• K* Conference 2012 - Wrap-up

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The K* conference may have ended but collaborative activities agreed to during the last days are continuing: Most notably, a short paper positioning K* is being drafted at the request of the World Bank.

There are three key thrusts that will be taken up in addition to Green Paper (including setting up the Wiki for the Green Paper- which will be online soon), and pursuing a publication (or several) based on the conference. 

1. Establishing and sustaining a global Knowledge network;

2. Assessing the impact of K* activities;

3. K* in developing countries and the democratizing of different knowledge(s)

We are pleased to post Derek Brien’s inspiring keynote address here as well as the thoughtful closing remarks by Goolam Mohamedbhai and Mohamed Hassan.

The UNU-INWEH press release sent out before the Conference impressively generated over 2000 views on Eurekalert. Also, thanks to the wonderful Webex and Social Media coverage facilitated by OMAFRA and GDNet respectively, we can report as a minimum the following impressive stats:

By day 1 of the conference:

- Over 120 participants from 40 countries signed up for Webex

By the last day of the conference:

- 19 blogs posted on GDNet

- 19 interviews posted on YouTube

- 450+ tweets, from 61 different Twitter users, from 12 countries

As a result of the conference:

- Traffic to the UNU-INWEH website to view K* pages increased exponentially

- 12 external blogs and articles were generated

- Some very complimentary words from the “Faces of K*” and beyond

We would like to sincerely thank all of the participants (both in person and online) for taking part in three days of engaging, informative, fun, and interactive conversations.

Thanks to our key partners as well as our conference supporters and fellowship sponsors for all of the support, you helped us to achieve our vision for this conference.

Be sure to check out the photos from the conference and watch the main page for further developments, news and updates on the development of the Green Paper (and where you can go to participate).

Best wishes,

Alex Bielak (K* Conference Chair)

Louise Shaxson (K* Conference Vice Chair)