth is making a difference in Fort Severn First Nation, featuring Jessie Matthews, Fort Severn's Telehealth Coordinator sharing information about her experience with these new communication tools along with Gibbet Stevens, KO's Telehealth Scheduler sharing about some of the services available through this service.
• Making the connections work at both ends, where Angus Miles, Fort Severn's Technician talks about his work and Adi Linden, K-Net's Network Systems Analyst describes some of the challenges involved in maintaining the network.
• As well, Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet announcement about KO becoming Ontario's Regional Management Organization is also covered on this issue's advertorial.

Be sure to check out the stories on-line or pick up this week's issue of Wawatay to read these articles.

The International Virtual Forum entitled "ICT in rural areas: Pending challenges" is taking place on-line from March 17 to April 1 2003. Everyone is invited to participate in the various on-line discussion forums to share their thoughts, stories, best practices and lessons learned. Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff produced a paper entitled "Socio-Economic Impact of ICT in Remote First Nations" for Session 6 scheduled for March 31 to April 1 containing some of the work being done in the KO First Nations. Do register and share your stories within this international environment.

"The development and use of ICTs can hopefully help different cultures to become better integrated, improve government throughout the world and lead to greater respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Nonetheless, although there have already been numerous national and international initiatives taken to reduce the digital divide in many different parts of the world, these need to be properly analyzed in order to ensure that the necessary resources and investment are made available for future projects in such a way as to benefit "global" society.

New or emergent technologies have presented a challenge not only for regulating bodies and the State in general but also for society as whole. Technology advances by leaps and bounds, setting us ever more demanding challenges.

It is for these reasons that OSIPTEL (the Peruvian Telecommunications Regulatory Agency), together with REGULATEL, (the Latin American Forum of Regulatory Agencies) have decided to organize this International Virtual Forum: "ICT's in rural areas: The pending challenges" creating a space for dialog between the business sector, public institutions, the academic world and the civil society in general, in order to share experiences and opportunities for contributing to the economic and social development of ICT's in rural areas of developing countries."