[Chapter-delegates] Jo-Anne Scott remembered

Fri Aug 16 09:08:32 PDT 2019

Thanks George, for the thoughtful and informative note on Jo-Anne Scott.
She seems to have played a pioneering role in the early phases of ISOC.

We are thankful for having such inspiring leaders within ISOC.

With kind regards

satish

On Fri, 16 Aug 2019, 19:55 George Sadowsky via Chapter-delegates, <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

>
> I'm very sad to hear of Jo-Anne Scott's passing.  She was a good colleague
> and At 1145 a good friend.
>
> I first met Joa-Anne at a meeting in Palo Alto in September 1992, hosted
> by Steve From and Scott Weikert. A few months before that, I had discussed
> with Larry Landweber at INET'92 in Kobe the possibility of setting up a
> training program in Internet technology and use for people from developing
> countries. In the 1970s and 1980s, I worked for the United Nations and was
> involved in many technology transfer programs in the area of computing, and
> I had seen to my dismay the state of technical knowledge, education, and
> resources in most of the countries in which I had worked. Larry suggested
> giving it a try. Steve Fram was one of the early collaborators, and we were
> meeting in his office in Palo Alto to do the initial planning.
>
> Jo-Anne  attended the meeting, I had not known her before, but her
> enthusiasm for the project and solving logistical aspects of making it
> happen were contagious, so we became the initial band of co-conspirators
> for what became ISOC's network technologies training program for people
> from developing countries.   Since INET'93  was planned  for San Francisco
> in August 1993, we decided to hold  the training workshop in the Silicon
> Valley just before the INET meeting, and then have the trainees participate
> also in that meeting. We believe that the latter step was important in
> introducing them to the people we hoped would be their future Internet
> colleagues and would assist them in the developments in their own countries.
>
> At the time I was working at New York University and was not situated to
> assist in local preparation for the workshop.  Joanne lived in Palo Alto,
> and she believed that she could work with Stanford University to provide
> lodging, classroom space, and meals for the trainees and trainers during
> August 1993. She set about to do it with a vigor, enthusiasm, and
> initiative that characterized her contributions to the workshop for the
> next five years.. She convinced the University to provide dormitory space,
> meal arrangements,and suitable classroom space for the entire process, and
> she coordinated all of the preparatory work, including the  procurement,
>  delivery, and set up for a large number of personal computers to be used
> by the three training tracks. She also arranged for  several social events
> in the evenings to foster a sense of professional community among the
> attendees, as well as to meet local people who lived in the Palo Alto area.
> I remember her setting up a fireside chat with Vint Cerf one evening, which
> resulted in a spirited discussion of the potential of the Internet and the
> importance of what it could provide for development.
>
> At the end of  INET' 93, Jo-Anne and I had dinner with the INET'94
>  conference chair, and after  reviewing the success of our workshop, we
> decided to do it again, a decision that was repeated  for several years
> after that. Although it may not have been clear to the workshop
> participants, the amount of logistical preparation  required to set up the
> Prague workshop in 1994 was immense. Only a few years had elapsed since the
> erosion of the iron curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and
> Czechoslovakia was in a rapid state of change. Joanne cooperated with the
> Czech Technical University to find space for housing in the Hotel Krystal,
> a tram ride away from the University buildings in which staff would be
> teaching the four tracks. The Hotel Krystal  even had a computer lab with
> 24  computers, connected to the Internet via a low-bandwidth permanent
>  connection. During the workshop, Jo-Anne learned that our Hotel Krystal
> had only been a hotel for a few years and before that it had been the
> training institute for the Czech secret police. We wondered how many
> microphones were still installed in various parts of the building,
> including the sleeping rooms.  Jo-Anne also discovered the "Chicago Pizza
> House"  (not a typo!)  in an underground warren near the hotel, where we
> went for relief several times to escape the rich Czech food offerings.
>
> Jo-Anne  continued to participate actively in and support the workshop
> activities in 1995 in Honolulu, in 1996 in Montréal and in 1997 in Kuala
> Lumpur. In 1994 she discovered the local travel agent in Palo Alto, Maria
> Orvell, who worked with Joanne and together they became accomplished in
>  bringing people from all parts of the world to wherever the next INET
> meeting was going to be held.
>
> The process of choosing and assisting participants to attend the workshops
> was extensive. Applications were solicited through a number of channels,
> including disseminating information by participants in formal workshops.
> These all came to Jo-Anne and she prepared them for evaluation by a
> committee consisting of the teaching staff for the next workshop. After
> that, the complex process of distributing the financial resources that we
> were able to obtain, ascertaining the possibility of visas and helping
> participants to obtain them (including making intercessions with the host
> country), and making flight arrangements, and this generally had to be
> performed individually for each participant. The logistics process took a
> lot of time andinitiative, and Joanne was able to do it, always in time to
> meet our deadlines.
>
> Jo-Anne was a true partner. She embodied the spirit of the Internet,
> helping, sharing, supporting, and giving of herself so that others might
> learn and  in turn share with a new with others in their country. She
> believed strongly in the Internet's ability to help people in earlier
> stages of development, and she gave herself fully to the task. Many
> workshop participants saw her correctly as fundamental to the success of
> their experience. I'm glad that she lived long enough to observe the
> benefits of her contribution to global Internet development, but very sad
> that she was not able to continue to do so.  She will be missed.
>
> George
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> George Sadowsky                                    Residence tel:
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> 8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472                          Mobile:
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> sadowsky
> george.sadowsky at gmail.com                http://www.georgesadowsky.org/
>
>
>
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