Hi Simon, Of course, your input is always welcome but per Aphaia and others, you shouldnt have gone ahead on your own and contacted people. However I think you feel we have no progress on this front so I will fill you (and everyone) in: There is a program committee in action that has resulted from a couple of calls for participation here on the list from people who responded, attended meetings at the time and created accounts on the Pentabarf organizing software, this committe is not private and you are welcome to join anytime if you are interested (I can add you to the mail list). Uptill now we held a rotating weekly meeting every weekend that resulted first in the CfP and second in a list of over 25 local (middle-east) and global speakers to be invited, that list is kept on the team wiki because most of it is unconfirmed yet, however most of that list has been assigned a point of contact, which is a person who will initiate contact with that specific organization/person. We are currently debating things like the formal invitation process, invitation budget and costs, scope of interest in subjects, etc. So you see it is not very good for someone to bypass that and send a localized invite. We need to maintain a consistent image for Wikimania and Wikimedia. That said, as I mentioned before you are welcome to join and jump in on the subjects debated and lend a hand if you want... On Feb 5, 2008 8:15 PM, Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey