Date: 22 November, 2011
Location: Belgrade, Serbia

The recently published Uvod u upravljanje internetom, the Serbian/BCS version of Jovan Kurbalija’s An Introduction to Internet Governance, will be launched during the 19th Serbian Telecommunications Forum (Telfor), in Belgrade, Serbia, on 22 November. The launch will be followed by a panel discussion. The panelists – Dr Jovan Kurbalija, DiploFoundation director and author of the book, Jasna Matic, State Secretary for Digital Agenda of Serbia, Nenad Marinkovic, director of the Serbian ccTLD (RNIDS), and Milan Jankovic, Director of Serbian Regulatory Agency for Electronic Communications RATEL – will talk about key challenges and ongoing processes related to IG, with reference to the main challenges in Serbia. The Serbian/BCS version can be downloaded here, or viewed online here. Other translated versions can also be viewed and downloaded from igbook.diplomacy.edu

Date: 25-26 October 2011
Location: Bruges, Belgium

Dr Jovan Kurbalija spoke on capacity building for e-diplomacy at the International Conference on Challenges Facing the 21st Century Diplomat at the Collegue of Europe in Bruges (25/26 October 2011). His presentation focused on cognitive illusion in introducing social media in e-diplomacy, triggered by a very low entry-point into social media and a very high bar for making social media communication effective. 

He stressed: 'While we can learn to write a blog or use Twitter or Facebook in a few hours, maximum one day, we need much longer, at least one month, to understand the social media milieu and how to frame messages and interact with others and much longer still to embed new ways of working into a team or an organisation.' 

As a way to address this challenge, Dr Kurbalija presented Diplo's e-diplomacy capacity building approach: one day (technical training), one month (individual proficiency) and one year (institutional capacity for social media coverage). Dr Kurbalija was appointed visiting professor at the College of Europe earlier this year. 

Date: 6-7 October 2011
Location: Malta

Dr Jovan Kurbalija, Director of DiploFoundation, addressed the Sixth Conference of the Presidents of the Parliaments of Small European States, which was held in Malta on 6-7 October 2011. Dr Kurbalija discussed the role of Parliamentary Diplomacy as a method for building confidence and increasing inclusiveness in modern international affairs. The presentation was followed by a debate. The conference adopted a Joint Declaration which describes ways in which small states can strengthen parliamentary diplomacy. In the concluding declaration, the presidents of parliaments agreed to initiate training and capacity building in the field of parliamentary diplomacy.

Date: 25 October 2011
Location: online

 live webinar

Under pressure for many weeks from the financial markets, European leaders have agreed that they cannot go on without tough, co-ordinated and visible decisions to regain confidence of both the public and the international investors. The decision to recapitalise Europe’s most vulnerable banks, and the high probability of a Greek default, makes the upcoming EU summit a truly decisive moment. Covering the EU summit live from Brussels, Brussels e-briefings host Richard Werly will host a webinar on Tuesday, 25th October, at 15:00 CET, to discuss the aftermath of the meeting of finance ministers (21 October), and the EU summit (23 October). Participants will be able to ask topic-related questions. Registration is required. For more information, and to register, visit http://briefings.diplomacy.edu/upcoming-webinars