Wrap up of EuroDIG 2016 and outlook to the IGF in Mexico
10 June 2016 | 18:00
Programme overview 2016
Video record
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Transcript
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>> Before you go and catch your train, we would really wholeheartedly like to thank you for great moderation.
>> Everyone has enjoyed a wonderful two days of very dynamic and interesting discussions.
>> We’ve had a wonderful milestone also in a very important part of Internet Governance, and that is, of course, the adoption by the NTIA of their report on the assessment of the proposals on the IANA transition and ICANN accountability, which they have agreed meet all their own right requirements and their criteria. They meet also all the internal control requirement that the Government agencies of the United States had required and also an external consultants assessment of adequacy of governance, new governance models so that’s already a very important mail stone. It doesn’t mean it’s over. There’s still washing to do. I recalled at the very beginning of the EuroDIG the Council conclusions from last year on the importance of keeping up the process and making sure there was no unnecessary and unjustified delay in the process so we’re hoping within both in the United States but everywhere else too that this process will continue and we’ll see a successful transition.
But I think another very important aspect as I said at the beginning is the very rich discussion that we’ve all had. I’m sure the Rapporteurs of each of the sessions will have a lot to identify and put forward in our report that will go to the IGF meeting in December this year. I’m looking forward to a very robust contribution from the EuroDIG, from the European IGF and I think this will show very much how important this issue is in Europe and when I say Europe, of course, I mean all of Europe, all the participants from everywhere here. So I want to thank you all for really participating very actively and bringing all these issues to the fore. We’ve just talked about fragmentation, jurisdiction. We’ve had discussions on human rights, on Internet of Things, free flow of data, innovation, the digital single market of course which is something really at the heart of what we’re doing here in Europe.
And I want to mention in that context too, it was mentioned already once or if not more than once, the media pluralism and democracy colloquium that’s taking place in November and the online public consultation that’s open until the 14th of July so you can all contribute to that and participate.
And I look forward very much to seeing all of your in Estonia next year. As many of you know it’s the 10th anniversary of EuroDIG next year. Estonia will also be having in the future the presidency of the Council of well, it will be having the presidency of the Council of Europe, and also the presidency of the Council in Europe, European Council.
But I think last, and this is not at all meant to be last, but we should have been doing this every time we opened our mouths, I would like particularly to thank EURid, and to thank Giovanni Seppia, who devoted heart and soul, and we want to see that costume, so we want to congratulate you. Thank you very much Giovanni. There will be more muffins next year. Thanks to all of you and good continuation to next year, and to Sandra and the EuroDIG Secretariat.
[ Applause ]
>> Our last programme act today will be a short presentation from the IGF Secretariat. We’re happy to have Chengetai Massago and also you have to help me with your name. We have one of the future hosts of the global IGF and they will just provide us with a very short outlook to the global IGF, Chengetai, the floor is yours.
>> CHENGETAI MASSAGO: Thank you very much, Sandra. I just have a 40 minute presentation. It will be very quick. No. Thank you very much to the EuroDIG Organising Committee. I’d like to thank Sandra and Wolf, working very hard for the EuroDIG and also all the Supporting Organisations and the whole team. It’s very, very difficult to put something like this together, and it’s always a pleasure to come here to the EuroDIGs. This is the 10th EuroDIG. I haven’t been to all 10 but I try and make it all the time.
And there’s always something new. It’s always very innovative and I do take quite a few things back to the global IGF and try and encourage people to try things there that I’ve seen here so that’s very good. It works both ways. We are learning from the Regional IGFs, as well.
Now, last year in December, the as part of the outcome of the WSIS+10 review, the United Nations General Assembly acknowledged the role of the IGF as a multistakeholder platform for discussion of Internet Governance issues, and decided to extend its mandate for another 10 years.
So for us, we are trying to refresh our ideas, and looking forward to the next 10 years on what we’re going to do and how we’re going to accomplish it, and of course we do need the help of the National and Regional initiatives.
Now, for this, the UNDESA, the umbrella organisation of the IGF, the institutional home of the IGF, is holding a retreat on July 14 to 16 in New York, and I think the deadline for nominations was on Tuesday, but there’s still a way that everybody can contribute on ideas on how we can formulate the next 10 years and how we can improve the IGF.
And there’s a call for rewritten inputs and the deadline for inputs is 1st of July so I do encourage you all, with ideas, just to submit something and we do have the agenda up there or the proposed agenda items up there, and you can just select one agenda item or as many as you like, and submit ideas.
Now, also for the next 10 years, I mean, for this year in particular, we’ve been trying to find out ways on how we can increase collaboration and participation between the National and Regional IGFs. Last year, we did have our intersessional work, where we asked the Regional and National IGFs to contribute to connecting the next billion work flow, which we did last year, and I think that was very successful.
This year, we have connecting the next billion, phase 2, and we also hope that the National and Regional IGFs will contribute to that. But we are also looking for ideas coming up from the National and Regional IGFs to go into the Global Forum.
We’ve just closed our workshop submissions. We have had about 260 workshops coming in, and this is one of the ideas that we borrowed from the EuroDIG is that our main theme for this year, we just got one main theme which is enabling inclusive and sustainable growth but subthemes will come up from the workshops that are submitted. We’re going to sort them out, group them into subthemes and those will be our subthemes. They’ll be emerging from their workshop contributions and I think you tried this what 4 years ago? We’re just catching up to that.
On our website we do have a list of all our intersessional activities, connecting the next billion. We’ve got IPv6 and IXPs. We’ve got a best practice forums on security, and gender and access and I encourage you all to go to our website, join those groups and activities. There’s a mailing list and we’re also going to have virtual meetings every two weeks on those ideas and hopefully they’ll feed into the IGF 2016.
One other thing that I would like to mention as well is that the SDGs, we also are focusing on the SDGs. There are many SDGs that are relevant to Internet Governance and how we can foster those SDGs and strengthen the world and make the world a better place for that.
I think that’s all. Yes, open forums. Those people from international organisations and also just organisations that have Internet Governance issues would like to have a place in the IGF to tell our participants what they are doing, as far as what the IG activities are. The deadline for that is 20th of June, so I encourage you to apply for that.
And there’s also the booths, if you want a booth. I think EuroDIG is having a booth, as well? Yes, and anybody else who wants a booth, the deadline for that is the 31st of July.
So I’ll get off stage now and give the floor to Alejandro, who is going to tell us about Mexico.
[ Applause ]
>> ALEJANDRO MARTINEZ PERALTA: Well, thank you very much. It seems that I’m the last one. So I think it would be better for you to watch a video. Please.
>> Something big is happening in Mexico. Mexicans have made a bold decision to transform all of the country’s main structures. In 2013, 11 key reforms which allow us to achieve our maximum potential were enacted around are now being implemented. The telecommunications reform will insert Mexico into the information society and allowing us to build an ecosystem in which the cyberspace, the Internet and ICTs become true enablers of our develop goals, for Mexico, cyberspace means limitless potential for growth, innovation, education, health, and citizen participation among other goals. To achieve these goals we aim to use the Internet and tools to drive the nations and peoples development. A tool in which freedom of expression, privacy and Data Protection are fully guaranteed. At the same time that we protect crucial information for Governments, citizens, and organisations.
Mexico celebrates that the Internet Governance Forum is focusing in the principles in which the Internet has been founded. A global network that is free, neutral, open, and decentralized. Principles previously convened in the Geneva and Tunis World Summit on the information society agendas. Over the last go years Mexico led key digital trails that are relevant worldwide. The open Government, the digital agenda for the Latin America and Caribbean region. The international open data Charter as enabler of the 2030 Sustainable Development agenda and we’ll host the OECD Ministerial on the digital economy in 2016. As a result of the transformation that Mexico is witnessing our country is the ideal place to discuss the future of the Internet Governance at the next Global Forum in 2016. We are ready to welcome all of you in Mexico as we are proud to offer ourselves to host this important event. Because today, a common understanding in a global context of the opportunity provided by the governance of Internet demands a new dialogue. We are ready to welcome you at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum.
[ Applause ]
>> ALEJANDRO MARTINEZ: Well, I hope most of you will be in Guadalajara in December. My name is Alejandro Martinez. I am from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mexico, currently I work in the representation of Mexico to the Council of Europe. I’ve been following these topics the last four years and in summer I will go back to the Ministry and I will be also dealing with these issues.
So I will make a very brief presentation about what is the goal of the IGF in Mexico? First, our main goal is to make the 2016 IGF in Mexico the best IGF in history.
Mexico is
[ Applause ]
Mexico is an ICT services exporter. It’s actually the third exporter in the world and the ICT industry represents 4.1% of our GDP. We are working at the National and international level for an open, inclusive and safe Internet. In Mexico we have an office called the National digital strategy which depends from the office of the President. They are in charge of the organisation of the event. Here we have a very brief chart about Internet users in Mexico. As you can see right now from 2014 to 2015 there was an increase of 31% of Internet users so now we have around 70 million that are using the Internet. The general objectives of the strategy, transformation of the economy, the transformation of the education, the effective universal health and civic innovation and civic participation. Here’s where we are in terms of collaboration with the IGF Secretariat. There’s going to be a meeting in July in New York and then we are preparing everything to be ready for the next meeting which will be held in December in Guadalajara. Now I’m going to show you another video of What is Mexico.
>> What is Mexico?
[ Applause ]
>> ALEJANDRO MARTINEZ: So as I mentioned, the meeting is going to be held in Guadalajara. Now I’m just going to show you, this is going to be the Venn you. This is an historical building in Guadalajara and Guadalajara is also very famous because of the tequila. Actually it’s called the land of the mariachi and the tequila.
Well, we have the dates. It’s going to be from December 6th to the 9th, depending on the UN decisions, but it’s going to be in the Institute of Cultural Cabanas, and I was just going to show you very quickly that we already have a Web page where you can find all this information. I’m just going to pass it very quickly, all the information about the airlines, the hotels, the hotel capacity, and, well, the maps and everything about the accommodations.
So if you want to join us, please go, also for those countries which need Visa to go to Mexico, you can find all the information there.
These are some of the other international events we have been organising in this area in the last years. And, well, hope to see you there, and this is our Web page. Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you, thank you very much, Alejandro. It was a pleasure to have you here. I definitely have booked my flight already and also the hotel for the EuroDIG Secretariat and we’re looking forward to having a booth at your global village. Thank you very much.
So now it’s actually not much more to say. We’re very happy that you stayed so long after two days of heavy discussion, hard discussions, interesting discussion I hope. And it’s time to say thank you to those who made EuroDIG this year possible, and first of all I would like to invite Megan Richards from the Commission up to the stage.
[ Applause ]
Megan, you were actually the one who took up the idea to host EuroDIG in Brussels at one time. I do remember we had a discussion after an EIF breakfast.
And you found it was a good idea and you just worked on it and made it possible. And thank you so much for this. I think this was really a great opportunity to be here in the heart of Brussels.
And I hope you will stay with us as a partner for the future, as well.
>> MEGAN RICHARDS: Thank you very much, Sandra. I think also the EuroDIG Secretariat should be thanked and I’m going to divide these flowers into two, and give half to Cristina Monte and half to Elena Plexida, who did half the work. I just looked on.
>> I don’t think you have to divide the flowers. I think you just share a good bottle of champagne with them.
And the next important person who was almost available 24/7 during the last three months is Giovanni. He is in the room, but I haven’t seen him. He comes from the very end.
He was honestly answering emails on Sunday, late night, between two flights, and it was always very precise, and we were working like hell. Actually
[ Applause ]
Actually, I was really amazed how an External Relation Manager, who obviously has something else to do, could put so much effort into an event which is taking place for two days only, and he realized how much work this was I think later in the process.
And this is always a great experience although you are already so experienced in organising ICANN meetings but thank you so much for all the commitment and all the things you made possible over the last two days.
And you told me your team
>> Wow!
>> Your team disappeared already, but I hope you’ll have a good opportunity in the office of EURid to share a really big bottle of champagne and a really good one.
>> Thanks a lot, Sandra, and thank you, everybody. It was very challenging, a lot of logistics, we made it and I’m glad that you all enjoyed, and again, a big thank you to my team. I was not alone. I was with a great team who supported me throughout the process, tirelessly, endlessly and yes, they were also responding to emails any time during the day to make sure this meeting was going to be a successful meeting. Thank you again everybody.
[ Applause ]
>> Sandra: And then also behind the EuroDIG Secretariat there are more and more people helping us. First of all I would like to invite my oldest colleague and not oldest in age but also because he is with the Secretariat for the longest time, Wolf Ludwig. He is the gray evidence behind EuroDIG.
[ Applause ]
Thank you, Wolf, for being so patient with me sometimes.
>> Trying my best.
>> SANDRA: Then I introduced her already in my opening speech, Lorena. Where is Lorena? Could you please come up to the stage?
[ Applause ]
Lorena did two great jobs. First of all, she managed all the technical requirements, and technical requirements are not only managed by the staff here onsite, but to explain how remote participation at EuroDIG works, how the Twitter wall is to be integrated, how it works with the captioning and what we actually want and why does community needs it like this and not like this and there is such a hell of a lot of communication behind that and the second job was actually managing the little baby and many of you could probably see her, how cute she is, and actually I’m really impressed how you, well, how this little cute girl comes out of such a hard working woman. I always thought that’s not going to be possible.
And then I would also like to invite Serena. Is Serena here in this room? She promised to be.
>> Sorina!
[ Applause ]
>> SANDRA: Sorina is the wonder weapon. If anything goes wrong, she can fix it. Or if you need help late at night on Sundays, if you want to have advice, you can always ask Serena, and on top of that, she helped us managing the travel fund. We were this year in the position to accept all the requests we received because we had the financial background to do so, and then it turned out it was quite a lot of work to manage over 40 participants with their flights and everything, reimbursement and so on and so forth. Thank you for this. You did a great job.
[ Applause ]
This was with the help of Claudia. Claudia please come to the stage. She was also finally helping hear onsite, besides organising a workshop she was helping on site with the reporting stuff, with the travel fund, the reimbursement.
And giving me a hand at every occasion, buying champagne, buying flowers. So you were the last minute woman, which came to the team but during the two days, a really great help.
And then last but not least I would like to invite Farzaneh. She was managing the remote moderation issues briefing the reporters, giving them a training, taking care that they fill out at least a little bit of information in the small form so we can keep track of it.
So thank you all very much. I don’t have flowers. I don’t have champagne for you, because you all have to catch a flight, and liquids and flowers on an airplane is not so good. But it’s a tradition that EuroDIG friends, they are meeting for dinner today, and of course, you will all be invited for that dinner. So that’s your flowers, basically.
And now a last word to you in the audience. You see that EuroDIG is growing, not only in number of participants and not only in terms of recognition, we had quite a lot of high level participation here. We were lucky, we were honored that they used EuroDIG as a platform to do high level bilateral meetings. This is what we also want to offer this stakeholder group. We could also see that the young participants used EuroDIG to raise their voice, either on the microphone or through silent protest.
But you see it’s getting more and more complicated, and even adding travel support, which is a good thing, requires a lot of coordination behind that. So if you in the audience feel you have some money in your pocket left, and you would like to become a sponsor, or a partner, to EuroDIG, just let us know. Today we also discussed the Revision of statutes, and we will introduce a more flexible model of membership. In the future, we will have associate members, we will have voting members, additionally to the founding members we had so far which only had voting rights.
This is, this membership, is to run the organisation. It is not necessarily to run the event but more or less the organisation but anyway, those things are interconnected with each other, and we would really need your support also for the future, and keep on attending the events, and also if you have the possibility to contribute financially, this would be very much welcome.
We are not spending us on honorarium, we’re spending this on travel funds and to pay people to make all this possible. So thank you very much, and with this, if there are no questions from the floor anymore, or any comments... Okay, this is not the case, then with this, I would like to conclude this meeting, and wish you all a safe travel home. Thank you.
[ Applause ]