Internet Governance Workshop ICANN - Sydney 25 June 2009 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Chris Disspain. I'm the chair of the Country Code Name Supporting Organization, and I'm also a member of the United Nations Secretary- General Internet Governance Forum advisory group. And today we're here to talk to you about the Internet Governance Forum. I'll start with an apology. This session was intended to be moderated by Keith Davidson from New Zealand. Keith is feeling a little unwell, and so I have been promoted from -- well, demoted I suspect, from panelist to moderator. I'm going to ask each of the panelists to briefly introduce themselves. And then we're going to hear from each of them on their views on the IGF from a particular viewpoint. So starting perhaps with you, Cheryl, if you could just briefly introduce yourselves. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Certainly. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Cheryl Langdon-Orr, and I'm an Asia-Pacific representative from the Regional At-Large Organization to the ALAC. And I'm currently honored to be the chair of the ALAC. The reason I'm sitting at this table, however, is both Asia-Pacific Regional At-Large Organization and the ALAC have presented at recent IGFs and I sure would like to bring some of that perspective. Thank you. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Good afternoon. My name is Markus Kummer. I'm the executive coordinator of the IGF Secretariat, and I have been a regular visitor of ICANN meetings for the past five years where I informed you about U.N. activities in this area. >>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: Good afternoon. I'm Jeff Brueggeman with AT&T. And we have participated in all three IGF meetings and obviously approach it from a business perspective. So... >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: I'm Adiel Akplogan. I'm the CEO of AfriNIC, chair of the NRO. And I have also been a member of the multistakeholder advisory group of the IGF for the past three years up to this year. So I'm here to subtly give the perspective from developing countries on the IGF and also from the Number Resource Organization's perspective. Thanks. >>JAYANTHA FERNANDO: I'm Jayantha Fernando from the Sri Lankan government, currently responsible for the legal reforms agenda in relation to information technology development in Sri Lanka, also representing Sri Lanka in the GAC and currently vice chair of GAC. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Jayantha. So, this is intended to be as far as possible an interactive session. We would like to hear from you questions, comments, et cetera. So please feel free at any time, if you want to say something, come to one of the microphones. And at an appropriate break in the conversation, we'll take questions. It's better if we do it as we go along because, otherwise, we'll have forgotten what we said and, therefore, your question won't make any sense. I'm going to have Markus start us with an introduction to the IGF and update on the arrangements for the one coming up in Egypt. Markus? >>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Chris. I will not give you a history of the IGF, Internet Governance Forum. Just a brief reminder of the definition of "Internet governance," which is much broader than the remit of ICANN and it relates to all public policy issues related to the Internet, to its use and abuse. We have had three meetings of the IGF so far: In Athens, Rio and Hyderabad. They were based on the five overarching themes of access, diversity, openness, security and critical Internet resources and had the cross-cutting priorities of development and capacity-building. In Athens and in Rio, we dealt with them separately in silos, so to speak. In Hyderabad, as an innovation, we paired related themes, and that is access and diversity. We felt that they are very much to do with each other. "Access" is the physical access to the network. "Diversity" relates to the capacity of actually being able to do something with this access. It relates to the multilingual Internet but also to people with disabilities. The other pair of issues was security and openness. There obviously we were talking about the balance to find between an open Internet and between a secure Internet. In Sharm, again, we tried to innovate and build on the previous meetings. And we found that in previous meetings maybe where we were not as good as we hoped for was making the linkages between the other events and the main session and also about involving young people. Young people are the prime uses of the Internet. They're the natives. Our generation, we are the immigrants. So we want to involve the digital natives a little bit more and hope that they will take up our offer. And, also, we will use different formats for different sessions. This is based on the recognition that there is a different level of understanding depending on the issues at stake. There are three types of sessions based on this recognition. The first type is where we find that there is a large convergence of views. There is a shared objective like, for instance, to improve access or to take measures to make the Internet more linguistically diverse or to improve access for people with disabilities. There's nobody against these issues. The question, the focus is rather on what to do and how to improve it. So for these issues we try and feed in the workshops that deal with these themes such as protecting, empowering children, such as improving access for people with disabilities, such as creating multilingual content. The second category of issues may be an emerging convergence of views, but there's still a need for further clarification of issues. So the focus will be more on what are we talking about. And these are the issues related to security and openness and also on privacy. And we will introduce these with relatively compact expert panels. In the past, people made fun of our huge panels of football teams sitting up on the stage. I mean, this was caused not so much because we loved huge panels but because everybody wanted to have representatives of their respective stakeholder group to have a word to say. So we are trying to change that somewhat. And then there is a third category where we have noted continuing differences of opinion, so the focus will be on sharing of opinions and the aim is to contribute to a better understanding of each other's opinion. The aim clearly is not to bridge differences in these points of views but rather to create a better climate for discussion through listening to each other. And as an example for these issues, they are the critical Internet resources where we know what each other think but where we allow for the open discussion and to encourage the sharing of opinions. And to a lesser extent also, the WSIS principle. One session will be devoted to WSIS principles. Yes, everybody agreed on these principles but there are different interpretations of what these principles are. And some of these principles also relate to the open and inclusive information society and to development in a larger perspective. So we hope that we also will promote a little bit more the discussion on development. That was also one area where we found we were wanting -- yes, we say we have a priority that is development and it is cross-cutting. But as is often the case with cross-cutting issues, instead of dealing with them everywhere as a priority, we don't deal with them at all. So hopefully this session will bring this important priority a bit more to the fore. And in addition, then the program for Sheik has the traditional program, emerging issues. This year it will be devoted to the impact of social networks, and we hope that this session in particular will bring in young people as they are users of the social networks. And, also, that will be an innovation. We have noted the data spread of regional and national initiatives from Europe, East Africa, Caribbean, Latin America and also various country initiatives: Italy, Spain, U.K. So we encourage them to bring in their regional perspectives right at the beginning. There will be a session devoted to regional perspectives. And apart from the sort of traditional opening and closing session, there will also be a session -- a review session. I will come back to that right at the end. We will have in parallel to the main session, as we had in previous years, workshops, open forums. And we will have an IGF village. Right now we are putting together the workshop proposals. We had a deadline, and we have now to identify who merged and proposed a final proposal for a workshop. And we had hoped actually that we would lose some workshops, not because we don't value them highly but we basically had far too many after the first deadline. But now they have even multiplied, and I think we have 139 proposals and it will not be possible physically to accommodate them all. The facilities we will have are excellent, and we have more or less the same number of rooms as we had in Hyderabad. We will be able to set them up in classroom setting. I think we make the workshop rooms a bit smaller. As we found last year, some of them are almost too big and almost too intimate, I think. So we make nice setting for workshops, but we cannot accommodate 139. The IGF village, we will repeat what we had in Hyderabad. And I can take this opportunity to remind participants here in this workshop that we have set the 30th of June as a deadline for filing a request for a booth in the village. We need to be relatively early to allow our hosts to set up the architecture for the village, so we need to know how many booths will be required. And please let us know if you have not yet done so, whether you want a booth or not for your organization. It's not a commercial exhibition. It is a space where not-for-profit organizations can exhibit their activities or if it is a for-profit organization that they can exhibit initiatives they may have taken that fall under the overall theme. I would also invite participants to send us their comments. We had set deadlines, 15th of July for comments on the review process and 15th of August for substantive contributions related to the agenda of the IGF. We will post all the comments also received after these deadlines, but the deadlines mean that comments received prior to that respective deadline, 15th July, 15th August, the comments, contributions received will be synthesized in a paper that will be translated in all U.N. languages and will go to IGF participants in the six U.N. languages prior to the meeting as an input into the discussion. And this brings me to the last point I was going to raise to the review. The Tunis Agenda calls on the Secretary-General of the United Nations to hold formal consultation on the desirability of the continuation of the forum with forum participants. This is somewhat winded language but is the negotiated diplomatic language. And translated into everyday language, it means we need formally to have this kind of consultation which will be prepared on an online process. And the paper I mentioned will be the official document that goes to forum participants so they can read what we have received, form their opinion. We will go through the motion about talking about whether or not to extend the mandate, but Sharm El Sheikh will not take a decision. The IGF is not a decision-making body, but it is a consultation. People may say yes or may say no and they may give their reasoning for it. And based on this consultation, the Secretary-General will make a report with a recommendation that will go to the U.N. member states. And we'll follow -- we'll have the following rhythm. It goes to the Committee on Science and Technology for Development in May 2010. That committee then submits it, passes it on to the Economic and Social Counsel, ECOSOC in 2010. And ECOSOC finally submits it to the United Nations General Assembly as the supreme organ of the United Nations. So the decision will be taken by governments, and that's why it is important that all stakeholders be heard so governments also know what the stakeholders think about the desirability on whether or not to continue the mandate beyond its original five-year mandate. So, once again, I would like to invite you for this purpose to send in your written contributions. And end with a commercial. Please do come to Sharm El Sheikh. You will not regret it. As I said, it is an excellent venue. It is a really nice resort, town. And I hope the program will be as interesting at least as in the previous meetings. So you will not only enjoy your time in Sharm but also your time at the meeting itself. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Markus. I hope for those of you who haven't been to an IGF or don't know too much about an IGF, you can see that it's not an ICANN meeting. It's -- it has a structure -- a similar structure in the sense that it is multistakeholder, but the discussions about the DNS and critical Internet resources forms a very small part that forms a small thing that gets talked about in the IGF. The things that get talked about in the IGF are issues that individual people, businesses deal with every day, security, openness, spam, all of that stuff. So it's -- if you are thinking about coming -- don't think you are just coming to effectively another ICANN meeting because you're not. It's different. Perhaps, Jeff, you'd like to go next and talk about it from a business perspective. Thank you. >>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: Sure, thanks. As Markus and Chris have indicated, there is a similarity in the multistakeholder model of IGF. And when it was first created, it was a very novel forum for discussing more the broader policy issues of the Internet. I think business went into the process with some trepidation about what it was going to mean and particularly with respect to engaging with government now on -- governments on these issues. But I think overtime it really has matured over the past three years to the point where there is a culture that is developing of being able to engage in a free and very good exchange of discussions on these issues. And I just wanted to discuss some of the trends that we've seen with the IGF over the past few years and then maybe look ahead a little bit as well. One thing I think the participation has continued to expand and grow which is very important. And from a business community, we saw in India a really good showing of local business attend and participate. And that is certainly continuing looking ahead to the Egypt event. In fact, I know there have been several pre-IGF events in Egypt that have been a way for the business community to become informed with what's happening. I think that's really valuable to get the local community as part of the larger Internet group of individuals and companies that attend. Second thing that's happened, I think, as Markus indicated, the local and regional IGF meetings. That's really been an interesting phenomenon because I think it shows the people want to continue the discussion during the year and also bring the ideas they are hearing at IGF, which is really a global focus, back home. And even in the U.S. now we're having discussions about an IGF event there. And, again, I think that is a great way to extend participation but also helps to cultivate the discussion which I think will even enhance the work that's being done during the annual IGF meeting. The third thing I wanted to note, I have seen that there has been an evolution of the policy discussions that is resulting from the annual IGF meetings. So this may include some cases new issues being discussed and brought into the IGF process and also over time some consensus developing on some of the issues such as online protection and cybersecurity. So it becomes a forum for sharing ideas and addressing new issues but also sharing best practices and experiences and spreading those as well. So really kind of a dual function. Looking forward, we are very supportive of continuing extending the IGF and we also firmly believe in the multistakeholder model as we do with ICANN. I think it is you a increase and it can have its challenges. But there really is a value to having everyone be able to come to the table on equal footing, government, civil society, academic, technical and business to discuss these issues. It really does affect the nature of the discussion when you can do it in that kind of a forum. It also, I think, reflects fundamentally the nature of the Internet. It's global. It's fast-changing. It's very diverse. And it really resists a control and command-type of structure. So I think it becomes a little bit of an organic entity, but I think that's very appropriate for the types of discussions and issues that we're addressing. So thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Jeff. Don't forget if you have questions, just have to ask. Cheryl, do you want to go next? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Yes, more than happy to, Chris. Thank you. The perspective I was hoping to bring was one that might act as a bridge point between people that would come to an ICANN meeting and those who might be wondering why they would like to go to an IGF meeting. Quite clearly as has been said here the multistakeholder modeling is something that those of us involved in this community with a slightly narrower interests will be comfortable with. But what's different about going to an IGF is very much all of those workshop and satellite opportunities, not just the more formal panels. Our experience with presenting in both Rio and in Hyderabad was the intersessional advantages, networking, regional and local networking that went on. It was enormously useful for us to talk at the IGF with each other, but what happened as we went back to our regions in our local areas is that there was an energy to build local IGFs, get ongoing conversation and do some accessibility and access work done. Why there is a natural fit, I suppose, to the group that I'm involved with within ICANN is that the at-large structures, the Internet end users are, of course, interested in all the things that ICANN isn't necessarily interested in and it is within the IGF constraints that they can discuss those points, understand perhaps differences and variances and further an ongoing dialogue. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Sorry. That was quick. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I told me to be quick. I was being obedient. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: That's right. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: You see, I am actually a stress physiologist and I understand what aversive conditioning is. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Adiel? >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Okay, thank you. I think I'll try to follow Cheryl and be quick. Well, from the developing country perspective, I think the IGF for many people from developing countries was the opportunity to, first of all, understand a little bit more all the issues related to the Internet governance. So the IGF was supposed to be a capacity-building environment for many of those countries to really understand the detail around the Internet development and how Internet governance has an impact on Internet development in those countries. This with the objective of bringing, allowing more participation of developing countries on the global Internet governance debate. We have seen for the past three years of IGF that this goal has been met in certain aspects because we have seen a growing participation from developing countries into the IGF meeting. Not only participating in the meeting but also start contributing by sharing their experience running workshops and also addressing some critical and key element that they feel are important for their country locally, regionally for the Internet development. One point which keeps come from developing country aspects is access. And if we look at how access has gained momentum in a region like in Africa for the past three or five years, we can say that the ability of people to interact, to see what is happening elsewhere, how people deal with those aspects have helped local government, local policymaker to put in place strategy that can help them to improve access because improving access directly will impact the Internet development and also will allow to create a more meaningful community to participate to the debate. We have also experienced more and more localization of the IGF in different regions, both at the local, purely country level but also at the regional level. We have the east African IGF which is now something that is coming up every year. We had tried last year also the west African IGF, which is something that will be repeated this year. So that localization also is bringing some new parameter into the multistakeholder approach. And I will also point out that the notion of statistical approach in terms of ICT policy in terms of Internet development in general, is something that was very quite new for many developing countries but now being more and more understanding, being taken into account in putting in place those various strategies. We have the privilege to have the next IGF in our region, and we hope - - I mean, developing countries, especially from Africa, hope to use that opportunity to express participation from the local communities. Some concern being able to exchange more and also being able to showcase some positive initiative from the region that show that the region is also moving and want to be seen as an important play in the global environment. I think I will not go further than that. But just to say with my other hat of the chair of the NRO, we think the IGF has contributed a lot in bringing Internet governance issues and Internet development issues in general to different stakeholders. And we believe that the IGF should continue to allow more dialogue between different stakeholders and prepare people toward solving some burning issue. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Adiel, and thank you for mentioning in a bit more detail the local -- the local and regional IGFs because it's reminded me that as I was supposed to be on this panel, I actually had some things to say to you as well, which I'll do now and then I'll go to you, Jayantha. I'll do my bit first and then you can -- as a government person, you can be last. I just wanted to talk about -- I was going to talk about the national initiatives and sort of regional initiatives, because last Saturday InternetNZ on behalf of New Zealand and auDA on behalf of Australia launched the New Zealand and Australian Internet best practice awards, with acknowledgments to Nominet and dot uk, whose structure we basically just plagiarized. The -- and the idea -- the reason why that's connected to the IGF is because we use the -- the topics that the IGF, the subject headings that the IGF is currently using of access and diversity and security and openness and, et cetera, as the context within which we make these Internet best practice awards. And the intention is to use those along with probably an actual meeting at some point to feed information up to the global IGF and also use the global IGF to feed information down to the local one. We're also -- New Zealand and Australia are also in the process of working on a Pacific IGF. This is basically for the islands, effectively, who have struggled to -- often struggle to travel or it just takes them a long time to travel, and so we thought it was probably a good idea for us to try and do some work on bringing them together and involving them in the exercise. So Jayantha, over to you. >>JAYANTHA FERNANDO: Thank you, Chris. I can understand why I had to go last because it was governments that try to define Internet governance and fail miserably. So from our point of view, we look at Internet governance from a very broad perspective, and identify two broad governance issues. Namely, firstly, the management of the core technical -- technological facilities surrounding the Internet, the protocol root name standardization activities, where we believe the multistakeholder models such as ISOC, INET, ICANN play a pivotal role, but more importantly, in terms of the second element, where governments look at very often, we tend to look at how best we can legally govern the activity conducted on the Internet. So many governments have multiple wish lists in their agenda. Regulation of business activity, consumer protection, taxation, intellectual property protection, cybersecurity. From my government's perspective, cybersecurity is right up there in the agenda. But from a governmental perspective, what is important is for us to know what we can do and cannot do. And that is the reason why we believe that this multistakeholder model, like Internet Governance Forum, would help government understand exactly where they can engage the stakeholders and understand what they cannot do. And build their policies around that. I'm particularly fond of ISOC, as ISOC trained us in those areas, and starting from those early days of training, capacity-building, we now have two -- we see some maturity in the marketplace amongst the multistakeholders in relation to Internet governance issues, and it is in that context that I believe that the Internet governance forum is a place where all the multistakeholder models, be it Internet Society, IETF, ICANN, all of them together with government, civil society and end users can all flock together and learn from each other and help governments understand what they can do and cannot do, and help us to take Internet Governance issues to our home countries. Thanks, Chris. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. I'm going to ask you a question in a second. I just want to see if there's anyone who wants to say something. And Martin has very kindly stood up to say something. >>MARTIN BOYLE: Hi. Thank you. It's Martin Boyle. I'm with Nominet, the dot uk registry, and we've been very, very heavily involved since the creation of the IGF in trying to make sure that the U.K. is able to contribute effectively into the IGF and to draw on the work of the IGF. And part of our program, as Chris has identified, is this best practice challenge initiative. We see -- we saw this as being particularly important because it helps us to learn from other people, identify the things that people are actually doing that meet some of the challenges that we're confronting. And in Hyderabad, one of the things that I discovered was that there's an initiative, also, in south Asia covering eight countries and it's an enormous initiative. And in discussion with them, the U.K. is putting forward a proposal for a workshop that will try and show to the wider community those example -- some of those examples of best practice. So we've got now participation from Australia and New Zealand, east Africa likewise have got examples, south Asia likewise. So I turn to the audience and ask them whether -- if they've got -- if they know of examples, perhaps they can help us extend the coverage. Because what we're really looking for is the exchange of ideas, and leading by example, learning by example is something constructive to come out of the process. The other point, though, I would like to make that -- about the U.K. activity is we have benefitted from the engagement of elected representatives from parliamentarians in the process. And one of the things that parliamentarians do is bring in a knowledge of the concerns of the citizen, because they end up having to report back to the citizens and the citizens come to them and complain about things that have gone wrong. So in Athens, there was a delegation of European members -- members of the European Parliaments, and in Brazil and India, the U.K. had large parliamentary delegations and we tend to again this year. There seemed to be a sort of growing interest in that, and so perhaps I can now come to my question -- sorry for the long lead-in -- but my question really is whether, from the panel's point of view, and in particular from your point of view, Markus, we can perhaps develop that dialogue with the legislators through the world through that engagement with parliamentarians. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Martin. Markus, do you want to -- >>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Thank you. Thank you for the question, Martin. As you may remember, we tried to do so already in Hyderabad, but were unable to pull off a large number of parliamentarians and I think there were more sort of institutional problems of how to mobilize them through the inter-parliamentarian union, but as far as I understand, there are efforts afoot to do precisely that, and I hope that it will succeed. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Does anybody else want to comment on that particular aspect? Okay. So I have a question -- anyone else got a question at this stage, or a comment at this stage? Okay. So I have a question on notice, and then another question. So think about this one: If you could pick one thing, one topic, that -- it can be broad or narrow -- that you think should be discussed under those -- under the banners, whichever one you choose -- security, governance, access -- at an IGF, what would it be? And if there's one thing you could take away -- and it's not the souvenir bag -- if there's one thing you could take away, what would that be? Now, while you're thinking about that, one of the things that -- one of the things that one hears -- "criticism" is too strong a word -- about the IGF is that it doesn't make decisions. Some people say it should make decisions. And it doesn't even make recommendations. I'm interested in your thoughts about what -- about that, whether that's the right thing and, if, so, why. Cheryl, do you want to take that first? >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Well, certainly, I'd be happy to. It's certainly our view and indeed my view that its current non- decision-making role is one of its greatest strengths. It gives the opportunity for a different type of dialogue and discussion to go on, and to lose that would fundamentally change not just the nature of it, but the outcomes and the potential. And I don't think we would have seen anywhere near the growth of interest, and it's -- as Markus was saying, you know, it's almost exponentially growing workshops that we would if it was any other way. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Okay. Jeff, you want to -- >>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: Yeah, I would strongly second that and I would also back to a point that you made before, which I think it would completely change the nature of the IGF participation and right now, you know, you don't spend your time so much worrying about formal positions. You can engage in a more free dialogue, and to some extent, the most interesting parts of IGF are sometimes the workshops and the -- the casual meetings that occur during that. So if everything was focused on developing formal positions, it would really be a major change. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Jayantha? >>JAYANTHA FERNANDO: Yeah. I think I would tend to agree myself, and I think in terms of a pick, in terms of priority, as I said, each of us have our own national priorities and mine would be information security, addressing security threats as such. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Can I come back to that in a minute? I'll get back to that. Adiel, your decision-making recommendations? >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Yes. I think making IGF anything else than what it is today, being decision-making will completely deviate the objective of the IGF, so I believe that it has to remain a non-decision-making environment because that's what makes it a successful environment where people can freely and openly talk and discuss about issues without fearing that what they are saying -- their position will go into any kind of decision. So I support the current model and reinforce that. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Markus, do you want to moment? >>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. I totally agree with what has been said. I think, you know, the apparent weakness, the non-decision-making character, is precisely its strength. As all the panelists said. Because it allows for a free exchange of views without the pressure of negotiation, and if you have that pressure, you know, it changes the nature of the dialogue. And having said that, how can you reach a conclusion when you have an open forum? If all different stakeholders -- you would have to develop a set of procedures, that would governments agree to that, to sit down at a table with civil society, with individual participants? Would you have to introduce a way of voting? Each government has a vote and -- I mean, the practicality of it, I think it would be impossible to surmount, apart from all the other arguments for keeping the character. I would not see how we would be able to turn it into a decision-making body without destroying its multistakeholder character. We're back to the normal traditional U.N. procedures. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Stefano, did you have a question? >>STEFANO TRUMPY: Thank you. It's maybe some -- a little bit more than a question. [Laughter] >>STEFANO TRUMPY: Okay. So what is the value of IGF? And in my opinion -- by the way, I'm Stefano Trumpy from Italy. I'm the -- a member of the GAC and also promoter of the IGF Italy, and I'm making some comments about that. So the value of the IGF. We could say that it's the value for creating a culture on Internet Governance, that it is something that is multi-faceted, because it has aspects that are involving technical matters that are involving economical, societal, and so on. So it is something that also the -- let's say the policymakers, and especially in the governments, can -- have to understand and to gain more and more idea about this multistakeholderism that is one of the characteristics of the IGF. And making a comment on this introduction, multistakeholderism is something that is common with ICANN, but ICANN also has other characteristics like the private sector-led, and this is not the case of IGF. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Absolutely. >>STEFANO TRUMPY: And in IGF, I have to say that the governments sometimes prove as some embarrassment to be on equal footing as all the others, and the civil society, the private sector, and so on. But as Martin Boyle has said, the involvement of the governments, of the parliamentarians is very, very important in order to get this global view. And coming to the IGF Italy that was initiated last year -- and we have another meeting this year in the month of October -- the initiative was taken by the ISOC chapter of Italy, but now the host of IGF 2009 be the national council for research, because the national council for research understood that on this area, on this multidisciplinary argument, we have to set up a research sector. Multidisciplinary research sector. And so I find that this -- elaborating the culture about this is a very important issue. And coming back to ICANN, secondly the World Summit on world information and its follow-on -- and IGF is one -- multiplied by 10, maybe a hundred the people that in the world want to understand what it's about, running an organization like ICANN. And this is -- on one side -- a risk because we have to continue making efforts to explain the real nature of this, and then it may also provide some difficulties in continuing the management and getting a lot of critics about the ICANN model. But -- so we -- that are inside this organization. We have to multiply the efforts in order to teach all this new commerce, let's say, to understand the spirit of that. Thank you. It was not a real question, but... [Laughter] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Stefano. I did say comments. Comments were fine. So the question is Ayesha? Marilyn, are you going to say something? Okay. Thank you. >>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. I just wanted to tie together a few things that have been discussed here. As far as not being a decision-making arena at the IGF, what we have found is actually that's one of the reasons why many of the business members from ICC and the BASIS initiative -- Business Action to Support the Information Society -- have found benefit at the IGF. And so just to underscore that the fact that the IGF has moved from region to region in the past few years, we have seen a broad cross-section of sectorally different businesses get more involved because they learn about the IGF from the regional awareness-raising and they've gotten more involved, in turn, in the global-level IGF discussions, but also in the global business discussions, which is a benefit for all, I think. On a related point, I had the opportunity to talk with some new people at the IGF in India who had been regular ICANN-goers, and they had come to the IGF for the first time, and it really is interesting to see the cross-pollination that has been happening between several of the multistakeholder fora, and I would just encourage that to continue, because I think it adds value for all stakeholders -- government, civil society, technical community and business -- and no that a lot of people have found that they have had a unique learning opportunity, as well as a unique sharing opportunity at the IGF. Thanks. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Ayesha. Marilyn? >>MARILYN CADE: Thanks, Chris. My name is Marilyn Cade. I have had the pleasure of being able to participate in the early days of the WSIS process itself and see the evolution of how the acceptance between civil society and governments and the business sector and the technical sector evolved inside that process, and I just want to reinforce the maturing that I'm seeing in the culture that is developing in the Internet Governance Forum, but I want to say something about how different it is from other intergovernmental and international fora and how important I think that is. I do a lot of work in intergovernmental fora, where the role of the private sector is very, very different and governments, in fact, are driving the bus, filling the bus up with gas -- just joking about this - - but really it is an intergovernmental fora. Appropriately so. But we all need to understand that just because business shows up at an intergovernmental fora, that does not mean that they are actually equally participating. So the culture and the existence of the IGF, I think, is absolutely essential, and to those who aren't familiar with it, I would just say to you that it is something that really deserves our support and our participation, and expansion even within what it can talk about. And here's why: Because understanding the challenges that face us today on the Internet is nothing to the challenges that face us tomorrow. And having the participation of all interested parties, being able to share their views, their information, their intelligence and their answers, I think, is really, really critical. So I would just say that to me, the idea that we have the opportunity to show support for the continuation of the IGF is very important, which brings me to a second point I want to make. I am obviously very heavily supportive of ICANN. I'm here. But I very much do not want to see the IGF become only about ICANN and the unique indicators, because I just happen to think that cybersecurity and privacy and many, many other -- social networks and the policy implications and all those things really need examination. And since I know they're not going to be done here, we really have to have that space. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Marilyn. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yes. One second. I just want to make a comment. I think that's absolutely right, Marilyn. From my own personal perspective, I've noticed that it's fascinating how, when new things develop, there's always lots to be done, and how when -- when governments want to try and -- want to start to get involved, they have a tendency to choose the areas that have already been dealt with. [Laughter] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Rather than actually looking at all the stuff that needs to be dealt with. Because they're easy, and they've already been dealt with, so let's do that. Sir. >>ANDRES PIAZZA: Yeah. First of all, my name is Andres Piazza. Do we have interpretation? Can I speak in Spanish or is it possible? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: No. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I do apologize. There are no -- there's no setup up here, so I suspect not on the floor. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: There's a lady in the Spanish hut there. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Well, I don't have a headset and I don't speak Spanish. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: No. I'm sorry. >>ANDRES PIAZZA: No problem. I do realize that many of the other workshops in the meeting are prepared for that, so I'm glad of hearing. So this is an exception, and it happens. Okay. I'm LAC RALO chair. I work in civil society, in academia. I am from Argentina. So I was hearing Stefano, and his interaction and how the Italian government took this issue -- brought this issue from civil society and it -- they were aware of how to develop the IGF Italy. I want to show some envy, because I had an Italian passport and I would like to move there because -- [Laughter] >>ANDRES PIAZZA: -- because this is really in Latin America a different situation, which is a lot different. Our representative of our government who are here or who are in the GAC or who are in United Nations are really aware of the importance, and they do a Titanic work to make this capacity-building happen. But it's hard to find support from the government, actually, and from us I -- we were making many, many efforts to be involved in ALAC but mostly in the IGF, and I have never been to one despite there was one in Rio de Janeiro. So it's really hard from civil Society of Latin America to find support from government, and you can find scholarships in academia, I was a scholar from the DiploFoundation from Summer School of Internet Governance. This is a good channel. But to actually be there involved in the process, governments to hear about this experience in Europe. I have been close to the Spaniard experience also. The IGF Spain was created after the efforts that Argentina made to create one, but now they have money, they have support, and they -- it's easier to do it, so they -- our association is growing there. Our chapter of my association is growing there, and they are getting involved. But in Argentina, for example, and in many other countries -- perhaps not in Brazil but in many other countries of Latin America, which is my region and no closer this situation, governments are not aware about the importance of supporting this kind of initiative. So really, Stefano, I envy you and your country and the way you realize that situation, and if you cross some Argentina representative in some forum, tell him that perhaps they should learn about you. Well, thank you for the opportunity to speak in this forum. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Chris. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes. I was just about to ask if anybody had any comments, Cheryl. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Well and as if I need to wait to be asked, sir. Really. Two things. I'm most concerned that -- I mean, I was able to disadvantage and address to some extent because I know he has very good English skills but one way around us not having headsets up here would be if the transcript was to be projected -- if the transcript was projected, then it wouldn't matter that we didn't have headsets, so I don't know whether there's gnomes running around the place that could make that magic happen, but that might be something that would then not be an impediment to come up into the microphone and speak in Spanish, because at least we'd be able to see what was going on. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Well, you could only do that if it was translated. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I believe that -- oh, no, there's nobody in there. Oh, there you go. I thought you said there was somebody in there. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: There was a lady in there, but the translation rules here are much the same as the translation rules at the U.N. You have to have breaks. Otherwise, they -- >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: That's fine. It's just when you said there was someone here -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Whereas the scribes, on the other hand, never need a break. They just keep on going. [Laughter] >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: In fact, I wondered about how they manage. Can I come back to the question you posed on notice, because it fits with something that -- my answer, if you'd like my answer and you can take us all separately. Because you've had one answer. Can you have my answer? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yeah. Go on, then. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Thank you. What I would like to take -- what I would like to get at, from a civil society point of view, is learning more to use spheres of influence, learning more, exploring how other people influence their policymakers and their work with their policymakers, effectively, and I think that's, to some extent address was talking about. The sharing of experience and things, that if I wanted to pick a topic -- I'd want to pick them all but of that, I think learning how to exercise spheres of influence and learning how to deal with and talk to policymakers from a civil society point of view would be excellent. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Mark. >>MARK CARVELL: Thank you, Chris. Mark Carvell from the U.K. government. I'm the U.K. GAC member and I find myself fortuitously in a very neat segue from the last question, because -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: That's the skill of the moderator that does that. >>MARK CARVELL: Yeah. Fantastic. [Laughter] >>MARK CARVELL: The U.K. is closely involved in the IGF process. We're working with Nominet. You heard from Martin earlier with regard to the U.K. IGF, the national IGF that prepares for the -- the global IGF, and follows on from the global IGF, and sort of transporting -- translating back what we learn and hear about in the global IGF. We're also involved in an initiative to create a commonwealth initiative, a commonwealth Internet Governance Forum, and that brings together developed economies. Obviously the U.K., Canada, Australia here. And also developing countries. So this is, I think, a unique IGF initiative in doing that, and it's a key -- for us, it's a key outreach to developing countries to get them involved in the IGF process. So we're very heavily committed to that. We're putting money into this project and so on. And Adiel talked earlier about the capacity-building opportunity that the IGF presents for developing countries, and that's, I think, a key theme for us in developing our commonwealth approach. I think one challenge -- and it's not just for us in the commonwealth, but perhaps for the whole IGF community, is convincing those countries, especially the smaller economies where they have limited resources, of the value of taking part in a forum which is not decision-making. And I think the challenge, I guess, is to collate the evidence in an empirical way, in a way that you can say to them, "Look, this is what has happened as a consequence of the IGF," to convince them that there is value in coming to this, even though no resolutions or decisions or whatever emerge from the dialogue in Sharm or wherever. So I'd be interested in the thoughts of the panel about how best to collate that evidence, and present it. Is there anything that we should be doing in terms of methodologies for that, rather than just simply saying, "It's great that so many stakeholders come together, it's great that so much dialogue goes on," but what actually happens as a consequence of that and how do we give evidence of that? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yeah. Thank you. It's something that actually came up on Saturday in our -- in our launch of the best practices awards, and IGF session. Markus, do you want to... >>MARKUS KUMMER: It is obviously a very good question, but at the same time a very difficult one. It's sometimes very hard to measure whether there is a direct impact because of the IGF. If it were not for the IGF, this or that would not have happened. I mean last year, there was an OECD ministerial conference. For the first time, they invited civil society. Now, I know -- because secretariat colleagues told me -- they did so because they saw in the IGF it was beneficial for the process, but I don't know whether that will be sufficient as empirical evidence because there's no resolution that says at the end of the conference we applaud the IGF having let us to invite civil society. But they have now created a civil society structure that allows, alongside business, to work along with governments in their relevant OECD committee. I personally think this is a significant impact. Last month, the Council of Europe held a ministerial meeting, "Impact of New Media," which was basically very little about the Internet and they passed on a resolution saying, you know -- what's -- we are influenced by the IGF in our normative work. I think this is also an impact. It's 47 member countries that come to that conclusion. Then there's sort of anecdotal impact, by sheer chance I hear from a panelist that last Saturday the colleague from one of the Pacific islands who said he has a lot of take-home -- takeaway from the IGF. He sees it as a one-stop shop where he can gather much information about this happening. He has not the opportunity to go to all the many meetings a year, but at least one meeting and then it's the IGF, and that gave him ideas how to link up to the underwater cable through an Internet exchange point. Again, but this is purely anecdotal evidence. I don't know how he can -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Markus, I think that's right. It is anecdotal evidence but I don't think that actually matters. It's actually about - - it's about producing stories. People want to -- >>MARKUS KUMMER: Exactly. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: It's the stories that make it work. >>MARKUS KUMMER: But we do ask on our Web site, "Please tell us has it had any impact." So, you know, we cannot do more than invite people to tell us the story, to give us this evidence, and the last anecdotal evidence may be just by sheer coincidence at the last year's AfriNIC in Rabat I was in the lift with somebody who said, "I was in Rio the last year," and I said, "Did you like it?" He said, "No, I was disappointed." I said, "Oh, why?" "Well, I came back with a great idea on doing something in my country and I was stopped." Okay. That was not a direct impact, but at least somebody came home and wanted to do something, which is basically what I think the IGF is all about. It shapes -- it shapes decisions that will be taken elsewhere. It stimulates people to do something. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: I think the key to collecting stories is for you to spend all your time in lifts then. And we can have you going up and down. Jeff, did you want to say? >>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: I was just going to build on the comment about IGF is creating a culture and a community. And I think as part of the ongoing evolution continuing to perhaps find ways to try and document and distribute the information about these anecdotal stories and there are excellent reports that are produced from the IGF. But as it becomes more of an ongoing dialogue, the challenge I think will be to try and document that, if at all possible. And I also think that there is an opportunity to use technology to create -- allow the community to interact during the year, which I think is happening. But we need to foster that. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Absolutely. Cheryl, I know you want to say something. Adiel? >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Yeah, I think it's a very valid point and we hear those arguments several times, why to send people to a meeting where we have no direct impact in our policy or decision-making, et cetera? And it is very important for those people to see how the IGF is actually impacting the culture, and that is very important, the culture on how decisions are taken in each country when it comes to ICT, when it comes to Internet development because now people are understanding clearly that they cannot take decision without involving different stakeholders because it's become a fact now. So that is something important and which can be backed with stories. As Markus said, documenting those stories and putting them in the context of this new approach in Internet development and in development in general in those developing countries so that they can understand that it is by only by having a top-down approach that they can move but bringing everybody together, have big impact and big advantage in that. So it is a process. It is a continuous process. Maybe the impacts are not very clear today, but we are moving and the more we are spending time on that we will see more and more direct impact. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thanks, Adiel. Cheryl, really very quick. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: It is very quick. I was picking up on the use of tools. I'm not actually doing my banking. Markus isn't watching me transact here. We have got nearly three different social networking tools running in front of us. Many are in the room. Some are in Mexico, and there is a dialogue going on about what we are talking about. I mean, line by line what we're saying, they are listening to and they are having a debate. It's there. It works. If we can capture some of that, we might be collecting those stories. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Let this lady first, then you. >> KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. My name is Katitza Rodriguez. I'm a member of the multistakeholder advisory group of the United Nations IGF. I'm also the liaison for civil society at the OECD. First, I want to tell that at the Latin American level, just follow up the comments that Adiel made, the Institute (inaudible), APC and LacNIC are organizing the Latin American, Caribbean preparatory meeting for the IGF in August in Brazil. Last year it was in Uruguay. It will gather all representatives from governments, civil society, the multistakeholder environment in those countries to discuss the issues that are priority for our region. I would like also to follow-up the discussion, the comment that Markus made related to the OECD civil society. We are fighting for ten years to get the approval for -- to have equal footing in the participation of the policy development at the OECD. However, it would be not possible until the ministerial meeting of the Internet economy, the issue that the development IGF has influence on what the OECD has been through. But I think there have been many factors happen at the same time. The coalition from civil society who worked towards the ministerial was a very diverse range of civil society organizations who follow different forums and have different cultures of participating in developing Internet policy-making processes. We have people from the IGF, but we have also people who follow WIPO and people who were following OECD for ten years and people from grassroots communities, from (inaudible) other grassroot communities, blogger communities. This mix of range of cultures make it nice experience of how we produce policy papers. So one of the best practices of how we organize for the ministerial was that we develop a process, and the process was focused on the policy outcomes. So we don't spend too much time on how the process should be. We have been in the process to make it transparent, accountable but also thinking in the policy outcome on the influence we want to do on the policymaker at the OECD. For that reason, we do two papers: One, a policy paper that mirrors all the things that was going to be discussed at the OECD. And, second, a general declaration signed by more than 100 organizations for the ministerial, (inaudible) ministerial and all those policy papers were distributed to all the governments who attend the meeting and all the stakeholders who participate in the meeting. Well, thanks to the formalization of civil society at the OECD, we created what is called a civil society information society advisory council. We have developed a chapter. Every civil society who wants to join the coalition is welcome to join. There are a few requirements. Please go to the Web site, (inaudible). Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Just so that you all know, there is another session starting in about seven or eight minutes time. There's two or three more comments or questions. Please keep them short. >>SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: My name is Sivasubramanian Muthusamy. IGF does not have powers to decide, not have the powers to recommend. But at the same time, 2,000 or 3,000 brilliant minds to get together. These are people committed to Internet and they spend three days deliberating on various issues and there could be a way by which session reports could be generated and positions of each stakeholder could be classified and identified, grouped. And that could become some kind of a reference paper. It could become a reference document for governments which could -- when it makes decisions, it could refer to that paper, "This is the idea of paper on privacy. This is the idea of paper on security and what we want to do is in conflict with this or in agreement with this." And that could guide them and may not comfort them, but it could be a very good reference paper that could give an idea of what is happening in the real world. Right now the decisions are taken by government, by businesses in complete isolation of what is happening at the IGF and does not reflect the mood of the IGF. So this is something that can be proactively done by the IGF Secretariat to prepare summaries, prepare position papers and report on the mood of IGF. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Understood. Thank you. >>SIVASUBRAMANIAN MUTHUSAMY: Thank you very much. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Fight it out amongst yourselves. Figure it out. >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: Just while they are arguing, Chris, from Mexico, there was a request to read out in response to what Katitza was saying, if you -- well and, of course, it scrolls up at that absolutely perfect moment. Social networking tools have one problem, they scroll on you. The difference -- and this is not my word, this is Alejandro Pisanty's. The difference between what Katitza describes and the IGF is that the OECD, that is, in the OECD, the decisions are made by governments only. IGF cannot follow the same steps. So I think that's important that he got that into the record. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Cheryl. >> JACQUELYNN RUFF: I'm Jacque Ruff from Verizon, and I want to give one example from an issue which has been really important for the IGF to work on that we followed a lot because we're a big infrastructure provider, whether it's our networks in the U.S. or our global undersea cable network over which so much of the world's Internet traffic is exchanged. The evolution of that issue has been fascinating. And we have always engaged our experience as a private business to how we can get more access. The first IGF, it was a lot about the problems, the lack of access. The second IGF, it was a lot about, well, exactly how do we get better connectivity at lower prices? The third IGF -- these are plenary panels that we've done -- I tried to put out examples of what we learned in different places in Singapore, in India and so on for solutions. What's going to be very exciting about this time -- and I have been talking to some of the participants here from Kenya about it and East Africa. It was mentioned earlier -- is that for the first time we will have undersea cables coming up the side of East Africa, so we can talk and exchange ideas about how to really put those to use, both on the infrastructure deployment side and the demand side and there's no place else to do that really, to bring together all these different stakeholders. So it's terrific that we've got the place to do that. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. Vanda? And then amazingly the last word to Bertrand. [laughter] >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Bertrand is -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Except, of course, for the panel's closing remarks. Really, really quick, Vanda. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Yeah, I will. Just to repeat something that I have been saying around about the IGF. First the importance of IGF was to put on the table the discussion of Internet in all countries around the world. Second, I believe what Katitza just start to explain, we need the movement in a regional basis to really get more feedback and conclusions and suggestions to govern, suggestions to all the stakeholders to really put those ideas that are discussed in the real world. So that's something that I have discussed in many places. I talked with Markus yesterday because I said maybe IGF could be spread two years to allow regional IGFs to grow and bring some ideas. And probably I was misunderstood that I want to dismiss Markus. [laughter] But the idea is really to have time for the regional groups to come over with concrete ideas to show up and give them some more concrete solutions for the governments, especially in developing countries. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Vanda. Bertrand? >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you. Very quick comments. A few criteria that characterize the IGF. The first one is that it makes people discuss together and not contribute to an external process. The second thing is it is an amazing agenda-setting process by the community through the advisory group which is separate from the IGF and the advisory group doesn't deal with substance. Very important distinction. Third -- and there are only four -- the main contribution of the IGF is in the very, very early stage in the issue scoping which is before the decision-shaping, which itself is before the decision-making. The three stages must be distinguished, and the issue scoping is fundamental. And the last one is the fact that the stakeholders are interacting together on a peer basis, not because they belong to a constituency or something with a label, allows the whole process to function on an issue base and not on a constituency base. You may see a difference with some other processes; the ITU, of course. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Bertrand. We almost got through that whole thing without mentioning the ITU once. >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: But that's not the only one. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Heaven forbid, no, no, no, no. So just one -- just one word. You have done yours, Cheryl. What would you like to see discussed, topic -- No, you don't get to say. >>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: You're neutral. I would just say the access discussion I think has been fascinating. It is evolving, and I was really heartened this year the tone was how do we reach the next 5 billion users. Not just how do we get out infrastructure, and there was some fascinating discussions about communities without a written language or a very small -- so really as Bertrand just said, setting the agenda for the next challenges we're going to face. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Jayantha? >>JAYANTHA FERNANDO: Starting with your comfortable quotation, governments like to do what they are comfortable in doing. But when they hit the comfort zone, they try to do what they should not be doing. So that, once again, brings us to the multistakeholder discussion forums like IGF that enables them to understand what they should not be doing and engage multiple stakeholders on an equal footing and take home a bit of an understanding of how best -- what to do, what they should not be doing. And, of course, I end up with Stefano's comment that it creates a culture of Internet governance around the globe in multiple regions. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Excellent. Adiel, do you want to -- quick, your take-away or subject you would like to be discussed at the IGF? >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Well, from my personal perspective, I think continue discussing access and how to expand the Internet, how to allow those who are not connected today to be able to be connected and take advantage of this wonderful tool is for me critical. So access. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. We're out of time. Thank you all very much indeed for being here. Please thank the panel. [Applause] There's another thing happening now and Cheryl, I think you're actually staying up here to be the -- >>CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: I'm part of the "thing." >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: The PIC, the person in charge. So for those of you waiting, it is about to start and thank you all.