FINISHED - 2014 09 03 - WS152 - Internet Governance: Challenges Issues and Roles - Room 6

FINISHED COPY



NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE

INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2014

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR ENHANCED

MULTI-STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"



03 SEPTEMBER 2014

09:00

WS 152

INTERNET GOVERNANCE:  CHALLENGES, ISSUES AND ROLES

 

 

 





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This is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings.  Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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    >> MARKUS KUMMER:  Good morning to you all.  Thank you for turning up so early and looking fresh and keen and eager to get this started my name is Markus Kummer.  I'm with the Internet Society and I will say a few introductory remarks but I will leave the nitty-gritty moderation to my colleague, Karen Mulberry.  We have a very distinguished panel here.  I mentioned Karen Mulberry on the very left.  Next to me is Jovan from the DiploFoundation.  Then Manu from the U.S. Department of State.  And Myla Pilao and Marilia Maciel and Towela Nyirenda Jere. And we have two remote discussants, panel members, one is Eliot Lear from Cisco and other is Barrack Otieno manager of the African TLD organisation.  

    Now, capacity building has been on the agenda right from the beginning.  We always have said it is important to enhance capacity building, enhance capacity in Developing Countries to enable Developing Country participants to engage in Internet governance discussions but we also have to bear in mind that when we started these discussions, we were talking about a different Internet.  Between WSIS 1 and WSIS 2, we celebrated the first billion online.  And the Internet then was not what it is now.  Voice over IP became popular.  That was still in the first phase of WSIS.  

    But we did not have the social networks that came on at that time.  But now we really have a different Internet.  We have close to 3 billion users.  There are still 4 billion not connected.  But the 3 billion who are are connected with usually more than one device.  

    So capacity building will become all the more urgent.  And there are various questions that need to be addressed.  Of course part of it is the knowledge gap to make sure that all participants in the debate are at the same level of knowledge.  

    And I think we have made huge progress in this regard.  I think the IGF has contributed to give a better understanding of how the Internet works.  

    This afternoon, for instance, we will have a main session on net neutrality.  And we will look at these issues through different perspectives.  And the IGF in particular is uniquely placed for this kind of discussion because we don't have just one segment of stakeholders here but we have all the segments, we have Civil Society, we have technical experts, we have business that is here to contribute to the discussion.  We have governments and regulators.  

    So we do have all of the perspectives here.  And that over the years I think really enhanced the understanding, the collective understanding of how the Internet works.  

    Of course there is also the issue of participation.  And just to be -- and it is a traveling circus, all of these many meetings on Internet.  And they seem to be multiplying over the years.  And it is simply not possible for everyone to attend every meeting.  

    We have made great efforts to improve remote participation.  But remote participation never quite replaces the physical participation to be able to interact person to person in one room.  And there is something I think we have to bear in mind, also, when multiplying the numbers of meetings.  

    But with that, I think I have talked for long enough.  And I would ask and invite Jovan for the first presentation.  Please Jovan you have the floor.

    >> JOVAN KURBALIJA: Thank you, thank you Markus, good morning.  You have the exclusive right to see the first result of the data mining exercise on the statement of the opening sessions that were delivered yesterday.  

    And it forced me to change slightly my introductory presentation.  

    As Markus indicated I'm Director of the DiploFoundation and head of Geneva Internet Platform aimed at providing capacity building and enhancing participation of small and developing states.  Diplo has increased participation.  Diplo has a capacity building programme.  Therefore we are quite involved in day-to-day reality in fact.  But just in delivering one training and analyzing what is the real level of participation as Markus indicated is one of the main challenges.  But back to the analysis of the rhetorical tone of the opening session.  

    It was very high on optimism and very low on realism and surprisingly on commonalties.  

    Now, I can send you the detailed analysis including the statements of each of the presenters, of each of the presentation.  The opening statement was analyzed according to the main categories.  

    Now, what is here relevant and why this data mining in this case is useful, I think it reflects the current situation of Internet governance capacity building that we have today.  There's quite a high level of optimism, at least in the IGF circles, that we have a chance to do something new.  There are new possibilities.  And sometimes low level of realism.  And especially realism in the sense of understanding what's going on outside the relatively limited circle of us involved in Internet governance on a daily basis.  And this is our main concern of Diplo how in reality how other people are seeing Internet governance.  

    And here the news is mixed.  We have general appreciation of the high relevance of Internet governance.  But very often perception that people are left out.  That they don't have enough means of awareness or capacity.  Not necessarily capacity understanding what's going on but also time-wise capacity and resources to follow so many processes.  

    Therefore probably the main challenge if I have to zoom out for us for today's discussion generally I would say IGF is to close this gap between possibility to participate and reality of participating.  That gap could be the major, major challenge for the Internet Governance Forum.  As we know IGF is open for participation like ICANN like many other Internet governance bodies.  But it doesn't mean that if you open the door that people will come through the doors to the IG meetings.  

    And here are the main challenges.  The main challenge is to show them why it is relevant to them.  Main challenges in providing knowledge and skills for participation, resources and I'm particularly happy today Markus is with us he initiated the latest initiative of providing more solid support for the Internet Governance Forum.  Therefore in covering a broad range of issues, Internet governance issues -- no ,it doesn't work.  Anyhow, I will describe.  The main challenge is moving beyond the statement that is sometimes heard, you can participate.  Why don't you come to the meeting?  It's open.  You can join us.  And really, really building substantive reality-based capacities for people to participate.  Sometimes this just awareness building, explaining -- we had a session explaining why it's relevant for example parliamentarians I had a few session with parliamentarians for them it's very important to win the next elections and you have to give them how IG can give them a chance to win the next elections for civil servants it's important for their countries to reduce risks.

Usually Government businesses risk avoidance business.  Civil Society has more common cause on their mind.  But again the issues are very specific.  And sometimes we overestimate the possibility on the statement that Internet governance is global and it requires only global solutions yes technically it's global but practically speaking issues are quite concrete, related to specific nation, local communities and groups.  

    Therefore, this is another aspect that would require the further customization in order to close this gap between possibility to participate and the reality of participating.  Thank you.  

    >> MARKUS KUMMER:  Thank you for that.  You have set the scene and we're very interested in learning more about your data mining of the opening speech.  And next then is Marilia.  Marilia over to you.  

    >> MARILIA MACIEL:  Thank you very much Markus and good morning to all.  It's really a pleasure to be here today speaking on the session today we were asked to focus on the bigger picture and what are the elements that make Internet governance constantly evolving and fresh.  We were requested not to talk NETmundial in our transition because you have enough sessions about this during this week.  I'm not going to focus on NETmundial.  But I was part of the multistakeholder Executive Committee that helped to organize NETmundial and drafted the first outcome document that was put on the first public consultation so I would like to highlight three pieces of this document that I think paved the way properly for a constant evolution of the ecosystem.  

    The first of them is how the document is used with the Internet governance framework and it makes a clear option for distributed model for Internet governance this is something as you know we have been discussing for many years so this is a step forward certainly.  

    The second point is when the document talks about the role of stakeholder groups.  It identifies that this is a topic that still needs further discussion but it also sets forth the understanding that the role of the stakeholder groups depends on the issue, depends on the policy under discussion and I think that this is maturity of our understanding of the different roles of stakeholders as well and may pave the way for a more constructive discussion about it.  

    And the third element is about knowledge.  There are some elements in the outcome document that I think would be very important for us to develop more solid knowledge and to have a level playing field between different actors when they discuss Internet governance.  

    One of them is the idea to implement a sort of a clearinghouse that could helpless resourced countries with access to information this idea has been floating around for some years the document picks it up and it's up to us to try to understand how this could be implemented and the second comes from the process of organising NETmundial itself.  NETmundial recognizes academics as separate stakeholders for many years we have been kind of conflated with the technical and academic community.  And NETmundial somehow when they requested stakeholders to present they were representatives in the committees and when they organised the microphones and so on they kind of recognized that academics have a distinct kind of participation.  And they should be recognized as stakeholders as such.  Just to come back briefly to these three points in the document.  I think that as I said for many years we have been torn between this idea that Internet governance should be either centralised somewhere mostly under the UN in a structure or should be distributed.

    And I think that the fact that the document elevates distributed Internet governance as a principle that should underpin our whole idea of how the ecosystem should develop.  It's really important, especially if we think that according to the regime theory when we talk about Internet governance it's important to have in mind we have regime theory as a background of understanding Internet governance principles are really what underpins a regime.  

    If you change principles, you change a regime.  If you change procedures, if you change institutions, these are minor changes but principles it's really what underpins everything that we're doing here.  So elevating distributed model as something as important as principles for the regime really sets the way forward for our discussion.  It doesn't mean that proposals about central Internet governance will die.  We will certainly see proposals with this next year when we're talking about the WSIS review process.  But I think the community as a whole and multistakeholders have made a clear distinction in NETmundial I think we need to take into account two concerns of actors when they talk about centralized models of Internet governance.  There are two important concerns that underlie these proposals.  

    One of them is the difficulty to have access to information.  Centralized models, as we know they are more easy to read they are more easy to understand.  They provide you a focal point where you can go and gather the information that you need.  

    And the second point is the lack of resources to follow the topics when we are talking about the totally distributed model.  And this is a concern not only from Developing Countries but also for governments.  We know governments sometimes work with a very small team of people that follow Internet governance issues.  The same for Civil Society.  The same for other stakeholder groups, small business companies.  So when we talk about distributed models for Internet governance it's really important that we try to analyze and understand how it can make -- how we can make these models more accountable, more participatory more open to the participation of all of those interested.  Real participation and not only something on paper.  

    And this is something that initiatives or efforts that are building upon NETmundial should look into.  

    When we look at the NETmundial initiative or even the Ilves Report that's been produced that clearly says that it's wants to implement the roadmap of NETmundial by developing a distributed model and this report is very interesting because it gives us kind of a step by step to implement a distributed model from issue, identification to solution mapping to solution formulation to real implementation so it's the first time I think that we are given this step by step and the report is a document we should definitely read.  But I think that it lacks this concern, how to make sure that actors that do not have the necessary resources to participate are included.  And then we come to the last point, which is the issue of knowledge.  

    I agree with Markus, I think we have come a long way since the beginning of Internet governance.  We have plenty of information out there.  All the sessions at least here in the IGF but in most of the forums that deal with Internet governance, they are transcribed.  We have remote participation.  We can go back to them.  

    It would be interesting, indeed, to institutionalize something as a clearinghouse that could keep the sort of focal point for actors that are looking for information that can go and find the information they need and kind of understand in this very broad and complex ecosystem where they should go when they want to discuss a certain topic.  

    But I think that this is not enough and we really need to move a step forward when it comes to knowledge.  I think that here in Internet governance discussions, maybe we use too little some instruments that are being used when we talk about a democracy for instance.  For sorting through information, I think the data mining is an exercise that shows us that there's a long way to go.  But there are instruments that can help us sort out big volumes of information.  Because I think that the main problem that we have here is not lack of information.  There is plenty of information out there.  

    But it sways to cross this information and to make sure that information that is crossed becomes solid knowledge, knowledge that is useful for policy development.  

    This is something that we need.  And maybe this is something that the technical community together with the community that works with the democracy practices and platforms could help us sort out.  I think we are kind of in the infancy still of how we deal with the big information, the big volumes of information that we are producing.  And this kind of platforms are ways to sort information could curb the difficulties that actors have not only from the Developing World but elsewhere to have access to information and to meaningfully be able to participate on distributed models.  

    I think that this should be our main concern.  

    Yes, let's make Internet governance distributed.  But let's be aware that it creates additional efforts for participation and curbing these problems is something that we should be concerned and looking into in the next year I think.  Thank you.  

    >> MARKUS KUMMER:  Thank you, Marilia and glad for the reference to multistakeholders in NETmundial I think that's a very important step forward.  We have always been stuck with the Tunis wording and their respective role.  NETmundial took us a step forward to be flexible in the interpretation and also recognizing that depending on the issue at stake, the stakeholders have a different role to play.  I think that was an important step forward.  

    Now, the next speaker would be Barrack.  Can we loop him in?  

    Is he available?  Should we take . . .

    That illustrates remote participation is good.  But it's not without problems.  Okay.  Then Myla can we go to you as the next speaker, please.  

    >> MYLA PILAO:  Good morning everyone thank you for joining us for this workshop I know the first challenge was to find the room so we're with you.  We got lost, as well.  Yeah there was a knowledge gap according to Markus.  My greetings to my fellow panelists I'm probably coming in indefinitely as a Subject Matter Expert on the area of security I'm with a company called Trend Micro a global security provider who has been in the market for 26 years.  When the company was put together, the main vision was to make sure that as we exchange our digital information, it should be safe, it should be well navigated and it should be very secured.  26 years after I got the challenge if that's even a possibility and I think this morning brings us to a discussion really of Internet governance.  So one of the things that I would like to bring into the group is how do we see security as sort of affecting how we do business, how we communicate.

And possibly what are the structures and possible policy that needs to be adopted given that as we mature as users and consumers of the Internet alongside that maturity we have also seen in the security industry how attackers, people behind the underground community has also mobilized themselves in terms of advancing.  A lot of their threat campaigns and security campaigns.  

    So sort of put a little bit perspective in here coming in from that particular industry.  

    To begin with, I think we definitely live in a very exciting world.  I see everyone 90% of the room people in the room here have all of -- you guys are connected heavily.  

    So that brings us to a new world of a very digitized community.  I think we as a global community we have crossed the chasm of communication and even way you to exchange and transfer information is hard we have crossed the chasm and entered an area where everything seems to be seamless.  

    Part of that seamlessness, as well we welcome ourselves as well to a lot of security threats given in the Internet space.  It is no issue, it's not nothing that I think we need to build awareness because every time you open your morning paper, all you see is apart from the political situation is all about how companies have been breached how organisations have been compromised and Government toppled because of the security issues and most likely this is the bad side of the Internet.  

    How we as a global, private and public partnership can go forward and really fight this fight together.  

    Let me bring in the perspective of what we see as a major security compromise alongside how we navigate the Internet.  

    One of the things we see as a major concern is threats to privacy.  And again, we've seen millions to billions of records being compromised, identities being compromised online.  

    We have seen terabytes of records that have been harvested and most of this right now have been stolen and repurposed for a lot of things.  

    The other concern that we have seen in much of the discussion in the IGF workshop is all about access.  It's all about control.  Beginning from the small voices how children can be protected against a lot of this insecurity in the Internet.  How we can rebuild and I purposely say the word rebuild confidence and trust as we navigate ourselves in the Internet how organisations can also rebuild trust to their consumers and even the Government, as well.  

    We have seen a lot of security and cyber threats alongside compromising protocols, compromising routing and infrastructure.  

    We know that many years ago when a lot of the DNS IP have been put together it gives us a lot of relief but today we have seen a lot of attacks coming in and compromising a lot of the DNS that we come to believe and come to trust for a long time.  

    What has this brought us is again no control in our own traffic, no control in our own data as this rerouting has been compromised.  

    We've seen a lot of information theft around that.  And of course infection of a lot of systems that up to now we still have huge problems even in the security industry to see and reconcile with.  

    And of course our own exposure into this huge digital footprint and again, the last portion, it still is a problem when we talk about safety on Internet is unwanted information and wanted content and wanted redirection from sites that we obviously don't want to see.  

    So today we have -- it's still about 26 billion of spams that are circulating just for the last six months.  And still is growing.  

    So my point is I can go on and on and talk a little bit more about this, about the security threats.  The point is we don't need to punctuate the obvious that as we navigate the Internet and govern a lot of the policies and standards the point is security needs to be also innovative because a lot of the things we put together in the past may be something we need to challenge because they might not be adept to how the attackers have been crossing a lot of these practices.  

    And I guess a non-negotiable part is we are living in a very digital world.  A lot of what we do is almost patterned according to our digital life that is non-negotiable.  So the point is we need to really understand what kinds of policies and standards that we need to put in place that are real world.  Meaning how do we use the real world scenarios that we see today in terms of security breaches and a lot of them are obviously running on the Internet.  How do we see them as a way you to influence what we have right now.  Either as best practices, as policies and hopefully as a way to govern both locally and international.  

    My last note is I'm sure all of you would agree and applaud the fact that Internet has brought a lot of things to us, a lot of goodness.  But sadly there's the other side of the world where they are here and they will be here to disrupt that business that we have all come to protect and secure.  

    Thank you.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you very much and I apologize Markus was called away but at least he got to be with us for a brief portion to open the session and provide some context for us.  

    Our next speaker is Manu.  

    >> MANU BHARDWAJ:  Thank you, Karen, for convening today's workshop discussion.  And good morning to everyone.  My name is Manu Bhardwaj.  I've been a political advisor at the State Department for the past four years.  This is now my fourth IGF and partly this is an opportunity for me to reflect upon these past four years, particularly these Internet governance discussions with you all.  And I'm looking forward to also the Q&A that follows the opening remarks.  

    I essentially see four trend lines from where we are today in comparison to where we were four years ago.  The first trend line is Internet governance is now a discussion that's occurring at the level of Heads of State.  We have Heads of State that are talking about Internet governance.  NETmundial was convened by President Rousseff.  The President of Estonia has also expressed a huge interest.  That's changed the landscape for diplomatic relations on these issues and in some ways it provides it a lot more momentum and support.  

    The second trend line is the IGF is emerging as the venue, as the venue for discussion of all Internet-related public policy issues.  

    It enjoys significant support from probably most of us, if not all of us here at this year's IGF.  As well as -- and that support is growing with every year, every passing year.  We're also finding that governments are stepping up to host the IGF governments we wouldn't typically think are supporters of Internet freedom or Internet governance multistakeholder approaches and that is in some ways a very positive sign for the future of the IGF.  

    The third trend line is that we're now at a point where we're looking to see how these multistakeholder organisations can grapple with real concerns that are emerging about misuse of the Internet and this is probably a point that has been -- that is well made here after we hear a very good presentation about some of the cybersecurity challenges.  

    So the question before us now is how will multistakeholder organisations find solutions to some of these quote-unqoute misuses of the of Internet.  And during her opening remarks state undersecretary Catherine Novelli noted these various misuses of the Internet noting cybersecurity, spam these various issues and noting also and emphasizing these multistakeholder organisations and it's technology that can allow us to find solutions to these problems.  

    And that's really kind of a place that we all need to focus on.  

    Following NETmundial which was I think a very successful discussion in the global self but I think one of the elements there is it showed that multistakeholder organisations can yield an outcome document they can yield something tangible going forward but I think we have a lot of progress to -- we still have a lot of progress to make.  For us to really kind of continue the positive evolution that we have seen for the multistakeholder model multistakeholder approaches for the IGF and for all of these different organisations and institutions.  

    And just to give you a frame of reference of how we must not be complacent, two and a half years ago there was a CSTD Working Group on Internet governance.  That was convened.  And they made a number of recommendations.  Their recommendations were for example the IGF should develop more tangible outputs.  That the IGF -- that the visibility of the IGF should be improved.  That we should improve the overall preparatory process of the IGF.  That we should improve the proposed election process of the MAG.  That we should strengthen the IGF secretariat.  We should expand and diversify participation at the IGF.  

    That was two and a half years ago.  We cannot be complacent.  We must start implementing these recommendations the IGF is the venue for discussion of Internet-related public policy issues and we must ensure that the IGF retains its centrality in these debates going forward.  

    All of these recommendations were terrific.  The recommendations at NETmundial were also very, very positive and it showed just how much support there is for the multistakeholder model out there but I think what I wanted to identify for us is that there are really four major trend lines that we have seen now emerge in these past four years.  

    One is the senior level participation that's occurring on Internet governance.  

    Second is the fact that the IGF is now viewed by almost all parties as the venue for discussion of Internet related public policy issues.  Third is we now have an opportunity to demonstrate that multistakeholder organisations can develop practical tangible solutions to misuses of the Internet like cybersecurity.  

    And finally we must not be complacent.  Because we now have a sizable record and a maturity in the discussions with specific recommendations that we all must start working hard to adopt so that we ensure the continued vitality and centrality of these multistakeholder organisations in the future.  

    Thank you.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you, Manu.  Towela, if you would like to make a few remarks, please.  

    >> TOWELA NYIRENDA JERE:  Good morning.  My name is Towela.  I'm from Malawi.  I you work for the NEPAD coordinating agency which is a technical agency of the African Union I'm serving as a millimeter of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for this year and also acting this year's IGF as an ISOC Ambassador.  My remarks I think are going to be made in the context of the work that NEPAD is doing as far as strengthening some of our regional IGFs and also getting some national IGFs off the ground as well as some of the work that we are doing in capacity building.  I think one of the things I would like to mention at the outset is we did some research just trying to get an understanding of how Africans perceive multistakeholderism in the context of Internet governance.  And one of the things we found which echoes what has just been said I think by some of the other speakers is that there is a recognition of the value of spaces such as the Africa IGF, the Global IGF, as places for learning and for discussion and for exchanging of ideas.

Having said that we also then found that there was a bit of a concern in the sense that there wasn't there a clear translation of those discussions and those learnings into tangible outcomes that would actually influence policy be it at a continental or regional levels so that's one of the gaps I think that needs to be addressed.  

    Other things that we have found in terms of our work and some of the feedback that we're getting from our stakeholders is that there's still a lot of lack of clarity around the definition and understanding of multistakeholderism.  I think for some of us, the word obviously does not exist in our local languages.  And I think we find that sometimes you lose a lot in the translation of multistakeholder into a local context.  

    I think that there's also a concern about the whole notion, the concept, of equal footing.  I think a lot of times when people speak about equal footing, they are speaking about it in terms of the stakeholder representation across the different sectors.  But I think for us, also, the equal footing comes into play when you start to talk about the developed versus the Developing World, as well.  And that's something that also needs to be taken into consideration.  

    Talking again about the voice of developing regions, I think that one of the feedbacks that I got last night was a question actually asking why there wasn't an African person speaking during the Opening Ceremony.  

    Now, I'm sure there's a very good explanation and a reason for that.  But I think these are some of the things that come out.  Because people want to know and want to understand, they want a certain level of transparency in terms of the processes and understanding you know how such things are determined.  

    And I think that's maybe something that also needs to be reflected in the way that we do things in the multistakeholder model.  I think the idea or the understanding is that the multistakeholder also should cut across not only in terms of the attendance at meetings but also in terms of the entire process start to finish that it should be very evident that there is a multistakeholder approach and the transparency and openness is also upheld.  Constructive and continuous engagement I think is also something that is of a concern.  I think people would like to see a move away from just events to actual engagement that happens throughout and between events and I think that also speaks to the idea of how we actually take some of the discussions and learnings that happen here and take them back into our relative context.

    I think with that I'll stop it there and then wait for the questions.  Thank you.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you very much, Towela.  Now we have a remote participant for the panel, Eliot Lear, the from Cisco.  Eliot, will you join us, please?  

    >> ELIOT LEAR:  Can you hear me?  My name is Eliot Lear.  And I am from Cisco Systems and so I was asked about what challenges we were facing in Internet governance.  And I'm reminded of a friend of mine who was one of the first service providers who said, the only problem we ever have to deal with is fail.  Of course he's an engineer.  Next slide, please.  

    What you're going to see next is that really our biggest challenge has been success and that today at Cisco we are seeing an explosive amount of increase in bandwidth.  Here you see that steep curve there, that's Asia.  Where you guys are on the cusp of -- I'm calling in from Switzerland.  

    And you can see just how steep the demand for bandwidth has been increasing.  And you can actually go look at your own -- it still has the virtual network index and localizes down to most countries and the other challenge we are going to have and are continuing to have of course is moving to IPv6.  And in 2018 we expect to see more than 50% of devices capable of IPv6.  And this is important in terms of scaling in the net world.  

    The other aspect of scaling, scaling knowledge and scaling access.  This to me is what we need to do to keep our eyes on the prize.  While we have 3 billion people connected or almost 3 billion people connected, that means there are a little more than 3 billion people that aren't connected.  

    And in terms of access, I've been talking to a number of companies.  And one of the ones that I did want to mention is buffalogrid.org where they spend a lot of time focusing on developing applications and tools that deliver power to the equatorial regions where power is not available.  

    And I mention this because a solution to access has to involve a multi-sectorial approach.  

    And so with that in mind, we look at not just the Internet industry but across the board.  

    The other aspect of scale is of course scaling knowledge.  And this is an area -- and by the way, I'm about two slides behind you guys.  We have at Cisco the Cisco Networking Academy, which has graduated some 1 million students actually today.  Across some 170 countries and 9,000 academies.  Just making sure that knowledge of the technology has expanded.  Because that's a key aspect of access.  

    Before we get into governance, people have to actually be connected.  And this is one of the key focuses that we have.  

    In addition to that, we have to recognize that all world structures do not work in the old world structures around telephony which took almost a century for everybody to gain access to and still not everybody has access to telephony, those structures are likely not to work in the new world.  And just by one example, we know of one country where if they attempted to use their old regulatory models to connect people, what they see was that their GDP received about $678 million from using that old world approach and when they gave up that old world approach they saw an increase in GDP that we correlated to about $11  billion.  

    So one of the things that governments need to take into account is how to structure for success.  

    Next slide, please.  

    So a couple of questions.  Or a couple of principles.  The first is that we know that Internet has referred to growth as in light touch innovations and that's good because we have flexible approaches and network operators still need that flexibility so any time we try to impose national standards, we run the risk of actually harming interoperability, harming security and harming growth by ossifying.  So we have to be very careful not to ossify things that may need to change.  

    And this is -- the particular risk is that policymakers will in fact standardise yesterday's technology tomorrow.  Governments don't have -- generally don't move with the alacrity while the pace of technology does.  

    As I mention there are another still 3 billion to connect so there's still a lot to do.  I'm still by the way on my previous slide and just to follow up on Marilia's point there's a need to address cybersecurity and cybercrime these are two separate but related problems in that cybersecurity and the norms of coastal behaviors are not just a technical problem but rather they reflect that the offline world and the online world aren't all that different in terms of the people's use.  So we have to work hand in hand.  And with that I'll stop.  Thank you very much.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you very much Eliot I don't know if Barrack has had the opportunity to join us or not.  I know he was having some challenges as well so maybe we can proceed to more of a question dialogue session and hopefully Barrack will be able to join us and we can pick up with his comments at that time.  

    Are there any questions from the group?  If not, I've got one to maybe start us off.  We've heard an awful lot about the challenges and the concerns and the issues in terms of the Internet and Internet governance.  So looking at that how should we maybe get our arms around the knowledge gap so we can push out more understanding of the process?  And the dialogue to bring more into the community in that discussion?  I mean we've heard some uncertainty about really trying to define what multistakeholder means.  

    So how should we approach that knowledge gap?  How do we get more voices involved, engaged, in this discussion on Internet governance, and all of the issues that are surrounding the Internet?  

    So I turn it over to the panel.  

    >> JOVAN KURBALIJA:  Just a few quick ideas based on our experience in working in the capacity development field I think the right term should be capacity development more than capacity building which implies building something passive participation of the other side.  The key point is immersion I don't think that the heavy focus on courses and training traditional is particularly beneficial in this phase because we have to immerse people in the knowledge sharing process around the issues of their concern.  This is the first.  We call it capacity building 360 zeros.  That's the first point.  Attention span is limited.  IGF is usually -- the field is polluted with acronyms, difficult language therefore that element of bringing it to the direct concern of people who should learn more is the key.  

    The second point which in my view should be the priority and the next phase of IG capacity development is institutional capacity development.  It is natural to focus on individual capacity development in the first phase.  We have to do some sort of liftoff of the community.  But now in order to ensure sustainability Internet governance, we have to focus on institutions.  

    When I say institutions it means governments, particularly governments in Developing Countries but also NGOs, business community is I would say well off when it comes to understanding.  But some general capacity building apart from the concrete technical areas could be useful given the policy context and broader view.  

    Therefore, those are the two key points.  Internet governance 360 zero including the immersion of the people in knowledge transfer and the institutional development.  

    >> MANU BHARDWAJ:  We have approximately one year until the next IGF when we go back to Brazil many of us were there already for NETmundial and I think it's an opportunity how to step up our engagement to the voices that haven't been at all of the IGFs prior to try to make sure that when we come to Brazil, we see all of these new phases.  That we're not always seeing the same faces.  

    I think for the IGF to really be in a position to do that, it needs -- now has a lead in Janis as the MAG chair to ensure the regional IGFs that they are having all over the world that the national IGFs are all linking up properly to the Global IGF which will now meet again in Brazil after Turkey concludes we also have to make sure if we do things going to the IGF Web site for the Internet Governance Forum we could probably use a more dynamic Web site that's more up to date and also keeps you a little more informed but these are things we really need to start committing ourselves to because I think there's been too much of a taking for granted the IGF and there needs to be more of a commitment and less of a complacency so we ensure it maintains it's centrality in Internet governance instructions and it's a place where all stakeholders from the global South and the north can come and discuss Internet-related public policy matters in a way that's helpful to all parties, increasing understanding but once -- all we have to do is fulfill that mission and everyone will come because it will be seen everywhere as a place to really make progress and to really have meaningful conversations and discussions like we are hoping for this week but I do think this is a critical point Karen I appreciate you raising it because the knowledge gap is a really important point we all need to work together to close.

    >> MARILIA MACIEL:  Thank you.  That's a very interesting question and I think it departs from our understanding of what Internet policy is.  Because when we talk about policy we are very used of the idea that that thing it's the national Public Administration that's going to implement based on the decisions that are taken by our parliaments when we translate this to Internet governance we have a hard time to identify what policy exactly is and of course we are talking about things being produced by international organisations but actions that other actors have every day for instance developing standards or developing terms of use of platforms they have very concrete consequences on the lives of people.  So they should be seen as well as kind of policies or kind of actions that have a close interplay with policies.  

    When we think about that, we realize that our standards regarding involvement the should change.  It's not enough to make spaces open for participation when we talk about technical standards, for instance, it is very important that if they have an impact on policy development people are able to understand what is being discussed.  It's not enough to say, come to our list and participate in discussions.  

    It's very important that people understand what is at stake.  And that technical standards be for instance and regulation by law are aligned because if one goes in one direction and the other goes in the other, then we won't have a coherent framework that will regulate Internet.  It's important that there's a dialogue between these two worlds.  

    And I think that it is important that we think that while democratic practices are still very much anchored on the national territory, distributed networks of governance and policy development is actually what we are talking about when we talk about Internet governance.  

    And we need to find ways to close this gap and this is related with what I was saying before.  

    These networks need to be more open and more democratic.  Otherwise, we are making sure that some people that are more and more territorialized because let's be honest, it has helped some people to be globalized but there's a huge part of the world that hasn't harnessed the benefits of global advertised they have become more territorialized in order to be part of policy development we know that information available and it's very important remote participation is very important but it's very important that people are on spaces where the information is circulating.  That is how you acquire that immersion that Jovan was talking about.  So people need to be present in these spaces and the tendency when we create distributed network models of governance is that people that are already globalized and participating, they are the ones that are going to populate these networks.  So we need to make sure that this trend does not happen.  Because we are in a very special and important moment for implementing procedures for developing these networks of governance around issue areas.  

    I think that this is the way that we are evolving.  Not very ossified structures for Internet governance.  But networks that are coalesced around specific issues and sometimes they have a long life span sometimes they are more very focused on that issue when the problem is resolved the network will dissolve but it's very important when we look into these networks, we think about this accountability and standards for participation.  And it's not just something that people that are interested are going to be there.  Because you know we realize that the topic is important.  It's not like that.  If we are talking about policy and we are talking about policy here, it is important that there is an active effort to bring these people in.  

    >> MYLA PILAO:  I guess I have three points to contribute.  I would like to remain optimistic that the knowledge gap we're talking about can be minimized.  And eventually closed but my three points is No. 1 we're privileged enough to see enough real world cases and real world applications that we can anchor a lot of the changes that we want to do both on the technology level both on the non-technology level and even on certain frameworks that we can come and come and challenge them.  I think that's No. 1.  A lot of the standards should not be sitting in folders, on shelves the point is we need to look at it and see what's happening on a global scale and look at what changes has to be done so that knowledge gap can be minimized.  

    The second portion is I agree with our panelists who mention about the right people and relevant people should be in the same bus.  I think it's a global issue.  And we have talked about the diversity of this area.  It's just too wide.  It's too big.  So I guess we have to welcome a lot of domain experts, a lot of people or organisations that can contribute in that.  

    But we need to make sure that conversation has to be relevant.  Otherwise we may not be solving issues at all but we might just be spending a lot of time discussing them.  

    The third is the real reason that we're all here is because it's a global issue.  I believe to address the knowledge gap, we have to have a shared responsibility on different angles.  One is from Government perspective, from private and public institutions, and even from community.  And let's not underestimate the small institutions, small committees like NGOs or otherwise.  

    So I think we need to have a shared responsibility.  I wish we can be more -- be able to reconcile really the priorities.  Because as we said, it's really a diverse area.  When we look at priorities, I believe we can reconcile the fact that there is an ideal way to solve the knowledge gap in terms of our priority.  But there's also a practical way.  

    And if you ask my opinion, I think it's ideal to go through the practical way because otherwise if you go through the ideal big desire, it might, again, take us more time to retake a look at it.  Thank you.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you very much.  Now do we have any questions from any of the participants here?  

    >> AUDIENCE:  I would like to ask Manu when he speaks of the recommendations with respect to the IGF and the fact that they have not been developed for two and a half years, to what would you attribute that Manu?  Is there opposition, opposition perhaps that's not so obvious?  Is it lack of resources?  Is it just inertia and people get on with their lives after recommendations like these have been made?  I'm wondering what it tells us about the IGF that these recommendations have been essentially not acted on for so long.  

    >> MANU BHARDWAJ:  I think we can attribute it to a few factors.  One is that you know realistically Janis just recently got appointed to be the interim MAG chair six, seven, eight months ago.  It's very recent.  So without that type of leadership or a functioning secretariat, it's very difficult to expect an IGF to fulfill all of the various recommendations which were very ambitious, very good, all were very well thought out.  A number of stakeholders came together, worked hard over a period of a year plus to even develop them.  And then they were approved and adopted by the CSTD Working Group and then the overall CSTD and the ECOSOC and so there was consensus that this was the type of approach we would like to see the IGF take but there's a certain realism and the IGF secretariat is now a staff of two people that I know of well and then also Janis Karklins, who is the interim MAG chair so they are all working very hard and have made a lot of progress in a short amount of time and we're very optimistic that they will be able to fulfill and achieve all of these various recommendations to really strengthen the IGF as a forum going forward but you know they need our help.

And it's shared responsibility to help them.  As stakeholders.  That really believe that the IGF is the central place for these discussions.  

    And we need to hold ourselves to a high standard.  Because my sense is that we all believe in the IGF.  And its continued centrality.  And so I just wanted to point out that these recommendations were issued two and a half years ago.  It's now kind of my hope that now with Janis in place, with the functioning secretariat in place, with all of this momentum towards multistakeholder Internet governance that we can now make a lot of tangible progress towards them.  

    >> MARILIA MACIEL:  I was part of the Working Group on IGF improvements that drafted these recommendations.  And I think that regarding a political assessment of what happened I think for many years there was resistance inside the IGF by part of some actors to have an IGF that was more outcome oriented so it took us many, many meetings to be able to reach consensus inside the Working Group to put something like let's make the IGF a more outcome oriented body there and I think that the political environment has changed the report was left in the drawer for some years in part because of lack of resources to implement it as it was said the secretariat is really small but I think that the political environment changed as well and after the Snowden revelations I think we have a reshuffling of forces enhanced cooperation was put in the drawer for many years and then we had this Working Group on enhanced cooperation because the forces changed of course the report of the Working Group it's not conclusive but we see efforts in the General Assembly next year conducting the WSIS review process in an intergovernmental way to move towards something that's more concrete under the UN created to discuss Internet governance which we don't have clarity about what it is and because this other front has moved and advanced I think it's important for the actors to have an IGF that's more operational to show there is an alternative so I think the interests that were split before now they have come together and coalesced around the IGF as a viable forum for more outcome oriented and relevant body and I think NETmundial helps with that because it shows that it's possible if a good process is put in place to arrive at good outcomes so I think it is what's been said and also a broader political facts also that have influenced that.   

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you.  And I think, too, in light of Jovan's capacity development process, it takes some time for everyone to become aware, to lend their voice to the discussion, to have things percolate down both from the global level to the regional level to the country level to the -- I mean it has to go around and around.  So it's going to take us some time for all of the voices to have an opportunity to be heard and an opportunity for everyone to listen in the process.  As the Internet continues to evolve, and flexes in different directions, I think we also have to have that capacity to evolve and flex and be prepared for this constant change to move forward.  

    So it isn't going to be a quick process, at least in my mind.  But it's going to be I think a very inclusive process as we talk through changes and shifts and try to look at the IGF process and Internet governance and hold up for something that we can all aspire to.  

    Do we have any other questions?  

    Well, if not, then I have another one.  

    We have talked a lot about the process and the timing and the shifts that are occurring within the Internet governance space with the policy and some of the concerns that we have to address for security and other threats as we move forward.  All of this is disruptive.  So there are comfort zones, our traditional hats that we may wear and the traditional places that we may work or where we may sit are going to change.  

    So how should we as part of this multistakeholder collective and these voices that are exchanging this information look at that?  How should we address that?  How should we contribute to your capacity development so that, you know, my hat today is not going to be my hat tomorrow.  But we have to be comfortable with it.

        How do we adapt to that shift and say it's okay?  

    >> JOVAN KURBALIJA: Thank you for introducing the hat metaphor I spent 11 years in Malta where the bonus six hats I don't know if you're familiar with the idea of lateral feeling of six hats and we'll need quite a few hats because our identities are complex.  We act as policymakers.  As academics.  Fathers, mothers, daughters, children.  And that is the one -- one big change is that basically Internet as we are aware of influencing our complete social strata.  About 30% of family communication nowadays has shifted to the Internet.  

    There is no need to stress we are experiencing that.  

    If we are going to act in different capacities representing these different online identities that we have to force, the key is to increase some sort of policy empathy.  Trying to understand the other side.  And I'm based in Geneva and I spend quite a bit time meeting people from the diplomatic community and the governance and then at the same time we're involved in Civil Society.  Activities as Diplo, I can see the sometimes huge gap in perception or empathy of different players.  Governments, policymakers, have the model -- they share the same concern as the Civil Society.  Because they are citizens, they are users of the Internet.  

    But they have also constraints.  They have to work within the certain system, which is very often quite hierarchal.  When you ask a diplomat in the discussion about his or her view, if it is controversial, he has to consult.  For Civil Society activities for me representing Diplo, I can comment on more or less any issue within the limits of our activities.  Therefore, there are a lot of, a lot of this fine tuning synchronization that we have to do in order to make the smooth process of interacting in different capacities and wearing well the bonus six hats, if not even more.  

    >> TOWELA NYIRENDA JERE:  I think I would just like to make a comment in terms of how we actually address capacity development and maybe just by way of an example, one thing that we are doing now with the help of the DiploFoundation is that we are actually running an online training programme specifically for African stakeholders.  But what we did in the selection of the participants was to be very targeted in looking at a country level and trying to get a mix of stakeholder representation.  So Parliament, Government, Civil Society, Private Sector, et cetera, with the view that when we get at least three or four participants from a country engaging in that same training process and being asked to engage and collaborate that then also helps them to get a better understanding of what the issues that are sitting with the other party are and that speaks to part of the policy empathy perhaps that Jovan is talking about.

I think also in terms of the idea of immersion, one of the things that we had tried to do was to ensure that the training took place or started before the IGF.  And we made the IGF a part of the training so that our participants would actually follow the IGF remotely and would be able to exchange ideas and notes about the IGF process.  But linking it back to their national context, linking it back to their learning.  So I think it speaks to the fact that we maybe need to also be very adaptive in terms of how we approach capacity development, as well.

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Eliot, you had some comments?  At least I think our remote participant is still with us.  

    If not, I mean, I think that there's another nuance that came up in trying to address that question.  Because when we look at the evolution of the Internet and the fact that there are still millions who are not online and not only do we have those that are not part of the Internet and can take advantage of some of the exchanges that occur on the Internet, we have those that are not there, do not have the technical capability.  So we have a generational issue.  We have a technical issue.  And I think we have a knowledge exchange capacity development issue that we need to address as things evolve.  So how should we kind of approach trying to be more inclusive then with generations who while the younger ones are very familiar with the Internet, I mean I have children.  And no, you don't leave them voice mails.  If you can't text them, they won't answer you.  Versus, you know, older generations who are just getting into, oh, this is e-mail, I can actually send you something and get an immediate response.  

    I mean, we have a lot of different layers that we need to address in that kind of knowledge base as well as those that are not online that we need to help understand the process a little bit more so that their voices can be heard and they can be included.  

    So how should we approach trying to balance the various knowledge gaps in that perspective and getting them engaged not only in the Internet governance debate but in the local, regional, national, Global IGF dialogue so we can listen to what their perspectives might be?  

    >> MARILIA MACIEL:  Well, I think that one thing that has worked well for us at least in Brazil is to have a national multistakeholder structure involved with Internet governance.  

    We have a very vibrant span of Civil Society organisations and business companies that have been involved with the transition from the analogic to the digital but they were not born with the Internet and the fact we have a Brazilian Internet governance Steering Committee that's multistakeholder and that holds elections for the body of counselors, this is something that has mobilized these groups of Civil Society and other actors that have been involved with communication to some level but did not understand how it worked in Internet to become involved in the elections and little by little to understand the specific challenges of the Internet and of Internet governance and also to bring to Internet governance this knowledge of organisation and grassroots penetration that they have in the communications movement.  So I think one of the things that is important is there are steps.

    We come to the IGF.  And we think that this is the place where everybody should be in.  Of course everybody should be included.  But if we strengthen the steps, if we strengthen national structures, regional structures, then we are also engaged in some sort of capacity building and making sure that these groups that are already organised around communication make a soft transition and become involved with Internet governance, as well.  

    So I think that one of the challenges to look into in the next year is to ensure that on the national level we also have this kind of structure that are multistakeholder and participatory to discuss Internet.  

    >> JOVAN KURBALIJA: One quick comment.  There is one sort of hidden success story, which I would like to draw your attention.  Is there anyone from Indonesia in the room?  Nobody.  Okay.  

    Indonesia has made the extremely interesting experiment in capacity building by using the IGF body as a trigger of the process and they are now for example considering extending of the IGF as building and training to the universities across Indonesia.  

    Reducing this gap that we shouldn't underestimate between a huge impact of the Internet on society and still limited academic and research inputs about this impact.  There are very, very little reflections.  Mainly in the United States.  A bit in Western Europe.  But there are not enough studies of the impact of Internet on society.  And Indonesia is now trying to move forward with broadening awareness across the university in Indonesia about impact of the Internet on society and Internet governance in particular.  It is worth following their experiment, national experiment in inclusive Internet governance and knowledge sharing.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Do we have any other questions?  

    We've got some remote participants with questions, please?  

    >> ELIOT LEAR:  I'll try again.  Hello, this is Eliot Lear.  One of the points I would like to make is just that it is possible to boil the ocean when it comes to Internet governance.  And so as always, just as the Internet started small in terms of its deployment, we should be making sure that we don't try to tackle problems in Internet governance that really don't need to be tackled in that context.  And so I come back to technical standards.  Because people tie that to policy.  And inasmuch as the technical standards need to change pretty rapidly, the structures for Internet governance themselves can't often keep up with that.  

    So if we are to stay focused on a few activities that can scale, I think cybersecurity is a very good one to delve into, cybercrime because I believe that's an area where in fact these structures have begun to develop.  

    We have organisations not only the IGF but also the London Action Plan.  And MAG and of course ISOC and IRR play a key role here who do coordinate.  And we actually have pretty good tie-in between academia and the operators and governments in terms of everybody trying to work together to improve both the posture of cybersecurity and to reduce cybercrime.  

    That doesn't mean that we have been entirely successful.  What it means is that actually we have laid out where the techies, if you will, need to do more work to improve cybersecurity and how cooperation needs to improve both between governments and other sectors to reduce the amount of cybercrime.  

    And I'll just mention that I do attend a workshop about once a year called the workshop on economic information security where a lot of these same people get in the room and share opinions.  And that's another aspect of multistakeholderism, which is that oftentimes there's not one place to go.  There's a lot of places.  There are a lot of dialogues.  And they do all come together.  And the best ideas do tend to bubble up.  And that I think is a feature and not a bug as some might say.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you, Eliot.  Do we have any questions from the participants in the room?  Or questions from other remote participants?  

    Any closing remarks from the panelists then?  

    >> JOVAN KURBALIJA: Just one question that I've been asking myself, how many of us who are physically in the room are basically physically present?  Because from time to time I find a room with a good WiFi access and I attend the sessions in wide range from the technical ones to the social ones.  It's a real key dilemma.  It's a good question of our physical presence and real cognitive presence.  Therefore we have remote participation, physical participation sitting here.  And cognitive participation.  It's interesting dilemma.  I think based on my experience because recently I attended a session I was sitting in a good room with WiFi not recently last year in Bali and I started hearing an interesting discussion I said my God this is a good session, it was a session of the Internet Exchange Points.  It was interesting to reflect on that aspect of the IGF.

Thank you.  

    >> MYLA PILAO:  I guess my last point, though, is that we're open to a lot of innovation and going back to the topic in Internet governance is that we are open to a lot of innovation in this industry as I mentioned earlier we crossed the chasm and are fully enjoying the benefits of it but I hope we become a more aggressive and active participant to our own security and our own safeguarding of this very, very popular yet very benefiting platform.  I think it's the only way to go and as I said it's a brutal fact and at the same time non-negotiable so I think when we go to a lot of the standards again that we do have a lot of the policies, my point is always going to be we need to really make a them as live and as active as possible because the Internet age is moving very, very fast.  Sometimes it's two steps ahead of us and so the only thing we can really do is catch up and make it something that we can -- that needs to be relevant to our current landscape and situation.

    >> MARILIA MACIEL:  Just as a closing remark, I think that maybe it's important for us when we talk about knowledge and capacity building, it is important to us to think about what are the skills that are required today to meaningfully participate in this Internet world and its governance, as well.  Something that we came to the conclusion in the law school in Brazil is that programming is something that will be required for everybody who wants to understand what is being made with their privacy or with their rights or with their lives because our lives are being programmed by somebody else when we are online.  And in order to understand whether what is going on and if our rights are being respected and so on, it's very important that we have notions about programming.  So we have created a discipline for lawyers in which they have to go through right now.

    Right now it's an option.  They don't need to.  But we have realized there's a huge interest for it so lawyers are starting to learn how to programme when they are really young.  And we think this is the kind of thing that may make a difference to understand for instance how algorithms work.  How do we have access to information when we search something on Google and Facebook, is it the world as it is.  Is it the world that's filtered for us.  What are the implications of that.  

    So I think that there are a lot of good things that are happening in terms of innovation.  The algorithms, they provide us with excellent innovation and ways to find information that we want.  Not to muddle through a lot of information that's unnecessary or does not interest us.  But also in a way, it creates a responsibility for us to understand how algorithms work for instance just to say an example in order for us to understand how we can participate what is being made with our lives and to be able to influence it.  So to participate in this debate required many other skills that maybe we are from a generation from a transition allergen ration that we were not brought up with them and it's important that we think about how capacity building should be provided for the next generations.  

    Maybe it's not just reading or being immersed.  

    Maybe it's being trained in areas of knowledge that were specific to some professionals for instance such as programming so we need to consider that.

    >> TOWELA NYIRENDA JERE:  Thank you.  I think in conclusion from me maybe three main points that I would want to make.  

    The one is that I think declaring our spaces and our processes as open and inclusive is good.  But it's not enough.  I think there's more that needs to be done to actually make sure that people are able to participate effectively.  I think that there is still more need for awareness and capacity building or capacity development and that this needs to happen at different levels and to varying degrees and across different disciplines depending on the needs of the various stakeholders.  

    Lastly, I think that inasmuch as we can talk about the technical aspects and the policy aspects and the issues around Internet governance I think in terms of capacity development we also need to now start looking at the capacity to engage and the capacity to participate effectively in these processes.  Thank you.

    >> MANU BHARDWAJ:  Just to reflect on my message, I just wanted to note we have seen so much innovation and so much change in this space the last ten years, the iPhone was invented seven years ago.  It's hard to imagine how our health, how our education, how our learning, how our lives have been changed by the Internet and by Internet-related devices, Internet-related innovation.  And it's very exciting to see all of these developments.  

    And so now at the 9th IGF, I think we're trying to think through kind of how we can stay on top of all of these different developments, all of these different changes.  And how we can really best position the IGF and these multistakeholder organisations to also be innovative in their thinking much like the Internet.  And be successful and continue to build upon their success in the coming years.  And I'm looking forward to the discussions this week.  And kind of hearing more outreflections from  others so thank you for the opportunity to be on the panel.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Eliot, do you have some closing remarks?  Remote participant.  I don't know if there's some issues but I believe he has some remarks.  All right.  Hold on a minute, please.  

    >> ELIOT LEAR:  Can you hear me?  Let's see here okay I guess you can hear me now.  Thank you very much for your patience.  I think one of my closing remarks is that clearly we all need to do a better job on the technology front for participation of remote participants.  

    I want to add to what Manu said actually in my closing remarks.  

    You know democracy in modern times is about 238 years old.  The car is a little more than 100 years old.  Washing machines really are about the same age if you go back to my slides and the Internet and the cell phone are very, very young in comparison.  So we are going to need to adapt to the fact that these technologies are here.  But we should give ourselves I think some applause for how far we have gotten in a relatively short period of time relatively speaking and we should take the time we need to build out the mechanisms that we need.  I think another thing that Manu was saying and I want to build on this, too is the IGF really needs to be funded for success.  It is appalling that there are only two members of the of secretariat to support this immense activity.  And it's remarkable how well they have done.

And how well they have worked with the hosts in Istanbul.  And so I congratulate the hosts and the secretariat for what they have done with what they have.  It really is an effort of efficiency.  But clearly more is needed.  Thank you very much.  

    >> KAREN MULBERRY:  Thank you, Eliot.  And to close, I heard some very keywords from our panel discussion that I you would like to leave everyone with as you move on to other sessions and you talk to other participants and you share back home with the local, regional IGF dialogue.  

    One is we have gaps.  Both in knowledge and understanding, experience, technology.  There are a lot of gaps out there that we have to be able to be aware of.  And to assist in addressing.  I mean, we all have an obligation to bring other voices into this discussion.  We need to focus on capacity development as a result.  It's very important that we get everyone engaged in this process.  That those with the experience online should be engaged with those who need the experience.  That those who have a voice but don't know where to speak be made aware of opportunities where their voices can be heard.  

    So as we try and change and adapt and address the Internet governance landscape to meet some of the challenges, opportunities and the innovation that the Internet involves, we also have to be able to not only talk but I think the key thing is we need to sit back and listen.  And we have to listen to what others are saying, what their problems and issues.  And their great ideas that we may not miss because we didn't stop to listen.  So how we can broaden this landscape and make this a really productive place for the voices to be heard.  

    So thank you very much for participating in our panel.  

    (Applause)



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This is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings.  Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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