Dear all
I would like to inform you that Belgrade Remote Participation Hub was organized on Thursday the 16th of September by DiploFoundation and NGO Fractal under the name “Language and Internet”. It was held at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade. The event was attended by 20 participants.
Filip Pavlovic, the representative of the NGO Fractal welcomed the attendees and presented the work of Fractal. Arvin Kamberi, in front of DiploFoundation, explained the importance of the IGF and a roll of DiploFoundation in addressing the main issues from Internet Governance process.
The opening statement was made by prof. Ljubisa Rajic, head of the Department for the Scandinavian Languages at the Faculty of Philology who spoke about the new ethics in Serbian language, new language genres and how the linguistics science has been changed under the pressure of new technology imposed terms. Implementing this in teaching on Faculty of Philology is one of the problems that they are encountering. Prof.Rajic emphasized the role of using new language ethics in day to day communication.
Dr. Jovan Kurbalija and Nikola Bozic from DiploFoundation joined the session through a live broadcast from the IGF event in Vilnius. They introduced the audience to the new trends at the IGF. Jovan Kurbalija specifically pointed out the importance of language in diplomacy and Internet. Also he provided an insight to the workshop “Dynamic Coalition on Linguistic Diversity”, in which Belgrade remote Hub took part. Dr Kurbalija pointed out some of the linguistic challenges faced in a defining a very meaning of “Remote Participation” reference.
Mr. Borko Kovacevic from the Linguistics Department spoke about the necessary Serbian language standardization and the importance of teaching the school children the use of Serbian language on the Internet. From that point the debate focused on local issues. Characteristics of Serbian language and use of Cyrillic names on Internet, triggered the discussion among Hub attendees almost entirely consisting of students of Philology.
There were many interesting suggestions and the 3 hour time limit wasn’t enough to address all the questions raised. Therefore prof.Rajic and other participants promised a continuation of public debate on use of Serbian language on Internet.
Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade proved to be a great host to this kind of events.
We had no technical problems whatsoever. Link was great and an experiences from the past remote participation proved to be important.
Some photos:
