Having returned from Lahore in Pakistan and The Pakistan Software House Association (P@SHA) conference on "Rural Wireless Connectivity" and now finding myself in the Province of Fryslân in the Netherlands, you might be forgiven for thinking that they had little in common and that I must be suffering from culture shock - not to mention jet lag.
You could not be more mistaken. Fryslân is home to those lovely Friesian cows and horses - not to mention 600,000 friendly and welcoming humans.  Fryslân is one of the Netherlands' northern provinces and the only province of the Netherlands to retain its own language. Like the other low-lying parts of the Netherlands, the province struggles to protect its land from flooding and owes its existence to dikes (artificially constructed mounds of earth) extending the length of the coastline, and to windmills - the most famous of Dutch symbols - that drain the land.  Not much like rural Pakistan?  

Fryslân, from its leading town, Leeurwarden, is a pioneering rural area when it comes to open access connectivity and the innovative use of ICT.  The Conference, entitled, "Digital Services - The Economic Challenge for Rural Areas" at which I had been invited to speak has been organised by the Province and the links from the event website give ample evidence of this commitment to being adventurous in using the new digital technologies to support and enhance the existing socio-economic life of this quiet rural area of northern Europe.

Indeed, it took a 45 minute ferry ride over the Wad on the second day of the Conference to take us all to another world....Ameland.  No wonder they call this island the Wadden diamond - peace and quiet and fresh air in abundance.  Workshops had been arranged on Ameland addressing such diverse issues as e-learning; e-government and e-democracy; virtual marketing and health care.  The latter was an impressive example of how the particular problems of island-life requiring a long trip to and from the hospital by ferry and bus can be replaced by visual and audio contact as patients can 'converse' with a specialist at the Talma Sionsberg Hospital in far off Dokkum, the other side of Fryslân.  The citizens of Ameland are showing something which I constantly stress about the OPLAN principle - namely that access to the internet is but one application.  Listening to our politicians and the media, one might be forgiven for thinking that there is nothing more than the 'internet' when it comes to broadband connectivity.  Walter Lipman), the influential US writer, journalist, and political commentator once wrote, "The role of a press is to keep a community in conversation with itself".  I say, "The role of an open public local access network is to keep a community in conversation with itself".   Fryslân is already proving this to be the case - and the same will no doubt soon be demonstrated in Pakistan.  And maybe, it will indeed be the rural areas of the world - developed and developing - that will prove to be the most energetic and innovative deployers of OPLAN networks and discoverers of their value.  Why?  Because rural areas tend to enjoy a more pronounced sense of physical 'community' than do the more anonymous environments of our cities and urban areas.  If you 'know' your neighbour, then the desire to explore new richer ways of conversing with them by using these digital technologies may be greater than if you are an isolated island in a giant city.  And Ameland has plans to add a a big 'G' at the front of its name - turning the island into a digital gamers paradise during the summer season and beyond.

Another reason that puts Leeurwarden on the map is the fact that this OPLAN Foundation website is housed there.  Thanks to the generous support and unrivalled competence of FR-IX, the Fryslân ICT Center located in the futuristic Crystalic building in Leeurwarden, you are able to access this blog.  So, in my book, Fryslân is a world class host - whether for you and your family looking for a rural retreat or for your web-server seeking global connectivity.