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New Participant activities at the IETF: Major expansion coming for IETF 122!
- Michelle Cotton IETF New Participant Ambassador
22 Oct 2024
The IETF New Participants program has a long history of helping people just starting out in the IETF be more effective. Based on feedback from program participants over the past two years, and in consultation with the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), the program will be significantly enhanced starting with IETF 122 Bangkok.
A few long-running components of the New Participants program have been quite successful. Quick Connections, which provides New Participants a unique opportunity to interact with IETF leadership is very well received. The New Participant dinner provides New Participants the opportunity to network with each other in an informal setting and continues to be a highlight of the week. The Guides Program matches knowledgeable IETF participants with New Participants to provide a 1-1 connection and mentorship, and is regarded as one of the most valuable experiences for New Participants at an IETF meeting.
Over the last few years, continuous enhancements have been made to the New Participants Program. These have included:
- more informative and frequent emails to the new participants leading up to and during a meeting to help prepare for a successful meeting experience,
- dedicated Meetecho training sessions, both online before a meeting week and in-person on the Sunday of a meeting,
- greater IETF leadership participation at New Participant sessions throughout a meeting week, including a welcome by the IETF Chair,
- a new Participant Meet-up spot that allows new participants to more easily meet each other,
- Information about the Guides Program in the meeting registration process to increase program awareness and promote early sign-up, and
- better ways to get feed
We have also continued to receive feedback during the current New Participant program and in post-meeting surveys that a more comprehensive program is needed. So, we are pleased to announce that we will be launching an expanded New Participant program for IETF 122 Bangkok. The program will now be a full-day experience for new participants with sessions covering topics like “The Standards process at the IETF” and “How to bring new work to the IETF”, while still including existing overview sessions and basic training on how to use IETF tooling. The IESG have approved this expansion and will approve the content of the new sessions, as it is developed.
We understand that a whole day program may not suit everyone and so will continue to allow anyone to attend any session, enabling those that wish to, to spread their participation over more than one meeting.
The overall goal of the program remains to support future new IETF participants to allow them to be effective in their work within the IETF more easily and quickly.
The next step is to develop the content and find the presenters for the expanded program. Contact support@ietf.org if you are interested in assisting with this. Also, consider being a guide to a new participant. See the IETF Guides website for more information.