Internet Governance Forum Open Consultations
Paris, UNESCO HQ
28 February 2013
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Open Consultations of the IGF, in Paris, France. 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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>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to start. Can we please sit down?
Ladies and gentlemen, can we sit down, please?
Order. I'm going to start calling out names.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Patrik?
Ladies and gentlemen, can we start the meeting? We are a bit late as it is. Can we please be seated? Need a gavel.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the open consultations.
Thank you very much. Before we open -- before we start the meeting, I would just like to remind you that we do have transcription and remote participation, so when you make an intervention, can you please make sure that your microphone is on and you say your name and the organization which you represent slowly and then you can go into your intervention.
So before we start, I would like to hand over the floor to Mr. Slav Cherkasov, from UNDESA, who would like to say a few words.
>>VYATCHESLAV CHERKASOV: Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for honoring Madam Chen (saying name), Director of Department of Economic and Social Affairs of DESA with your meaningful tribute. The kind generosity of good friends like you has been a great help to all of us during this very difficult time.
Our DESA family, and I would like myself to offer our most sincere thanks for the messages and letters that you sent in the memory of Madam Chen.
Thank you very much for your loving support, and I would like to ask you a minute of silence in her memory.
[ Moment of silence ]
>>VYATCHESLAV CHERKASOV: Okay. Let me continue.
As you know, the Internet Governance Forum is a multistakeholder forum for policy dialogue related to the Internet governance issue, and it welcomes governments, international organizations, business representatives, the technical community, civil society organizations, and individuals to participate in this event.
On behalf of the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Wu, please allow me to start by welcoming you to all to the 2013 cycle of the open consultations and the MAG meetings on the Internet governance, and also thank you, UNESCO, for hosting this event.
Two thousand- --
As DESA is committed to preserving and improving the core ideas of the IGF and its open, inclusive, and multistakeholder platform.
2012 IGF theme in Baku was determined by MAG as "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic, and Social Development." It truly reflected the increased role of the Internet in the evolution of the various development components through the world.
The capacity development opportunities the IGF provides are truly remarkable.
Let me take this time to thank the MAG and MAG members, which provide extensive leadership and guidance to past and future forums.
I would like to thank also our generous donor community. Those contributions to the IGF trust fund have enabled us to engage in capacity-building programs such as the IGF fellowship program.
The fund also provides support for 11 MAG members from developing countries who are attending this event as well.
I invite everyone present here, either in person or remotely, to actively take part in the -- all discussions regarding the themes and substantive structure of the 2013 IGF that is going to be supported and hosted by the Government of Indonesia.
It's up to all of us to contribute to the sustainable development of the world we are living in. Let us also use this opportunity to discuss follow-up activities and recommendations in the implementation of the action plan of the World Summit on the Information Society, WSIS, and in the context of the consultative process of the post-2015 development framework.
Thank you very much.
Okay. And now I would like to give the floor to the honorary chair of the MAG meeting, the representative of the Government of Indonesia.
>>INDONESIA: Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
My name is Ashwin Sasoneko from Indonesia.
First of all, I would like to express a most warm welcome to all of you in Paris for participating in this first Internet Governance Forum open consultations and MAG meeting, the preparation process of the eighth IGF meeting 2013.
As mentioned before, it's planned to be held in Bali, Indonesia, this year.
Also on behalf of the entire community, I would like to express our gratitude to the success of the Republic of Azerbaijan for hosting the seventh IGF meeting in 2012 last year.
Let me also take this opportunity to thank the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, and IGF Secretariat for the excellent arrangement and organization of this IGF open consultation and MAG meeting.
It is, of course, a great honor for me to chair this meeting, together with the interim chair, Mr. Markus Kummer.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have made some progress on promoting the Development Agenda in IGF, but we think more has to be done in order to make the Internet play a very important role in promoting the human, economic, and social development in a secure and safe global cyberspace.
Therefore, given the fact that ICDS is developing so fast -- most of the time faster than the development of the legal aspects and the community readiness -- then we need to act fast as well to set up new strategies to ensure the positive development of cyberspace at a national, regional, and international level.
The agenda of this meeting today is very important. It has to be our priority to shape a fair agenda for the next IGF that will be attractive to all stakeholders and continue to ensure that the IGF meeting is productive and meaningful by addressing the key challenges that face all interested stakeholders into this world.
The expected outcome of all our effort should lead to a more productive Internet world and at the same time minimizing all negative impacts.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, both the positive and negative impacts of the Internet have been discussed on many occasions, including the last three days of our WSIS meeting.
Last December, during the World Conference of International Communication, WCIT, of ITU in Dubai, this has been discussed intensively and the result, of course, can be seen at the new International (indiscernible) Regulation of the ITU. Even the ITU itself even set up a global security agenda, as well as promoting children online protection globally.
As we are discussing today, many aspects of the Internet during WSIS, our colleagues in U.N. OECD meeting in Vienna -- this is their first meeting -- have been discussing also the way to protect the people, the IP system. Basically all aspects relating to the Internet safety, including international cooperation for cyber-legislations and so on.
Many aspects of the Internet will also be discussed in many other meetings.
In the next meeting of ICANN in Beijing in April.
Also the cross-border data privacy will also be one of the main issues in the next meeting of (indiscernible) group of APIC in Indonesia.
At the end of this year, WTO will also discuss e-commerce aspects of the Internet and there are still many other discussions in many other meetings regarding the Internet development.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, ladies and gentlemen, realizing that there are so many aspects in the Internet, some of them are even very crucial, as well as very sensitive, I believe the next IGF meeting, where hopefully all of these aspects will be discussed comprehensively. It is very important to the meeting that we can set up the agenda in shaping the global Internet in the near future.
For further discussion of the agenda, as well as the detailed program of the next IGF, I hereby hand the discussion process to the interim chairman, Mr. Kummer. Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor for me to co-chair this meeting with Director General Sasoneko, and I think this comes at an important juncture. As you rightly pointed out, we have seen at the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai that there were a number of concerns voiced by developing countries, and the IGF could indeed be a forum to address these concerns.
The secretariat has prepared an agenda for this meeting, and I would like to recall the agenda and the identified purpose and desired main occupants.
First and foremost, I think we are called upon to discuss what could be the theme for the meeting, and in the discussions leading up to this meeting there were two different approaches. Either we decide on the theme now or we wait a little bit and we do it in a more bottom-up fashion after workshop proposals have emerged so we can see what is actually of interest to the community.
So this is a decision we have to take: How do we want to proceed with identifying the theme for the next IGF meeting.
Also, the selection of workshops is an issue that always comes up again, and the secretariat has said it would be nice to have clear and easily understood workshop selection criteria.
Also, in the contributions, there are a lot of talks about the number of main sessions, how long they should be and what format they should take.
And then the overall number of workshops. Again, their duration and connection to the themes and connection to the main sessions.
We have had contributions. They're all posted on the Web site, and the secretariat has prepared a synthesis paper and I will ask Chengetai to sum up the contributions we have received.
Please, Chengetai.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Markus. I'll just give a brief summary of the synthesis paper. As we go along during the day, I will give a more detailed summary according to the topics that are going to be discussed then so that we don't have everything now.
[ Audio interference. Please mute ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: So the secretariat called for contributions taking stock of the Baku meeting and also looking forward to the 2013 IGF meeting.
We received a total of 15 written contributions and also we received some suggestions on the IGF Web site discussion board on the main themes and subthemes for IGF 2013.
All of these inputs can be found in their entirety on the IGF Web site. Some contributions focus on evaluating the Baku meeting while others concentrated on their recommendations for the 2013 meeting.
Many expressed gratitude for the Government of Azerbaijan for their successful hosting of the seventh IGF meeting. The seventh IGF meeting was praised for continuing the IGF's tradition of successfully bringing together an extensive range of leaders from the many communities interested in Internet governance and providing a truly unique opportunity to have an open discussion on a wide range of issues.
Contributions stress the need for improvements in 2013 in the following areas:
Main sessions. Participants should increase, focus should be narrowed, and panelists should be diversified. These are just the general comments.
Workshops. The amount of workshops should be reconsidered, workshop selection should be made more stringent, and workshop outcomes should be improved.
For the other sessions, the other sessions should receive increased attention and emphasis.
For participation, they need to improve participation from developing countries, women, youth, et cetera.
Requirements. This requires an increase in outreach and participant funding options.
Capacity-building activities during the IGF meetings should be increased and social media use should be increased.
For local issues such as -- there were comments on the local issues such as Internet connectivity, venue location, the layout, food and drink, and also coffee. It was stressed that it's important and should be made available.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: We have taken all of that into consideration planning the 2013 meeting.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: As I said, these are just the -- a short briefing and I'll discuss in more finer detail the requirements under the specific headers that Markus will...
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Okay. Thank you, Chengetai, for this.
Now, a question.
How do we proceed? I wonder whether there are any sort of more general statements or do we dive right into the substance? In the past, there were quite a few more general statements so I would leave that opportunity open.
At the outset, I would suggest not diving too much into the logistics. The logistics is very much something between the U.N. and the host country. The U.N. has very clear criteria, but the U.N. cannot impose the way how to do it to a host country as long as it is within reason.
We have taken note of some of the comments. Clearly, I think there's a strong preference to have the venue of the meeting not too far away, but the U.N. cannot impose that to a host country because many, many U.N. conferences are held in that fashion, and that's -- as long as it is up to U.N. standards, that has to be accepted.
The same thing, Internet, yes, we do understand it is important, but it is not easy, and big organizations like the IGF, ICANN, have also found it not always that easy, but what they now usually do is they hire a specialized company. This is not resource-neutral. This costs quite a lot of money. But the secretariat can rely on advice from highly qualified engineers who have gained experience in advising host countries. You know, Patrik Faltstrom, many of you know him, he has a lot of experience in doing that, but things can happen. It's not -- cannot -- you can never guarantee that it works perfectly, but we are fully aware that this is an important issue.
And, and, and, and I think the U.N. always asks the organizer to make sure that there's quick and cheap food available, including coffee, but again, it is the host country that has to organize this. Free food is not a criteria. It's not required for the host country. Nobody will ask you to provide free food. But sometimes host countries are generous and do provide it.
So to cut a long story short, I would suggest not diving into these logistics issues. We have taken note of your preferences and I'm sure the host country has also listened.
Indonesia has a long experience in organizing international meetings, and I'm sure we're in safe hands.
So who would like to take the floor? Yes, Parminder.
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: I'm Parminder from an NGO, IT for Change, and I thought I would take this initial opportunity, because it's probably a high-level issue which I wanted to make -- actually ask a question on.
I would like to know what is the status of the report of the working group on improvements to the IGF, because this report was presented quite a long time back and has now been confirmed by the U.N. General Assembly, and in my understanding, the chief actor or at least one of the chief actors to implement it is the MAG, and whether there is a program to do that, whether there is a timetable, or whether the consultation is going to be involved about how to go ahead about it. So I just wanted clarifications on that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. The United Nations General Assembly has taken note of the report and now collectively we are supposed to take that into account when planning the next meeting and it is also on the agenda.
Chengetai, would you like to comment?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. It has been approved the working group report is part of the input into this meeting. If you will check on our Web site, it is written there. And it also has been integrated into our agenda, and we are taking the point given there as if they were general inputs from people coming in. So we are taking particular attention to the working group report.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Did you want to continue, Parminder? I see the United States of America has asked for the floor.
>>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody.
The United States would like to reiterate its full support for the Internet Governance Forum, and we believe the IGF is the epitome of the multi-stakeholder processes that have made the Internet an engine of economic growth and innovation. I don't need to tell that to this audience. I felt it necessary.
It provides the premiere opportunity for governments, industry, civil society, technical community to address Internet issues in a broad, creative, and collaborative manner.
U.S. would also like to congratulate Azerbaijan, the IGF secretariat, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group and the stakeholder participants for a successful IGF in 2012 that continue to build the impressive record for discussion and dialogue in the information society.
We thank Indonesia for taking on that important task and hosting all the stakeholders in Bali later this year.
Our observation is that the discussion matures each year and the dialogue deepens, taking advantage of the opportunity of the annual IGF as well as the national and regional IGFs for the discussion to be candid and timely.
We would also note with appreciation that contributions of governments, industry, technical communities, civil societies, alike to the CSTD working group on improvements to the IGF. We support effort to improve the IGF while preserving a multistakeholder format on which it depends and the absence of negotiated outputs.
We particularly want to highlight the recommendations that can be implemented in the lead-up up to Bali including improving the visibility of the IGF and all stakeholder groups and around the globe. Strengthening the secretariat, including its funding, acknowledging the contributions of the host countries for their effort in the significant undertaking it is to host the IGF as well as the stakeholders for their active participation and input and improving the participation in the IGF and its preparatory process especially from developing countries.
With everybody, we look forward to discussing themes and subthemes that will make for a dynamic and thought-provoking forum in 2013. Cross-cutting issues are inevitable, and we encourage the accommodation of those cross-cutting issues and questions and workshops.
In her remarks with the UNESCO WSIS+10 review meeting earlier this week, the Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer noted that WSIS is a social issue, a human rights issue and, quote, it is an economic issue as an open, reliable, and trusted Internet sparks greater ability to leverage its benefits and greater efforts in innovation.
So in that vein, and for your consideration, we suggest addressing science and technology for development, S&T4D, if you will, and its contribution to economic growth perhaps as a cross-cutting or subtheme. But we look forward to the discussion today and ongoing preparation for IGF Bali.
Just on a personal note, of course, it is wonderful to be here again and to be here as a government representative this time. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Brazil.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to take this opportunity as well to thank the organizers of this meeting for convening this meeting. I think it is very important to start good preparation for the Bali meeting.
I would like to reaffirm Brazil's full support for the work of IGF. We think IGF can present a unique contribution to this process. We are engaged in the review of the WSIS implementation. We think in that regard it is very important that we have already highlighted, Mr. Chair, in the reaction to a question that was put forward before, that in Bali, we are already looking at implementing the recommendations that were contained the working group on improvements report. We think it is very important that we start implementing at a very early stage and I am very glad to see the invitation is to take place in Bali.
We concur with science and technology development should be one of the themes. We would be very glad to look into and give more emphasis to this theme in the IGF work.
And last, but not least, again I'd like to just in this forum to inform delegates that Brazil has put forward its ability to host IGF in 2015. We are, of course, waiting for a final decision on this matter, but this is something that we would be very glad if we could again host the meeting in this very important year in which it would be a wrap-up of the second phase of IGF. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for your intervention. We look forward speaking for all participants to coming back to Brazil in 2015.
ICC/BASIS, you asked for the floor? No?
Okay. Are there no more general statements? Then we can dive straight into the agenda and basically issue Number 1 on the agenda, the secretariat has published to discuss the main themes and subthemes of the IGF 2013. Science and technology for development has been mentioned as maybe a cross-cutting theme, and I think that has the merit of linking the IGF actually closer to the CSTD.
But before -- we have also in the synthesis paper various themes have been listed that have been proposed. But I think there is a binary decision we have to take before we go into the substance. Do we want to take a decision now, or do we want to take it in light of the workshop proposals when we see in May what are the themes that are proposed from the community in a bottom-up fashion? There is a merit to both approaches. If we decide on a theme now, it would guide people who are thinking of proposing a workshop, going in one direction. If we wait, then we would, I think, act in a true democratic, bottom-up fashion and we would then decide on the theme in May in the light of all the workshop proposals.
Comments on which approach to choose? Yes, Martin?
>> NOMINET: Martin Boyle from Nominet. I, like you, have got very little preference between whether we set a theme now or whether we do it in the light of proposals. But I still think it would be particularly helpful to those who are developing proposals to have an idea of the direction traveled of what it is seen as being at least general themes in which we could or should be developing.
And, in particular, for me one of the things that has come out from in particular the WCIT discussions before Christmas is that we should be trying to put a bit more of a practical spin, a practical outcome, a practical thinking, conclusions that come out that can then contribute to help people make the decisions that they will then subsequently make.
So if we choose later, I would still like to get down on to the record that we should be trying to get some practical support and activity and help for people who have to then make decisions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that.
ICC/BASIS, Ayesha.
>>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Ayesha Hassan for ICC/BASIS. I think it would be helpful for us to collect the ideas at this consultation and see what kinds of subthemes and main themes people are focused on for this year.
I share Nominet's input regarding a focus on practical outputs or take-aways, et cetera. I think if we can collect some ideas here today, we may be in a position to shape an overarching theme which in some ways would be able to promote the IGF in Bali earlier, given in past years the host country has benefited from having an overarching theme to start promotional materials on the Web site, et cetera. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And listening to both of you, I think -- oh, yes, Norbert.
>> INTERNET GOVERNANCE CAUCUS: Norbert Bellow from the civil society Internet Governance Caucus. Speaking about whether we should fix the theme now or later, this is not a question that we have had a chance to ponder really.
One thing I would note, though, there is a great value in having integrity in the sense of the theme that is officially announced actually fitting what is going on at the IGF meeting. I would -- trying to be not too politically incorrect -- still say that Internet governance for sustainable development in the various aspects that were mentioned at the last IGF theme is a wonderful theme. But what was actually accomplished at the IGF did not actually match that wonderful theme. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I was one of the MAG members who had proposed the idea of developing the main theme afterwards. There are definitely different ways of doing it. Possibly this year, it is too late.
But the reason why that occurred to me as a more appropriate way of doing it was because we spent approximately 1 1/2 days at last year's MAG meeting arguing about what the main theme should be because the issue becomes very politicized.
So, in fact, what the MAG then does is to spend time on trying to achieve consensus on what the main theme should be rather than really trying to understand and absorb and process what the IGF community expresses as its priority.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Lee, please?
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Lee Hibbard, Council of Europe. Just one pragmatic point to jump on Ayesha said earlier about taking stock really. There is a lot of things that are being discussed now. I used the example of, for example, two weeks ago in Vienna, there was an ROC meeting on Internet 2013 on issues. There was lots of events that happen throughout the year which have a foreign policy dimension to them.
The European Dialogue on Internet Governance, the EuroDIG, for example, has already started its planning process. We already have a draft outlined to be discussed. It's open.
So I think it is very important that we try to take stock of what's already been discussed. I would really appreciate some information collected together about what national IGFs are thinking about if they had meetings and these sorts of things. So taking stock points now would be very helpful.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Izumi and then Marilyn.
>> IZUMI AIZU: Thank you very much. Izumi Aizu, a member of (saying name) and from the civil society. I would like to integrate the workshop proposals with main themes in a substantial manner. However, given the time this year, it is slightly earlier than last year's one, we may need to conclude early.
So what I would like to see is some kind of discussion today not spending too much time and taking some kind of temperature or the preferences of the defined stakeholders and maybe we try to come up with some tools online used to narrow down to choose from, say, some of the major candidate themes. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, my name is Marilyn Cade. I would like to support some of the comments I'm hearing about the importance of sort of generally taking stock of the options and the -- maybe the driving concepts that are coming out.
I serve as the chief catalyst for the IGF USA and certainly one of the things that has always been very helpful to us as an initiative has been being able to feed into and benefit from the IGF. It would be extremely helpful, I think, to the national and regional IGF initiatives to have a general understanding of the direction of the theme and subthemes will go in.
Of course, they reflect both national and regional perspectives and won't be completely dedicated to that. But I think it helps us to support the bottom-up input process as well.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And I'm tempted to say the other way around would equally helpful, that those are here that organize national and regional meetings, what is issues of concern to them.
But I think listening to the various statements, it doesn't seem to be an either/or question. It is rather a hybrid that seems to be an emerging consensus, that we don't need to agree right now on what is the main theme but that we listen a bit and see which direction it could take and then we finalize that at the next meeting.
Raul, please?
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In Latin America, we usually organize regional preparatory IGF meetings at the end of August or more or less sometime in then. Usually they are made with meetings here in the room. There are a lot of people involved in the organizations involved in those meetings.
But I think that's -- organizing the meetings in that part of the year, it is good for the regional purposes, but it is not enough good in order to influence the agenda and the main topics of the local IGF. Probably we could encourage the people who organize these kind of meetings around the world to do that early in the year in order to produce recommendations that could be taken in consideration by the MAG and the organizers and probably at the time of the May meeting every year. That's an idea that came to my mind now. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that suggestion. I think that's also in line what others have said, that we maybe ought to revisit the whole planning process maybe to make it more organic.
Adam, yes, please.
>> ADAM PEAKE: Adam Peake, GLOCOM. I was wondering if we could hear the proposals that have been coming in from the different stakeholders that have been staying on this issue. And then perhaps just take it to the MAG tomorrow where they might give a very brief bit of thought to this, responding to those proposals as they have been submitted, and put it in the program paper as a general outline of this is what was generally suggested and take it for a comment to come back in May. And then the program paper would give some general direction to people. Yet, we wouldn't have to worry about wordsmithing, which is Anriette has noted. It can go on for a very, very long time. It is a hybrid approach listening to what people have said in consultation and then asking for more thought later.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Yes, I will ask Chengetai to read out the proposals that have been made. I mean, what I heard today was also to have a more hands-on practical approach that was, I think, Martin and Ayesha. And I myself was struck when in Dubai that all of a sudden spam became an enormous issue. And in the IGF context, we dealt with spam back in Athens in 2006, and it fell off the table. Obviously, the people that were in Athens were not the people in Dubai. And it may well be worth revisiting an issue like spam which may not be the top concern of people assembled here in this room, that we have to take into account that there are people out there who consider this a major issue.
Chengetai, please read out the proposals we received.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Markus.
Proposals for the main themes received were Internet governance for openness, sharing and improving the lives of all humanity; human rights and the implications for Internet governance; public interest principles for the Internet; shaping global principles for the Internet; new service-oriented approach in the world based on the Internet of services and Internet of things.
The most popular proposals or possible subthemes included issues pertaining to human rights and principles, human rights, enhanced cooperation and Internet for kids. The report of the working group on improvements to the IGF recommended that a set of policy questions should guide the discussions and debates in the main sessions and throughout the annual IGF meetings with a goal to then report the outcomes of such debates by stating clearly the convergent and divergent views and opinions on the guiding questions.
Some contributors gave suggestions on possible policy questions that could be considered. How to maintain net neutrality as the key architectural principle of the global Internet? And what should be the mechanisms and institutions involved in this process?
What kind of general Internet principles or principles for Internet governance can frame relatively coordinated and harmonious policy responses to key global Internet-related issues that impact global public interest; how to maintain the principles referring to -- referred to by some as net neutrality; that the price which an ISP charges their customer for exchanging data packets via the Internet shall not depend on the content of the data packets nor shall it depend on the party with whom the packets are exchanged.
How shall key architectural principles of best-effort service for all user traffic in the global Internet be preserved? That's the end of the principles.
And then all proposals on main themes and subthemes are listed in the synthesis paper, so are the proposals for the main themes or subthemes -- oh, sorry.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that. Some of it went already into the main session. I think right now we are still at the higher level of main themes.
What I heard this morning, I think in both the interventions of Brazil and the U.S. were science and technology also for development, which I think is interesting insofar it links the IGF maybe closer to the work of the commission of Science and Technology for Development and the economic growth, the Internet as an engine for growth and innovation. This is also something that was mentioned.
I think at least I sense there is a general agreement that it makes much sense to listen a bit which direction we could go without taking a final decision so that we have a sense of direction.
Indonesia, please.
>>INDONESIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Djoko from Indonesia, on behalf of Indonesia delegation. It is also a multistakeholder of government sector and civil society.
We proposed some keywords that maybe could -- would be formulated in IGF main theme such as development, Internet (indiscernible), multistakeholder, cyber society and (indiscernible) cyberspace. We are also offering some of the main themes (indiscernible) that will be used in the next IGF as follows: Internet governance multistakeholders, two words, information society through participation.
The reason behind this, the multistakeholder participation in the process of Internet governance requires a brief review of the concept of governance itself. Governance can be understood as the formation and operation of the joint rule of the game, which define actors and their responsibilities in the collaboration to work toward common goals and in resolving any disputes that arise.
Government arrangements are open translated into a partnership between (indiscernible) and (indiscernible) actors.
Secondly is Internet governance (indiscernible) to the achievement of the millennium of the development goals. This issue of the MDG is to be the benchmark of all the countries involved in the Internet Governance Forum. This issue is particularly refined because in the near future, there will be an evaluation to see the achievement of the MDGs throughout the world.
And the third theme is Internet governance to achieve sustainable development through people participation.
And the last -- the fourth theme is Internet governance for sustainable development through safe and secure cyberspace. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Yes, please.
>> MARY ANN FRANKLIN: My name is Mary Ann Franklin. I'm speaking on me behalf of Internet Rights and Principles Coalition. While we are talking about substantive themes, I would like to read just a brief -- an abbreviated version of the statement we sent in because we believe strongly that this next IGF needs to be talking about substantive outcomes. So if I may turn to my screen for a minute.
We think this would be a very worthwhile approach to be focusing on what needs to be done rather than on who will do it and which -- so that gets us out of constant discussions over a day a half as Anriette pointed out.
We think it would be worthwhile to focus on developing a kind of Internet principles or principles for Internet governance as touchstones -- these are general terms we are proposing -- that can guide global Internet governance to help take away required public interest policies and other activities in this area.
It will also give us important leads on what kind of institutional framework best suit a global agreement on Internet governance. And we think and we hear and we can see quite visibly this is the hot topic coming up to WSIS in 2015.
We also note in our statement that in Vilnius 2010, this was made clear by the Chair's report. We also noted in the statement that Brazil has been leading the way with truly multistakeholder process by which principles can be moved forward into legal terms.
And it is time for the IGF to have the courage of its conviction and have a theme that can include principles as a touchstone that can allow also subthemes for people to explore these particular priorities and interests.
So in that sense, I would just finish now to say that we propose, as I have just said, the overall theme of Bali be Internet principles. Possible overall themes being put forward also public principles or shaping global principles for the Internet because we know that titles are important. We would like to make that very clear now. Principles for the Internet. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. You rightly pointed out there is a tradition in the IGF to have this discussion. We have that in Vilnius, also last year in Baku. A session of taking stock had a strong segment on principles.
I see APC and Norbert again, APC, please.
>> APC: Good morning, my name is Chat Garcia Ramilo from APC. We just want to make a few contributions to this topic.
A general point on the IGF improvements, APC proposes that an implementation form is formed to facilitate and support implementation of the recommendations of the CSTD working group on IGF improvements.
Such a group can be made up of a combination of MAG members and volunteers from the IGF community. An ideal number would be around 10 people.
With regards to themes, we suggest there is flexibility in terms of main session themes. Some of the traditional themes are necessary such as emerging issues and taking stock. But other themes can change from year-to-year based on priorities that the IGF addresses.
In this light, we propose that the IGF in 2013 focuses on the following themes. We leave it to the MAG to decide whether this should be dealt through main themes or roundtables but we do believe it would be useful to use the entire last day of the IGF as synthesizing the discussion that took place at workshops.
The following themes for the IGF 2013, or topics, I should say, number one, enhanced cooperation, support the input from Brazil. The IGF can complement the efforts of the CSTD working group on enhanced cooperation.
Number two, human rights. The APC proposes that human rights become one of the main themes of the IGF. This seems to be a natural step forward considering the prominence of human rights at the IGF, so supporting the input just now.
It will facilitate a substantive continuation of the debate, particularly around diverse ways in which the technical and policy decisions surrounding Internet governance contend with human rights.
The MAG and workshop organizers should intend to include new human rights issues areas such as anonymity and less talked about rights such as LGBTIQ rights.
Approaching issues such as network neutrality, affordable access, public access and accessibility are also part of the rights we support.
Thirdly, Internet governance principles. APC supports a decision put forward by the Internet rights and principles coalition that the IGF should provide a space for establishing whether there is consensus on what principles should underpin public interest Internet policy and policymaking processes.
Many institutions are framing their principles, such as the Council of Europe and the OECD. At the national level, governments are establishing principles that can be used to frame national policymaking.
What the naming of these principles are, how they will be applied, and how they relate to existing global agreements and standards is still not clear. We, therefore, support the proposal that IGF 2013 addresses these topics in more depth than previous IGFs have done and that public interest principles for the Internet or shaping global principles for Internet governance be considered as main themes.
Fourth, how to deal with spam and malware.
There's an area where capacity-building, best practice, and policy issues can be dealt with.
And finally, to outcome or to not.
[ Laughter ]
APC believes it is a discussion that should be put to bed. When MAG members debate whether the IGF should produce outcomes or not, it isn't doing just that. Outcomes are emerging in multiple ways, in the form of follow-up events, better understanding of stakeholder groups' concerns, informal negotiations of positions in upcoming policy processes, brainstorm solutions for difficult policy problems, suggestions for research and capacity-building programs, statements from presidents and so on.
These are not negotiated agreements but they might eventually lead to such agreements.
The more interesting question is how these outcomes should be captured and communicated.
This is a task the MAG must take seriously.
These are not negotiated agreements but they might very well inform such agreements in the future.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. What is the order? I think Norbert is next, and then we have Martin from Nominet, India, and Brazil.
Okay. Quite a number of speakers. Norbert, please.
>>NORBERT BOLLOW: Thank you.
Again, Norbert Bollow for the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus.
The intervention from the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition resonates very strongly with what we have in mind, as we have put forward not only a general theme as it was read, "Human Rights and Their Implications for Internet Governance," which we suggested at the main theme, but we also suggest some subthemes, which are "Effective Participation of All Stakeholders in Internet Governance" and "Internet Rights and Principles" and "Internet for Kids," which we suggest as overall subthemes.
And I would like to note that there is a very strong tradition at the IGF, especially in recent years, of emphasizing human rights, and it would be very valuable to take that forward in an even more outcome-oriented and implementation-oriented and moving it from the "talking about it" to "actually getting it done" stage, and I would very much appreciate if the program for the IGF specifically encourages this kind of practical side to it to move the IGF from being very much a talk and social event to something that has a very strong practical policy impact. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Before continuing the discussion, we were told by the interpreters to speak a little bit slower, especially when reading something, and also, after speaking, not to forget to turn the microphone off.
Now we have already moved in many ways forward from the subthemes into how to do it, but this is all relevant to the discussion. We have still quite a number of speakers.
I think Martin is next, then India, Brazil, ICC/BASIS, Robert Guerra, Bertrand, and Andrea. Okay.
Martin?
>>NOMINET: Thank you, Chair, and we've heard a lot of issues being raised around the table, and I must admit I agree with the relevance and the importance of an awful lot of the subjects that have been raised.
I thought it might be useful to -- as somebody suggested, that we should take input from national and regional IGFs, to say something about some very preliminary thinking that we've done in the U.K. about -- about issues.
And one of the things that interested me about that exercise was that we came up with quite a lot of consensus on just a few topics.
The topics included cybersecurity, but very firmly put in the framework of human rights, and this came up in a lot of our discussions: Human rights not being seen stand-alone, bolt-on, extra, or sitting in its own little group talking about human rights issues, but to try and bring the understanding of human rights, of privacy, of freedom of expression into discussions on other topics. And doing that on cybersecurity was a very, very big and important area for doing this. And of course cybersecurity is a massively large subject.
We also identified doing -- trying to do some convergence, trying to understand better the principles in which we work, was again seen as something that was worth doing. But again, I think that this is seen very much as providing a base, a starting point, for further deliberations on other issues, to give ourselves a better understanding of where we're going, and certainly if we look at practical outcomes, practical thinking, helping people make decisions, then starting off with principles is a very important thing to do.
And then of course we had youth engagement and things like identity management and building trust.
So I've run through those last ones very quickly. I'm sure they'll come up again in more detail.
But where that then led me for thinking about where we should go as the -- an overarching theme, and I think somebody -- and I forget now who -- suggested that the overarching theme could well be "The Internet as an Engine for Growth," for me that seemed to be encapsulating an awful lot of discussion that we had had in the U.K. as being, "Well, you know, that's where we would like to get to so long as we understand these other issues, these other themes that feed into doing that."
I liked the idea that the U.S. came up with for "Science and Technology for Development" as a subtheme -- sorry, as the main theme, but I don't see that as being out of step with "The Internet as an Engine for Growth," and, so in fact, I wonder whether we could go for something like "The Internet as an Engine for Growth," and then a second line of "Science and Technology for Development," and whether that gives us a good framework in which to build in a lot of the rather more detailed work that contributes to achieving that. Thank you, chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that.
India? Tulika, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, chair. This is Tulika Pandy from the Government of India.
First of all, having taken the chair -- the mic, yes, I just would like to extend our thanks and -- to the Government of Azerbaijan for hosting the seventh IGF, and to congratulate the Government of Indonesia for being our next host.
I would like to just touch upon a small point, and that is, I would like to express support for the idea from the Government of the U.S. and Brazil for "Science and Technology for Development," and then to slightly suggest a little change to say "Science and Technology in Internet," to make it a little more focused, because that may help many people to join in.
Secondly, the idea to bring in science and technology as the cross-cutting, overarching theme may be a little early, and my minister has proposed a theme in the IGF Baku. There he has mentioned the theme of "Transforming the Internet to Econet," and I would like to repropose the same for consideration for this next IGF.
And then in the end, to suggest whether the -- two issues which are very important to India, too, the issue of science and technology in the Internet, the issue of Internet principles, and the issue of enhanced cooperation -- whether they could be considered as main themes for the eighth IGF.
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. Brazil?
[ Audio interference, please mute ]
>>BRAZIL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Regarding the themes that are being suggested, Brazil certainly agrees that the issue of international Internet governance principles would be an interesting discussion to take place in the IGF, as it has been one of the themes of the workshops that we have here in this -- in the meeting that ended yesterday and we think there is a great road that is open for the discussion of this issue and the IGF is certainly a place where it could be discussed.
We concur with the suggestion from our colleague from India, but I understand that her suggestion does not delete the word "the government" from the --
[ Audio interference, please mute ]
>>BRAZIL: -- science and technology Internet for development, which I think is a very important -- the word "development" is a very important qualification for the debate that we want to -- to have.
There's another point that I would like to raise, not exactly a theme, but I concur with the colleagues that spoke before me on the -- on the value that the -- the discussions that we are having here today and tomorrow on defining the issues and the themes for the global IGF, the value that these decisions will have for the national processes, the national IGFs and the local -- the regional IGFs that could benefit from this sort of delineation of issues that would be also a guide for the organization of these national and regional IGFs as deemed appropriate.
But we would like to raise the opposite point. I mean, I think the -- it would benefit if we also took a look and thought on spaces in the global IGF where the regional and the maybe national IGFs, as considered appropriate, could sort of have a venue where to summarize and also to offer their perspectives that the process that they had regionally and nationally to the global IGF.
I think it's the case of many countries, and it certainly is the case in Brazil, that we would like to have all the processes in a more organic manner. I mean, the national IGFs, the regional IGFs, and the global IGFs. And then if we had this two-way approach, I mean, the local and regional benefitting from the delineation of things that are decided here, and on the other hand, having a space in the global IGF to express their views and their conclusions and so on. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think this is also an agenda item on how to create these better linkages for -- I mean, we have already touched on elements of overall organization, outcome, and so these are important elements but we definitely will revisit them, and I suggest maybe now closing the list of speakers on the main theme issue. I still have a fairly long list on that, so -- but I mean the MAG can also revisit that, but I think there is an agreement that we don't need to decide on this now, and there are some strong statements coming out, principles I hear that -- by many speakers. Also the economic aspect, science and technology for development, that don't necessarily make up -- it's not the overall theme, but they are here and I think they will guide the direction.
Human rights has also been mentioned, so -- and cybersecurity has been mentioned, and there is an overall, I think, also general thrust that we should think a little bit more about having hands-on sessions that provide practical guidance.
Spam and malware, for instance, was mentioned as best practices. And also document outcome.
But this will take us further in the discussion and I would now go back to my list of speakers.
>> Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: I have ICC/BASIS, Robert Guerra, Bertrand de la Chapelle, Andrea Becalli from IFLA, European Commission, U.S., Mary, Finland, Council of Europe.
Is there anybody else who would desperately like to add something? Yes, I can see Canada.
And with that, can we close the list on -- U.S. Yes, yes. Sorry. I have you down. I did not read you out.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: And yes, PayPal, Bill Smith, okay. And -- yes. Mathew Shears, yeah. Okay.
All right.
ICC/BASIS.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you very much. We support the prior comments about perhaps framing the main theme in terms of the Internet for development and growth, and we feel like this can be used as an umbrella-type concept to wrap in a lot of the discussion this morning.
We really feel like the IGF has a unique ability to talk about the Internet as a fundamental catalyst and engine for transforming economies and for transforming societies, and that can be a nice linkage of all the different things that we've heard today.
One point that we wanted to emphasize is, sometimes the IGF is always looking around the corner at the next issue, but we think it's extremely important when we look around at the broader landscape that the IGF tackle the fundamental issues of investment, infrastructure, deployment, the practical issues of how countries and how societies are going to deploy the Internet and get access to the Internet in the first place.
Secondly, to take on some of the issues around security and the practical issues of operating the Internet and making it safe and secure. And third, dealing with the transformational impact, as others have mentioned, that the Internet and other science and technology can make on society.
We think that can be wrapped into both economic growth, responsible social development, as well as the human rights issues that we heard today.
The Internet has a transformational effect on all fronts, and what we are urging is that there be a balanced approach to this IGF that really incorporates the unique breadth that the IGF has to offer in assessing a global view on both these fundamental aspects of deploying the Internet, as well as dealing with the practical concerns with operating it, and then finally the -- the important social impacts that the Internet has on society.
And we look around at the landscape and think that the IGF has to both assert its own space and -- and not let other organizations or processes fill that space, but it also has to look around and figure out how can we, as others have said, provide valuable inputs into others, and the UNESCO meeting this week was a great example of how there can be a great interrelationship between the IGFs and other organizations.
So I think the positive thinking we've heard this morning on all of these things can be very helpful in thinking about the main themes as we do our work this week. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. Robert Guerra, please.
>>ROBERT GUERRA: This is Robert Guerra from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto.
Chair, thank you for giving me a few minutes. I'd like to just comment on some earlier points that you made.
First of all, in regards to the IGF being mentioned in other spaces such as the WCIT, I think if there are other spaces where the IGF has been mentioned as a space that key issues can be discussed, it would be interesting to make a list of those issues to make sure that everyone is aware of them and so they can be on the agenda, possibly, to be discussed.
I think in regards to whether setting the overall theme now or in May, I think as we're going forward now, identifying possible themes and then having a call I think would be good, but I think identifying some issues and getting feedback on that, I think, could be useful.
I'd also like to echo something that hasn't been mentioned by some of the other commentators, and that is the -- the delegation from Indonesia did make comments and they're the host country and the country from the region, and they have done a consultation and put forward ideas from consultation of different stakeholders, so I think we should give those considerable thought.
And from the perspective of the Citizen Lab, I think the idea of science and technology for development is definitely one that we would support, and it might be worthwhile also to talk about cybernorms and the rights approach to some of the issues as well.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Bertrand de la Chapelle.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Bertrand de la Chapelle from the Internet and Jurisdiction Project.
I've listened carefully to the different comments today.
I would like to suggest that we take a moving picture, rather than just a still picture.
The IGF is now entering its -- approaching its eighth annual meeting, and if I look at how things have evolved in the discussion, the IGF has produced a remarkable outcome that was very visible during this week here. I.e., progress on sensitive topics.
If I look at how the issue of enhanced cooperation and principles were discussed six years ago, it's very simple. Six or seven years ago, it was not even possible to put them on the agenda.
Yesterday and the day before yesterday, there were two workshops on principles and two workshops on enhanced cooperation. Both of them have, in my view -- and I hope it's shared by other participants -- displayed a remarkable move forward in terms of the desire of the stakeholders to work together on those issues and to address those issues.
I think, therefore, we should recognize, irrespective of the other discussion on main sessions, workshops, and so on, that there are two key threads that have emerged as an outcome of the discussions in the -- in the IGF, and that those two threads are, at the higher level, the issue of principles -- and there were very strong messages both in Nairobi and in Baku, and I happened to have had the privilege of being either moderator or a panelist on both taking stock and way-forward sessions in Nairobi and in Baku, and the message already at that time was very strong towards this notion of a compendium and so on.
So principles and how to deal with the proliferation -- positive proliferation -- of principles is one track.
The other one being the evolution towards understanding enhanced cooperation or enhanced cooperations as a desire to identify concrete issues and make the different actors collaborate together to solve them.
It is, therefore, an interesting second track.
Operationally, I would suggest to use those two tracks to encourage the articulation with different workshops that are necessarily going to be proposed, and to have something that makes an introductory session at the beginning of the week and have a closing session at the end of the week for each of those two tracks, so that the discussion can evolve during the week instead of having the usual problem that we encounter in terms of articulation between workshops and main sessions.
So for instance, without getting into too much detail, the goal would be to have at the beginning of the week two maybe 1 1/2-hour sessions on each of those two threads and to allow people to organize their workshops during the week to feed into those two threads, so that at the end of the week, we can come back to two other sessions and see how progress has been made. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And if you allow me to pick up on what you have said on the impact and outcome of the IGF, I fully agree with you, the IGF has not been very good at documenting the outcome and the impact. Particularly (indiscernible) impact. And I would add the use of the term "multistakeholder."
There's no organization that respects itself that does not use the term "multistakeholder." That was clearly, I think, a notion that was pioneered by the IGF.
Next speaker, United States of America.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, chair.
I just wanted to make a point of clarification in the discussion of the main theme.
First of all, I'm glad if the notion of CS -- S&T for D is resonating with folks. I'm glad for that.
But I had put it forward as a cross-cutting theme or a subtheme, and in recognition that really the main theme needs to be as overarching -- more overarching, as possible, and possibly -- and so I just want to make that clarification and take that sort of maybe off the table for a main theme, but to incorporate it as people like.
And with regard to a main theme, I think overarching is very key and not weighting one element of the discussion necessarily over others in the discussion of main themes. Something that can encompass all the ideas that people have been putting forward.
Thank you, chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Point well taken, but it is on the table as a direction to go, but I also agree. I think when we formulate the main theme, it should be a little bit snappier. "Science and technology for development" sounds very U.N.-ish.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: But we need to have a theme that sounds attractive, I think, also to people who maybe don't normally go to U.N. meetings.
I think "economic growth" sounds maybe more attractive to policymakers, but it may be a little bit one-sided as it is not as overarching as the full societal and transformational, I think Jeff mentioned -- I like that word -- the transformational impact of the Internet. I'm not sure whether that's snappy enough, but I think we also have to think a little bit on how to attract people who might not necessarily have been to an IGF before.
Andrea, speaking on behalf of IFLA, correct?
>>IFLA: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And first, let me say it's really nice to congratulate you for your appointment. It's really nice to see you there. Actually, it makes me feel younger to see you back there.
[ Laughter ]
>>IFLA: I think when I was -- four years ago, and it's a familiar feeling and so it must give you -- make you feel also younger.
[ Laughter ]
>>IFLA: To the point of the main theme and then just to add a few points after.
As a main theme from IFLA, we propose to evolve the main themes that have been suggested so far, particularly in the access and diversity, we are proposing to have a main theme focusing on public access. We have seen that it has been coming through different sessions and workshops in the past IGFs and we think it deserves its own space. It's important how you access the Internet. It's important, the role that public access to Internet can lead to that. And IFLA, of course, is willing to work more into that. And there is also a dynamic coalition on public access. So that's one of our points we want to make for this MAG.
Just a few things briefly.
On regional events, we're really pleased to see that regional events are mushrooming across countries and regions, and we are -- as IFLA, we are libraries from 160 countries. We actually are doing a great job -- work involving them into participating in the regional event, and we like to see it more coherent. I've heard that coming from other speakers already. Some easier access to the IGF website to figure out where these events are happening. I know it is not always so easy. And ways to involve local stakeholders into that.
We are happy to give our support into that, to tackle into the IFLA libraries network.
On the dynamic coalitions, as part of the dynamic coalition on public access and I think the dynamic coalition, it's one of the outcomes of the IGF. I think there should be also thinking on how to make them more active and how to reword them. Probably the wording is a function of the "how to make them more active."
One idea could be to get them on the MAG, and if they are active enough, we are proposing actually implementing stuff that have been discussed during the IGF. That could be a good way to get them back into the whole IGF process.
And one last thing is about what I call those in my (indiscernible) in the IFLA contribution to the -- to the discussion, the convergence. We -- before, we were speaking about the outcomes (indiscernible) the IGF. I think what just ended yesterday can be seen as an outcome of the IGF. I mean --
[ Audio interference - please mute ]
-- experience, UNESCO actually engaged in a multistakeholder dialogue. Recommendations were made to a broad multistakeholder support yesterday was a final statement made from multistakeholder recommendations, and that's an outcome which I think the IGF has to claim more of the influence it has even in the WSIS forum.
I mean, for those of us who remembers, even the name WSIS forum came after the IGF. At the beginning it was a long U.N.-ish "Consultation and Action, Implementation and Follow-up" that nobody would understand, and now even the ITU it "WSIS Forum." I mean, that's a good outcome.
So in light of that, I think we should give more thoughts on the convergence, also, of the review processes. We're all going toward 2015. The WSIS mushroomed in several different, let's say, (indiscernible) and it's interesting to pull all of that back and see what we can learn from each other, and I think that the IGF in this moment can teach a lot of -- of lessons learned to the other organizations.
And last point, I was following the Davos meeting in Switzerland, and I heard the "multistakeholder" word coming up in several events on that occasion. I was like, "Wow, that's interesting to use." You would never expect that. Thank you so much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Well, thank you so much.
IFLA, for those not familiar with the acronym, stands for International Federation of Library Associations. But I think it came across that you speak on behalf of libraries. I think the point is also well-taken that we have to project a little bit in view of 2015 what will happen after that and bear that in mind work towards that trajectory. I think that is an important mark. 2014 will not be the end. It will be an important meeting, but there will be a 2015 meeting, and we have to think what will happen after it. Will the IGF continue? And if so, it will be a decision taken by the U.N. member-states. The decision will not be taken in a multistakeholder mode.
But we have to work -- if we want to, we have to work towards that decision.
European Commission.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Chair. And good morning to all. I just wanted to pick up on a couple of points that were already made this morning. On the outcomes of the IGF, yeah, we don't have negotiated agreement and we're not looking for them. But having no result, no conclusions means that we're going to lose a lot of what has been discussed.
So as the Chair said, the IGF hasn't been exemplary in documenting its outcome. Let's make it exemplary because then we can use what we do to feed into the discussions of those who do take decisions.
A short point on logistics, I think -- there were a lot of comments on logistics. And there are comments on logistics in the report by the group on improving the IGF.
I think it is not just about comfort of the participants; it has to do with issues of connectivity which means remote participation. It has to do with facilitating travel also for those who are on a smaller budget to the IGF. So I think it's important to take at least some recommendations on logistics very seriously.
On the themes, again, I would like to echo the Chair. I think one of the main words is to take it forward. Whatever we choose as themes, we need to make sure there is an evolution from the previous IGFs. Already in the last IGF, many workshops tended to repeat themes, repeat discussions. We need to make sure that in the final selection we have some kind of intellectual evolution from what was discussed before. And the fact that something has been discussed before like spam doesn't mean we should cut it out. Just one word on spam, it's not obviously a major issue for some countries. It is definitely not a major issue for countries of the European Union. But it is very big for some developing countries. It made its way into an international treaty. That means there are a lot of concerns around it. Let's not ignore something like that.
One last thing, I'd like to echo Brazil on the point about regional IGFs. I know we're going to discuss this later, but, indeed, we think it would be great if we could have a venue at the IGF where regional IGFs could give something to the general IGFs and maybe discuss amongst each other. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Just a brief comment. I don't think we should not take the logistics seriously. All I suggest is that we know they are problems and challenges. And I think collectively, we are taking this very seriously.
Mary, next on my list, please.
>> FINLAND: Thank you. This is Mervi Kultamaa from Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. I listened carefully to the discussion here, and some of the keywords that have risen from man interventions are "development" and "human rights." Human rights as a cross-cutting issue has also risen from our national multistakeholder process and will be one of the themes of our Finnish Internet Forum next time.
And many have reminded us on the very interesting discussions that we have had here in Paris on enhanced cooperation and of the working group on enhanced cooperation, which will be in the middle of its deliberations as we meet in Bali.
And, therefore, I would like to make one suggestion for a theme which would be enhancing multistakeholder cooperation for growth development and human rights through the Internet.
I think growth is also important as we meet in the times of economic crisis. And it's also intertwined in the questions of spam and all the challenges we have. How do we combat those for more growth also through the Internet?
So this is my suggestion. Maybe we could play with words to make it more catchy. But these are definitely the keywords that came up of this discussion. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much for this. And I point out, "growth" can also be social growth. It does not necessarily need to be economic. So this is something on the table we're considering.
Do we have a remote participant? Why don't we give remote participant precedent as we always say how important it is to bring them in. Luka, please.
>> REMOTE INTERVENTION: So, okay, Luka (saying name) and remote moderator. We have two suggestions from remote participants.
First one is a theme suggestion from Veronica Cretu. And she is suggesting Internet as an enabler of social accountability and citizen engagement for improved results.
And then there is a comment from Deirdre Williams. And she is saying there is a need for much improved publicity and dissemination of the IGF ideas to people outside of the "IGF insiders."
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you.
Next, Council of Europe?
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Lee Hibbard, Council of Europe, an organization which is based in human rights. I'm the Internet governance coordinator in the Council of Europe. So part of my job is to take stock of what goes into the IGF and what comes out of the IGF and to brief my colleagues and to keep them abreast, also member-states for that matter.
And for taking stock is quite important -- (audio interference). If we look at Baku, for example, I did some counting. I counted the events which concerned us, and I think I counted more human rights-related events in Baku than ever before which I think is quite revealing. That's the point I want to make. It is very revealing to see what is happening. Why is that? And also previous IGFs, there has been a growth in those questions. Why is that?
Why are more people calling for more discussions on human rights? And are they concerned that the Internet is moving away from their concerns about the Internet being a people-centered environment? Is it trying to take stock of the why? Are we asking that question enough?
Why increasingly do they have a human rights dimension to these meetings? Are there underlying questions of traditions, values, cultures, even national sovereignty for that matter?
That brought me to thinking about the "why" of the EuroDIG which is taking place in Lisbon on 20-21 June, and the overarching theme is -- and this is just a thought, Internet for society, how to serve the public interest, for example.
Just to add to that, more food for thought regarding what the Council of Europe does and is doing for the next few years, thinking about questions such as what is Internet freedom, is it more of freedom of information and access to information as we know it? What does it mean to say "do no harm to the Internet"? What measure should states and (inaudible) factors commit to, to ensure that there is no harm? And what frameworks of commitments and understanding do stakeholders need to commit and engage and exchange?
And one final point goes back to the question of Internet rights and principles and the work we're doing on a compendium of rights for Internet users. Do users know how to effectively exercise their human rights online? Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Canada?
>> CANADA: Thank you, Mr. Co-Chair. There have been a number of interesting ideas raised this morning and certainly found the discussion very interesting. I just wanted to support the number of interventions that have raised the importance of addressing practical issues such as cybersecurity, spam and malware. I'm thinking in particular of the comments from Nominet but also their written submission and some of the ideas they have formulated. I think this is very appropriate for the IGF to do.
I take on board the comment that not all IGF members and not all governments in particular put issues like spam at the top of their agenda but as our colleague from the European Commission was just pointing out, for some governments, it is a very serious issue and has a lot of effects, even economic effects. And I think there is vast experience in this -- in this forum, the IGF.
When we were at WCIT and some of these issues were raised, a number of us made the observation that a forum like WCIT is not the right place to be discussing them, which raises the entirely legitimate question: If not a place like WCIT, then where? And I think IGF is an answer to that question. Thank you.
(Audio buffering.)
>> -- suggested by Nominet for a subtheme on cybersecurity and human rights. You can't consider one without consideration of the other.
I would like to talk about a couple of things. I think the IGF is incredibly modest. A number of people today have referred to the importance of understanding the accomplishments of the IGF. And I think this is something we need to take seriously.
When you think about the regional IGFs that have sprouted up, the national IGFs, the variety and diversity of programs that are now in place around the globe because of the IGF and we have no idea really what the national impact has been of the IGF because we are not doing an accounting of that impact.
So I would like to see the IGF actually put in place a process, maybe it is a session, maybe it is an activity, to account for the accomplishments of the IGF and the kind of impact it has had around the globe.
I'd also like to suggest that we really think about the term "multistakeholder." I would like to see the IGF have a session or an opportunity for us to talk about multistakeholder best practices, including something very practical.
How do you implement effective multistakeholder processes? And as the IGF is a flag waver for multistakeholderism, it is a perfect place to hold it.
The last thing I would like to say is in terms of outcomes or outputs, I think that it's important that the IGF look at how its outcomes or outputs are structured. At the moment -- and coming back to this after a couple of years being away, they are not hugely helpful. They are not hugely valuable in terms of what can you actually do with them.
And now we are not talking about recommendations or agreements or this or that. We're just talking about outputs and making them significantly more valuable and usable to policymakers or stakeholders or whoever when they go back to their countries and they say: Okay, we have a solution, a proposed solution, or a variety of solutions for a particular problem. I would like to see us getting back to a real review of best practices and a real look at how we can make what we do far more practical and usable. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think there is a broad sense of agreement on that, that the outcomes can and should be better documented. The question is basically how. And this is also not resource neutral. Either you hire an excellent consultant and there are people who can do it, or you do it collectively, the MAG works harder on that.
But, again, the MAG, these are -- it is all voluntary work and it can be hard work. But this is definitely something we have to think about. And I still have speakers, and right at the end of the room, Bill, you asked for the floor. Please, you have the floor.
>> Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Actually quite a pleasure for me to be here today and to see Markus up there with Chengetai. Brings back excellent memories.
I guess I would like to suggest a major theme for the event and listening to everything, and that would be an engine for growth and advancement, the Internet: An engine for growth and advancement.
Markus, you mentioned that growth is not only economic. It can be societal. And I think by recognizing that, we can -- it encompasses quite a breadth of topics that we could -- that we could include, for example, science and technology, human rights and freedom of expression. We could include business models, business models that have come up as a result of the Internet that may not be well-known all around the world. Access and diversity, where I would throw in things potentially like exchange points, local content, local hosting.
And I also suggest that we need -- and I've heard calls here for this -- to have higher-level sessions. I think in my mind, that would be perhaps a smaller number of them, especially the lengthy plenary sessions that we've been subjected to in recent years.
Practical sessions I've heard a call for, where this might be sort of the traditional workshop, 90 minutes.
And I think we could have some very good working sessions as well where they would be during the week, perhaps a half day of intense discussion on topics, for example, spam. It is definitely an issue. However, there are methods to approach it, to mitigate it. They exist. And they are evolving.
And having been at the WCIT and listened to the issues that I recognize are real, I have to respectfully disagree with those who believe that a treaty-level instrument is going to have a practical, positive impact on spam. The way we deal with spam and things like that is at the lowest possible levels on the ground and taking very strong measures and working cooperatively.
So it is good that we are talking about these things, but just writing it in a treaty is not going to solve the problem that countries have. Talking about it in a practical working session at the IGF would be helpful.
Finally, with respect to comments made by Matthew Shears, I would be happy to co-submit a proposal on multistakeholder principles and practices and to run such a group at the IGF. I think that's a fabulous idea because all, too, often we hear the term bandied about but in reality when we get into perhaps what is declared as a multistakeholder meeting, we find out, in fact, it is something quite different.
So I think that would be a very good thing a very appropriate thing for the IGF to do. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And I think it would tie up with the comments that the IGF has not been particularly good at documenting its success, and that would be basically claiming ownership of the term "multistakeholder" and defining it and setting a yardstick. I think that would definitely, to me at least, make sense.
Raul?
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. This week on Monday (indiscernible) say that the information society should be seen from the perspective of human rights, and I very much agree with this approach. So I would like to show my voice to those that are proposing human rights as one of the most prominent overarching issues, topics for IGF.
And I think it shouldn't be only for this year's meeting because this is an issue that should remain for every IGF meeting for the next few years because human rights will remain unfortunately an issue around the world for many years.
I like very much the way the Finnish representative combined the development, enhanced cooperation, and human rights. It could be nice if we could combine those ideas, those values, in the main theme of the IGF in Indonesia.
Regarding other topics to be discussed, I think cybersecurity, cybercrime are definitely important topics and I differentiated two topics because many times we speak about cybercrime and cybersecurity as if they are the same thing. And they are different things. Both of them are very important, but we have to deal with them in a different manner. So I think those issues should be prioritized because those are areas in which I think we have the challenge to demonstrate that the multistakeholder model is able to provide some progress and some solutions for dealing with those really big problems that we have today.
We have, of course, identified some specific points because I echo those that have said that we have to focus in practical issues and concrete things and not to discuss just those themes in a very general way.
So I think my last comment is regarding the outcomes. I think that we have a broad agreement that we are ready to move one step forward and try to produce better outcomes from IGF.
And as you say, Mr. Chair, the challenge now is to deal with the implementation of that. But I think we agree this is where we have to focus how to implement that so the works are written down.
This week we had a very good experience here at UNESCO as a way of dealing with this issue probably. It could be a basis for discussion in the MAG meeting. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that, both for the substantive comments and the procedural aspect indeed. This was also a question in our minds. Can we learn from the UNESCO's way of proceeding? The more focused -- also asked workshop organizers to be more focused on outcomes. And on security, security has been with us right from the beginning but maybe we also have to rethink a little bit how to deal with it because it is also an issue of major concern for governments. And I think as Martin said, the multistakeholder framework can -- and others, can maybe provide better answers. But we may have to rethink on how to frame it.
Ana, you also asked for the floor.
>> ANA NEVES: Thank you very much. And going back to the "multistakeholder" term, well, we are talking about --
>>CHAIR KUMMER: For the scribes, it is not Anriette Esterhuysen. Ana Neves.
>> ANA NEVES: Ana Neves from Portugal.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: I was not speaking clearly enough. So my fault.
>> ANA NEVES: Now it is clear. Good.
My point is about the term multistakeholder and multistakeholder principles because we are discussing sometimes the more Internet governance. The principles are not so much multistakeholder principles. It was already said today here what multistakeholder means and its importance and organization that doesn't respect itself -- well, nowadays it has to say it is multistakeholder.
But what is "multistakeholder"? What does that mean? And so my main point is that besides the Internet governance principles, we have to see and discuss what are the principles of the multistakeholders. And I think that when we discuss these principles of the multistakeholders, we start to see that we have multi-governments, multi-civil societies, multi-private sector and multi-academic and technical communities. And it is very interesting, and it is rich to now we are at the level to better understand where we are.
And so if we understand where we are, it's better to understand why it's so difficult then to implement any action because it is not governments that are going to implement anything because we have multi-governments. Governments, they are all different.
Besides that, I must say I like a lot the title that Mervi from Finland put forward for the IGF to play with, with the words "enhance" and "enhance multistakeholderism."
I think it would enrich the title to include something related to empowerment, capacity enhancement or building. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I basically have closed the list. But in the spirit of inclusiveness, let's also listen to remote participants. And I think our colleague from Russia whose name I can't remember also asked for the floor. Remote participant first. And there is one more. Russia also, okay.
>> Thank you, Markus. We have two comments from remote participants. The first is a suggestion from the theme of the next IGF from Salanieta from the Internet Governance Caucus. And she is suggesting: The Internet : transforming the individuals, communities, economies and nations - threats, challenges, and opportunities.
And then we have a suggestion from Victor from Cameroon that is suggesting to have a small guide on multistakeholder IGF best practices. And he is saying that having national and regional IGFs is a way to implement multistakeholder IGF process and to share multistakeholder IG best practices.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Please recall your name. My apologies that I can't remember it.
>> RUSSIA: Andrey Scherbachiov. Higher School of Economics at the University. First, I would like to thank the government of Azerbaijan for the successful 7th annual meeting of the IGF which was very successful for our delegation as well.
And then I would like to say that I totally agree with absolute majority of delegations which propose human rights on the Internet as one of the major topics of discussion.
One note which I could simply make on this that the human rights is a complex issue which needs a complex approach to it. And so that's why I agree that we need the specific combined topic which allows common approaches for Internet governance with the convergence of institutions and convergence of approaches.
For example, we understood through the legal, sociological, technological approaches, all of these issues, I think, are important to serve the IGF annual meeting. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And please, can you introduce yourself?
>> Thank you very much, chair. My name is Michael (saying name). I'm also from the Moscow Higher School of Economics.
I would like, first of all, to say that it's a pleasure for me being here, and on behalf of HSE, I would like to focus on business aspects.
It was already raised by -- by the EU, I think, that today (indiscernible) the service sector has become the biggest and fast growing business sector in the world, which also influences on quality of life of people all around the world, and our economy is service-oriented, and actually we have Internet which makes businesses going globally -- right?
And which makes services being global.
That's why we also proposed send a contribution on service-oriented approach based on Internet of services and Internet of things, because when we are talking about service-oriented approach of the global economy and global services change relationships between the people and companies with the use of Internet, and when we're talking about Internet governance, we should also consider that it influences on business which is based on the Internet.
That's why there are several possible subtopics, probably, about new business models of the Internet, new models of the Internet, possibilities for personalization of services including people with disabilities, and also security issues.
So among such important topics like human rights, the Internet, technological issues, I think probably it is necessary also to include business issues when we're talking about Internet governance. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I see there are more flags coming up. I wanted to close the list, but can we really close the list now?
I see Constance and is that you, Patrick? Okay. Constance and then Patrick.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you, chair. I would like to offer a suggestion of theme with a view of trying to -- to covering the different subissues we've discussed this morning, which could be "Cooperation for Growth, Development, and Human Rights, Best Practices for Sustainable Knowledge Societies."
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Patrick?
>>PATRICK RYAN: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Patrick Ryan. I'm with Google. And although the topics and themes of the IGF are extremely important, my intervention now is focused on the funding of the IGF. It's a topic that's rarely, if ever, addressed at the open consultations and I realize we're talking about other things, but I hope you'll permit me to make my intervention now, so that we can talk about this maybe a little bit over lunch and at break.
Let's face it, money is really hard to talk about, and so it's completely avoided in many cases, or taboo.
It's a crucial, if not existential, topic here and so I want to be sure to bring it up and to put some light on it today.
The IGF operates on a shoestring budget. It's astonishing the amount of work that Chengetai accomplishes with part-time colleagues and several volunteers.
In order for it to do many of the things that the participants want, such as increasing outreach and collaboration with the developing world, providing a revamped Web site, tracking information and reporting on successes, the IGF needs our financial support.
The funding for the IGF is itself a multistakeholder endeavor. Contributions are voluntary and they come from member states, the private sector, and civil society.
Although we don't yet have an overall view of the total budgetary needs for the IGF, our colleagues at UNDESA and at the IGF secretariat on are working on that and have promised to share that information with us shortly.
This will be very important as we set fundraising objectives for 2013. Last year the IGF raised almost $900,000 from a total of 15 contributors. About nine contributors are from the private sector and NGOs and six are from governmental entities.
In this regard, I want to call out special recognition for the government of Finland, which has contributed nearly 25% of the annual budget on its own.
Just a few more numbers.
In a typical year, the IGF is attended by around 2,000 people from more than 130 countries. Most all of the governments around the world praise the value of the IGF. We talk about it in other contexts at ITU as the alternative, but with only six governments contributing to the IGF, there is lots of opportunity.
There is no reason why half of the countries of the 130 countries that attend it, shouldn't contribute in some way. Those numbers don't need to be high on an individual basis, but some contribution is important.
I realize that government budgets are tight, but I respectfully call on governments to find a way to contribute to this effort. There's no reason why we shouldn't be able to turn the number of government contributions from 9 to 90 this year.
Similarly, the private sector needs to step up.
Businesses like Google believe in the values of the IGF, but our business models also depend on the success of the Internet. It can sometimes be a challenge to have private sector contributions from any single company or any single government to be too large because of the perceptions that can flow from that. We don't want the IGF to be perceived to have been bought by any single company or government.
At the same time, the number of private sector contributors should greatly increase, and I see no reason why the overall number of private sector contributors should not move from move to 90 as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we can accomplish this simple fundraising task, the opportunities for the IGF will be far greater than we are now. As we enter the eighth year, it's time to put our money where our mouth is, to walk the talk, and to show that we support the multistakeholder environment and that we mean it.
I want to draw your attention to the funding tab on the IGF Web site, which thanks to Chengetai and the work of UNDESA provides a lot more information on how to fund. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you, Patrick. While this was completely off topic, I think it was nevertheless very helpful.
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: This is also, I think -- a lot of the recommendations of the working group on IGF improvements are extremely helpful, but they're not always resource-neutral. Yes, of course it would be nice to do this and to do that, but the secretariat, which is comprised by one single person, there are limits to what this guy can do, and this is something we need to bear in mind.
So I would also suggest when approaching the report that we make maybe proposals that are resource-neutral but there are others that need more resources; that we make the distinction and look at those that can be implemented without additional resources as a kind of low-hanging fruit.
I mean, "Okay, that can be done." But some others cannot be done unless we have more resources. But resources can also be given through in-kind contributions. There may also be volunteers that come up to take on the task.
There is another call for the floor.
Nurani, yes.
>>NURANI NIMPUNO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is in Nurani Nimpuno. I work for Netnod, an internet infrastructure organization in Sweden.
It's great to be here today and it's great to see you up there again, Markus, and I think there have been some very good discussions today.
I'm going to -- I'm going to keep it very brief, since I know that we are -- we want to move forward.
I think there have been a few very good ideas being tossed around today, and I think I'd like to associate myself with the speaker previously, who pointed out that it's important that the Internet -- that the IGF continues to evolve, and I think we need to show that in the program and we need to show that through the main themes that we have.
The themes might just seem like a banner or a tag line, but it really sets the agenda for the whole IGF, so we shouldn't underestimate the -- the importance of that.
By showing also that the IGF continues to evolve, I think we show that by taking on new themes that maybe the IGF wasn't mature enough for before. So I think a few people have mentioned the human rights aspects and I think the Internet is an enabler for human rights. It's a very important and current topic that I think the IGF should pick up on.
I also really like Mervi's thoughts from the Finnish delegation about playing with the words of "enhanced" and "enhanced multistakeholderism."
I think that's something that would be good to pick up on.
And then just a final comment, not necessarily on the main themes, but I was listening in to the -- the workshop yesterday on enhanced cooperation, and the point there was made about how the IGF is very inclusive and -- but -- but we also need to be aware of that different stakeholder groups that have different ways of interacting with the IGF.
So if we want it to be more inclusive, we need to take that into consideration.
So for example, by -- by -- if we want more participation from certain governments, we might need to do more to reach out to them. We might need to -- to do -- to specifically invite them and even to organize pre-events, for example, at the IGF that motivates them to come and participate. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you.
And really last speaker on this segment, Qusai Al-Shatti, please.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the Internet governance home again.
First of all, I would like to start by thanking the Azerbaijani government for their hospitality in organizing this event, IGF meeting, and giving us the opportunity to visit their beautiful country of Azerbaijan. I would like to thank them for that.
I would like to echo the comments that the IGF needs to evolve and the evolvement of the IGF should be in revising the topics and the themes that -- to be discussed.
I would like -- we'd like to have more focus on having a more open, inclusive Internet, which we feel that it is still a current and important issue, as well as promoting a multistakeholder model for Internet governance on what -- on global and regional levels. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that.
Okay. Now looking at the timetable, I realize that we're well behind what Chengetai has proposed. He said he should move on, I think, some time ago. But I think it was a very good discussion and we touched on many not just aspects of the main themes, but we also touched on organizational aspects and on how to improve on the functioning.
So basically the next half hour, we can start discussions on the organizational aspects and on the main sessions.
I think we have already touched on that, and I think the strong notion here in the room is that the IGF is evolving, so maybe also that we need to revisit a little bit the concept of the main sessions.
There are certain parameters that are a given. The three-hour main session is given -- is dictated by the contracts with the interpreters. That does not mean that we cannot break it in two segments, but we cannot have, for instance, two 2-hour sessions because that's not how the interpreters work. They work in 3-hour segments. So that we have to accept.
But I think there was a strong notion in the written contributions that three hours is too long to have one subject, one panel; that at least we should think about breaking it up in two. And also, I think what I heard from the discussions, that maybe we need new subject matters, like a lot of cross through the written contribution maybe more focused sessions.
We discussed that years ago, but I think in the end the MAG was always moved back into the comfort zone of having the same titles. They have evolved slightly.
You know, what we had first was "security," but -- and dealt with security and openness separately, and that moved into "security, openness and privacy," so there was an evolution. But my feeling was at least the past two sessions -- past two IGF meetings, where I had more the opportunity to walk around, that the energy was much more in the workshops than in the main sessions.
Some contributions said we should not have workshops in parallel with the main sessions, which is, I think, almost impossible to organize unless we want to have workshops very early or very late or during the lunch break, but we earlier said there should not be sessions during the lunch break either because participants wanted the lunch breaks to connect and to socialize, and that -- I think that's also an important aspect.
So what do we do with the main sessions? Can we agree on --
And a lot of ideas came up during the very first discussion. "We could do this -- have this, have that."
Also, the format is not written -- is not cast in stone or cast in iron, but what is, we have to make use of interpreters in the main room, because we said we want to provide at least one track which is in all U.N. languages. But that can be also something else.
It has been mentioned maybe some more hands-on technical sessions explaining on how to deal with spam. That was repeated by various speakers could be one of the options.
There was also the talk about having a discussion on multistakeholder principles, as multistakeholder cooperation is so central to the IGF, why not giving that center stage.
Young people and the IGF -- or some proposed kids, Internet for kids or Internet and kids -- that has been something that has been on the agenda, has been mentioned many a times, that we should do more or we should give center stage to young people. And last year I was in a workshop with some of -- kids, I think high school age, 16, 17, from the U.K., who were absolutely remarkable and, you know, we can also think about giving them center stage.
I was pleased to see that we have a very young participant in the back of the room, I think estimated age less than two, or what --
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: So that's good to know there is --
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: -- young people also present here in the planning phase. Maybe we should listen --
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Yes. And I'm sure there's --
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: And I'm sure he or she knows how to use an iPad and find their favorite videos.
So the floor is open. What are the -- Martin, yes, please.
>>NOMINET: Thank you, chair. Martin Boyle from Nominet.
For a long time I've found it very difficult to identify what I expect to get out of the main and plenary sessions, and there have been various attempts at various stages to use the main sessions to give feedback from workshops, but for example last year I went to the security, openness, privacy open session and the feedback from the workshops was very much a bolt-on right at the end -- right at the end of the session. And I think that might be that we end up losing an opportunity because when people do workshops, they go into their little silo in a small room and by the time they've produced the report, well, that particular Internet Governance Forum has been and gone.
So I wondered whether there was perhaps some way of reserving the plenary sessions towards the end of the meeting, on the last couple of days of the meeting, against the particular themes and using that to get feedback from all the relevant workshops, so that there is some central point of documenting and understanding what were the key issues that came up, and then that, of course, leaves you with the first two days worth of plenary sessions where I think it would be very useful to bring younger people center stage, to use some of the more general discussions which we want to try and get wider orientation for, perhaps on enhanced cooperation, perhaps on human rights implications of certain things, but, you know, that would be my suggestion that we try to make sure that the plenaries are well integrated into the work, and that there is a reason for people to turn up to those particular plenary sessions. Thank you, chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you, and on that note, there was also a strong sense that we need to work on integrating bringing in the national regional IGFs' initiatives, and I think that is also something we can work on. We had some more, in essence, interregional roundtables but they were not given center stage, and I think this is also something worth considering.
Chris Disspain?
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Just a couple of things. First of all, I agree with what you've just said and what Martin's just said about the main sessions.
My observations are -- having been involved in these from the very beginning, are that the current way we do them is probably reaching the end of its life cycle. The concept of an hour and a half or three hours on a particular topic, you know, using the same headings we've used since the beginning and trying to find subjects underneath is -- isn't proving very effective.
I don't think that the main sessions were particularly well attended in Baku, and in fact I think we had this conversation last year when we said the main sessions weren't particularly well attended in wherever we were the year before.
And I wonder whether the --
The feedback that we tend to get on the main sessions tends to come from the panelists who are there who -- who come back and say "Yes, that all seemed to go very well," and that may well be so for them but there's a lack of convincing feedback from the audience members who attend these main sessions as to their -- as to their worth, whereas there is a significant, in my view, amount of feedback on workshops that indicates that they have worth.
So I'm very keen to hear what everyone else has to say about the main sessions so that we can move them on in a way that is helpful to the greater picture of the IGF, and I certainly think tying them to regional and national IGFs and the workshop reports is -- is something worth considering, and not being -- also not being fixed, in that we have to have X number of them.
We have to have some, but we may not have to have as many as we currently do. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Carolina is next, and we have many speakers. Yes, Carolina. Yes.
>>CAROLINA AGUERRE: Thank you. Carolina Aguerre, LACTLD. I completely agree with the proposal of rethinking the IGF's main sessions, whether we should have six as we had before, whether we should maintain the same topics for them, the subthemes reflected in the -- in the main sessions' programs are then not taken up by the audience or the questions or the panelists are talking about something and then there are questions coming from the floor divorced from the presentations.
Maybe some further documentation about what has been the evolution of that main session in the past seven IGFs for the newcomers and participants attending main sessions would be a possible solution.
But in all, I agree with Martin Boyle's suggestions and Chris Disspain's comments that we really need to rethink whether we need six, when and where should we put them, and the extension of these main sessions as well as part of the whole IGF program. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. I have lots and lots of speakers.
Next was Bertrand. Then I have United States, Olga, Anriette, Wendy, Vlad, Bill Smith, China, and let's see how many we can take before lunch. And ICC/BASIS, Council of Europe.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Bertrand de la Chapelle, Internet and Jurisdiction Project.
Each year we have a session called "Emerging Issues." The concept of this session has evolved. It was initially intended to be a sort of takeup of issues that had emerged during the IGF. It rapidly evolved into trying to make a specific focus on emerging trends and some of those sessions were pretty good, actually. I remember one in Vilnius in particular on cloud computing that was quite illustrative.
However, I wonder whether it wouldn't be better to use such a session -- maybe shorter or longer, like one hour and a half instead three -- to deal with what has happened since the previous IGF, like emerging issues in terms of what are the trends in governance issues. We deal, in the Internet and Jurisdiction Project, with challenges related to jurisdiction and the impact on the cross-border Internet, and we see trends evolving and there are issues on security and others that would be documented, which is a way to bring the participants up to speed on a certain number of developments.
The second thing is, sessions of three hours are clearly too long, and I would like to encourage, as I proposed earlier, to have threads, and to make sessions -- instead of putting the main sessions at the end, as was proposed, which is not possible given the time with three hours, having different threads -- maybe two, three, or four -- where initial sessions at the beginning of the week would launch the thread, the workshops dealing with that thread would be dealing with the different facets of the issue during the week, and then at the end of the -- of the week, having one, two, or three wrap-up sessions of one hour and a half to sort of launch the issue, broaden it, re-narrow it, so that the work is done in the course of the -- of the week.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. United States.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, chair. Liesyl Franz from the U.S.
I completely agree with the notion, as other people have said, of rethinking how to deal with the main sessions and utilize the plenary nature of them, as well as the integration of things that happen at the IGF, but -- and maybe this is stating the obvious, based on what other comments that have been made, but I do think that one thing that was not helpful in the main sessions was report-outs from the workshops in a way that kind of hampered the conversation.
And I can say that as one who did a report-out once, so I -- I realized there's some value for getting on the record from the workshops in a way in the main session, but unfortunately I think the reports and the way that they've been done just hampered the discussion and the dynamism that we really want to get, so I'm all for rethinking how to do that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I notice an emerging consensus that we are ready to rethink, which is, I think, a very positive move.
Olga is next.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, chair, and welcome back, Markus. It's so nice to have you here again as our chair.
Some comments about main sessions.
There may be value in three-hour sessions if we can go deeper into the discussion.
One hour and a half sometimes is too few to go into deeper dialogue. I think we should revisit -- revise the main themes. We should focus on things that have happened from the past year, the past IGF, into the new one, as Bertrand said, so we have to rethink the themes. And I also agree -- and I have said this many times -- this reporting from the workshops doesn't work at all. I mean, I think it's -- it doesn't show the content of the workshops and it's not helpful for the main session.
I wanted to say something more but I cannot find my note, so I'll stop for the moment. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. A brief comment, if you will allow.
I'm not sure -- I think the three-hour session is -- taxes the attention span of the same speakers, and I think also if you're on a panel for three hours, it's -- also for the panelists it can be actually quite tedious. But you can -- to pick up on your idea, you could also have two panels dealing with similar aspects or slightly different aspects of an overarching theme. UNESCO did that in some of the workshops. Okay, the next panel comes in. There were actually in one workshop, I think, of 90 minutes they had three sets of panelists, which may be a little bit too much but, you know, you can also play with that, with the format.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Chair, if you allow me one more comment that I was forgetting.
I think in Sharm El Sheikh, we tried a different model of a main session. It was very much interactive, and I think that was nice.
Very few -- few panelists and very few speeches. Short speeches and a lot of intersection with -- with the public, with the people there.
That were -- once they were -- I don't know why we came back again to the model of the panel, but that's something that I would like to remember from what we did before. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you, but let's just pick up on what Chris Disspain said, that the current model, I think, outlived its usefulness or "sell by" date. However you worded it. But I think it was also a little bit my impression we've done it and it's more of the same thing. It's not that they're necessarily bad, but they -- to begin with, people were all excited, it was new, but it sort of sank into routine and there was more of the same thing, and if you can make it more interactive or better -- but a lot of energy was spent on the selection of panelists and making sure there's balance there, and then adding one more to be sure and that sort of led to a ritual that I think really has outlasted, I think, its usefulness.
But Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Markus. Yes, I would really support what Chris Disspain has said and other speakers and I think the comments from the U.S. as well. I think using the main session as a way of synthesizing outcomes of workshops as a work, I think it has outlived its value.
I think what Chris said, we don't necessarily have to have multiple main sessions. I do think that maybe one or two with good speakers can be interesting. And I want to really thank Patrick Ryan for his comments earlier because I think resources are extremely important, and I think one area where we see this is in the lack of funding available to invite new, interesting, relevant speakers to the IGF. And I think maybe one or two main sessions with good speakers would be very valuable.
Just to share an experience from Baku, some -- APC as well as some other governments and organizations involved in the IGF organized a roundtable in Baku. We organized a human rights roundtable. And its goal was for workshops that had dealt with human rights to come together and share the outcomes of their workshops. Due to time constraints, we weren't able to -- or scheduling clashes -- to have all the rights-related workshops. We had probably at least seven.
And it worked extremely well. And we gave the workshops time to present their input. We were able to discuss where there were overlaps and where there were gaps.
So as a mechanism for achieving what we have tried to achieve unsuccessfully with main sessions which is to synthesize outcomes of workshops, I can really propose and recommend that format of the roundtable, of the magic roundtable.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think this picks up on also what Martin suggested more or less, yes, to have the workshops coming together and having an interactive discussion, not just reading records. I think we agree on that.
Wendy?
>>WENDY SELTZER: Thank you very much, Chair, and to our hosts. I want to echo what was heard. And I think we should -- about rethinking our working mode because I think what we are really trying to do is to engineer serendipity. We are trying to figure out how to help people to meet the people they need to meet, to learn the things they need to learn, and we may not know what those are coming in.
And so I would suggest fewer sessions that get a larger audience together in the same place that gives participants a shared base of knowledge and a shared meeting point where they can find that perhaps that technical issue they didn't think was really interesting is critical to their work six months down the road and now they know whom to contact because they've seen interesting panelists.
Or equally important, they have seen interesting fellow participants in the audience. We say that a lot of what we do is bring together audience members, and everyone is a participant. I think that getting the participants into the same room more frequently rather than spread out among 10 or 11 different rooms could help that.
I also often find that the most important part of a conference is its hallway track, the unscheduled moments, the breaks and the moments of mingling. It is important to have the key sessions to get the right people to come, and it is equally important to leave them time to discuss what they've learned afterwards in unstructured modes.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I like "organizing serendipity." That sounds good.
[ Laughter ]
I think there was agreement a long time ago that the mingling factor was important, and we should not fill every available slot with meetings. And so the -- I think to have a two-hour free slot or lunchtime slot for people to be able to interact, I think that's considered key.
But then how many sessions, less sessions -- let me basically come to the discussion of workshops. I still have quite a number of speakers. China.
Tong (phonetic), are you speaking?
>> CHINA: Thank you, Chair. (saying name) from minister (saying organization) information technology of China. This is the first name for our intervention, our first experience.
Our condolence to Mrs. Qian. It is very sad news for us. She had put a lot of energy and efforts to the IGF meetings and also made great contributions for the IGF process.
And, second, I think we should welcome you, Mr. Markus, to come back to the IGF meeting as an interim Chairman. Under your leadership, we have a very efficient and effective discussion.
For the main session, the workshop, I agree with you that it is time and it is a very good opportunity to rethink the relationship between the and the main session and the workshop.
Under the current mechanism, I think the big issue or the big problem between the workshop and the main session, there is no direct connection between them because in this current arrangement, the main session is held in parallel with the plenary.
And, first off, the workshop has no time or has no opportunity to report back to the plenary sessions. And the plenary don't even have enough time to digest the outcomes from the workshop. So it is my suggestion that we should -- maybe we can give more ample time for the discussion of the workshop.
It is my suggestion that because we have two preparatory process -- time, one -- the first preparatory in February and the second in May, but traditionally, we use this preparatory process to just identify the main themes of the meeting.
I think maybe we could use just one preparatory meeting to identify the main sessions because it is not very difficult. I think the object of this change is that after this meeting, the Under-Secretary-General of the U.N. will publish the (indiscernible) of the meeting. And it will leave more time for the organizer of the workshop to prepare for their workshops.
And with the second preparatory meeting, I think we can leave for the workshop to organize the events. We can leave all the time and all the venues for the workshop organizers to have very fruitful discussions during the second preparatory process.
And after the second preparatory meeting, the workshop organizers, they have still have two months' time and they can prepare the written reports to the plenary meeting.
And during the plenary meeting, maybe the plenary meeting can choose the workshop organizers as the panelists and have ample time and also the participants can have more time to read and digest or read their reports from the workshop. And I think, you know, it's very important for the participants to know what is happening or what is the outcomes or what is the discussions from the workshops.
Actually, they are not -- the traditional way of publishing the six main themes and the participants, you need to note what will be discussed during the annual meeting. So we give more time, more opportunity, more chance for the workshop to have a fruitful discussion and give more opportunity for them to present the outcomes to the planning meetings. And I think this would be more beneficial for the efficiency of the annual meetings.
And I think for the overall themes and the meetings, I think the host country of Indonesia has made a very good proposal. On the basis of Indonesia's proposal, we can in tomorrow's MAG meeting determine the overall themes in this meeting.
And the six main themes, I think, in practice saying the past meetings, we have followed the six main themes. These six main themes is the pillar of the IGF.
We can remain to use it also as this year's main themes. It will give more ample time, more fruitful discussion for the workshop to discuss at the preparatory meetings.
And I think with this kind of arrangement, adjustment when you give more involvement of the multistakeholders. So previous -- because also -- (audio dropped out) -- but we should give more time, more chance for the multistakeholders to discuss, to reflect their views. So I think we can make this IGF meeting more fruitful with more outcomes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. Before breaking for lunch, there are still many, many speakers who put up their flag, but they can speak after lunch. I would like to give the floor to a remote participant. I think it is MAG member Paul Wilson.
>> Yes, we have Paul Wilson who is trying to participate remotely.
>> PAUL WILSON: Good morning. Can you hear me? Good morning. Can you hear me? Hello. I am trying to speak. Hello?
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Paul. We have some audio. We cannot hear you, but we can read you. Just carry on.
>>PAUL WILSON: I can see and hear you very well. Okay. Now I can see myself on the transcript so I guess I can be heard.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Now we can hear you.
>>PAUL WILSON: Okay. Thank you very much. And hello to everyone. My name is Paul Wilson. I'm a member of the MAG.
(Audio interference).
I'm really sorry not to be in Paris, but I had a clash here with meetings in Singapore. Very happy to have had the opportunity to join the UNESCO meetings yesterday -- (audio interference) -- workshop on enhanced cooperation and am very happy for this opportunity as well. So thanks to the U.N. staff for making it possible.
Briefly, congratulations, to you, too, Markus, on your appointment. It is great news.
I have been hearing some of the first session of the consultation about main themes and I have heard some but not all of the suggestions. It seemed there are a lot of good ideas. I may not have heard them all but some of them at least seem to be linked to the WSIS+10 meetings which is great. We heard from Bertrand about the importance of multistakeholderism principles and about enhanced cooperation.
There have been a few other good -- a few good proposals that seem to be getting a little complicated.
And I wanted to suggest considering something short and simple which is actually linked to the WSIS+10 discussions as well in a pretty obvious way. And that would be to consider an encompassing main theme for the IGF as simply this one: Internet cooperation.
I think now really is the time to talk about cooperation. I think Internet cooperation is what we're all doing as a term which, I think, invokes Internet governance but with the concept of cooperation obviously there as well.
And I think the timing for that -- for adopting Internet cooperation as a theme might be quite good in terms of leading up to the WSIS+10. If that's not something that flies in the case of this meeting, then I would like to suggest that -- or I would plan to maybe develop that idea in a workshop proposal and I might come back to it next year if it seems to be a possibility then.
That's all I will say at the moment. I realize you are about to go for a break. It is dinner time for me, too. I will try to rejoin after that in a couple of hours' time. Thanks again for the opportunity.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you, Paul. And, indeed, I would suggest we break. I will quickly read out who I have on my speakers list, and if I miss out on something please shout. I have Council of Europe, UNESCO, European Commission, ICC/BASIS, (indiscernible), Bill Drake, Paul Rendek, and Baher and Matthew Shears.
(saying name), India.
Adam? Mexico, is it?
Hang on. We can always add. That is just basically reading out those that had up their hands.
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Okay, okay. May I also suggest if you have it up, keep it up. If it is like that, that means you are -- I have read out Paul. Yes. Andrea. Okay. We have a rich program waiting for us this afternoon. Enjoy your lunch. We resume at 2:30 in this room, again, 11 and not 2. Thank you very much.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Ladies and gentlemen, we will have an informal meeting of the regional and national IGFs in this room now. So if you want to stay for the meeting, please stay. If you are not, could you please exit the room. Thank you.
(Lunch break.)
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Can we get started? Please be seated. We are trying to catch up from a little bit of time in the morning due to confusion of the rooms. That would be great if you could take your seats.
Please, ladies and gentlemen, please, may I ask you to take your seats so we can start on time to catch up a bit. Before we start, I would like to give the floor to Yrjo Lansipuro who is the Chair of the ICANN NomCom. He has a commercial. You have the floor.
>>YRJO LANSIPURO: Thank you, Markus. Just to say that the Nominating Committee of ICANN will have an outreach reception on the 7th floor in (saying name) at 6:00 and that I have sent an invitation to those whose e-mail addresses I knew but just to say that this is for all. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Yrjo, so reception at 6:00 on the 7th floor to meet with the ICANN NomCom.
Now, before we resume, I requested the floor from Assistant Director General Janis Karklins who has another meeting at quarter to 3:00. So I'm sure you don't mind if we anticipate him and give him the floor right now before we resume the regular order.
Please, Janis.
>>JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you. We were Number 2 on the regular order list. So thank you for flipping us and putting UNESCO first. First of all, welcome to UNESCO. We are really glad this meeting is taking place in this house the day after the WSIS+10 review conference where many of you participated and contributed well.
As you know, UNESCO has been a big supporter and contributor to Internet Governance Forum. Every year, we are organizing a series of seminars/workshops in the framework of the IGF in the areas which falls within the mandate of our organization. Our focus, of course, is on freedom of expression on the Internet, issues of privacy, multilingualism and promotion of local content production.
Therefore, we have already seven years of experience in participating and have drawn some conclusions. And I would like to maybe offer you three points from our observations.
First of all, I think we need to refer to the outcome document of the working group on improvements of IGF and ensure that recommendations which have been developed are implemented or at least we make all efforts to implement them.
First of them, as I see here, is sharpening outcomes or develop more tangible outputs. And what I hear as a bit of criticism of IGF is this is a talk show and there is no really outcome.
And I would like to reiterate my suggestion which I made last year during the IGF consultations in the framework of the WSIS forum. We need to think about voluntary reporting mechanisms of those organizations who participate in IGF where they inform all others on the practical steps or actions they have taken as a result of discussions during the IGFs or lessons learned or information learned during the meetings and introduce that report at the beginning of the next IGF and that will show whether the IGF is really just a talk show or there are outcomes or there are actions taken after IGF as a result of the discussions of IGF.
And certainly I can commit myself that UNESCO will submit to the Secretariat this type of voluntary report -- it will not be long, maybe one page -- describing actions what UNESCO took after Baku IGF.
Secondly, we clearly witnessed in Baku that the plenaries are running out of steam and we need to put our heads together to find a way how to revitalize debates in the plenary meetings.
The final point on workshops, it is always very difficult to assess how many workshops we need to organize versus the quality of workshops and the themes which we organize -- which we address. I think last year, my feeling was maybe there were a little bit too many in terms of workshops.
But, again, I'm not well-placed because during our meeting, we had ten parallel events at the same time. So I feel a little bit guilty talking about this.
Nevertheless, we need to find the right balance between quality and quantity. And, certainly, we need to learn from our experiences and ensure that the workshop rooms are well sound isolated because sound isolation is an issue.
In Baku, we were saved with the headphones. But it is not obvious and it is not a very conducive atmosphere for discussions when you hear all noises in the world in your meeting room and do not hear what panelists or the public is saying. These are the points which I would offer for your consideration as a contribution.
And, as I said, I commit UNESCO submitting voluntary reports on steps taken after Baku meeting as a result of our engagement in Baku with our partners and with the public.
And I invite other organizations or individuals to do the same. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much, A, for your hospitality; B, for your continued commitment to the IGF; and, C, for your constructive suggestions. And you finished in time for you to go to the other meeting.
You are right, you would have been Number 2 on the list, maybe even have made it as Number 2. Anyway, thank you very much, indeed.
Number one on the list was the Council of Europe. Please, Lee.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm thinking about European Dialogue on Internet Governance and what we try to do every year is to make a new start and to be creative and innovative and try to give the thing a new feel. Perhaps that's something you are thinking about in the IGF, to make it fresh, to feel excited about going to the IGF.
I think we also have to think about the whole experience, the whole experience of going there from day one to the last day. I'm thinking about conversations I've had with games developers in different countries and when they design a game, they design a game with regard to the experience you are having when you are playing that game. Or when you are on a social media site, it is about the experience you have when you are on a social media sites and where it takes you. It is quite an awe-struck comment but to say what is the IGF experience and what do people want? I think a feeling of togetherness is important.
So plenaries, wherever you take them, if they are shorter, are quite important, at least several, some in order to feel together.
The size of the rooms, these are very practical points, but if a room is too big, then people spread. It feels very empty so you don't feel together.
In terms of the titles of events, we are spending a little bit of time in Europe trying to make the title short and catchy and very, very attractive. When we prepare for the IGF in the Council of Europe, we look at all the events and it is the title of the event which takes you into clicking on it and looking at the details. It is very easily to miss good events if the title is not correct. So attention to that is always useful.
In EuroDIG also, we're trying very hard to change the format. We've -- we're playing around with things like smaller, shorter sessions so there's room for plenary sessions, there's room for workshops where there's a sort of more targeted focus.
We also introduced flashes which is like a maximum 30-minute session in a smaller space which is open to people who want to talk about something very specific which may not have the audience of a larger room, a larger plenary, or a larger workshop.
We're also talking about testimonials, storytelling, brown bag lunches approaches to having very small, much more intimate discussions, much more informal discussions, because it's the informality of a discussion which is quite interesting, because you're not speaking in a big room like this and people listening to you and that can be quite intimidating for some people. So the smaller sometimes the space, perhaps the more informal sometimes.
Just having a circle of chairs rather than, you know, tables all lined in a row and with a platform in front of you, that can be quite intimidating.
So I think most things -- if you want to change style and be especially more innovative, then that's something to think about too.
And something which I've come across over the last few years is people doing un-meetings and un-conferences, which means that they're trying to do something completely different. They're trying to take away the protocol of a meeting. They're having an un-meeting or an un-conference. They just assemble like a flash mob and they set the agenda on the spot and they talk about things in a quite informal manner.
And one last point is that in terms of the topics which are affixed for the plenaries and perhaps for the workshops, again in EuroDIG, there is an idea that we try to go to the hot topics, we try to really focus on the tension of the topic, and we also try to limit the topics because I think the thing which is -- this is my personal opinion now. I think there's far -- I mean, the Internet issues are so spread and there are so many things to talk about that, you know, it's scatter guns across, and it's very hard to catch up and then it becomes quite a general discussion.
I mean, there might be some merit in thinking about, you know, limiting or focusing on certain very, very hot topics and giving them space, and then, you know, if you limit it in certain ways, then you leave space for other things, and if other hot topics come out, you have space in which you can welcome them a bit later on.
So in order to be flexible in terms of the approach to programming and events.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. ICC/BASIS.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, chair. This is Ayesha Hassan on behalf of ICC/BASIS.
So ICC/BASIS submitted a very comprehensive written contribution very early on, and since then we were really pleased to have the opportunity to read other stakeholders' contributions, have informal conversations with many people across stakeholder groups, and have, therefore, built beyond our initial written contribution to focus on many of the good ideas that we found others had put forward and to refine some of the issues that we had identified for main sessions or key sessions at this year's IGF.
So we would agree and are open to the ideas that others have put forward about how many named sessions we need and how long each one needs to be. For certain topics, they could be split into 90 minutes, et cetera.
So I'm going to put forward a series of topic areas that we feel deserve a main or key session attention, but again, if we work into -- if we work on creative formats, some of these issues could be put into some other kind of session as well. We just think it's important this year to have certain of these main sessions take place.
So for instance, we agree with many people who have put forward the idea that there should be a main session on Internet multistakeholder principles. We think this would be very timely and a good opportunity to build forward on those discussions.
We would also propose that an ad hoc open group be set up to prepare that session, with perhaps MAG members playing the role they do for main sessions to help coordinate the logistics of it, et cetera, but that would be a session that we would fully support.
We also feel that an enhanced cooperation session with a similar open group to prepare the session well in advance would be a positive contribution to this year's agenda.
I think we should look at the main session categories that we've been using in the past and not look at changing the session titles as being an elimination of them at all. It's not that they're being deleted.
We would propose, as the Council of Europe has talked about, focusing on issues.
And so really the proposal would be that in the space where we are really all focused on ensuring a good emphasis on development policy issues and governance issues, instead of having a general Internet governance development session, we should choose a couple of critical topics this year and really dig into them.
So two of our ideas in that regard would be IXPs and spam, and have those sessions be very substantive, a really in-depth discussion, but also sharing of best practices, identifying solutions and options for addressing these issues. And the goal should be that people leave the session with something in their hands and in their minds that is either new or just really helpful for them in trying to really address those issues.
Another issue area that we think deserves a key session would be local content development. This has interest across stakeholder groups, and it's also a development issue, and again, that would be a very helpful session.
Others have brought up spam, as the E.U. commission has mentioned. An in-depth session focused on spam, we believe, with governance options and best practices and statistics and a real dialogue about how you address spam and what are the options, that would be another area we'd like to see in the agenda.
So again, this is to say that we support those who have said that the security, openness, privacy, access and diversity, and perhaps IG4D don't need to remain as titles. We are proposing that main sessions focus on critical topics that fall within those categories.
We also believe that an emerging issues and taking stock session should remain part of the agenda and are open to developing what the specific issues would be in that session, if they're combined or in the two separate sessions.
We support the concrete ideas put forward by many on keeping the capacity-building and development issues, both in the main sessions and in the workshops.
In the critical Internet resource area, we feel that it's important to move that discussion forward, and again, instead of looking at CIR broadly, look at some of the governance issues around power and cooling and things that affect the ability to have servers.
I know some of my members have more experience with those issues and can jump in to elaborate further.
So moving beyond the broad buckets that we have, we think that creatively working together to find new interactive and useful formats is welcomed. I would support Anriette's reference to a human rights roundtable. Many people who participated in that roundtable in Baku were very impressed with the kind of substantive discussion that took place and the experience they had. We would support looking at how to use that format for some of the topics that we've mentioned.
We'd also support UNESCO's idea of the voluntary reporting. This year should be about moving the IGF forward with the IGF improvements recommendations in mind, and also just making sure that this is an experience that people come away with -- again, with they feel like they should be there, they need to be there, and they were glad they were there.
Also, generally -- and we can provide further input when we talk further about workshops, but the discussion about balance between quality and quantity is an important one.
In past years, ICC/BASIS has also suggested that we might limit the number of proposals per entity so that there is an opportunity for many to have workshop proposals considered and selected.
But we should be brave this year in terms of both the main sessions and the workshops, to ensure that the program is full and rich and interesting and that people come away from the overall schedule feeling like they really learned something and have good things to take home with them.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. That was a rich menu and I take from it: Let's be brave.
I would have one question, which to me at least is not quite clear.
Do we keep the old main themes? Up to now, I have not necessarily heard that people want to move away from them, but rather, refocus the sessions but the themes could be there in the background and they have, in the past, I think served us well as an overall concept.
But what I do hear is that the way the sessions are organized in the past under the broad heading of, let's say, "access" are not focused enough, and you mentioned, let's say, local content could be under Internet governance for development, but it could also be under diversity, but then we would drill down to have more of a subject.
My feeling is that to get rid of all the major themes we have had in the past since 2006 as they were evolving -- in essence, we only had four but then they evolved a bit -- might be too radical a break with the past, but that we can keep them as an overall heading and tweak, then, the sessions and drill down a bit deeper.
I see people waving hands. Would they react to my -- okay. Let me interrupt quickly the order of speakers and give the floor to Chris and to Bill.
>>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Fine. Okay. My only -- the only point I would make is that I don't think we should abandon them, but I think that what's come to be is that they all have to have their own main session, and I think that's something that we need to look at.
So they should still be there. They guide us. They guide the workshops as -- for the main headings that they're under and so on, but I think we need to be very careful that we don't just put ourselves straight back into the position where we suddenly have to have a main session for every single one of those.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Okay. I was told I should actually give the full name and also the affiliation to help the scribes, so Bill Smith from PayPal.
>>PAYPAL: Yes. Bill Smith, PayPal.
I would be either more heretical or bold and suggest that we get rid of the things that date back to 2006, and that the major themes that we heard in the session from this morning, I think, would be more interesting to people attending.
And I have seen us struggle in past years trying to fit workshops into one of the four or six major themes, and I think a better classification system would, in fact, help us.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: May -- I see now that quite a number of people would like to react to that and that would disturb the flow of the people who have been waiting in the queue.
So sorry I started all this, but I think it's a discussion worth having but can we take it up at a later stage and continue with the order of speakers we have on the list?
And maybe even speakers who have put their name down may also wish to react to this question.
So I go back to the old order, but you all will have an opportunity to comment.
Okay. There was Vladimir Radunovic from DiploFoundation was the next speaker.
>>DIPLOFOUNDATION: Thank you, thank you very much Markus. Vladimir Radunovic from DiploFoundation.
A short burst of ideas on a couple of issues, some as a reflection to discussions on brainstorming on the MAG list and some of my own.
The first one is the flow.
As I see the flow of the sessions, last year we had a good -- and year before we had a good exercise of the first session for newcomers. Last year it was a little bit last-minute organized, but I think this should remain as the beginning of the IGF involving also the new governments and others who are new at the IGF to map the field.
Then we should go into discussions of mapping the discussions and I suppose a main session -- main sessions in the beginning might serve for mapping the field.
Then we might go into workshops where we exactly go into details. I don't think the main sessions should be going too much into details.
And then at the end, we might use the main sessions to wrap up and make summaries and close with taking stock.
There were some common themes on the MAG list. We might think about avoiding overlapping main sessions and workshops. I think it's worth discussing. I'm not sure, I don't even have a position on that, but it's worth thinking about it.
When it comes to the main sessions, I do agree that three-hour sessions are too long, and I do think we should think about how to split it into less, if we cannot change the interpreters' working time.
One of the very important things for the main sessions is interactivity, and I take from the EuroDIG experience. One of the best sessions I've ever seen was, in fact, in Geneva in EuroDIG 2009 when there were only two moderators without any panelists. It was amazing. And I think this is something we should go -- of course you have a lot of people, keynote speakers, in the audience, but have very short inputs, not sitting on the panel and so on.
So this -- we should consider this.
Workshops should feed into main sessions, but also main sessions should feed into workshops.
So if the main session is mapping the field, it can set up the ground and help the workshops fit into the workshops, and then workshops can feed back.
As for the format of different sessions, we can consider -- and I think we did in the past as well -- different formats of also workshops. If it is a new topic, then probably it can be a panel with more speakers that tend to map the technical, economic, legal aspects, and so on.
If it is not a new topic, it should be an open discussion with as few panelists as possible.
If it is a ripe topic, it can be a final roundtable where one can try to reach some of the agreements.
Speakers for the workshops, again, should be as few as possible. Definitely we should avoid having same names appearing in a number of sessions. Probably we should even limit the number of appearances per person on different sessions. Otherwise we have so-called usual suspects in all the sessions.
Then there are different formats that we can also introduce, and we'll be talking in response to the CSTD report about a capacity-building track, and capacity-building, for instance, doesn't have to be only in the format of sessions.
We discuss and we brainstormed a number of other formats like the session for newcomers, which can be with a group work, like the training. If someone wants to provide training sessions, that's okay. Like the fair. Like even the questions and answers spaces, whether within the IGF village we could have a place where anyone can come and say "Hey, I don't know anything about IPv6, can someone help me?" And then we have people that can help him or her about certain things they don't understand.
So we should think also about other different formats of activities, not only the sessions.
And to conclude, a short reflection on the reporting.
I agree with some points that I've heard that the reports we've been doing thus far, I think, were quite useless. I'm not sure if we have statistics of how many people have been reading the reports on the Web site after the IGF. I'm afraid it wouldn't be too many.
The reports were long. They were not structured. It was not easy to find the way for certain topics.
There is quite a simple technical solution, and also conceptual, which is bringing in the tags or the key words, not only per session area but also that the organizers are encouraged to, for instance, introduce the tag of "net neutrality" or "intellectual property rights" or "child safety" and so on. We can think of a number of tags and I'm happy to move it through the MAG if this is an interesting point.
But this could help us follow the reports more clearly on specific topics and even key words after the IGF and even prepare some functional summaries based on that.
And finally, I think we should capitalize more on social media and social networks.
The majority of people at the IGF, and even those remote, use social media. Twitter, Facebook, blogs and so on, reports. There is a great potential crowdsourcing of these feeds, and feeding that into the reports of the IGF as well as during the process as we did in Baku. And again, I'm happy to help with that, but probably more on that when we are talking about remote participation in the next stage. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think the different formats is something there is fairly broad agreement on. We heard that already. And there are certain sessions, as you pointed out, that everybody would agree on, like the session for newcomers, I think, and also the taking stock session. Everybody seems to agree that these are useful sessions.
Different formats, we had in the past -- actually, I think it was Hyderabad -- experimented with poster sessions and I seem to remember that worked quite well but that depends a little bit on the locality, but that's definitely something we should revisit.
We had also at one point tried -- or discussed the possibility of having speed dialogue, but then shied away from doing it.
There are obviously different things that we can explore.
I have my long list so Robert, you are on my list of speakers. You can put down your hand and -- sorry. Your name is?
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KUMMER: I won't give you the floor now, but just to make sure that I have your name.
And then next speaker is Bill Drake. Yes. Bill.
>>BILL DRAKE: Thank you, Markus.
I -- I'm feeling a little confused now because in the morning I thought that we were moving towards a consensus about getting rid of the old rubrics for the main sessions and now I feel like the movement is back in the other direction again.
I'll only state my own preference, which I've stated repeatedly for several years, which is that I -- I agree with Bill Smith. I wouldn't necessarily call it dumping them. Maybe that sounds too unceremonious. But I think it is time for some innovation.
We have so many circumstances where there are hot issues being debated out there in the wider Internet governance landscape, and we can't sort of organize main sessions around them as yet because they don't fit the boxes, and I think that's just been a real straitjacket.
It's not clear to me that it really serves that much purpose anymore to continue to stick with those old rubrics when we've got so many options for interesting other topics.
So I would certainly be amongst those who think it's time to retire them.
We could maybe incorporate them -- for the purpose of having rubrics to organize workshops under, we could retain some of those and maybe have the MAG think of some other ones as well, but I wouldn't -- I would really like to see us go beyond being limited by those.
More generally, though, a few other points I would like to make.
I agree with those who suggest that -- having co-moderated a couple of the CIR main sessions, I definitely think three hours is way too long. Doesn't work. Let's break it in half.
However, I think there may be some topics where it really does make sense to have two separate panels perhaps rotated or two different formats rotated on a particular topic when it's something that really requires a more in-depth treatment, et cetera.
I think we have to also think about not just in terms of the kinds of things Lee Hibbard was suggesting of mixing formats. I'd love to go back to the idea of having debates. I mean, we've talked about it in the past but we've never done it. Why not -- and it doesn't have to be two people. You could have debate teams. I mean, look at what they do at the Oxford debates.
You know, there are a lot of fun things we could try to do to juice things up, where you have a few people on one side and a few people on the other side and a motion or something.
I just think we just have to find some way because everybody I talk to in successive IGFs is telling me over and over that the main sessions are losing their interest. And we need to rebrand them and give them fundamentally new character if we're going to draw people back into them in a meaningful way.
In terms of how they're organized, I very much agree with Ayesha on the point about having ad hoc groups, and the principles discussion that we had yesterday points to that.
I think, you know, we've had a lot of back-and-forth in the past about whether the planning groups for the individual main sessions had to be MAG only or could be MAG plus, under what terms they could be MAG plus and it all got very complicated, but when there's energy in the community to come together on particular topics like enhanced cooperation or human rights or principles, and people really want to do stuff, I think we should really capitalize on that, have the MAG serve as a coordination function, but really let these groups organize an activity that includes a main session, and perhaps could grow into something more on those particular topics.
So that's something, perhaps, we have to talk about in the MAG meeting tomorrow, but I -- I would certainly hope we can avoid falling back into the pattern where we think that the MAG has to be the ones that manage the -- all the main sessions by themselves, because quite frankly, a lot of times there isn't enough engagement by all the people who are put into each of those working groups anyway.
So we really should be drawing on people's energy from outside.
I wanted to suggest one other topic which is completely orthogonal. I don't know that anybody has ever suggested it but maybe it has been. We go around the world and we never do anything of a regional nature, and I just wonder, couldn't -- wouldn't it make sense if we go to Asia to at least have one session or two main sessions on key Internet governance issues in the region? And if we go to Africa, we go to Europe, wherever we may be --
I mean, wouldn't this perhaps be a way of trying to get some people from those regions more energized about participating? We've never really played with that.
Now, there is obviously issues about being able to populate the panels with the right people and we always have the problem of trying to figure out who can we get. When people talk about the usual suspects on panels, part of that, I know, is because when people are trying to figure out who put on a panel, they struggle. They say "Who do we know from Africa who does X?" And we end up with the same people and so on.
So it is a challenge to come up with names, but I would really suggest at least thinking about whether some kind of a regional component couldn't be added for some amount of the time. I think it would be a fun thing to do.
And finally, a last point just on the workshops and their integration with the main sessions.
I was among those who, years ago, thought that trying to integrate the two was really necessary, but I really do feel like the reporting thing is a failed exercise and we have to abandon it and if we want to think about ways to link the workshops to main sessions, we have to think of something else. The report-ins just don't work. People all lose their patience with them and nobody pays attention when it's going on.
And I would definitely support one other point Ayesha made -- and I've always felt this way -- we should limit the number of workshops being proposed by any one -- or that can be accepted by any one entity or organizer. I know from being -- looking at some of these, there are particular individuals who submit eight workshop proposals and hope to get one or two. This is not a good way of organizing things. We should have some sort of cap to spread things.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. A comment on the regional session, which we have never tried, but they are a natural partner, would be the various regional IGFs. For instance, in Asia, it's a very active Asia-Pacific regional IGF that could help populate such a session.
On -- well, we have not discussed the workshop proposals. I will refrain from commenting on that.
Paul Rendek is next. Paul. From RIPE.
>>RIPE NCC: Yes. Hello. It's Paul Rendek from the RIPE NCC. I'm going to actually keep this very brief because I think the last 10 or 12 speakers have pretty much, you know, said what I would have wanted to say. I want to train in on a few points.
I must agree here actually with Bill and Bill, the points that are brought forward. I also believe these main sessions need to be looked at.
Let's not forget, though, that there are always newcomers to the IGF process, and I'd like to concentrate a little bit on how we can integrate them here, because I feel that when we go to an IGF from one year to the next, we start from Ground Zero, so it's very difficult for us to actually take, you know, some progress in the discussions without having to start from zero again, and I think that my colleague, Ayesha, brought some of these points forward where we could actually pick a few topics that we could go a little bit deeper in. I think that constantly coming back to an IGF and then getting these panels of these 12 distinguished speakers, which is very fantastic but isn't really actually promoting better, deeper dialogue into where we need to be going.
So I think there need to be a look at how we integrate the newcomers into the IGF, because that's very important, but we need to look also at the process of moving a little further with the debate.
The second point that I also wanted to raise is the idea of cooperation. I think that at all levels -- national, regional, and of course the global IGF -- we need to be making sure that we take a look at the multistakeholder process, and that this is the reality in how we are moving forward.
Paulos made a very good comment about Internet cooperation and what cooperation will mean. I hope that that will somewhere come into the discussions when we are looking at the overarching points.
And the last thing that I wanted to say was that the regional and national IGFs, I think they need to play a little bit more of an important role inside the global IGF. I think that the area inside the IGF where we discuss these or -- or how they're integrated doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, and I think that the only way we can truly see what's happening out there globally is to take a look at some of these national and regional efforts and see what we can see that's happening globally that everybody has an issue on.
And sorry, I actually do want to make one more point, if I could, and that is, the -- putting the amount of workshops that we have next to these very large and distinguished main panel sessions that we have, it does not work, and I can tell you from an organization that has had to organize a few workshops, multiple looking at other, other areas, the amount of work that goes into actually putting a workshop in and then you realize that you're up against a panel session and all the other rooms are empty, it really is a waste. We must look at a different way of working here. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Baher Esmat from ICANN.
>>ICANN: Thank you, Markus. Actually, much has been said so I'm going to just keep it, you know, short.
On main sessions, I support the notion of, you know, less or fewer sessions, maybe even shorter and, you know, designed around topics rather than broad themes.
Same for workshops in terms of, you know, the number of workshops. We cannot go with 80 or, you know, 80-plus workshops. I think we've discussed this before, and I think MAG needs to do, you know, some improvements there, ensuring that, you know, the workshop is well prepared, the proposal is complete, a clear set of questions. It would be good, rather, for the main sessions or the workshops to have a list of clear questions in advance and to come out with, you know, a list of key messages and in the end -- we've seen here this week and this meeting that, you know, the workshops came out with some recommendations in the end and that was, I think, a useful exercise to do.
Your question about maintaining the old themes, I think we shouldn't do that. I don't think neither for the main sessions nor for the workshops.
And I think oftentimes we find that when we put a proposal for workshop, it could easily fit under one or more of those broad themes. So I think there is no point in maintaining them. I will leave it at that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. My apology. I must have swallowed your name. It didn't come across properly on the transcription. It was Baher Esmat from ICANN. So please repeat the name if I haven't pronounced it correctly for the benefit of the transcription.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Matthew Shears from CDT.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. I'm going to try a little bit of a risky thing here and put some ideas together that we have heard so far. If I misquote you for some reason, please forgive me.
I really like the idea of Anriette's about moving to a roundtable format. Perhaps we could consider rather than main sessions, perhaps we consider tracks of thematic areas that lead into roundtables, thus doing away with the whole notion of main sessions and ongoing plenaries.
Maybe to build on Bill's idea, that we can actually have a whole morning that's managed and run by the regional IGF or a local IGF, explore issues that are permanent to that region and to that IGF. Really focus on some key learnings. Rather than just saying how many people turned up? Let's talk about what they learned about managing an IGF, what they learned about multistakeholder processes, and what they learned about from a content perspective.
Then perhaps we can actually leave the plenaries to an opening plenary, a youth plenary perhaps, and then perhaps a closing plenary. If we need to go any further than that, we can have a looking back and a looking forward. And the rest of the time can be spent doing substantive and productive things. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. The term "main session" was coined, as you will recall, the very first year instead of plenaries because the notion then was we don't -- plenary sounds so traditional where "main session" sounds maybe a little bit more neutral.
But, in essence, what it is, it is a three-hour slot where we have interpretation. And we can do with that slot whatever we want to do with that slot. That can be a roundtable, whatever. I mean, I think we discussed whether or not there was merit in having interpretation and I think everybody agreed there was merit to have at least one track with interpretation. And that is what was the main sessions.
But we don't have to continue calling them "main session." We can do with these slots whatever we want, but we cannot change the overall slot three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon.
But within these parameters, we can do whatever we can come up with. And the roundtable notion is a notion, I think, that is much favored, that workshop organizers get together, have a discussion. Same with all the regional IGFs. I think there is a very, very strong support for that, for giving more space. So let's explore all the various notions.
At least I think there is a fairly broad consensus in the room that the old format is not particularly attractive anymore. It was maybe important to get started. But a lot of the work focused not really on substantive preparation but rather on finding a balance of speakers. And we ended up with these huge panels, 12 people or more. And then obviously three-hour slots, that is not particularly exciting.
So I think there is, I would think, a broad convergence of views, and we have to move beyond that.
Qusai Al-Shatti is the next person.
>>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Qusai Al-Shatti from Kuwait. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Many comments have been raised about the setup of the IGF and the long list of workshops and the participation and the panel -- and the format of the panels.
But as a suggestion for this structure of the IGF, I would like to enter an old suggestion that was made by my colleague Chris Disspain before. And we have one day for plenaries and one day for workshops and not let them overlap.
At least in that format, we would have a larger participation in the plenaries. While it is important to have a dialogue and discuss issues and, yet, we do not lose participation in the workshops.
And in a setup like that, we can also practically have the workshop be a feeder into the plenaries.
So one suggested format is a suggestion that was made by Chris, I guess, two years ago, is to have one day for the plenaries -- like, if the IGF is four days, two days dedicated for plenaries, two days for the workshops. So that would be a suggestion.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: That works if you have the first two days with interpretation and the last two days without interpretation or it does also work if one don't give one workshop interpretation. That would be favoring one workshop instead of others. But if you have a cloning session with interpretation, you cannot give the interpreters a day off. This is from just a purely technical point of view something to consider.
I have India on my list but don't see the flag up. You are welcome to take the floor. Tulika.
>> INDIA: Thank you, Chair. What I had to say has already been covered, but I will repeat it.
The format that I have mentioned, that could be workshops and the main sessions, has a function of including people with their invitations for participation as panelists. Many of us are able to partake -- it is much easier for us to participate in the meetings of the IGF if there are open sessions and everybody is invited. That doesn't always work out for some of us. Just wanted to put that for people in the MAG to think of in the redesign format of the IGF meeting.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think that's an important footnote. I think we discussed it several years back. There is a direct correlation between the overall figure of participants and the number of workshops, as panelists in workshops find it easier to get travel permission to attend a meeting in far-away places if they have a speaking role than if they just go to have a listening role.
Adam Peake is my next speaker.
>> ADAM PEAKE: I will pass. Everything I think has been just about said except one thing about the workshops. And that is, as we are looking at being adventurous with new themes for the main sessions and moving away from the traditional five themes, keep them for workshops because that brings familiarity and people will be used to them but will be much more adventurous for the themes in the main sessions.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that.
Parminder?
>>PARMINDER JEET SINGH: Thank you, Chair. On the main issue being discussed, I agree with many people who have spoken before me, that you need to go to focused issues and not all thematic areas for the main sessions.
Also, I repeat my morning point, the point of the working group on improvements to the IGF, it is also an important resource and maybe treated as more than just an input to this meeting because it was arrived at by focusing on issues of improvement in the IGF. And it is very clear when it says that the main sessions have to be structured around focused policy questions and that MAG should take identification of the policy questions.
And I think that -- and that's also kind of mirrored in a way of the others by U.S. people who have spoken of getting more focused and producing more interest in the main sessions. So if we can start looking at the key policy questions which, as the report says, should be the basis of structuring the main sessions, then I think it is a good way to go forward.
And also what is important as main issues is that it says policy issues and not operational issues. And I think we all understand the difference between policy issues and operational issues. Main sessions are for key policy issues. All the (indiscernible) are important key and policy issues, and that's a good way to focus and go forward in this main issue -- discussion today here.
And also there is mention in the report of a new purpose of capturing divergences and convergences around those key policy questions. And I understand we should also talk about what that process would or should or can be because that's one of the main -- most of the discussions in the working group form around outputs and focusing on main sessions.
And I don't think it is very difficult to figure out what are key policy questions if you really sit down to think about what is it in the area of Internet governance, which is troubling the world around us today.
One of the key questions which all government people want to have sorted out -- and you may have seven or eight and you may need to limit it to three or four. But it is not difficult for any group to find out seven or eight major questions which trouble people around us and which need sorting out.
Some suggestions have been given by the Internet Governance Caucus. And I referred to them, network neutrality, the policy options around network neutrality. That's a key issue. It has been troubling many governments about trying to figure out what are the global models, what can be done around it.
And that definitely is a key policy issue. And I think we need to have a main session around it.
We need to have a main session around personal data and economies of personal data. The French government recently came out with a document that treated personal data as a kind of economic resource, which I'm not really sure is a perfect solution. But that question is a bit of key policy issues which is kind of troubling many people in governments. And we should be taking it up.
Third was also proposed by some speakers here, that can we start talking about principles that could frame policy options. Many groups, OECD, Council of Europe, Brazil, many other smaller groups have come out with principles for policy making as seems to be right to go to actual policy making. So, therefore, what kind of policy questions can be raised, another policy question.
Second thing, I still think that perhaps in that suggestion I give to MAG to concentrate tomorrow, rather there should be a special session of the MAG to consider the report of the CSTD working group.
I remember there was a special session a few years back on the instructions of the U.N. Secretary-General to give input into this report. And the whole day was just on that -- on discussing that subject. The report is out, and one of the major responsibilities is with the MAG to implement it.
I do think there is a need of a day or two session where the whole report is went through and the MAG says this is what we need to do. And I'm quite sure the people at CSTD would ask whoever takes a report from the IGF to the CSTD about what got done on that report. And I can see many things which are very specific.
There is a mention that the open consultations should share the IG finances with the IG community. Now, one could ask the question why that has not been shared this time or, rather, there is a proposal to share IG finances in the open consultation in May. So there are many things which I think MAG needs to take a decision on. And probably a day or two of meeting -- of a special meeting could be held on that purpose.
Just a couple of comments on the last IGF. One was that there was even after seven years enough diversity on the panels. I saw one panel that is on the critical Internet resources main session where there were 11 speakers out of which 8 or I think 9 were from the U.S. And that's not something which would normally happen in any kind of global governance system. And I think we should make it a point that there is geographic and other kinds of diversities every time.
Another thing I noticed, there was a tradition early on that MAG members usually did not go on the panels. For the first few years, there was -- because they were the people deciding the panels.
And now last in Baku, I saw panels which three or four MAG members in the panel and many -- most panels had MAG members. I don't want to make it a strict truth because there may be a subject expertise that a MAG member is the right person to be there and we don't need to make strict truths.
But the way it was in Baku was a little -- I think not the very right way to go about it. And this is something that the MAG may consider.
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And the last point, indeed, you're right there. The original idea was MAG members stay a little bit back. And there was a movement towards actually having members on the panel. So this is something, I think, for the MAG to consider, whether they want to revert to old practices.
But I think the general feedback we had was clearly a push rather towards more new faces and more diversity. And I think this is something we have to take into account.
Andrea Becalli is the next speaker. Please, Andrea.
>>ANDREA BECALLI: Thank you, Markus. I will refer my interest in IFLA to main themes. And we made the suggestion this morning to a main theme on public access. Actually comes from the longstanding, open access and diversity, open access and diversity.
But there is another point that hasn't been touched upon yet, is the process to organize the main themes. The IGF has gone through different ways, through feeder workshops, through combination of workshops that go into the main session theme.
So I would just like to see also a discussion on how to organize the main session once we look into newer themes.
And as I said this morning, I would like to see also more involvement from the economic conditions. I think they are still are a good strong asset of the IGF. And I just stop here because a lot of things has been said. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I just noticed that I have for some inexplicable reason left out European Commission. You have been very patient in waiting. My apologies.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Thank you, Chair. No worries. I want to take us back to the discussion this morning for a suggestion for a general theme. I'm sorry I didn't make it earlier, but I was waiting for some clearance from Brussels.
We would actually like to propose as a theme for the IGF "building bridges." I'll just develop it very, very quickly.
I guess many of you are aware of our fears for fragmentation of the Internet. We think there is a post-WCIT type of setup now that we should face and we should discuss.
We think the IGF is a great platform where we could hold this discussion and transcend a bit from the national interest. So what we would propose as a theme is "building bridges between different approaches to Internet governance, between different stakeholders, between different governments." I think that's a little bit roughly our proposal at this stage.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. And "building bridges" has a nice ring about it. It is positive. It is bridging gaps. And I think also putting in the post-WCIT environment I think is something actually worthwhile considering. And it has the advantage, it is fairly short and snappy, I think.
There is a remote participant. Yes, please.
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Actually, there are several remote participations. Question: For many years, MAG has called for more financial contributions from business. Has anyone asked businesses why they don't contribute more? If so, what are their reasons? And will the MAG consider making changes to make the conference more business friendly?
If you will allow me, I will read here.
A comment from Kieren. There seems to be very little focus on empowering attendees to help define a IGF that they want to see. There is still no session feedback system for attendees common practice in the modern world. For example, the IGF needs to look inward less and outward more. They will find greater energy and resources become available.
Do I have time to read more?
Sorry. A message from Deidre Williams. It is an indicater, it is an interesting indicater of the evolution of the IGF that having more (indiscernible) to regional IGF, it can be planning on how gather the information back into the global meeting, taking meeting (indiscernible) as a discussion lasting all year.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Wolfgang Kleinwنchter, please.
>>WOLFGANG KLEINWCؤHTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A brief comment to the question of the formats and the themes. I think nothing is written in stone. That means we have some good experiences, but the beauty of the IGF is also that it has a great flexibility. And if the environment is changing, if we are faced with new challenges, we should have the courage to meet these new challenges and to adjust to the new environment.
So while continuity is important and we have a clear mandate which comes from the Tunis Agenda, this does not block us to move forward and to be as flexible as possible.
I want to give you other -- just a very brief feedback from the workshops we had the last three days in this building on the WSIS+10 conference. And I myself was involved in three workshops on the principles. And I have heard also in the recent interventions by previous speakers that the issue of principles comes back again and again and again.
The basis for these three workshops were the outcome from the Baku Highland (phonetic) plenary where we had a long discussion about Internet governance principles and we realized that, as Parminder has said, numerous organizations doing work on Internet governance principles from intergovernmental organizations like OECD and the Council of Europe or the G8 to civil society organizations like APC or private sector organizations like GNI or technical organizations like the ISTAR organizations. We realize there are 25 or more documents which define Internet governance principles which was confusing and provides to principle shopping.
The idea which was discussed in Baku was to get a better overview about this and to produce as a first step a compendium which would allow more or less comparative analysis to find out whether there consensus on something like universal principles which are supported by all stakeholders, not only by governments or by private sector, by civil society but all together.
I think the three workshops here confirm that there is really a need, an interest. All workshops were fully packed of people. That means it is a big subject, and it can only support what Ayesha has proposed here, that the principle issue should be one of the key issues in the forth-coming meeting in Bali. Also, Ayesha's proposal to form something like a (indiscernible) or whatever group which prepares this special session makes absolutely sense. It needs to get more knowledge which is available beyond (indiscernible).
And I think such a compendium could be produced and form a good background document for the suggestion in Bali so we can have better preparation. We don't start the discussion in Bali. We start the discussion already before the plenary in Bali. And if we put this on the IGF Web site, this could stimulate the discussion and raise the quality of the outcome then from Bali. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. That is one idea that you put forward -- that was put forward, a (indiscernible) of the people, that is, to have an open-ended preparatory process. It will be basically a core group that will prepare a session. That was -- several people supported that idea. And that is definitely, I think, something we have to look into, taking it -- broadening the process beyond the MAG and make sure the sessions are well-prepared.
United States?
>>UNITED STATES: Perfect timing. Thank you, Chair. I'm trying to reconcile some of the different points that have been made about the main themes and main sessions. So I'm just trying to perhaps think about a hybrid approach, perhaps, that captures some of the discussion.
I was thinking about keeping the existing themes as tracks for the workshop organization, shall we say, but perhaps the main sessions, not plenary sessions but main sessions, could capture a salient topic within one of those themed tracks that reflects the comments here about wanting to be timely and salient.
And I have made several comments in the past about one of the values of the IGF is -- even this morning one of its value is its ability to be timely and capture the issue of the day. So perhaps an emerging issue in each theme, if you will, for a main session, just a thought to try to tie a couple of those things together.
I would also like to react a little bit to the conversation about the regional IGF discussion about trying to incorporate that more into the global IGF.
I think that that's, of course -- It is wonderful we have that you have national and regional IGFs that take place throughout the year, and I do think there is a huge value in trying to capture that content in some way in the global IGFs.
But I'm -- I'm a little -- I'm nervous about losing the integrated geographical diversity throughout the workshops if we have regional -- focused workshops that focus only on a particular region. You know, this is the global IGF, the diversity -- the geographic diversity in each of the workshops is a huge value component as well. And so I just -- I wouldn't want to lose that with focusing on regional workshops that might take the ability to get speakers or the topics away from the fully, more integrated discussion.
I'm certainly open for creative ways to deal with those issues, but it just occurred to me in that discussion. So I wanted to share that thought. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think Bill's proposal, and I may quote him wrongly, but I think it was maybe have one session devoted to the region when they are in the region, not necessarily that there is more than one or so on. We get your point. The overall geographical diversity, I think, is certainly important.
Robert Guerra?
>>ROBERT GUERRA: Robert Guerra with the Citizen Lab. I just wanted to have a couple of comments on the main sessions, and I think participating in a variety of different types of events that have either smaller or more participation than the IGF, it strikes me that, indeed, that a lot of other events have far more interactive dialogues but they also have a different set of actors that are more flexible and allow for that. For example, the Divos (phonetic) Interactive Dialogue, the Stockholm Internet Forum that took place and a smaller event we do in Canada as well. But we might want to try to borrow that.
And I might suggest that for the main sessions, we have a couple of sessions that are preformatted already as discussed. We have an opening. We have a closing. We have an introduction to the IGF.
And then we have a variety of other sessions. I would say that -- I would agree with many of the comments that three hours is too long and breaking that three hours into two chunks could be useful.
And might I suggest that for some of the main sessions, the format of how that session is run be changed and different approaches be attempted and assessed going forward.
This is not something new. This was something that was proposed last year at the open consultation at the MAG meeting. But I think that we should try to do that. And one type of format that I would suggest is an interactive dialogue where the moderator, the panelist, and the audience have preceded questions or topics a conversation takes place. And this would require not just a moderator but a couple of others that would engage those in the audience.
It might be difficult for some actors that aren't familiar with that, but it would create a more facilitated, I think, conversation.
Another idea would be to try to coordinate, perhaps -- I mean, one of the other comments that was mentioned last year, and as well, earlier this morning is the real need to have practical sessions where key stakeholders, be they business, private sector, civil society, come home with something learned that they can take back, and I would say maybe phasing -- having some sort of workshop, either a pre-event or at the IGF itself, and then a main session that gets into the issues around it. This is something more in terms of a sequencing and I'm not sure if that's been given much thought in the past but that's a way to be practical.
I have one other comment, which is in regards to the regional issue that the U.S. just mentioned and I would go back maybe thinking of the conversation last year. One issue that came up that is of relevance to the region that could be useful in the global IGF that's not been mentioned so far is the issue of ICT in disasters. I believe that this is an area that Indonesia and many other countries in the region have a great deal of expertise, but other countries around the world do as well. Particularly post-Japan. It ties into the science and technology that was mentioned earlier as well, but I think that a session on that, and sharing the experience of the country, and I think that --
And one last thing, which is how to make the sessions, I would say, more hip or more relevant, is not just the work of the MAG in formatting the sessions and the workshop proposals. It's also engaging key stakeholders that will be participating in the sessions to promote it on social media.
So the importance of engaging youth as reporting on sessions and working with the Indonesian hosts. From the comments they made earlier and in conversations with them, they are really keen to work with what is being prepared and having people from the country participate, translate it, generates a bit of a buzz and that would be helpful, so I think that those kind of three or four different comments are helpful for the MAG to consider. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Norbert.
>NORBERT BOLLOW: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Norbert Bollow from the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus.
It has already been quoted from the recommendations of the working group on Internet Governance Forum improvements, that the preparation process should formulate a set of policy questions to be considered, and I want to quote further from this report that they recommend the results of the debates of these questions with special focus on public policy perspectives and aimed at capacity building should be stated in the outcome documentation, and furthermore, the working group recommends that the outcome documentation should include messages that map out converging and diverging opinions on given questions.
So we as the Internet Governance Caucus consider it's very important of the -- for these recommendations to be implemented, and I would suggest that the structure of the main sessions in the sense of the sessions that have interpretation should really reflect that the structure should be chosen so that these outcomes are actually outcomes of those sessions, so that there should be a deliberative process of the community of participants in the IGF leading to this outcome.
It has already been mentioned that there's a very great body of knowledge on deliberative processes that can be tapped into. We also mentioned some ideas of processes that can be used in our written contribution, but I think it's very important to keep this goal in mind that we have in this recommendation of the working group and structure the work so that this recommendation is actually achieved by the structure of the main sessions that we choose. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Izumi, please.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, chair. Izumi Aizu, member of the MAG from the civil society.
First, I have two or three questions to the secretariat. They're kind of technical. Could we have the breakdown for years of the participants of Baku meeting? Is this somewhere or by region, country, Asia, whatever you have attend?
I think we better sort of discuss based on these figures might be -- of course the fear is Baku might be very different from that of Indonesia.
Is there any way of tracking the number of times that one has participated at an IGF? As we are having this sixth and seventh and eighth IGFs, I'd like see how many are really new guys and how many are not really new guys and that might be worth to consider. You have to prepare, perhaps, from next round.
Another little question is: What is the state of the MAG renewal, I'd like to know, if any, you know.
Okay. For the next Bali meeting, in particular, I also wouldn't want to overlap with many great suggestions so I will add a new one.
As I was one of the ad hoc last-minute proposers at MAG meeting in Baku, which some of them are not too happy because it's last minute, there were no MAG meetings prepared at Baku, as I recall, so I'd like to have ideally two MAG meetings, could be open, could be closed, whatever, we can discuss tomorrow in the preparation, and also the reflection at the conclusion. Even very short. Not -- sorry?
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>IZUMI AIZU: I can't hear.
Okay. Sorry. So when -- I also like to say with un-conferencing, how about of BOF or kind of white space, very -- as Wendy said, how to design serendipity. Just don't favor anything but some space mechanism, physical voting vote, online voting vote place so something that emerges can still be done within the framework of the Bali meeting, not the next meeting.
I think also the -- in Asia and something that is a very bit -- we come up and may encourage their participation and look at how many are here from east Asia. Not too many. I'm a little bit concerned about that. That's our homework, perhaps.
I will stop here.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Some of the questions, you'll find the answer on the IGF Web site. The participants, the statistics are there.
I don't think that you have the statistics of how many people have been frequent visitors to the IGF, but this is something obviously you would have to ask for at the -- if they cross the right box.
And to the MAG question, I think the MAG renewal is usually done in time for the May meeting, so the proposed names are now, I think, in New York for consideration.
There are many, many, many people who asked for the floor, and we haven't gone through the list yet, and I begin to fear that we'll be running out of time.
We have had a discussion now on the main session and many good suggestions but there are also the issues, basically operationally that the MAG should issue a call for workshops and then we have not really addressed the question on how to operationalize. Okay, the MAG will be able to discuss that more in depth tomorrow, but it would be good to have opinions from people gathered here.
As we go through the list of speakers, maybe we can also address the question on the -- I mean, we said at the outset it would be good to have clear, easily understood workshop selection criteria. That is also related to the categories of workshop. Do we do away with the categories altogether or do we come up with any suggestion as long as it is Internet governance? But we have to think about that, to have a clear answer.
But let me go further down the list. Next speaker is Susan Chalmers from InternetNZ.
>>INTERNETNZ: Thank you. Susan Chalmers, InternetNZ.
First, I'd like to offer a few words on InternetNZ's experience in organizing a national IGF. Second, I'd like to make a handful of suggestions for the 2013 IGF.
InternetNZ created New Zealand's national IGF. We call it NetHui. NetHui is -- "Hui" being the Maori word for "meeting."
That was inspired by the global IGF but both in terms of topics and it differs from the traditional IGF format. We're entering our third year and we're still experimenting with the substance and procedure for NetHui, but I think it's important to note that I don't think we'll ever stop experimenting because in doing so, we're always giving ourselves the chance to make NetHui better for the people who attend.
And especially since the only constant is change with the Internet and society, to have a static framework that is too rigid is not entirely suitable, so I'd like to offer a suggestion.
And this echos suggestions of our colleague from EuroDIG and Izumi most recently that a lab, almost like a laboratory space, be created during -- during the IGF that features an un-conference format, so when people do come and bring their own ideas and they suggest ideas for a session. So that just requires a handful of organizers to group together ideas that are similar into a session and a very -- a handful of very strong general-purpose moderators.
Also the social media, I echo the importance of social media, and in NetHui we use what's called a Twitterfall, and so that's projecting a Twitterfall on the side of a wall at various points within the venue that people can follow the hashtag and engage, and that also enables people to be more engaged remotely and using a Twitterfall, you can have remote moderators that -- my colleague my make an intervention on this, but remote moderators who can cultivate a series of really good questions from the hashtag.
So those -- those are just the thoughts that I'd like to offer today. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: And for the scribes, NetHui I think my knowledge of Maori is H-u-i, correct? Yes. Thank you. Khaled Fattal is the next speaker.
>>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you, Markus, for the opportunity. I'd like to draw from an observation I just made earlier, and actually it welcomes you being in the chair position as well. It draws from the many years that many of us -- especially colleagues who have been in the early days of the WSIS from 2001 onwards. You may recall back then when we called and championed the "Turning the Global Internet into a Multilingual Internet," it was not a popular subject. Early days of IGF/WGIG, it started becoming very popular and became very supported by a lot of people who are participating in these events, and this year we will start seeing the fruit of a global multilingual Internet.
It was not a -- an easy road. It was a long road.
But it takes us back from the -- to the late '90s when many who called -- instead of Turning the Global Multilingual Internet, multilingual to empower local communities that go on and teach them English. We've gone a long, long way to where we are today, and I think there's something to be celebrated but I think there's something that perhaps is missing on the next phase of what we should be focusing on at IGF, and perhaps this is a theme that I could propose.
What is at the heart of what we all are talking about here? At the heart of it is the multistakeholder model. We all believe in it.
Yesterday Fadi Chehade of ICANN, CEO of ICANN, showed me that there may be some value in believing in this model now, since he took office.
He -- he made -- in his speech, he addressed the point of how to turn the multistakeholder model into an equal multistakeholder model.
And I -- I take note that we're starting to see that ICANN is listening. We've been calling on turning the global Internet and the multistakeholder model into a more fair -- equal, but also equitable -- space. And just like this morning we looked at a beautiful baby and we all addressed that baby as a stakeholder, and a stakeholder that we all recognize has a right on this Internet, we also have a responsibility for those who are about to join the Internet.
So what I would propose as a theme -- and it could be whether we make the tables round, square, long, short, long events, short events, I think it would probably of value at the next IGF on how to make the multistakeholder model more equal.
It fits also with the words of Fadi Chehade yesterday, and I think this will go to the heart of serving the local communities and bringing their participation in, because only with their participation can we really make it more equal and more equitable.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Next speaker is Mary Ann Franklin from the Internet Rights and Principles Coalition. Yes, please.
>> INTERNET RIGHTS AND PRINCIPLES COALITION: Yes. I think many points I want to raise have been said. I just want to endorse the fact that we've talking about a diversity of formats at the same time we're talking about a diversity of themes, so I'm thinking that if we're going to design serendipity and we're going to accommodate inclusion and we're going to put it into practice, then I would like us to think about -- I'm speaking more for myself here -- that the main sessions that we need are in themselves also diverse. So not just diversity of formats between different sorts of sessions and different sorts of workshops, but the main sessions themselves could perhaps reflect the cultural and social context in which this forum is taking place. And by doing so, we ask our Indonesian hosts what would work.
In New Zealand, the Hui is a very unknown forum, it's indigenous to the people there and it has its own way of doing things. I would like to suggest that the MAG really take seriously where the forum will be and have the way the forum is operating reflect that context.
So very, very practically, though, because we're also talking content, if you want the workshop -- the workshop submissions, could we include in those submissions a clear statement of the format that the workshop organizer would like to have workshop in? Do they want it to be a roundtable? Do they want it to be a movement one? Do they want to have a moderator walking around with a microphone? I'd like to invite the workshop instigators to think more creatively about their own formats. That's the first thing.
Secondly, that the main sessions reflect a diverse and different set of formats.
And thirdly, that we think of including the local populace quite physically in the proceedings and be a lot more adventurous across the board.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. United Kingdom. Mark Carvell.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Yes, thank you, chair, and a belated congratulations on your appointment as interim chair from me. Great to see you back.
I was very much on that point, actually, about managing the process of receiving workshops. I think we're all agreed that it's imperative that we make the next IGF one that's easy to navigate and one that's not going to be crowded with too much in the way of overlapping sessions and so on.
And we've heard some very good proposals for varying the format. I took part in some of the flash -- one or two of the flash sessions in Stockholm at EuroDIG. I thought that was a great innovative way just to sort of hit on an issue, let's get two or three people together and talk it through, whoever wants to be there and it doesn't have to be an extended form- -- doesn't have to be, you know, a long extended format.
And -- but I wanted to come in especially on these -- on the objective, which I got a sense there was a lot of support for in identifying hot pressing issues that this IGF should really get into the guts of and produce some options for stakeholders, including policymakers from governments to go away with.
Some -- a range of options.
So not a negotiated outcome but a range of options, but I think they're going to need time.
I've heard, you know, people say we should drop the three-hour format, but I think for something like an issue with which cropped up in Dubai -- and you touched on this right at the beginning -- spam or IPv4 legacy trading issues, you're going to need a bit of time for those who are really needing an exploration of the issue to engage with experts and then hear what the possible options are. And that engagement will produce maybe an enriched set of options and those have to be captured. You're not going to be able to do that in a one-and-a-half-hour workshop.
So some sort of extended workshop variable I think is going to be appropriate, and it could be a matter for some immediate consultation as to what those issues might be, and we're only going to be able to talk about three or four, I guess, in -- within the format of a four-day IGF meeting.
And then once we've got those identified, those workshop proposals that might, under the old process, have hit on that topic, they would automatically be subsumed within this sort of seminar on the issue.
So that will help with the management of the bottom-up process.
And we don't want to lose that vital element of bottom-up proposals for the IGF to address.
So that's going to help on some of the workshop proposals, if they could identify "Ah, this is for a roundtable" or "for a flash session." That's going to make it easier for the management of the process to take place.
So I just wanted to come back to that objective of -- of identifying early on what those hot topics are that need immediate attention that are going to have political impact, and also the value of preparing well -- preparing well for those sessions, and that may mean getting some materials out there and identifying who -- who could most usefully engage with those stakeholders who really want to find the options that are going to suit.
And again, I just want to emphasize the -- the desire to make the event easy to navigate. From the government perspective -- I'm coming from the U.K. government -- there's usually only one policymaker who can make it, and that person has to navigate a very complex program, ordinarily.
To make the policymaker -- make it easier for the policymaker, I think, is going to be essential for us.
On the question of -- and I do really appreciate what Google has -- has been saying this year about funding. On that question, our experience in the U.K. is that it's difficult for companies actually to get the money to fund something that doesn't take decisions, so if we are going to produce tangible outputs that are going to have real impact quickly, maybe it will help that process of getting the funding from the business sector. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. And there's clearly, I think I would sense, a broad agreement there's no one-size-fits-all format for any of the sessions. That the sessions -- the format needs to be adapted to the subject matter, and some subject matters may deserve a whole day. That does not necessarily need to be in the same room. It can be obviously be a sequence of different sessions, different workshops, taking up the same subject.
Jeff Brueggeman, from AT&T.
>>JEFF BRUEGGEMAN: Thank you very much. I actually want to strongly endorse some of the comments that Mark Carvell made, and I do think he touched on a very important issue, which is we need to be cognizant of making the IGF relevant for those who are not at the meeting or have not attended multiple meetings. And in that sense, I think it's very important to, as we develop a list of topics for the IGF, to think about if there are issues that everyone is talking about, even though we may not find them to be the most cutting-edge, it's still important that we address them.
At the same time, the IGF also does play a unique role and has played a unique role in identifying the new trends and the new issues, and so we -- we can do both and we should do both.
A couple of specific comments. I think the hot list of issues as -- as Ayesha has said previously, in our view, given the discussions that are happening globally, needs to take on some of these very practical issues, whether it be Internet exchange points, security, local content, economic development, and those types of issues.
But there also is room for talking about multistakeholder principles, the local and regional perspective, and the link to public disaster recovery and those types of issues could be a very interesting way to approach adding a new flavor to the IGF every -- every year that reflects a local location.
Main session panels, a specific suggestion I would have is I think that's an opportunity to really focus on bringing in new views to the IGF, high-level views.
I liked Paul's comments about focusing on newcomers.
Main sessions really send a message about what is going to be of interest and accessible to someone who may not be as familiar with the detailed substance of some of these issues, and I think we should view that as an opportunity, really, for the main sessions to be for an external audience as well as for those of us who are in the room.
At the same time, Anriette's suggestion about a roundtable, I think, creates an opportunity to create a work stream, so to speak, of workshops that can feed into the roundtable and could lead to an interesting set of output that may include recommendations but also just could include observations and documenting materials and a wide range of things that may be the type of material that can help really provide some more focused substance around a topic.
And then finally, I like the idea of all the experimentation of formats, which would allow for new thinking and new -- new ways to do it, but in my view, the -- it's hard to -- harder to do that in a main session which, by design, are for a larger audience and maybe -- as I said, maybe that's an area where we should be thinking how to make it more interesting and relevant for a broader audience, rather than experimenting with the format in that case. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Nurani Nimpuno, next speaker.
>>NURANI NIMPUNO: Thank you, Markus. Nurani Nimpuno from Netnod. Okay. So I'm going to try to be brave because that was the encouragement I got from Markus, so -- but some other people were brave before me, so first of all, if we're talking about an evolving IGF, like a few people have pointed out, the environment is changing, so let the main themes evolve with it. Let's try to capture the issue of the day and respond to recent events like we've tried to in the past, but I find that while in the past the main themes acted as guidance, they might be holding us back now. So events like the Arab Spring, SOPA or ACTA, WCIT, or natural disasters. I think in the past IGFs we've failed to respond to these issues simply because we're too tied to the format we have.
I think we should do more to find themes among regional IGFs before we -- we set the program for the global IGF to see if there are themes that we can see in several of the regional IGFs, and we can let that feed into the global IGFs.
One thing we discussed briefly -- I think it was Anriette who brought it up on the MAG list -- was to try to work in a truly bottom-up way. Instead of having the MAG set themes, actually call for workshop proposals like EuroDIG does and see if we can find common themes among that.
That allows people to -- to propose workshops and start organizing workshops around issues that they find important, and for us to capture those.
I realize that we now have a program to plan, so it might not be the right time to do it, but I think it's something we should -- I think it's something we should seriously consider.
I like the idea of this open-end preparatory process. Just start with the discussion already before Bali, produce background material which also informs the discussions at the IGF meetings, and this is where I might be -- be -- I'm not sure if it's brave or -- or nuts, but simply finding new ways of allowing people to feed into the IGF program.
So at the risk of a buzzword bingo here, basically allowing people to send in questions through social media. If you have a YouTube channel, people can create little videos and say "I want an answer to this question." Twitter and tweet-ups -- I'm not sure if you're aware of what that is, but basically finding -- letting people ask questions either during like a chat session on Twitter or -- or over a longer period before leading up to the IGF. You have someone capture those questions and let that integrate into the meetings. Have people post things on Facebook. And then having moderators who capture those things before the meeting and try to -- to find ways of answering them.
And I think it is easy to fall into -- to traditional formats but I think there are a lot of different formats.
I think it is easy to fall into traditional formats, but I think there are a lot of different formats we can explore. The un-conference is an exciting format. I realize it is something that a lot of people might be uncomfortable with, but it allows for a lot more interaction.
In the technical community, they have something called lightning talks where people come up and give five-minute talks on a very specific issue. It might be an experience they have or a particular bug fix or anything like that. And it allows people to interact in a more lively way, so to speak, and it also allows a lot more people to come -- to come to the microphone.
Izumi also raised the idea of BOFs. It is called birds of a feather. If there is an issue you might not necessarily want to organize a full session on or workshop on, but you have some ideas you want to thrash out. You organize very informal birds of a feather session. That birds of a feather session might then grow into something else, but it allows people to organize things in a less sort of bureaucratic way.
Oh, yes. And then I would also like to pick up on what Parminder said. I think this is a very important point. I think we need to expand from the same set of speakers of this inside community.
I think having seen the IGF over the last few years, we have a tendency to go back to the same speakers. And I think we need to push ourselves outside the comfort zone. And maybe instead of just having open consultations or MAG meetings where we brainstorm speakers, to actually task MAG members to go out and find new speakers.
I think we've become a little bit lazy there.
I wasn't actually aware of the tradition of having MAG members refrain from being on panels, but I think that's good to be reminded of.
And then, finally, I think one issue that comes up almost every year is the issue of limiting the number of workshops. And, again, I'm very conscious of the fact that some people get funding based on the fact that they are an approved speaker.
But I think if we want to -- if we want the IGF to evolve and to be a bit more focused, I think we need to be a little bit braver in how we value the workshops, both in terms of the actual evaluation but then the follow-up.
I think what we've seen in past years is that even when the MAG has actually done a really good job at evaluating workshops, it is -- and it is pretty much up to the organizer of those workshops how they want to respond to that evaluation. Some have done a fantastic job and really listened and improved gender balance or geographic diversity, et cetera.
And in some cases, we simply get the response that, "Oh, well," and they go ahead with the workshop without having the gender balance or the geographical diversity, et cetera.
So I think we need to as the MAG as well, we need to be braver and follow up. And if workshops simply don't meet those minimal standards, to be a bit tougher on that.
Then the very last point I want to make is about feedback. I think if we want to continue improving the IGF, we need to be better at seeking feedback from the community. I think these open calls where people submit documents, they need -- we need to continue with that, but we might need to find simpler ways for people to provide feedback. Seek feedback even through simple feedback forms at the meeting, have possibly confession booths where people can go and record a message about the feedback -- about the IGF they've just attended and to really capture people who have attended an IGF and get their feedback immediately at the meeting because those people will not necessarily go back and submit a paper in February. Thank you. I'm sorry for taking so long.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you.
Lucinda Fell is the next speaker.
>> LUCINDA FELL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the transcript, I'm a member of the MAG, but I will speak on behalf of the Youth IGF Project. And thank you, Mr. Chair, for your reference earlier on about our youth workshop in Baku.
I think it is really exciting that several people have mentioned a potential youth plenary or youth main session, whatever the wording is. But I wanted to clarify what our aim is or has been in the past four years in bringing young people to the IGF.
And we have seen them not as a subgroup or as a theme but rather we have wanted them to engage where they can in the main sessions. Their engagement has been more in terms of behavior, I admit, rather the technical side of things only because I have been briefing them. But that's also where their experience lies.
And on the note of their experience, I've spoken at length before at other IGFs with various people about the challenges of including young people, particularly regarding the accessibility of the language we use and the jargon at the IGF.
Someone was pointing -- unfortunately I can't remember who, spoke about the effective participation of all stakeholders in Internet governance. And that's really what we're working for with young people.
And I just wanted to clarify that. It is great to have them involved, but we want them involved as stakeholders in the main discussions, not in a separate society.
I also want to make a comment on getting speakers outside of the MAG community involved in panels. And from my perspective, it is a massive challenge finding funding to get young people on the panel. And I think that new speakers and civil society people are going to need funding in order to get to the IGF, particularly if they're new and they haven't been before. And that's a particular challenge we face on a yearly basis.
I have one final comment on workshops. And that was based on what people have been saying about meetings, about diversity and representation in workshops. I think that's a very important principle. But I think we need to be flexible about that. I think, particularly for some of the workshops that I was involved in looking at last year, like some of the language-based ones, if they are looking at a specific thing like a specific language from a specific carrier, they're not going to be able to necessarily achieve geographical diversity in that workshop. And I think we need a better context in account when deciding. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. India, Tulika, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I heard the term "brave" and I am just going to recommend -- I mean, play with the word game "brave" and that is to say, is there a possibility of us discussing on the evolution of the MAG role? I mean, are we really going to evolve in what we do and how we do as MAG in terms of trying to see if we could bring out the metrics of earlier evaluation of proposals and also in terms of the coverage -- or the depth of coverage of a particular issue in the past seven IGF meetings that have been held. Would it be too much to ask or too little for the MAG? Or is there a possibility at all?
I was wondering if there's -- as a MAG member, are we doing something differently? If not more or less? So just -- this is the "brave" that I'm trying to do. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for being brave. Something I think the MAG can also address at tomorrow's meeting.
Ana Neves, please. You have been very patient.
>>PORTUGAL: Thank you. I asked for the floor, like, three hours ago.
[ Laughter ]
Okay. Let me just see what I wanted to say. So I have seven comments basically.
The first one is to digest all of the proposals put forward by the colleagues, mainly by ICC/BASIS, that seem very timely and appropriate. But such proposals will involve a lot of work from all MAG members.
Two, the main sessions cannot run at the same time as the workshops. They are not in competition. So that is not the purpose of main sessions and the workshops, I think.
Number three, we have to better assess what we want from each main session to make them more interested. This was already underlined by Bill Drake.
Number four, we should prevent workshops with overlapping topics. That happened a lot in Baku.
The fifth I have here is to get the right balance in each panel regarding stakeholder group, gender, geographic diversity, and age.
The sixth is to limit the number of times that one individual speaks on main sessions and workshop panels to oblige us to find new speakers. So here MAG members should have a strong role.
Finally, the number of workshops should be limited but that will depend on the proposals that will be received and a clear understood call due to transparency and equal footing factors. Nevertheless, there should be included a maximum number of proposals allowed by an entity. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. One comment -- or one proposal, if I understand it correct, there should be no workshops in parallel with main sessions. But then it is a very limited number of workshops.
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Sorry? Well, I mean, unless you limit the number of main sessions. The question is then again the question of interpretation. If you have interpretation for the first two days, okay, that's a possibility. But then we will not have interpretation, for instance, for the closing session. We cannot have interpreters sitting around doing nothing. The U.N. will not allow for that. That's a clear fact.
And, basically, it's a question of not utilizing available resources. That will be cut for the next -- for the following meeting. There are various elements to this we have to consider.
Unless you want to severely restrict the number of workshops or having them between 7:00 and 10:00 in the morning and between 6:00 and 9:00 in the evening and during lunchtime, which is something we said we don't want to either because we want participants to be able to interact, that would severely limit the possibility. I mean, this is just something we have to think through how we want to handle it.
As I think Wolfgang said, nothing is cast in stone and written here forever. But we have to think of the consequences.
Also, I think that was made by several speakers to limit the number of workshops one single institution can propose. But there again, it is one thing if an individual comes up with seven workshops, and we've had that in the past. It is another thing if an institution comes up that has a breadth of expertise be that within its limits or international organization, we know they have done successful workshops in the past and we know they can handle it and manage it. I think we should also maybe be a little bit more flexible.
Yes, I think single institutions should not be too greedy and cover the whole space, but I think we should not be too rigid.
I still have a long list, and I see new names going up. I think it is a good discussion. I'm sure we will not be able to come to closure today as there are many, I think, issues. But be listening to comments, and it will be up to the MAG then tomorrow to synthesize this discussion.
Ellen Strickland, you have been patient. Please.
>> ELLEN STRICKLAND: Ellen Strickland. I will speak on behalf the Pacific Islands IGF and Pacific Islands chapter of ISOC. I wanted to support the things that have been said about the involvement of regional and national IGFs initiatives, in part with the relationship to the IGF but also as a step towards sort of building and evolving that open multistakeholder sort of forum with the diversity of speakers and perspectives and really moving from the bottom-up.
And towards that, I wanted to make an intervention about remote participation and online IGF processes, is really key to this decision, and to acknowledge the remote participation work that the IGF does.
Personally, I have attended two IGFs but haven't been to one in person. And it is an amazing experience as a remote participant with many options and training, audio, video, translation, transcript, acknowledging low bandwidth requirements.
And that really I hope we can build on these strengths and look at the layers of remote participation as you look at the program going forward.
So participating is listening but also asking questions for speakers but also to think about the sessions as a whole.
I was very impressed with a session this week at the UNESCO meeting run by APNIC where there was a panel in Paris and a panel in Singapore who interacted with each other and found that sort of innovation something we might strive for, for sort of different remote elements.
Recognizing Internet connectivity on-site is very important -- and I know that has been acknowledged in the report of the working group -- and that has technical and sort of financial implications but I hope that the search for speakers and the workshop process can create space in the program and logistically for remote presence. So participation options which engage both sort of online and the meet space engagement that we have when we get together at the IGF. Towards that, to Wolfgang, about an open sort of preparatory process online, that could be integrated. Robert as well as about having access to questions prior. And that would include not just the remote participation platforms which are amazing but also e-mail, social media.
I absolutely support Nurani with her ideas for innovation online, using video options that are both realtime and delayed, acknowledging that that sort of interaction. So, thank you.
And I would like to close by advocating by the remote participants of this session who I know have been queuing with questions quite invisibly to us in this room as we thank the Chair for including them as much as possible.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Are there remote participants queuing? Okay.
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Another comment from Kieren. There are 56 members of the MAG. I'm assuming the IGF pays their attendance costs. If the MAG is serious about doing its job, it should commit to its members producing workshop reports rather than continuing to rely on others when they don't do it for them and then complain when they don't.
From Ginger Paque: There does not need to be a one-size-fits-all prescription for sessions. Perhaps more flexibility for length and format will allow for sessions to adapt to their presentation. Perhaps workshop organizers should be encouraged to use their best own innovative format.
And another comment from Kieren, having interpreters define the format of the meeting is an outdated U.N. mind-set. Interpreters are far more flexible these days. The MAG should review whether this assumption still holds true. If they find that it does, they should review it again.
And also (clearing throat) (indiscernible). Has anyone actually asked businesses why they aren't contributing financially? Which would appear to be a logical and obvious step.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Okay. Thank you. Well, in answer to Kieren, no, the MAG members don't get paid. I mean, some MAG members from developing countries are funded by the U.N. but the funds are not sufficient to pay for all of them. And it would not pay for MAG members who are not from developing countries, again, according to U.N. rules.
Now, the interpreters don't define the structure of the session. It is just the slots they work. But within these slots, we can do what we want.
There is also, I think, a limit to human attention span. I think after three hours of session, most people feel ready for having a coffee and stretching their legs. We will soon be reaching this stage in this room in this discussion.
[ Laughter ]
It is a very intense discussion, very interesting discussion. But I'm sure we would not like this discussion to carry on for another three or four hours.
And, yes -- hello, was it to Ginger. Good to have friends online remotely. Yes, I think we agree there is no one size fits all format.
Bertrand is on the list and Martin Boyle, Peter Majors, Zahid Jamil, Marilyn, Patrick.
Okay, Bertrand?
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Thank you. Supporting a few suggestions, the birds of a feather just reserving spaces, another good practice that can be picked from academic meetings is the notion of poster session, having on the side of the village a space where you have just one panel and people can put a poster and having a session that is dedicated where there are only three-minute slots or four-minute slots for presentations of people who want to make a specific point. There may be a selection process for who is in poster session but very short things.
The other element I was fortunate enough to be the moderator of the joint session between the APNIC and UNESCO yesterday, and, indeed, it dawned on me how interesting it would be to test that kind of thing in the IGF format for one or two sessions, to have this -- to have a situation where it is actually the people in the IGF who are the remote participants or the joint participants in something where some speakers are somewhere else.
It is technically challenging because there is a question of bandwidth and so on. It is not to be spread, but I think it is deserve to be tested for at least one or two sessions in a format to be explored.
Now, one thing I want to -- two final things I want to highlight. One is that we have now the pattern of the last four or five years. To get the list of workshops that have been accepted in the last years, you put them all together and cluster them by themes. You have large clusters, smaller clusters. There are issues about privacy. You had a whole range of workshops. Choose by copyright, you have a whole range of workshops. Freedom of expression, likewise --
I think this deserves to be treated as sort of a thread and it could be the responsibility of the MAG to identify the five, six, or seven themes that have been addressed on a regular basis and where the problem of proliferation of workshops has been a reality.
One goal this year may be to reach out to the actors who have organized that kind of workshop in the past and help them and encourage them to get in sort of contact group around us to see whether in the course of the week, there can be a thread with several workshops dealing with the different aspects.
If I take just an illustration on privacy, there are issues regarding access to privacy data by law enforcement but also the rules that the platforms or the cross-border platforms use for privacy. Also new technologies like geo location, that brings new issues.
Having clusters of those issues and making those as threads during the week would facilitate people following the different dimensions.
Now, the last point is in that respect, we have an understanding today of the main session as being a sort of more important session and the workshops are important. But the characteristic of the main session is that they have today three hours. They don't overlap. They are in a very large room. And they have translation. Sorry, interpretation. I always make the mistake.
[ Laughter ]
There is nothing that prevents us from having, as I was suggesting earlier, at the end of the week sessions that would be one hour a half that would be in parallel if you have one on privacy doing the wrapup from the discussions during the week, one on freedom of expression doing the wrapup of the different workshops, and another one -- maybe only one will have interpretation.
But the format of roundtables wrapping up around the same table, the people who have organized the different workshops in the thread, not reporting, but just having the discussion with the different dimensions, has two benefits.
One, it allows people also when they look at the video afterwards to have a short summary of what has been done during the week on this topic.
And, second, it produces real interaction among the different dimensions of the issue. And it is the responsibility, I hope, of the MAG to do this clustering and to anchor proposals for a limited number of workshops on, for instance, the privacy thread and identify how it can be combined to work correctly.
As a joke, the IGF is almost a combination between a U.N. conference and an un-conference. So the combination of the very unorganized and the very organized (speaking in French).
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And your joke I think is very relevant. We should not lose sight of the fact that we also want to attract governments. And governments may feel less comfortable in a BOF setting than in a traditional conference setting. That doesn't mean we should not experiment.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Do you think a lot of civil society were feeling comfortable in the inter-governmental setting?
>>CHAIR KUMMER: We know that. It was clearly a learning process for everybody. But we should not lose sight of the fact that we lose one important stakeholder group and we have -- we actually ask a lot from governments to come into this extremely informal setting. Many of them are very new. It is very uncomfortable. And we see that also in the Internet institutions and open microphone session is not something governments engage in naturally. But they are learning.
[ Laughter ]
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Right. Martin, you've been waiting.
>>NOMINET: Thank you, Chair. Martin Boyle from Nominet. From listening to the various, and I think quite useful, contributions talking about workshops, it comes very clearly that one size does not fit all. And I think we do need to perhaps be rather more flexible in the way we identify workshops and how long they're allocated against what it is they're doing and how they are then structured.
And it was the U.K. earlier that talked about the need to have enough space to bottom out the issue, to get down into the heart of the issue and come up with sensible conclusions. That seems to me to be really important, that there is enough space for people to discuss to come out with the conclusions at the end of the day, and for everybody to feel that they are going away with some quite useful -- quite useful outputs.
It will also, I think, make it easier if people are deciding whether to come to Bali or not, if they can look and see that there are quite clear areas of activity and interest to them. So just making sure that that idea doesn't get lost.
However, the bit I would like to get to is that when we've looked at workshops before, we've looked at panelists and we've looked at the structure of the workshop in that light.
We've issued suggestions that people should make sure that workshops are more interactive, which I think is vitally important. But, nevertheless, the focus is on the panel.
Kieren in his intervention remotely quite a long, long time ago did say something about the need to consider the interest of the audience. And I wonder whether that is something that could be introduced into the workshop proposals.
Who do you think this workshop is aimed at? What are the questions that you're going to be trying to address in this workshop? Because then the next question is: How are you going to get them to attend?
So the question might actually have an answer, we want to get the policymakers in government, we want to get the regulators, we want to get a collection of different people. But somehow or another, you've got to reach out and find these people who are not currently attending IGF meetings and find ways of inviting them because they feel they need to have an invitation to come to the IGF. It is just a thought. But looking at it from the customer rather than the supply side might actually be quite a benefit for us. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. But I did notice that in the past few years, there's also been an evolution of workshops, that some -- and I've participated in some of them that are more in a roundtable format, much more participatory in a structure, and I think on the whole, that worked rather well. But, you know, workshop organizers said that was in response to some of the suggestions, "No, we would rather have a roundtable format and the room set up in a roundtable format rather than the classical podium facing the participants." But thank you for that.
Guo Liang, please. You've been very patient.
>>GUO LIANG: Thank you, chair. My name is Guo Liang. I'm from civil society group. I'm working for Chinese Academy of Societies.
Many things that I wanted to say have already been discussed, so I won't repeat, but I would like to discuss three things.
One is I would like to emphasize that developing countries get involved in this IGF. Like last year, I also talk about this in Geneva.
To give you an example, like last year -- last year in the access and diversity group, we discussed one proposal from China. That's the only workshop -- only Chinese, one person proposed a proposal, but it was almost refused because it's -- the workshop only Chinese and only male.
[ Laughter ]
So it's not multistakeholder.
But to think for this workshop organizer, he doesn't know some -- many people in developed countries, and if he -- and so for him, it's also difficult.
Luckily, in the end, I think it's combined with another workshop so I was told the workshop was welcomed.
So I think one part is for those from developing countries, it may be difficult for them to have such a -- such a multistakeholder principle, and also they are thinking the problem they are facing may not be the same as developed countries.
So on the other hand, for some workshop organizers from developed countries, maybe they also want to have a multistakeholder regional balance, but they may not know some people from developing countries.
So my suggestion is, if it's possible to have a database that have some potential participants, potential speakers that -- suggested by either developing countries or developed countries, so that those organizers or proposal makers could choose some people from there.
This is one thing.
Anyway, I think for developing countries participate in IGF, it's not just because of money or language. There are some other things to consider.
Another thing is about newcomers. Being a new MAG member for about one year, I still feel lost.
[ Laughter ]
It's not just because Asian people are shy, but I don't really know how to -- how to involve in this, partly because of the format is quite serious, and I have to be very careful what I say.
And another thing is that I don't really know -- it seems old MAG members are like family. You know each other. But when you're newcomers, I don't really know.
I notice there's short bios on the MAG Web site. You can see each one who is him or her. But my suggestion is very simple. Maybe you could have a photo for each person. That's -- I can remind "Oh, that's him" or "That's her." That may be easier. But for newcomers, I think it's easier to participate in this family.
And if I'm wrong, please correct me. I think probably it's better if there's a -- there will be a short meeting before -- a short meeting for newcomers before the MAG meeting so it's a short introduction and Q&A so let newcomers feel more friendly in this family.
And the third one is because of, as I said, this difficulty for developing countries or maybe -- I don't represent developing countries. Only China. I know China. But for that reason, maybe -- I think I support that gentleman's suggestion. Maybe we need some regional or national let's say panel or roundtable about this regional thing or this country thing.
There may not be an outcome, but could be background information to discuss. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Well, thank you very much, and welcome to the family. I mean, these are very important remarks and I think your suggestion is a very basic one, to have a welcoming session for the new members so that when we have the next meeting in May, the MAG will be renewed and I'm sure Chengetai is taking notes. We will take that on board.
Maybe the day before or so, a half-day, two-hour session, but I think it is a very valid point and Chengetai's got a shiny new camera so we'll go around and take pictures and then put up the pictures on the Web site. It is a very basic suggestion but I can see also its usefulness to help people navigate the complexities of social interaction with the MAG family.
And, yes, there is a group of people who have been in this business for 10 years, by now, more or less, and -- but we certainly don't want to give the impression that it's a closed shop. No. I think new faces are -- no, no. New faces are more than welcome. We have to include them into the family.
Peter Major, please?
>>PETER MAJOR: Thank you, Markus. I'm Peter Major, member of the MAG from Hungary. In fact, I'm also a new MAG member and I completely agree with the remarks from my Chinese colleague that orientation would be very welcome.
What I wanted to -- the reason I wanted to take the floor is that we are after the WSIS+10 first meeting in the UNESCO, and we all know that this is a process which will lead to the final evaluation of the first 10 years of the WSIS, including the IGF itself, and I'm sure that in this room all of us are here because we -- we love IGF.
It's a part of our life. It's a part of our culture. We may have different approaches, but one thing we share, I'm sure that we all love it and we want to maintain it.
So I think we are just one year before a kind of critical year in which we had already in 2009. This is the extension of the IGF. And in the last resolution of the U.N., there was a call from the U.N. General Assembly to -- for the Secretary-General to report on the implementation of the recommendations of the CSTD working group on the improvements.
So probably we couldn't have done anything before, just gave some thoughts to it, but now there is a clear mandate that we should be doing something, and I could hear from the floor different interventions on this subject.
And the time is very limited. The process itself -- and I know that I am going to be -- to sound very U.N.-like but the process is the following: There will be a report submitted to the CSTD in its session in June, and there will be a draft resolution about it which will be passed to the ECOSOC and to the U.N. General Assembly and this will be a part of the report of the Secretary-General.
So altogether, we have about three months to go to be proactive, and I heard already calls for setting up some kind of working group within the MAG, and I know that we do it on a voluntary basis, I know that we are not paid for it, but I think it's -- it's a kind of emotional thing. We should do it.
So to be proactive, I would like to suggest an overarching theme for the next IGF. That is, the upcoming one. That is "IGF for the Future." I think it's very simple and it includes everything we want to include in it. It may be about cooperation, may be about rights, growth, principles, improvements, empowerment, anything.
So as for the details, I could hear that main sessions are extremely long and I understand that the -- there are limitations concerning interpretations, so I would suggest to go back to some of the practices we had in Sharm El Sheikh when we split the main sessions into two, and I also remember very good practices when we didn't have so many panelists on the panel but we had facilitators and moderators, and Bertrand was one of the best doing it, and he was down on the floor, I think it was in Nairobi.
So probably we can -- we can go back to some good practices and we can learn from our experiences as well.
We should also limit, I think, the workshops to 60 minutes. I fully realize that gender equality, balanced geographical -- geographic balance is extremely important, and I'm all for it, but sometimes it doesn't work.
So probably eventually we should concentrate on the quality of the workshops as well. And it means also what has already been said, that eventually the feedback should be also after the workshop itself immediately, so it will be a part of the workshop.
There was some remark about MAG members being on panels and being in workshops. Yes, I -- I have to tell you that I was on two main panels and about 40 workshops in Baku. It was terrible. It was a terrible experience.
First of all, we were 11 on that panel, which to my mind is unmanageable. You cannot manage it. You cannot engage in conversation with the floor, and that is the main purpose of the main -- of the main session: to have the audience involved.
And basically you concentrated on your issues and you couldn't really listen to whatever the other was saying. So probably the number of panelists should be reduced.
And as a last point, what I think is we may start organizing the after-Bali IGF during the Bali IGF itself.
So this is a kind of practice in one of the international organizations I'm familiar with. It is something -- a usual thing. They start organizing the next conference during the actual conference itself. So probably these were the points I wanted to make. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you for that.
I noted one very concrete proposal. That is, to limit the workshops to 60 minutes instead of 90 minutes, I think in the past, so this is definitely something I think we can discuss. You would also gain more slots, might be easier for scheduling.
Otherwise, you made many points.
Just one reaction to the implementation of the reports. I think there seems to be slightly different interpretations. Also, I cannot see how we can implement the report before the next meeting actually takes place. Just on a very -- you know, proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the Bali meeting will show whether the report has been implemented.
I fail to understand how we can be assessed whether the report has been implemented.
I wonder, Slava, whether you would like to comment on the report. Presumably you will be involved in preparing the Secretary-General's report on that.
>>VYATCHESLAV CHERKASOV: Okay. No, I don't have an interpretation, just only following the United Nations resolution which was adopted in December this year by the GA.
So that the resolution is to acknowledge the working group report and ask the Secretary-General to prepare the report on the implementation of their recommendations.
However, the resolution did not specify specifically the period of time when this report is going to be prepared, and so as I understand during the discussion of the member states, although they don't really feel that report to be urgently prepared on the implementation, they feel that the IGF community needs time to, you know, digest their recommendations and to come up with a respective plan of implementation.
I believe also that we are going to of course have all the discussion, and the proposals of the implementation mechanisms and the actions to be taken is very welcome, and definitely the MAG members are expected to contribute, but in terms of rushing to have the report ready by ECOSOC session, this is not the time frame established or mentioned in the GA resolution.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: You would like to react? Yes, please, Peter.
>>PETER MAJOR: Yes. Thank you. Well, I think we have already started the implementation. This meeting already has started it. So what I meant is there should be a report about some results we are doing, and probably the -- the meeting itself and the following steps we are going to take during the MAG meeting and eventually in the May meeting will be included as well.
Probably we are going to shape the -- the next IGF -- that is, the Bali IGF -- itself based on these recommendations, partially taking into account, but we should keep that in mind that this will be reported from the CSTD to ECOSOC and through ECOSOC it will be included in the Secretary-General's report. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Yeah. I think there's broad agreement on that, I think. It's just a question of the sequencing here.
Now, we really are coming to a hard -- towards a hard stop. There are still a few speakers. Zahid Jamil, Marilyn Cade, Patrick Ryan, United States, and ICC/BASIS, and Switzerland.
Okay. Zahid, please.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you, chair. This is for -- I'm a MAG member from Pakistan, and just I know Kieren is listening. Kieren, if I can get my two to three years of support to the MAG myself, funding myself, back, that would be great, if actually MAG members are being funded. I know that for a fact that as a developing country person, even, that hasn't happened, so absolutely, MAG members are putting volunteer and their own funding into it.
I speak as a small developing country business, and, you know, these are just sort of reactions from -- from Baku.
It was very difficult for us to hear each other in the rooms because you had voices that you could hear from the next -- the workshops in the next rooms, and I think that is something we should try and make sure that there is a -- that that doesn't happen.
I think that really interfered with a lot of the stuff.
Also, there was this problem with the headsets where you couldn't take it out of a room unless you gave your ID card, and I think that was something that created a lot of challenges to some of the participants.
I would like to also recognize the remarks made by Guo from China. I think his observations of how we can assess developing country applicants, you know, I don't think we should necessarily give pictures, maybe there should be symbols. We should allow that kind of privacy on who the MAG member is. But I think the idea of giving some kind of guidance to them, and especially the concept of maybe a MAG mixer, you know, a day before the MAG meeting itself or things of that nature, for new participants would be actually very, very helpful.
Somebody also mentioned about roundtable formats. I completely support that. And lightning rounds, I think, as well.
The thing about the feedback last year, we had made -- I had made a proposal that we should have tweet -- tweeting on the Web site available, or at least in the room, and I think that was a challenge with cost or money, et cetera, so maybe some of our friends here from .nz or others who mentioned that can tell us how maybe we can implement that on the MAG Web site or maybe we can do that while we're there. I think that's an excellent idea.
What it also does is allows you to judge what the participation and the interest of the workshop was, depending on the kind and the number of tweets you're getting with respect to that particular workshop.
The other idea could be, with -- you know, finding out whether the workshop was successful -- because you're never going to get evaluation sheets back or monkey surveys or anything like that back. The best way to do is in my -- my thoughts is when somebody leaves the room, they just mark a chart before they go as to what they thought the interest level of a -- of a workshop was, or to have sheets filled out.
The reason I think that MAG members had to be on panels -- I think this was something that was mentioned -- I think the reason was because a lot of the speakers actually decided not to come. Just a lot of MAG members had to actually fill in certain slots. So that was a problem. And that brings me to the participation/money issue.
You know, you can't have new speakers, you can't do all these things, unless you have money, and in order to have money, you know, you need to find the sponsors and I am glad that Google mentioned something this morning that, you know, they brought up the sort of -- in a sense, the elephant in the room. You know, in order to reach out -- I mean, Google does reach out to developing countries in Asia and the Middle East, so that's wonderful, but I think we also need to look at the Asian countries who are beneficiaries of the Internet age to see whether they can also help, and I think China and India can take the lead in that, to support and, where appropriate, increase the support to the -- to basically the IGF, and that would be lovely.
Just one last comment on some -- some mentions of "equinet" that I heard.
Equitable, equal, that's interesting for me, as long as it's a leveling concept. If this is going to turn into a debate of flogging the CIR horse again and again and again, which hasn't paid any dividends to developing country users -- you know, the Syrian blogger is not helped by that, the Pakistani business society who can't access YouTube, is not prepared by that, and so I think if it means, you know, for instance, that everybody should have equal access to the same Internet equally and equitably, then that's a different matter. These are just my thoughts. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Marilyn Cade.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. I wanted to open my comments by thanking our colleague from China for calling for something that will assist all of us, I think, in becoming better acquainted with the MAG members. It is really -- it would be a great asset, but I suggest that instead of Chengetai taking the pictures, the MAG members submit the pictures, so we can lower the burden on our favorite secretariat.
I do want to say a couple of words about the idea of trying to decide now, and maybe prematurely, how many workshops and what format.
We went through a discussion about some vitally interesting themes and ideas. The IGF of perhaps we would look at principles and maybe look at a compendium of principles and look differently at things, and I think we'll get some ideas further tomorrow but we'll also get ideas from stakeholders who submit workshop proposals and feedback about what the priorities ought to be.
I -- I am concerned, and speak at every one of these meetings, that if we too dramatically limit the number of workshops, we limit the opportunity for participation.
I helped to support a group of 30 MENA women who not only came together for the first time on the edge of the IGF, but came to the IGF for the first time.
They would never have taken the step of speaking in a main session, but in a small workshop felt comfortable sharing their personal experiences.
So I just want to -- want us to remain very flexible on this.
I too really appreciate the words that Patrick Ryan raised earlier about the fact that we must mutually support this activity, both financially and with our work and our commitment, and in addition to continuing to join others from the business community and the present donors to help to expand, I also want to propose an idea for some of our government colleagues who are here, and perhaps some of the NGOs who are here.
I think the more we can broaden the awareness about the IGF in multiple ministries and multiple parts of the governments, where perhaps e-government and e-health and other kinds of uses of ICTs are underway, that that will also help us to attract additional attendance and perhaps even awareness from other governments, and having the meeting, the WSIS+10 meeting here at UNESCO I think was fantastic for all of us to remind us that content and culture and information access are vitally important, and I do hope to see some of those themes beginning to emerge as well.
I am not a MAG member. I might describe myself as an Internet Governance Forum junkie, since I come to all the meetings. But I was also a part of the CSTD working group on improvements, and I wanted to just make a follow-up comment.
I think, in fact, many of the aspects in the report, we can begin or already have begun to implement, and I do hope that we will begin to capture that and also to identify if there are any areas -- and I think there are -- where members of the community and the MAG can play a role in supporting implementation. That's fantastic. But I think we must recognize that driving the implementation rests with our secretariat, and we need to be sure we're supporting and not just providing too many cooks. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I have -- I think we have to close our list of speakers. We have less than 20 minutes left, and I have Patrick Ryan, United States, ICC/BASIS, Switzerland, Carolina, Yuliya, and Andrea are the speakers I have on my list, so that makes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, so if you can keep your remarks to three limits -- three minutes, that will be fantastic. Patrick, please.
>>PATRICK RYAN: Thank you. I want to first start out by piling on to the -- to the comments of our Chinese delegate, and welcoming him to the MAG and to the events.
I can tell you as a relative newcomer myself, this is an incredibly complicated environment. Lots of intelligent people here that are very nice but very intimidating.
[ Laughter ]
So it's great to have you here. Your perspective is really important and we should definitely think about maybe a page out of the ICANN book, which does a very good job of doing some preparatory welcoming and educational conferences. This is a wonderful idea.
Secondly, the comment that you made, Markus, about interpretation really was -- was insightful and eye opening to me, and it's something that I think we should think very hard about. Interpretation is crucial for the work that we do, and it's also a boundary condition for many of the -- for many of the things that we're doing in ways that it perhaps should not be.
So for example, 20 years ago at this -- at the university that I studied at where there were a lot of people that -- sort of well-known for interpretation and language studies, a lot of my colleagues that were students, you know, worked at night for AT&T language line services, proving that it's very possible to have interpretation over telephone lines.
I can imagine that we can do a lot better now today with the Internet. I'm not suggesting that we not send our interpreters to Bali. We definitely need them there. But in some sort of a combination of on-site versus -- you know, with -- with maybe some remote technology, I think we can be a lot smarter about it.
And getting to my favorite topic here about funding, we can also look at this as a -- as a line item in our budget, as we need to start doing, and be smart business people about this.
At the WCIT, this was also an important boundary condition and many of us that speak other languages found ourselves in positions where we were translating because of the availability of translators was just -- was just gone, and that's unfortunate because it limits conversations that otherwise should be taking place.
So let's think about this, I think, smart with using technology and other alternative ways of augmenting the ability to bring languages to -- and interpretation to the -- to the event.
And then finally on the comment about workshop length, I can tell you that 60 minutes is a good length, but if you limit the entire workshop to 60 minutes, I'm afraid you're going to have a situation where you're virtually guaranteed to have very large panels and panelists like me who love to hear themselves talk and are going to guarantee to fill up that time and exceed it, and make it such that there are no opportunities for -- for participants to speak. But you could have a hard rule that limits the panelists' participation to a certain amount of time, like say, you know, 45 minutes or 60 minutes and force the room to participate during that other period of time. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: A brief comment. It may be more complicated than you think about interpretation.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KUMMER: United States.
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, chair. I'm not often too pragmatic, so thank you for the opportunity to make a suggestion that might just be.
As we've been listening to the comments made about the, you know, sort of complicated process this is and especially for newcomers who might not know how to do workshop proposals or get speakers and things like that, I was wondering if it would be worth considering taking a page from other conferences. The IGF is different than many other conferences, and thank goodness for that, but something that other conferences do do is a "how to do a workshop proposal" Webcast or, you know, Webinar type of thing in advance of the deadline for workshop proposals, so that might be something to think about in this context, because it is kind of -- you know, if you haven't done it before, it's probably very complicated.
So I offer that for consideration and for somebody to think about how to fund.
[ Laughter ]
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. I think that's a doable proposal.
ICC/BASIS?
>>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Ayesha Hassan for ICC/BASIS. Very briefly, I support other colleagues' support of our new MAG member colleague from China's suggestions. I would also support Patrick's input on the 60 minutes.
I often find that it takes a bit of time to get the panel started. You lose time. 90 minutes means there has been good interaction. So I would prefer to stick to 90-minute workshop slots.
Wanted to build on what Zahid had said about why or how some of the speakers are selected or changed or what have you in terms of the main session.
The MAG works hard. We hope that more MAG members will hope to coordinate substantively the main sessions but it takes a lot of work.
Reaching out to speakers, confirming them, reconfirming them, getting their bios, getting everything together, those take a lot of work. And, frankly, I really would call on my fellow MAG member colleagues that we need more people who actually roll up their sleeves and make that happen because I think that's one other cleavage in the ability to get new people -- new speakers in.
We also have found that, as Zahid had mentioned, not only for funding reasons but for visa reasons people drop out and MAG coordinators of the main sessions are running around with a group of MAG members trying to reach out and find people and that's where also MAG members end up stepping in.
So I just wanted to make that point, that there are reasons behind some of what we're seeing. And I think we would all agree that needs to improve. But that's going to take a couple of different elements and real proactivity on behalf of the community and MAG members who coordinate sessions. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Switzerland, Thomas, please?
>> SWITZERLAND: Thank you. First of all, we are happy to see you back to Chengetai. I think the dream team is now complete again.
I just have 47 points since I haven't spoken the whole day. No.
[ Laughter ]
I will try to be brief. With regard what was raised by Peter Majors earlier, we should take this very serious about implementing the report of the CSTD working group and, of course, knowing that the -- we can only implement most of the things probably when the IGF is taking place. But since the CSTD this year will take place in June and we have another consultation and MAG meeting in May, it might be good and I really agree with Peter, if the MAG be proactive and think about until May, at least, to communicate something to the CSTD because it will be the CSTD who will draft the ECOSOC resolution and so on and so forth. So to give a clear signal to the CSTD in broad terms of how this is going to be implemented and to show that this is being taken seriously by the MAG, I think that is important.
With regard to many of the proposals that have been made on how to improve and reform and so on the IGF, I also have made the experience myself, and I hear it from a number of participants, that there has been some kind of deja vous and repetition in several versions and issues of the IGF and we have to try to experiment again a little bit more with new formats, new ways of doing things, also focusing on new aspects of initiatives. I will not repeat this list of proposals. I think there have been very many good proposals. Just want to focus on one.
I don't think it makes sense to reduce the time of the workshops from 60 to 90 for the reasons that were expressed before me.
I will join those those who say we should avoid having big panels or even having small panels but take up all the speaking time or most of the speaking time.
The EuroDIG experience, one example has been mentioned, that's not the only one, has shown, if you have good moderators and people are prepared, you can actually run a whole plenary or workshop without a panel. You put everybody that you know will say something in the floor among the public and it creates a completely different atmosphere in terms of discussion culture and incites others from the floor to participate more actively as well.
So there is no two-class discussion society with some people higher up than others or with different chairs than others. Everybody is more equal when everybody speaks from the floor. You just need one or two good moderators that are able to work in such an environment. I think more workshops and even plenaries try to go down that road and experiment with this also on the level of the IGF. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. And Carolina?
>> CAROLINA AGUERRE: Thank you. My comments have been already expressed by other colleagues.
I just wanted to add an extra thought regarding if we need to work out more efficiently how we work in workshops and we need to assess regional balance, gender balance, the relevance to the topic, we also need to incorporate the diversity issue.
I mean, are we incorporating the new person? A new voice? Is the workshop organizer bringing someone new into the IGF? So there are many variables to consider. And I think this last one is really essential and important to open up our community to new voices.
But, still, I think there is a great challenge if we need to have speakers comprising all those different variables that we need to fill in. So I think we might need to rethink that as well. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. And Yuliya, please.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yuliya Morenets from Tech and MAG member as well. We would like -- of course, we would like to support the idea of the need to develop the newcomer session, I think was raised by a number of colleagues and proposed by (saying name) Radunovic (phonetic) and especially two points, of course, to facilitate the inclusion because, for example, if we have -- if the person never organized the workshop before and they have a question of assessment, have you organized already the workshop, it could be a challenge.
Secondly, of course not only to facilitate the inclusion but also maybe to bring the information because the number of potential newcomers, they even don't know what the IGF is about and that it exists.
So maybe to facilitate and to improve the media coverage as well.
Of course, we support the idea to view the format of the main sessions. And it was a great idea from that perspective, the idea of roundtables, maybe with a professional moderator, which may be -- will be easier to make interactive sessions more comfortable for these moderators.
I would also like to support the proposal made by UNESCO concerning the idea to make a report on the actions that were taken after the workshop, and we will volunteer to do this kind of report as well.
A few words concerning the potential topics and themes. It was from our perspective a very good idea to have a subject of spam and best practices as well as inclusive development in the role of the Internet and maybe cybersecurity issues and particularly in the developing part of the world. Thanks so much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. We have Andrey also asked for the floor, and we have a remote participant. But then we really have to close. I think the interpreters will leave us soon. We can stay in the room for a little bit longer but I think by 6:00 they will turn the lights off.
[ Laughter ]
Yes, please. Andrey.
>> ANDREY SCHEBRACHOV: Thank you, Chair. I generally agree with the need for increasing quality of the workshops, but I think that we need to find alternative ways not to limit the number of workshops because the Internet governance as a problem has a lot of wide issues.
I think the best way to improve this will be more conversion with the main topics of the IGF main sessions.
Also,I could disagree with the idea of limitation of time of the workshop because sometimes 90 minutes isn't enough time for discussion of several topics. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you. Remote participant. Farzeneh.
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: There is an intervention from (saying name) is from Graciela Yunowski (phonetic). Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to participate through this platform and thank you for your patience to hear all the intervention.
We would like to suggest a possibility to have a Spanish simultaneous translators since we are now a considerable group, around 100 participants in our organization.
In this occasion, attending from two different cities of Argentina. It would help for better spreading of the purpose of the IGF and for these open consultations in order to maximize the effectiveness of future events and, in particular, its participation both at its headquarters and remote. (Beeping.) Although, we thank the administrative of simultaneous transcription.
We propose to improve the efficiency that provides the labor -- I'm sorry. I just missed that.
We propose to improve the efficiency that provides the labor that develop IGF open consultation 2013 with the possibility of using translators in the language of the accredited participant. At least we mean the five official languages. Taking into account the pronunciation of the diverse speakers and diverse interventions, this would be a very positive experience.
Another positive experience to could encourage new volunteer members and becoming a multiplying agent -- (beeping) -- responsible of the obligation regarding the goals of the WSIS, both the U.N. goals as well as the whole society.
We understand that the simultaneous translation in Spanish contribution has equal opportunities to reduce the gap considering the global crisis, in addition to (indiscernible) and the consequence of the climate change which requires a kind of (indiscernible) and circumstantial priorities change in order to maximize operational diligence among other things.
I'm sorry. I have other interventions. I have to read Veronica as well. There are some suggestions from Veronica, MAG member.
This is Veronica Cretu, (indiscernible) civil society. It might be worth considering having an open space for participants to post their expectations from the IGF during day one and post to that space during the last day, open space for participants to share what expectations came through where achieved.
Clarifying what is expected might help during the sessions adjusting where possible in order to respond to the needs they were articulating. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you.
And Theresa.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I will keep this very short. I will jump ahead to seize the opportunity. We had the discussion on the relevant sections --
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Microphone.
>> THERESA SWINEHART: I'm sorry. That's so rare.
I realize I might be mixing things up a little bit. On the session of the relevant sections of the report on the CSTD working group on improvements for the IGF, I think we have touched on several of the points. But let me just highlight quickly from a business perspective, we certainly support that it is time to move forward on the specific work areas and identify what's already underway.
We'd also suggest that we try to take a look at accountability and transparency of how the recommendations are moving forward in that regard and try to keep track of them a little bit. Maybe a mapping of progress underway and taking a look at the regional and national IGFs to help provide input into how that's working. Potentially look at a short summary at the beginning of each IGF on areas that have been highlighted so we can really show that not only has there been work underway, there is work underway, and this meeting itself demonstrates that fully.
Obviously one factor of achieving many of these recommendations to reinforce the issue of funding is a well financed secretariat that can successfully fully scale the recommendations on the IGF improvements itself. And I will leave it at that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you very much. I think that was a very timely statement to end our discussions. That was in many ways my major take-away, that all participants really seem to be committed to implement the recommendations of the CSTD working group on IGF improvements. And that is clearly, I think, a horizontal issue when we prepare for the Bali meeting.
Another concrete take-away is that we will have a welcoming session for the new MAG members in May. So that's some concrete improvement.
Also, I think the suggestion to have a Webinar to help people prepare a workshop proposal, if needed, I think can be also a concrete improvement or help for newcomers to prepare their interventions. I heard a lot of proposals for substantive sessions. Very high on the list Internet principles. Human rights are high on the list but then also issues like spam, security were mentioned.
And I think many people listened to Ayesha's call to be brave and to experiment with new formats while recognizing there's no one size fits all and we also have to be a little bit conservative taking into account sensitivities and practices of governments but also cultural sensitivities. We heard that in the past that not everybody finds the same format equally interesting. There are cultural preferences.
I think on the whole, I heard there is a great willingness to move forward with new formats.
As regards workshops, I think as in the past, there are diverging views. There are those that would like a drastic reduction in the number of workshops; and as others point out, it is workshops that bring people to IGF as it gives them speaking roles.
Nevertheless, I think there is also a strong convergence of views that there is a need for a stronger feedback, maybe also for an assessment of workshops. And that is something the MAG may wish to consider, that not every workshop is equally successful. And that also the idea to report on concrete impact and outcomes, what has happened since the workshops, is something worth exploring.
We have not touched on the other sessions. We have not touched on the dynamic coalitions. We have discussed that in the past. Not every coalition is equally dynamic. The dynamic coalition on rights, I'm sure, will play an important role in preparing if we go towards sessions for principles.
Also, the idea of having an open-ended process kind of working group that will substantively prepare the session, I think, has found wide support.
What else have we listened to? We have not talked about the open forums. I noticed in the past IGF, there was a slight maybe confusion. Originally open forums were designed for meetings for existing, relevant organizations to present their activities over the years. But I notice not every organization has done the same thing.
Some used it more of a kind of workshop, interesting may be, but that was not the intended purpose. I think there is value in having an open forum. That will, for instance, allow the IGF to report on its activities.
Many people go to the IGF, would never dream about going to the meeting of the IETF but they may be interested in listening to some leading engineers explaining what the new standards are. It is married on keeping the format, but I think we need to be a little bit stricter on not just giving a slot but also discussing with the organizers what they're going to present.
I think ICANN as an organization has in the past been very good at presenting their current activities. And, as I said, not everybody has been equally disciplined. But I think there's a need, a role, for the MAG also to look at that.
We had in the past hoped to promote best practices and created best practices forums but maybe not documented them well enough, not least also to lack of resources. This also may be one area. I heard best practices coming quite a lot. This could be a concrete outcome.
Just told that we really have to close, otherwise, it will have financial consequences. And I would leave it at that. And the very practical level, I'm told that many people have noticed the hotel rooms in Geneva are exorbitantly expensive at the time of the next meeting. And Chengetai is looking at another date. And presumably that will be communicated in the due course. That's obviously relevant for the broader community.
Lastly, tomorrow's meeting is a MAG meeting. I think in accordance in past tradition, it will be open to non-MAG members with the possibility of having segment members only. But that will have to be discussed.
With that, is there anything else, Chengetai?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Tomorrow, which room is it? 9:30. Which room, do we know the room tomorrow?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: The same room.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: The same room tomorrow at 9:30. And sign the attendance list, please. Or give business cards to the secretariat. And now I pass the floor to our honorary Chairman to conclude the meeting. Thank you.
>> ASHWIN SASONEKO: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, it is very interesting meeting we all have today except for a bit of confusion between Room 2 and Room 11.
[ Laughter ]
We have discussed most of the logistics and the substance of our next IGF meeting in Bali. From the logistic side, I'm sure all inputs related to so many things, food, coffee, meeting room area, the distance between hotels and meeting rooms, WiFi connections, remote participation and blah, blah, blah. Hopefully I'm sure it will be picked up properly by the organizers. They are sitting there, so we can even discuss more in detail with them.
And beginning the substance, we discussed so many things from cross-cutting issues as science and technology -- well, areas related to science and technology. From cyber ethics is more of science, even (indiscernible) technology. We discussed human rights. Interesting point, interesting cross-cutting point. Even in the last meeting in Dubai, it was discussed intensively. We have special issues like spam and so on.
And like Mr. Kummer has concluded, the financial situations, hopefully together with so many members, we can improve the IGF and its financial activities. (Beeping).
Once again, I would like to thank all of you for all the inputs, all the fruitful discussions. And tomorrow we will have in the same room the MAG members, the MAG meetings in room 11. So hope to see you tomorrow and, of course, presenting from Indonesia, I would like to see you all from Bali. It is not too far from me. Just a few hours' ride. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KUMMER: Thank you to the interpreters and the scribes.
[ Applause ]