The CC Asia Pacific Regional Meeting 2016 was held in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, From July 2 to July 3 which was hosted by CC China Mainland and attended by 19 representatives from 10 CC affiliates in the region with the support of CC. Liu Ping, one of the core members of the host team, shares her experience as the organizer of the event.

Creative Commons Asia Pacific Regional Meeting 2016 Group Photo Photo by Nasir Khan Saiyat CC BY-SA 3.0

For all team members of CC China Mainland, to organize an international or regional meeting has been our long cherished wish. Finally in 2016, the year that marks the 10th anniversary of CC China Mainland, with the strong support of CC HQ and our Asia Pacific Coordinator SooHyun, and endeavors from all CC China Mainland volunteers, we made our dream of a Beijing gathering come true.

In early April, we got the encouraging and challenging news that the Beijing meeting would be in early July. After initial internal discussion, our small group of   a lawyer, teacher, web developer, photographer and marketing manager were willing to contribute from various aspects even though they were based in different locations – Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Wenzhou.

As the capital city and a metropolitan, Beijing is well-known for its history, culture and diversity, It’s also a bit noisy considering more than 20 million population! We hoped our first  Beijing gathering would be impressive and exciting and show the other side of the capital to all participants. Based on this goal and limited budget, we chose National Judges College Beijing Branch near Yanqi Lake.. Located in Northeastern part of Beijing, the lake is a quiet, beautiful place far from the city center, where 2014 APEC Meeting was held.

Creative Commons Asia Pacific Regional Meeting 2016. Photo by Nasir Khan Saiyat CC BY-SA 3.0

Attendees from Bangladesh, Japan, Mongolia, Philippines, Taiwan, India, Hong Kong, Indonesia and South Korea arrived in Beijing 1st of July. CC China Mainland were excited to see all our colleagues from different countries and regions.The spirit of volunteerism was strong – a university student volunteered for airport pickup – a well done job!

On July 2, the regional conference started with affiliate updates in the morning. Representatives from each region gave an update over what happened since the last regional meeting. Apparently many interesting and meaningful actions were taken to either reinforce the concept of CC or to promote understanding and adoption of CC licenses.

In the afternoon, international and regional issues such as affiliate network strategy discussion, regional website, and how to collaborate in open policy advocacy were covered. All of us agreed that being an important member of global CC family, we could and should do more in advocating CC. Also we spent some time for a license translation & translation sprint, community building, fundraising, and technology related issues.

3rd of July’s meeting was dedicated to Chinese speaking affiliates. In addition to follow up some discussion from the previous day, the group shared ideas to resolve key issues they faced during their translation while discussing how the group could move the  4.0 and CC0 collaborative translation project move forward. In order not to miss the rare chance to enjoy the beauty of suburb Beijing, afternoon’s meeting location was changed from indoor to outdoor.

Thanks for everybody’s endeavors to make our Beijing gathering happen, especially our Asia Pacific Coordinator SooHyun. With these experiences, we hope we will be able to hold a global summit in near future with existing & potential volunteers of CC China Mainland.

More details about the event, meeting notes, and photos are on the Wiki.