[afripv6-discuss] Community involvement (was: AF6TF report for 2012)

[Hisham Ibrahim]

Hi SM,

First of all thank you for changing the thread name, I was just about to do so.

> What is discouraging is that nothing seems to be happening (re. your comment above).

Second, I would not say "nothing" happens

if you look IPv6 in the region, (with my AFRINIC hat off, and without referring to any of the projects AFRINIC works on)   

in 1/1/2011Africa had 28 out of a total of 435 networks visible over IPv6 (6.44%) 
in 1/1/2012 Africa had 55 out of a total of 505 networks visible over IPv6 (10.89%)
in 1/1/2013 Africa had 86 out of a total of 603 networks visible over IPv6 (14.26%)

These numbers by themselves indicate that "SOMETHING" is happening, and that status quo is far from being the truth.

These numbers would not have been achieved without community involvement, knowledge transfer and certain level of awareness dissemination.

Also something I have over the past year is the ones most active in real life deployment and problem solving, are not necessarily the most active on mailing lists.

And sure we still have last mile, security, management issues on IPv6, but so does the rest of the world. 

That is why the global IPv6 deployment rate is 15.69% (6864 of 43748 ASNs) vs. Africa's 14.38% (90 out of 626 ASNs) [1]

Now with my secretariat / IPv6PM hat back on,

Of course I would like to see more engagement on the mailing lists, as well as the different activities and out reach initiatives.

However, we may be looking at the wrong way to engage to community, as indicated in the report circulated perviously,

while the FG mailing lists did not have that many participants to drive the conversation, the webinars had an average of 70 attendees from all over Africa.   

The feedback I requested from the community was as I re-state it once again: 

What is the best way YOU as a member of the African Community would like to be engage in?  

Regards
Hisham