Dear all,
the picture of responses concerning a possible participation of TC6 at the World Computer Congress is similar but not uniform.
Almost all responses said that they do not believe that it is worthwhile for TC6 to participate in any WCC, regardless of its location. This is in some cases also supported by personal experience with WCC (e.g. expressed by Lyman Chapin).
Another problem is the political situation in the area and (sometimes serious) concerns about that are expressed by many.
A third problem is that we don't have a TC6 delegate from Israel since 1986(!) and this would make the organisation quite complicated - even if that could be done in theory also by somebody who is not the Israelian TC6 delegate.
On the other hand, a few delegates would be willing to cooperate if a workshop of our successful series would be colocated to WCC 2006 in Jerusalem. Having checked our calendar of events and the titles of our conferences I might see one possible candidate for such a colocation, namely MedHoc 2006. This would fit to the region (Mediterranean Sea) and probably to the topics of interest for the region (Ad Hoc Networking). But it will not be easy to go forward with such an idea since - MedHoc 2006 might already been allocated to another country - We would need a bid for that from a group of experts of Israel. Nevertheless that is the only more or less concrete "offer" which could be made by TC6 and it is not very likely that it could be realised.
I've sent a corresponding message to Moshe Gotlieb (see below). Please send me a note if you disagree.
Best regards Otto
---------------
My message to Moshe Gotlieb (basically a reformulation of mmy above message):
Dear Moshe,
we have now a more complete picture about the "feelings" of IFIP TC6 delegates concerning a possible participation of TC6 in Jerusalem.
The vast majority of those who responded said that TC6 should not play an active role at WCC **irrespective of the location**. Nevertheless even some of those who expressed this statement said that this must not necessarily preclude some of our running events to be colocated with WCC.
The question is how we could arrange such a colocation early enough and concretely enough. A possible candidate which comes to my mind for several reasons would be our MedHoc series (MedHoc = Mediterranean Ad Hoc Networking). The former events of this series have been held in Italy and in Tunisia, the next one will be in summer 2004 in Turkey; please contact Ian Akyildiz (ian@ece.gatech.edu) for that. If it would be intended to have MedHoc 2006 in Israel - possibly as part of the WCC - then some members from the Israelian AdHoc networking scene (there are plenty of them) should attend MedHoc 2004 and make a bid to have the event two years later in Israel. A similar strategy might be tried if another of our running event series should be colocated with WCC.
Nevertheless, it will not be easy to succeed with such a colocation attempt since many delegates consider the positical situation as too unstable. Whereas we sincerely hope that this will not any more the case in 2006 (but who knows?) there are many delegates who would not take the risk which according to their belief is incorporated with a travel to Jerusalem.
For the organisation of an event in Israel we would need a trustworthy person or society. This person is normally the countries delegate to TC6 but as I told you there is no such person since 1986. In principle the organisation could also be done by another local representative but then the organisation would not be easier.
In summary, TC6 has the following concerns about a participation at WCC 2006 in Jerusalem: 1. Most delegates feel that TC6 should not participate at a WCC irrespective of the location since they beleive that WCC's are outdated. 2. We don't have an Israelian delegate to TC6 since a long time but we would need such a person for the organisation. 3. The political situation is considered by many delegates as too unstable and as too unpredictable.
Consequently, TC6 is - for the moment being - unable to propose a concrete contribution for WCC 2006 in Jerusalem. We might think about a colocation of an event but this is very very speculative.
Best regards Otto