The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much apologies for the delay. We are only three minutes late in any case, so that is fine. And we can also get a chance for more people to come in. So good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the open dialogue with the IGF Leadership Panel.
The purpose of this session is to introduce the Leadership Panel to the stakeholders, and also to have a short Q and A and also if you have any views to discuss we may not be able to discuss in great detail but any questions, any suggestions, et cetera, the Leadership Panel is here to listen.
As you know, the Leadership Panel was appointed by the Secretary‑General in August of this year to support the, and enhance the work of the IGF, and to provide that connection between the IGF and other institutions that the Leadership Panel may have access to, and also to bring back input from those institutions, so it's a two‑way street. They bring the input of the IGF, and they also bring back the views from these other institutions, and also to provide strategic leadership to the IGF.
So without further ado, the first thing we do is we will do some introductions, and we will start with our Chair, Vint Cerf.
>> VINT CERF: If you have your headset on while you are talking, you get a delayed response and it's totally confusing. First of all, thank you all for coming this afternoon. I know it's been a long day for everyone, and so your interest is much appreciated.
Second, I want to say that we are still in very early stages of the formation of this Leadership Panel, so we are getting to know each other. We are getting to understand what our responsibilities are, and just to reiterate for a second, the four key functions of this Leadership Panel, the first one is to provide strategic input and advice on the IGF to the Secretary‑General and to promote the IGF and its outputs.
I want to emphasize that. It's important. We need your results in order to work with them and to make them more visible to others. We also are responsible for supporting high level and at large stakeholder engagement in the IGF getting more people like you to participate and also to support fundraising for the IGF.
And I can't overemphasize the importance of that because the Secretariat which Chengetai runs is running on a smaller number of people than it should have, and we need to find support for that. Finally, we want very much to take the outputs from the IGF, from you, and put those into a form where we can present them as Chengetai said to other venues where the issues at stake are of interest to or may be even the responsibility of that venue to cope with. Earlier today I had a meeting with members of the European Parliament. I want to overemphasize the importance of having parliamentary tracks for the IGF.
Those people ‑‑ why am I drawing a blank?
>> KAROLINE EDTSTADLER: Thank you very much. If this is being recorded you can tell the Chair has fallen asleep in his Chair. Karoline is one of such parliamentary member not of the European Parliament, but of the Parliament in Austria. The reason it's so important is that it's part of what makes the Internet. So we want very much to present the ideas coming out of the IGF to those various venues. I'll stop there and I think we go on to Paul Mitchell. I'm Paul Mitchell, I Chair the MAG, and the MAG is the organisation that is essentially your producers for this week, and as already has been noted by Vint, they are operating on a shoestring budget, much less than the caliber of what you are experiencing is showing.
So I am committed as part of the ongoing process here to work hard to drive more contributions to support the IGF. I think it's critically important that this particular IGF we have representatives from 165 countries, and over 4,000 people registered, and that makes a difference. It's a big, a big set of work to put this together.
I appreciate that everybody here is a supporter and I would like to take this opportunity right now to get you riled up, to get more supporters. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Paul Mitchell. I think now we will just do an introduction from left to right. And first of all, I would just like to ask Her Excellency Ms. Karoline Edtstadler federal Minister of the EU and Constitution to introduce themselves.
>> KAROLINE EDTSTADLER: Thank you so much. Good afternoon. I would like to say God father of the Internet may be a bit tired after three days of really intensive work, and it is not the end. It's just the beginning.
So who doesn't know me so far, my name is Karoline Edtstadler, I'm Minister in the Austrian Government. I was one of the persons who brought forward the so‑called communication platform Act, so we ordered the social media platforms so far in Austria to delete hatred in the Internet if it occurs. It was a bit of a through print for the European commission's DSA and DMA, which is also in place by now.
And I think we should now enter the next level and search for recommendations how the Governments in the world within the United Nations can deal with this issue. However, this is only one out of many challenges we are facing when we are talking about the IGF, the Internet as such, and that is very clear for us so yesterday we had a digital conversation, a meeting with the Secretary‑General Antonio Guterres, and for all of us, God father of the Internet, Vint, I am calling you so, I said it also in the meeting in Austria, by the way.
He spoke for us and he said these people in the group accepted the challenge, however, we can't do anything without you, without your advice. So what we did so far was collecting your expectations, trying to get out to most of you of your expertise, and we are quite far as of now within the three days so fix our working process.
This is also not that easy because we are not only coming from different branches, but also from very different countries in the world, and this is important. What I am taking out of this IGF so far is that one most important thing especially here on the African continent is to connect the unconnected, and in the meantime, we should really build up Internet which is a trustful one where the human rights are anchored and this is what we are trying to do within the next months, especially the next two years. But, again, I would like to invite you to help us to create something very special to bring it on the table and to have some recommendations in the end for the best of all for a good Internet.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Minister. Just down the line, yes.
>> LAN: It is a great honour to be here, I am a Professor and dean of Schwartzman college. It is a scholarship program that tries to cultivate the next generation of global leadership with global understanding. My first research interest has been on the innovation, science and. We try to maximize the benefits this technology can bring to society and try to minimize the risk to the society.
I think we all know the power of Internet and all of the related, you know, digital technologies that can bring to the society. At the time same we see potential risks and even harms to our society. How do we actually address these issues, how to maximize benefits and minimize the risks, and the key, of course, is governance.
So I think there is no better place in this IGF Annual Conference to hear or to experience and so on. I'm really looking forward to listen to what your suggestion and what the panel can do. Thank you.
>> LISE FUHR: I'm the Director General of ETNO. It is the European telco trade association in Brussels. Apart from that, I have been participating in IGF for many, many years, I am also the former Chair of the Board of IANA and now PTI, and I have worked with the IANA transition so I am feeling a great deal for Internet Governance as such and I am representing the technical community in the Leadership Panel.
And I must say I agree with Her Excellency Karoline Edtstadler on we need your input, and we hopefully will find a good way to receive this input because it's important whatever we do, we do with support of this community. We are here to make IGF stronger, and count more. Thank you.
>> GBENGA SESAN: We are a PanAfrican digital rights inclusion organisation organisation, and we are strongly focused on access, not just for the unconnected, but also for the disconnected who are disconnected because of shutdowns or deliberate policies.
I will just reTweet literally what you have just said in terms of getting input from you. We have had conversations from the last 17 years at the IGF, and I think there are people in the room who have made brilliant proposals of things that you think can either fix challenges that we have. It would be great for you to please second that to the office again so we can take that as input in our work so that as we continue we can all work together not just to have a forum and talk, but to improve and get towards an open, free, human‑centred Internet that helps all.
>> AUDIENCE: I am Mariah Ali. State Minister Ministry of Innovation and Technology. The first thing I would like to say is we are very excited and proud to have you all here. I am very honored and happy to be part of the Internet and thank you to the father of Internet. This is a really interesting because I am learning a lot from this strong team. I'm very happy. Besides my country, Ethiopia, by hosting this IGF is a unique opportunity for the country to learn from other country's experiences, and from you all because your inputs are very valuable to our country since we are on the journey of digital transformation.
Your inputs are very valuable for us in our journey. Thank you so much. You are doing a lot so far, and I have tried to attend some sessions so I'm very excited that you are giving very valuable inputs to the country and to our strategies and policies. I know that this all suggestions and comments are very important not only to Sub‑Saharan countries all over the world because we all have a common goal. That's connecting the unconnected world.
So to do that, our commitment is very crucial for all of us in order to achieve our common goals as we have to make a better world, a better world to all humanity, especially on the Internet and Internet‑related.
So we are very happy to host you here. I hope you will have a very great time in Addis, you will explore Ethiopia and because Conference exploring, this is beyond the conference, and you will have a good time. Thank you so much.
>> AMANDEEP SINGH GILL: Thank you very much. My name is Amandeep Singh Gill, and I am on the panel in an ex officio capacity as the Secretary‑General's Tech Envoy. As you know, there are other ex officio members, the current hosts of the figure, Ethiopia, the past Poland, and the incoming one, Japan, and also the MAG Chair, Paul, is in that capacity. It's a great privilege to work again with Vint who was a member of the Secretary‑General's High‑Level Panel on Digital Cooperation.
That panel recommended three models of governance, of digital cooperation of which the IGF + has been taken forward and the panel that you see today, this Leadership Panel is a concrete manifestation of the implementation of the IGF + vision. So it recognizes the importance of the IGF, the multistakeholder Internet Governance Forum and endeavors to bring more attention, more prominence, more funding as has been mentioned before, and more connectivity to other processes for the IGF community.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much Under Secretary‑General. Online we do have one panel member, Maria Garza. If we can try and, if you can introduce yourself? I think it may take them a couple of seconds.
>> MARIA FERNANDA GARZA: It seems that I cannot take the camera out. Thank you. As you all might already know, ICC was the business focal point during the World Summit on the Information Society. And through ICC's business action to support the Information Society initiative, we continued to be the primary source for business input of the IGF process and its agenda.
And as such long term supporters of the IGF, ICC welcomes the creation of this panel, and I am personally grateful and humble to be part of it and contributed to the forum's long standing history and the future success, and since 2006 of the IGF it has pioneered knew avenue for policy cooperation.
For ICC the value of the IGF lies in its unique feature as a venue for open and inclusive multistakeholder discussion. It's non‑binding outcomes provide a safe place for stakeholders to test new ideas and unveil potential solutions. With its emphasis on inclusive knife, the IEF and many national and regional initiatives have enabled underrepresented stakeholders from developing in Least Developed Countries as well as a new generation of youth to engage in Internet Governance discussions.
The strength of this mechanism is not only in its open and inclusive participation model and the legitimacy and credibility that the model fosters, but also in its flexibility to rapidly adapt to changing technologies and issues. However, awareness and importance of the IGF remains inadequate outside Internet Governance community. A conscious effort to increase IGF awareness needs to occur through all resources available.
And it is in this spirit that I join this panel to work with all of you to preserve and strengthen the IGF's unique features and to help raise awareness of its outcomes and the tremendous value at this rep for Internet Governance discussions and conversion on digital policy. I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself, I am Maria Garza, Chair of the international Chamber of Commerce, a business world organisation that groups 45 million businesses. Thank you very much.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Ms. Garza. Now, we have had the introductions. This is the opportunity for the stakeholders to ask questions. If you want to ask questions to specific individuals, please say their name. If not, we will give turns for each of the panel members to answer. We have two microphones here.
So if you want to queue up behind the microphone, just use that microphone, please. Queue up so it's easy to know who is first. We will take it by the microphones and go online.
>> AUDIENCE: Chengetai, you are making me nervous because I would like to speak while I'm seated, but anyway. My name is Nassar Nicholas Karama, I am from Tanzania, and I run, I am part of the NRI, the transkneia HF.
If today we were to eliminate the IGF, what would happen? It is a question that I am asking myself, and I will answer the question. It is IGF that actually discovered me when I was thinking about how do we connect all schools in Tanzania which are about 25,000 of them. They are this the rural areas where the telecom companies called all of these rural areas the telecom dark areas because there is no investment, there is no return on investment.
So if IGF is no longer there, it was difficult to be difficult to bring people like me to the global stage so the people in this room can understand what use cases are there, for example, in Tanzania, in Ghana, in Nigeria, in Burma, all of these places. Use cases that are workable and doable and they are connecting people to the Internet.
It would be difficult to have the conversation that we are having today. I meet Chengetai. I wouldn't meet, I don't remember his name properly from the Internet technology envoy of the United Nations. So this, my submission today is that the IGF should be there and well funded because it is bringing so many experiences to the global stage in terms of the work that is being done between democracy, human rights, I think he was talking about human rights, be it on connectivity and all of these areas that are critical component to make sure that the next generation of young people have a fair shot to access digital opportunities that are on the Worldwide Web.
I come from a rural area where you can't even talk about 2G because it's not available. So the Leadership Panel, what intervention are we going to do? My proposal, my proposal to the Leadership Panel in countries, we have, number one, in countries we have Universal Access Funds. Why is it not ‑‑
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I will give you 30 more seconds.
>> AUDIENCE: With the influence we have here, try to start a global fund on connectivity to connect everyone to the Internet, the women, the young girls, the young people, so they can have a fair shot in the next frontier of the digital, the global digital economy. I thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. You had first move advantage, so we are going to restrict the time to 90 seconds. Well take a pause because we have another Leadership Panel member who has just joined Toomas Hendrik Iives, if you could please introduce yourself. He is the former President of Estonia. Please go ahead.
>> TOOMAS HENDRIK IIVES: All right. Well, I don't quite understand how this is working because I'm the host has muted me.
So I don't know how to ‑‑ I can't, I can't get on video.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: We can hear you.
>> TOOMAS HENDRIK IIVES: Okay. Well, I'm Toomas Hendrik Iives, I was the President of Estonia from 2006 to 2016. More importantly, I kicked off the tiger league program in Estonia in 1995‑ '96 that eventually grew to the point where we are the number one country in digital services according, in Europe according to the E.U., and in the world according to the UN, and we started out as a very poor country doing this and now we are doing rather well, so I guess that's enough.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, excellency. Please.
>> WOUT DE NATRIS: My name is Wout De Natris, and I represent the dynamic coalition on start standard security and safety. I will ask a question to Vint. We had a session on Dynamic Coalitions this afternoon with very clear question, the work we would be doing in this intersessional process during the year comes up with tangible outcomes in formal reports or recommendations.
So how can actually us as Dynamic Coalitions work together with the Leadership Panel to make sure that these intersessional projects come out and are going wider out in the world than just digital paper on the IGF website? That's something that's not today, perhaps, but in the future we could have a meeting on. Thank you very much.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your question and thank you for it being very short.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Sali Mensari, Sierra Leone. Two questions, first how can the Leadership Panel and all of us here get the IGF to the status that COP now has in the world, the climate change meetings? We need to get the IGF to that status because we come here from every country I do not see BBC orAl Jazeera covering some of the most important discussions we are having about data. So that's the first question. And I hope the panel will provide that answer.
Secondly, in terms of a peace dividend, I believe the Internet has delivered peace globally since its inception. And if we all agree on that notion, I believe that, former Ministers here I quantity the two though raise their hands and confirm that as is demanded that the two of you will nominate Vint for the next Nobel Peace prize. Can we have that now? Please. You deserve it. Please. I know we have another 30 years of you, but let's do it now.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Please, Nigel, please.
>> NIGEL HICKSON; Thank you very much. Nigel, U.K. Government, how to follow that? Just to endorse what the gentleman said. I will be brief, 90 seconds. First of all, thank you Madame Minister for inviting us to Ethiopia and sharing your beautiful country with us. We are really grateful to be here. So wonderful experience.
Second, thank you to the Leadership Panel. Thank you for the commitment that you are going to give to the IGF. Thank you for sparing your precious time with us today and in the future in collaborating with the IGF MAG and collaborating with us all in terms of furthering the IGF.
And the question I suppose is in the lead up to the WSIS plus 20 UNGA review discussions at the end of 2025 how can you indeed in taking up the gentleman's point, how can we elevate the IGF? How can you ensure that the multistakeholder coalitions that we build at the IGF and that we build in the national and regional initiatives are taken forward and recognized by the whole of the international community as being something of such importance to the future of the Internet.
Thank you very much.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Nigel. Just checking online. Okay.
>> AUDIENCE: I am Anil Kumar from India. First of all, I would like to thank Secretary‑General UN to make Leadership Panel a possibility. And congratulations to Vint and Maria to take the leadership. India is pursuing an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet. I hope that Leadership Panel should also welcome this and help countries like India to adopt this form of Internet.
I have three questions from the Leadership Panel. Number one is that to date discussion and debate is a possibility of converting this discussions into action? Second, is whether the leadership is also going to work in various Working Groups which are focused on various areas which are of importance for the whole, for Developing Countries and for the under Developed Countries, and also for the women and disabled and children.
The third question which I have is we have seen that ICANN and IGF, they are working together. And sometimes we find that they are overlapping. So I personally suggest Leadership Panel to ensure that they become complementary to each other so that the overall Internet is truly given to each and every citizen of this country. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. I would like to firstly thank the organisation and the Minister for organising this event. And second, I do have a question to the Leadership Panel. This week I have met students from all over the place, from national students, but also students from abroad, and a few of them were deaf, and they mentioned that reliable Internet is so extremely important.
I would like to ask the Leadership Panel to work together as a team to encourage a stable Internet that also for those people that do have limited access to Internet to, to support the whole community to be able to have a reliable, stable Internet with which it works all of the time. Thank you very much.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you. Online again, just checking? Okay. Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. I am Tulio from Brazil, and I would like to add some words of appreciation first of all to the Ethiopian Government for hosting the multistakeholder community here. It's amazing to see the strength of your people and also the authenticity and this is something that will mark me forever really.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Can you speak a bit louder?
>> AUDIENCE: In terms of the work of the Leadership Panel and the mission we have before us, something that we are very, very concerned back in Brazil is how the digital cooperation space is being fragmented, and one question I would like to ask is in relation to the notion how to recover the notion in this period of the regional WSIS back from Tunis and Geneva when we had a multistakeholder model that was very much enshrined within multilateralism? Since then we have a fallacious opposition between multilateralism and the multistakeholder model when actually we would need a model in which all actors should be empowering themselves. And multilateralism should be mutually supportive with the multistakeholder model.
My question would be how to hone in this message while preventing measures within the auspices of the United Nations. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Etren from university. Actually, I have one question, a quick question is that because of the Leadership Panel is consists of the ten leaders, so actually a lot of the stakeholders have expectation of transparency and accountability. So is that any mechanism to ensure as a stakeholder so we can have a chance to get a more frequent interaction with panel and to keep the transparent as well as accountable. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. My name is Aden Berlin I'm a democracy fellow. Just a quick logistical question about what is the best way to engage with the Leadership Panel, particularly intersessionally between now and the next IGF? Civil society, of course, is very happy and pleased to engage with you. What would be the best way to do that?
And finally, just thank you so much for your time and for being here today and for accepting comments from us. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. I also see Maria Garza has her hand up, please.
>> MARIA FERNANDA GARZA: Thank you very much. I just wanted to answer some of the questions from the audience, and I believe we should focus on how to make sure that all of the tremendous output that the IGF produces reaches the intended audience, and this is with mapping of the various outputs, the different target audiences, and tailoring the outputs and their presentations to the needs of identified audiences with panel members taking an active part in targeted outreach efforts in essence a joint advocacy and communicating campaign. I encourage the MAG and the panel to work together to define success for the IGF, what is meant by tangible outputs, and what problem the outputs are intended to address in the field of Internet Governance. This would help narrow down the intended outputs and help identify audience where the IGF can bring the unique voice of the global multistakeholder community. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Yes, please.
>> AUDIENCE: I am the CEO of the Latin American Internet association, original association from Latin America for private Internet companies. First of all, I would like to add my voice to those who appreciated, expressed appreciation to the Government of Ethiopia to receive us in this country, really all of the meeting has been extremely well organized and congratulations. I'm very happy to be here.
Congratulations to the Leadership Panel members for the designation and good luck in your efforts. I think that I share the concerns of the colleague that asked you about not a concern, just I would like to also to listen to your answers with regard to the best ways to interact with the Leadership Panel. Considering what Vint said at the beginning about the mission of the tasks of the panel, and one is to provide strategic advice on IGF, and it on IGF, but I think it means to IGF, but I think it's important that you also have relations with the regional communities in order to know, to note expectations of the community and also to increase the engagement of those communities.
So from my organisation, I am very happy and glad to offer alliance as a bridge to engage with the Latin American community. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Do we have any online? Okay. We can start answering the questions now. The first one.
>> VINT CERF: Well, the first question.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: It was about the dynamic coalitions and Leadership Panel.
>> VINT CERF: The first question is what happens if the IGF disappears? And I think the answer is a lot of bad things would happen because we wouldn't be drawing attention to the things that are important. I will tell you what I really value the most coming out of IGF. It's use cases that are concrete, that give context to both problems and solutions because I'm persuaded that not all of the problems we experience have the same solutions depending on the context in which the solutions are going to be executed.
So you can help us enormously with more concrete use cases that you are faced with solving because it will give our deliberations more concrete, a more concrete basis and when we talk to others about why it's important to solve those problems, the concreteness of context will give us credibility, so that's my first response on the first one.
I know there are a lot of other questions but I will stop there. How do you want to do this? Do you want to go question by question and see who wants to respond basically?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: That will be good because there are questions that people ‑‑
>> VINT CERF: May I suggest that not every panel member needs to respond to every question and I will commit to not responding to every question in spite of the fact that I'm inclined to do so.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: For the question I have down and if I miss any please let me know. The first question I have from Wout De Natris and he was asking about Dynamic Coalitions and the Leadership Panel.
>> LISE FUHR: I think that's a very relevant question, plus I would like to widen it a bit, because we have the regional and the national IGFs that we also should make matter, and I think we should look into how to incorporate those better into IGF as such, but also how to make them, I call it make them count outside the circle of IGF.
And we have many discussions on how to best make this count in other communities than the IGF community, and I don't have the answer yet, but I think this is one of the things we would look into because we find that there is a lot of important work ongoing in between the meetings and different parts of the world, and it should all come together in IGF, but it should also be spread back to the different parts of the world.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for that answer. If any of the panel members who are remote want to answer please also raise your hand when I read the question. The second question I have down here is how can we make the IGF to the status of COP, the climate change?
>> First of all, I think that's the best question we heard because that's what Antonio Guterres is expecting from us, we should make the IGF more visible (Karoline Edtstadler) and I think it's not always a thing we can discuss here. We need a bottom up process and as many of you mentioned and especially I think it was the second question coming from Nigeria if I noted it correctly, it depends, it is also important for the rural area to get the Internet there to have the process, to have the discussion, because what we need is, of course, infrastructure, what we need for that is money, and we need the commitment of the Governments.
And that's what we try to, and what is our task where we should really higher, bring is sensitivity higher. I can speak to a process that we had in the European Union that was a Conference on the future of Europe, when we are talking about that, we have to talk with the people. That's what we try to do.
So if we reached a goal to reach the same level as COP has, then I think we are the winners, we and all of the people, and I would like to reiterate. We have to connect the unconnected. And we have to make the Internet a more safer place, a place which is trustworthy, and that's our goal we would like to achieve.
I would like to respond on one more thing. I take with me that we look forward and we will have the idea our God father of the Internet for the Nobel Peace Prize. It started with the Internet and we would like to do well of the Internet to make it a bet are place for all of us, and now we have this Chairman in our group.
So with the support of all of you, we can make important steps forward.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Your Excellency.
>> VINT CERF: I said I wasn't going to do this, but when you mention COP 27, my brain lit up, and the reason I was so excited about this idea is in our discussions in the Leadership Panel it has been suggested that the problems we have in the Internet are like the climate problems we have for the real environment, except in our case it's information pollution that's causing a lot of problem, including a kind of warming in the virtual space called flame mail and things like that.
So I wonder whether we could frame the problems that the Internet has in that context to people understand that there may be Sustainable Development Goals for the Internet in its virtual space that are the analogues of the SDGs in the real world.
I take that away as a way of thinking about it, and it might allow us to grab some of the visibility of COP 27 and say, by the way, in addition to the COP 27 problems and solutions, the Internet is another place where we need to apply similar thinking.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Do we have anybody who wants to add onto that. Yes, please, Professor.
>> LAN XUE: think there are issues related to infrastructure issue, I think at this traditional view of infrastructure is so on. Development banks have not views Internet as important as water and electricity. In today's world, that should be the case. So I think indeed to raise the priority of Internet connection as a critical issue, I think, for national Government, but also for international community.
I think the second issue, I think, is how to address market failures. I think someone mentioned about how we need the stable connections and we need to use Internet to connect schools and so on, but why it's not happening. Partially I think because those areas tend to generate a lot of social benefits but not necessarily market profits. So I think those market failures we have to address. That's where I think governance can play a huge role.
I think we need to not only just try to generate as someone mentioned about the global connectivity fund, I think that's a great idea, but we need to try to find a way to create incentives for the company, for the business community to play a role. That's where I think we should try our best. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. I see we have President Toomas Hendrik Iives' hand is up.
>> TOOMAS HENDRIK IIVES: I wanted to touchen upon a few points. Number one on COP, we do have to recognize that every bitcoin transaction creates 729 kilograms of carbon in the air. And so I think we have to look deeply at those things because they are a result of the digital revolution, but at the same time, contribute not a little bit to the environment. 729 kilograms of each transaction.
Anyway, that isn't the main point. Look, my country was extremely poor, extremely poor in 1992 our GDP per capita was $2,800 a year. We are sort of up there in the high income countries according to the UN, and much of it is due to digitalization of, initially with public services and out of that grew the immense success, I mean, we have a unicorn for every 133,000 people, which is just amazing. Number one in the world.
Completely transformed our economy, and at least when it comes to the difficulties of teaching this stuff and connectivity, we are more than willing and happy to teach people. The best way to do it is to look up EGA.com, which is the E‑governance academy. It's an NGO which has been certified by the European Union to carry out various aid projects, especially, I mean, when it comes to digitalization of public services, and secondly next year I have had the pleasure of beginning a, or creating if not inventing a new program. It's called an MDA. It's like an MBA, but it's a masters of digital administration, and it will be offered by our national university.
It does have tuition because we have to pay various people to teach there, but as we understand this is something, again, which can Developing Countries can apply to EU and perhaps also national aid bodies to provide assistance. It's meant for senior civil servants and public officials to learn how really to digitalize, you need to do to digitalize public services.
>> Last but not least, I think that the inventor of the TCPTP protocol also known as Vint Cerf has probably contributed more to the world's well being than anyone I know, and really, I strongly urge and support the nomination of Vint Cerf for Nobel Peace prize. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. We will go to the next question, which is how can you elevate, I mean, they are all related, but how can you elevate the IGF? How can the Leadership Panel elevate the IGF? Do we have takers for that one?
>> VINT CERF: I never pass up an open mic. First of all, I think the best way we can elevate the IGF is to help to transform and transmit the things that it has discovered in the course of its discussions and deliberations into actionable policy recommendations in venues where actions can be taken. I think people will appreciate getting simply not just a description of a problem, but here is the problem and here might be ways of solving it in the venue in which you work.
So if we can work together to figure out how to formulate recommendations that are actionable, that are concrete, that this will not only elevate the IGF, but it will also make it more appreciated because it's out there solving problems, not just admiring them.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. That is actually our next question, and I will just one more if anybody wants to take that one, how do we, how can we possibly make the outcomes of the discussions into action, which is a very difficult question, I know, and this is something that we are discussing.
>> KAROLINE EDTSTADLER: As I mentioned it's time to make action out of the discussion and how can we do it, with engaging people, with having a discussion in the rural area and the people, and push on their Governments that they are doing something. That is the way how it could work. I'm sure that it has to be a bottom up process.
We can only do recommendations. We can do papers. We can discuss with you, we can engage with enterprises, but in the end it's the people's wish which has to be brought also to the Governments. We can support it and we will support it and we decided also to be present in conferences which will take place in the next months and years as a panel with our, with the wish of you and with our vision that we want to alleviate the visibility of the IGF, but in the end, it's the people. And it's also up to you to support us in this work.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. We can go to the next. And we are going to be running late. We started late and we are running a little bit late, but the Leadership Panel is really interested and willing to engage with the public, especially this is the first time that they can.
>> GBENGA SESAN: We have infrastructure for conversations into action and what we need to do is recognize and actually sort of support them. I know that beyond the global IGF, there are, you know, Regional IGFs, there are national IGFs, there are subregional IGFs, and one of the things we are seeing now within civil society is that people literally take some of the conversations that happen at the IGF and turn them into action.
I remember there was an example of some young people who ran global campaigns alled I think rural youth in the Information Society. I think it's important for us to identify and encourage such existing infrastructure for action.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.
>> VINT CERF: There is something really wonderful about what you just said. Things that work will work in certain contexts and so in addition to telling people, here is what we were able to do successfully, please also say why did it work. Under what conditions did it work? Otherwise, people may assume that if they do exactly what worked elsewhere, and it doesn't work, it's because it was in the wrong context. So help us with that.
What works and why does it work?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you. We have, I will combine the next two questions about the stable Internet for the deaf and also working in various Working Groups including for the deaf, for women, for disadvantaged peoples.
>> VINT CERF: So you all know I wear two hearing aids so I care a lot about this. Making the Internet accessible for everyone including people with various disabilities is super close to my heart, and it's not easy. It turns out that the people who design web pages don't necessarily have an intuition about what would make it accessible.
It's not enough to just put a blindfold on and say I wonder if I can use my website. If you haven't used a Screen Reader, you don't really know how to design a website that works for someone who is blind. If you haven't used captions and relied on them you don't know what it's like to use the Internet when you are deaf. So I think we need to teach the engineers how to understand making their websites accessible.
I'm committed to that at Google, and I know I have colleagues in other companies like Microsoft and Apple and others that really care about that. But it's going to take serious engineering to make that work.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Just because of time, I will just go to our next question which is slightly different, and the question was how do we keep the WSIS regional spirit because the questionnaire was saying that they are noticing that there is tension between multi‑stakeholderism and multilateralism? Anybody want to take that one?
>> GBENGA SESAN: I participated in the WSIS process, and for me that was sort of the first time I would see various stakeholders at a real round table. You say you have a round table but one side is higher than the other, but this is a real round table.
The point I made earlier about existing channels of translating things into action, we need to engage that. This is an outcome of the WSIS process, working on Internet Governance and the IGF, and this platforms exist already, and I think what it is is to also identify and engage them. Of course, the spirit of WSIS is what led to the IGF, and, yes, it also means we have to be ready to have difficult conversations, because I think one of the biggest threats to multi‑stakeholderism is I don't want to call it politeness because politeness is a good thing, but hypocrisy where you don't want to talk about elephants in the room because you don't want to put an elephant there, but it's important to have difficult conversations.
If there are areas where various stakeholders disagree or do not sort of see eye to eye on, I think it's important for us not to shy away from having those difficult conversations even if it means we can't reach resolution immediately, but it's important for us not to shy away from complex conversations that various stakeholders don't agree on. Very good example, civil society and Governments at some point in my work didn't agree on many things. It was, I mean, civil society, there were, you know, years ago I would get into a room with Government officials, but now we work together, we train each other and I think we can move in that direction if we are willing to maybe be vulnerable and have some of those difficult conversations.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. A willingness to engage and willingness to have difficult conversations when they do come up. I will end with one last question, and this is is there a mechanism to ensure transparency and accountability of the Leadership Panel?
>> LISE FUHR: We need to ensure, we need to be transparent as a Leadership Panel and we need to be accountable. We also need to look at how IGF as such is transparent and accountable. So it's in different layers. How we can be best transparent is by laying out our timetable, our plans and involve you as much as possible, align along the way, consult you, but also be very open on why we suggest what we suggest.
I think, of course, we need to work in between the sessions, but we also need to involve you in between the sessions. Transparency is important and it's a difficult one, but that's one of the things we have discussed as a panel that we would try to ensure, because without this, you will not trust whatever we come out with, so we will not be seen as accountable to you.
So, of course, it's on top of our minds.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Since we are a little bit over time and we did start a little bit late, but I will just open the floor to see if there are any last words that any member of the Leadership Panel would like to impart to the stakeholders.
>> VINT CERF: So this question about sort of the doom and gloom about the state of the Internet and all of the things that we see that we don't like, can I just remind you that the reason you are here is because we have been collectively successful in building this thing and if you look at what Toomas was able to do in Estonia it tells you it's possible to solve a lot of problems because we solved a bunch of them to get where we are already.
In spite of the challenges are significant, collectively we can build a better Internet. Let's roll up our sleeves and get busy.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for final words. If not, I would like to thank the panel for taking the time out to come and meet the participants and thank the participants as well for the questions.
I'm sorry if I missed one or two questions, but the panelists are going to be around, and we will ensure that we do have another session of this either if we could have it during the open consultations and MAG meeting that we are going to have early next year, we will try to be able to do that. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you.