Goodbye to the BILETA Chair I’ve been sitting in for the past three years or so.  Thanks to my ineradicable habit of deadlining and a lethal combination of Easter holiday roadworks & rush hour traffic outside Luqa airport I was late for the AGM; but since one of the first items was the election of the new Chair and depute-Chair, my being late didn’t stop proceedings for too long. 

Diane Rowlands from Aber is the new Chair, Sefton Bloxham the depute-Chair – BILETA is in safe hands with them both.  I’m stepping down from the Exec for a while, to focus on other things.  But I’ll still be attending the conferences – it’s hard not too: if you’re working in ICT & legal education in the UK, it’s the place to be, no question.

And talking of conferences, this one was great – superbly organised by Joe Cannataci and his team from University of Malta.  Highlights for me were Lessig’s presentation, the legal ed stream, the IP session with Fernando Barrio & Abdul Paliwala, and the powerful stream organised by Joe entitled Across Cultural divides – Data Protection & Islam.  It was Joe’s idea to put together a stream that would reflect Malta’s strategic place between the economic North & South, between western secular societies and Islamic societies.  It worked remarkably well, and within the short span allowed for discussion, it sparked off a debate that was long overdue, and will be taken forward, I hope, by a working party organised by Joe.

Social highlight?  Got to be Joe’s pre-conference dinner walking tour of the hauntingly beautiful ancient capital of Mdina, with church bells tolling around us in the gathering darkness.