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Bienvenidos a Buenos Aires! (Welcome to Buenos Aires!)
- Jari ArkkoIETF Chair
18 Mar 2016
It’s almost time to pack our bags and head south to Argentina. This is the IETF’s first ever meeting in Latin America!
Buenos Aires sits in front of the majestic (220km wide!) Río de la Plata and the metropolitan area is home to approximately 15 million people (the second largest in South America). There is much to experience in a city known as the birthplace of the Tango: music, arts, theater, and even Avenida 9 de Julio, the widest avenue in the world — all sights and sounds to take in
Let’s not forget we’re making the trip to work! Yes, in between dulce de leche and Argentina’s famous asado the IETF has a full agenda to continue our mission of making the Internet work better. As always, our week starts on Saturday with the Code Sprint and the Hackathon, both great reminders of the importance of running code. The rest of the week is full of activities, including a significant number of BoFs and new research groups.
The IETF has been meeting for 30 years. It makes me very proud that a Latin American city was chosen as the site for IETF 95. Even though several current active participants are from the region, the opportunity to increase the participation and contribution has not been missed. To that end, LACNOG, with very strong support from the Internet Society and LACNIC, have been working tirelessly for the last 3 years to encourage the participation from people in the region in IETF processes and discussions (ietf-lac). The community of people aware, interested and actively participating has grown significantly through this effort.
One of the important effects of the evangelization work has been the proliferation of remote participation. Through the creation of remote hubs, run by local volunteers in universities and corporate sites, the attendance from Latin America has grown more than 10 times. This effect has now expanded and we now expect significant remote attendance not only from growth regions, but even from parts of the world where IETF participation is well established, the US for example. The meeting wiki will be collecting information about the remote hubs as they are confirmed.
Buenos Aires and its people are proud, open and welcoming. A wonderful representative of Latin America. Even though I was born more than 5500 km from the meeting site (hint: not in Argentina), I always feel at home in Buenos Aires. I am looking forward to all of us having a great meeting!