[IGFmaglist] WS Diversity - Open Questions

[Dr. Rasha Abdulla]

Dear Lynn,

Thank you for your email, and apologies for the relatively late response as
I was out of Cairo in an area with very limited Internet access.

I'm not sure what time frame we are talking about here. I do recall a
discussion on diversity on the last call, and a sense of agreement among
the MAG members that diversity of content and speakers was more important
than diversity of organizers, especially that this is the first time we've
allowed co-organizers in an attempt to not let this be a backdoor to play
the system. I would be very reluctant to introduce any changes right now as
some MAG members have already submitted their reviews and the majority are
in the process of doing so. That's why I'm not sure about the time frame of
the required discussions. I would think any recommendations at this point
are to be considered for the next IGF cycle not this one. Unless I'm
missing something?...

All the best.
Rasha

Rasha A. Abdulla, Ph.D.
Professor
Journalism and Mass Communication
The American University in Cairo
www.rashaabdulla.com
Twitter: @RashaAbdulla
<http://twitter.com/rashaabdulla>




On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 5:45 PM, Lynn St.Amour <Lynn at internet-matters.org>
wrote:

> Dear Rasha, colleagues,
>
> following the discussion on our last MAG call with respect to the need to
> better understand the diversity within the WS proposals, some MAG members
> volunteered to review this and and make additional recommendations.   This
> is important work and is essential to guiding our discussions at the
> upcoming MAG face to face meeting.  Is this something the Working Group on
> Workshop Review and Evaluation Process can take on?
>
> The text from the meeting summary is included here for reference.
>
> "A discussion followed on how best to understand the diversity within the
> proposals as some felt that focusing on co-organizers was not necessarily
> reflective of the diversity (stakeholder, region, gender) within the
> workshops, nor could one directly correlate topics of interest to
> regions/stakeholders based on the metric of co-organizers.  Some MAG
> members volunteered to review this and provide additional
> information/recommendations to the MAG.”
>
> Best and thanks in advance for considering this,
>
> Lynn