IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
17 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION 119
1130
ICANN
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> More broadly between governments discussions but at the same time year much of because one of the assumptions that there is certain gap between the pioneers of the Internet, the network these days. And third it's more to a question, a question that I hope we can explore today. So being kind of driven workshop, we have changed the room a little bit. There are some faces you may know from other workshops of previous environment. Some of the faces you are seeing for the first time. We will give more time to talk to react to want to have a discussion are not homogeneous body and we have I think a very various perspectives from different backgrounds gaps as such but the different iterations.
But before I start, I would like to do a few things. First of all to the panelists to participate in the discussion who came recently to this discussion even though it is the last day of the Forum. I would like to say to Ian Peters couldn't make it but had tremendously helped in preparing this workshop. I would like to especially thank Alejandro Pissandi and were very helpful in bringing this all together.
So, to start with, I think we will start with a face that not many in this room, unless you've been to the previous workshop, probably have not ever seen before. So let me introduce drew Smith. Drew is a student at Elon University. And he has, in fact, the number related to his field of studies, including NBC Nightly News. And as I said, he was part of another panel at IGF. And he is part of the Internet project part of documenting this process. Drew?
>> DREW SMITH: Thank you. It's my second conference with the IGF imagining the Internet, which is in North Carolina of the United States. Today I want to share with you some of the findings from our research that we did at previous IGFs and showed how that fits in with my generations' view of the core values of the Internet. We interviewed many of you and conducted a video survey at each IGF. Last year at the IGF Egypt, the results we gathered include perspectives from state cores from a variety of sectors and backgrounds. And two of the questions relate very good to when looking to the responses for what is your greatest hope for the Internet and what is your greatest fear? In response to the greatest hope question, they desired to achieve Internet access for all. Some went as far as referring to it as access to a human right. One person had first hand experience in how difficult it is to get information in some areas, something he said most people in developed countries tend to take for granted.
So this theme of information for all is a major priority for many in my generation. If we knew that anyone was trying to take away parts of our Internet that we access, those of us who are digital natives, we've had the Internet all of our whole lives, we wouldn't accept it. We would agree that access should be extend today everyone on this planet. Of course the forces that are at work right now to do this might not be obvious for us.
Access is essential for people my age because we understand the value of being hyper connected. Not everyone has access and we must work for personal inclusion. My personal view is that core values of openness and accessibility should even stretch beyond digital inclusion. Access should be discrimination free and promote free expression.
Think of a blind person when they're browsing too web page without text to speech, the information is lost to the person, that isn't true accessibility. Language is a similar barrier. It's obvious from this IGF that people have different viewpoints. All of it is important for well rounded discussion. Such viewpoints only available in a single language do not provide for true openness and allow for the amount of openness. This makes sense to me as a young American, a lot of us are at university and have in mind democratic principles of free, open Internet. Freedom of expression is preserved and Internet should be used as a public service for information and a healthy dialogue on any and all topics. Access isn't enough. There must be education to support the use of the Internet. Those still in the margins of the Internet revolution will only embrace this new technology if they are empowered with the skills to both use and create content online. We need access to gain that knowledge and we need knowledge to get a true access of the Internet.
In response to our Egypt survey question regarding people's greatest fear for the Internet. Most people shared institutions and governments might exert controls that divide and conquer the Internet and stifle accessibility, knowledge sharing and creative innovation online. One person made clear that if we don't guarantee these principles happen, we cannot foster creativity, we cannot foster digital inclusion and digital lilt racy. Another fear expressed in the survey is that it will increasingly vulcanized there will be a series of countries that connect sometimes and everything won't work together. Again as an American youth, I believe censorship of the Internet violates what it was created under. It is recalls of any geographic borders. Without the fear of information being blocked. When people at IGF discussed the greatest hopes and fears for the future, the scenarios will affect my generation the most because we are the future. It is clear that an affordable, nondiscriminatory, open Internet with access to all is vital for the youth of today and the greatest hope for all of tomorrow. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We will go each panelists' row and then we will open it to the discussion. I would like to ask Grace to be next. Grace Bonu is a young Kenyan lawyer. She is secretary of the ICT Consumers Association of Kenya and cultural activist. one of the previous survey. So Grace?
>> GRACE BONU: As you know, I am from Kenya. Under the age of 35, so I am one of the majority of citizens, more than half of the population comprises of youth who are employed. Developing the future together. For many young people, they could never be a better time to develop the future together than now. In the field of the Internet, young people users. Even in a developing country like mine, there are many challenges. Where there are many challenges such as lack of Internet infrastructure, lack of money. There is still so many people accessing so many young people accessing the Internet on their mobile phones. In fact, I can share experiences here of young people who in order to overcome the problem of more bandwidth, more wages without loading images, using accesses of the in Africa, which is a technology that has been developed by young people. Excuse me.
The interesting feel about why Internet experience in developing countries is that the youth seem to be leading the way, and everybody else is following. In a creative industry, for example, where I work, this resurgence, advertising, news content is now being done on social networking platforms. And everybody else, politicians, the media, marketing, they are all engaging the youth only. They are following us. Even the governments are trained to catch up. Even politicians. Opening web pages in preparation for general elections and campaigns. Seeing as young people are our rightful stakeholders in this Internet environment, is it enough to leave them as producers of information and applications on the Internet? Is it enough to discuss youth in Internet Governance solely on the issues of safety of young people on the Net or consigning control of youth activities on the Internet?
I have an example where on many social networking sites for the last few days, Kenyans have been discussing a proposal. I don't know whether this is true or not whether it's where it's been proposed by employers that access should be blocked at work places. Is it enough to limit young people's experience to this? Perhaps it's time to develop a more holistic future in the IG environment by including youth in all processes. Additionally, there are many outstanding issues that if addressed would be assessed in developing this together. Coming from a developing country, I'd say that the issue of access has to be given if we are really going to develop together. Developing countries are already lacking behind in many fields. And the youth cannot afford to be left behind as far as the Internet is concerned. We have to develop the future together. We need to consider this revolutionary arrangements that exist, for example, east Africa and the western world. How can we develop together the youth in Kenya have to cost so much to access Internet yet we're in a global village? When will this youth catch up that the rest of the world are enjoying? For young people from developing countries to participate in Internet Governance, we have to start from building an Internet culture in these areas.
In light of this, I appreciate that the next IGF will be held in a developing country, to be more precise, Kenya. And I hope this will be a challenge to all of the East African governments to increase their efforts at increasing access to young people in schools. In the future, we are developing together. The laws and the processes of developing laws have to take into account the views and experiences of young people. This idea, if anything, has gone to show that young people have interesting and important views, even if they express them in a different way. If the future demands that, for example, we get on social networking, we can start by acknowledging the important role that these networks play in the life of youth, they're learning education, their role in their usefulness in the need to govern them. If you're talking about privacy, we have to remember that as youth in this field, we have said many things that maybe would like to forget, the disadvantages that in our case we have said these things and they are now put permanently on the Net and the Net never forgets. From our view, it is important that the Internet community discusses the right to be forgotten. And they can think of very many examples where youth inputs is required and should be considered: Copyright law on the Internet is an example. Net neutrality is another. Cloud computing is another. Critical management of Internet resources is another. Who knows? Maybe when this comes up, we will want to have to manage it.
So for focus for youth participation, there needs to be continued capacity building. I would like to appreciate the efforts being put by the Internet community by organizations such as ISOC and Diplo that is taking this very serious. I invite the similar commitment by other stakeholders, the governments, the regional IGFs, businesses and even fellow youth to contribute to this capacity building in this IG area. And I call upon everybody from whatever area you come from to include youth in Internet Governance so that in the future, we can have more youth in the main stage. In my view, this is the future that we can develop together. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Grace.
[Applause.]
I think it's real interesting we start seeing the complexity of this discussion. We had a view from U.S. Kenya. Totally different worlds, some of the same concerns, some different. Now we move on to Europe. I would ask Marie Casey to be next. Marie is a graduate student of engineering and information network security at the University of she was the female representative to the youth Forum and was elected to cochair this Forum back in 2009, last year. And she is also part of the ambassadors sorry. She was part of the ambassador in this Forum. So, Marie, please.
>> MARIE CASEY: Yes, my name is Marie Casey and a master for Internet society here and also as Grace and is, as well. I'm also an alumnus of the ITA Youth Forum last year in Geneva. The ITA's Youth Forum basically is a coming together of 200 young people from about 150 countries around the world. It's held in parallel of the IT conference. So it gives a chance 300 people to come together and talk about issues like information technology, Internet policy, governance, issues that were in the countries or things we're just interested about. It's a God opportunity just to share ideas and see points of view from other young people around the world good opportunity.
Now what I'm going to talk about today is try to give a youth perspective on Internet Governance basically from an Irish perspective as I'm Irish and I'm also 22 years old, just like Grace apparently in Ireland this is young. Surprising to me but I guess I am.
So what I decided to do was question about five or six people I knew in Ireland. I asked them on Facebook online the most convenient thing possible. I asked them the simple question of: As a youth, what is your opinion of Internet Governance? Of the five people I asked, the first person said what, the third person said huh, the third person said I don't know. This was not a good start at all. And this is nothing like I was hoping to get. But to be honest, I didn't really know a lot about Internet Governance up to a year and a half ago. I was not aware any of this existed. I had never heard of the IGF. I had never heard of ITA. I certainly couldn't have answered if somebody asked me what is Internet policy?
So just to give an example that it wasn't actually ignorance that I didn't know about it, it was simply because I had never actually encountered it. Even in my undergrad in computer systems, we never talked about Internet Governance. We would taught about standards but not how they were created. I will give you a short version of how I actually became involved in the IGF, even though I'm young and I'm clearly involved here as I am actually here in Lithuania, there are quite a few people back in Ireland who still have absolutely no idea about this at all.
It was about a year and a half ago when my lecture just happened to forward on a an email to me about this opportunity to compete for something for the ITE. I read about it. I didn't think I was qualified, especially I think I was like 20 at that time. I thought I didn't even have a right to stand up for it. Like why would my opinion matter? I didn't know enough about it. But I decided to do it. I applied. And I actually got selected. So I went to Geneva. I still wasn't entirely sure what was going to be required of me. I kind of felt a little bit overwhelmed. Pretty much the same time I came here. I was wondering how could I actually give something towards this to support it in some way?
But I got there. I got to meet a lot of other people and I got to slowly, slowly learn a lot more about Internet Governance. And one of the best things that actually happened that one day at lunch, I actually came talking to us and luckily I was listening because they caught my attention and I looked it up online and I found out all about the future leaders programme which is about myself and are part of here. It's what led me here basically today to represent them as an ambassador of the fellow IGAF.
Now the topic of youth involvement especially with governance is something that came up a supreme amount of times this week and especially when I'm clearly younger generation, people are asking me what is my opinion on it? Why aren't there more young people here? And one particular comment that I want to make when this was asked, she said do you not care about Internet Governance so you can no longer log into Facebook? At the time this actually seemed like a pretty good argument. And everybody laughed and said yeah, that's absolutely true. But then I actually kind of wondered, is it actually true? Is this an actual reason? Do youth really have such an apathy towards it?
One of the people I asked back in Ireland was actually very good idea. His opinion was that the Internet is seen almost as a structure that exists outside of government or even anyone's control. Thus they feel there's some sort of alienation by attempts to govern or regulator control it. They basically think it's their right rather than a privilege to use it especially in Ireland where we have pretty much grown up with it. So we've used this the entire time. We never questioned it not being there unfortunately.
Now, this could be also to the rise of interest in Internet policy as for the first time in Ireland, one of the major Internet service providers, they were the first to actually take a stand to say anybody who downloads copyrighted music, we will refuse you access from now on. And this could lead to prosecution.
Now, because this is the first time, a lot of people objected to this, especially young people because I guess that was the majority of people who were actually using it. This is the first time people stood up and started actually questioning: Do we have a right to do this? Are we allowed to do this? Can people stop us doing this?
We never had to fight for Internet, which is probably why we take it for granted in some capacity. We never questioned its existence. We just take advantage of the new technologies, like Facebook. It's a really good example that we have like pretty much been using for almost like the last five years. We've never been actually expected to do anything else. We've never been questioning what is your opinion? The ex pollution of Facebook. In has caught everybody's attention especially young people. I think I counted five workshops this week where Facebook has been mentioned and I have nothing expecting it all to come up and still it comes up and as a very, very popular topic. For a lot of cases, downloading copyrighted music. It causes a lot of interest in we're allowed to put up.
Similarly, about a year and a half ago when the news broke about Facebook and their particular privacy policies, I remember being in university and they stood up and said right, that's a right to privacy. Do we have a right to this? It got us interested in it. Honestly and realistically someone waking up in Ireland saying "I think I'm going to learn about Internet policy" it's not going to happen. You really need to catch someone's attention. I think that's what happened to me. It caught my attention and I looked it up online and it took me this far.
There's one thing that young people do. I think it is international thing. We like to learn. You really do need to light that spark. Pretty much young people learn their entire life. It's not an excuse. But they are in schools their entire life. To try to get them involved in something like Internet Governance and asking them to learn something else when they don't know the history behind it and they don't know the importance of it, it is a pretty big deal. Again you just need to catch the spark of attention.
The point I think I'm trying to make is that perhaps it isn't an apathy of youth in Ireland or elsewhere. What it is how a young person would become interested in the topic is either somebody would mention it to them or they just come across it by accident. I think I'm a kind of mix of the two. But with respect to the fact that I didn't even know what I was missing until I was confronted about this world. I wonder in Ireland or anywhere else, how many young people once they found out about it would actually feel like they enjoyed contributing to something like this? And would like to continue contributing and they don't even know it exists.
And for about the case of hearing about it from somebody else. I just taught my mother how to use Google about two months ago. So that was never going to happen. She was never going to be telling me about Internet Governance at all.
Also it's not as simple as teaching us Internet Governance. It's about levels appropriate to age and experience. It wouldn't be a benefit to my mother to teach her about the concept of like bridging the digital divide. But it might be handy to teach her about the privacy settings in Facebook as she had no idea about it, and Facebook was also a recent achievement of hers. It was like the first foray she had into the Internet.
Young people are very, very capable of being very passionate about things, especially when they actually realise it affects them and are actually aware of it. Privacy is now being demanded. It's not even questioned. It's demanded and especially young people. Facebook responded. Especially regarding the privacy policy. But it's also done a wonderful thing of connecting everybody online. And it also has basically caused an interest in Internet Governance. And I think that's one of the most important things, to get more people my age basically involved. Thank you.
[Applause.]
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Interesting insight into young people care and how we get them involved so I think we will make it part of our discussion in those terms, as well. So we will I would like to invite to be next. that connects underserved people with opportunities. I would encourage you all to go online and read his bio. It's really impressive. Engineering young people. So thank you.
>> Thank you. My precedent in what is for Nigeria declared intentions to contest for the next elections on Facebook. Now, that's probably going to be in Nigeria's history books for a long time. Because before now, an usually happens you get a crowd, you get your supporters to come to a stadium and then you tell them "I'm going to run for office. "but while the president was doing that, he announced on Facebook that he was going to run for the presidency. And not just that, that he would then publicly announce on Saturday, which is tomorrow.
Now, that speaks to a lot of things. A few days before, actually a few weeks before then, he was in a public meeting and one of the key things that in Nigeria is young people. 70 percent of the population has young people that do not in politics. Connect the younger generation. And set up a Facebook page. And in a few days, as of yesterday, he had about 102,000 Facebook. But it's interesting because now he's called the Facebook President because every day at about Nigerian time he posts a message to Nigerians. And by 12 noon, you have about 2,000 people responding. And that's not very popular with Nigeria where you have all who have Internet access. But if you consider the fact that out of this 45 million, 95 percent of them are actually people who are under 34. Recent survey that we did we were asking young people if you will vote in the next elections? And it is 7 percent said they will vote in the next elections. So naturally see how things, naturally would not be connected to the Internet in Nigeria not happening because no people drive that space.
One of the things something we did at the time was the fact that 23 percent of these young people spend more than five hours online. Now this is a country where many people don't have access, where many people do not have power supply to power their computers and all that. But people spend more than five hours online. And some of them actually have to move from one place to the other, go to a hotel where you can get free wifi or somewhere to get access. I think that speaks a lot to what this generation will go ahead to do.
You might have heard of a protest in Nigeria in March and in April led by young people. messages. You ask them questions and say go to Facebook enough is enough in Nigeria. Set up a website. Enough is enough Nigeria.com. Gathered in the capital and led a physical protest. We are seeing in Nigeria is that a lot of things happen from that space which we thought wasn't very popular. Initially we didn't have about 11 million people but now we have 44 million. And of course you can imagine what is beginning to increase the access. It's without end. Blackberries, smart phones and all of that. And people are beginning to get access.
And you know one of the two key things I'd like to spec to very quickly because some between young and old, and very quickly two things. One is what is my of the Internet particularly for Nigeria developing countries. It is a socially economically leveler. For example, I would never be here today, I would never be doing what I'm doing today but for one email that I sent to the IT in 2001. That email got me the opportunity to actually meet with a couple of people who were from other countries in Nigeria in 2001. And I was exposed to things outside my country. And I am going back to my mind and I have to be able to do this and give back to younger people. I would imagine that one of the key things is that yes education may not be something that developing countries have access to on quality of edge but have a mobile phone. I have a friend right now what he is trying to do is make sure with your mobile phone you can tell if a drug is counterfeit or if it's real and all that. Like I said earlier, this is definitely going to ride on the mobile revolution. But talking of my and I my greatest fear when I got in asking me this question earlier I said well my greatest fear is I come from Nigeria and if I ask in this room how many have received emails from somebody promising you millions of dollars and saying just keep a bit for me all that. Coming from the prince of Nigeria. By the way none of those come from Nigeria. Unfortunately it's been branded Nigerian. It's unfortunate. And we have to bear that brunt. And the unfortunate thing is that it's got a lot of economic and what I would call perceptive cost for the nation. An example is what I was describing to someone earlier today that something as simple as PayPal. If you go to PayPal from Nigeria to sign up, you will find Nigeria, which is a country and, you won't find Nigeria. You see the next country. Why would a country of more than 50 million, that's a large market for any company. But the reason is because there's a level of perception, there's a lot of negative perception for the country as far as the Internet is concerned. And I think that while that is my fear, work against that fear in terms of correcting the errors. And I think that as more and more people begin to have access to the Internet, use that as socioeconomic leveler. One of the things that will happen is that we'll learn more information about the good things happening in the country. And like I said my greatest hope is that a few years ago, I probably would have to pay a lot of money to go to the best universities in the world. But right now regardless of where I am in any corner of the world, I can get access to possibly free or shared materials from the comfort of my room using my laptop or using my phone. So for me if you would ask me what are the things that I consider core in terms of principles, I think yes the fears are there because there are things that you can't fight. They came there before you got there. But Nigeria at the moment and where things are going, it's impressive but wasn't exactly as impactful beginning to change applicable access to resources but also beginning to change the shape of the politics. And if anything affects politics in Nigeria, then it's mainstream. Thank you.
[Applause.]
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. we asked the participants to information studies at the top here. The first one give us counselor for stakeholder group.
>> Thank you. I will be short. Asked me to join the panel to speak from youth perspective about Internet principles, I found that question hard to summarize. A young person the most valuable Internet regardless of his or her gender or background. So just we took really from my perspective what I think as a core principle regarding Internet I think it's the freedom. Yes, it's a freedom which can be by fears and understanding. Young people enjoy Internet as a space of freedom, liberty, organisation. Young people see Internet as a space of opportunities. Others can see it as a space of risk. Leading to restrictive policies.
I have to say because I remember there is Internet created which is about privacy, freedom et cetera Internet. Everybody can understand how much freedom is critical when because some restrictive authoritarian policies like or conspiracies against trying to track user on Internet. I felt that it is very ironic that such policies. The need to protect user against themselves. It also have youth access to information and knowledge. Yes, I had a fear, this fear that Internet knowing that it was going to have more restriction, more control, more regulation and also less liberties. Liberate any constraints. This presentation court fear leads to hate and to suffering, thank you.
[Applause.]
>> MODERATOR: our presenter next is Vladimir Radunovic. Training programmes forming a. For quite a while. One of the young faces that you see in this room and in corridors building programme. So Vladimir?
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. It was a challenge to choose to speak whether I go there or sit here. So I decided to treat myself as not old, not young, but rather experienced. Better phrases the audience feels. Going through this issue that he mentioned. I try to make a link at least from what I see some of the values of Internet might have changed. Pose more questions. The answer is more questions to the root ones.
One of the restrictions, privacy. When I started using Internet, of course we did not have social networks. And then this stuff. We were not in the habit of sharing photos, personal things, personal information. For the first point we studied was youth people, young people could possibly more easily web pages, personal web pages and so on before the Facebook came out, the social networks. So I figured out that basically the constant or the understanding of privacy is being changed, that kids do not really need that high level of privacy. Maybe they didn't understand. Maybe they don't understand. Or maybe just they don't fear of sharing a bit of personal privacy information, photos with others in the world. So that's one question. Has this concept and understanding of the concept of privacy changed? Do we still need the same privacy of the young generations as the older ones maybe needed?
The second one is choice. For instance the iPhone that gives a number of applications that you can take with the iPhone. And some of the applications are not really good if you are using Microsoft codes and stuff so you have some limitations. But do kids, and the older ones, have such a need for great choice? Or are they satisfied with a number of applications they get? And they can still decide I have Facebook, I have email, I have this, that, I don't really need to search for many more applications because I have what I need. So maybe even this need for great choice in the sea of the opportunities of applications, of services, is not the same. And we wouldn't want to spend that much time searching for the applications. We are satisfied with what we get from business.
We have safety. Definitely the child safety was mentioned a number of times during the IG and in the whole process.
And that's one we can say maybe that the kids do very much more about the technology. And we heard all the stories about kids who are managing the computers, there is another way to do it, let me show you and so on. But they might understand less even though they know more. That's a question. That's the truth. The kids absolutely understand all the problems that they can face in the Internet.
The next one is language. We have seen that, okay, Internet is lingua franca. We have some advocates for content. But for instance when I was in Egypt with my colleagues, a lot of Egyptians are using English. It can be also because of their schools and so on. But it's definitely also because of Internet. I've seen it in other countries where they are not having it as an issue they are using English more and more. I've also seen English also native language abbreviations because we need to put 140 characters. So what happened to the language and what is the understanding in terms of the language? Internet that's probably the question also for the youth.
The next one is entrepreneurship. In my case, didn't really finish when you graduate. You're always looking for finding a job in a company. Even in a business sector, even in government, whatever. Now I see the kids basically completing their studies they're immediately turning to running their own business online. Because there is great opportunities and they do it. And that's a quite a different approach towards the lifestyle and whatever, right? And the last one would probably be how do relations see this Internet Governance and basically the approach to policy? How do they serve the problems of the Internet that they face?
In the early days of Internet, I'm sure that that would reflect more. There were not that many people. Social norms were something that was quite applicable. You didn't need to have much of the government. Now then you have billions of people, of course you have to introduce some other things. So the kids that are using social networks and all those new stuff, I tend to see the utility of the social norms in some respect that you're expected to do something this way and not expected to do something the other way. Maybe the social norms in this global are now coming back. And that's again the question for the youth. What do they think the social norms and the way they behave online impacts how the friendships are formed and how the friends are looking at them and so on?
The other way I see that facing is technical, as we would say revolutions but in different way. Basically to invite certain service, the way such a service works, they find another service. They don't like, they find another way to cut through the privacy, some filter, like their parents overseeing their photos and stuff. They just cut it off.
And the third way that I see is e participation and activism. The youth definitely feel that the social media are very powerful world. They grew up with that. The social media is very powerful and can impact, make a lot of changes. Whether it comes to, for instance, the privacy campaign on Facebook, and if you see the need to introduce a change in Facebook, you do a social campaign through Facebook or other ways. And Facebook says okay, we have a lot of users now that want something to be changed, we want to accommodate it.
Or when it comes to government, as you mentioned, when you have kind of freedom of expression problem or whatever, the kids are extensively using e tools, basically, to push this activism. I'm glad to see that they realise it's not enough to start a campaign. You have to do a step in the physical life, as well, if it is needed, of course.
So, basically and then of course the last step in IGF is in terms of the dialogue. That's the step that I'm glad is seen as important so that these meetings and corporations would use this, with governments and so on pause and make sense and we can make an impact on all of this.
One of the examples the social we have about the IGF and experience from that from Sharm El Sheikh and here students but other people at IGF that drove the reaction of inputs of what was happening at the IGF and even discussing the IGF issues in their space regardless of what's happening at the IGF in the youth, right?
So these are just a few questions that I guess the others might reflect later, I think.
>> DMITRY EPSTEIN: Thank you. I look forward to discussing very soon. Opportunity to interact is getting shorter and shorter. So the next speaker lawyer architecture in executive director of the Information Society project. She's also protocol of politics, chairperson speaking to topic of this workshop, as well.
>> LAURA DeNARDIS: How many does it take? Okay. I am surrounded by young people. I'm at a think tank at school. Information technology cover so, yes, I feel right at home with this group. It's critical in Internet Governance but I think I would like to accentuate a thing that I heard here. And it's that we shouldn't just be concerned with engagement Internet Governance Forum. But concerned with engagement of Internet Governance. That's what I heard here today. It's important to the practice of Internet Governance is what takes place every day outside of these walls, in the institutions of Internet Governance, in government policies and the private sector, also. So in terms of about the importance of Internet policy and others did, as well.
I'll just mention two quick things as reaction. These have to do with the question: What are the conditions necessary for more youth engagement into Internet Governance. Two conditions. One actual discussion from substantive Internet policy issues. One of the ways we question how is that different from the group on stage here setting the agenda? I think a lot of important issues were raised. And we have to address the difficult questions. Like I'll mention a few of them. Government censorship. Whether access should be free from discrimination. Digital divide issues. There should be a lot of discussion so I like the fact that a lot of substantive policy issues came up in this panel.
I also want to raise one last point about how to create conditions necessary for more youth engagement. We need to worry about trends that are away from transparency in the practices of Internet Governance. So just to mention a few of those. There are a lot of issues that are hidden in private industry practice. You go through private contracts. Network management practices. Secrecy increasing. Lack of transparency that some governments are doing. That's fundamental to increasing transparency. We have Dr. Cerf up here who is responsible for many of the standards setting. So I think I'm very concerned about trending from opening some institutions and have to be open minds and participation. So I raise those issues.
Future of the Internet, Internet Governance that reflect these principles mentioned in this panel inclusivity. I am also very concerned about this. In fact what I heard it gives me a lot of hope for the future of the Internet. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
>> DMITRY EPSTEIN: Thank you very much, Laura. It takes a social scientist to turn on the microphone. So I would like to task bill Graham to be our next person to react. Bill is leading strategic engagement activities. He has an impressive record of international communication policy work for the Canadian government. And he will be involved with IGF from the very beginning. So, Bill, please take the floor.
>> BILL GRAHAM: Thanks very much, and thank you for inviting me to be on this panel. This is very, very interesting. I work for the Internet society and I think we're the only organisation in this space that was really concerned about the health of the Internet. We see ourselves in some ways as having a duty to ensure that the Internet needs to grow and be open, collaborative that was established by the Internet people who created the Internet, some of whom are on the stage here today.
When I heard I was on the panel, I thought of two major things. One is access. It's not only access to the Internet but access to the processes, access to the right to creativity, access to speech and communications. So I think this is important. Traces is another major thing I heard about access. But the whole thing not the whole thing. One of the major trends face is finding ways to make Internet Governance relevant to and I think that's really because the Internet has become in a lot of ways for the digital revolution why would we care about that? It's just there. It works. Get involved. I think using that responsibility to make sure retained rights for access to choice. How do we communicate that so that it grabs the attention? Society helpful in exchange several people so for us how can we increase thanks.
[Applause.]
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Bill. Our next speaker is Nii Narku Quaynor. He established the first computer systems in West Africa. He's done a lot of work in the technology education in Africa, which is great. I think he works with a lot of young people. He was also the recipient of a service award, which is his effort in the community.
>> NII NARKU QUAYNOR: Thank you. I am very pleased to have a chance to participate, especially as a student. I listened, I actually learn a lot. Even though the particular topics were the standard kind of things I expected to hear around things dealing with the openness and so forth, there is something deeper for me. It has to do with the atmosphere that these values create, that enables us to continue to evolve even though the particular changing at the time. Issues concerned about openness years ago are not necessarily the ones that are top priorities of activities that we're doing. This is the atmosphere that those principles create allow us to (no audio).
whether in the 1700s. So this problem has been around for a little over 300 years. And I'm sure will still be around 300 years from now. So colleagues. Last point. It's very clear just listening to these young people that the demographics of are driving the choices of applications on the Internet. Youth find most interesting new things will be invented to support your interests.
The one thing I would like to convey about it is the old farts, excuse the nomenclature aren't going to last forever. And if you are going to have to because eventually we won't be here to do that. And so the time is now to begin to engage. Others have said realising the importance of Internet Governance.
When I was talking about I didn't say anything about access to governments, but someone said the point is I hadn't even thought about that as an important piece of access. Better access to the government's processes that surround the way in which the Internet is absolutely essential not only for young people but to all of us. The government practices are not acceptable, then it denies us the opportunity to speak. So I think it's very important to have visibility for accessibility but I'll stop there. I want to thank you for letting me participate. I look forward to hearing the similar
[Applause.]
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I think critical time we have 45 minutes for discussion and have a couple of remote questions I know about. And I just wonder if one of the people who spoke at the beginning want to react to some of the things you heard during the session.
>> MARIE CASEY: I'd like to react to what Vladimir said earlier. He asked the question about social norms being effective like the online environment. It is very, very true that not only the entire concept of when you connect with someone online, like it opens up a dialogue. It's going to seem like an icebreaker to say hi to someone. And a lot of people say well isn't this taking things away from the real world?
But the Internet provides (no audio).
university settings instead of in the current sense. Ongoing and so on.
>> I may try to reflect briefly from personal experience. Basically also at educational institutions we have University of Malta which is about public policies. Before we started the capacity building programme was on Internet Governance. How did it come directly over there? Well it came basically because of who was involved in WSS and so on who somehow persuaded the University of Malta that this is an important issue and should be inserted into the curriculum.
But what is the right way?
We had a number of fellows, as we call students, during the programme some of them were from and assistant professors or even professors. And as they went through the capacity building programme and they came to the IGF, they had the initiative to build it in the curriculum. So capacity building can effect maybe use to motivate the educators to build it in the curriculum, university curriculum.
What should be the level, should be the undergraduate, postgraduate, whatever. Probably postgraduate because it's advanced public policy issues, probably some masters and so on.
As I said within the University of Malta programme we do, I know there are a couple of master degrees that you can get, including I think Internet institute matters on governance, but I guess once again the capacity building can be used to extend this to put it in the curriculum and should be used definitely. I don't know if this helps.
>> Thank you. Can I ask everybody who is making statement to state their name. It helps the closed captioning so we know who is speaking. Drew?
>> DREW SMITH: I brought it up at the last session, as well. On the undergraduate level is the right spot because again the Internet is just so important for everyone.
And so the younger you can get people educated in Internet Governance, the better.
And also at my university specifically, we had groups of students, not just tied to one class, but groups of students go to the regional IGF and participate in a lot of the sessions and interact. So I think bringing student groups to things like regional IGF is a good idea.
>> I'm sitting here thinking a little bit about Internet Governance. Things like telephony or television. And I'm trying to imagine a conference like this governments. I understand about frequencies. And there are big conferences sponsored by IT, the way we have more frequencies. So that part is government. But environment tend to be very small. Can we imagine discussion about this with regard to television? There is issue of access to television. For example, questions about who gets to be in the television transmission business and there are rules. But the public doesn't often participate. fear we have to have something to say about governance is it because it's or just a two way medium, it's a medium that allows multiple parties. It's a medium that allows us to literally transmit every form of communication that's ever been invented, connects audio, video, combination, interactive programmes. There must be something. I'm interested, what is it that is making us feel like we have to do something about Internet Governance but we don't feel or apparently feel about the telephone or the television or mobile?
>> MODERATOR: I don't know if anybody in the audience wants to respond to this question actually? Yes, please. I'll give you this mic.
>> GRACE BONU: Service Providers Association of Kenya. Before I answer question area question raised by University of Technology called University of Agriculture and Technology when it comes to ICT training. And they have a programme called bachelor degrees in business for information technology. One of the modules in that programme is study policies and ways that have been formed around ICT Internet and telecommunications in response to marketing there is a way to reach universities are trying to government issues and policy development into the technology programme. That is one example. And then others but I don't have the statistics. But in response to question, Internet than to telephones or the fax machines or previous communication devices that we have had in the past? I think partly because with the Internet, there is much more integration of services or of activities. And it's touching on lives in a more greater impact than the telephone did. For example, in Kenya, prior to 2,000 when we had the mobile phone, there are only about 200 phone users. We have close to 20 million telephone subscribers, mobile phone subscribers. What that means is there's a change also now as far as behavior as consumers in the way we adapt technology. Most Kenyans receive Internet via their phones because the enhanced phone is easier to buy and cheaper to access than a laptop. The cost of a laptop in comparison to the phone is a big difference. I can get a phone with Internet, for example, 6,000 Kenyan Schillings. But to get a laptop, I'd have to have a minimum of about 25,000 Kenyan Schillings. That's like five times the price difference. So the phone is easier to get and it's easier to get Internet on the phone and to do a lot of things on the net by the phone.
The concern about the Internet is that if I have Internet on my phone and I'm putting a lot of my public information on the phone and via the phone I'm also receiving e government services via the phone, then there is concern, first of all because of the amount of data we are now putting onto that network. Secondly, the type of data we put onto that network and the kind of transactions that have to be handled on that network. We have in parts of this world economies that are running on the Internet and some are entirely paperless. That raises concern. That's why we have to sit here and discuss governance issues, because we need to continually develop standards, but tie into how we manage this Internet resource, because it's not a resource we can't avoid, can't ignore and we have to live with. Thank you.
>> DMITRY EPSTEIN: Thank you very much. We have another remote response. I think we had another response suggesting that maybe what makes the Internet unique is not a single entity can control the Internet.
But I saw that somebody wants to discuss about that.
>> Thank you. I think that's an interesting point that came in because one of the most fascinating terms, the term is a little bit of an oxymoron. Salient fact because governance is not really done like governance as in other areas. The role of corporate social responsibility and all of our roles in determining Internet freedom is a salient point.
But what I wanted to mention in case anyone is not familiar with it and would like to get involved is that there is a vibrant and growing academic community that consider themselves to be Internet Governance scholars. And there is an organisation called GIGAnet. We might have to change that to Teranet but right now it's GIGAnet. And it stands for Global internet Governance Academic Network. And it finalized a lot of us who were involved in it have known each other for a long time but it formalized in conjunction with the first Internet Governance Forum in Greece. And we have an Internet conference that's quite interesting with the regional groups. So if anyone is interested in more information about that, particularly students, you can just Google GIGAnet and search for it online and find out more about it or you can talk to me after this.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. And then we probably should move to some other questions like we have. Go ahead we want them to speak as well.
>> Thanks. I thought I would make a comment on the curriculums and how we are handling governance issue there. In the case of the University of Caicos where I teach, is take out technical routing and process bringing the lower level forms of government.
Whereas in other quarters, like in the business sectors, in the law institutions, they tended to also give us a different perspective.
So you may not find one programme that addresses all of that. But you may get pieces of it.
If you're looking for one programme, then you have to go to countries who actually established such institutions that will help them with their education, et cetera. So now someone raised a question on mobile. Now I want to press that a little. Because maybe we need to open them more. In that if you start doing everything mobile by itself, you may be constraining our ability to develop and enhance, then, because mobiles themselves are not directly programmable. I mean they are touch mainly accessory. So in the end, I'm not sure if you are winning the producer end of things. I thought I would raise that. Thank you.
>> Could I just jump in for a second? I'm thinking about this discussion about governance and why it's become so visible. When this whole project started, it was completely invisible. That's probably why we petitioned to get as much done as we did because nobody noticed.
And once this system has become globally visible, it's become a source of revenue, it's become a source of entrepreneurial development, lots of parties who neither cared nor knew about the Internet have become very interested in it for different reasons. There are some entities that feel threatened by the freedoms that the Internet promises. There are other entities that would like to build toll roads and make money out of the need for people to pass traffic between them.
So there are lots of different motivations. And they are not necessarily all aligned. One thing which I think is worth reminding you of is a comment that George Souros made in 1994 at an Internet society Inet meeting, George, as you may know, is a very successful finance ear but he comes, though, from Romania, a place that was not very free for a good part of his life there.
And he made a very profound statement at this Inet meeting. He said "just because the Internet is free today" that is open and accessible "is no guarantee that it will be tomorrow." He lived in a place where suppression was the rule. And I think reminding us of that observation now is very important. To the extent that we enjoy openness and freedoms in the Internet today is no guarantee that they will be with us tomorrow unless we make sure that they are.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I think we have one remote comment and then a comment from the floor. I think we will take both and then we'll discuss them. The discussions are very lively. So, yes?
>> First I would like to step just a little bit, took off my hat from remote moderator to make a comment. I appreciate Laura bringing up the GIGAnet issue. We organized a symposium on September 13th, on Monday, and it is pretty interesting to have the sharing of ideas and researchers. We also had a workshop in Montreal organized by Mary Mazook, and we brought up the issue of how to teach Internet Governance. So in both ways, you have resource in how to teach the teachers or how to share these ideas among teachers. Just to followup with my team's question.
And the Web site if you want to go through is GIGAalphanet.org.
And the second thing is bring up the core issues. It's an experience first I'm also youth and helping adult moderation. And I came up Internet Governance issues from the academic side actually. When I was finishing starting my graduate degree. Sorry. Mixing up. I started my master degree international law and got the question who controls the internet? So everybody developed from that question.
What I would like to point out is that nowadays in Brazil, we have the principals of Internet, perhaps many of you received the green folder. And this is pretty interesting. It brings net neutrality. It brings freedom of expression and other principles that are very important for youth and could be bring to studies in academic states, also.
So let's go stepping back, my hat from remote moderator, we have a comment from Kenya from Paul and he says "in developing countries, although the growth of mobile and wireless technologies have caused growth Internet penetration rates, Internet access and connectivity remain a privilege for many. What can be done to make the Internet an essential right in developing countries rather than a privilege?"
Anyone wants to comment? He made an open question.
>> MODERATOR: We'll collect another comment and then we'll get to both of them because we are kind of running out of time.
>> Thank you very much. I'm Serouit Brazilian government. First I would like to congratulate the organisers of this panel to bring an extremely interesting and timely discussion, which is that of core values and principles. I believe after five IGFs, we have reached the stage where we are perhaps more clear about what are the essential values that we want to preserve for future generations that will not harm this wonderful media and infrastructure that we have. So the discussion on principles, if it is made, either here or at a main session or nationally or regionally, and if it is done in a way that it is inclusive, open and participatory way, the result tends to converge.
That's what we see for instance in our own experience in Brazil, as Rachael had just mentioned, the 10 principles that were developed within our own multistakeholder Internet steering committee. And it is a contribution that we brought to this IGF. Perhaps we could think of from here on as the next steps, try to do something, not to create anything that is legally binding, but to do something that would be a reference for any further development related to Internet Governance.
I believe this is particularly important because we have seen some initiatives regarding turning aspects into law when there are some problems detected. And it is only natural that it happens because according to our history, our culture at the international level, whenever we have a problem, we tend to call a conference and then negotiate a treaty. It is like that that we managed to have the Montreal protocol to tackle the ozone layer and then after a few years now we know that the ozone layer is getting back to normal after an effort to curb the emissions of those that were damaging the ozone.
It is also the case just to mention another example, that in the '50s and the '60s that it was detected that there was a risk of nuclear proliferation, countries got together and negotiated a treaty. The nonproliferation treaty that is one of the most universal treaties that we have today and that somehow worked to block the spread of nuclear weapons and this threat to the human race. So when problems like security, fraud, child abuse come up using the Internet, it is only natural that people will try to reason the same way and try to get that through a legal instrument at the international level.
However, we all know that for that to work at the Internet, maybe it will require global acceptance, which means acceptance by all the governments and then ratification by all parliaments for it to be truly universal and effective.
There might be other ways. And perhaps before opening these Pandora boxes of negotiating treaties, what we need to agree is precisely on these core values and principles, based on which any further step to tackle specific slots of problems that we detect will have to be based.
So once we have that stage, we will be able to perhaps engage in a negotiation. Because we don't see, really, an alternative to law making in case we really want to curb some bad behaviors in the Internet. It's actually that the old question of how are social relations to be ruled? By technical standards or law? Our society is ruled by the law, or should be ruled by the law and not by the Code.
So this is a question that I believe is really one, an important one. Again, I congratulate you.
One more aspect, if you allow me. On the latest comment that was presented remotely. I think he talked about an extremely important point that is also a matter of concern, in particular to developing countries in which the Internet grows more, which is access. And access that has to be seen not only in terms of access to infrastructure, physical access, but also access to knowledge, access to communication. And that is what the Internet is all about. So actually we have a whole set of issues to discuss. And it's wonderful we are able to discuss them. And I thank you for the opportunity to bring my contribution. Thank you.
>> Mr. Chairman, could I intervene before you give the microphone down our row? This proposition, this idea of taking those 10 notions from the Brazilian declaration and trying to expand that I think is a really very it's an actionable idea. It's almost a proliferation treaty. Not a normal proliferation. We want the Internet to proliferate.
The question I want to ask you, though, is: In what venue would you propose to pursue this? The reason I ask the question is that one of the values of this Internet Governance Forum is to identify actionable items and then decide how they can be undertaken and where. That's the most useful thing this open, multistakeholder Forum can do.
So do you have a thought along those lines?
>> Thank you. We are in the process of discussing the continuation of the IGF. The IGF can be seen as a place to which everybody who's interested in these core values and principles converge. So perhaps this is an opportunity, a window of opportunity for us to make sure that during the next five years, the IGF will devote itself for something that is more specific. Not in terms of getting to a negotiating result. But to elaborate further and get to a minimum consensus that could be and including to register the differences. Because we have to be aware of the differences. But to make a collective construct with the view of having, in the end, something that we may say "oh this is the product of our work throughout these years." the discussion is great. It's always good to discuss. But we have something else. We have these core values and principles to offer to the global community. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Before I move to Alejandra, I want to see if any of the younger participants have any comments. The younger for now if I may. Yes.
>> So the issue of mobile phones spreading and increasing in number and access is still restrict, and I speak as a user based in Nigeria regarding this, that, yes, we have a lot of people, over 80 million with mobile phones, but the key issue is that a lot of the mobile phone users, first of all, the providers in terms of the capacity of the mobile networks, many of them cannot provide the kind of Internet that you would be comfortable using. And I always crack a joke that for my blackberry in Nigeria, many times it's plug and play, not plug and play. Because you see it rolling and rolling. And eventually when the tweet is already too late it gets delivered. And somebody wonders if you're crazy or not. But thankfully the pipes are landing now. There's goodness in West Africa now. We may one London. Evidently there's a lot of demand from people. So I suspect that it's only natural that these companies will step to up do this.
Over the next five, six years, particularly I believe that the story will change because the devices. The cheap devices, the mobile phones are there. What we need now is for the capacity to plug into that.
>> Thank you, Renga, Alejandro and then Bill?
>> Thanks very much. I just wanted to make a comment on the proposal to somehow codify a set of principles.
The thing that really struck me in Vince's first remarks were his comment about how the Internet is a mirror of society. And if you have a problem with what you see in the mirror, you shouldn't, the way to fix it is not to break the mirror.
Similarly, people don't do bad things on the Internet that are in any way different from bad things they do in real life. So the notion of having any kind of specific control mechanism or specific treaty around the Internet really doesn't make a lot of sense to me personally simply because if you want to talk about social values, number one, you have a lot of trouble with universality, number two, controlling it on the Internet isn't going to stop anything in real life.
So for me, it really is a question of how do you want your Internet to be? If you want your Internet to be something that's open and will continue to evolve, dealing with the problems in the real world rather than the virtual world is the best way to ensure that.
As a colleague of mine says quite regularly, if you think you know what the future of the Internet is, you're probably not talking about the Internet. I think that has to apply to considerations of law making and treaty drafting, as well. Thanks.
>> Thank you, Dima, congratulations for organising this session. My name is Alejandro Pimienta. I will state what I do in my work. One thing we have to make sure that we don't codify but make sure it's made permanent of the Internet is the "always better." the permanent better value. The fact that it's being built. It's being experimented with. It's changing. It's changing in unexpected ways. And we have to make sure that the ability to experiment or to have already mentioned in other sessions in this IGF permissionless innovation can really go over. We just have a few things that we don't want to happen, which is the breakdown or fragmentation of the Internet, the creation of closed spaces, that kind of stuff is really important and we know that has been achieved by extreme adherence to interoperability and openness.
I'll go further two points. One of them is even if we all in this room agreed explicitly, took accounts of hands up, do we all agree that openness of the Internet is a value to be preserved? Last evening we had a session on the Dynamic Coalition on core values. It was very much these same issues that are discussed here. And I was truly amazed by the passion and fever with which two totally opposite conclusions taken from openness were discussed. One of them was as has been the atmosphere here, be able to publish everything, make it accessible to anyone on the Net. The other view was in order to feel safe, was a young man technically and Internetically literate, putting forward the idea that in order to be safe in producing and putting on content online, he would like everybody to have an ID. And to check in with hard identification by coming into the Net. And he really meant that this was an interpretation on the way to preserve the openness of the Net. Most of all people talk to on the Internet think it is not the solution. Think it actually has much more problems and so forth. The only thing I want to make is there are people who have thought this through and who passionately believe completely opposite. So the value we have to preserve will not be one specific value that gets codified, but the value that are permanently. That's one point.
The other thing is that the values of the Internet such as openness, ease of access, et cetera, are not only being codified like in the Brazil set of values, but also are being affected in many different ways. You have people, particular young people, have shown themselves ready and even eager to fight for them. One specific reference I'll make is the Internet campaign in Mexico last year, which I was lucky to be part of. We have this campaign led mostly online. Mostly by Internet tools, basically Twitter and a few blocks, plus a very limited presence in the Mexican literature. But there were no demonstrations on the streets or anything like that. In fact, many of the actors in this campaign were very young people are against massive demonstrations and street closures. And they only joined this campaign because it was possible to do so completely online.
We have to keep looking in this core values across generations view. What gets young people inspired about the Internet? What gets them to go out of everyday routines and go further up into action? I'll end up by providing you a reference. There's a recent book by edited by sister also known as Mimito and a few others which is called something like "hanging out "Chilling Out, Hanging Out and Gigging Out." It's a sociological study of the practices of very young people mostly in the U.S. about how the Internet is changing their relationships the way they live in the generations born surrounded by the Internet. I think we'll still have much to explore if we work on that intensively for the next year.
Alejandro, thank you. I want to make sure there is one person under 30 that will make an intervention. Any volunteers? Okay. So you are next.
>> Can't hear you. Sorry.
>> MODERATOR: After that, you are next.
>> I'm Walda Roseman. Congratulations to all of you. I'm reminded as of sitting here back in the back Dark Ages in the late '70s I remember encountering someone who had a beautiful baby and saying "what a beautiful baby you have." and she said "yeah, but you should see her pictures."
There is a tendency for all of us to be captured by the media, which sometimes brings on a nicer glow than what's going on outside. And we've had some references here to those in rural areas who do not yet have access to the media. So I would like to ask you what you think should be done or could be done. And we can title it "Internet Governance" or we can title it "youth action " but done by young people to bring the Internet to those who currently do not have access to it, including those who may not be literate, who are not able to access its benefits through keyboards. Do you see this as something that might inspire young people?
I know certainly Becka has been pushing the envelope into rural areas and I believe others have. But I would be very interested to hear what you would see might be your agenda when you leave here and whether that would
>> Thank you. I think it directly leads into more involvement of the left side of the panel. So Marie?
>> MARIE CASEY: My name is Marie Casey. And I'd just like to make more of a follow on comment, as well. That it's really interesting that our workshop topic on the discussion of the opinion from different generations on Internet Governance eventually concluded with just a general discussion of Internet Governance. It kind of shows that youth opinion is pretty much exactly the same as someone who's older. And that to inspire there was a question how do you get more younger people involved? How do you get older people involved? It's the exact same. It really is. We want to be here. It's just a matter of actually getting here in the first place and just about the comment there that how do we bring more access to people that don't actually have it? Well, what brought me here was ITU. And ISOC has brought me here this time. I think it was a really good initiative. They make an actual active effort to specifically include young people. I think for the ITU, you have to be under 25. And I think I was the youngest ISOC ambassador chosen. Me and Grace, I think I'm the younger of us two by a few years. So I think we need to rally bigger organizations just to make the simple effort to go, okay, we're going to include a couple of younger people. I think really that's the really important thing here.
>> In answer to your question about involving more younger people, especially those who are illiterate, the thinking in my country, for example, is to add audio Internet or more audio. So that even people who are illiterate, which is a great number, will be able to access the Internet. Of course there are many challenges because that would require more resources. But some, there's thinking towards that.
And then I'd just generally like to state also as a person from my developing country, I am very normally I'm very concerned about messages of good will that do not have a very strong backing, that do not have a strong commitment. For example, for a long time we've we had a lot of hope in the Millennium Development Goals. Yet here we are many years later, I don't know what effects they had for us.
So it's also the same thing also with core values and principles of the Internet. Without enough commitment, I don't know how far we would go, especially for those of us who are still trying to deal with issues of access in the first place even before we come to the major issues in the Internet and in Internet Governance itself.
So I still call upon everybody to think about that whole issue of commitment. That is why I feel so grateful to organizations that are actually taking some action towards their commitment. At that if an organisation is committed to capacity building, they actually do some actionable steps towards getting that capacity building and so on.
>> I have just a brief comment. My name is ISOC ambassador but will speak on my personal capacity. I'm from Armenia. And for several years, for about seven years, I work for a middle school activity programme. And the main issue, we were providing trainings for teachers and students how to use computer. And I would say that sometimes it's not an issue not to have access is not a big issue sometimes. Sometimes you have computer. You have Internet. But the issue of how to use it. And in many cases there is the necessity of training people or building knowledge how to use computer, not just to give them access. Just brief comment.
>> I think another comment?
>> GBENGA SESAN: I think to this basically every day because this is what I do. I think the challenge comes back to us, if I could still refer to myself as a young person, by the way. That when it comes to replicating the knowledge and opportunities we get at events like this, it is I think for every young person who was at an event like this, you're mandated to go back to your own community to spread that knowledge. And I think it's the first of all, it helps you retain what you've learned. And it also helps you spread this. And I say this. Fortunately I have a publication here featuring 20 stories of some of the trainings that was just upgraded from one of our projects in Nigeria and it's amazing. I read the stories myself and I say to myself that even if I'm not paid for the month that this job gets done, this is satisfying and I'm glad I'm going to pass this on. So I think the onus rests on us as young people because millions of young people can't come for many reasons. The many times I have not been able to make meetings like this because of costs, because of many things. So for anybody who is young and is here, you have a responsibility to get back to your own community and pass on the message in terms of building your capacity and getting them connected to both the process and to the opportunities.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. We are more or less out of time. Do we have any last comment or two that anybody wants to make? One must go for remote participation and then we'll round up.
>> Thank you. Just a comment. I would like to think that under 30, we are serious. So the question is from Michael Nelson. He points out an article first, September, The Economist article on September 2nd. The counterrevolution, the most important math value. Will that continue to be a global network of networks? The article quotes Kevin Wabash of school who says that the Net could fall apart very quickly. He says this looks rather unlikely today, but if it happens, it will be too late to do anything about it. To panelists: What warning signs should we watch for that that might indicate that the Net is splitting apart?
>> One comment.
>> Failure to implement ITV6 could be a real problem.
>> That was short and very specific. Comment from anybody else on the panel? Okay. I think it's 1:30 and we kind of ran out of time. I think it was an exciting conversation. And for me personally, it also says that this conversation is needed and it has to continue probably beyond those walls, as well.
I would like to thank you, everyone, for coming and participating. I would like to thank our remote participants if you can hear me. And thank you to our panel. Thank you very much.
[Applause.]
(End of session.)