<html><head></head><body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><div><div>Alice</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for sharing. Interesting article. In my view this bolsters my conviction that a Multi-Stakeholder approach when not dysfunctional can work wonders. The essence of this article where private sector players with Government funding set the foundation of what we today take for granted (the internet) is indisputable. </div><div><br></div><div>Barrack, in an earlier posting you alluded to the issues of whether this Multi-Stakeholder approach is broken. I say better this approach than a lone wolf type approach. The way forward is to look and study how teams work effectively. Michael A West's book '<b>Effective Teamwork, Practical Lessons from Organisational Research'</b> may point the way to how to make this Multi-Stakeholder approach work better. </div><div><br></div><div>These are interesting times all round. We have examples of how a Multi-Stakeholder approach has worked and where it has not. In my opinion the current IGF process is a good example of how this process has worked well. </div><div><br></div><div>Fortunately or unfortunately, sometimes (scratch that! All the time!) personalities are what make up organizations. Where personalities have the interest of the whole at heart you invariably find that this approach works. Where personalities clash you find that the Multi-Stakeholder approach takes on a Schizophrenic Personality. </div><div><br></div><div>Take KeNIC for example. For as long as the different stakeholders that make up KeNIC were in tune it worked. The troubles at KeNIC can be traced to the Kenya ICT Act. Some stakeholders (Read Board Members) wanted a more Government approach to how KeNIC was managed to the point that it is alleged that one of us at the Board Level ( I served on the Board of KeNIC up-to April this year) was behind the clause that required KeNIC to be licensed by CCK. Some, like TESPOK wanted a more hands off Government approach. You can imagine then how that penned out. Needless to say we now have an organization that doesn't seem to know whether it is a Parastatal, an NGO or a For Profit Organisation! </div><div><br></div><div>In my humble opinion it doesn't matter whether you fly in a top notch CEO or a Mediocre one. For as long as we do not resolve the fundamental issues KeNIC will continue to languish in the doldrums. </div><div><br></div><div>It is incumbent upon the community at large to resolve these issues and put Personalities aside. </div><div><br></div><div>At this juncture I must disclose that the Board of KeNIC then did acknowledge that an institutional assessment needed to be done because it became clear that the board had become dysfunctional. I must acknowledge too that as a Board (at least from my opinion) we had failed the community. This report MUST be made public so that we can move forward. After all if we do not accept that we are sick how can we be cured? </div><div><br></div><div>I understand that today Alice resigned as the Chairperson. I can only speculate as to the reasons for her resignation.<br><br><div>Ali Hussein</div><div><br></div><div>+254 773/713 601113</div><div><br></div><div>Sent from my iPhone®</div></div><div><br>On Jul 25, 2012, at 5:50 PM, Alice Munyua <<a href="mailto:alice@apc.org">alice@apc.org</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><div></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>
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<h1 id="postTitle2" class="postTitle"><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Yes, Government
Researchers Really Did Invent the Internet">Yes, Government
Researchers Really Did Invent the Internet</a></h1>
<p class="articleInfo2"> <span class="byline"> <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/?print=true">http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/?print=true</a></span></p>
<p class="articleInfo2"><span class="byline">By Michael Moyer | </span>
<span class="datestamp">July 23, 2012</span> </p>
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<p>“It’s an urban legend that the government launched the
Internet,” <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518.html">writes</a>
Gordon Crovitz in an opinion piece in today’s <em>Wall Street
Journal</em>. Most histories cite the Pentagon-backed <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40">ARPANet</a>
as the Internet’s immediate predecessor, but that view
undersells the importance of research conducted at Xerox PARC
labs in the 1970s, claims Crovitz. In fact, Crovitz implies
that, if anything, government intervention gummed up the natural
process of laissez faire innovation. “The Internet was fully
privatized in 1995,” says Crovitz, “just as the commercial Web
began to boom.” The implication is clear: the Internet could
only become the world-changing force it is today once big
government got out of the way.</p>
<p>But Crovitz’s story is based on a profound misunderstanding of
not only <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40">history</a>,
but technology. Most egregiously, Crovitz seems to confuse the <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=Internet-at-40">Internet</a>—at
heart, a set of protocols designed to allow far-flung computer
networks to communicate with one another—with Ethernet, a
protocol for connecting nearby computers into a local network. (<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=using-the-internets-history-to-develop">Robert
Metcalfe</a>, a researcher at Xerox PARC who co-invented the
Ethernet protocol, today <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://twitter.com/BobMetcalfe/status/227426481901559808">tweeted</a>
tongue-in-cheek “Is it possible I invented the whole damn
Internet?”)</p>
<p>The most important part of what we now know of as the Internet
is the TCP/IP protocol, which was <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf">invented
by Vincent Cerf</a> and Robert Kahn. Crovitz mentions TCP/IP,
but only in passing, calling it (correctly) “the Internet’s
backbone.” He fails to mention that Cerf and Kahn developed
TCP/IP while <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internet-pioneer-cerf">working
on a government grant</a>.</p>
<p>Other commenters, including <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/">Timothy
B. Lee at Ars Technica</a> and veteran technology reporter <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://techpinions.com/wsjs-internet-history-is-way-off/8080">Steve
Wildstrom</a>, have noted that Crovitz’s misunderstandings run
deep. He also manages to confuse the <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=long-live-the-web">World
Wide Web</a> (incidentally, <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/report.cfm?id=web-20-anniversary">invented
by Tim Berners Lee</a> while working at CERN, a
government-funded research laboratory) with hyperlinks, and an
internet—a link between two computers—with THE Internet.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-mo-who-invented-internet-20120723,0,5052169.story">damning
rebuttal</a> comes from Michael Hiltzik, the author “<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://www.amazon.com/Dealers-Lightning-Xerox-PARC-Computer/dp/0887309895">Dealers
of Lightning</a>,” a history of Xerox PARC that Crovitz uses
as his main source for material. “While I’m gratified in a sense
that he cites my book,” writes Hiltzik, “it’s my duty to point
out that he’s wrong. My book bolsters, not contradicts, the
argument that the Internet had its roots in the ARPANet, a
government project.”</p>
<p>In truth, no private company would have been capable of
developing a project like the Internet, which required years of
R&D efforts spread out over scores of far-flung agencies,
and which began to take off only after decades of investment.
Visionary infrastructure projects such as this are part of what
has allowed our economy to grow so much in the past century.
Today’s op-ed is just one sad indicator of how we seem to be
losing our appetite for this kind of ambition.</p>
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<span id="authorImage"> </span><strong>About the Author:</strong>
Michael Moyer is the editor in charge of technology coverage at
Scientific American. Follow on Twitter <a moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://twitter.com/mmoyr">@mmoyr</a>.
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