March 19^th Back at the Conference, for an early morning session with the delegation from Columbia. Its funny how you choose to visit different presentations. I had met Carlos at the first lunch and now I was at his presentation. Columbia has some very sever problems. They identify a $36 Billion dollar problem and this includes the fact that over 1.8 million of their 40 million people live without sewage systems. Their rivers have effluent flowing directly into them and the ecological future looks very bleak indeed. They have some solutions that they are looking at, but do not have an integrated approach tying their solutions to the problems they have. This observation may not make sense to the reader but you would know what I mean if you saw the presentations. After the session Carlos came over and asked for my impressions. I expressed my point of view which seemed to hit home with him and I think they may talk with me in the future, not just from an educational perspective, but also from a presentation perspective.

I left this meeting and went to meet Joseph Kibur of NetNation, the hosting company for our website. It was a good meeting and while his company does not do the additional things that I need i.e. registration page, or site design, he did say that he will recommend some companies to me.

After my meeting with Joseph Kibur, I went back to the hotel to meet with Rashmi Mayur the Director of the International Institute for a Sustainable Future. I had met Rashmi on a number of occasions - in Washington at a World Future Society Conference 1993, and in San Francisco at the United Nations 50^th Anniversary celebrations. We had a great meeting. He is coming out with a new book, Millennium, but more important, he is totally connected to our project. He jumped right in, offering me an office in Bombay to connect to the G77 countries. We agreed to work together on the formation of the foundation to raise the money. He felt we should have a new foundation and not to rely on the old institutions and their bureaucracy. I tentatively agreed, but we will have to see how this can work. Probably he can attract the appropriate people to front it. This is very exciting news. Rashmi gave me an autographed copy of his book with some touching words.

Back at the Conference, I met Carl Frankel who was holding a book launch for his new book: in Earth’s Company. I have read it through once quickly, and Carl seems to have an excellent overview on the level of the problems we are facing and many of the chapters point directly to the need for global education and our materials. As well he has an insight into the corporations that are really doing anything in the field of sustainability. It is a summation of four years of work. An intriguing read. I will be reviewing this in the review section of the site.

I spent some time with various media people in the media room, and did another short telephone interview with Kelly White in Vancouver. Kathy and I went out for dinner, and early to bed.