Internet Governance Forum Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 13 November 2007 Diversity


Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the
 The 2nd Meeting of the IGF.  Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it 
 may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. 
 It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should 
 not be treated as an authoritative record.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the main
 session on diversity. My name is Chris Disspain, and I'm going to moderate this
 session. We're very privileged this afternoon to have the session chaired by
 the Minister of culture, Gilberto Gil, and I will hand it over to him to make
 some opening remarks.

 >>GILBERTO GIL:   Good afternoon, my fellow companions at the table, the
 audience. I will make an introduction in Portuguese, so if you please, the ones
 that don't understand Portuguese, please have the translation. Diversity became
 a political flag of present times.  Stuck on the soil of struggle for social
 and cultural recognition, a substantive image of modern times, times with
 acceleration of flows and exchange systems. There is, on our terrain, where we
 are holding these flags, there are strata of different types.  Resistance to
 colonialism, modernism, and from modernism to the pop aesthetics.  From
 matrixes to modernism.  The feminist struggles, the ethnic affirmations.  The
 contra-culture schemes, the impulses of free culture, and also the new ideas
 that sediment everyday the spirit of freedom. In the liquid terrain of the
 Internet where we navigate, our subject on which this forum focuses, this flag
 is standing in the main mast of our ships. The issue for all of us is how to
 translate this flag into the design of the husks of our ships. How can we
 occupy this ocean with adequate ships for those who need to navigate?  How can
 our technological devices and our navigation tools support aggregation of
 knowledges and collaborative contribution and an opening towards diversity? In
 this liquid world, it is as essential to combat piracy as to give free access
 to all, for all to benefit from this knowledge and these resources. The times
 require that our feeling of property should adapt to this liquidity, which is
 our common terrain. The only way to solve this conflict between the economy and
 freedom and to give maximum economic freedom to consumers so that they may
 cultivate in their lives a fair system of exchange.  The dimension of ethics
 and justice is only imposed by those who can control themselves and their acts.
  By shaping a community of navigators and ship builders, we will then have an
 economically sustainable navigation rather than a predatory one.  In the
 contents that circulate on the network, and in the languages that are support,
 and that establish communication systems, even the diversification of economic
 models and several possibilities of technological development. With all that,
 we are faced with the need to establish regulatory mechanisms allowing for
 multiple forms and cultures to happen socially. All ways of living on our
 planet should be able to use technology for the affirmation of their existence,
 and in order to enshrine their values. I believe this is the goal of our
 session here today, as I believe has been the objective of all the meetings
 taking place in this forum. We are on this panel to show the various
 alternatives and pathways that are opening for us at present.  We're all
 establishing our navigation charts that will allow us to tread new pathways. As
 good mapmakers, we are building pragmatic and objective tools.  More than
 speeches, we need a real series of decisions and procedures that must mobilize
 our public and private powers, our technical and legal instances of flags and
 maps.  Our domains should gain objective contours.  They should reflect the
 diversity of world's cultures and knowledge, breaking away with walls that
 stigmatize cultures and individuals, turning the Internet a way of freedom for
 the development of mankind. At the end, as a final comment, I would like to
 celebrate the implementation of the charter on cultural diversity by UNESCO as
 a result of a very important articulation, including more than 150 countries in
 the world, establishing a new, very important protocol for the cultural life
 and all the byproducts and the impacts brought about by a cultural life on the
 lives of peoples, societies and nations. So our session this afternoon is now
 open. Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Minister. I'll briefly run through some
 logistics.  I'm going to shortly introduce you to the panel and to our
 discussants.  And then each of the panelists will have about four minutes to
 make some opening remarks. We are -- What we would like to have happen is as
 many questions as possible from the floor. The way that that works is that
 there are people with question sheets, and if you would like to ask a question,
 you grab a question sheet, you fill it out, you hand it to one of the ladies
 with green shirts on.  They will bring it up here, and eventually, it will work
 its way up to me and the question will be -- and I'll call on you to ask -- to
 actually ask the question. Okay? So I'm going to start by introducing the
 panel, and starting right down at that far end. It's Daniel Pimienta, who is
 the president of Networks in Development Foundation. Next to him is Adama
 Samassékou, the president of the African Academy of Languages. Next to him is
 David Dzumba, senior manager, global accessibility with Nokia. Then we have
 David Appasamy, who is the chief communications officer of Sify, limited,
 India.  And we have our Chair and our secretary, and then we have Monthian
 Buntan, who is president of the Thailand Association of the blind. Tatiana
 Ershova, who is the general director of the institute of Information Society in
 Russia. Patrik Fältström, who is a technical expert with Cisco. And finally,
 Ben Petrazzini, who is the head of ICT at the international development
 research center. I think that's everybody. Now, sitting down here in the front
 row are three people who are discussants.  And they are going to hopefully make
 the life of the panelists as difficult as possible by asking very important and
 difficult, complicated questions. The first of our discussants is Pierre
 Ouédraogo.  Pierre, could you stand up, please. Pierre is from the Organisation
 Internationale de la Francophonie. Then we have Divina Frau-Meigs, who is
 professor at the Sorbonne and vice president of international Association for
 media and communications research. And finally, Maria Badia, who is a member of
 the European parliament. So we might as well go in order. Daniel, would you
 like to start?

 >>DANIEL PIMIENTA:   I am Daniel Pimienta, a researcher at the Antilles-Guyane
 University at the Martinique. I would like to convince you to adopt a more
 holistic view on the topic of language and cultural diversity on the internet.
 If the Internet is for everyone, if the Information Society is inclusive, then
 there is a whole series of evidence that we must not ignore.  And that don't
 just have to do with technology. First of all, it's necessary to be
 functionally literate to make effective use of the Internet.  The Information
 Society supposes a literate citizenry educated in the digital world and a
 participative citizenry. Second, the effectiveness of education as the UNESCO
 correctly puts it, is conditioned to the use of the mother tongue. Third, to
 make sensible use of the network requires education oriented towards the
 digital world, the network culture, and the skilled handling of information in
 all of its forms. Finally, the skill to change information into knowledge, into
 decisions, knowledge and wisdom, and all of this goes through communication to
 begin with. To organize this educational set, digital literacy and
 informational literacy is a major task in the north and in the south. The more
 we are interested in having people absorb the Internet and having power over
 the Internet and being empowered by it, the more it will be important for these
 people to acquire this new literacy where ethics and diversity are essential.
 Diversity goes across all components of inclusion, from universal access to
 participation processes. There is a lot more than the IDNs, the
 Internationalized Domain Names, to solve. For example, technological neutrality
 does not exist when we talk about culture.  Interfaces carry the culture of
 their designers, even if it's not consciously. Another case, there is a
 correlation in the north with immigrants and in the south with native
 populations between people in need of inclusion and minority cultures to be
 considered. Of the 40,000 languages we conceived on the planet, only about 6-
 to 9,000 remain, and of them, less than 500 have a digital existence.  And of
 these, less than 50 gather more than 99% of the content in the Internet. A full
 digital existence is not limited to coding.  It also includes the existence of
 other programs and applications, such as text correctors and translation
 programs. One last example is that the words we use in our processes to
 struggle against the digital divide, empowering innovation, participation,
 multi-sectorialism, all of these words are strongly branded culturally.  And
 for a true social appropriation, a process of syncretism is required between
 the network culture and the local cultures. In view of the complexity of the
 diversity challenge, some people think that pragmatism is to limit ourselves
 and establish English as a universal language in the digital world. I would
 like to remind you of the Ashby theorem on the system theory and the degree of
 variety required. This is very topical when the biodiversity in our planet is
 threatened by accelerated changes of various types. To reduce cultural
 diversity is to jeopardize the possibility for our species to evolve and adapt.
 If the Internet is truly for everyone, then its responsibility is to embrace
 the issue of diversity and give it the priority and attention it deserves. We
 have overcome the myth of the Babel tower.  We must turn the virtual Babel into
 the model of respect and diversity that collective intelligence is capable of
 building to feed human creativity and development. Thank you very much [
 Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Daniel. Adama.

 >>ADAMA SAMASSEKOU:   Thank you very much. As you say in Portuguese, buenos
 tardes -- oh, no, that's Spanish. My dear friends, I believe that the question
 of diversity is an issue discussed at the global level, perhaps too much at the
 global level.  When I think we speak of diversity, we need first of all, in
 human society, we need to speak of cultural and linguistic diversity.  And,
 indeed, emphasize linguistic and cultural diversity.  Otherwise you get into
 all other kinds of diversity. I would remind you that during the World Summit
 on the Information Society, I mentioned three major challenges we face in this
 process. The first challenge is how can we transform what is commonly called
 the digital divide into digital for everyone. The second one is how can we use
 information communication technologies to accelerate the process of achieving
 the Millenium Development Goals. And the third challenge of the society we need
 to build is how can we strengthen, promote and develop cultural and linguistic
 diversity, which is the main universal common good. The diversity we experience
 is the best instrument for dialogue between cultures and languages.  And,
 indeed, this is what is advocated in the text the charter on cultural
 diversity, the binding text in this area by UNESCO.  It is the main spiritual,
 intellectual and effective driving force driving a society or social group. If
 you define it in that way, you see that culture lies at the core of any
 discussion of identity, social cohesion, and the development of any economy
 based on knowledge and know-how. That is why diversity is a common heritage of
 humanity. In society, each social group lives its culture, seeks to preserve as
 best it can its longstanding cultural values.  Cultural diversity, then, is a
 requirement for all of us at the national community and regional and
 international level.  It is cultural diversity that gives each individual, each
 society its basic human rights. Diversity gives you your right to voice your
 views, create artistic works in the language of your choice.  Cultural
 diversity respects people's identities, it gives you the right to participate
 in cultural life.  It allows you to practice your own cultural practices within
 the limits imposed by fundamental human rights and freedoms. Looking at the
 issue, then, from this standpoint, you realize that Africa, the continent I
 come from, is the continent par excellence where African citizens are deprived
 of all of these rights.  African citizens, to put it simply, in most African
 countries, what happens is, a child goes to school and starts his schooling in
 a language he doesn't use at home.  So they don't have a right to education in
 their own language. Most citizens when they go to court have to use an
 interpreter in court.  The judge and the prosecutor speak the same language;
 the defendant doesn't. Africa has one-third of the 6,000 languages in the
 world, but those languages are devalued.  They're not given their full value,
 which means that to defend cultural diversity in an Africa continent, the
 African Union has established the African academy of languages.  It's the only
 one of its kind, an institution that deals with languages on a continental
 scale, including non-African languages.  In that context, after the World
 Summit, we decided in our African academy of languages, as I said to you
 yesterday, we decided to promote linguistic diversity worldwide, starting with
 our own African continent.  We created the MAAYA network.  This is the world
 network for linguistic diversity, to promote a diversity of languages through
 shared human communication, because we believe that this network should be able
 to do what -- as I said, make language the characteristic of all human beings,
 a link uniting all human beings.  Promoting linguistic diversity for us is see
 linguistic diversity exactly like biodiversity.  And I often say, linguistic
 diversity for Human Society is what biodiversity is for nature.  It is the
 driving force of our vitality. And our network, as a followup to the World
 Summit, intends to participate in the celebration of the international year of
 languages 2008 next year will be the international year of languages.  And
 inter alia, we will be organizing an international symposium on languages in
 cyberspace next year, because we feel it's very important that information and
 communications technology should not be used to kill our cultures.  We need to
 find a way to ensure multilingual Internet, to make cyberspace an inclusive
 area where all people of the world can reassert their human nature through
 genuine communication.  When you speak of the digital divide, you are speaking
 more about a knowledge gap.  But when you speak of a knowledge gap, you are
 speaking about linguistic and cultural gap. I think through our discussions,
 we'll see how we can promote linguistic diversity through Internet in order to
 narrow the digital divide, narrow the linguistic divide and build a society of
 knowledge and know-how shared by all.  Thank you very much. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.

 >>DAVID DZUMBA:   Thank you, Chris, for the introduction. I'm speaking from
 behalf of a mobile phone manufacturer.  So for ten years, I've been part of the
 Nokia's accessibility activities and representing Nokia's commitment for
 accessible products and people.  And this is a way for the access to the
 Internet. So accessibility as discussed here means product affordability and
 usability by people with disabilities.  It means equal access to information
 and easy access to personnel who support our customers with sensory, cognitive,
 or physical limitations. So access to this information must be accessible,
 whether a mobile or at the desktop. Yesterday's session on mobile Web or the
 Web accessibility, we created a Nokia accessibility.com Web page solely --
 devoted solely for providing information to consumers with disabilities.  And
 we achieved the W3C Triple  A certification.  But that was just in one language
 and is just a feedback to the summit with the group yesterday.  It is difficult
 technically to do that. Equally important is the accessibility of our products
 being used to access the information on the Internet.  So making products and
 services useful to the greatest number of people is one of our goals.  Another
 way is to find solutions for individuals whose needs may not fit tightly into
 one category.  We recognize there is no one single solution or one size fits
 all.  The demographics of the market inside the market really negates that.  So
 it's difficult. So recognizing from the manufacturer's standpoint that all
 things can't be to all people, we have an approach to accessibility through
 four types of themes.  We do direct accessibility, accessibility via the
 standard options or accessories, compatibility with assistive devices or
 third-party assistive devices, and then custom modifications. So I have some
 devices, but one of the things we do is talk about what we do in the design of
 the products.  So some cases, we have redundancies built in.  Phones now
 vibrate and flash, initiate incoming calls, they offer visual cues for battery
 and signal strength.  This is good for hard of hearing users.  These things are
 built into the devices.  For deaf users, there may be the telecoils.  We have
 -- there are things called loops and different types of accessories that can be
 attached to help reduce the interference issues. And then there is
 compatibility with assistive devices either through the channels of Bluetooth,
 with its technology, infrared, or cabling. The last way is that with a lot of
 partnerships, there's a lot of companies that develop software that fits onto
 the platforms of the devices that allow issues like text to speech
 applications, so information that shows up on the mobile devices is spoken to
 you. So another way of gaining information in a variety of languages. So this
 is kind of a way of achieving accessibility in four ways:  Direct via
 accessories, third-party devices, and custom modification. You see a lot of
 devices nowadays, they have some built-in audible feedback, building with
 contrasting displays, there's a way to get enhanced add-ons either free or
 purchase through third parties for making the devices more accessible. So
 another activity in which the manufacturers or the way we do things is to
 incorporate standard processes.  And in the company, we have six of them.  One
 of them is dealing with accessibility, so the idea of if a product is developed
 in any market anywhere in the world, the accessibility activity -- rules are
 brought into play.  So there are accessibility standards that we use, either
 from ITU, ISO, in trying to make sure that we do that.  It doesn't mean every
 product is going to look the same or do something that way. And then the other
 way is that to continue to have prototypes having consumer involvement either
 in the early stages, through parts of development, or after product launch to
 get feedback.  This is pretty much the ways that we work on accessibility. But
 in the interest of accessibility and the Internet, really, the initiatives
 really depend on a few things.  And we think one of them is definitely going to
 be the commitment and management support of any company or organization.  There
 has to be an internal awareness that has to be created to get comfortable with
 the subject, to start understanding.  There has to be incorporation of these
 activities at the design stages.  There has to be incorporation by standards
 bodies.  That plays a lot of roles in development, design, collaboration,
 external awareness, just letting people externally know a little bit about
 what's going on.  Consumer education.  A big part of this is partnerships of
 manufacturers, operators, NGOs, governments.  And, finally, it's the global
 approach to accessibility. I really just want to thank you very much for your
 time and ask questions. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, David. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   You preempted me, because I was about to remind everybody
 that we are very interested in getting questions from the floor. Please, grab
 one of the question papers and send it up to us. David.

 >>DAVID APPASAMY:   Thank you.  Over the last day and a half, we've heard time
 and again that we need to get the next one billion people online.  Well, I say
 to you, we not only have to get the one billion people online, we have to get
 them online with economically, culturally, and socially relevant content in
 their own language so that it truly reflects the diversity of the human race.
 And I say this to you because of the experience that I have coming from India. 
 It's a land of 1.1 billion people, 28 states, seven union territories, 15
 official languages, 1500 dialects, and so on and so forth.  You can imagine the
 kind of challenges that we face in getting people online. There are 40 million
 users today, mostly in English, some in some six other languages. And I can
 tell that you some of the things that we've done have had the most astonishing
 results, not just economically, but socially.  And I'd like to touch upon a few
 of these to illustrate to you the potential going forward with diversity
 online. There's a village in Pondicherry, just outside Pondicherry, that was
 empowered with the Internet.  And one of the local villagers was taught to use
 it. What do you think they used it for?  He would log on at about 4:30 in the
 morning, get onto a weather station, locate satellite images of the sea so that
 they could find out where the fish shoals were.  And the boats would go out
 straight to where the fish were, catch the fish and come back.  And they were
 doing this time and again. We also had a situation in previous years where many
 fishermen were lost at sea because they would go unknowingly into a storm. 
 Once they had the Internet, that didn't happen.  They just didn't go if they
 saw a storm approaching.  That's one example. Another example is in the
 district outside the city of Mandalay in the south, where they connected every
 village with what was called a village cyber café.  An epidemic of chicken pox
 was avoided because the mother whose child was sick was able to show the child
 on a webcam to the hospital online, and they were able to diagnose what it was
 and rush to the district and take care of it.  They also got rid of a crop
 pestilence.  And they connected to the terminal at an agricultural university
 who identified what the pest was and came and sprayed all the crops.  That's on
 the economic side and the social side. The transformation that I'm talking
 about is much broader, mostly urban as of now.  We have matrimonial sites where
 millions of young people are registered as a database.  Now, in the past,
 parents decided who their children were going to marry.  Children didn't have
 much of a choice, which was, you know, a pretty raw deal, if you look at it.
 Today, because most of the young people are online, they're able to go and
 troll these databases and locate somebody, maybe send them an e-mail, get to
 know them online, and then go back to their parents and say, "Hey, this is the
 guy or girl I want to marry.  Why don't you get to know them, and you arrange
 the marriage."  So the control has moved from the parents to the children. Ten
 years ago, this was unthinkable.  It would not even be discussed.  Now it goes
 deeper than that. In India, you know, we still have the caste system in many
 areas, people marry only within their caste.  And it's a rigid social structure
 that really should not be there. You all heard about the disruptive nature of
 the Internet.  Well, it is disrupting the caste system, because when you're
 online, you don't ask the other guy, hey, what's your caste.  You just talk to
 him, go by his name, get to know him or her and decide the kind of relationship
 you want to have.  Right down to marriage.  There are more and more marriages
 taking place which are inter-caste because they met online.  And the last two
 years, I have personally met at least four couples who met like this and got
 married online. So it's clear that the disruptive nature of the Internet is not
 just economic; it is social, and often cultural as well; and definitely for the
 better. Now, if you take the Indian experiment as a microcosm and you look at
 the rest of the world, if we were able to do this, the kind of change that
 would come about, the kind of social transformation, economic transformation,
 is not just what we have experienced, but probably what we have never even
 imagined. Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, David.  Our fifth panelist is Monthian.

 >>MONTHIAN BUNTAN:   Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to
 address the session.  And due to my unexpected computer operating system fatal
 error, I will go back to my traditional means of communication, which is
 Braille. People talk about diversity differently, depending on where they're
 coming from.  But for myself and other 650 million people with disabilities,
 the term "diversity" is measured mainly by the degree of accessibility. From
 the disability communities perspective, diversity within the context of
 Internet governance is accessibility, or in this case, Internet accessibility,
 including accessibility for all, including persons with disabilities. For us,
 achieving Internet accessibility could be made through the concept of universal
 design and the use of assistive technology. So far, such concepts have been
 introduced to mainstream World Summit document, like both phases of WSIS, in
 Geneva and Tunis, and more so in the legal implication through the U.N.
 convention, which is the first human rights convention of the 21st century.
 Such concept was clearly defined and mandated through such legal documents. And
 so far, the convention even covers social development and human rights aspects,
 including nondiscrimination aspects. This convention is also making
 unprecedented history within the United Nations legal document by stating very
 clearly the mandate that the text of the convention and its optional protocol
 be made accessible. Now, coming back to the term "diversity," only through full
 and effective participation of all stakeholders -- and that includes members
 within the civil society, private sector, the industry, governments -- only
 full and effective participation of all stakeholders that we can achieve and
 fulfill diversity. The full and effective participation must be respected both
 in theory and in practice in all aspects of development and process.  And I
 have a few examples to tell you so that you can see in concrete. A colleague of
 mine from Colombia who was invited to attend this conference required two
 professional sign language interpreters.  It has to be sign language that was
 originated by the deaf community in Colombia.  And that sign language has to be
 translated into spoken English. That interpreters need to be brought here so
 that she could participate fully and effectively.  And that truly reflects the
 acceptance, recognition, and respect for diversity in reality. The other
 example is that another colleague of mine who came here and tried to get
 registration, which he finally did, but in the first place, he was asked to
 leave the building, and went into the rain in order to enter in a place with
 lots of stairs and steps. Finally, I'd like to conclude that diversity, the
 degree of diversity could be measured in several ways.  But for us, for many of
 us, it's measured through full and effective participation.  And such
 participation has to be done in all aspects throughout the process, both in
 principle and in practice. And we in the disability community propose that
 concept through universal design and assistive technology development. By
 embracing such concept, we can truly accept and practice and respect diversity
 so that we can move forward toward the inclusive and accessible information
 society which is caring and peaceful and barrier-free and happiness-based for
 all. Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Monthian. Tatiana.

 >>TATIANA ERSHOVA:   Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, my dear colleagues,
 I'd like to express my profound appreciation to the members of this forum to
 giving me the opportunity to discuss one of the most important issues for the
 global information society and for my country. -- how to manage it is an issue
 for a Russian.  Russian Federation is a federal state comprising 85 subjects,
 equitable, but manifold in terms of administrative relationship.  Russian
 territory is situated on 11 time zones and on ten geographical zones.  Russian
 Federation is a multinational state with over 180 ethnic groups with unique
 cultures and traditions, and all live on its territory.  Citizens of Russia
 speak more than 150 languages. Two dozen languages have an official status in
 the Russian Federation.  Russian as a state language on the entire territory,
 and 23 more languages as state languages of the subjects of federation.  All
 this is relevant in terms of Internet governance. Also, Russia is a
 multiconcessional state where all majors religions are represented and
 respected. One could single out a number of dimensions related to diversity. 
 But I would mention those considered by the WSIS outcome documents and the
 synthesis paper for the second IGF meeting. And these are cultural diversity,
 diversity of choice, linguistic diversity, and diversity of media, and also
 stakeholder and organizational diversity, which seems to be of great importance
 for me, as for a representative of a civil society organization. I cannot
 refrain from stressing how it is crucial to keep the main clauses of the WSIS
 documents at our efforts in everyday level. In the context of developing
 linguistic diversity and shaping multilingual environment, it is necessary to
 ensure the internationalization of the Internet.  The importance of the
 internationalized domain names is discussed very widely now as essential for
 continued Internet development. As it is known, in October 2007, ICANN
 announced an evaluation of Internationalized Domain Names that will allow
 Internet users to test top-level domains in 11 languages.  And accordingly, for
 11 sets of characters.  Russia participates in such trial. The Russian
 government advocates the implementation of a reductive administrative procedure
 which would allow in the most near future delegating the ccTLD with the use of
 national alphabets. Many countries support construction of a multilateral,
 democratic, and transparent global Internet governance model.  Our government
 comes out in favor of proposal to discuss practical steps towards the
 involvement of stakeholders, particularly from the developing countries, in the
 decision-making on Internet governance policy issues. It would be good if the
 Internet Governance Forum here in Rio recommends the U.N. Secretary-General to
 create a working group on the elaboration of practical steps and measures to
 ensure a gradual transition of the Internet governance system under the control
 of the international community. Thank you very much for your attention. [
 Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Tatiana. Patrik.

 >>PATRIK FÄLSTRÖM:   Thank you very much. So I was on this panel last year as
 well.  And last year, I talked quite a lot about Internationalized Domain
 Names.  And I will talk a little bit about Internationalized Domain Names this
 year as well. To start with, I think that we have made big progress since last
 year, because the discussions that we had last year was very much on the
 difference between the localization of the identifier, which is the
 Internationalized Domain Name, and localization of the content and creation of
 software that is translated into local languages. Today, I don't feel that we
 need that discussion. So when looking at Internationalized Domain Names,
 though, I still feel that there are a lot of people who think Internationalized
 Domain Names solve all problems in the world.  But, in reality, the technical
 solution of Internationalized Domain Names only solve very small piece of the
 puzzle.  We already heard many of the various issues already mentioned by the
 previous speakers on this panel.  So I hope that this will be a pretty short
 introduction. For example, we had requirements when coming up with the
 standards that the technical solution itself should be completely
 backward-compatible.  It must be possible for one user that has software that
 implements Internationalized Domain Names to send e-mail to a person that has
 software that does not implement the Internationalized Domain Names. It must be
 possible to do things like reply to an e-mail message that uses a domain name
 that is internationalized, even though you have software that does not support
 the standard. It must also be possible for a person that has an electronic
 address book that does not support Internationalized Domain Names to store
 those in that address book and do copy and paste. But there are also other
 issues that the standard does not have as a goal to resolve.  For example, what
 strings to allocate for the country -- the ccTLDs that we just heard about and
 that I do know that there will be a workshop about tomorrow. We also know that
 the standards do not solve what we call the "side of the bus" problem, which is
 the look alike of two different strings that might be printed on paper.  So if
 a person is reading a string, it might be very, very difficult to know what
 characters is actually representing that string. The last example I gave showed
 that comparison of characters in a context that is unknown is extremely
 difficult.  And this, in turn, might lead to various kind of comparison
 problems that in turn might lead to dispute resolution issues, specifically,
 between different scripts, different languages, and different contexts in other
 ways. So because of this, I think it's really important that all of us,
 actually, start work on Internationalized Domain Names and try to use them and
 not only talk about it. The Internet architecture board has come up with a
 document that actually lists many of these issues.  And last year I think we
 talked a little bit about the existence of the document.  But it now exists as
 an RFC.  And I encourage all of you to try and have a look at that one. We also
 in the IETF community are coming up with a new version of the Internationalized
 Domain Names.  And although that might scare many of you, the standard,
 although it's not used yet, we're already coming up with a new version, I can
 rest you assured that the new version is backwards-compatible with the new
 version, takes care of new versions of Unicode, and because of that, many, many
 more languages. So I would like to finish here by talking about what I think
 you can do, what we all can do.  Because, as I said from the beginning, I think
 all of us can start working with Internationalized Domain Names, but what can
 we do? First of all, I think it's really important that we all continue to
 develop local content, because it's the localized content which is key to all
 communication, I think. Part of that, of course, require localized software,
 because it's really difficult to actually create localized content if the
 program you're using and the manuals you have to whatever device you're using
 is in a language that you do not understand. It's also important that the local
 communities in the various countries and various language groups work together
 on developing local policies for IDN.  Because we will need specific dispute
 resolution policies.  We will need specific registration policies for domain
 names in the various scripts that is not taken into account by the technical
 standard in Internationalized Domain Names is. Other things we can do is to
 start to participate in this trial that we just heard about from our colleague
 from Russia, the ICANN test on Internationalized Domain Names.  And I urge all
 of you to go to the Web site IDN.ICANN.org.  That is a Web site in English. 
 But you will find links to all the 11 scripts that the test is about.  And you
 can go to the Web site, see how your browser reacts.  You can also edit text
 and report back how your Web client is actually acting when using that script. 
 Really important.  So I urge all of you to participate.  I'm really happy to
 hear that our friends from Russia are working hard on this project. The last
 thing that I think we can do much, much more regarding creation of local
 content is to help in the Wikipedia project.  And one thing that I heard from
 my mother, which is a teacher in art history, is that the school that she is
 working with had been forced to start to reject thesises from students that
 copied too much information from the Web.  My mother got a little bit
 concerned.  She doesn't know much about computers, but asked me, because she
 thinks that I know something about computers, and asked me, "Is it correct by
 us to reject thesises where information is collected from the Web and not from
 books, from paper?"  And I, of course, thought that was a pretty bad idea.  But
 on the other hand, she also understood that when you are a teacher in art
 history, one of the more important things to do is to require that a student
 write correct references, where do the information come from.  And she rejected
 a student that said that -- that claimed that the information was coming from
 Google. And yes, I like Google, sure.  But the information that you find in
 Google, the search engine, is not really written by Google.  It's written by
 someone else that wrote the article. Those kind of things are things that I
 think are important that schools educate in, and I actually came up with a
 suggestion to her that unfortunately her school did not accept, but I hope that
 one of you that are connected to the schools might take up this idea. Instead
 of rejecting articles that students write and copy from the Web, I would like
 teachers to give students, as a task, to actually update and write an article
 in the Wikipedia. So instead of copying data from the Internet, have people add
 things to the Internet. And then as everyone can edit things in Wikipedia, it's
 actually possible to grade the student depending on how many based upon how
 many people disagreed with whatever the student was writing. Wikipedia now
 exists in 253 languages.  And as we heard it's a very small number compared to
 the number of languages in the world.  But we should also remember that there
 are only 15 languages that have more than 100,000 articles. So even though
 Wikipedia is one of the more successful projects regarding localized content,
 it is not even as good as it looks. So there is a lot of things to do, and I
 urge you all to help. Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Patrik. And our final opening remarks from Ben.

 >>BEN PETRAZZINI:   Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.  Being the last has
 advantages and disadvantage. The disadvantage is that everyone before has said
 very much what one can say. The advantage is that one is the last, have nobody
 else behind so he can talk for long. No, no, no.  I'm going to stick to the
 four minutes. I come from IDRC.  What is IDRC?  It is an International
 Development Research Center.  Why are we sitting here?  Because basically we
 had devoted the past 20 years to work on ICT for development, new technologies
 for development. How do we do that? Well, we basically believe that development
 will not happen if there are not enough local capacity developed. And so
 somebody or most people like to think of us as a donor agency, and we like to
 think of us as social investors. So we invest in local capacity building and
 local developments. With that as a framework, what does diversity mean for us
 in terms of ICT for development? Basically, localization.  And in that sense,
 it's great that my previous speaker highlighted the fact that what needs to be
 done is to develop more local languages in fonts and adapt what is out there to
 local languages, because that's basically what we are doing. We work in Asia,
 Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.  All our investments go to the
 south and are used by researchers in the south. Although we don't do
 traditional research.  We do applied research. And what does that mean, is that
 we tend to implement while, we do research and develop knowledge, new knowledge
 associated to the problems we are trying to address. So in Asia, for example,
 we have invested $2 million in a project that is hosted at the national
 university of Lahore in Pakistan to develop and adapt 11 languages in the
 region:  Pashto, Bengali, Dzongkha, Khmer, Lao, Nepali, Sinhala, Tamil,
 Tibetan,  Mongolian and Urdu. And the project basically at this stage has
 achieved a number of successful outcomes. One, it has -- that's okay.  It
 doesn't matter who I am. It has developed localized versions of the open source
 operating system, Linux, and they were developing Nepali and Dzongkha. It has
 developed optical character recognition and text-to-speech software in Sinhala,
 Bengali and Lao. And a wide range of supporting applications and utilities such
 as lexicons and fonts in eight languages. So this is an example of the kind of
 things that probably we should start investing on in the future if we aim to
 narrow the digital divide. What about Africa?  Well, in Africa we are in the
 early stages after project that will develop localized terms, software and
 keyboard development for 24 African languages. We would not be only doing that,
 but we would be training people locally so that they can take on from there and
 keep developing locally those skills and elements. In the Americas, Latin
 America and the Caribbean, I'm here to celebrate diversity.  I invite you to
 switch to Spanish. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we have started off with
 a project for the creation of a Mapuche portal, Mapuche being one of the
 languages, the Native local languages, for the purposes of developing a
 community and to integrate the Mapuche community to the Internet. Right now, we
 are developing a project that is similar to that of Africa with which we intend
 to develop localized content for several native languages in Latin America and
 the Caribbean. Going back to English,.... And a lot of funding to develop
 digital local content. One of the advantages of digital local content is
 exactly the fact that it's digital.  And because it's digital, it doesn't have
 to be totally local, although it does require a window that has certain local
 elements, one could multiply exponentially the availability of local content by
 creating networks of producers of content in similar languages.  And that is
 what we have done with a project of educational portals in Latin America. We
 have brought 17 ministries of education to -- each of them have their own
 national educational portal.  We have brought them into a network that is
 called RELPE, Red Latinoamérica de Portales Educativos, so that whenever one of
 these partners produces educational content in Spanish language, it immediately
 is disseminated throughout the region to all the other portals so that the kids
 in the various countries, when they access their national portal, then they can
 benefit from the production of local content in the other countries of the
 region that speak the same language. So there is a lot of potential by
 integrating production of local language into networks that have standards that
 allow for the swapping of language. And I would like to conclude by offering an
 idea. It's basically the possibility of developing a global compact on the
 treatment of language resources for less widely spoken languages. So in that
 sense, we are wondering whether it's possible to release copyright restrictions
 on a range of materials useful for computing and localization of these
 languages. With this very practical proposal, and with the notion that we are
 in the ground doing things to contribute to these changes, let me close here,
 and I hope that probably I am less than four minutes.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   I doubt that. Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Four minutes is a very diverse time. We have a couple of
 questions from the floor.  And I want to start involving our discussants. I
 want to take one question from the floor first, just to encourage all of you
 who haven't yet asked, filled out a question, that you won't get shot and you
 can simply just ask a question. I'm going to call on Katoh-San to ask his
 question.

 >>MASANOBU KATOH:   Thank you, Chris. My name is Masanobu Katoh of Fujitsu. I
 have a few questions regarding IDN, Internationalized Domain Names, for
 top-level domain names. This is very important for, of course, cultural
 diversity and I strongly support the idea of IDN. But at the same time, as we
 heard from Patrik, there are many technical questions regarding IDN, and those
 questions are now being reviewed by IETF and ICANN. But there are also many
 cultural and sometimes even political questions regarding IDN.  And in addition
 to these cultural and political questions, by creating of new TLDs, we are
 inviting a lot more opportunities for cyber squatting and confusion of names.
 So here are some of my questions. Just two questions. First, as a part of IETF
 and ICANN review of these issues, do you have enough experts from outside of
 IETF or ICANN community who are expert in languages and many other kind of
 social science? And second question is, do you think we are well prepared for
 the risk of cybersquatting?  I heard from Patrik that you are talking about
 something like UDRP, but do we have enough UDRP, Uniform Dispute Resolution
 Policy, equivalent in each country who are trying to adopt new TLDs?

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. Patrik, do you want to start?

 >>PATRIK FÄLTSTRÖM:  Yes, I can start.  And the first question regarding the
 review process, whether enough experts are involved, I claim that for the
 technical standard, yes. We have, during the last year, we have found -- okay. 
 Let me give a few examples. We are now working on problems with scripts which
 are not used in the language you think. For example, we are working on a
 problem with Arabic as used in the main language used in the Maldives.  We are
 also having problems with the Hebrew script when used in Yiddish.  So those are
 like the size of the technical problems that we are working with.  And finding
 those small language group that uses scripts for -- in ways that no one really
 were thinking of is probably really, really hard. So I think we have got as
 good a review as possible. More can always be done, but I think it's enough.
 The next question regarding policy and UDRP-like processes, are people and
 language and culture groups prepared enough, I think we can do more there. 
 But, on the other hand, I'm still optimistic that we can start to use IDN
 because many of the problems that we think might arise during conflicts, et
 cetera, are things that we will not see unless we redistort. So trying to sit
 in meetings and meetings and meetings and trying to invent the kind of problems
 we will see will not solve any problems. But I also would like to refer most of
 these questions to a session I know will happen tomorrow regarding ccTLDs and
 IDNs.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   I promise to do an ad for that session before I close this
 session. Does anyone else want to add to this before I move on to the
 discussants?  No. So let me start, perhaps, with Maria Badia.  Would you care
 to?

 >>MARIA BADIA:   Yes?  Okay.  Thank you very much. Well, many things have been
 said, many ideas has appeared. I would like just maybe to ask if somebody from
 the panel can give me more information about these kind of languages that just
 -- even are absent in Internet. I say and I have read that in cyberspace there
 are different languages and cultures present there.  Maybe we can group them in
 three groups. First of all would be the working languages used to communicate,
 which are, of course, dominated by English.  Then there are other languages
 that they are used for speakers community, with varying degrees of influence.
 Then we find languages which are spoken about.  Among them, there are some
 which have been subject of linguistic research, and that are present in a
 comprehensive way in Internet.  And lessons on them may be even taken. And
 finally, we find -- or we don't find this group that is absolutely absent from
 Internet. And I would like to talk and to ask about this small group, or big
 group, but which is absent of Internet, and the possibility of create a legal
 status for these languages in order to develop a multilingual content including
 indigenous and minority languages. And I am conscious of the great difficulty
 of this.  And I would like to point out that maybe here we could think about
 the triangular cooperation between these languages that are working languages,
 which are absolutely install Internet, the other languages that are used but
 not very used, and the other ones that are just ignored on it. And I would like
 to know what kind of work we can do.  And if this triangular cooperation could
 be a help.  Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. Who would like to respond? Daniel, you were
 nodding.

 >>DANIEL PIMIENTA:   I'm not so sure what is the scope of what you called the
 cert category of ignored language.  Does it include big communication language,
 like some in Africa are able to communicate between countries, like Ketchwa in
 Latin America? I think so. In terms of cooperation, I think there is an
 interesting example, which is Agence de Francophonie, who try really now not to
 only focus French but what they call partner language.  So Francophonie is
 targeting linguistic diversity.  Their goal is also to incorporate what they
 call partner language in Africa, which is many language. Now, the question of
 how a language become part of the second category is obviously complex. You
 have to recognize if a language have a codification or not.  If not, does it
 have a written existence?  If it has no written existence, you have to have
 linguists of this language agree on a written existence. Then you have a
 question of the number of people talking this language which are part of the
 Internet connectivity access. Some study we have made, none with this language
 but with big language like French, Spanish, Portuguese, has shown there is a
 statistical correlation of use between the number of people connected and the
 prediction of Web page. Apparently if you connect people of a given language,
 statistically you will have a linear correlation for the production of Web
 page.  So there's a question of access. So it's really a complex picture. I'd
 like to maybe mention a book which was written a few months ago, and published
 by UNESCO, by (saying name) south African (saying name) which in a very simple
 fashion identified the different type of obstacle you have to face for a
 language.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Daniel.  Ben, you wanted to say something, and
 then Monthian. Ben first.

 >>BEN PETRAZZINI:   Here we go.  In terms of possible cooperation of what can
 be done, I closed my contribution to this panel with this idea or proposal. 
 And I think this venue is probably the most adequate one to be able to
 implement something like that, under the framework of a U.N. initiative like
 this.  With secretary-general and the IGF as a framework, one could look at the
 possibility of creating a cooperative initiative by which public, private, and
 civil society groups would enter into an agreement, broad agreement, on the
 release of copyright materials on a range of materials that are useful for
 computing localization in these languages. So it's a very raw notion, and it
 needs to be sorted out, elaborated and crafted, but it's probably an area where
 one could progress significantly by entering a cooperation between the three
 main players in this arena.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Monthian, and then David.

 >>MONTHIAN BUNTAN:   Thank you very much. I would like to go a bit off the
 mainstream discussion on this language issue. I think the Internet could do
 more to accommodate some languages which are not verbal such as sign language. 
 Of course, we are seeing now the attempt to support the Internet telephony or
 even video.  But more needs to be done to accommodate that. And I think one
 solution to accommodate multilingual and also to accommodate different types of
 human diversity is through standardized multimedia accessibility that will
 accommodate different forms of human capacity and human function. So I hope
 that would be supported in the long run. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. David, you are next.

 >>DAVID APPASAMY:   Thank you, Chris. A lot of has been done in India, has been
 done primarily by portals and by publications, because they want to have their
 presence online in the local language. It's complex.  The keyboards are not
 standardized. Each one is working on one way of doing it or the other. And it's
 slow.  Tamil, for example, which is my language, has a standardized keyboard. 
 Most other languages don't. And if this could be dealt with -- it has been
 dealt with at the university levels and the media and portals.  Over and above
 that, if there can be an ethics body, then I think we will see some results
 which will coordinate with the IGF.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  Adama.

 >>ADAMA SAMASSEKOU:   Yes, I wanted to add to what's been said so far in reply
 to the question asked by Madam Badia.  I would like to add to what Daniel said.
 There's one fundamental dimension which comes in before you talk about the
 Internet and triangular cooperation that you described. I'm repeating what you
 said.  While I don't really like the expression that much myself. But I'd like
 to put these issues in context, because if you take out the languages you
 referred to, most of the time we find that certain languages dominate.  And
 unfortunately, the big issue that's still topical today is the coexistence of
 these languages is not recognized by the various bodies that are responsible
 for managing these languages. Let me take the African continent.  That's the
 example I know best, but I think the same thing is true elsewhere. Today the
 question of the status of African languages is an issue as compared to
 languages we receive from colonialism.  Before we start talking about Internet,
 we need to first of all agree on the need to develop linguistic diversity in
 Africa. To recognize the proliferation of African languages in addition to the
 languages which are the official languages of most African countries.  I'm not
 speaking of Arab, Kiswahili, or Amorik (phonetic) because some countries have
 made those local languages national languages.  But most like African countries
 either use French, English, Portuguese or Spanish as the official working
 languages.  And the local African languages have no official existence.  And of
 course that is even more true on the Internet.  I think what you are talking
 about is what we have called in the African Academy of Languages the need to
 develop a convivial multilingual functionalism.  First of all, recognize the
 equality of all languages, stating that all Africans have the right to be
 educated in their mother tongues.  In addition to that you can add another
 language, perhaps another African language, and then a third language which is
 a European official language that we inherited from (inaudible).  And it's a
 question of status of languages in society.  If you agree in giving these
 languages the proper status, then you can move on and say yes, on Internet we
 need to build on the major vehicular languages that are already on the Internet
 and add to them the local African languages. This is what we are doing with
 French speaking organizations, Spanish speaking language, Portuguese. We are
 going to organize an international senate next year in our African Academy of
 Languages of the African language, African speakers, because often people say
 French-speaking Africa, English-speaking Africa, Portuguese-speaking Africa,
 but before those languages were imported, Africa was an African speaking
 continent.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:  .... To make a contribution now.

 >>DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS:  Can I start?  Thank you. I think we have had a very
 interesting discussion that has raised a number of issues.  I am going to find
 it very difficult to add additional questions. I just wanted to make an
 announcement, and perhaps after that pick up two points. The announcement is
 sharing of information that could go on through this forum.  Follow-up to the
 WSIS. I'm sure you know there was priority, a lot of action that was created. 
 C8 that's going to be moderated by UNESCO on cultural diversity.  C8 has
 started to meet and has just identified three main areas of action, three main
 subthemes for analysis.  Let me mention them for your information, for
 reference purposes. The first is heritage, and that is something that will be
 covered by IFLA and NGO. This is the libraries NGO. The second subtheme that
 they have developed is languages.  Languages will be led by MAAYA.  Mr. Adama
 Samassékou will be leading that. And the third subtheme that's been identified
 is indigenous languages.  Taking into account as was clearly stated by the
 panel that not all minorities are equal, and that there are problems even
 within indigenous languages of priorities, of visibility, of support for
 particular minorities that are threatened with extension. And then there's a
 third -- there's another subtheme that was added, and that is research.  And my
 NGO, the Internet association for research and communications and information
 will be leading. That's just for your information, then. But I think this does
 raise the question of the work being done here and how the work being done in
 the IGF at this forum can strengthen and support activities taking place
 elsewhere that are priorities. So the first question, then, to the panel would
 be how can we take some of the dynamism from the forum and spread it elsewhere
 to more static bodies such as the U.N? Second point, we have heard a lot said
 by the panel about languages and particularly scripts. I would like to add to
 the issue the mass media, because there's a two-way street here. A part of
 Internet is now becoming a separate media.  Just like the traditional mass
 media, including broadcasting. We can also see for reasons of convergence that
 many of the traditional mass media, the audiovisual media are becoming
 digitalized and going online. So I would like, since Gilberto Gil is here on
 the panel, I would like to take advantage of his presence to ask what is
 happening on the Internet now with the mass media?  Brazil, and organizations
 such as the WIPO, how is Brazil putting forward an agenda?  There is a treaty
 for broadcasting on Internet. How do you deal with broadcasting on the Internet
 while ensuring that other cultures are made visible other than just Anglo-Saxon
 culture, music, audiovisual, cinemas. This is cultural creation.  How can these
 broadcastings ensure that all culture is represented?  Brazilian music, for
 example, is very well represented even if there aren't Web pages in Brazilian
 that are in the same numbers as there are in English. There are ways that you
 can compensate which may not at present be apparent because everyone talks
 about IDN and scripts and so forth and forgets about broadcasting and the mass
 media. So that's my question. How can developing countries change the deal,
 turn things around, put forward their own culture, their own music, their own
 audiovisual culture which is part of their identity on the net?  So that people
 will realize that cultural diversity on the Internet is a public good, a
 universal egalitarian public good. The second part -- rather third point, my
 third point is research. And in fact, here I should like to make a plea to all
 of you.  At present, research and cultural diversity on the Internet is just
 research.  Because it emphasizes the fact that Africa always comes last.  We
 need to find measurement, tools, criteria that are much more qualitative that
 show the importance of relations on Internet, the creation of common culture, a
 diaspora.  At present we have no tools for measuring those kinds of linkages. 
 How can we find the financing, what bodies could provide financing for research
 of that kind, qualitative research? Why focus on IDNs when there are other
 alternatives, other options.  How could we use those options?  For example, the
 semantic web.  What can we do about open standards? This morning we heard about
 translation.  You see there is no open source translation. How can you find
 financing for that?  What are the states, the public authorities that can
 promote research into open source translation? I will stop there.  Those are
 questions just to get the discussion going.

 >>GILBERTO GIL:   Concerning your second point in your question, asking how
 developing countries mobilize in order to implement lines to develop their
 diversities and to adopt processes, including the features of the diversity of
 each country, in the case of Brazil, already for about six years since the
 previous administration, and also now with President Lula's administration, we
 have always tried to have a very strong collaboration with the U.N. system. 
 All areas that have an impact on development and in diversity, such as ONCTAD,
 the WIPO. In the case of WIPO, Brazil proposed an agenda for development which
 is very important.  It includes all the issues going from the discussion of
 traditional knowledge, how to protect that and how to establish a possibility
 to spread this knowledge to the world and to the world of knowledge, et cetera.
 All the way to issues having to do with implementing lines to show our music,
 our audiovisuals, always defending our own characteristics, defending the
 specificity and the specialty of our national features. Besides our intense
 participation in several international fora, besides a very important
 articulation of Pan American countries and via the Marco Sul (phonetic) as
 well, several organisms and fora to intensify relations and for articulation of
 proposals, addressing continental and regional demands in terms of development.
 Well, obviously, development seen as something for which culture is
 essentially.  Development not just seen from the viewpoint of economics but
 development seen from the viewpoint of the integrity of human persons. So I'm
 talking about development with cultural development.  Development and culture.
 In the case of Brazil, in the ministry of culture we are now implementing a
 process to update laws on intellectual property. First of all, at the ministry
 itself, because the ministry is mandated to manage author's rights.  And in the
 ministry of science and technology, there is intellectual property related to
 patents and other areas. We have now recently developed in Brazil a process of
 coalition, national coalition involving several sectors -- government, civil
 society, the business community -- in order to determine transition policies to
 deal with a migration from the analog system to the digital system in radio
 broadcasting, television broadcasting, and the Internet. Now, in terms of
 practical action to implement all of this, we have at the ministry of culture
 several programs under an umbrella called "live culture."  We have several
 programs there to facilitate access of the population to this digital universe,
 to the cyberspace, and to bring there the discussion on new technologies, et
 cetera. I would say, to conclude, and these are my parting words here at this
 forum, I would say that the Internet is now demanding modernization of
 politics.  It's helping the politization of -- it's helping to clarify the role
 of the market, of the civil society.  It is speeding up processes for society
 to become aware of what needs to be done for it, for society itself to be
 entirely included in all these processes. Something I would like to suggest
 here -- and I have the impression that all of the discussions in this forum end
 up suggesting this -- I believe that possibly we need an extension in the U.N.
 mandate, a (inaudible) system in order to guarantee continuity to multilateral
 processes for the gradual and effective implementation of diversity in all of
 its depth.  Thank you. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio) from Sally Burch.  If she's.... Thank you.

 >>SALLY BURCH:   My question's addressed to whoever wants to answer it.  It's
 about translation software, which I haven't heard references to I don't think
 during the debate. Translation is fundamental not just for having access to
 more information, but also for intercultural dialogue.  And if we're talking
 about having more information available on the Net in different languages, it
 will be important to have more opportunities not only to translate material
 into those languages, but from those languages into other languages to be able
 to share and dialogue. And, thirdly, also for networking exchange and meetings
 like the kinds we have online to organize this sort of event. So I wanted to
 know what proposals or experiences there are in developing more freely
 available, good-quality translation software, and particularly translation
 software that doesn't go unnecessarily through English, which is probably one
 of the most unstructured languages in the world and one of the most difficult
 ones to translate.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  Who would like to address the software
 question? Daniel.

 >>DANIEL PIMIENTA:   It's a question of translation software.  It's really a
 very key issue.  It's not enough to get codification, to get IDN.  You need to
 go to translation software.  And you're right, you cannot have all translation
 software using English as a common language to be efficient.  If you try
 translating in some software from French to Spanish and you see it go from
 French to English and then English to Spanish, the quality, obviously,
 degrades.  So we need language with a familiar language. I want to ask again
 publicly, if there are any Linux geeks around us, those people to move fast to
 provide translation software in Linux. If it's freeware, better.  But we have a
 lack of translation software in Linux, which causes a lot of problems for
 trying to automatize translation in cyberspace. Can I just take the floor for a
 few more minutes?  She raised the question of research, which is very
 important.  It's provocative.  And I wanted to be provocative in turn. Our
 small NGO since 1996 has been doing research work on languages and culture on
 Internet all alone, by ourselves, pushing people in academia, saying, you have
 established networks.  It was originally researchers and academics who created
 these networks.  Why have they given them up?  Research on lanuage and culture
 on the Internet has been totally overlooked.  It's been left purely to
 marketing people, with all the dangers inherent in that. If you look at the
 Internet, English isn't 90% of the Web, it's 50%, if you look at number of
 pages published.  We don't have the -- we're only at the very beginning.  We're
 just trying to measure how much of each language is on the Web, not how it's
 used, which would be much more interesting.  We're not looking at the dynamics
 changing, and we're not looking at culture at all.  So I would say, no,
 universities, you should take up these issues, take up the work you're supposed
 to be doing.  Let me conclude that some people have started to work on these
 issues.  In Japan, at the observatory of languages.  And they're starting to
 get some interesting results on the position of minority languages in Africa
 and Asia and we should look at that and use it in our countries.

 >>ADAMA SAMASSÉKOU:   Yes, I confirm what's said about research and languages.
 But you're going to think it's quite right to speak about research in a broader
 context, to take in other elements.  It's true today.  And this is, in fact,
 the problem we're having in the discussion we're having right now.  A
 discussion on diversity shouldn't be restricted just to domain names. 
 Diversity is more than just scripts.  If we're going to discuss diversity, we
 must discuss all diversity issues, as Minister Gilberto Gil just said.  And I
 support his suggestion that the U.N.'s mandate should be expanded to look at
 diversity in the world, to include diversity.  And I think Sally Burch is
 absolutely right. I think one thing we must leave here with is a determination
 to show that between now and next year in New Delhi we see improvement in
 freeware translation software.  We held a workshop earlier on linguistic
 diversity.  And we didn't have any interpretation there.  How can you have a
 meeting on diversity with no interpretation?  It's impossible for us to do
 that.  Here, we must show that these technologies can promote dialogue between
 people speaking different languages. The final point I want is the point made
 by Divina.  It's fundamental as part of the World Summit process.  I made this
 point yesterday in my message, but I think she's absolutely right to stress the
 need to avoid compartmentalization in follow-up to the World Summit on the
 Information Society.  Internet is a pooled area where all of these issues can
 be addressed.  And it's unforgivable for us to compartmentalize the issues,
 since we are fortunate enough in Geneva and in Tunis to bring together all the
 stakeholders in the information society.  So I'm making an appeal to the ITU,
 to the UNDP, to UNESCO, which are responsible for the follow-up, to coordinate
 to the follow-up to the World Summit, and they are doing some very good work
 through the facilitators that have been identified, that their work should link
 into the discussions we are having in the Internet Governance Forum. I would
 repeat, the IGF is the only formal place where all of the stakeholders get
 together, all the community gets together to discuss specific Internet issues,
 I agree.  But those issues go beyond just technical issues and IDN issues.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio)....  Back because you wanted to, didn't you? 
 You said you wanted -- yeah.  And then can I please ask everybody to keep your
 comments relatively short?  Because we have some more questions from the floor,
 have another discussant to hear from. So, David, did you want to say something?
  Let David first, and then you.

 >>DAVID APPASAMY:   I just wanted to quickly address what you were talking
 about, as well as this business of translations. See, we have 1.1 billion
 people in India and only about 100 million proficient in English.  So all the
 other languages are alive and well.  And as the minister said, the culture --
 the language tends to be the identity of the ethnic group and culture.  So each
 state, India is like the European common, you know, union, because each state
 has its own ethnic group, its culture, everything. And each state has a
 population which is the same as any European country.  So it is very, very
 culturally alive.  And most people speak their own language. The common
 language is English.  Otherwise, we are like nation states. So the languages do
 extremely well if you look at the newspapers, largest circulated newspapers are
 the language papers.  And they're at the forefront of getting onto the Internet
 in terms of language, supported by universities. Coming to the question of
 translation software, I think Tamil is the only language which has something
 like translation software today, which is developed by a university in Chennai,
 where I come from. But the huge difficulty is, you know, leave alone English as
 a base language, each language has its own idioms, its own ways of expressing
 things which are just not captured by software.  Even in the, you know,
 translation, we can see changes happening.  And this is based on a human
 being's interpretation.  If it comes to software, I don't know how much could
 actually be captured, given what Indian languages are like. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. Divina.  You wanted to say something?

 >>DIVINA FRAU-MEIGS:   No.  I wanted to reply.  We're playing Ping-Pong here
 with research.  Research is a part of civil society. We need the other
 stakeholders, too, with us.  We need public policy, public financing for
 research into these areas so that we can have genuine coordination.  And
 particularly the problem we face as researchers, particularly in the social
 sciences and the human sciences, because we're very different from engineers,
 the problem we have is transferring our research, our discoveries into public
 action and public strategies. Let me give you an example.  The European
 community financed a huge six-country research program on mutual understanding.
  These are the problems that Sally referred to, problems of translation. But
 going beyond the language, culture, and identity. This project is online.  We
 have CDs and so forth.  But there's not a single European country that is using
 this research in their universities.  So research is being done, but we have no
 visibility, no transfer of this research. I think we need the support of the
 other two sectors, the public sector and the private sector, so that our
 research is used for genuine policy progress. We need a constructive agenda of
 cultural diversity.  I don't want a reactive agenda.  Look what's happening and
 say, "There's nothing we can do about it."  Let's be proactive, what can we do
 in terms of designing research upstream, the research that we need.  I think
 that's what we need.  I hope there will be feedback from this meeting.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio). ....  Similar theme.  The first is Elizabeth
 Dugas. That's the lady here.

 >>ELIZABETH DUGAS:   My name's Elizabeth Dugas, and I'm part of New Humanity, a
 group of -- an NGO group which operates throughout the world and which has its
 goal as the promotion of the progress of peoples through social projects,
 economic initiatives, cultural events, in particular, in developing countries.
 And our experience is that the Internet truly opened up a powerful opportunity
 for the promotion of peace and fraternity among all peoples.  And it's a tool
 which allows the creation of a trans-national community, enabling the sharing
 of these values and initiatives that are already underway. So given that one
 goal of the forum was to include children and teenagers, we want to give our
 contribution by sharing two international projects made possible by the
 Internet that promote diversity and unity across the globe. "Schoolmates" is a
 twinning program between schools all around the world which can be accessed
 through the Internet.  To date, there are 12 -- 1,200 schools participating in
 the program.  And this engenders a sharing of languages, traditions, and
 actions for solidarity, which are giving rise to a mutual appreciation of the
 richness and uniqueness of each cultural. "Run for Unity," where 100,000 boys
 and girls in more than 100 nations held a sports marathon dedicated to
 promotion of peace and brotherhood.  It is a 24-hour global relay race during
 which images and impressions are shared on the Web site and on a forum which
 has spread news also through a Web radio.  In fact, the next "Run for Unity"
 will be held in March 2005 [sic]. Each country did the race according to their
 own culture.  I'd like it hear or know about other such events that promote
 unity and diversity through the Internet.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  Can I also take a question from -- is it Shadi
 Abou-Zahra, who's at the back there?  Gentleman with his hand up.  Thank you.

 >> SHADI ABOU-ZAHRA:  Thank you for this great panel.  I think it's very
 interesting and very useful. I have a similar question.  We are talking here
 about diversity of different groups, many of whom are not participating today. 
 And it was mentioned on the panel before that especially for people with
 disabilities, it has been really difficult to come here and to find reasonable
 accommodation in all the logistics and setting up. So when we are talking about
 those different groups of users, how can we make sure that we can involve them
 in the discussions and in the production of solutions?  I think it's very
 difficult to develop solutions for groups that are not on the table and in
 different forums. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  Would anyone like to comment?  Briefly?
 Monthian?

 >>MONTHIAN BUNTAN:   I couldn't agree with you more.  I think we need to
 develop the mechanism in which we can involve as many people as possible in the
 process.  And by doing so, we have to find ways in which we can accommodate
 differences in terms of their needs and their abilities and their requirements.
 And having said that, I think we have seen quite much progress going on.  But
 still, even in the area of technical standards, we have been seeing much
 attempt to support multilingual -- language-independent, with or without
 script; we see attempt to preserve cultural identity through such standard. 
 But more needs to be done in that sense. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  I'm going to call on Pierre, Pierre Ouédraogo,
 our third discussant at this point.  And then I'm going to come to you, Daniel.
 Pierre.

 >>PIERRE OUÉDRAOGO:   Several speakers before me have spoken of these issues. 
 I come from the international organization of French-speaking countries.  This
 is an organization which has existed for almost 40 years, and for practically
 40 years has been working on diversity.  And we're very pleased to be involved
 with UNESCO in developing the convention on diversity which the minister
 referred to earlier. We are pleased to see that three-quarters of the countries
 of the world have acceded to this convention on cultural diversity. I'd like to
 perhaps apologize to those who before me have already said that we shouldn't
 talk about technical issues, because I think those technical issues are
 important, and I would like to hail the efforts being made in the IETF that
 Patrik spoke about, particularly IDN and that work.  And I'd like to make a
 proposal.  And then I'll ask two questions after the proposal. My proposal is
 that we have observed, at least over the past decade, that sometimes, under the
 impetus of innovation, we make discoveries.  We implement the innovation, and
 then we discover problems, the problems because we fail to respect a number of
 principles.  Perhaps we were too hasty.  Perhaps we couldn't take into account
 those principles.  And Daniel Pimienta reminded us of this earlier, why don't
 we also approach this sector to the way we approach biodiversity?  Why not have
 a precautionary principle, a precautionary technological principle, a
 precautionary linguistic principle?  Why not have a principle to ensure cyber
 diversity?  A kind of ethical rule, a kind of RFC, in the IETF's language,
 which would ensure that all of the scientific community respects diversity
 henceforth, wherever possible, that all -- and -- that new -- innovations
 should seek to take into account cultural diversity so that we do not deprive
 future humanity of certain possibilities.  Because up until --  Because now
 African countries have the possibility to go on the Internet.  They didn't have
 that 20 years ago. We don't know what the applications that will be developed
 in 50 years' time.  We don't know what the future is going to bring.  And I
 don't think we can say to our children, "No, I'm sorry, you won't be able to
 use this because we didn't think in advance about you and how you would want to
 use it in the future." Let's try and anticipate, let's try and be in advance of
 our times by adopting a principle which I would call the principle of cyber
 diversity.  Let's start thinking about those issues now. Now, on -- I come to
 my two questions. First of all, I'd like to bring a question to (inaudible). 
 I'd like to congratulate you.  But I wonder how you chose the 24 African
 languages.  Are these national languages?  What was the methodology you used to
 select those 24 languages? Do you know that there are people working on these
 issues in Africa.  Here in the room, we have many people who worked on the IDN
 project in Africa.  We spoke of this at the conference on multilingualism in
 cyberspace organized by UNESCO and supported by the French-speaking
 organization that was held in Bamako.  Do you know about that?  Why is it that
 we who are working on these issues do not know what you are doing?  That's my
 first question. My second question relates particularly to those who spoke of
 open standards.  Perhaps they didn't actually use those actual words.  But what
 is the impact of standards on diversity? The impact, we spoke here of freeware.
  I think that's part of the underlying idea. In other words, if today we don't
 promote the development of open standards, is that not going to cause major
 problems -- is that not going to cause major problems for diversity in the
 future?  And will we not, say, kick ourselves in the future for not having
 thought of this now in 2007, have not incorporated that principle now?

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio) really short.  Because we're running out of
 time.  Just you first and then you can answer the question.  That was a
 question to you, yes.

 >>BEN PETRAZZINI:   Very short.  I'm not the person responsible for that
 project.  I -- no, I am in charge of Latin America and the Caribbean.  And I
 can get you in contact with the person that is in charge of that project. The
 project is to begin next year. So my understanding is that is in the process of
 being developed.  But we'll follow up on that.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. Now, there was a second question about open
 standards.  Hang on.  Just before we go.  We've got -- we have -- yes.  We have
 only five minutes left, so....

 >>GILBERTO GIL:   I just have one quick comment on the issue of free software.
 If free software today in the world of the Internet, in the academic world, the
 technological world, if technological institutions all over the world admit
 that free software is a far more creative tool for all applications, for every
 application possible, why is it that precisely on the issue of developing
 multilingualism applied to the Internet, free software would not be an adequate
 tool?  Why not? I believe our commentator is entirely right when he attributes
 to free software a very relevant role in the development of issues related to
 multilingualism and the inclusion of excluded categories or semi-excluded
 categories. I think free software is a fundamental tool, like it has been in
 every sector of development of multiple languages in the Internet.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio). ....  Brief, because then the minister has to
 make his closing remarks. I'm going to start with Adama.  Please be brief.

 >>ADAMA SAMASSÉKOU:   Yes.  I wanted perhaps to follow on from what Pierre
 said. First of all, I agree with his proposal for the precautionary principle
 applied to linguistic diversity. I was the one who said that linguistic
 diversity is to Human Society what biodiversity is to the natural environment. 
 So I think, yes, what's been done for biodiversity should apply also to
 cultural diversity.  That's my first point. Secondly, I think that other
 research being done by the CITI.  The African academy of languages is involved
 in that.  At present, there's a group meeting in Johannesburg to localize
 languages.  But the major problem, as you said yourself, the major problem for
 all of the things we've talked about here is there's no coordination.  All of
 these initiatives are taking place separately.  We need to find a way of
 coordinating them.  As far as the African Academy of Languages is concerned, we
 have a mandate from the African Union to coordinate all language initiatives in
 the African continent.  We don't see how we can take into account many other
 initiatives elsewhere that are taking place in isolation of and being
 (inaudible) international organizations.  But at least in Africa we have that
 coordination. A third point on freeware.  As Daniel Pimienta said earlier, the
 problem is that the developers of freeware generally aren't interested in
 diversity.  I think this is important, an important point to make.  They're too
 technical.  We need to create synergies with them so that we can change the
 paradigm.  People only work in particular sectors, whereas, in fact, they
 should be taking a holistic, systemic approach to issues.  And I think this
 brings us right to the core of the issues of the World Summit that I mentioned
 earlier.  I think we'll come back to this at the end. I'm very pleased that we
 were able to discuss these issues now, to make the point, before we get to the
 third session of the Internet Governance Forum. These are all issues within the
 mandate of the forum.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   (No audio).

 >>BEN PETRAZZINI:   Very briefly, I spoke mostly about languages.  But we are
 largely concerned with other groups' diversity and the issue of people with
 disabilities. And in that sense, we are also investing considerably in Latin
 America in this area, because we believe that ICTs can turn around one of the
 fundamentals related with people with disabilities. We have done some research,
 and we have found out that those communities are among the ones with the
 highest unemployment rate, and therefore are among the poorest of particular
 communities.  With no resources, those communities cannot participate
 reasonably and actively in this information society. For that reason, and
 because telework is a powerful tool for allowing people with disabilities to be
 integrated into the economy to develop their own resources and participate with
 dignity in the marketplace, we are investing into a project that works on
 telework for people with disabilities.  And this is a shortcut into the main
 issues that have to do with accessibility, technical, and software and so on. 
 But we believe this is at the basis of their participation in the information
 society. Thank you.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you.  Monthian.

 >>MONTHIAN BUNTAN:   Thank you.  I mentioned about the accessibility as one
 aspect of diversity, and I also capture the essence of it, which is the concept
 of universal design.  And it could only be achieved by full and effective
 participation by -- of all stakeholders. I could not leave without mentioning a
 technical solution, even though I've been trying to avoid. I think there are
 good candidates to fulfill diversity and accessibility, regardless of language,
 with or without written scripts.  Such a standard is open, nonproprietary, and
 it embraces synchronized multimedia.  And I'd like to give credit to the DAISY
 Consortium for taking that initiative and maintaining that DAISY standard.
 Thank you very much.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you. We are rapidly coming to the end.  I'm going to
 ask the secretary to do a brief summary.

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:   Thank you, Chris. I think summary will be too ambitious.  I
 think it's more my reading of the debate, which was extremely rich, and I think
 it came out as a very strong plea for diversity in all its facets. There were
 different types of diversity mentioned -- linguistic diversity, cultural
 diversity, diversity of media, but also diversity relating to people with
 disabilities.  And we heard a very strong plea to make all we can do to make
 the Internet accessible for all.  And that would include people with
 disabilities, use of universal design, assistive technology, but also sign
 interpretation were mentioned in this context. And I do apologize here on
 behalf of the organization if participants with disabilities were caused
 discomfort, if we caused discomfort to people with disabilities.  It certainly
 was our intention to do everything we could to accommodate them here at the
 conference. And it was also mentioned diversity as an important tool, as an
 important element to give people and societies their freedom.  The example of
 African children were mentioned, were deprived of this freedom as they have to
 learn foreign languages as they enter school. The parallel was drawn to -- from
 linguistic diversity to biodiversity, and in this context, a precautionary
 principle was mentioned that should also be adapted as relating to diversity.
 The impact of standards and the importance of open, nonproprietary standards
 was mentioned, and also the use of free and open source software as important
 elements. Contrary to Athens last year, one panelist mentioned that we don't
 really need to discuss that much IDN.  Last year, I think we still faced some
 confusion between content in different languages and IDN.  And I think there
 the debate has moved further.  But, nevertheless, IDN remain an important
 aspect of diversity. And it was also mentioned that the Internet can be a
 powerful tool when it is in your own language, that it can help change society.
 And there were several concrete proposals that were made as a possible way
 forward, including the creation of a group to work on agreements to find a way
 to release copyright materials for linguistic localization. And I would end
 with how to measure diversity, and that full and active participation of all,
 including, in particular, people with disabilities, was mentioned as the
 yardstick to measure whether diversity is achieved or not. And Monthian said so
 nicely, the Internet should be a caring, peaceful, and barrier-free place.  And
 I end with this.

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   Thank you, Markus.  Thank you very much. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   The -- shortly, the -- shortly, the minister will make some
 closing remarks.  Just two things before -- three things before that happens.
 First of all, you've heard mention at least four times today that there is a
 workshop tomorrow on IDNs, IDN ccTLDs.  It's at 10:30 tomorrow morning in the
 imperial room.  It's a briefing session to explain what is happening in respect
 to IDN ccTLDs.  Those of you who are interested in that should try to attend.
 The last two things, I think we should -- given that this has been a session on
 diversity, it would be very appropriate if we thanked the translators for their
 hard work on the session. [ Applause ]

 >>CHRIS DISSPAIN:   And finally, before I hand back to the Minister, I think we
 should all thank the panelists as well [ Applause ]

 >>GILBERTO GIL:   I would like to thank you all for your participation.  And I
 would like to make some personal comments at the end of our discussion. These
 comments must not be construed as conclusions of the session, but just as a
 collaboration of the chairman in order to systematize the topics presented
 here. Discussion indicated a consensus that the Internet opens a fantastic
 prospect for increasing cultural diversity as well for the recombination of
 contents. It was also said that to transform this into reality, the Internet
 must be managed for the benefit of the whole of mankind. Mankind needs to be
 able to participate in it, using their own languages, and with their own values
 and cultural identity. For that, the Internet needs to expand in order to
 reflect in its content and addressing systems the cultural and linguistic
 diversity as well as regional and local differences that characterize
 civilization. I would like to suggest that we should explore this a little
 more.  That we should all try and explore the capacity for the Internet to be
 oral as well.  Because in the beginning, it could only be written, in the first
 -- in the beginning of the Internet.  And then with solutions and audiovisual
 solutions and the audio facilities incorporated by the Internet, orality became
 a very important feature in the Internet. So there are many languages in the
 world that are threatened by extinction.  And they are not written.  They are
 just oral languages. So it is the first time in modern times in history that we
 have the opportunity to have technical tools for the preservation of orality in
 the world. The Internet must also adapt itself to the needs of people with
 special needs.  And it became very clear here in the discussion that this
 depends on adequate peripherals and adequate design of pages on the Internet
 and other issues. We should remember this.  Respect the rights of people with
 deficiencies were the object of the first declaration adopted by the U.N. in
 the 21st century. The first convention adopted this century was the one dealing
 with people with deficiencies. So many aspects were presented by the
 discussants and by the members of the audience showing that diversity should
 continue to receive priority attention in discussions on governance of the
 Internet. Thank you very much. [ Applause ]