[A12n-forum] Fwd: Grants offered to help shape Internet

["Don Osborn" <dzo@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI, the following AP article was seen on DigAfrica. It seems like
this would include attention to Unicode ...  DZO

--- In DigAfrica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "yamanjanl" <yamanjanl@...> wrote:

Grants offered to help shape Internet
Internet Engineering Task Force hopes to encourage developing countries
By Anick Jesdanun
The Associated Press
Updated: 10:25 p.m. ET Jan. 10, 2007

NEW YORK - All-expense-paid trips are being offered to help ensure
that technologists in developing countries have a say in shaping the
Internet's architecture for years to come.

Technical standards before the Internet Engineering Task Force govern
e-mail formatting, foreign-language character sets and other Internet
basics to ensure that people around the world can communicate with one
another through their Internet-connected computers.

Standards can make or break companies ? an African business, for
instance, might suddenly find its products shunned should they
suddenly be incompatible with offerings from industrialized nations.
Lack of progress has affected the ability for instant-messaging
programs to talk with one another and for Web addresses to use
non-English characters.

But because Americans and Europeans got to the Internet first,
engineers elsewhere have complained they haven't had enough say in
some of the Internet's fundamental decisions.

To encourage greater participation from developing countries, where
Internet usage is growing, the nonprofit Internet Society is offering
grants for up to five people to attend each Internet Engineering Task
Force meeting. Covered expenses include meeting registration, airfare
and hotels.

Each recipient will also be paired with an IETF veteran to serve as a
mentor.

"There are many talented individuals in developing regions that have
an interest in and follow the IETF's work and would benefit from the
opportunity to participate in person," Lynn St. Amour, the Internet
Society's chief executive, said in a statement.

The next IETF meetings are scheduled for March in Prague, the Czech
Republic, and for July in Chicago. Applications for both are due Feb. 2.

The Internet Society is paying for the program through corporate
sponsorships, the initial money coming from Internet search company
Google Inc.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16566161/

--- End forwarded message ---

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