IGF 2019 WS #122
Strengthening Multilingual Internet towards Digital Dividend

Organizer 1: Priyatosh Jana, Mallabhum Institute of Technology,W.B,India
Organizer 2: Amrita Choudhury, CCAOI
Organizer 3: Babu Ram Aryal, Internet Governance Institute

Speaker 1: Benjz Gerard Sevilla, Government, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Babu Ram Aryal, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Olga Cavalli, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 4: Kristina Hakobyan, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 5: Dajana Mulaj, Civil Society, Eastern European Group

Moderator

Priyatosh Jana, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group

Online Moderator

Amrita Choudhury, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Rapporteur

Priyatosh Jana, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group

Format

Birds of a Feather - Classroom - 60 Min

Policy Question(s)

* If Indigenous Languages matter for Empowerment of people online, then what remedies need to be made to promote them?
* How we can overcome the challenges of Language and Cultural Diversity in the Cyberspace?
* How to Strengthen the Multilingual Internet of the Digital Revolution?

SDGs

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 10: Reduced Inequalities
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Description: The workshop session will be conducted on Birds of a Feather format. The identified speakers, IGF attendees and experts from other regions including remote participant who can contribute to the session. The session will start off with some opening remarks. These will briefly present ongoing issues. The session structure is formulated as the following:
1. Initial Plenary by the moderator to introduce the subject -05 minutes
2. Plenary Discussion -30 minutes
Identified speakers will share their country perspective on
* Strengthening the Multilingual Internet
* Weakness / Challenges towards Digital Dividends.
* Opportunity on Local Contents of the Digital Revolution.
* Remarkable Initiatives has been adopted by any countries.
* What are the more things to be done
3. Open Floor Discussion – 20 minutes
4. The session will be concluded followed by a wrap-up by the Moderator – 5 minutes.

Through an interactive, multistakeholder discussion, the workshop will be guided by the questions from remote participants.If necessary, Specific questions which the moderator can create to speakers and all participants will be encouraged to contribute.



Expected Outcomes: The different stakeholder’s participant throughout the world, who can lead discussions in this workshop on the present situation in their country and their thoughts. Diversity in Multistakeholder and expertise panelists to have on this very workshop to talk to the attendees and interact with them in terms of their potentials in light of the evolving Internet governance landscape.
As an outcome of this workshop people will able to understand how much work to be done as the Internet evolves, at the technical level and in resolving the regulatory, cultural, national, and social implications surrounding every innovation. The Internet’s many stakeholders must work together to bridge the digital divide so that the billions of potential users now hindered by technical, practical, political, or cost considerations are assured access at the highest speeds technically feasible.

During the workshop session,the identified speakers and experts will interact with the IGF attendees from throughout the globe including remote participants who can contribute to the session.Through an interactive, multistakeholder discussion, the workshop will be guided by the questions from onsite and online participants.If necessary, Specific questions which the moderator can create to speakers and all participants will be encouraged to contribute.

Relevance to Theme: The topic has been chosen based on the challenges of the digital penetration. Language is the medium through which all information society exchanges occur. Language is a fundamental medium for all communication, the basis by which individuals and communities express themselves whether in oral tradition or in written text.Language diversity ensuring that the riches of culture that diversity represents will be preserved for all countries and for the world as a whole. The cultural issue of languages on the Internet serves as a counter to the perceived concentration of issues surrounding the information society on ICTs and their impact. Increasingly, information and knowledge are key determinants of wealth creation, social transformation and human development. Language is a primary vector for communicating information and knowledge, thus the opportunity to use one’s language on the Internet will determine the extent to which one can participate in emerging knowledge societies.
Many languages are not present on the Internet. There is a vast linguistic divide, which exists in cyberspace today and this will only exacerbate the digital divide. Everyone therefore should have access to the multilingual Internet. Nations, communities and individuals without access to the Internet and its resources will certainly be marginalized with limited access to information and knowledge, which are critical elements of sustainable development. Speakers of non-dominant languages need to be able to express themselves in culturally meaningful ways, create their own cultural content in local languages and share through cyberspace. The digital divide has two important aspects: firstly, everyone should have access to the Internet, and secondly, access to quality content created not only at international or regional level, but locally and in local languages. The Internet is multilingual and culturally diverse where every culture and language has its own space.


Relevance to Internet Governance: The Multilingual Internet seeks to support sustainable processes of awareness raising about the need for multilingualism in Cyberspace, understanding access to information as a Human Right for indigenous groups, knowledge sharing of best practices for local languages in cyberspace and capacity building for communities especially with endangered languages. It is needed to strengthen the right for access to information in Internet for indigenous communities and will stimulate communities of native languages. Linguistic and the Cultural Diversity intends to contribute to define principles and actions to foster a culturally diverse cyberspace that are specific to the region. Language diversity ensuring that the riches of culture that diversity represents will be preserved for all countries and for the world. The cultural issue of languages on the Internet serves as a counter to the perceived concentration of issues surrounding the information society on ICTs and their impact.

Online Participation

Online moderator will take care about online participant through online participation tool.Online moderator will be communicating with pannel for the specific questions coming from remote participant.