Universal Acceptance – a technical or a cultural issue? – WS 15 2020
Consolidated programme 2020 overview / Day 2
Proposals: #30, #36, #57, #87, #174
Get involved!
You are invited to become a member of the session Org Team! By joining a Org Team you agree to that your name and affiliation will be published at the respective wiki page of the session for transparency reasons. Please subscribe to the mailing list to join the Org Team and answer the email that will be send to you requesting your confirmation of subscription.
Universal Acceptance (UA) is a fundamental requirement for a truly multilingual Internet. While there is a certain progress from the technical perspective, there is more need to explore how UA impacts on the users, how multilingualism works on the Internet, the difficulties for developing and deploying local content, the dichotomy between being more sensible to local culture and needing a universal communication means.
Session description
Universal Acceptance is a fundamental technical requirement for a truly multilingual and inclusive Internet*. It is also the key to unlocking the potential of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs - e.g. .рф, .срб, .հայ, مصر, etc.), Email Address Internationalization (EAI - email address in local scripts) and new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs - e.g. .berlin, .москва, etc.). The number of Internet users is about 4.5 billion and it is continuously expanding. It is multilingual and has never had so many choices for online identifiers*. While English remains the predominant language on the Internet and its infrastructure, those who don't speak English should still be able to fully use it. Internet users around the world should be free to use the online and cultural identity of their choice.
Nowadays, there is a certain progress in Universal Acceptance from the technical perspective. There are technical standards on IDNs, EAI support and a number of UA-ready software already in place. A community-based team of industry leaders, the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) supported by ICANN, has made notable progress over the past years and continues its work in raising awareness of UA across technical communities around the world. In addition to its website (www.uasg.tech) that acts as a central repository for UA-related materials, it has also developed and disseminated a comprehensive suite of educational resources about UA and what organizations need to do to become UA-ready. Besides, there are some good examples of IDN and EAI implementations supported by the local governments.
Acknowledging the certain technical progress, nevertheless, there is still need in working on further UA adoption in all software, online services and Internet systems on global and local levels. Multilingualism impacts on the internet: user interfaces, content, messaging, voice assistance, etc are produced in local languages. But what obstacles prevent worldwide UA adoption? Do they relate to the technical or business aspects of integrating a new Internet technology or raised by some national and cultural factors not to be disregarded as well? And what aspects of diversity on the Internet related to languages, scripts and writing systems can be a source of difficulties not only for end users but for the technical implementations? Who and how can enforce the processes globally and in certain regions?
All these questions will be covered during the session.
- Some texts are being used by the UASG website.
Format
Until 11 May 2020.
Please try out new interactive formats. EuroDIG is about dialogue not about statements, presentations and speeches. Workshops should not be organised as a small plenary.
Further reading
Links to relevant websites, declarations, books, documents. Please note we cannot offer web space, so only links to external resources are possible. Example for an external link: Website of EuroDIG
People
Until 27 April 2020.
Please provide name and institution for all people you list here.
Focal Point
- Lianna Galstyan
Organising Team (Org Team) List them here as they sign up.
- Roberto Gaetano
- Marina Shentsova
- Abdalmonem Galila
- Patrik Fältström
- Maria Kolesnikova
- Nikolis Smith
Key Participants
Key Participants are experts willing to provide their knowledge during a session – not necessarily on stage. Key Participants should contribute to the session planning process and keep statements short and punchy during the session. They will be selected and assigned by the Org Team, ensuring a stakeholder balanced dialogue also considering gender and geographical balance. Please provide short CV’s of the Key Participants involved in your session at the Wiki or link to another source.
Moderator
The moderator is the facilitator of the session at the event. Moderators are responsible for including the audience and encouraging a lively interaction among all session attendants. Please make sure the moderator takes a neutral role and can balance between all speakers. Please provide short CV of the moderator of your session at the Wiki or link to another source.
Remote Moderator
Trained remote moderators will be assigned on the spot by the EuroDIG secretariat to each session.
Reporter
Reporters will be assigned by the EuroDIG secretariat in cooperation with the Geneva Internet Platform. The Reporter takes notes during the session and formulates 3 (max. 5) bullet points at the end of each session that:
- are summarised on a slide and presented to the audience at the end of each session
- relate to the particular session and to European Internet governance policy
- are forward looking and propose goals and activities that can be initiated after EuroDIG (recommendations)
- are in (rough) consensus with the audience
Current discussion, conference calls, schedules and minutes
See the discussion tab on the upper left side of this page. Please use this page to publish:
- dates for virtual meetings or coordination calls
- short summary of calls or email exchange
Please be as open and transparent as possible in order to allow others to get involved and contact you. Use the wiki not only as the place to publish results but also to summarize the discussion process.
Messages
A short summary of the session will be provided by the Reporter.
Video record
Will be provided here after the event.
Transcript
Will be provided here after the event.Technical and operational issues 2020