[menog-announce] MENOG once a year announcement & way forward

[MENOG Secretariat]

Dear colleagues,

Following discussions between members of the MENOG Programme Committee 
(PC), please allow me to explain the new direction MENOG will be taking 
over the coming years.

The PC feels that the MENOG community has come a long way since its 
first meeting in 2007. Now that the community is established and the 
meetings are well-attended, we think there is a better approach to 
support the growth of the Internet community in the Middle East. After 
some deliberation, we have decided that MENOG will shift from a model of 
two meetings per year to one single (larger) meeting each year, and 
focus on delivering more Roadshows [1] and national week events. This 
approach will start with MENOG 17 in 2017.

The Roadshows were launched in 2011 as a joint initiative between the 
RIPE NCC and MENOG. In the years since, we have seen a total of 36 
Roadshows across the Middle East, visiting every country in the region 
at least once. The RIPE NCC also now organises additional events 
alongside each Roadshow. These include Member Lunches [2] for RIPE NCC 
members in the immediate area, as well as events with local universities 
or other stakeholders such as governments, regulators or specific 
industry groups. The Roadshow in this way has been developing into 
something larger, where we try to make the greatest impact from our 
visit to a country and draw people into the MENOG community. This 
approach will be expanded under the new direction, and the Roadshow 
itself will be further developed adding more diverse tracks based on 
local the need.

Ten Roadshows are budgeted to be delivered in 2016 and will continue to 
provide for a similar amount of events in the future. This means that on 
a country-by-country basis, more members will have a chance to engage 
directly with the MENOG and the RIPE NCC and participate in the 
community than if they were to wait for the next MENOG meeting to be 
held in their country.

So, to summarise: we believe that greater direct engagement on the 
national level provides more value and will be more effective in growing 
the MENOG community than having a second event. Moving to a single MENOG 
meeting each year will also allow us to focus on ensuring that this 
meeting is of a high quality and continues to deliver value to the 
community that attends.

Kind regards

Khalid Samara
Chair of MENOG PC

[1] http://www.menog.org/ipv6-roadshow/
[2] https://www.ripe.net/participate/member-support/member-lunches