I'm honored to have been awarded a scholarship as a conference attendee and will be speaking on the panel: "Hey teacher, leave those kids alone!  The decentralization of expertise and the creation of community knowledge bases" on Tuesday afternoon.

I never in my life thought I would be attending a conference like this much less speaking on a panel!   Although I am open-minded and tend to learn quickly when it comes to any type of tool for social change, I am not a techie by any means.  Going in, I am bracing myself for many of the discussion topics to be completely over my head (I don't even know what the $100 laptop is referring to) but am eager to learn more so that I can bring back knowledge to enhance my work at Amnesty International USA and Never Again.  Being interested in transnational human rights advocacy, I think it's really important for me to understand online and techological tools because face-to-face or phone interaction across the globe is quite costly!

The panel that most interests me is: "Anyone could call, cell phones in the global South" because I work with colleagues from the "global South" and am always interested in how to strengthen the infrastructure and resources they have access to.  It is quite difficult to move things forward when your partners do not have the resources to do what you're able to do- and the end result is very frustrating for both ends!  But despite the popularity of cell phones, I think that we can do more to make personal computers available in the global South- there is such a huge need and desire!

Other than that, I am really excited to meet some of the people who are attending.  There are so many amazing, accomplished and dedicated people.  I'm looking forward to speaking with folks in person.

 To the Net2 team & Britt Bravo- thanks for your amazing work!