2007 WSA Grand Jury Croatia (9)

The weather was supposed to get better towards the weekend, but it looks like clouds are still on the menu. In the meantime the Grand Jury has been evacuated from the hall where they were evaluating, as the hall had to be prepared for the Summit of Saturday and Sunday. Some 200 people are supposed to show up at the Summit, among which the president of Croatia and some government officials of other countries. The Summit is on e-Content, the objectives, the trends and its influence. It is a heavy programme of an on afternoon on Saturday and a long Sunday morning. After the Summit a number of the Grand Jurors will go by bus to Zagreb to a hotel near the airport, have dinner at the Zagreb race track and leave Croatia early in the morning.

Last night after dinner we had a WSA open board meeting. During these meetings ideas are born, intentions spoken out and plans announced about the next Grand Jury and the next Gala. Tentatively, the Grand Jury 2009 will be in Armenia and the Gala in India. And there was even a request for either the Grand Jury or Gala in Africa, while China is also still a contender. Sometimes WSA looks like the Olympic Committee, planning years ahead and selecting places to go. But many ideas are formulated about events such a as road shows and cooperation with other events and conferences. But always the question is where the sponsors are, how much money will it costs and what company is prepared to pour money into the events. This while they could benefit from seeing new products and trends closely and sharing in the knowledge of the winners and the Grand Jury. Personally I feel that we are going into a higher gear with the WSA. We know by now pretty well facts and figures about organising events and there is of course a worldwide network spreading from South America to Finland, from China to Brazil and from Australia to Canada.

The task for today is twofold. First WSA Spokespersons have to be elected. Secondly the jurors have to write the laudations for the winners. These will be in the printed and electronic catalogue. The catalogues have to be ready before the fifth of November when the WSA Gala 2007 will be held in Venice. Our Italian juror Alfredo Ranchi has been instrumental in arranging this and folding the event in the Global Forum Conference on ICT. It will give the WSA a lot of exposure. The Gala will be held on an island opposite the San Marco cathedral. The only thing we will have to pray for is nice weather, as November in Venice can be nasty and wet, even to the point of flooding.

Tomorrow afternoon we are supposed to get off the island and go to a coastal town to look around, have a meal and listen to local music. By that time some of the jurors will be leaving. That is painful, especially as you have lived and worked together intensively for one week. In fact it started already this morning when Lucas Lim from Japan/Malaysia and Carina Feldman from Austria left due obligations. But they are not gone as e-mail is all pervasive now.

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

Blog Posting Number: 860

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