Nairobi+Paricipation+Mechanisms

=**Nairobi Participation Mechanisms**=

Ideas from Dorine Adhoch - comments from others welcome:

If the APM planning committee could avail the programme to us here, we could schedule to connect into a few important meetings and discussions and possibly be able to contribute to the discussions via teleconference. I propose that we use the JVC as our official APM Nairobi venue, and put up posters and all (so Eric would need to do a few for Nairobi) so as to induce an atmosphere of APM. We could also have postings from Nairobi, either based on the Addis programme or a slight deviation from it on our Ilrinet. I could request that a section be included on Ilrinet to capture our proceedings here in Nairobi. Thus, we in Nairobi could still be able to be part of APM. We could invoke greater participation of staff from here in Nairobi, even as APM goes on in Addis. I also had in mind to engage those here in Nairobi into getting their views on our APM Theme this year “The Good, The Bad and….” And compile the myriad of ideas that may come up from such a discussion-both the scientific research angle and the more “on the ground” views.

Update 30 March 2010 from Alan: We tested the use of the video conferencing facility in the tent and it was remarkably good (at the time we tested it). We could connect the tent to Room 720 by Video conference at points during APM and publicise this in Nairobi. Off the top of my head the following sessions might work by video conference:

- Thu 15th April 8.30-10.00: Introduction and State of the Union - Thu 15th April 10.30 - 12.00: Setting the Scene on Livestock Goods and Bads - Fri 16th April 8.30-10.00: Working better with Research partners - Fri 16th April 10.30-12.00: P&C session on New Media

In addition there will be continuous twitter feeds and extensive daily blog postings which should facilitate those not in Addis keeping in touch with what's going on.

__Notes from meeting on Tuesday 23rd March, 2010 (Dorine)__
 * We will try and tap into as many of the sessions as possible via the videoconferencing facilities available.
 * Allan Orth to liase with Ian Moore on how to go about this.
 * In addition, and more for value addition, we will also have discussions/panel discussions with (1) Graduate Fellows (2) Research technicians (3) other selected individuals in different fields on the APM theme, to be held during APM sessions in Addis that cannot be Videoconferenced. This is so as to get useful insight and contribution into the Theme. these sessions will be moderated and tyhe content will be shared with the organizers for approval prior to APM. I am still working on it and should have something tangible mid next week.
 * I have already approached 2 graduate fellows on their participation and they have shown interest. I will talk to the others next week and we should hopefully get positive response. The same for the research technicians.
 * We plan to use the John Vercoe Conference (JVC) as the official "APM-Nairobi chapter" :) venue. This is where the sessions will be videoconferenced from as well as the other activities.
 * We would like to have an APM feel within the JVC. For this, we are requesting that some of the APM posters be availed to us so that we can hang this up. I have consulted Eric Ouma, and he says that Peter needs to vett the posters on Eric's arrival in Addis so as to approve the ones to be used for APM. May we request that you do consider having some of these posters availed so that we can use them here in nairobi.
 * For our mini-market palce/poster session, I plan to print out the scientific posters submitted in A3 paper and have them pinned up on boards around the JVC area during Friday Morning Coffee (FMC) and we can have a poster session of sorts.
 * We will follow-up with Housing on the availability of the boards for the poster session.
 * Is it possible to facilitate tea (and maybe snacks) for the opening session? or for the tea break?
 * have announcements done at the FMC and on email and get people sensitized to the need for their participation in APM. The Directors could also get a message out to nairobi staff on the same for added weight.
 * Will send the layout of how the programme looks on our end next week. (we have not altered anything; just indicated those that are to be videoconferenced, and the interactive sessions)
 * In addition there will be continuous twitter feeds and extensive daily blog postings which should facilitate those not in Addis keeping in touch with what's going on.

The following is from an email discussion with Alan Orth on how remote participants in Nairobi, Delhi and London will use the VC and virtual meeting roo​m ​facilities:
 * __Notes on how the VC and Virtual meeting rooms will be used__**

We've tested both video conferencing and Webex to use during the APM sessions that have been identified by the organising committee to be streamed to Nairobi. - Thu 15th April 8.30-10.00: Introduction and State of the Union - Thu 15th April 10.30 - 12.00: Setting the Scene on Livestock Goods and Bads - Fri 16th April 8.30-10.00: Working better with Research partners - Fri 16th April 10.30-12.00: P&C session on New Media The video conferencing will show the presenters and the audio while Webex will be used to display the presentations, so there will be two screens in Nairobi. The 3 people who have been working on this are Hilary, Rosemary and Denis. As Hilary will be coming to Addis on Tuesday and Rosemary has exams on some days next week I think we should also involve Elizabeth. There will also be people in London and Delhi joining the Webex meeting so we will also have to make sure that the audio is also available through Webex. One session will be a remote presentation from Tara Garnett who will be in the UK. She will use Webex to share her presentation, for the audio and a small inset image from her webcam. During this session we won't use the VC system as there is no presenter to focus on in Addis but more importantly we want to make sure that we don't create congestion on the VSAT that might distort the voice during her presentation. We MUST a final test on Wednesday from the tent using all the equipment as it will be used on Thursday. My main concern is the audio on Webex as we need to have it connected to the sound system in the tent but at the same time we don't want echoes feeding back to the remote meeting participants. It's important to know when to mute and when to open the audio. We will use two meeting participants from Addis. One that is used to project the presentations and the other that can be in control of hosting the meeting and can chat with the participants by text. If necessary we can test splitting incoming and outgoing sound between the two. Unfortunately on Wednesday I have to present to the ICRAF Board meeting so will not be involved in these tests.