I have heard back from the director of the Oxford Internet
Institute today and he seemed very positive about the idea, particularly if
they could host a parallel more academic conference. (There’s got to be
an economy of scale since many speaker’s would be appropriate for both.)
The OII have fairly limited facilities so may not be of that
great a financial benefit to us on their own. The importance of their interest
though is in the still close ties they maintain with Balliol college (Jimmy’s
talk for example was introduced by the master of Balliol at his recent talk)
who may be able to properly help us out on accommodation and in the help their
endorsement would provide in securing central university facilities. The master
of Balliol expressed initial interest and said he would get back to me in the
new year.
What do people think to this possibility? We’ve had
several failed London bids in a row, if this came together would people be
behind an Oxford one?
Tom