[Chapter-delegates] Jo-Anne Scott remembered

Fri Aug 16 11:35:44 PDT 2019

George Sadoksky’s note about Jo-Anne brought me many memories about her and
many things we did together that I would like to share with you.

Nabil also rembered me of her older email address, but it was then
joscott!cdp%stanford.edu (this was the shortest version, of course: only if
your server had a direct UUCP connection with CDP...), the old time of UUCP
and gateways...

I was a young UN staff member just moved to the Brazil office with great
interest in computers and networks when a friend told me that a group of
Net geeks was very active in the Bay area and I decided to arrange a trip
to meet them.

I was introduced to Jo-Anne and to her partner, Scott Weikert, by Geoff
Sears, then executive director of IGC, the Institute for Global
Communication in 1987.

IGC was then a small NGO based in San Francisco founded by a number of
activists from the Bay area that joined forces around the idea that
computer networks could help to spread peace and development. Scott
Weikert, a former HP technical manager, left his job to build another NGO
called CDP – Computer Data Processing out of Palo Alto with the support of
a number of young enthusiastic computer geeks, among them Steve Fram.

I still remember the day when Geoff brought me to CDP office, then located
in the poor area of East Palo Alto, and we met in the parking lot with
Jo-Anne and Scott, both with their long blond hairs, getting off from their
VW Combi painted with flowers in perfect hippy stile.

It was an incredible mix of activisms and technology. The same mix that
brought to the establishment of PeaceNet, EcoNet and GreenNet.

The following time I visited them bringing a close Brazilian friend, also
interested in promoting the same values in his country: Carlos Afonso, who
was then working with IBASE, a Brazilian NGO.

Jo-Anne and Geoff helped to move further building APC, the Association for
Progressive Communications and Alternex, a sprung from IBASE, was part of
it.

Thanks to all them we were able to establish connections, mainly using UUCP
and Telebit modems, with many Latin American Countries, Cuba among them.
The great technical team at CDP was strongly supported by the “diplomatic”
work of Jo-Anne and Geoff and by their proximity and connections with the
nearby Stanford University that would actually provide a gateway between
CDP and the early Internet.

I later move to UNDP in New York and met Larry Landweber and thanks to him
I was introduced to the Gotha of the Internet.

In 1991 Larry provided us with 25.000$ from corporate donors (IBM, Cisco
and 3Com, mainly) to bring people to INET ’91 in Kobenhavn. With the APC
team, we organized a one-day technical workshop. Then a common friend who
was teaching at NYU introduced me to George Sadowsy.  and we repeated on a
larger scale the workshop for developing countries in Kobe for INET ’92.

In ’93 I shared with George the responsibility to organize the workshopin
San Francisco but I then moved with UNDP in Lima and I had left to George
the role of leading the organization of workshops in the following years.

More than thirty years passed and I still cannot forget the day all
started: when I met the couple in the parking lot of East Palo Alto getting
of from their VW in perfect hippy stile with their long, blond hairs…

Enzo

On Fri, Aug 16, 2019 at 8:09 PM bukhalidn via Chapter-delegates <
chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> I'm very sad to hear of Joanne Scott's passing. My heart felt condolences
> to her family, friends and ISOC community!
>
>
>
> Thank you George for bringing back all those great moments in memory of
> Joanne. I am not sure how but as I started reading, “joscott at igc.apc.org”
> flashed back in my memory. “joscott at igc.apc.org” is one of the very few
> emails that I communicated with, and quite frequently, during my early days
> on the net like “george.sadowsky at nyu.edu” and “randy at psg.com” and no
> strange that they are still engraved in my memory.
>
>
>
> I first met Joanne over email in early 1993 and then in person in August
> 1993 and since then Joanne was central to all the INETs that I or members
> of my team attended as participants and trainers.
>
>
>
> May she rest in peace!
>
>
>
> Sent by Nabil Bukhalid on the move.
>
>
>
> *From:* Chapter-delegates <chapter-delegates-bounces at elists.isoc.org> *On
> Behalf Of *George Sadowsky via Chapter-delegates
> *Sent:* August 16, 2019 6:56 PM
> *To:* Chapter Delegates <Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org>
> *Subject:* [Chapter-delegates] Jo-Anne Scott remembered
>
>
>
>
>
> 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:
> +1.301.968.4325
>
> 8300 Burdette Road, Apt B-472                          Mobile:
> +1.202.415.1933
> Bethesda MD  20817-2831  USA                                    Skype:
> sadowsky
> george.sadowsky at gmail.com                http://www.georgesadowsky.org/
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 

****
[image: Logo]
Vincenzo Puliatti
Amministratore Unico - ITSYN Srl
Board Member, ISOC Italy

[image: Email] +39 3421880510   [image: e-Mail] epuliatti at itsyn.com
<epuliatti at itsyn.com> - enzo.puliatti at isoc.it
[image: Skype] [image: skype]
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincenzo-puliatti-4405a43/>
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