Kimberly King-Burns wrote: > Hi, Taran: > Thanks for the informative note. Have you had any recent conversations > with either Greg Stewart (Jamaica) or Terence Phillip (Trinidad) about > Microsoft's rather engaged interest in working with the Caribbean region?
Nope. I have heard of Terence Phillip while I was in Trinidad and Tobago. I'll put some feelers out. I have had, though, correspondence with George Gobin and Ansar Mohammed through the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society lists. I have found that Microsoft people are typically leery of entering discussion with me; I've challenged regional Microsoft employees to public debate on more than one occasion. Sadly, they haven't felt like doing that. Frankly, the way things happen in the region is suddenly Microsoft announces a partnership with a government... out of the blue. Which means they seem to be afraid of public debate. At least, that's my opinion. My challenge still stands. As a sidenote, I find it somewhat amusing that Microsoft is going through all this trouble for an area where you can pick up Windows XP for less than $3. > > While I am admittedly unaware of the NGO meetings to which you refer > below, our group has been included in many different discussions > pertinent to the continued growth of community computer technology > centres in Anguilla, Cayman Islands, Nevis, Dominican Republic, and > Haiti to date, and we have participated in several stateside and > regional IT conferences specific to growing the Caribbean region > through technology. Could you give references? IT conferences, in my experience, are not generally related to the Digital Divide as much as they are about selling products with sometimes a cost of admission (granted, Microsoft typically gives away food). Perhaps your group does things differently. Is the focus on business, or Civil Society? > > In any case, we would love to become more involved in the regional > mailing lists to which you refer. Our admittedly boutique working > model has resulted in several successful public/private sector > business development initiatives, since its launch in 1999. That would be excellent. You can start here: http://www.dgroups.org/groups/icacaribbean/ I am BCC'ing the moderator of the ICA Caribbean list. New members are typically asked to give a description of themselves and the organizations they work for - if you call a few names, I may not know them but it's a fair assumption that someone will. -- Taran Rampersad Presently in: Panama City, Panama [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.knowprose.com http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran "Criticize by creating." — Michelangelo _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
