The Webstock team want to improve how websites are built — and not just in New Zealand. While we’re keeping our plans for world domination under wraps just now, we have already made a move into the Pacific, starting with Samoa.

What we wanted to do was to bring several people to Webstock from Samoa, with the idea that when they get home they’ll be able to spread some of the enthusiasm and quality they’ve ‘caught’ from all the other participants and from the speakers.

We gathered our resources, and made a couple of ‘Samoan’ scholarships available, paying most of the costs of travel and registration fees. Scholarship winners still have to pay for their own accommodation and miscellaneous expenses. We’ve already profiled scholarship winner Nynette Sass.

Thanks to InternetNZ

We’ve been able to do this because of support from InternetNZ (The Internet Society of New Zealand Inc), who generously donated funding to bring two people from Samoa.

InternetNZ is a non-profit organisation dedicated to keeping the Internet open and uncaptureable, protecting and promoting the Internet for New Zealand. Their objective is “high performance and unfettered access for all”.

They also manage the .nz domain name system through the Domain Name Commission, and own the .nz domain name registry — .nz Registry Services.

Their reach extends beyond New Zealand too: in August 2008 they are hosting a meeting of APNIC (the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre).

APNIC is the Regional Internet Registry for the Asia Pacific region, representing 56 economies. It is responsible for allocating Asia Pacific IP addresses, AS (Autonomous System) numbers, and “in-addr.arpa” domain delegations.

The meeting will be held at the Christchurch Convention Centre from August 26 – 29, 2008 and will include a range of technical presentations, tutorials and special interest workshops, finishing with APNIC’s annual member meeting. …

“APNIC meetings focus mainly on policy development issues and information sharing.

We’d like to thank InternetNZ for their generous support. We love being able to spread our wings.