IFN 2006 Summit Coverage

It’s all about social networking, colloaboration and knowledge management at this year’s summit.

Day 1 highlights: Harold Rheingold and Clotilde Fonesca's keynote talk on the role that networks play in driving innovation and social change as well as the Show and Tell round robin where eleven reps from various initiatives got to strut their stuff. Mark Graham, from APC (one of my favorite IT NGOs) was there, as were many other upstarts.

Ones to watch:
Peter Bladin, Grameen Technology Foundation USA
Jennifer Correrio, TakingITGlobal
Erin O’Malley, Youth Radio
Marnie Webb, Compumentor
Ben Rigby, Mobile Voter Campaign

Dinner last night at Palomino was fun and informative. Our host Tessie Topol clued us into MTV's latest and greatest socially conscious programming. Other discussion topics ranged from podcasting to youth voting initiatives in Penalon, Chile. Brian Newman of National Video Resources, Jennifer Correrio, Penalon’s Mayor Claudio Orrego, Ben Rigby, and Ruth Williams, founder of a cool hip hop in schools program, were in attendance as well. I had the King Louie Crab Salad.

Day 2, more of the same. Lots of coffee and buzzwords like open standards, collaboration, sustainability, and tagging (which to my surprise, many hadn’t heard of before) floated around. Content ownership was brought up, a significant topic that definitely needs to be explored further. Foundations seem to be making more of an effort to both learn and use technology to form relationships among their grantees. It’s a positive sign.