2007 WSA Grand Jury Croatia (12)

By two o’clock yesterday afternoon the conference was over; I will later come back to two items, which took my fancy: innovation journalism and recycling computers. The luggage had been packed, the bills settled and the exchange of photographs started. Stanislav had made giga photographs, which are on my portable. Perhaps I might make a photo blog over the coming days, while I recuperate.

Next was the trip to Zagreb. This did not start well, as a few jury members were not in time at the boat and in full Croatian fashion, the boat left right on schedule without them and did not return, when the missing persons ran to the quay. Another boat had to be chartered for them as there was a tight schedule. It was really laughing that the German jury member Alexander Felsenberg was not in time, while the Croatians executed their boat service punktlich; of course Alexander had an excuse as he is a Czech by birth.

The trip to Zagreb started at 17:30 PM and lasted till 20:45 PM; on the road we had lightning, rain and winds. But by the time that coach stopped in at the cathedral it was dry and we were greetde by two guides, dressed in eighteenth century dresses awaited us for a guided tour of Zagreb. I liked it as the centre of Zagreb is an old city and bears many resemblances to Vienna. I especially liked the view from the city elevator station on the hill. Having seen that, we all were really hungry as it was already over ten o’clock.

This morning a number of jury members were already at 6:30 AM at the airport. We had slept in a hotel at five minutes distance by car from the airport. And off we flew to Brussels, Cairo, Armenia and Nicaragua.

It had been an enervating ten days. The hospitality was offered by the Croatian State secretary for e-Croatia. The events have been organised by Kresimir Lugaric of the Internet Institute and the execution was done by Natalija Gojkovic of the Internet Institute. They have really done a wonderful job.

But flying out of Zagreb, there was the feeling that I had left someone behind, our Brazilian juror. He had been transferred overnight to the hospital for more extensive treatment as the diagnosis was not as optimistic as thought by the doctors in the hospital in Pula. It looks like the accident will change his entire life.

Now I am back in Almere (see photograph with view from the appartment) behind my desk, going through the snail mail. It will take some days to realise that the World Summit Grand Jury 2007 is over. Next on the list will the WSA Award Gala in Venice on November 5th which is planned in the framework of the Global Forum. Many of the jurors have promised to attend the ceremony. But before that time Osama Manzar, our Indian jury member, took upon him to produce the third version of e-Content- Voices from the ground, a review by Grand Jury members of the e-content situation in their home states. This delivers statistics, but also insight about the state of e-Content in the country and the new trends.

BTW There is an official WSA blogand there will be daily photographs.

Blog Posting Number: 863

Tags: World Summit Award, World Summit on the Information Society