#28 AB Zoomers

Foreward: Given my experience with both my sisters and my battle with dementia I wanted to give credit to some other Alberta based Zoomers I have been fortunate to collaborate with on the use of Zoom. I would not formally thank them because I have found that a lot of people are uncomfortable with dementia. Still I wanted to document that shared experience while I am still able, so here goes.

AB Zoomers

I have messed around with the use of technology in support of nature interpretation with Alberta Parks for my whole career, so I have tried lots of technolgy to help people experience nature in Alberta. One of the projects I initiated was a web based speaker series "Greening Government Speaker Series" that was supported my department at the time- Alberta Environment and Parks. Originally I was going to do that series with the use of an innovative open source web conferencing system called "Jitsi" developed by Emil Ivov, but I was approached by two colleagues from the Alberta government, Wendy Aupers and Heidi Eijgel who recommended I try a new webconferning system called Zoom. After I tried it I found its effectiveness refreshing my take on Zoom was/is "It just worked!".

So I began to use Zoom for the "Greening Government Speaker Series" and posted all of the webinars to an associated "Greening Government Speaker Series" Youtube Channel.

In about the first six months of the delivery of the series three different individuals contacted Maurice Brunelle responsible for videoconferencing within one department of the Alberta government about the use of Zoom in that speaker series. Maurice tried Zoom out and came to the same conclusion as myself, and began using Zoom to support his work within one department in the government of Alberta. This in turn inspired the use of Zoom throughout the government of Alberta.

Subsequent to my retiring from the government of Alberta I championed the use of Zoom in response to two separate issues:

1. Covid: I communicated with the Prime Minister's Office-PMO about the use of Zoom for a Virtual Parliament within the federal government in Canada to be able to function despite the Covid outbreak. This in fact happened, and this approach spread to other governments as well.
2. Ukraine War: Shortly after the war in Ukraine broke out a contacted Yulia Shaipova about the use of Zoom within Ukraine about a concept I called "Radio Free Ukraine" that involved the use of Zoom. And while that concept was not pursued, I would have to say that President Zelensky showed the world how you could use Zoom to increase support for his cause.

All the above said, it has my sincere honour to collaborate with fellow Albertans on the use of Zoom, myself and Wendy Aupers, Heidi Eijgel, and Maurice Brunelle.

Peace with with you

Ted Ritzer