The Click Festival met for three days in Havana, with the participation of more than one hundred people to discuss social networking, citizen journalism, internet rights, audiovisual production and other issues related to the use of the Internet and new technologies in the generation, processing and distribution of ideas.
It met all expectations despite threats from the weather, official disqualifications and the natural shortcomings arising from the scarcity of resources. But perhaps the most significant achievement has been that the government was forced to stage a parallel event called the Knowledge Festival, or the Computer Festival attended — according to what they tell us — by more than one hundred thousand young people in the computer clubs across the country.
All of us who were in the space provided by the organizers of Estado de Sats had the impression that we were learning, not only about technological issues but about citizen behavior. This was the first but not the last. We will see the faces next year, perhaps in a different space, perhaps with different faces, but especially with new things to learn. We know that these events do not achieve the transition to democracy, but at least we are sure that the exercise of freedom is a step that leads in that direction.
25 June 2012
