The feedback from seminar participants was excellent. The session provided an excellent demonstration of the capabilities of the Internet, and was stimulating to both complete novices and experienced users. For novices, the use of a wide variety of documents, pictures, maps and graphics was engaging and clearly demonstrated the status and growth of Internet use, as well as the wide variety of capabilities. For experienced users, there were inevitably some new hints to be collected, and familiarity with Mosaic is minimal or non-existent even with experienced Internet users within the group attending the conference. In addition, the experience of a virtual participation in the conference was extremely stimulating to all participants. Given the world-wide focus of most professionals attending the conference, as well as the impossibility of using international video conferencing due to the costs and budget constraints of governmental organizations and those reliant on public donations, the possibility of increased international interaction via Internet at low cost is extremely attractive. After the main presentations, the conference session broke into small working groups. Here, the presenter continued to participate in the discussion of one of the working groups via a simple speakerphone. This also worked quite well, and was stimulating to the working group.
The benefits of this presentation were clear, and will undoubtedly increase the use of the Internet as a tool among development professionals. The virtual presentation was also a successful experiment, and will serve as a model for the World Hunger Program in future conferences. A major portion of the conference budget is used each year to bring participants from developing countries, yet greater participation from these countries is always desired. Any methods of utilizing the Internet to electronically prepare for the conference, and to include developing country professionals in the conference electronically, will be pursued vigorously.