Sixth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
27 -30 September 2011
United Nations Office in Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
September 30, 2011 - 14:30 pm
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Sixth Meeting of the IGF, in Nairobi, Kenya. 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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(Pause.) UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Irina Bokova.
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>> THE MODERATOR: Hello. Can you hear us?
Hello, Yiannis, can you hear us? (Speaking).
(Off‑mic.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Can you hear us?
>> Can you hear me?
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes.
>> Can you see me?
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes, we can see you also. Hello there.
>> Hi.
>> THE MODERATOR: We'll be starting in a few minutes, Janis. We are just getting the things set up.
>> Can you read the charts? I'm sending you a message.
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes. We can see your text.
Andrea can write the scenario.
(Pause.)
>> THE MODERATOR: She's not ‑‑
(Speaking in the background.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us at this afternoon's UNESCO open forum. I'd also like to acknowledge the presence of a number of virtual remote participants joining us from around the globe. I am Paul Hector and I shall be your session moderator today. What are we going to do today? Well, this afternoon's session is basically providing a space to share with you the findings of a recent UNESCO strategy study entitled Reflections and Analysis, by UNESCO on the Internet. We'll also be looking at a number of other ongoing efforts in its fields of competence, namely, education, the physical sciences, social and human science, culture, communication information, which contribute to the ongoing development of the knowledge societies. And so we look forward to a very interactive session and also getting your feedback on ‑‑ and thoughts on these documents and activities.
Now, before introducing our four panelists, let me just layout some of the sort of housekeeping rules. So the first part of the session will basically be a presentation by the panelists, two are present here, two will be joining us virtually. Then this will be followed by a question‑and‑answer session which we expect to be lively and interactive.
And then following that, we'll have a sort of summary by the panelists, both those who are here in Nairobi and those in Paris. And then, finally, after that, we'll have a little grand gala. We'll have a cocktail reception which will follow immediately after this one.
So, in terms of the order of speaking, we will start off with Dr. Indrajit Banerjee, who I will tell you a little bit more about shortly, followed by Emily, then Janis, the representative from Paris, followed by Ms. Springer.
The doctor is the director of the Knowledge Societies Division. He has experience in information and communication. He's known globally, and he has published extensively in this field. So as I said, he will be the first speaker.
As we get to the other speakers, I will introduce them at that time.
So now I pass the floor to him, he will give an overview of the strategy study of the reflections on the Internet.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you, Paul. Greetings, first of all to our Assistant Director General, who is following us on this discussion, the Open Forum, and to thank all of you who have come here, because I think we should all get a certificate being here at the end of this rather long series of sessions.
So my role here will be rather simple. I'm going to lay the context of why UNESCO undertook this reflection on relating to the Internet. And I think it's a very fitting place, the IGF, to present this reflection document and get your feedback on what you think UNESCO could do, what are the areas within UNESCO's mandate we should take up when we discuss our activities in the ‑‑ with regards to the Internet.
Now, let me just quickly tell you that like as many organizations, UNESCO also has been doing things, doing activities, doing events, doing research relating to the Internet, but obviously the Internet has taken on a completely new dimension. And so we need to constantly rethink our strategy, rethink what are the areas which we should involve in, because UNESCO also like other organizations has limited resources.
So how do we strategically position ourselves in the space of the Internet?
As you know, UNESCO is an organization which basically deals with education, science, culture and communication. So obviously, any work we do with regards to the Internet has to be related to these key areas of our competence.
And so, so far what we have been doing is a little ‑‑ I'll say a little not disorganized but as and when things happen we take up issues and deal with them.
But the core of our work with regards to the Internet is dealing with issues such as freedom of expression and universal access to information and knowledge. In its ‑‑ universal access in its largest sense, because access is not only access to infrastructure or connectivity, access is also access to content, multi‑lingual content. Otherwise a large portion of the world's population will be unable to take advantage and leverage the benefits of the Internet. Access for disabled people, policy issues regarding the Internet, and so on.
So keeping this in mind, that freedom of expression is one of our cornerstones of UNESCO's CI Sector's work, and access being one of our main lines of action, as we call it, inside the house. We decided to undertake a strategy reflection which the Member States of UNESCO strongly encouraged us to do, so that in the years to come, we have a very clear position, and this will not only help UNESCO, but in my personal view and the view of the sector, I think this will be very useful for other organizations as we have seen in this IGF on many occasions, people asking us: Who does what? Which organization is responsible for what?
And I think eventually, a map could be drawn up which will show us very clearly which organization deals with what. For example, copyright issues, and I deal with governance issues now and so on, and so forth. So where does the UN system fit into this space? And that's the objective of our reflection today.
I will conclude for the moment by saying, I strongly recommend you to present us your views, keeping in mind UNESCO's areas of competence and mandate. And we will definitely ‑‑ this is a document which is a work‑in‑progress to a certain extent.
When it comes to the Internet, no document can be ‑‑ can be final and binding, because things change almost every day. And so with that, I will pass on the floor to Miss Emily Taylor, who has actually been principally responsible for drafting this document after, of course, talking to various people across all of UNESCO sectors, thank you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. So, thank you. Just a little background on Emily, as was pointed out she was the lead consult in preparing this strategic study. Emily is an independent consult based in the United Kingdoms. And she was a former Director of Legal Policy and Company Secretary at Nominet, the UK domain names registry.
She's currently serving as the non‑Executive Director at Oxford Informations Labs. Emily is also a member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for the UN Internet Governance Forums.
And also, as you can see, she has extensive firsthand knowledge of the Internet and the various socioeconomic, cultural, and other issues which impact this space.
I turn over to Emily.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you, Paul, for that introduction, and thank you to UNESCO for inviting me to participate today.
That was, indeed, my honor to be involved in this study and to work across the organization, across the different sectors one UNESCO, to learn both on you what UNESCO is currently undertaking, it's very innovative use of the Internet technologies to promote its core values and its lines of action, but also to consult very closely with the way people in the variety of sectors, whether it be education, science, culture, or the Information and Communication occasions sector, thought about the future.
Now, as you said, Paul, I come from a background of naming and addressing. And any of you who are in this morning's main panel session on critical Internet resources might have noted that matters of Internet infrastructure and access have quite rightly absorbed a lot of the governance debate up until now, but the situation we have now, looking forward, is that if you just take the example of Africa, for example, now, even the most optimistic person would say ‑‑ wouldn't say that all of the challenges of access have been overcome in Africa, but things certainly look an awful lot more positive now than they did five years ago. There's 40% mobile penetration.
We have optical cables, fiber optic cables, running around the continent, and also systems of Internet exchange points which have dramatically reduced the costs of access.
So, looking where we are, looking forward, the thinking is now that as barriers to access start to be overcome, the governance debate will focus increasingly on areas of usage.
And we see already that many of the key principles that are Central to UNESCO's mandate are already challenging people, that the cross‑border nature of the Internet challenges regulatory norms and that, you know, the sheer scale of it, it is not just UNESCO who are saying the sheer scale of the Internet exceeds our resources. We have to be strategic. We have to think about focusing actions.
I had exactly the same conversation with a senior member of the UK law enforcement the other day, who was saying, we're going to have to be thinking about educating, influencing, and strategic action, because we cannot cope with the scale.
And this is, the really striking aspect of the way that UNESCO is well suited to this space, not only because of its role in championing freedom of expression, its protection of journalists, the principle of education for all, and the preservation of culture, but it's also the way that it works. Its own culture. That my observation is that UNESCO has a history, a culture of working not only amongst its sectors but also interdisciplinary, bringing together stake‑holders, bringing together experts who know what they're doing. And this convening power, this networking power, I think is ‑‑ well places the organization for the challenges of the future.
So with those brief introductory remarks, but perhaps I can hand it back to you, Mr. Chair, and we can go on to the more detailed proposals of the way forward in the later part of the session.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Emily.
Yes, I think that's very ‑‑ that's ‑‑ those points are extremely salient. As infrastructure and connectivity are improving, we see usage and how people use the Internet and the sort of ethical issues around this becoming much, much more important.
So, yes, but we will touch more ‑‑ we'll touch more on this.
At this point, I'd like to invite Janis Karklins, who is the Assistant Director General for Communications and Information at UNESCO to join us. Just a little background on him.
Prior to joining UNESCO, he worked as a diplomat in a number of countries, France, Andorra, Monaco. And he also has experience in many of the social and technical infrastructure issues related to the Internet, having served for example with ICANN and being heavily involved in the preparatory work‑related to the world submit on the information society. So I now turn over to him. Can you hear us?
>> THE PANELIST: I can hear you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Excellent.
>> THE PANELIST: Can you hear me.
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes, we are hearing you.
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. So, thank you, Paul, for this kind introduction. And I am really pleased to be able to join the meeting though I would like to be there in person, but the Executive Board which is currently taking place in Paris has prevented me from being with you today.
Now, the rest of this is a proof way of a good use of Internet that I can join you remotely and be part of the discussion.
I gave you a background of the documents we are talking about. And let me just add that we are trying to identify those issues where UNESCO could contribute the most in the future.
As Emily said, we think that international debate will shift itself from infrastructure to use of Internet. And since UNESCO from the outset has been on or in the business of promotion of use of Internet and the promotion of local content creation, quality content creation, multi‑lingualism, we are well placed in order to take up the responsibility and entertain this international debate.
From other side, UNESCO needs to beef up its capacity, and it can be done only in cooperation with different stakeholder groups, and, therefore, first and for seeable most I would like to stress that we in any case would favor a multistakeholder approach in addressing the issues related to this.
Now, let me give you a couple of examples where we see where UNESCO should focus on.
And first and for seeable most that there is local content creation in different languages.
Today we observe that majority of our content available in Internet are produced in eight languages. At the same time we know that there are about 6,000 languages available or spoken in the world. And these eight languages represent around 90% of all content which is accessible.
This situation is far from ideal. We also understand that with introduction of internationalized domain names and with increase of Internet users outside our world this proportion will change but nevertheless we need to find the ways how to encourage Member States to invest in local content creation.
And the best encouragement, of course, is to find the economic incentives for doing that.
In this respect, last year we agreed with okay ACD and ISOC to engage in a study to find out whether there are any economic incentives and whether there are any correlation between the volume of work or content which is kept on local servers and cross‑Internet users for the Internet. And the findings of this study was ‑‑ were presented on Tuesday in IGF in Nairobi. And they can be found on website of the OECD and very soon also on the website of UNESCO.
That said, we will draw sort of lessons or conclusions out of this study and we'll try to offer to our Member States some policy guidance how to ‑‑ how to increase local content election because we believe equally in less than content production we invest in jobs. And if Member States invest in local Internet infrastructure, it invests in knowledge, how to run the Internet on its own territory.
So this is the one important issue we're working on.
Second ‑‑ secondly.
(Skype reconnecting.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. All right. Okay. So we'll hand over to Emily to drill down a bit and expand a bit more on various issues, challenges which were identified in the study, and perhaps maybe a little bit about the process.
>> THE PANELIST: Yes. Thank you very much. I'm not going to do a comprehensive report on all of the issues that arose because I think you can probably get the sense from ‑‑ from the other speakers.
The ‑‑ just the breadth of UNESCO's mandate in ‑‑ with regard to the Internet and its content means that a whole host of issues arise in each of these areas whether it's education, science, cultural education and information of the but one of the particular aspects we were asked to look at by the Member States was the impact of social networks. And I think that this is an extremely timely thing to look at when we consider I was just looking at‑ feeds this morning, today it was announced that there are half a billion Chinese Internet users.
This month, Facebook announced that they have 800 million users in their community. So that is more people than online in China.
This is at once an enormous opportunity both for connecting people and Facebook have been here at the conference and have described how they have used local language users to develop the interfaces in Facebook in the different languages.
So it's services like Facebook have an enormous power to connect people in their own language with communities of interest.
At the same time, the social networks do present new regulatory and governance challenges.
We have effective these Internet giants where norms of interaction, norms of privacy which affect individuals are, in fact, defined by single companies. And there are unclear mechanisms of accountability and transparency in the way that those norms are developed.
Is it just the market? Is that going to be enough?
And then one other aspect that I think is worth just highlighting here is education, both the potential of the Internet to extend the reach of educators into areas which have been, you know, less well served to provide ‑‑ you know, to find a really practical way of achieving the goal of a quality education for all.
But also looking at it from the other way round, how is the Internet changing our ways of learning? I mean is it making all ‑‑ are we all just becoming very, very low attention span or can we only just cope with small bursts of information very quickly? And how about the role of social networks or streaming media, in creating communities of learners who might not be that traditional pedagogy of top down, from the teacher to the pupil, but perhaps communities of interest teaching each other according to what they found in their heuristic knowledge.
So those are just two aspects that are particularly highlighted in the study.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay of the thank you. Thank you, Emily, for making a very important point. We cannot depend only on the market for determining ‑‑ for creating mechanisms, for helping us to understand and interpret this new space. We need to bring in other factors to play.
Again, also, amazing opportunities for content production in multiple languages through social media.
Let's see, what we'll try to do at this point is we'll try to reconnect Janis in Paris. We're seeing you, pedestrian a poll cut here.
Okay, Janis, over to you.
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. I don't know at what time I was cut off, what I was talking to, about.
Can you tell me?
>> THE MODERATOR: You were just out of the second point.
So you had spoken about the OECD study and then you had started going onto your second point after that one.
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. So I was talking about education.
And here we are ‑‑ we are thinking that there is no ‑‑ this is not enough if we just bring a computer in the class and link that computer with Internet. That does not work.
There are two other components which need to be addressed, one of them is methodology and teaching materials, and second is skilled teachers.
And UNESCO is working mostly on these two issues, developing teaching methodologies, different type of curriculums as well as providing capacities building for the educational establishment dealing with teachers training.
And only when these three components are technology in the class which is linked to Internet, methodology ‑‑ appropriate methodology and training materials which are adopted to this ‑‑ to the use of technology, as well as skilled teachers, when all these three components are in place, then we can expect the increase of quality of education and new ‑‑ let's say new level of interaction between teachers and children.
I understand that Emily already spoke, at least what I heard, about this shifting paradigm in the class and the change of role of teacher in the class due to the technology. So I will not talk about that.
Let me conclude by talking little bit about freedom of expression on the Internet. And I believe that part is what you haven't heard at all.
We are observing worrisome trends when it comes to freedom of expression on the Internet.
It is not obvious that the same principles are applied in some countries in the world as they are applied to the traditional media. And UNESCO stands ‑‑ has a very strong opinion that that shouldn't be the case.
The same principles of freedom of expression should be applicable to both traditional and new media.
Though one can argue that the new media has changed the landscape of ‑‑ media landscape in any given country, nevertheless, the principles of freedom of expression should remain the same. And this is what UNESCO is advocating through different ‑‑ different means, including celebration of the world press freedom day which this year took place in Washington and was for the promotion of freedom of expression in new media.
I think that I will stop here. Will be glad to answer questions. And, Paul, Ms. Springer couldn't join us. At least I don't see her on the net and she's not with me here. But if you want me to present also her issues I would be happy to do that. Over to you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Janis. Yes. Okay, we would certainly love to hear you share with us more about the digital preservation because that is a very important area and also which was highlighted in the study. So, yes, if you can continue, we appreciate that.
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. Thank you.
As you know, Internet is taking up in every parts of the world. Today I learn that there are half a billion Internet users in China. That's the news of today. And everybody is moving digital.
That said, very few efforts have been made until now all over the world to make sure that digital information would be preserved for future generations.
And here I'm speaking, or maybe generalizing the power of knowledge shows that when UNESCO adopted a charter on preservation of digital heritage very little has been done in many Member States in order to put in place the good and reliable system of protection of digital material.
There are many studies and scientific work going on in developed countries, but we see that very little is happening in developing countries, but the volume of digital information is growing. And, therefore, UNESCO, together with its partners, IFLA, International Federation of Library Associations, International Council of Archives, as well as private sector companies Google and Microsoft, is organizing a big international conference on digitization and digital preservation, which is scheduled to take place in September, 2012 in Vancouver, Canada, hosted by University of British Columbia.
The idea of this conference is to address yet another time the importance of digital preservation and sharing experience and ongoing work around the world in developed countries in this field and trying to convince policymakers both in developed countries and developing countries that we need to put lot of effort in creating system of digital preservation.
From other side, we need also to address questions of digitization, because that is a very trendy issue, and many governments are spending considerable amounts of money in digitizing materials without really having a clear strategy, what needs to be digitized, what cannot remain digitized.
And the guidelines for digitization would be one of the items of this planned conference in September in Vancouver.
Another important point which we want to address is the ‑‑ to ensure the long‑term usability of existing formats.
We see that technology is evolving, and sometimes formats which we used before are not anymore in use, and as a result, sometimes are not readable anymore.
If those formats are used in creation ‑‑ or was used in creation of the digital information, with their disappearance, it means that this information is not anymore accessible.
And so here we expect that industry will work on this, and as a result of the conference we expect industry commitment of long‑term readability or usability of different formats.
So this maybe is information I would like to share at this point, and I would be happy to answer your questions if you will have any. Thank you.
Call back to you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Janis.
And I think we'd all agree that the entire issue of digital preservation becomes even more pressing, because when we stop and think we have cell phones, we have computers, a whole range of devices which automatically create digital output, and, of course, because we have content ‑‑ digital ‑‑ in digital formats we can exchange it very easily.
And, again, we see, also, digitization of objects and documents which have not been created additionally in a digital format so that they can ‑‑ we can offer the possibility of rapid exchange, sharing of these items, and also the possibility of preservation of non‑digital items in a digital format.
So I think, looking forward, you can see that we will be faced with more and more and greater and greater needs to digitize.
Now, seeing that we have the connection, I think we ‑‑ let's just try to capitalize on this opportunity to pose any questions that we might have, based on the presentation which we just saw.
Earlier we had a poll cut, so now that everything is going fine let's see if we can maybe ask 1 or 2 questions.
Okay. I see one person in the front. Go ahead. And could you introduce yourself, your name, your organization, and the country that you are based in. Thank you.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Okay. My name is (name) from Kenya. Representing the network for an informal educational institutions.
And this is an organization.
(Skype reconnecting.)
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Formatting and especially to marginalized community the biggest issues is getting good teachers to be able to transmit that process. We got teachers who are just graduating from the University, and they have got educational, as a qualification, as well as IT.
So at truth they're able to combine the two, education and IT. But you can see our challenge that they have ‑‑ they are not trained in transmitting education through this media.
Then they have ‑‑ as, again, the teaching methods, we're trying to think of how do we teach, how do we make the classes as interactive as possible. Every day is a learning process for our teachers and the managers on the ground. We need a lot of training to be able to manage the two things.
Now, the other thing is not just about using video conferencing, we thought it was sufficient enough. But as we now start the program four of the centers of learning in Nairobi and as we start the program we realize that we need to have computers in there, in the social halls so that the students can receive their notes through the computer through their email address and they can be able to revise through what they have received from the teachers.
We are also having a mailing list where we will be able to communicate with the teachers. And again you realize that we need to incorporate the phone. Because most of the children that we have are ‑‑ you know, they can access information from the phone. That is another component that you want to include to improving to it.
So I just wanted to share that and say that it's a program which is only now four centers learning for it and these are the videos and problems that we are having but it's improved quality. Teaching some subject has become so easy and we are able to communicate properly, you know, to pass information properly to the students.
Course of time we will prepare.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I'll turn it over to my colleague to respond. And Janis, just for your ‑‑ for your information, this was an experience from Kenya in the use of social halls within villages as school rooms, nighttime school rooms in some areas of Kenya.
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. Janis, good to have you back again. But I thought when you mentioned in your question or in your presentation, the problems of having ‑‑ teachers having ICP skills, what came to my mind immediately is a program we have just completed one phase of, which is called the ICP competency framework for teachers together with Microsoft and other partners. And this is basically going to help to ensure that the teachers own competencies are up to standards, because that is one of the big hurdles as you rightfully said in terms of ICT use in education.
I don't know, whether, Janis, you want to add something.
>> THE PANELIST: Um, only that this project that actually that is a partnership of UNESCO with Microsoft, Intel, Cisco and IST, aiming at developing a curricula which would ‑‑ to develop a syllabi for teachers training in ICT competency, which would set a certain level of standard in that ‑‑ in that process, and which would allow governments as well as commercial organizations based on that syllabi develop their own training programs for teachers and carry those ‑‑ those ‑‑ that training in appropriate level.
So we know that this methodology is taking up now in a number of countries of the world. To my knowledge the biggest uptake is in Mexico, where about 1 million teachers will be trained based on actually the competency framework for teachers. And so we will learn and we'll gain experience, and certainly we're happy to share that methodology with those governments who are interested in listening us and considering applying those methodology in their countries.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Janis.
And I turn over to Emily for a response ‑‑ okay. I'll ‑‑ Janis, another question is coming up for you.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Hi. My name is Gladys. I work for Computer Aid International. This morning's forum for UNESCO and some unintended consequences, we heard a lot about language. And I'm concerned about this freedom of expression where you say that you want to preserve the existing freedom of expression that is used in traditional medias and also use the same in existing medias.
There is the issue of language. And not just the African language, there's a new language of social media, hush tags, codes, acronyms, all of a sudden this hush tag IGF‑11, IGF‑IO, what is that? Who understands it?
Many times you get an SMS in a combination of a letter, a number, a letter, a number, and you understand it. I got a job application with such a code. I don't know how the freedom of expression goes out of the norms of ethics of work professionalism in the essence of helping this ‑‑ I must say they must be younger than me, express themselves in the language that they understand with the tools that we have placed in their hands.
So even as your ‑‑ you know, producing these documents we need continuously innovate this new languages and new chatting online, and I could see them trying to chat with you to get to you, I'm not sure they are writing complete English words to get you back online, but you understood what everybody is saying.
So where do we actually have the guidelines of the freedom of expression so that we can use the languages we talked about this morning.
>> THE PANELIST: Actually I have no really answer to your question. Though you touched number of issues where ‑‑ but I would like maybe to maybe develop upon.
So one is the change of human behavior after sort of being confronted with new technology.
And this is going to happen because technology imposes certain rules and humans, particularly young ‑‑ young children, they adjust very quickly to this ‑‑ these technological limitations we have some studies in relation to change of human skills for our kids who are using Internet extensively and kids who are not using Internet at all.
And these studies show that the pattern of behavior of the kids are changing.
And, for instance, very simple example that the attention span of children who use about four hours a day Internet is shortening in comparison with attention span of children who are four hours a day read book.
So if that is the global trend, then we need to rethink all the methodologies starting with teaching methodology, how to make sure that kids with decreased attention span could successfully follow the course at school, be successful in the institute, as well as be successful in the factory, for instance.
When we know that in the factory you may need do one job eight hours straight.
So all these issues are important to rethink and address one way or another.
Second issue which you addressed is more the quality content and to the way how our kids are using Internet.
And I'm hearing them say that not as ‑‑ each piece of content which is found on Internet is of quality.
And at UNESCO we are working in a sense in promotion that more and more quality content should be placed on Internet, not the junk which then also proliferates this phenomenon what you're saying that kids are using or inventing a completely new slang which is not understandable for anybody but them who are using that.
So the quality content of issues are important, and all of us, we need to think how to promote quality content and encourage this quality content production and placing that on Internet.
So I don't think that they are using these slang words or computer language is limiting freedom of expression or has something to do with freedom of expression, but there are other implications and I try to address them.
Back to you, Paul.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Just to ‑‑ oh, yes. (Name) from European Broadcasting Union.
Just to add something to what you said and to remember you in other activity, one more of your multiple activities, there is a seminar within the WEM Number five that will take place in Africa from 16 to 18 of November that is dedicated exactly to digitization of the existing audio visual archives. So this will be another occasion and opportunity to talk about that.
If I can add something to the agenda, the thing that I think are very important is that I think that UNESCO need to consider very carefully the concept of public domain.
If you look for quality content as has been suggested in the room, I think that the largest repository of quality content that exists in the world of audio visual contents are television.
And television all over the world. But you have to remember that 90% of the quality content that have been produced by television are stacked in the archival television because of concerns about the copy right issues. And so we have the strength that is good for the protection of the interests ‑‑ economic interests of the companies, of course, that is to extend the length of copyright protection, but on the other side this reduce the access to quality content. So I think that UNESCO is the proper place where they say balance of interests need to be taken into consideration.
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes. Thank you.
Janis. You can ‑‑ you can give your feedback.
>> THE PANELIST: I ‑‑ on the intellectual property issues I don't think that UNESCO is well placed. I know that there was some program, some years ago, but ‑‑ at UNESCO.
But for the moment I'm not sure that UNESCO is addressing intellectual property issues and the world organization is the one in which the United system is the focal point addressing those issues, but certainly we can work with them and raise those issues in one or another context.
(Pause.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. There is a question. Could you give your name, organization organization, country.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: It's not a question. It's about some concerns of ‑‑ my name is (name). I am now representing National Research University High School Economics of Moscow, but also affiliated with the Interregional Library Corporation Center, which is the working body of the Russian Committee of the Information for All Programme, UNESCO.
I'd like to say to all the participants that the information for all program also involved in different process, and the cyberspace, in the Internet regulation.
For example, it has very positive experience in promoting multi‑lingualism cyberspace.
For example, Russian committee, and UNESCO information for all program organized annual conference on promotion of multi‑lingual ‑‑ multi‑linguality in cyberspace.
Also it works for preservation of cultural heritage of libraries, museums, archives, also in digitals here, and there will be a relevant conference in October.
Thank you very much.
>> THE MODERATOR: Yes. Thank you very much for sharing with us some of the work of IFA. For those of you who may not be aware, IFA is an intergovernmental body established by UNESCO. It's the information for all program. It has five priority carries and these are information access, information literacy, information for development, information ethics, and information preservation.
Are pretty well on the content side of the use and leveraging of new technologies.
And yes, we are ‑‑ we are, indeed, working with a number of IFA National Committees around the world in terms of our promoting activities which support multi‑lingualism, digital preservation. And you've just heard about some of the cooperation which is going on with the IFA National body which is located in the Russian Federation.
Let's see. Are there any more questions around the room? Related to ...
I think we have ‑‑ I think we have a comment from one of our remote participants. Is it ...
(Pause.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. Okay. Go ahead, Andrea.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Yeah, thank you, Paul. Before we were speaking about languages, and I just had ‑‑ came up to my mind the work that UNESCO is doing with a number of languages, and you can see hour Internet in a way it's a tool to share information and to promote awareness about language. And you can just go on there.
You can Google the address of the world languages. And you can see, and you can search the countries and just live while I was here I was a search for Kenya. And I figure out the 13 endangered languages, and some of those are already extinct.
And so my ‑‑ my ‑‑ I don't know if it's a question or if it's just a consideration is: How much Internet can be a solution for that, or it's only a problem or it's only the killer that will accelerate the extension of those languages.
And then my other question is here in Kenya do you ‑‑ someone in the room is aware of that? What are the concerns, or is something that is taken for granted? And that's it. Thank you.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you, Andrea.
Let's see. I'll let Emily give a response to that question.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you very much for drawing attention to the Atlas for Endangered Languages, which I think many of the people that are ‑‑ I've been talking to this week from the sort of Internet community, oh, have you seen this? This is brilliant. The two points that I took home from ‑‑ from learning about this Atlas were: First of all, the extra reach that the Internet gave UNESCO in ‑‑ in coming up with it. I think this was the Third Edition.
And so I can't remember the exact numbers but I believe that the previous edition identified something like 5 or 600 languages, but this one has actually got close to the estimate of existing languages.
And also, the very inspiring thing is that it has actually harnessed the additional resource, human resource of the speakers of those languages to ‑‑ and using a ‑‑ you know, just layers of different things.
You've got the geographical location, you can pinpoint much more accurately where these languages are spoken and by whom, and actually get user feedback.
I think this is a very inspiring methodology which UNESCO as an organization can learn from.
It's a bit like the lady talking about your experiences of designing education in the slums of Kenya here. It is very much learning by doing. And everybody at the moment who's innovating with the Internet, as this is an example, as yours is an example is thinking, oh, somebody should tell us how to do this.
But there isn't anybody. You're doing it. And in fact by doing it you become the experts, and then you have a best practice to share or at least an experience to share of what worked and what didn't.
So that was my response on that. Thank you.
>> THE MODERATOR: So, okay, we have one more question here on the left and then we will turn over to Indrajit who will talk about some of UNESCO's other activities.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Good afternoon, my name's (name) I'm an independent consultant currently based in Nairobi. I've worked with UN in the report released in June on Freedom of Expression on the Internet.
I've also read the report that UNESCO released around the same time on freedom of connection, freedom of expression and was quite impressed by it. I was wondering very concretely, aside from such a study, what concrete projects does UNESCO undertake to further freedom of expression on the Internet? Thank you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Janis, perhaps you can give a response to ‑‑ to that question about freedom of expression? And as we have our colleagues (name) here in the audience, we'll also have her expand a bit more on that question. Thank you.
Over to you, Janis.
>> THE PANELIST: Yeah, thank you. As I mentioned, we can do advocacy work. That's number one.
And advocacy that ‑‑ the highest or the most visible event is the world press freedom day where in one way or another freedom of expression on the Internet is addressed.
Secondly, we're working with governments, ensuring that the legislation on freedom of expression is ‑‑ corresponds to their international regulations, as you know, many have international treaties including current political and social regs.
And not necessarily the legislation related to freedom of expression correspond to their international regulations. And we're working with them in order to rectify that and bring some adjustments to they will, their legislation.
The same applies for legislation related to access to information. That is another ‑‑ another area.
We're working with professional associations that are part of the network of also NGOs following issues of safety of journalists, and that includes, also, safety of journalists in new media, and as you know, the Director General systematically issued a public intervention on the occasion of killing of journalists. And we see the majority of cases of killings are linked not with, let's say a war situation or dangerous situations, but rather, reporting on, let's say ‑‑ rather crimes related to drugs or Organized Crime or corruption.
And so we're trying to promote the safety of journalists, including the ones and in new media, because we need to understand that without appropriate safety procedures or safety situation, journalists would never produce a sufficient ‑‑ sufficiently critical materials. And they would exercise self‑restraint.
So these are just examples or complete examples in which directions UNESCO are ‑‑ is working in promoting freedom of expression in new media. And I'm sure that you can say something more, also in relation to our work on our work on promotion of privacy.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Thank you, Mr. Karklins.
I also thank you for ‑‑ my name is (name). I'm working at UNESCO on Freedom on the Internet. Thank you for raising ‑‑ for telling us you have been reading our reports on freedom connection, freedom of expression. It really is an outcome built on the ITF discussion. So it's one of our preliminary standards setting advocacy book on the ‑‑ on the situation on Internet.
And you have already shared some examples. I want to complement with more, because we find there is such a need for our Member States and our offices to have a reference framework to provide assistance to the governments on their Internet policy making to create an environment for the free‑flow of information on the Internet.
For example, Iraq, everything is rebuilt, the whole Internet infrastructure network under building. They are also using this book to ‑‑ as a reference when they are making the Internet law.
And also, you know, UNESCO has so many other projects on media. We are doing the ‑‑ we are doing the media, media development indicator project in many countries.
Now we are introducing Internet freedom as one of aspects, one of the dimension to complement today's framework. And also we are also involving the UN now to help develop the national country to help develop the national development agenda. So we also bring this aspect to it. So it is really useful for the insights in the government to know about it.
In not only freedom expression on Internet only, we are also continuing the exploration, because Internet is kind of expanding the traditional on legal framework. We are initiating global legal survey on the privacy which will be finishing tomorrow ‑‑ not tomorrow, but next year.
We will definitely share with next IGF.
And that's ‑‑ that's our work on the freedom of expression on the Internet.
And the whole picture is sort of clear because UNESCO is only an agency has amended freedom of expression and we really think it should be equally applied to cyberspace.
And another quick point I want to make is responding the question about the new language, the children are creating on Internet.
Back to IC, the social implication of Internet which is that is stimulating a creativity of people, they are creating new language, new way to express themself. So I think it's completely positive to ‑‑ to foster free expression, because children, they feel they can use new language to better express themself. I would encourage you to learn it, use it.
And the second aspect that ‑‑ I will finish very soon, okay? That, you know, in some country that people can use the new language, create a new language to circumvent filtering and the blocking.
So this ‑‑ so thus also is really positive to free‑flow of information. So I really wish to we can ‑‑ we can be more tolerant and encouraging to new generation so they create the future which we will never know. Thank you.
>> THE PANELIST: Just a very quick one on freedom of expression.
The ‑‑ you know, the ‑‑ we always experience these pendulum swings and emphasis and at the moment the pendulum seems to be swinging very much in favor of security, worry about, you know, online security, privacy, talking about building a culture of information security.
And, therefore, I know this debate highlights the importance of an organization in UNESCO's position, being that to counter the extremes.
Because you have the legitimacy of your Member States and the supports to champion freedom of expression and its insidious erosion. So I think that the role that UNESCO plays here is extremely important at the current time.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you very much.
And at this point I'm going to hand the mic over to Indrajit, who will give a quick overview of a number of UNESCO's activities in the area of knowledge societies.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you, Paul.
I want to take this opportunity to share with you very quickly a couple of initiatives that we have already launched which are very much in line with the kind of strategy building that is going on at the same time in parallel.
As you know, education being one of our core areas of competence, we have launched something called open education resources initiative.
Now, within this framework what we did in the beginning was we are getting all sectors of UNESCO to contribute some of the finest publications, resources, materials, which we are turning into content and putting on this new portal that we've built.
We have also developed, together with the Commonwealth of learning a policy guideline for open education resources, because this was something the Member States felt was really missing, and of course, in this area we are actively doing advocacy work with governments to ensure that Member States understand what we are and to the extent possible embrace it.
The other major initiative which we have launched also in line within our strategy is the open access to scientific information initiative. We are currently completing a global mapping of all open access repositories that exist in the world, and at the same time preparing both a policy guideline framework as well as a tool kit to help Member States to ‑‑ to put in place open access programs.
Very quickly, we have Joy Springer with us, if Joy is there?
Joy will present you briefly. She handles our Memory of the World program, very much in the area of digital preservation. It's a very, very interesting program. And so I pass the mic onto Joy.
>> Thank you, Indrajit.
>> THE PANELIST: If you can give us a quick overview of the program, that would be great.
>> Thank you, Indrajit.
A quick overview. The Internet is now very common around the world, but this was not possible without certain inventions, the alphabet, movable print and type, the printing press and harnessing of electricity.
Now, why have I chosen these in particular? Because the Phonecian Alphabet, which is the first alphabet in the world, the first book made using printable, movable type, the Gutenberg 42‑Line Bible ‑‑ archives which talks about harnessing of electricity, and so on, these are all listed on UNESCO's Member of the World Programme and part of the register and as knowledge, along with about 245 items as collections or documentary heritage that has had an impact globally.
Now, what is Member of the World? It is UNESCO's flagship of ‑‑ to protect recorded knowledge. And it pro vudz long‑term access to invaluable documents.
Knowledge is has been recorded on different formats since the beginning of time. And this is with the intention of making sure that it remains accessible to future generations, whether it was on clay or tablets, parchment, manuscripts, books, photograph, recorded film, video, and now electronic documents, all of these face the risk of disappearing and memory of the world is UNESCO's program that is intended to ensure that the content remains accessible for future generations.
I know time is limited so let me just give you a concrete example of an impact that it has had.
In May this year the collection of paintings was listed on the register. Now, it talks ‑‑ he was in the City of Tagawa which was a depressed mining community, and we've been told that the city was very low, economic prospect and had the highest levels of unemployment in the world. With the media publicity the city now receives between 500 and 1,000 visitors daily, and there is now a revival of interest in coal mining, the memories that this brings about and the economic prospects of the city have dramatically risen.
There are many others that I can talk about, that I know we don't have tile. But this is just to show you, you know, what recorded is about. What documentary heritage can do and why it is important to safeguard our heritage. Thank you.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you very much, Joy, for that brief but very insightful description of the Memory of the World Programme. It seems like Memory of the World Programme is also generating local revenues and boosting economy, and while at the same time protecting documentary heritage which is quite fascinating.
Just to complete quickly about some of the other initiatives which are very much in line with our strategy, current strategy.
I would like to mention our work in multi‑lingualism, I presented the work from the feeder workshop at the main session where we tried to establish the linkages between local language content production and cost of access.
In addition, UNESCO has a convention, of course, on ‑‑ on this in cyberspace and this has gotten us to get the attention of the states to promote it. Last but not least and quickly, one of the issues also, which was discussed in one of the plenary sessions here, related to ICTs and accessibility for people with disabilities.
We have a very interesting program here. We are doing actually a best practices case study. We are talking to producers of technology and trying to convince them that technology should take into consideration right to the design phase the question of accessibility for disabled people. And this is again an area which has got tremendous potential with great possible impact. So with that I'll pass it on now to Paul.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you. What I'll do now is I'll take another round of questions. We have a approximately 13 minutes left. So please, any questions that you have, let's take them at this point.
Okay. So we have one gentleman. Could you tell us your name, country, institution, please?
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Yeah, hi. I'm (name) from International Development Research Centre of Canada, I'm based in India. It seems to me it's quite a challenge to think about using new technology, the digital, to preserve on the one hand so it becomes a great tool to preserve culture, languages.
And on the other hand, the rush to digitize things means that I'm thinking, particularly indigenous knowledge that is not textual, that is verbal, that is better suited for multimedia.
I wonder what UNESCO is doing to that effect, because it seems to me, you know, before this conference I went to a safari. And on the one hand you have ‑‑ I was going to walk through, very much like a zoo which had animals that are near extinction but is there.
So at the same time the act of preservation and our rush to digital was almost an act of destruction as well to cultures that increasingly it's like if it's not on the net, if it's not digitized then it's nothing, in the same way that knowledge production is becoming that way.
It is not digital, if it's not archived then it may not have existed. So I wonder that balance that UNESCO has to deal with of both preserving but also moving towards the digital. And if you talk about how to deal with that.
Because it looks like the memory of the world project is going towards that line. Does that include preserving that which isn't textual, that which isn't digital?
>> THE PANELIST: Very, very interesting point. Joy, would you like to come in on this one in talking in terms of what we do about intangible heritage.
>> That is part of another program within UNESCO. You can call it a three heritage program, one which is the world heritage, which is the oldest and the best known with its sites and monuments. Then there is the Memory of the World which is about recorded documentary heritages, whichever form it is, and then, intangible heritage.
The three of them have overlapped but they are distinct programs within their own right. The point about moving to digitization is well taken.
UNESCO truly as a Member of the World ensures the protection and access to the content of documents in all forms, whether it's analog, whether it's digital.
We recognize that there are some documents that the only way they can be preserved for long‑term, such as audio visual records is through traditional technologies. But at the same time, it is recognized that there are a number of print documents that will never be able to be digitized because they will lose their quality, or for whatever reason they cannot be. So we try to protect them in all forms, analog and digital.
But the underlying principle is to ensure that the content is preserved and made accessible, the content.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: It's a question of funding because it seems now that increasingly global public knowledge, there is a lack of public funding for it, meaning, there is voluntary peer productions, Wikipedia, but increasingly they need to ask for donations to maintain that. And it seems like what we're doing now in terms of the global knowledge production is that you're paying tariffs not to have logos. You're basically paying ‑‑ what is free content what you're paying for is not to have anybody advertise.
So it looks ‑‑ seems to me that UNESCO would be in a position to be that conduit for public provision of content, that is, basically as much as you can be neutral in that way.
>> THE PANELIST: Janis, do you want to comment on this one?
>> THE PANELIST: I'm not sure that I understood the point.
>> But we have ‑‑ for many years we have been promoting access to information in the public domain. Is that the substance of the question? That UNESCO continues to be a conduit for public information, or information provided with government funding which as a result should be publicly available? Is that the substance of the question.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Yes, it is. And I don't think there is really a solution, I was just throwing it out there. Just thinking about what is publicly and privately and/or a combination of what is provided in terms of knowledge in the ether, in the air, basically.
And the most cited example is Wikipedia. It's a peer base, voluntary. And what we actually pay for is content that is not tagged with advertising, basically.
And I wonder if there's synergies you could have with Wikipedia, for example, so that there's a guaranteed sustained model where we don't have to have ads with every bit of text that comes ‑‑ or images that come to us. I'm not suggesting you have an answer right now. I'm just throwing that out there.
>> Okay (laugh) that also needs to be peer reviewed. I think that's important that the information that UNESCO supports ‑ if I can use that word in its very broadest sense ‑‑ has to be reliable. It should be confirmed information, so there's a need for let's say a review or some sort of way of authenticating that the information that is released under UNESCO's name or label is what it appears to be.
We know in the digital world it's very easy to fake information. There are lots of hoaxes out there, but UNESCO has ‑‑ its reputation to maintain to ensure that any information that's published under its labels is authentic and genuine like it's supposed to be.
>> THE PANELIST: Well, let me just quickly respond to that. The question is extremely pertinent. And honestly we are struggling with some of these issues. Especially with the kind of resource constraints that all organizations have, you can't do everything, you can't digitize everything. So that's an issue. But if we have had several rounds of very interesting conversations with Wikipedia.
And to see to what extent we can collaborate or to what extent we can add up their model in some of our content in the public domain. So that conversation is ongoing and hopefully something will come out of it.
(Pause.)
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you, it's now 3:55. Are there anymore quick questions?
Okay. Let's ‑‑ could we try to keep it to about one minute, and then we'll have a final wrap up where I will then ask Janis, Joy, to summarize any key points or messages that they have? And I will also invite the panelists here to do likewise. So quick question.
>> THE PARTICIPANT: Okay, thank you, I think as you talk about access and use, one of the questions you are having is the cost of Internet and how we could be able to address this, advocacy to lure the government to reduce cost tasks or which method. It's quite an expensive line item in our program.
>> THE PANELIST: Janis, you like to comment to that?
>> THE PANELIST: Yeah. I think that that question is pertinent. The cost of Internet or cost effect is in many countries still is high. And that is one of the obstacles for a number of people accessing Internet and accessing information.
So what ‑‑ what we can do, again, UNESCO is not in ‑‑ neither in regulation issues nor in promotion of infrastructure development.
So, we think, and I referred to that in the beginning of my intervention, that the production of local content and the volume of local content which is available should bring the access prices down, provided that the regulatory environment is right and more and more people access Internet.
So this is ‑‑ this is my answer.
I understand that it's not satisfactory. There are a number of factors related to the issue. I know also that international telecommunications union is very actively engaged in the promotion of infrastructure and addressing the issues of interconnection costs which keeps this access prices high.
So it is just a question of ‑‑ of time. And I understand that there is some impatience among those users who cannot afford today to pay.
Though from other side we see, also an interesting phenomenon with the use of Internet mobile devices through pre‑paid cards, pre‑paid 3G cards. And actually, in Kenya, one of the participants of IGF told me that he bought a pre‑paid 3G card for unlimited use for one week. And that costed not more than seven Euros for that ‑‑ for that particular service.
At the same time, the pre‑paid key for 3G with a limited, I think, one gigabyte download, here in France, costs much higher than seven ‑‑ seven Euros.
So you see that there is a chance that mobile technology will ‑‑ also will contribute to bringing down that creation mere competition to fixed line implement service providers.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay, thank you, Janis. Let's try and do a quick wrap up at this point. Let's see, Joy, any ‑‑ any final thoughts from you, Joy, on the Memory of the World?
>> Not really. I just wanted to say that I know preservation as such does not seem to be a very exciting area, but it is vital for building our societies because it's the foundation of governance and development. Seeing that the information that has been acquired over the years can be passed onto future generations so that we don't repeat the mistakes and they learn from what happened in the past.
So, it's important that we continue to work in this area, especially with the new technologies making things a lot easier in some ways although bringing headaches of their own.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Joy. And Janis, any final parting words for us?
>> THE PANELIST: Simply I'm grateful for those people who join us today in this workshop of UNESCO Open Forum. I hope that that was ‑‑ that gave you some insights on UNESCO's work in the field of education, science, culture, and communications through ‑‑ by using Internet.
And I think that if you ‑‑ if you bring that knowledge to your peers, to your associates, that would be a great help of us.
And certainly next year we will think ‑‑ we will consider repeating UNESCO Open Forum exercise in bringing more news about UNESCO's work to the regular audience. Thank you.
>> THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Janis.
>> THE PANELIST: Let me first thank you all for spending the time for inputs, comments and observations. I would like to definitely thank all of you brave people who at the back end of the IGF are still here, still listening, not sleeping. So thank you for that.
And please feel free to give us your feedback and comments by email on any of the issues that we have discussed today.
Thank you.
>> THE PANELIST: I'd also like to thank everybody, and also note that UNESCO's use of remote participation means that you're walking the talk and actually using the Internet to bring people into the discussion.
But I think that just ‑‑ you know, that the ‑‑ I'll just recommend that you have a look at the reflection document which sets out some concrete actions proposed by UNESCO in the coming time under the headings of research, capacity building, and working through its partnerships and networks.
So thank you all for listening today and participating.
>> THE MODERATOR: Okay. And thank you to all the panelists, both those here and Joy and Janis who joined us remotely.
Thank you to you participants. And as I announced earlier, we have a reception which will be taking place within a few minutes. I turn over to Lydia who will give you a bit more detail on this.
>> Yes. Our reception is at the old cafeteria which is next to block A. On your way to the get there is a cafeteria there. We will have a reception immediately after this.
Please come and have a drink and offload so much of the fatigue that you have burdened in this place. So thank you.
>> THE MODERATOR: So thank you, all, and ‑‑ successful IGF. And please leave your emails with us and your contact details so we can keep this exchange going. Thank you all.
>> THE PANELIST: Too bad, Janis, you can't make it to the reception.
>> THE PANELIST: Yes, that's our loss here. That's the disadvantage of remote participation.
(Laughter.)
>> THE PANELIST: Okay. See you then.
>> THE PANELIST: Thank you. Bye‑bye.
(Session concluded at 4:02 PM.)