Wrap-up, reporting-in, take aways and conclusions – 2012
15 June 2012 | 17:30
Programme overview 2012
Transcript
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>> OLA BERGSTROM: Please take your seats.
We will now go to the wrap up session. And I will introduce the moderators for this session. Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe and Thomas Schneider from OFCOM Switzerland.
Lee and Thomas, please, the floor is yours.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Hello?
>> LEE HIBBARD: The mics are working.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: It’s coming, Lee.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you very much. We are coming to the end. I hope you’ve had a good time. We will say thank yous very soon.
I just want to say that the EuroDIG is about – I know these are words which we use a lot, but the EuroDIG is an open and inclusive process. And so we spend a lot of time trying to make it that way. We spend a lot of time trying to get as many people involved as possible, to really share this process, because this, it’s for you. It’s your process. And this session is for you, too. We want to have your feedback. We want some of your views about the last two days. This is for you.
So, on that point, I just want to say that we have had a lot – personally speaking, just to start things off, I think it’s been a very, very good quality event. It’s extremely useful for me personally from the Council of Europe. I hope it’s been the same for you.
And on that basis, I’d like to start by saying welcome, and hand it over to my co-moderator, Thomas.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Hello, my name is Thomas Schneider from OFCOM, Switzerland. Those who don’t know me – and I don’t want to spend a lot of time. I think we should go directly to getting your feedback, those who are still here. The other ones will probably send emails with their feedback.
So we have – we hope – we don’t have too much time, so we have like the one minute thing and hope that you will be brief. And whatever you say, say it on your personal capacity. We don’t want you to try to have to represent your organisations. We want to know what you as a person learned at EuroDIG and what you liked and what you didn’t like. So don’t consult first but just say what you think.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We have had the Queen, the Secretary-General, the Commissioner, we have had presidents, and I’d like to start with the Vice President of The European Union, Mr. Alexander Alvaro.
>> AUDIENCE: The Parliament.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Sorry. The Parliament. Would you like to say a few personal remarks? This is your first time at EuroDIG and I’d like to know how you feel personally.
>> ALEXANDER ALVARO: It’s the first time at a EuroDIG, and I’ve seen a lot, which I would love to see in a political process also be implemented. The way the discussions worked, the inclusive factor. It’s challenging because you have discussions on the panel and you know that there is a discussion going on Twitter. So you have to have your hands free and eyes at both places, and you come outside and then the personal talks start. It’s on so many levels. So it probably will take a day just to facilitate all the input which came in.
But what I love, and it was my first EuroDIG as you said, to see basically an audience and participation, which is starting probably from the age of 15 and I just assume going up to the age of 65 to 70. I hope I didn’t sort of insult anybody now.
But this huge age span, which brought everything in, the topic, it was very crisp. Because I’ve randomly seen a conference where topics were discussed, which are in politics at the moment, at the same time. And I’m very eager to look at the output.
On the other hand, I must admit I would have liked to see something out of your own bubble. I had this discussion, and also it was Euralon, and where it’s difficult to get law enforcement, artists, rights holders to figure out the pros and cons, and maybe engage both because we see that at a level where I work. There is always one side talking and then the other has another event and it’s really difficult to bring them together and come to a common conclusion.
And I believe I was above the minute. I was waiting for the harp. I got used to the bing. And then apparently it’s not happening.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Where is the person to push the button?
>> ALEXANDER ALVARO: A minute can be long. Time is relative, as we learned from Commissioner Kroes.
On a personal note, sometimes it should be explained that ten minutes are ten minutes. That is also a thing.
But, generally, it was the first time. I hope I didn’t piss anybody off so I’m invited again, and it was very valuable for our political process.
Sorry for being super rude that I have to jump and go, but if I won’t I’ll miss my plane and I would have to stay in the wonderful City of Stockholm. It’s not a problem, but I have to go.
>> LEE HIBBARD: I heard other people talking about the need to make sure that the right stakeholders are in the room for the discussions that concern them. We have to get the right people talking to the right other people. We have to make sure that we connect them. And we need to connect the questions to the answers. Sometimes it misses and we have to do more work that way.
Can we jump to business? I’d like to invite Patrik, Patrik Hiselius, from – thank you very much – to give a business perspective, but your personal views.
>> PATRIK HISELIUS: My personal reflection. First note that the strength of a multistakeholder approach, in general, not only in this room and at this conference, so the multistakeholder approach as an example, it helps pushing the actor into the dust bin.
As to the discussions here, I agree with the conclusions that any self regulatory or legislative measure needs to be proportionate and transparent.
I wanted, and here I agree with Mr. Alexander Alvaro, a more balanced instead of biased panels. Such as, for example, unfortunately, the ones on copyright and also the one on Net Neutrality.
I support preconferences, such as the ones that we had CITA arranging on Human Rights and the regulator involving youth.
And, finally, definitely I support the multistakeholder dialogue as the preferred way forward.
(Harp)
Thanks.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you.
We have – I’m seeing a hand up there, by Sebastian.
>> SEBASTIAN BACHOLLET: Yes. To say that we are doing the conclusion at the reverse of what we need to do. We need to take care of the end-user before to take care of the Queen. I loved to have the Queen here, it was great. I loved to have President, Vice President, Board Member, everybody here in this room, but we need to have a bottom up process. And let’s start by the bottom. Let’s start with the young people who were here. We need to say that they are the best people here in this room. They must be thanked and thanked and thanked. That is the future of our world, and not just of the Internet. And thank you, young people. You were the ones who were here and got this meeting so good.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: If we get a glass of French wine to bring, I’ll explain your bottom up process. It takes about five hours, but I agree of course.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We spent a lot of time with the youth and tried to include them, and we have been involved in pre-events with the youth. We have done great efforts with the little resources to make sure that is the case. So we are trying. And of course it’s a shared process.
Thomas?
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Who else? Leo – the other way around.
>> Leonid.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Just wait. They put it up.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you so much. Well, first of all, pro. The pre-event, national IGFs, the discussion on whatever input we can make into the global one, and the EuroDIG in particular.
Second, the speakers. And Bertrand Chapelle, this is pro or con, whatever. Focus on western Europe. This is good. And the Nordic Europe of course. But one part of EuroDIG is neglected, and that is the one in which, sorry to say, let’s say from Poland, from the Polish border and then goes to Siberia Tigra, the other Europe is underrepresented particularly because of lack of exposure and no command of foreign languages in that area. But this part of the region should be included more, and it may offer a far more ambitious agenda.
So I think that it’s time to expand for EuroDIG.
(Harp)
A little bit. That’s it.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Okay. Talking about youth, we have the Youth Forum up there. The New Media Summer School.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: I think this is very important what Leonid said. Last year we had the chance to have it in Belgrade. This year it was in Scandinavia. It’s a different distribution. It’s good that it rotates, but we should guarantee a minimum level of representation in all EuroDIG meetings, which is a problem of funding. If we get people who support travel, we will have a bank account soon at EuroDIG. So I will communicate it to you.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Martin from the European Youth Forum. Was this fluffy dialogue or was this something else this year?
>> MARTIN: I’ve only been to the last year so maybe I got used to it. But I was a contact person for the Youth Forum and for the European Secretariat, so on a personal note not only from the people from the New Media Summer School, I wanted to express my appreciation for the support and involvement of young people in this multistakeholder dialogue. And especially all the efforts that you made to include young people in the whole process, in the programming, and also to allow us to use Twitter as one of the modern communication tools to make this dialogue more active and more lived for all of us.
We also tried to take our part and to make things more accessible for people outside of this room. We uploaded a lot of videos already on the YouTube channel soon to be seen also on the website of the EuroDIG itself. And feel free to comment on these and keep the dialogue alive
On a more critical note, I think inclusion should not stop here. It needs to start tomorrow and in preparation of the next IGF and EuroDIG in Lisbon, to improve the involvement. Participation cannot be a one-time event like this EuroDIG. Like going to the vote, casting your vote for four years and then wait until you can do it again.
It needs to be continuous. It needs to be going. And, again, young people need to be involved in all of the steps to ensure young people would be very helpful if young people could be part of the delegations of Governments, of companies, of civil society, of these partners, in the multistakeholders, and they would support our side event directly next time. We are always open for more support.
And another debate that I wanted to touch upon that was mostly held on Twitter and not so much in the rooms is the one about child protection. That was a topic at the conference, but especially the relationship to censorship. And the youth expressed a very particular opinion there and young people demand access and autonomy and they reject limitations there and any regulation of young people’s behavior on the Internet.
And it needs to be footed on mutual respect.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: You’re the proof that time is slower when you’re young and it gets quicker and quicker when you are old. That was a very interesting but long minute.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Inclusion, we need to talk about the inclusion of Governments, also, in the multistakeholder process. Okay.
Well, I’ll go to Bertrand. After that, we would like if we have a Government intervention, a personal intervention. I see some Governments in the room. I would like you to give us your takeaways when you go back and you do your policy. So Bertrand first.
>> BERTRAND CHAPELLE: Big Kudos for the youth involvement and for the interactive format of most of the sessions. It was one of the best formats I’ve seen.
Kudos for the dinner format and for the music by the way.
(Applause)
I want to address this notion of bias. It is true that the panels on privacy and on copyright did feel unbalanced and biased. But two things. One, it was extremely refreshing for once to have the unbalance in this direction. Because, excuse me, I’ve been participating in so many official meetings where the imbalance was completely in the other direction.
The second point, and I think it’s more in line with what the people are thinking, and actually what the feeling was, is the expression more what the people were thinking. It’s not because the people were not aware or not invited, it’s because they didn’t want to come. And the fact that people are concerned, and actors, and don’t want to come, should be named and shamed.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you very much, Bertrand. Do we have any Governments in the room? Anders? Okay. The Dutch Government. May you say some words.
>> AUDIENCE: Security and justice in the Netherlands. Maybe not a Government point of view but a public administration point of view. I saw two systems, I saw the national synthesis with the regulation, laws, with the Parliaments, the people voted. We may not always trust them, but we vote for them and they have the power to make decisions. That is one system.
The system of EuroDIG that doesn’t have the empowerment to make decisions, but have the right stakeholders and the right discussions and a very inspiring environment.
And to conclude, this is a fascinating combination.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Anders Johanson has been the key host organizer for this EuroDIG. I would like to thank you very much, first of all.
(Applause)
But before we get there.
>> ANDERS JOHANSON: Thank you.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Some personal remarks and about the content of the sessions, please.
>> ANDERS JOHANSON: I note that the interest has increased significantly in the European Dialogue on Internet Governance in these times. And this is sure when I think, for instance, this week, many people were participating here, but also remotely. I must admit that it was easier than I thought when we started a year ago to get people engaged in this, including people in very high positions in our society. That was very, very surprising to me.
And I consider we have reached a milestone now in recognizing a pan-European platform for Internet Governance’s use. And this is very promising for the next few years, when I think the complexity of the interferences between the Internet and the societies are increasing.
(Harp)
Thank you.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Anders.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Thank you, Anders.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We have a young lady here, Kasia, do you want to take the floor?
>> Hi. If you invite personal comments, I always enjoy very much being in places like this for personal reasons, for interaction. But I do think we should work more on making workshops more – even more interactive than we have them now. Maybe it would be with an idea to divide them into smaller groups and remove the divide for the stage and the rest and work more like the working groups simply. I do a lot of these kinds of events myself in Poland and I do see immense difference which happens when you sit at a table and not with that kind of divide. I would love to see more evidence-based discussions. We have so many reports, so much data out there, if we announce a session with the possibility of uploading reports and more knowledge that we can do in advance, we can collect the existing knowledge and maybe – well, save some time on repeating stuff that we all know.
Because it’s an expert based meeting, we don’t learn more, we more exchange what we know.
(Harp)
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Very good suggestions. With regard to interactivity, it’s true that this year we didn’t have – last year and other years, we had formats where there were no panels. There were just moderators running around the room. This year – We will try to go more in that direction next year.
With regard to uploading documents on every sub page for EuroDIG sessions, there is the possibility. Maybe we didn’t communicate it well in advance or it was lost. But the thing is there and it would be good to prepare the sessions with substance that you can start from something and come in.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We have Gata Tukzan from Armenia and then Veronica.
>> AUDIENCE: It was very important for me to compare what I heard here, the Nordic approach, the western European approach, with what is happening in our region in Cocuses with Internet Governance issues, and how it is being – Internet is being used, social media is being used for new forms of social activity. The social landscape is completely different in our region. We are living on the edge of Europe, bordering Iran, Turkey, and having all sorts of tensions. And the one common thing which I felt was a search for a political creativity. This is happening all over Europe, in our region and this region, and this equals us. Because maybe exitential situations in our region makes us more, more so to say more nervous, waiting for decisions for these issues. Because for us given the IGF being held in Baku, we see that for Armenia there are all sorts of problems of info wire that exists in our region. And I hope that those issues will be discussed in Baku and we will be seeing other sorts of problems arising in that region.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: That’s going to be an interesting IGF. I think we all agree on this one.
>> LEE HIBBARD: I have words from Chengetai Massango, the Secretariat of the IGF soon. But first we have Veronica.
>> VERONICA: Thank you, Lee, very much. Thank you for the great event. Thanks a lot to Ola and to Sandra for all the efforts that they put in place, and to everyone who contributed to the event.
For me, personally, it was great to have had the opportunity to share the experience of Moldova in terms of open Government related initiatives, and to learn that there is a great interest from the countries in the region to learn more about the efforts that the Moldovian Government is putting in place. Today the Governments have to think about changing the way they do business and the way they involve citizens in decision-making processes and the way they use technology to do that.
In the future, in addition to the discussions and reflections and talks about IG related issues, I would like to see some practical solutions. I would like the workshops to be looking at identifying the solution, alternatives, and possible ways to solve the issues.
(Harp)
When I’m back to Moldova, I’m determined to finalize the Moldova platform and I want to make sure this happens. And I’d like to take advantage of the Government of Moldova support that it shows in these initiatives. Because we started to have a bit more trust in our Government, and in the end of the day it’s our Government. So we should support the Government to achieve its agenda, because it’s really important.
So thank you all very much for the great event.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Veronica. I see two hands. But before we get there, I want to say that this time we had a lot of national IGF representatives here, over ten I think from ten different countries, more, and we had a very good pre-event with the European Commission. That was very, very useful. And I think for the next year we will have a greater engagement with the national initiative, and like you were saying, Veronica. Thank you.
We will go to the last set of wrap up comments. Your name, please, sir. Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. I’m Johan Martinlurv. I could cover a veterans comment, because I have a pre-war vintage. I’m well above the limit expected by Mr. Lara to be the upper edge of the age limit here.
I had the privilege since being dragged into the OECD discussions on this topic 35 years ago to follow conferences on this area of topics very intimately. And I must say to the workers of this conference that I’m extremely impressed that now this conference is in the Internet world.
Having the Tsunami of text coming into our eyes left and right in realtime, this is an enormous challenge to the participant here, but I’m must stimulated by this and I must congratulate the organizers for making this work. I’m extremely impressed.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you. We have to thank the Swedish host for making that all a reality.
We have two more speakers, Olivia, do you have a microphone? No? Okay. And then Lee Dodd and then we wrap up after that.
>> Olivia, chair of ISOC England. I’ll just speak on my own behalf yet again. I thoroughly enjoyed the debates and discussions we had here. It’s my third EuroDIG, so I’ve seen it all grow into the beautiful event that it is today.
There is one thing, though, that I have found that was missing, and that’s really responding to the concerns of a lot of people outside of this room, and that concern is whether next year we will be able to keep the lights on and actually have the power for our laptops to begin being able to access the Internet.
Europe is facing a really, really horrible crisis at the moment, both political and economic. And although there was one session that dealt specifically with this, I do hope that we will be able to focus a lot more on innovation next year and on how the 15 percent, or is it 18 percent, of GDP in the UK is now the net economy. Perhaps we could expand on that and try and see how the net economy could take us out of the problems we’re currently faced with.
Thank you.
(Harp)
>> LEE HIBBARD: Denis.
>> DENIS: Lee, thank you for giving me a chance to make a slight comment. I had the lucky opportunity to moderate two cybersecurity sessions during the last year in Belgrade and now, and I really have to notice that the EuroDIG is a matter of evolution. And I’m seeing it constantly evolving, not only in biology, but in the mindset. We evolved from one event who was actually more general and we are focusing on more narrow and concrete problems during the whole timeline of events.
And I really do wait for another EuroDIG to see practical solutions regarding cybersecurity, best practices, and to see someone who has applied to them and gave concrete results.
So evolution is the – one of the laws of the nature. So thank you very much.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you. Could we have a microphone at the back. We have Ludo who is going to speak.
>> LUDO KAIZER: Thank you. It’s my second EuroDIG. I was very happy to be here.
I just wanted to address. I think compared to last year, you know, it was a lot less fluffy. I do think you need to work on a new word for new EuroDIG, so think of that for the next year.
But one thing I would like to address. I think it’s a serious dialogue that is going on here, and I surely appreciate that youth has a voice. I surely appreciate that me as an independent person can be here and can have my say. I just would like to address that in my opinion serious dialogue and creativity is not something that should be apart. It shouldn’t be different worlds. And actually I think it’s more open and more transparent. We are putting more things out to the rest of the world. But besides serious conversation, we need to inspire people as well. And that comes with creativity.
Next year I would love to see more creativity in the content dialogue.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Many of these proposals also depend or mainly depend on the good will of those who work behind the scene, but also of the funding. So there are lots of ideas that many people have but we are always open for new ideas. In the end, the constraint is the money that we have or don’t have to do things. This is just a remark that I cannot stop repeating.
Chengetai is up here. There is one more, Vlada and then we move to Chengetai.
>> VLADA: I wanted to be after all the others that we were talking about. As one of the organizers of the previous year, I have to thank the Swedish host this time. I won’t dare to say that they were better than us, but they were at least as good. So thank you. It was really a pleasure being here, and I think it was an absolutely successful EuroDIG.
(Applause)
>> LEE HIBBARD: I’d like to thank the chief clapper, because when people clap at the back of the room, everyone else claps. It works. So for the next EuroDIG we need chief clappers to get the audience going.
This is the IGF Secretariat. He is organizing things in Baku. If you want to find anything out, this is the man. You can’t miss him. Tell us about IGF 2012.
>> CHENGETAI MASSANGO: Thank you. Thank you very much, Lee and Thomas, for the floor.
I’d just like to say that I really enjoyed the last two days. It’s been fascinating and EuroDIG is a shining example of what an IGF regional initiative should be.
Right now –
>> LEE HIBBARD: No PowerPoints.
>> CHENGETAI MASSANGO: Yes, exactly. I suppose I’ll take the UN – there’s lots of dates. It’s just so that you can remember the dates. It’s easier to see them and keep them in your mind.
For the four, just a brief history, just to give a brief history, the IGF comes out of the World Summit Information Society. Its mandate is in the Tunis agenda in paragraph 72. And, basically, the mandate is to discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet Governance in order to foster the sustainability, robustment, security, stability and development of the Internet. I’m sure you all know that.
And the working group of Internet Governance, some of the members are here as well, came up with this definition of Internet Governance. I’ve heard it quoted here today, but I’ll just go over it again.
Internet Governance is the development and application by Governments, the private sector and civil society in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.
So there is reference there to the multistakeholder model. And there is also reference here to the shared development of norms, rules and decision-making procedures. I think that is...
Okay. So we have seen a wide, a big growth in regional and national IGF initiatives. I think we cover most of the globe now. The newest one so far has been the Arab IGF. We just got started in January of this year. And we have got AP, I won’t read them out, you can read them. Those are the national IGFs. And some of them do, like the Commonwealth IGF, also includes the UK IGF or the Kenyan IGF. So they do overlap at times. But they do all have their unique flavor and talk about their unique priorities of each region.
Just to give you an update of what has happened in the IGF and the preparations for Baku, we had our first consultations on February 14 and 16 of February. We had open consultations and a MAG meeting. And we came up with the theme for IGF 2012. Internet governance for sustainable union, and economic and social development. The MAG decided to keep the six teams that we have had for the last year, for Kenya. It’s an Internet Governance for development, emerging issues, managing critical Internet resources, security, openness and privacy, access and diversity, taking stock and the way forward.
And in April 2012, we had the renewal of the MAG. The MAG is a total of 56 members, so we had a renewal of more than two-thirds, 33 among them were – have been appointed. And with a lot of new members, especially from the eastern Europe and traditional economy, members from all stakeholder groups and other regions representing Governments, private sector, civil society and technical, and we have intergovernmental organisations which are not named on the MAG but they do participate as equals on the MAG.
15 to 17 of May we had our second open consultation and also MAG meeting, which was within the WSIS forum framework at the ILO headquarters, and MAG members were divided into working groups, one for each of the main sessions, and they decided the questions for each main theme and also the moderators work. And also the workshops, the feeder workshops for each main session.
For the workshops, 128 workshop proposals, which makes it the largest number of workshop proposals that we have received. And the MAG went through all of these workshops and made comments to them. There were a couple of them that were rejected, but very few, less than ten.
And the Secretariat has communicated with all workshop proponents. If any of you are workshop proponents and haven’t heard from the Secretariat, now is a good time to see me. The first deadline is June 30. And that is for the improvements to be done to the workshop proposals as requested by the MAG. And the second deadline and important is the 31st of July for workshop proponents for confirmation of speakers, development of an agenda and the panelists, to upload the biographies. We do intend to develop a pamphlet with the biography, which may act as a resource for people.
As you know, the IGF is 6 to 9 November in Baku, Azerbaijan. There is a high level meeting which is organised by the host country 5 November. There is a pre-event on the 5th of November as well. All organizations interested in holding pre-events contact the IGF Secretariat on that e-mail address. If there is available space we will book you the rooms.
There is also, with the IGF as we say, the IGF is not just about workshops. It’s about people meeting each other. The various ages. So people or organisations who want to hold bilateral meetings can send an e-mail to the IGF Secretariat and we will be able to book rooms for you at certain times.
The deadline for open forums is June 30. And open forums are for International organisations which have Internet Governance related activities, and it’s just to give them a space to share what they have done throughout the year with people.
The Dynamic Coalition, the deadline has already passed, but you can see on the – on our website which dynamic Coalitions have got rooms, and you might be interested in joining a Dynamic Coalition.
There is also the deadline for village booths, which is the 30th of July. And village booths are for organisations who want to showcase what they have done in the Internet Governance field. And it has to be of a noncommercial nature. So you just contact the IGF Secretariat by the 30th of July.
Ways to participate in the IGF. You can register as a resource person, because the workshops are also looking for panelists and they may pick you and you can be on a panel in the workshops.
You can submit position papers. I’ll skip that one, I’ll go to that one last. You can participate also remotely at IGF 2012. You have remote hubs here at EuroDIG, and we also encourage the formation of remote hubs for the Baku event. Bernard, I’m sure you know him. He is organizing it. Send him an e-mail and we will get back to you.
We are redesigning our website. So if you have any comments on improvements, what you would like to see on our website, please go on the website. We have a discussion board there. Please just put in your suggestions.
And as usual, for more information, go to our website or send us an e-mail. If you have any quick questions, I’ll answer them, because this was very quick. I was told I have five minutes and I think I’ve done that.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you. I would like now to invite Goran Marby to the floor to wrap up and to close. But before he arrives, Thomas and I had a few thank yous. This is a joint, shared effort.
Wolf Ludwig, I want to thank you. And Sandra, where is Sandra? These two people have been the drivers behind EuroDIG. I’d like to thank you both. Please come on stage.
(Applause)
And I’d – there are plenty of people to thank. Mr. Goran Marby, it’s been a brilliantly organised EuroDIG 2012. Thanks to your team. I want to thank Lise and Anders. So thank you both.
(Applause)
They were drivers from the host site.
One last thing. Technically speaking, the Twitter, the WiFi, it was really, really, really good. The WebEx, the platform for the remote was apparently really smooth. I had really good comments. It’s not always the case. It’s really a pleasure, so thank you for that.
>> THOMAS SCHNEIDER: A few more thanks. This is a platform offered by hard working people, but it wouldn’t exist without people filling the content. So all the panelists, members of the organizing team, those who contributed to the decision, a big thanks to you. Everybody remote participation, moderators, Rapporteurs, they will have to work to get the messages together, which is another work that we have to do. Thanks to everybody. And I hope we didn’t forget anybody.
>> LEE HIBBARD: The captioners and also Bernard, thank you.
The floor is yours.
>> GORAN MARBY: Thank you. You stole my speech.
Thank you very much.
Yes. Whatever.
I have a speech here about thanking everybody, but everybody is thanked. I would like to thank everybody because then I can get personal.
About a bit more than a year ago, Anders came and said: Do you want to do EuroDIG. He said it’s fun and very informal. Thank you very much. It’s not a really big thing because it’s really inclusive. I said great idea. I didn’t. They persuaded me to do this. Yes, I am a man in a gray suit. They didn’t tell me how fun it was. I saw on Twitter that people are afraid of people like me. But in my role as the regulator, I don’t always have the opportunity to step out of my role and have a really good conversation and dialogue. And over the last two days, I had that opportunity. And I would like to say thank you. If you had half the fun I had over the last two days, you had a really, really good time.
The discussions about who rules Internet and how to govern the Internet, I’ve been around for so many years, yes, I’m a bit older than most of you, and I think this discussion is more vital now than ever.
And I heard some comments about the people that were on this stage for the last two days. And I think it’s finally, maybe, this discussion has raised a point for people who are really the decision makers and policymakers are now coming into the discussion. And people have been flying into this event in Stockholm and the north of Europe to be part of this event because they think you are important. When we asked people like Neelie Kroes to come here. And with her busy schedule, it wasn’t for me. It was for you. She thought that you were very, very important. And you are. You are important to help us, the regulators, policymakers, the Government to make sure that the thing we call Internet, whatever definition we have, we will continue to have this fast evolving track. So thank you everybody involved.
Make sure that the discussions continue. And thank you for coming. And thank you for staying for so long on a Friday. Thank you so much.
(Applause)
I had one more task, which is I need help. Otherwise, I’ll fall off the stage. Now I’ll give the flag. My understanding is this is very important. It’s a beautiful flag, have you seen it?
(Applause)
I’ll give that to you. You’re not allowed to wrap it up, you have to fly it all the way back to Portugal.
(Applause)
>> LEE HIBBARD: Why are you giving it to her?
>> GORAN MARBY: From now on, you’re responsible.
>> LEE HIBBARD: We need to make it clear that, Ana, your microphone. Why are you taking the flag.
>> ANA: I don’t want to say anything, I just want to – well, I hope and I’m looking forward to seeing you all in Lisbon next year.
I’m maybe one of the oldest persons attending EuroDIG. I was in EuroDIG in 2008. Very funny that we are coming to do it in Lisbon six years after. I was not expecting that. So it was a big surprise for me as well. But I do hope that we will have more people from Government, more people from civil society, more people from business, and more people from the technical community, and more people from other countries.
So what we really want more than content is to have all these dialogues between all these stakeholders. So see you in Lisbon. Thank you.
(Applause)
>> OLA BERGSTROM: Thank you for being here and I hope to see all of you in Baku or in Portugal. Thank you very much.
(Applause)