The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. 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 event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
***
>> Good afternoon to all. We'll begin with the High Level Meeting that will consist of a debate of all interested parties in which the participants will intervene in alphabetical order. It will be moderated by Victor Lagunes, Director General of IT of Information Technologies of the presidency.
Welcome.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Good afternoon.
Welcome to Day 0 of the IGF. We're very proud to have you here. We have had a very productive morning with several presentations from the Chair of the multistakeholder party Chair from the President of ISOC, the governor of the State of Jalisco among others.
Mexico is still quite strong in its position of supporting the scheme of Internet Governance. We believe in a multistakeholder environment in order to promote and potentialize the Internet. This is why last December we supported the IGF mandate renewal and not only do we reiterate this support but here we are today.
I now pass the floor to a member of the Department of The United Nations office, Lenni Montiel.
>> LENNI MONTIEL: It is an honor to join you in this beautiful City of Jalisco, State of Zapopan, Guadalajara, Mexico.
On behalf of the United Nations I thank the Government of Mexico, particularly Victor Lagunes, chief information officer at the Office of the President for making this gathering possible and for your commitment and leadership in hosting the 11th Session of the Internet Governance Forum. The strong commitment of the Mexican government to the IGF is remarkable. It was in early 2015 that the government announced the pledge to host this IGF in advance of the renewal of the mandate of the IGF last year at the General Assembly's review of the WSIS+10.
This commitment is apparent demonstrating Mexico's leadership in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. As you know, the 2030 Agenda is anchored in 17 universal Sustainable Development Goals and 169 interconnected targets providing critical reference points for government, civil society, the private sector and all relevant stakeholders. One calls for significant increase in access information, technologies, providing universal, affordable access to the Internet in the least‑developed countries by 2020. This is an ambitious, achievable goal. The profile for the Internet and innovation of ICTs is highlighted in the technology facilitation mechanism, a major outcome of the action Agenda Item and the 2030 Agenda. Clearly the Internet penetrated in all corners of the globe. For us here, and many others in technologies it is a part of our everyday life, we must not forget that many people continue to live in the margin of society, some in rural areas, urban slums and lack access to infrastructure, resources and information. We must not forget that many forms of digital divides remains between and within countries and between women and men. It is a concern that such digital divides may be widened with the advancement and diffusion of the Internet.
In addition to supporting the U.N. Secretary‑General in convening the annual IGF meetings, the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs supports the U.N. high level political Forum which reviews the implementation of the Agenda 2030 and its SDG and the U.N. technology facility mechanism. We support the work of the U.N. along with ITU, UNESCO and others in implementing the outcomes of the World Summit on Information Society. Working as one the U.N. will continue to do more to foster social inclusion, including be through the Internet and ICTs.
I would like to highlight that this is the 11th IGF and the 10th convened by the Secretary‑General Ban Ki‑moon who, as you know, is finishing his mandate at the end of this year. The Secretary‑General Antonio Guterres will take office as of the 1st of January 2017 and will continue to have the IGF as per the mandate. Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, let us find ways for social inclusion to bring about the power of access and knowledge to those in need. Let us work together to leverage on the Internet to empower Sustainable Development to leave no one behind.
Thank you.
[Applause]
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
I would like to thank everyone for their presence and ‑‑ around the table here. I'm going to pose two questions. Each at the table will have the opportunity to speak between 3 to 5 minutes. I ask you to be brief with your answers in respect to our audience.
My first question has to do with a multistakeholder dialogue focused opportunity, the opportunities that offers the MAG for Internet Governance in matters of inclusion and digital abilities for the future emphasizing the necessary abilities in this environment for the Internet and associations and several aspects, including the economic one.
What advantages does the Multistakeholder Advisory Group have in matter of inclusion, including different elements to close the gap digital wise.
I would like to ask Mr. Ambassador from China Qiu Xiaoqi to present his answer.
>> QUI XIAOQI: It seems the problem with the translation is not resolved and I would like to wait for a moment until it is resolved.
Maybe you can ask somebody else to answer this. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: I pass the floor to ‑‑ would the Secretary like to give his answer?
Malcolm Johnson.
>> MALCOLM JOHNSON: ITU is the specialized U.N. Agency for Telecommunications and Information Communication Technology. One of our main objectives is to bring the benefits of ICTs to all peoples regardless of location, gender, age, income.
According to ITU's latest statistics, 40% of the world's population is using the Internet. That leaves many that are not. If we look at the case of the Least Developed Countries it is a sad story. There are various others digital divides that are becoming apparent, for example the gender divide as was mentioned. It is estimated that there are 200 million less women than men connected. Also Persons with Disabilities, many are not able to take the benefit of the ICTs, it is a chronic lack of digital skills in many countries and a lack of affordable solutions, especially the developing countries. A world where everyone is connected to the Internet is clearly going to be a better place, a better place to be informed, to be educated, to be productive and have healthcare and enjoy a better standard of living.
To really benefit from all of the innovative products and services available on the Internet, it requires access to high‑speed broadband. This the issue that ITU is continuing to bring to the attention of our governments, government members, 193 government members of ITU. We need to continually highlight the importance of access to broadband and to make sure that networks are ran out in countries which is quite a challenge especially for the developing countries where the majority of the population is living in rural areas. We have to work with all stakeholders, especially the private sector, we have to encourage their investment. That's important. Three keywords are collaboration, cooperation, coordination between all stakeholders. This is why the multistakeholder model is so important. ITU has a wide membership, governments, private sector, and non‑governmental organizations and recently academia. We clearly need to work with many other organizations and entities that are not members of ITU. We're looking forward to doing that and we believe that events like the Internet Governance, like the WSIS Forum which we ran in Geneva each year, they're very important to bring all the multistakeholders together and to agree to work together to provide duplication of effort to pull resources to work towards the common good. We're very pleased here having this discussion with you today.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you Malcolm Johnson.
I now pass to you.
>> JARI ARKKO: To start with, I wanted to say that I'm pleased to be here in Mexico and in this conference, the topic today and many other topics in the week are important for the Internet. I want to respond to the multistakeholder question from inside by providing a perspective on the engineering taskforce, the ITF, we want to improve the HTPT. I want to begin by saying how important inclusiveness is for our work.
If you let few or few drivers go with the discussion, you won't get the full picture. We dip in critically on this multistakeholder model to get the views of those that build applications, the views of the network operators, views from those that worry about the privacy of the end user, government views, regulatories are involved, so on. The biggest value we get in our work is from these discussions between different types of people. Our model in how we achieve this, it is special, and I feel it has worked well for us. The basic idea is to have low barrier for participation. All you need is an e‑mail address and a good idea or feedback. Everybody who is interested on a topic is welcome and discussions are held together. We try to draw people to the meetings and for that we run a Fellows program but the primary work is online. The cost of participation, it is low.
It is an interesting contrast to many others that are structured around other participants, government, Civil Society, business. In ITF people represent themselves and ideas, not in a particular sector. I'm proud of the results, we come from 76 different countries, from many different backgrounds and for the tech industry at least our organization has good distribution in our leadership groups and so on. I don't want to give a view that there are no challenges, we try to draw in a broader set of people and it is hard work.
A difficulty is that for any given topic the participants need a reason to participate and they need knowledge to engage in the discussion productively. Where there is a lot of industry academia or government experts it is easy to find the participants, but harder elsewhere.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Dorothy Attwood.
>> DOROTHY ATTWOOD: The global public policy for the Walt Disney Company. To answer your question directly, the multistakeholder model is essential to foster Internet growth and to maximize inclusion while preserving diversity. I would like to direct comments to the role of conduct with inclusion diversity and how the multistakeholder model is an enabler. Walt Disney saw storytelling and entertainment as vital elements to building social cohesion. He once said, We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.
As far back as 2011 UNESCO, ISOC and the OECD looked at the relationship between the availability of locally relevant contact, infrastructure development and prices for access. Unsurprisingly it showed a strong correlation between them. They created a virtuous cycle where more of one stimulates the other, and all work to bridge the divide. Increased locally relevant content drives adoption which drives investment in infrastructure which improves access prices, further providing incentives for greater content creation. The benefits of the virtuous cycle is maximized with a broad view and encourages all kinds of content meaningful to the user's life.
A vibrant online content creation market brings benefits not only for local users, but it can create a spring board for content creators to gain accesses to audiences around the globe allowing them to invest in even more content and drive job growth in the creative sector. This week's participants in the IGF will hear from an entrepreneur from Ghana, for example, who has developed a show called an African city which has found an audience through successful licensing arrangements with distributors in and out of Africa she's been able to create two seasons of her series doubling her production budget for the second season. At Disney we too seek to find stories and storytellers wherever they are. While of course we release blockbuster movies like Zootopia and Star Wars and others we know to be successful we have to provide content which is locally relevant and contextualized to the local market. Being here in Mexico, I'll just comment briefly on an investment we made recently in local sports content, for example. We have a state‑of‑the‑art production facility in Mexico City that produces the Mexican addition of sports edition, ESPN's flagship sports news and its ‑‑ it has become a world class facility for us for all over Mexico and Latin America. Digging a little deeper, given the importance of locally relevant content to drive inclusion, diversity, Internet growth we believe that there are three main drivers that create an enabling environment, first an environment suppose of free expression is critical whether we're talking about creative expression or political speech. Second, a strong, trusted eCommerce infrastructure with privacy protections, consumer protections and payment platforms, it is crucial. Also, protecting Intellectual Property, it will promote the development of business models and protect consumers allowing content creators to create sustainable businesses. Finally, improving access to finance, credit, business support services for our emerging artists, it is important to promote a robust content creation industry. Most importantly is the solutions needs multistakeholder cooperation from national governments, NGOs and private sector entities along the value chain. If we work to enable the world storytellers through multistakeholder driven solution I believe we'll see the dividends of inclusion, diversity and other Internet growth increased. Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
In terms of our Agenda, I have clarification, I would like to give the floor to the Ambassador from China, Qiu Xiaoqi.
Please, Ambassador.
>> QIU XIAOQI: Dear colleagues, we would like to congratulate all of you for the successful IGF that we will all have. I would like to thank the Mexican government and the IGF Secretariat for all of the efforts made and from gracious kindness in the organization of the Forum. We live in a digital and unprecedented era, ITCs develop nonstop and they integrate nonstop, and they integrate in the real world. Internet provides a new space for our daily lives and the way we work. It also offers a platform for cultural exchanges and economic exchanges. We're facing new threats and challenges among which I would like to highlight the development of the cyberspace, a lack of standards and order and we see the digital divide extending between the north and the South and it happens that the crime that takes place in the Internet violations of intellectual rights and property rights as well. We see several attacks on the Internet and terrorisms have become ‑‑ have become global calamities. Therefore, this has been an area of discussion for all of us. Dear colleagues, as an outcome of WSIS this Forum has had 10 additions, now this is a new landmark in our journey, the IGF in the next ten years must perform its outstanding role together with the wisdom of all stakeholders to build together a governance system on the Internet that is democratic and transparent. Therefore, I would like to propose to you three things: First one, to insist on the equal importance on continuously innovating. I would like to stand out that Internet development cannot change the international world order specified by the U.N. sovereignty, non‑interference in domestic appearance, non‑use of armed forces and dispute settlement mechanism. This is what we should also see in the cyberspace.
We also have to continue ‑‑ to continue having innovation in our practices. We want to have lasting peace in the Internet environment and continue developing in a framework of security. Security ensures development and we have to continue with our level of development by using the Internet to fill the digital gap and we have to keep on helping developing countries with aid and we have to turn our eyes to security issues. By this we'll be able to have a robust and sound development in a digital economy. We cannot afford to compromise security for a market economy. We have to insist on the common space of human interaction and the cyberspace stakeholders are diverse. We must insist in a multilateralism approach, Internet should not be a space enjoyed by a few. We have to enhance the participation of all governments, companies, social organizations, international organizations among other stakeholders.
Dear colleagues, China has 700 million Internet users, 870 million ‑‑ mobile Internet users. The Internet is part of our social and economic life in China.
Currently the Chinese government is aiming for an Internet development strategy and big data strategy in China, as well as having possibility of having Internet Plus. We are creating a digital China not only for our benefit, but for the world's benefit. In the last few years China has made major contributions to develop its digital committee in the G20 by creating digital route between China and Asia to share the opportunities that Internet offers with all Asian countries. We're willing to work and have more dialogue and cooperation and to have long‑lasting security in the cyberspace.
Finally, I wish you the best for the Forum.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
I would like to give the floor to Philip Behn.
>> PHILIP BEHN: Thank you, Victor. Thank you for inviting us to this conference and High Level Meeting.
We are ‑‑ we have been following and admiring the efforts by the Mexican government and also by the state Government of Jalisco to bring the Internet to Mexicans. As a retailer whose mission is to help customers save money so that they can live better, WalMart is deeply committed to the goals of this organization ‑‑ (technical issue) ‑‑ environment of trust and protection of privacy and customer rights.
Thirdly, we believe in establishing a culture of innovation. We have heard a couple of examples this morning of both federal and state government efforts to foster that. We strongly believe that the Internet can be unlocked through a culture of innovation which starts at the very basic educational level and goes all the way through the workforce.
We're committed to a diverse, free and open Internet which can be used for good. We believe that eCommerce is one of the areas where the Internet can truly contribute to a country's developing goals.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much, Philip.
I would like to give the floor to Itzcoati Tonatiuh Bravo. We're grateful for your help in the organization of this event.
>> ITZCOATI TONATIUH BRAVO: Thank you very much.
Welcome. All of us that live in this city and State I would like to say welcome to all of you.
Universities play a very important role in terms of what Internet can provide. Some of you have made reference to what Internet offers in your remarks. The most classical definition made by a University to train technicians, graduates at an undergraduate level in the whole range of programs that entail the development of digital skills. The expansion of networks, software development, hardware development and what is needed for Internet to work.
It's the role of universities as well to work towards all kinds of research, not only ITC‑related research, but also to carry out research in the social arena. I should say that a dictatorial thesis from a graduate from University of Guadalajara showed how the Internet was widely used in Indigenous communities in the northern part of the State and the United States. This was to communicate between migrants. We know that the biggest gaps that we see in the Internet is in this social group. There are other aspects in which universities participate, and due to the digital strategy launched by the Mexican government universities have been able to participate in the program Mexico Connect. It offers the possibility to incorporate a joint effort made by public universities in the country with the purpose in mind to generate new areas to provide Internet connectivity. We must bear in mind, in this experience we enabled more than 100,000 new sites that offer Internet connections. It is very important for us to add efforts, and this is what I would like to share with you:
We need to strengthen connectivity in every university campus. We need to have a robust, stable broadband in which we can use the network for research purposes and educational purposes and the Internet to train professionals and equip them with all of the skills with all the technological knowledge that they need for the Internet. In the morning we heard about eCommerce and the Internet used for entertainment purposes. This is universal in the field of health and in the field of education, but every single field practically uses the Internet. Therefore, I would like to share with you two points: First of all, we universities can provide the possibility of opening up spaces for connectivity in order to extend Internet availability and reduce the digital divide. On the other hand, we can train in the classrooms students, but we can take that knowledge to other places, not necessarily a university classroom.
Additionally, which in my opinion is an essential topic, we can develop new skills and be innovative in the way we use Internet. The Internet is a free space. It is an independent space in by the world is interconnected. In this sense, innovation can be the main feature of the Internet globally.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Now we will hear from Kathy Brown.
>> KATHY BROWN: Thank you, Victor.
Thank you, once again for having the Internet Society as such a crucial part of today's conversation. I ‑‑ we thank you for again ‑‑ for your hospitality, again, frankly, for this gathering. I'm quite pleased to see this multistakeholder panel as large as it is to be the focus of this day where the government itself in hosting realizing that the questions need to be addressed by a diversity of parties. We're well on our way after 10 years, I think, of how we might want to address these important questions.
As we talked about this morning, we are in a moment in time in the Internet where we are faced with complex issues that require careful, cautious, urgent results and solutions. In order for us to foresee in a way that is ‑‑ that parallels the architecture of the Internet that is its openness, its transparency, its transnational nature, its non‑centralized properties we need to have decision making processes that can ‑‑ that are parallel to the very complex issues that we face. Those are distributed, those are local, those are national, those are international. In order to arrive at good decision making it seems to us we have to put some meat on the bones of what we mean in real life for multistakeholder processes. It seems to me that it is now the time for us to reform many of the ways that we have done things because we have done them all along, to think through how we go beyond consultation on a particular issue and move to consensus participation.
A couple of thoughts: We need to address issues where they arise. If the issue has to do with how do parents think their children should use the Internet in the classroom, it seems to me that's a very local issue with stakeholders that are quite clear: The children, the parents, administrators, communities, teachers. They have quite the ability to sort through these things. When they're on the national level and we're sorting through commercial issues, we know we need the companies involved, we need the customers involved, we need users, sometimes we need government ‑‑ not always. There may be times we do for normative‑type issues we have to solve. Certainly internationally I respect the statement of the Ambassador from China that there are deep complex and we have mutual concerns about how the issues are decided across border. This will require exercises in how sovereign nation states come together to deal with a transnational phenomenon which all of the world's people can use.
I think that we are at a stage where we actually need to think through how the process works and to think through reform because in order to actually deal with some of the issues that we know are effecting had the trust, safety, security of the Internet, and indeed its ability to be available to all the people of the world, it will take that kind of effort.
Thank you so much, Victor.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Please, you are recognized.
>> Thank you very much, Victor.
I apologize first as there was a delay in the airspace. I would like to welcome all of the ministers present here, academics, members of the media. I would like to acknowledge the organizers of the Internet Governance Forum. I would like to acknowledge all participants and I would like to thank you for this opportunity to share different views and approaches about the Internet and I'm grateful to be a part of this conversation. It is an honor to share a couple of ideas.
Basically on the multistakeholder model and the different world efforts that have taken place in the area of inclusion, I would like to say, again, that the Internet is a tool, that what it does, it is to exercise basic rights for citizens like the right to information, the right to privacy, the right to ITCs, the right to broadcasting services. That's why our main ‑‑ our Constitution, it does not acknowledge the right of technology, but it paves the way for development, knowledge. It serves as a window for a more democratic space. Internet could become a mechanism, it could become a tool so that societies become more inclusive.
Mexico in its national development plan has set forth in the Constitution, the plan. It is aimed to grow sustainably, equitable society with social cohesion, and Inclusive Mexico will require redirecting efforts to make sure that social rights are accessible to fill the gaps in terms of inequality that historically we have seen in this country. And in order to fulfill this goal ITCs play a crucial role, as I have mentioned, paving the way towards development.
Mexican government uses ITCs and ITCs are core components of the federal and local administration in Mexico by expediting processes, ITCs, they're used to have more transparency in public administration practices, ITCs are used to improve government services and to eliminate corruption, but we also want to have a society that exercises its democratic rights.
I would like to wrap up by saying that we want to have citizens that demand from their governments through technology.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Mishi Choudhary will take the floor.
>> MISHI CHOUDHARY: Thank you for having me here.
The premise of this conversation is that Internet is a media of inclusion and education. I'm glad such is the premise. It used to be true, and one value in the multistakeholder model is that it’s ‑‑ that it being valid make this happen. This is no happy accident. It is the nature of the Internet and the participants that have built it. It started with the free, open source movement in the 20th Century and what that did was make participation in software making and services by allowing everybody to copy, modify, share possible for anyone interested.
The Internet allows everybody to participate because protocols are open. They're adopted by consensus and everybody can implement them. This is crucial in the same way that open participation in science is crucial. Everybody is there because we learned in the 20th Century that maximum participation makes better social policy. The possibility of this broad participation is the real economic and social promise. When we talk about the net what we're always referring to are the open participatory mechanisms and cooperation through methods pioneered by the sharing economy. We should have the propositions of openness, transparency, participation, I'm surprised by freedom and liberty are not featured in the discussions as much as a multistakeholder does. Having recognized that, at present the net is well along in the transformation in a behavioral collection system. Many see the futures secured by collecting, monetarizing and deploying actions based on the behavior collection they engage in or obtain the results of through brute force or power.
This is the net that we do not want. The real value of the multistakeholder model is that it keeps the doors of this room open so that we can come here and talk about when the premise itself has shifted, the center of gravity has moved from the possibility of educating every brain on earth into a behavior collector. Now it is all about what comes back by way of stream, behavior information and location data, preference data and profiling and the value that the net provides to people education, economic opportunity, cultural exchange is all involved.
>> Their deep anxiety on the worldwide web is currently taking, the violations of Snowden, what the web has been used by the governments, and the realization that a fun companies have become ‑‑ that a few companies are gate keepers to the rights. This is a value of the multistakeholder model that I can sit here and talk about this.
The net's default model was supposed to be openness and decentralization as allows diverse voices, voices like ours that are from the global South, north, wherever. They are not in this room but can use the platforms like Facebook and Twitter for their voices to be heard before the waters tell you what the tide is. This is the idea that human beings are connected through this medium and also exchange and bring the promise of the net.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Steve Crocker.
>> STEVE CROCKER: Thank you very much. Pleased to be here at the IGF meeting and at this High-Level Meeting in particular. I say a special thank you to the Government of Mexico to invite me to participate in this session, it is a pleasure to participate with this distinguished group of officials, leaders and Internet Governance experts.
It is exciting that the IGF is now entering its second decade in improving itself as a robust platform for the Internet Governance die loss. We wouldn't be here if ‑‑ dialogue and it would not ‑‑ and we would not be here without those further striving to improve the IGF.
ICANN is consistently a strong supporter since its inception and has increased the support over the years. We have viewed the IGF as a positive example of an effective platform for stimulating constructive dialogue across the global, multistakeholder community. From the very beginning the Internet was based on a set of open standards which were developed through open and collaborative processes. Open standards are key to maintaining one single internet allowing all to communicate. This is vital to the integrity and to foster innovation and creative allowing economies and societies to take advantage of the opportunities offered. The policy making part of the Internet has also evolved on the principle of openness allowing those that are interested in and/or effected by such policies to take part in the development process. Internet technical bodies such as the ITF, regional Internet registries and ICANN have embraced the process driven by community in an open, bottom‑up manner. 10 years ago when the IGF was making early steps we had slightly more than 1 billion users connected to the Internet which we thought was a large number. Today we have around 3.6 billion users. This is spectacular growth but yet there are around 4 billion more who are still offline. Clearly connectivity of the unconnected is a main challenge that the global community is faced with today.
The challenge here is a multilevel one, barriers to a single end‑point server are diverse from lack ‑‑ barriers are diverse and a lack of relevant content and lack of trust in some developed countries. There are numerous initiatives by many actors around the world from governments, industry, technical communities to overcome the barriers. One challenge that ICANN has been dealing with is making the Internet domain names available in various scripts. This is of course a very small portion of the very large set of issues, but it is the one that we focus on at ICANN. The domain names were only in the Latin‑based characters and now there are top level domains available in the scripts of 35 languages such as Chinese and others, just to name a few. Making new top level domains usable in all enter Internet users requires a great deal of work underway for some time and it is known as universal acceptance. Universal acceptance is the foundational requirement for a truly multi‑lingual Internet.
Forums like the IGF play a role to bring altogether to facilitate the discussions around these matters. I would like to applaud the IGF for its continuing intersessional work on the theme Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion and I look forward to discussion on the phase 2 report later in the week. As we get more people and more things online challenges will not go away with trends like the Internet of Things. The Internet will be more complex and have more security threats. Recently videos were used in an attack against a major infrastructure provider Dyne. Unfortunately, we expect more attacks going forward.
At ICANN we are busy for the last two and a half years working on proposals to transfer the stewardship role with the unique identifiers to the global community and as many of you know, on October 1st the contract between ICANN and the U.S. Department of Telecommunication and Information Administration to perform the functions expired. The expiration of this contract marks the transition of the coordination and management of the unique identifiers to the global stakeholder community. It was tireless work of the global community that made it a reality. The stewardship transmission is a validation of the Internet Governance showing that an Internet Governance defined by inclusion of all voices including businesses, technical experts, Civil Society, governments, many others, it is the best way to assure that the Internet of tomorrow is as free, open, accessible as the Internet is today.
More work is currently underway to continue to enhance the accountability mechanisms throughout the phase which we call work stream 2, the focus is on improving transparency diversity and looking at aspects of jurisdiction and Human Rights in relationship to ICANN's mission. It is very important that people still stay involved in this work and I would emphasize the importance of Forums like this to bring everyone around the table to engage in an open dialogue around key issues may impact the future of the Internet and it may be difficult to predict the future of the Internet and it will evolve in ways we cannot currently foresee but one thing that's certain, it will continue to connect more people and to be more embedded in our lives than ever before.
Thank you again for the opportunity. I hope we all have a very productive week.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
I would like to pass the floor to Siyabonga Cwele.
>> SIYABONGA CWELE: Let me thank the government and the people of this beautiful country for receiving us.
I come from the most southern tip of Africa, South Africa. As a developing country, we take the Internet as the most important global resource which can help all of us in developed countries to leapfrog in development. We support the multistakeholder governance with the multilateral governance of the Internet. Briefly, what is ‑‑ we're contributing quite a lot to the 3.9 who are unconnected as Mr. Johnson has put. The reason, simple, we have predominantly rule communities which are not connected. Our levels of educations are still relatively low, low incomes and the majority of the people also are still unconnected in our world, it is our women. The main barriers we see with the multistakeholder, where they can assist, the majority of our citizens, they're still not aware of the actual benefits of the Internet. The issue of public education and skill development becomes quite important. The importance of the relevant content, it must be relevant in solving their own problems but also the language because few of our citizens are speaking these languages like English. They have their own languages which are permanent in our society. The issue of confidence, security and the use of Internet, we still face quite a lot of challenges in terms of access in all respects of access, the cost of the devices are very inhibited and they're keeping a lot of our citizens from accessing the Internet. More critically, we still are faced with the issues of power. The connectivity in terms of electricity to power the devices is challenging although they're improving and investing a lot of this in line with Agenda 2063 of the African Union.
How do we see the role of the multistakeholder participation, we see it as a private/public partnership? Firstly, to look at the skills of the development with the uptake of the Internet will be helpful. Secondly, development of relevant applications so that we can solve local problems. If we solve local problems, more of our people will take the Internet because Internet is a big economy. Thirdly, production, local production of affordable devices. Just lastly, as a government, we see Internet as a basic right. That's why most of our municipalities, they're giving this as a basic package, a free package, a method of access, giving a basic access of free or basic wi‑fi. Those are some things we think we should continue to collaborate as multistakeholders, particularly private sector, academia, governments, so that we can solve some of these challenges and also leapfrog to development together as a nation.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Hossam El Gamal.
>> H. EL GAMAL: Excellencies, my colleagues, I'm Hossam El Gama. I have been appointed a year ago as Chairman of the Decision Support Center in the Egyptian Cabinet.
Prior to that, I was an SME owner. I was presenting the private business community in Africa and internationally as a leader in the ICT basis. I was nominated in the MAG as a MAG member for three years. I have to share the fact that it was a great journey exchanging knowledge, experience, Best Practices and preparing best suitable policies to secure Sustainable Development through Internet enablement and governance. I would like to echo what my colleague from South Africa just said, many of what he said I exactly support. In fact, last year IGF efforts were recognized and appreciated by the U.N. General Assembly and a new 10‑year mandate was approved. Our challenge is to secure inclusive development, results serving Sustainable Development Goals and having clear measurements. Developing countries have been investing in access and are encouraged to do so, but we need to move from output based to outcome based. As we don't have the option to do otherwise to achieve required sustainable growth we need to establish standards for measurement for Internet in education, in health, in commerce, in SME growth, in gender balance, in inclusiveness in each of our countries. We suggest more to be done to ensure exchange ever localized Best Practices between developing countries. We suggest more support and focus on International Policies related to cybersecurity. We also believe multistakeholder cooperation is required to support more local content delivery serving cultural enrichment and language preservation. Further engagement is appreciated to support a healthy ecosystem for local SMEs and for Internet industry enabling job creation, SMEs empowerment, export growth, inclusiveness and government organizations.
Finally, I want to thank the Government of Mexico and our colleague ‑‑ my colleagues from the MAG for the extremely tremendous effort that's been asserted, and I wish you to be very successful.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you, Hossam El Gamal.
Now Hasanul Haq Inu.
>> HASANUL HAQ INU: Thank you so much.
Good afternoon to all.
I am very pleased to be a part of this panel. With so many experts there's a lot of diversity of points of view here, and this first question was about the relevance of this multistakeholder model in order to deal with the topics and challenges that the Internet poses. I would begin with the reflection of when we deal with topics of the Internet we think about a variety of matters depending on our experiences and some of us think about competition, some think about investment, some about coverage, inclusion, innovation, right to information, access, privacy, security. It is such a diverse matter that we have to focus on when it comes to the Internet ecosystem. This generates very big challenges in order to achieve, to carry out those actions that could achieve a better balance between these objectives. Indeed we have to speak of commitment between the diversity of objectives because many times when we take actions that give privilege to one, we are casting some other element aside. The diversity that these types of fora offer, it is to be able to share points of views and preoccupation in order to not set anything aside.
As well as we also need to take care of the balance between the tools that we have at hand from different types of platforms whether they're the traditional regulating instruments up to the schemes that come from Civil Society and taking advantage of the Internet's capacity to generate collaboration with and from our citizens and that will allow for us to take care of that balance with the collaboration ‑‑ between offer and demand because we need to take in account all of the cases regarding matters of inclusion, especially regarding marginalized society. We have to take advantage of the opportunity that the Internet is giving us to incorporate groups that have been marginalized from development and economic opportunities and for this, we need to take action, decisive action. We need to take action so that the Internet will become this tool to reduce the differences and it distances among us and a sheer we have the purpose of this multistakeholder meeting. This is the most powerful promise that we have in order to achieve these goals.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
I now pass the floor.
>> HASANUL HAQ INU: Thank you very much.
Honorable Chair, distinguished guests, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me greet you on behalf of 160 million people of Bangladesh and where Bangladesh at the moment is ranked third in IT and IT services, out sourcing globally out of a proposition of 160 million we have our ‑‑ over 133 million mobile users, over 54 million net users, 99% of the land has a coverage of data connectivity. Over 5,000 service access points in the villages, over 40 million base book users, every 20 second a new user is added. Bangladesh has already overtaken India and Pakistan in terms of net usage. Still we are far behind, but it is possible because of the digital leadership of our Prime Minister who is Chairing a national body with the body of multistakeholderism to take decisions. We are successful so far because we are looking for the humanized development and connecting citizens and third, digital government for poor services and ICT for business.
Having said that, let me draw your attention to six major problems rocking the world, environment and climate change, information and technology, terrorism, poverty, gender disparity, the Sustainable Development Goals to be finished by the year 2030.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must need to address the 6 major issues on our way to have an inclusive Sustainable Development growth through Internet Governance. Here no doubt everybody will agree that the Internet and Internet economy do enhance Sustainable Development. ICTs are key enablers of the development across the pillars of Sustainable Developments. But the question is, is the Internet economy sustainable, for announcing SDGs we need the Internet and need to build an Information Society, with a challenge that's led to the next billion and the last billion will have to be tackled. There isn't a limit, digital economy so far is developing without the proper digital infrastructure, with proper regulatory regimes, a glass house is in the making by Internet while it is threatened by cyber criminals. We have to secure the glass house, otherwise the glass house will be compromised. Concentration of global Internet shall eCommerce, it is a threat to the global South. It needs to have a fair, equitable and distribution of the tax revenues around the world.
Also, digital marketplace globally is expanding but without regulatory framework, that supports innovative sustainable growth with an aim to harmonize national regulation versus global business objectives, cross‑border trade, keeping the net affordable in all markets.
Having said that, I think to go for an inclusive, Sustainable Development we need to have a sustainable Internet and Internet economy and for that multistakeholderism is a necessity. I put forward 10 proposals for your consideration to develop a Sustainable Development and Internet the economy, number one, affordable Internet, accessible Internet, I don't explain because everybody knows that, safe Internet, the reliability of the hardware, software, privacy, data protection, international laws for cyberspace to make the Internet an instrument of peace and development and not an instrument of terror. Ensuring a human ‑‑ universal Human Rights for all in the Internet and keeping the world free from cyber phobia.
Number four, adoption of enabling laws to remove Internet application roadblocks at national and international levels.
Five, removing any democracy deficit in the governance of Internet, we should promote net neutrality, multistakeholderism, regime and expediting the process, et cetera.
Six, capacity building of institutions.
Seven, ICT, electricity.
Content development in mother tongue, digital economy, Internet should be treated as a basic Human Rights and a Constitution right.
Having said that, let me conclude by saying that in the past days whatever may have been the source of power now in this age of ICT power flows from the click of a mouse with a fingertip. We must click with caution. The famous American journalist, he had said that the idea is great but there has to be a bone and politics is a bow of idolism and politics. It’s our time to shoot, time with the arrows, we thought Internet bows, based on the multistakeholderism we must keep our struggle on to ensure Internet as a basic need for Human Rights. We must move on to make it accessible for all because the Internet system, it cannot be a positive factor for growth.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Can I ask you to conclude, please?
>> HASANUL HAQ INU: Therefore, I conclude by saying that at the moment we need a cyber treaty and a cybersecurity and a democratic governance of Internet based on multistakeholderism.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Now we have ‑‑ for this session, we have only three hours to answer these two questions. This was marked in the protocol. The translators, they're here ‑‑ the interpreters are here only for that time. I would like to ask you to please be very careful with the time that you take to make your points.
The next question I hope that everyone will give a shorter answer. I think all of us took too much time to do this the first time around. I hope we can be a bit briefer with the next answers.
Ida Hoiz.
>> IDA HOIZ: Good afternoon.
I'm happy to be here in Mexico, a country in which I lived for over a decade. I will be very brief, I promise.
Seeking the answers to this question that I found on the influence of the diverse interests of participation I found that indeed it is very good to have a variety of interests participate significantly in these discussions. We get better results to global questions in this way.
Without a doubt, this is true, but what kind of experts are we summoning and how much can they influence on national decision making regarding policies in a varied world? Internet is without a doubt a means of communication and globalization. I cannot imagine how much this technology could change humanity. I couldn't have imagined before how much development we would have gotten through at this point. Living in an interconnected world, and we need to include all members of society.
I ask myself if we are approaching all areas of life and society besides those who have already been mentioned in this Forum and if there is a Pos built to have ‑‑ possibility to have influence in all of the areas regarding international Civil Society.
In these elements, I include the aid in the study and proposal of diversity and topics that affect society but we still cannot find its correct application in all areas of knowledge because there is no clear awareness of the need for change at a high level in our countries, in many of our countries. Some examples are, for example, in my small country, Uruguay, it is a very small country in Latin America, leader, in the development of digital government, aware of the need for change. We have yet to achieve the implementation of certain social character laws that have to do with technological development, and we haven't progressed either when it comes to the employment laws and the employment environment which is so important to adapt to this new era. We have yet to adapt education to these new times in spite of a new plan carried out, which is a project that hands out computers to all children of public education. These computers they can take home which is an element which has constituted a very important part in ‑‑ regarding digital inclusion because children in public schools are not the most favored economically speaking. We have included the people of these families with economic difficulties in such a way that it's excessive regarding Internet access has been the ‑‑ the gap has been closed.
I don't have any answers. I do know that we need to go deeper in the matters through these Multistakeholder Advisory Groups in order to have clearer ideas and to progress in closing the gaps that exist today in our different societies when it comes to social, legal, employment matter.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Vint Cerf, Vice President of Google, of Internet access in Google.
>> VINT CERF: I will try to draw to your attention the reason why I come to the Internet Governance Forum. I'm an engineer. I love problems. I like to solve problems. There are lots of them that come to the table at IGF. What's important about the IGF is the participation is broad. People come here with economic problems, with social problems, with technical problems, with legal problems, and they layout an extraordinary menu of them thanks to the Multistakeholder Advisory Group which puts together the program. The value of having all of those different stakeholders observing the effect of the Internet on their countries, their citizens, their companies and their social environment is exactly why IGF is so important.
I always look for reasons why certain things happen. Usually there's an incentive hiding behind people's behavior, behind the behavior of governments, behind the behavior of companies. If you don't like the behaviors, the best way to deal with it is to find a way to change the incentives, from the engineering point of view, a lot of the problems that we hear about deserve technical response. Many of the problems that we discuss here at IGF involve other kinds of responses whether it is business policy, economic policy, transnational data transfers, exchange of information, exchange of value, all of these issues are going to have to be addressed by a rather broad range of parties, not just the engineers. I wish it were the case that the engineers could solve everything. I will confess in public, I don't think we can. We can try to help! What's important about IGF from my point of view is that all of you and all of you sitting around this table articulate the problems that need attention and maybe hint at where and how they can be addressed. We can't solve the problems here in the IGF. It is not organized around that idea. You can articulate them, help us understand where we can best address those issues and that's what I look for in my response to why the multistakeholder model is so important and why the IGF needs to continue its work.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Gonzalo Navarro from the Latin American Internet society.
>> GONZALO NAVARRO: I don't know what to say after Vint Cerf just said what he said.
Let me introduce myself, I'm Gonzalo Navarro. I'm from an organization that is comprised of companies that provide Internet service in Latin America and the Caribbean. We are thankful for the opportunity to participate here in Mexico in this event which is truly quite extraordinarily set up and requires great amounts of efforts so thank you for that.
When it comes to my time, I know I must be brief. This MAG, multistakeholder model and how these types of international processes are planned, it seems to me that it is simple as to how it works. The multistakeholder model doesn't have a futuristic vision of how to take action. We're dealing with a reality that we're currently living and that we are articulating in this Forum with multiple stakeholders, different people, different opinions on what's going on and regarding Internet Governance. It is also seen in international processes that are very complex and have been carried out, for example, transition of IANA, which was carried out with great levels after two years. These are tangible realities we can see today and that are successful. In my opinion, these multistakeholder processes are a good way to understand and integrate different visions and to, of course, understand how different people add value to these decisions that are to be made in the end.
As we move on to a complete digitalization of our activities, of our economies and the way we're facing life we need to understand that this multistakeholder model is part of the DNA of the Internet. This DNA, which is open, interoperable, resilient and we understand it needs to be a pillar that needs to be preserved and promoted. The success of the Internet as a facilitating instrument is reflected on the multistakeholder model. As an organization of the private sector, we understand that this way of understanding and carrying out international processes needs to be more successful every time, and this is why we wish for these processes to be maintained at an international level, as I mentioned, but also at the national level, this is a practical, healthy, sustainable, viable way to carry out these actions within a legitimate manner.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
>> MOIRA PAZ‑ESTENSSORO: I need a clarification to make. I represent the Latin America Development Bank. And I would like to start by saying that I'm grateful for this invitation because the Development Bank's mission, either the IDB or ours, the Latin American Development Bank, and that is to reduce poverty, it works towards inclusion, it advocates for Sustainable Development, and the only way to achieve all of these is by reducing inequalities at every level.
To this day, of course, the discussion around the Internet revolves around a cross‑cutting topic in order to see improvements, to achieve inclusion and especially to fully ‑‑ to see a fulfillment of the citizens of our countries. In our opinion investing in infrastructure is paramount. Investing in infrastructure in order to have connectivity, in order to see inclusion, it accounts the least of 6% of the GDP in Latin America in infrastructure, only 3% is invested. That creates asymmetries, that creates differences. In Asia, more than 9% is invested in infrastructure and Latin America, 3%. That's major asymmetries not only in the continent but also in our own countries if we can consider the actual needs we cannot only consider that the private sector would be able to solve this but we need the participation of the public sector, the academia, universities, all of these, they're part of the solution.
I would like to say that as part of the Latin American Development Bank we support countries by deciding policy in preparing and financing infrastructure projects and the telecommunication projects, the capacity building, by promoting public‑private partnerships, Entrepreneurship systems and innovation projects for a productive transformation without labor, poverty, it will not be relieved. Without dignity, we will have no citizenry. We're discussing the Internet net, we have the inventor of the Internet with us, we have created citizens. To this day we can say for a fact that all of us that enjoy access to information through this means, we are full‑ fledged citizens, we demand our rights and we can ‑‑ we can perform our duties in a more easier way. CAF is working along with many for a connectivity strategy for broadband classroom access. That's going to change structurally our countries and we can do it. We can do it in a short time, in two to three‑year's time, thank you for this opportunity.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
We'll now hear from Megan Richards.
>> MEGAN RICHARDS: Thank you very much, Victor.
I'll speak in English because I want to be more succinct. Almost everything that I wanted to say has been said. That's part of the problem of being at the end of the alphabet. I'm going to use my husband's name from now on, then I'll be closer to the beginning.
I'm going to just address two aspects which, again, have already been raised and a third one which no one has talked about. The first one relates to the importance of internationalized domain famous and use of local languages. This is a most important aspect in assuring that we reach and stop the digital divide and address the digital divide. In Europe we have in the European Union 23 official languages in addition to the many regional languages, local languages, et cetera, many of our languages which are written in Latin script also have funny letters or additions of accents, et cetera, in addition we have two other scripts, both Bulgarian and Greek. We recognize, understand particularly just in Europe how important it is to have access to the Internet in your local language and also in scripts that you can read and understand.
I think this is an area where we can really make a big difference in addressing the digital divide. This was raised by Steve Crocker and the minister from South Africa. That's one point.
The other one I want to address particularly relates to WSIS. WSIS was ‑‑ let's call it the placenta for the IGF and the review gave the IGF the new mandate, many of you mentioned how important it is as multistakeholder Forum. I think there is another aspect I want to underline with respect to the WSIS+10 outcome document and ‑‑ it was in the original WSIS document as well. That's that the multistakeholder approach must ensure that we have stakeholders that participate according to roles and responsibilities. There is a lot of complaints about experts over the last years, particularly in the political domain. Everyone is an expert according to his or her roles and responsibilities. That's why we have to exchange and ensure that everyone understands different perspectives. That's the second point.
The third one that no one talked about because it is a particularly European issue is something that we call the global Internet policy observatory. This is something that the European Commission has developed to ensure that many more stakeholders can participate on a better footing to have better access and to understand the Internet Governance more. That's my last point and I'll stop there. I'll get an extra second next time.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Of course we will, Megan Richards.
Welcome.
>> OSCAR ROBLES: Thank you very much, Victor.
First of all, I would congratulate Mexico, the President's office for the great effort to recognize this Forum. I believe this will bring along Internet development, and I'm grateful for this invitation and honored to be a part of this panel of experts in the Internet and in the multistakeholder model. The challenge, it is clear; not the solution.
To reduce the digital divide, the first thing we need to do is not to disconnect who is already connected and connect the unconnected. For many years we did not cover those users that were disconnected for other reasons, we neglected them because the new number of connected was always over new users. We need to pay attention to those challenges. It is not longer profitable for certain companies ‑‑ not longer ‑‑ to connect some people that are connected, that's the challenge that States have, that's a challenge of a State. How can a State make sure that incentives like Vint Cerf specified are the adequate ones to keep the connected connected and how can we take connectivity projects to the unconnected? All of that cannot happen as billions of people got connected with engineering projects, most of them were mostly engineering projects and we need more complex, more complex and overarching projects with multistakeholder and with different levels. The State has the challenge to generate such incentives. It is business ‑‑ it has to be a business and you have to develop social inclusion projects that work sustainably.
An additional challenge we face is to make sure that the Internet that we all talk about is still close to the core principles that the Internet was created with when most of us connected to the Internet we received 65,000 possibilities of connecting and interaction in every device. Now the new users connecting to the Internet do not receive that same level of Internet. They won't be able to receive the same possibilities due to serial rating and because the new protocols are not deployed to be connected to IPv6. All of this requires a multistakeholder approach. I'm not done with the challenges. We need to be able ‑‑ we need to be very skillful to give trust back to the millions of users that now disrupt the Internet because they're entitled for that because they feel that they're being over ‑‑ we need to use the multistakeholder approach. The different entities present here and that participate with the IGF efforts, we have the great responsibility of making sure that we solve this challenge and this is the only way to make sure that the Internet is for the benefit of the society as a whole.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
>> DANIEL SEPULVEDA: Thank you for your leadership and friendship, I thank your nation for the same.
When we talk about inclusion, and the multistakeholder model, and what it offers, first of all, I think we should note that everyone at the table has expressed support for the multistakeholder model, that's in and of itself progress. Since Victor and I met, the IGF has become itself a dramatically more inclusive event in bringing to more voices, more opinions, more points of view and more issues to the table. We talk about inclusion going forward. We talk about inclusion from a policy‑outcome perspective such as everybody needs to have access to everybody participating in how we achieve that global access. I think it is the second that gives legitimacy to the first. If the process itself is not multistakeholder and participatory it denies legitimacy to the outcome and leaves others to blame if there is failure. The accountability and buy‑in from the multistakeholder process is in and of itself a value.
Now, why do we, the United States, support the multistakeholder process? Because we believe that when inclusion has occurred, it has occurred as a function of multistakeholder participation and as a function of multistakeholder‑driven solutions. Take, for example, I was in Chili last week visiting a project which is a Peruvian‑based project started by a group of students from Colombia University who are now educating ‑‑ have educated 4 had hundred young women from low‑income backgrounds to highly skilled web developers, tripling their income using a six‑month boot camp project. They're not going ‑‑ they're not sitting around talking about Internet Governance, they're exercising it, they're not talking about inclusion, they're engaging in processes that result in it. They're not doing it by themselves but with governments, with the private sector, they're doing it with academia.
As we move forward, I would like us to recognize the progress that we have made to date.
Reembrace the multistakeholder process. As we lay claim to its flaws and inability to reach the solutions that we want to come out. Let's reinvest in the multistakeholder process to achieve those ends. We should not compromise security for market economy, I don't think anyone has argued that we should. We should not compromise human freedom under the veil of pursuit of perfect security, and in that process, it requires the participation on as equal a playing field as possible of all interested parties to achieve just ends. So that's why we have supported it and had will support it going forward and that's why we have seen it succeed on the ground.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Lynn St. Amour.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you. I would like to state publicly again thanking you for this high-level event and for Mexico's clear support of the IGF mandate renewal and your clear and early support for hosting an IGF this year. As I said earlier, I did make a ‑‑ it did make a significant difference.
I'm also sort of trying to find new points to make being fairly late in the alphabet here.
Maybe I'll try to underscore one, two specific things. My first experience with the multistakeholder model was 18 years ago when I joined the Internet Society. The deepest engagement with that, it was through the efforts of the Internet Engineering Task Force. One of the things I'm pleased to hear about, I don't hear people saying there multistakeholder model or a multistakeholder model, there is no such thing. There is different practices, different priorities, there are different stakeholders, different desired outcomes, but the key principle is that all stakeholders are engaged and all voices are heard. I think that's one of the clear messages that I'm hearing here.
I want to talk for a minute about one of the advantages to speak directly to the question of the multistakeholder model, it surfaces more ideas but as importantly it actually puts a determination of what's best actually in the hands of what's directly impacted or those responsible for the implementation and have the responsibility to affect those changes. That's important as well. Decisions and regulations, they're not taken in a vacuum, that's obvious but with fuller knowledge.
We have these processes because the solutions, they're not clear. I like the phrase earlier looking for a better balance in the diversity of opinions. I used to say trade‑offs, we have to make trade‑offs in complex decisions. An important part of this, listening, not just participating, engaging, bringing your view, but really active listening. That benefit, in terms of broadening perceptions and broadening understanding of other views is where a lot of the value actually comes ultimately from the multistakeholder processes ‑‑ and maybe I'll just comment quickly on that.
With the IGF, it is a multistakeholder process but ultimately it is a hard place to listen and learn. It is about gaining, sharing knowledge, about making contacts, about learning about different approaches, being open to different approaches and different points of views. That is actually what I think will help us make a longer term, more sustainable difference. It is not just about what we do this week. It is about learning the skills and taking it forward as we address the other issues.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Shigeki Suzuki.
>> SHIGEKI SUZUKI: It is my great pleasure to hear with you on this wonderful occasion of IGF High Level Meeting.
I would like to answer question one, the multistakeholder approach. I believe the multistakeholder model has several advantages, firstly, it enables actors to voice themselves directly, secondly, it guarantees different voices with the same interests and thirdly, because it is not limited to economic nerves, we can apprize a model to difficult fields such as remote, rural areas, low‑income citizen where the market mechanism does not work.
Fourthly, because it ‑‑ it enabled ‑‑ I'm sorry.
Because it enables independent activities from the government and you can take flexible approaches and avoid the increasing of the government burden which struggles with inefficiency and the legitimacy of government work.
Finally, in the case, actors utilize the donations, there can be a different effect allocation of a national occurrence from such viewpoint we emphasize ‑‑ sorry ‑‑ such importance of the multistakeholder model in the discussion at the G7ICT ministry meeting which Japan hosted in April this year and then the multistakeholder meeting was held on a day just before our ministry meeting. In this meeting we comprised three policy documents to show the policy principles and action directions. First one, G7 charter for additional connected world, second the G7 minister joint declaration for action plan, implementing the charter, the third, G7, opportunities for cooperations as annexed. In this discussion, the first topics discussions was how to ‑‑ how to look at the rights and improve accessibilities to achieve them. We focused on the following four factors: One, the building of ICT infrastructure; improving affordability of ICT services; and the third is promoting literacy; and the fourth, it is respecting the diversity in language and characters.
The solution of these issues apparently requires a multistakeholder model where different stakeholders commit to these tasks from their perspective standpoints.
Japan is planning to host an open Forum tomorrow to introduce a wide aspect of the discussion and outcomes of the G7ICT ministerial meeting. I hope that all of you can join us to share the fruits of the meeting.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much. Shola Taylor.
>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you to Mexico for this invitation and it allows me the opportunity to have tequila.
We're honored and glad to join these discussions on how IGF can help the various development efforts. I note the theme of this event, Enabling Inclusive and Sustainable Growth, it is similar to the one we had last year at the Forum in Fiji, amongst the things, there is now a widely-shared view that ICTs can facilitate the rise of more inclusive societies. There are two issues, one, investments in universally acceptable and affordability and the second is the safety of the Internet. We can endorse the views expressed by South Africa and other critical elements by the minister from Bangladesh. With the gaps to the ICT sector, there are many stakeholders that believe the private sector alone can provide that investment. We don't share that view. We believe that there is a need for public sector strategic investments that will complement the investments.
In the activities of the Commonwealth we'll organize an investment Forum for markets in the ICT sector, in a collaboration of the Government of the UAE in Dubai next April and you're all invited. With regards to the second issue of safety of Internet, what we have done, we have ensured that we have a standard with a model and able to use this model in several countries, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Pakistan, so on, this model is successful and I thank the U.K. for the supports that they have given to us. Earlier this year we had ICT ministers that endorsed the action plan we have and encouraged us to provide capacity building particularly for women, youths, also for the disadvantaged groups. Finally, I cannot but thank the Government of Mexico and also to recognize the development work being done by ICANN, the government advisory groups and also to thank the U.S. for accelerating the process for that process.
I thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Paul Wilson.
>> PAUL WILSON: Thank you, everyone. It is my pleasure to come back to Mexico and to participate in the IGF. I'm sorry. I'm Australian, I need to speak in English.
We are part of the Technical Community of multistakeholder governance that was mentioned earlier by the ITF.
Like many for a long time we have talked about access and inclusion and promoting ICT for many years with the name for example of promoting modems, centers for inclusive and access in the world of ICTs that went on in the early days for quite a while until we started to think that market forces would take over and achieve access for all.
In the last 20 years, market forces did achieve much of this modems for the masses, in the meantime, markets in developed countries also produced huge advances in services and technologies that many of us take for granted even here in today's discussion. So I think many people today agree that the digital divide is growing bigger and not smaller and they're calling for more attention to that, for instance today in the form of ICT for SDGs.
In the Asia‑Pacific it is certainly a factor, this is where we see a majority, the majority of the global Internet growth and where we expect that status to continue for years to come. It's well understood and very clear in our region, especially that there is a huge ongoing demand for human skills to address the digital divide ‑‑ address ‑‑ that's critical to the infrastructure development itself to develop which is needed for delivery of access and inclusion. What we also know today as I said is that it actually doesn't happen automatically or optimally globally under market forces alone. Many parts of the world do continue to suffer with Internet services that are not up to the standard that others assume as they say, the digital divide has widened in many cases.
A message here, a key message from the Technical Community is that the difference between an Internet service which is stable and fast and cheap and secure and one which is none of these things can be solely a matter of the skills of those that are developing those services. Today in particular when security is a huge importance to all of us, the most important security professionals are those building the networks and need to do that job properly. In the Technical Community we're working very hard not only to build the infrastructure but to build the human capacity to do that job properly. It is actually in many cases a Civil Society activity involving an activity involving networks of professionals working together, sharing experience and Best Practice, building the Internet at the ‑‑ this is described as an environment of vigorous competition in public, but even more vigorous cooperation in private because either that infrastructure is complex from a Technical Community point of view but a sum total of many efforts, businesses, governments, development agencies making the sorts of public sector investments we heard about but also the Technical Community bodies, the professional networks, the Civil Society organizations, effectively like ours.
I have a Technical Community viewpoint of what we need to do but it is a multistakeholder viewpoint because this is work we have to do together both in our homes and in this ongoing discussion at IGF. Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Alex Wong.
>> ALEX WONG: Thank you. A for Alex, Wong, I'm last.
I would say for the world economic Forum, multistakeholder collaboration isn't an advantage but essential, that's our core mission. I'll give three examples of what we're doing in this space that reflect that in the area of Internet for all or connecting the unconnected.
The first, we made this one of the major projects of the Forum last year and we worked on first putting together a framework, working with many of you in the room and many at this table to put together a simple framework that needs to be approached, adopted to address this. We have four components: Infrastructure, affordability, skills, awareness, relevant content. If you don't have all four of those, you're not going to address the issue. By default, the only way to address all four is to have a multistakeholder approach. No single one actor can address that.
The second point, we have taken that framework working with many of the partners in this room and in this conference down to countries working in partnership with government to try to then turn this framework into action, how can we create the partnerships on the ground. Indeed what we have found is many government leaders around the table would agree, that quickly the conversation turns into what are the outcomes that Internet for all can enable. We talk about the issues like financial inclusion, eCommerce, healthcare, inevitably you have to again include all stakeholders together, not just across different sectors but within. You have need healthcare companies sitting with banks and the service providers and the technology providers. The final point I'll make, globally we at this table have to walk the talk by backing this up. By could doing that in actual countries one at a time working in coordination. The final example of that, we did hold our first working meeting in Argentina as one of our country programs. We were pleased we did that in partnership not only with the government but with others. Frankly it could have been everyone else that's been doing this kind of work. Why that was important, it came to me as a remark that our colleague at the Government of Argentina Secretary had said to us, it was great to see you all put aside your egos so you could work together and in coordination. That's sort of the spirit that we have to continue to make sure we address this issue.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Lenni Montiel once again from the United Nations.
>> LENNI MONTIEL: Thank you.
It has been said it is impossible to say that there is no question, participation, cooperation, collaboration, a place where everybody can come and have an open, transparent and effective conversation about how to solve problems that are common is incredible. We have that space, that is the Forum, that is the Internet Governance Forum, it is a space where we all can come and do that without restrictions, without thinking about what to negotiate or not, and believe me when we think about how do we have to negotiate things things get complicated.
I'll speak just as a person that's sharing experiences with you ‑‑ and as you can imagine, I go to a lot of meetings where people try to negotiate things. The nature of the conversation that takes place in the IGF every year is very unique. You cannot find this space very often where you find governments, Civil Society, Academia, private sector, non‑governmental organization sharing their experiences, sharing their problems, sharing their challenges. So as Ambassador Sepulveda had said, this is a place to learn where Internet is promoted in a concrete experience in Chili, but in the same way, we can learn many other things. What keeps coming up as a challenge, I share this with you as a personal observation is this question of whether the IGF as a multistakeholder space for debate, exchange of knowledge, exchange of experience, et cetera, it is also a place for a multistakeholder problem solved in action and in that sense I'll strongly support what was said by Vint Cerf some minutes ago, we cannot solve the problems at IGF so we need to separate those two spaces. One thing, let's make maximum possible use of this space that we have for exchanging experiences and for letting us know what we think and for letting know what others think and that's an incredible achievement. Let's go back, each of us to our own spaces and try to make decisions at our own level, through our own decision making possibilities and try to contribute from that perspective.
I hope this is a way of highlighting how important it is to keep the Internet Governance Forum as it is. A Forum for exchange of spaces and not try to see something different in it.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
With this, we end our first round of answers. Truly great participation from everybody. The different points that we have in common were able to be seen.
The second question I would like to propose and we have already spoken on this, please be very brief, we'll have 2 minutes each. I'm going to change the order a little bit for the respect of our colleagues and panel and respecting the translators doing their job we need to finish on time.
The efforts of our communities are directed to a scenario in which there are much more people connected to the Internet. What abilities will people need to have in order to have complete inclusion in several aspects, including the economic one?
We will begin with Mr. Johnson.
>> MALCOLM JOHNSON: The global community is making a tremendous effort to bring all people online. However, technology is moving at an ever faster rate and new things are coming along every week. Its more and more difficult for developing countries, especially the Least Developed Countries to keep up, they have to run faster and faster to keep up. Digital skills are lacking there. They're also lacking, of course, in developed countries. These skills are necessary not only to be aware of what services are available, such as eHealth, eCommerce, eEducation, but also what technologies and what technical standards can be used to provide these services and the requirements for these in developing countries are often very different to those requirements in developed countries. This means that they need people with the skills to participate in the development of technical standards to ensure that their own specific requirements are included in those standards and understand how to implement them. Furthermore with the development of accessibility technologies, Persons with Disabilities can experience the rapid and meaningful inclusion in social and economic life. People need to the skills to bring these accessible technologies to people with disabilities.
Another important issue, the low level of financial inclusion in many countries. Globally 2 billion people don't have access to a bank account. It is estimated that of these 2 billion, 1.6 have mobile phones and this is addressed and we'll have a focus group concluding with recommendations with how to address this and a call for global collaboration to develop the skills necessary to ensure that people throughout the world can par ‑‑ participate in the digital economy. We look forward to working with all, especially now that we have 140 University members of ITU to work with them and others to bring these skills to all of the people throughout the world. Thank you.
A for Alex.
>> ALEX WONG: We'll focus in my view on the skills and awareness, that would be the areas to focus on. Statistics we took and others can add to this and give deeper meaning, 15% of adults are illiterate. If you have the literacy issue how can people use the Internet. Secondly, the gender issue of the fact that ‑‑ many of you know the broadband commission report has shown that gender divide is developing again and there are cultural issues allowing women and girls to be on Internet. I will just make my intervention brief to focus on addressing ‑‑ getting people aware of the Internet or access the Internet, we'll let them be creative and learn how to use it based on human creativity and entrepreneurial skills.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Paul Wilson.
>> PAUL WILSON: I would really have to echo what was just said about ever by Johnson and Alex about skill development and I place a high priority on the need for skills development amongst those we are relying on to provide services that we are all hoping to take for granted and that's in particular in the security area that we cannot have secure and stable and cost effective services without those people who are being charged with that responsibility from being able to do that properly. It will be a huge missed opportunity and every day, in fact, that we endure without the skills to take advantage of what's available to us in terms of infrastructure deployed and the ability to develop competitive, modern Internet services on which all of this depends. Every day we go without those skills being available to missed opportunity and also to a risk of security, faith and confidence in the Internet which we're hearing as a lot of people are saying as being undermined these days. I would really make that the key focus that we must have the skills, the human skills capacities available to do this job properly.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Shola Taylor.
>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you.
That's what we do every day. It is so important. Three times a year we bring senior officials from our member countries and it is amazing how much knowledge they need, they're hungry for Policy Options, regulatory options. So this has to be done on a continuous basis, our government to be educated, aware of the issues.
Secondly, bridging the access gaps we have seen initiatives taken by Facebook, for example, and tried to bridge some gaps. Government also has to come in. The U.K. government is part of the development, billions of Pounds are spent to build access in the U.K. Many other countries have to understand that government has to put in money to support what the private sector is doing.
Finally, Entrepreneurship amongst youth, youth is coming out, no jobs. We need to have them. We need to engage them with the financing to help them develop applications which is a way to develop the event to bring the partnerships, the investors, those that want projects to be funded and to see that this growth can be achieved.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Shigeki Suzuki.
>> SHIGEKI SUZUKI: The digitalization, everybody needs to operate the seminars and get connected. The industry information and to make use of it. The skill required for the purpose seems to be changing according to the development network and services. At the same time, we see much more complexity in the user environment such as service contract and the situation with information security. In particular, people who are having lower skills are getting more involved. Online crimes targeting those users are increasing, in addition everybody can publicize personal information now and the list of users involved in crimes is increasing by spreading personal information without therefore I expect such a skill to use Internet safely will be more and more important, including the appropriate understandings of how do you ‑‑ how to handle the personal information and how to ensure security during Internet use and from the viewpoint of supporting users in developing such skills, including awareness raising. I believe that the role of multistakeholder will be increasingly more important and the governments should strengthen collaboration with the shareholders. Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Moira Paz‑Estenssoro.
A small note, I'm obviously going the other way around so that you can be ready for your intervention.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I took my earphones out.
I would strongly concur with the comments on this particular question. Again, in an effort to build on them rather than simply echo, the digital skills are important, the first has got to be affordable access in terms of access and is digital devices, and it was said this morning, Vint Cerf, critical thinking, critical thinking particularly as we see recently ‑‑ you see a lot of news on the fake news Articles, things, critical thinking, self-confidence to think for one's self, the curiosity to seek, you have to refocus again and work to engender in our youth particularly and frankly in those not so old as well I would suggest. I think I'll stop there. Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you so much.
Daniel Sepulveda.
>> DANIEL SEPULVEDA: We believe that the imperative firstly is connectivity, when you have connectivity you need to build the skill base of people to build that connectivity productively. I want to echo the idea that it is a combination of soft and hard skills. For soft skills it includes information processing, self-direction, problem solving, critical thinking, basic communication skills and also the hard skills are skills like coding, understanding data, using data productively, these skills with be earned informally or through experience we strongly recommend that governments set policies and partner with all of the other stakeholders to promote digital literacy, education, invest in the education for citizens, it is through that joint collaboration process that we'll have success at the local level and national, international level as well.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Oscar Robles.
>> OSCAR ROBLES: It seems to me that a main ability needs to be the ability to participate responsibly in the decision-making matters that these elements require, speaking about these multistakeholder models, this participation has to be informed and responsible as Lynn said, the capacity, the ability to analyze critically the information provided and look at that appropriately. It is a main ability we need to help promote in these processes.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you, Oscar.
Megan Richards.
>> MEGAN RICHARDS: Well, I'll try to address three points very briefly.
First it relates to digital skills, which has been mentioned, but one of the most important aspects in engendering digital skills and making sure they're picked up and taken over and used is using the multistakeholder model. You have to bring all the interested actors together, educators, industry. Not just in the ICT sector, but it has to be all sectors. I think here is a good example of how to use a multistakeholder model to really push forward the adoption and use of the digital skills. In Europe we have the Grand Coalition on Digital Skills where we're trying to start this already at European level.
The other, it is web accessibility. Here I think public authorities have a real obligation and incentive to try to bring forward public legislation that will help to ensure better accessibility for people who are disabled.
The last one, I think, it is really important, it is enabling regulatory environment. Here, because I'm working backwards, like you, Victor, I want to thank the example and incentive of the Government of Mexico which has regulatory reforms domestically encouraging and trying to drive forward the use and access of digital skills and making sure that the use of the Internet is much better. I want to thank you personally as well Victor for your initiative in this. Thank you again.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you for your words. Moira Paz‑Estenssoro.
>> MOIRA PAZ-ESTENSSORO: Thank you, Victor.
Thank you for your initiative and the entire team for this possibility of debating on these matters.
I wanted to reiterate that for CAF the importance for education, education for the transformation of a country is of the utmost importance. Obviously the incorporation of technology and education represents one of the best opportunities to increase and transform quality and education in our region, not only in education, but education to create human capital in our countries so that they can have the different skills to face the transformation of productive processes. That nowadays we don't know how they will be in five years. This component in education, it is very important. We want to include five essential components, recurring budget, solid technological plan, platform ‑‑ content platforms and evaluations. Our colleagues, some present, they're preparing a program for Colombia. At this time when we're having a little bit more peace and there will be changes in the future. We can create a mentality, a way of thinking and this would be consolidating the peace process in Colombia. This is a concrete project through which we can use Internet and connectivity.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
>> GONZALO NAVARRO: I'm not an expert but we have worked on these matters in the region. A thing that's difficult to predict, which are the skills that need to be developed. When it comes to innovation, everything is difficult to predict.
Who would have thought a few years ago of the skill set that we need to have today in order to have ‑‑ to connect to the Internet. I'm sorry if I use the personal example, but when I was in school I would like to think it wasn't so long ago, the amount of skills and abilities and ‑‑ I had access to, that I learned was completely different from the ones I see today that are necessary for those who are starting to be implemented in our current schools. Those that are being taught to, for example, my 5‑year‑old daughter, it is a complete change. What I would like to highlight is that without ‑‑ without considering which these abilities are and how they are developed, especially the way that, for example, Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda said, looking at the topic of connectivity, it is important to include everybody in these benefits, what's fundamental in my opinion, it is that the principles that inspire the Internet and that allow for these people to take advantage and maximize the use and benefits of the Internet in developing communities should not be altered. Went they're integrated in the Internet or that they use it they can be witness to an open Internet and that allows for them to develop their potential.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Vint Cerf.
>> VINT CERF: I will suggest that you concentrate on the last billion users, not the next billion. In fact, why not concentrate on the last 100, the last 100 people to finally get connected to the Internet. What's it going to take to get them online in a sustainable, useful way?
One thing at Google we have encountered is providing free access to the Internet. There are business models that support that. In India we're putting up free wi‑fi at the railroad stations and we're getting a substantial positive response from that. Finding ways for both on the government side and in the private sector to underwrite the cost of access to the Internet in some way will increase its accessibility and affordability.
The only other thing I want to say on the table here has to do with the ability to maintain and operate Internet locally. It is very important that the people who are using the Internet also have the capacity to keep it running. It is not adequate to parachute in somewhere, install a system and to leave. What's needed for sustainable operation is skill and capacity to operate the system locally. I would encourage us to think along those lines.
I'll stop there. Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Ida Hoiz.
>> I. HOIZ: We have heard many things, I'll speak particularly of what we have done in this country in the sense of inclusion, and that tackles several topics. The first, education.
In education we have handed out computers to all children that have access to public education, children and adolescents. This is to say, primary school, junior high school and high school, this generates a possibility of inclusion and in the future a possibility of employment of all of those who are participating in this project.
Another element that has been widely criticized is that we are handing out computers to all retired people who have a certain kind of pension. The condition is that they ask for it, they have to apply for a computer, and that they get training prior to computer use. This, although it seems bizarre, has made many more women use computers, many more women than men. They are using computers to connect with their family members on social networks, et cetera. This promotes inclusion that in the medium run is very useful.
As a consequence of these two elements, the Uruguay telephone company, which is a public State company, has had government influence and a government petition to extend connectivity to all homes with optic fibers at low costs and we hope ‑‑ we expect that by 2020 90% of homes in Uruguay will have optic fiber connectivity for them. These are a few of the elements that generate inclusion in our country.
The last one is online government processes which will be available for all online by next year.
Thank you, Mexico, for hosting this event.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
>> HASANUL HAQ INU: I'll go with the major speakers that with the applications and the latest Internet availability is times possible but has the skill to handle the Internet is a difficult question. I go with content development, IT literacy, capacity to develop skills and digitalizing the government compartments giving services to the people and last I think that the affordability is a problem in Bangladesh we have opened up 5,000 plus eCenters that is ran by private sector or given by the government, private people. They are the services, so men and women will come and get services from them, we can open up more so that the remotest corner, person, they don't nope how to handle a mobile Internet.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much, Minister.
>> MARIA ELENA ESTAVILLO: When we talk about skills, we talk about the question of how to get the Internet closer to people which is a very relevant question.
I would link this question with services with terminals, coverage, accordability, we have to make sure that the Internet is closer to people. I would reframe this in the importance of generating content and skills considering differences between groups of people. If we expect to see the same skills in every group that would be a risk. We would be reproducing in the Internet the same gaps we find in society, gaps between uneducated, educated individuals between those living in cities, rural areas, we have to generate this meeting point that considers this two directions and for that, it is crucial to generate strategies to develop a continue.
Of content and skills that are directly related with each group of people
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
>> HOSSAM EL GAMAL: Many things have been said by the leaders with the multistakeholder spirit associating technical, affordable access solution and working on equality for information exchange promoting policies. I will just add that the results in the developing world, with he need more South to South looks and ‑‑ we need more South to South looks and exchange of knowledge and Best Practices to look at Internet inclusiveness and to serve the community with bridging the digital gap. We have to believe in creativity of children and Entrepreneurship spirit of the youth. And we need to provide affordable knowledge bank through the Internet inasmuch as possible through local language to the community. We need to do this with basic free access to the knowledge bank in many community areas as a start. So to have the most important basic engagement to acquire knowledge, embrace creativity and bridging the divide.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Thank you very much.
>> SIYABONGA CWELE: Thank you, Victor.
The important thing, citizens are looking for information which empowers themselves. To us, the free basic education, it is critical, including the Internet literacy, focusing on women and also focusing in developing local apps for ICT.
As a government, we're spending a lot of money in free basic education for the poor. I agree, most of the poor, they're the last 100, they'll be looking for information from government. It is very important that the government will digitalize the information and make it available for citizens. That will help increase the uptick. Thirdly, the issue of enabling the eCommerce, particularly for small businesses, so that people can derive from this Internet and the issue of translation, because in an interconnected world, so that we can translate whatever we import from other countries to our own circumstances and making sure that we also commercialize the local content, this way people can really see the Internet and we can move to higher things, manufacturing, RND, so on, innovation.
Lastly, it is the issue of the national, regional Internet exchange points. I think we have to share as a country we're helping fellow African countries to put more Internet exchange points because that will cause also increased access because of the affordability.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Steve Crocker
>> STEVE CROCKER: In the interest of time, I'm going to yield.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Mishi Choudhary.
>> MISHI CHOUDHARY: We will not be able to reap any digital dividends without making analogue infrastructure. That's very important to have the analogue infrastructure in place which includes electricity, et cetera.
Can't stress enough on the importance of the local language content without which most of the population will stay away from the net. Use of encryption and teaching the population to use encryption to protect privacy is an important skill we cannot afford, especially because the choices we make in technology we use will affect the politics we still have.
Also training our population on cybersecurity issues, which is an important part of how we actually deal with it. Starting apprenticeship programs, et cetera, it is useful. Training people on using software that everybody can see, copy, modify, share which is free and open sourced software is far more important than concentrating on education, technical education which only teaches window names, consuming videos online although kittens are very cute but that's not how we become technically advanced. Teaching your population about actual skills and free and open source communities offer a very cheap way of making such progress.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
Kathy Brown.
>> KATHY BROWN: Thank you so much.
I find myself aligning with the Minister of South Africa. I would like to build on what he has just said. I think when we provide the tools of the Internet, connectivity, access to devices, relevant apps as you said earlier that help people solve their own problems and affordability of the technology we empower people to move ahead themselves. We have to have an enabling environment and I would direct your attention to the community networking programs that we're partnering with a number of development folks that have at the height of their goals self-empowerment of the community. The community has the tools, the community learns how to use the tools, and then they teach each other as they develop those tools. I'll give you just what I found to be startling.
Yes, indeed, people do not read in some ‑‑ many villages, interestingly, the apps of today, they have other ways in which we can use their functionality, including symbols, including voice, including other kinds of methodologies that don't require me to read. I have seen women in villages use these apps to enhance their own economic welfare in ways that's simply amazing. While they are doing that, and the men of the village, they're figuring out how to use those same apps to do what they need to do in their kind of commerce, the children are indeed at school getting the skills they need by learning reading, by learning computing, by learning how to use the devices. You see this energy just fill the village.
I do believe that this is how we'll get the last billion, because the last billion of our people are living in the least developed areas, Least Developed Countries, and they are predominantly in our rural areas, some in our urban areas which themselves can create this kind of villages. I think this idea of community networking is central to this idea of skill building.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Itzcoati Tonatiuh Bravo.
>> ITZCOATI TONATIUH BRAVO: I would like to say if the multistakeholder model as just described, if it is in alignment with Internet in my opinion, the multistakeholder approach as well should be the way into extending our efforts that result in skills to empower people in the use of Internet. Every single stakeholder should partner up to this goal. I would like to add that we need to walk together towards the path of having citizens of the 21st Century, that means that governments should exercise this right. It should be a part of their Constitutions so that the right to Internet is in the Constitution, but after that, you need resources to implement and make that a reality, that has to be implemented like here in the basic education package, the intensive use of the Internet, it is a need that must be seen in superior education.
I believe the skills that we need to develop has to be related to connectivity, to Entrepreneurship, to teamwork, problem solving, mediation, analysis and organization of information, the creation of documents and different formats, knowledge and use of Internet dynamic tools to create cybersecurity and to develop security but also we need to be trained on the ethical use of Internet, global skills, like speaking another language, respect towards multicultural environment, we have to make a clear difference between the type of information that's out there in the billion pages that are out there in the net. We need to know how to use information and the largest number of transections in our society every day should use Internet. I would like to wrap up by saying that all of these skills must be based on inclusive and sustainable policies, also economically sustainably.
Thank you very much.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Eber Betanzos Torres.
>> EBER BETANZOS TORRES: Thank you very much.
Inclusion of digital skills, it is linked to the need of all social sectors that are able to use ITCs and knowledge tools and to have adequate access to this type of services.
This necessarily requires that ITCs access is academic sized, education to manage information, to manage knowledge, to have critical thinking, to work in teams in some education but that type of education should result in skills that would provide us with a reasonable mindset in terms of technology.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Philip Behn.
>> PHILIP BEHN: Thank you for reversing the flow. I know what it is like to be a Wilson or a Wong.
We at WalMart serve 260 million customers a week. I think a lot has been said in this Forum about who that customer is or who is on the demand side of the Internet. Let me talk a bit about what we see on the development side. We don't see as diverse a community developing or creating the Internet as we see the community that consumes it. In particular, we would like to see a much, much higher percentage of women in technology. We think that that starts with an effort to work on science, technology, engineering, math degrees. We’re supportive of STEM efforts to develop female talent that then can produce the content, the Internet solutions that are then required by a society that is as diverse as the one that should be creating it. It doesn't stop there.
We also need to be responsible as a private business in the private sector to create the conditions for female technology talent to thrive, create the working conditions for them to create as diverse ‑‑ content, as diverse an Internet as diverse as the community that creates it.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you. Dorothy Attwood.
>> DOROTHY ATTWOOD: Thank you.
We should always focus on modest partnerships that can really lead to remarkable results. I would focus on two that we have been involved in, that give good examples of how a modest investment leads to remarkable outcomes. We partnered with an NGO called Chico Net here in Latin America to create a digital literacy program that gives teachers, parents, children digital literacy and citizenship skills to be safer and fully engaged online. The program we made available in Spanish and Portuguese for the market and it includes school‑based curriculum materials, games, activities, programming to introduce kids to coding. It became so popular that over 7300 teachers have been trained and 500,000 children have gone through the program to enable that kind of skill development. A very small idea that led to big results.
At the professional level, another program we worked to grow with the partnering with the African Animation Studio Triggerfish and the South African government was to fund script development for new artists in Africa. We were blown away, we created a story contest but in the process of that received 1300 entries from 30 African countries, the winners received a modest prize, a two‑week immersion session at Disney Animation making a difference in their lives and it was a well‑received, small but important program. I encourage people at this venue to think about ways in which we can improve skills even in modest small programs.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Jari Arkko.
>> JARI ARKKO: I won't say much more than what others said about the skills, the soft skills that many brought up, it is hugely important.
I want to follow‑up on some of the discussions. Malcolm, others, they brought up the access to broadband services, Internet as a critical think, the access, it is very, very important. There is a lot of work that remains. I really, really like Vince to look at the last 100 people. I'm optimistic we'll get there.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not enough. We also need openness. We need good global connectivity. We need local services, we need ability to create businesses locally and globally wherever you are.
There is a lot of support for that kind of thinking in the discussion Dorothy mentioned, local content. It was mentioned open participation, freedom from excessive surveillance, and I would agree that avoiding surveillance or citizenship, it is a key thing here as well. The Minister from South Africa promoting local and localized content, that's very, very important.
I think it is about quality as well as quantity.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you.
Lenni Montiel.
>> LENNI MONTIEL: I would like to say that we need to be aware ‑‑ and I know a lot of people don't have these fears.
The ITU has just released a report about the amount of people that are not using the Internet in the world. Today at the end of 2016 we have around the world 53% of the population that's not using the Internet. That means around 3.9 billions. I insist this is more than half of the population of the world. A lot has been said. I am representing here the United Nations and I have an obligation to raise the voice for those who are vulnerable and poor in the world. I would like to say if we're speaking about enhancing connection, increasing connectivity, we have to immediately think we're reducing exclusion and by doing that we're addressing poverty and by doing that we're contributing to reducing inequalities in the world.
Let's not forget we're speaking about Africa having 75% of the population not connected to the Internet. The Americas, including ‑‑ is having 35% out of the Internet. Asia, 58%. Arab States, almost 60%. We need to be careful about what we speak when we try to promote connectivity and we have to be conscience that by trying to enhance connectivity to the Internet we're trying to push and enhance conditions for Sustainable Development of our societies.
Let's not be shy of saying by enhancing connectivity we're addressing the quality of life of poor women and men. And I insist we need women, they have to be included in the Internet. Today we have 275 more men ‑‑ sorry. 275 million more men than women in the Internet. We don't have to forget that we have minorities, Indigenous Peoples, that under any circumstances today will have no capacity to get into the Internet unless there's explicit effort by those who have the capacity to support them, meaning we all.
Let's not forget that today we have millions of men and women fleeing from violence or from natural disasters from around the world and they also have the right to be connected and integrated into the Internet.
Thank you.
>> VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you very much.
I want to say thank you to all the panel members for placing an emphasis on the topics to be discussed and being brief. I apologize for interrupting your remarks. I would like to say that we're sorry for interrupting the Minister of Information from Bangladesh and Shigeki Suzuki from the Ministry of Japan.
We interrupt because we have to keep time.
Many topics were discussed here, we have discussed the possibility of making an effort to have more connectivity and accessibility. To have wider broadbands to marginalized populations to those areas where there is an inequality.
We have talked about building our capacity, to having more skills and turning our eyes to younger generations. The Mexican government placed an emphasis by means of structural reforms like the educational reform implementing new educational models that are aimed to using open source databases. Internet serves as a platform providing us with democratic content, more accessible content, and that assures us we'll be a part of the Information Society. It was mentioned our responsibility, each one of us in our own field in terms of stakeholders that we represent, in my case the government, I also have the responsibility and I have the need as well to fight for my citizens' rights. There are many gaps in the world. There are many gaps in Mexico. Penetration has grown but the digital divide has grown as well. We're making progress, yes. It is very important for us to use the multistakeholder model and we need to see a more mature conversation. We need to have closer contact with academics, Civil Society organizations, specifically with them to take this discussion to an area where we agree and digitalize the country fully.
Of course, as Mr. Cerf said, we should not only think about the last 100 or the last 1,000, but in new generations, we have to think of them because they're going to live in an Internet ecosystem. By this, I would like to thank each of you for your remarks and the time that our audience spent with us.
[Applause]