The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you, let me continue now. So, my name is Anja Gengo. And on my right side we have Bianca, a MAG member,
Me and Bianca kind of discussed that maybe we should start something to explain to the people who are coming to the IGF for the very first time, what is the IGF, that it's not just a huge conference. But it's a really process that has lasted for ten years and will continue for the next ten years for sure.
So, Bianca, would you like to say briefly newcomers track and then we have many other speakers here who would like to share their experience.
>> BIANCA: Hi. The newcomers track, the main objective is to make you feel welcome. So for those of you who it is the first time, like Sebastian here, you can put on one of these badges so that people can reach out to you.
So you might have been hearing a lot of acronyms, like ISOC, ICANN, different companies as well, so we wanted to put them in touch with you so they would start with an introduction about themselves and their roles and what their organizations do, mingle with them, so you know who are the true stakeholders. So let's start with ‑‑
>> ANJA GENGO: So let's start with Kenta because he has to go.
>> KENTA MOCHIZUKI: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kenta Mochizuki from Hosheban Corporation. Unfortunately, I have to make a presentation at 1:50, so I make a brief comment on what we are doing. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Actually, our company is providing a lot of services like news or shopping services and also auction services. And for us on the Internet, it's open and growing, especially with connectivity activities. And we focused on the Japanese services market, but still we recognize the importance of the Internet as well as getting involved in the Internet governance discussion.
So, we have been participating in a lot of IG discussion. Like we held a workshop entitled protection of use online in the Asia Pacific IGF, and also we attended a WSIS convention and a WSIS program. And also at this time we are supposed to hold one session regarding protection of use online with some partners from Asia and (inaudible). So if possible, please attend my session. And also at 1:50 I'm going to make a presentation on digital policy. So, I cannot disturb this session, but hopefully you will be able to get to my presentation in Riverside.
So I'm very sorry not to be able to participate in this session for a time. But I hope I will be able to work together and also that this session will be fruitful for everyone here. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Kenta. I know I have a lot of questions for you, and I'm sure other colleagues have, but I
Now you know his face so you can stop him wherever in the venue and ask whatever you want.
And we have colleagues here from ISOC, from ICANN, from Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and I would like to start from this side, from the beginning, just to briefly introduce yourself and to tell the participants what is your interest to be here at the IGF and why are you involved and for how long at the IGF and, concretely, what do you do?
>> HEBA: Yeah, absolutely. Can you hear me? Okay. Hi, everyone. I'm Heba Kamal Grayson and I'm based in Google's offices in DC where we work on Internet governance issues. And Google is engaged with the IGF for many, many years and incredibly happy when the IGF was renewed. We have a team here from around the world and also a team of people who are not just policy people like me, but also folks from technical teams to really, really reflect the diversity of why we care about the IGF.
Just a few reasons, I could go on and on why we are here and why we're investing and why we think it's important. But first of all, we do think that the IGF is very unique in how it fosters cross-sector collaboration. I can't think of another place where representatives from academia, Civil Societies, governments, the private sector, are all in a room talking and then trying to figure out good areas to collaborate on the emerging policy issues.
And we really do value the fact that the IGF emphasizes the value of discussions over making decisions. We think that having a sort of open dynamic space for conversations where you can listen, collaborate and even disagree with one another without having to worry about what language is going into a document or treaty is very valuable.
Finally, we think it's a critical component of the multistakeholders model of internet governance. Very democratic. And I do think that we're seeing around the world more and more attempts to tighten control over the Internet, to have more top/down models. And I think that makes IGF more important than ever, to have new people come into the fold and have a very diverse set of stakeholders.
And then finally I think sometimes when you hear about the IGF it's hard to justify why are you sending so many people, why are you spending so many resources? So internally we really have emphasized that the IGF paves the way for impactful policy making even in other for a. You know, sometimes the issues and discussions that we have here really do shape other discussions in very productive ways.
So I'm very excited to be here and to meet all of you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
Let's move maybe on your right side and then we are going to open the floor for questions and answers.
>> ANDY O'CONNELL: Hi. So my name is Andy O'Connell and I work at Facebook. And while Heba talking I was frustrated because she went through all of my talking points one by one. So maybe rather than reiterate why we think the IGF is great and valuable and why we send a team here, maybe I will say a little bit about what we do while we are here.
I think there's sort of three main things: One we attend panels on topics where there are experts peaking on issues we care about. You all know from looking at the agenda that this is sort of nirvana for tech nerds and people who particularly in policy, but also in engineering and all over Facebook are tech nerds, and so this is an exciting opportunity to have sort of university level courses, discussions, conversations on lots of issues that are important to our company today and potentially important to our company in the future.
The other thing we do is we participate in panels selectively where we think we have something to say or where we think there is a lot of interest in hearing from Facebook. So you'll see us on the agenda for a number of panels.
And then the third thing we do, I think arguably this is the most important, the most valuable piece of this is we have lots and lots of bilateral and side conversations, formal and informal.
IGF really is – you know, if you had to pick one week in one place to get the most, to have the most touches with people that are influential and thoughtful about leading technology policy and Internet governance issues, this is where you come. Everybody is here. We want more people here. But we find it a great opportunity to meet with people in civil society, governments, other companies, so it's really a great forum. And I'm happy to meet all of you, sort of, and I hope we can talk after the panel. And happy to answer any questions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Andy. Karl?
>> KARL GOMBERG: Thank you very much. My name is Karl Gombert, and I work with the Internet Society, or ISOC, as we're also known as. I'm very happy to hear that we are kind of acronym within the IGF environment that needs to be explained. That means we are known in this environment.
So since I'm following Google and Facebook, I think I should start with just a brief explanation of what the Internet Society is. We're slightly less well‑known than those companies.
So, our roots are in the technical community. We were founded by the so‑called founders of the Internet, founding fathers of the Internet, or they are usually referred to as that, which are Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn. And we were founded to provide the organizational home to the Internet Engineering Task Force, the IETF, which is the most prominent standards organization for Internet technology.
That role later evolved into a broader mission, which is essentially to ensure that the Internet's fundamental properties are protected, that we have an open Internet that is everywhere and accessible for everyone. So our work is mainly done through roughly through pillars which are constituted by infrastructure where we work, for example, deploying Internet exchange points around the world.
We work with policy to ensure that policy development is compatible with the fundamental properties of the Internet and technologies that underpins it.
And then we also work with education and capacity building and the kind of human side of the Internet.
But our interest in the IGF and why we are strong supporters of the IGF is really related to kind of the middle word of the Internet Governance Forum, the governance role here. Because as most of you know Internet governance is distributed into different regimes and foras, and all of the stakeholders have different roles in there. You have the technical community, for example, setting standards or network management. You have governments with regulations, legislations. You have private companies providing the services. You have civil society protecting human rights and creating norms around behavior, for example.
So all of those actors are performing governance, and the IGF is kind of a central point where those stakeholders can meet and exchange information and ensure that their role contributes to protecting the overall Internet. So, an example would be, for example, that legislations that are coming into place are compatible with the technical layer. For example, issues around data localization should be discussed with the technical community, but also with civil society, because it translates into privacy issues, et cetera.
So the IGF is really a focal point for all of those discussions. It allows for all the stakeholders to come together and create a kind of common mindset of how to solve the issues.
I think I'm going to stop there. I'm happy to describe what we are doing during the week. We have a lot of different workshops ranging from community networking to collaborative security discussions. I'm happy to take any questions after. But I will pass on the mic for now. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Can we move? Maybe, Sophie, would you like to say a couple of words?
>> SOPHIE TOMLINSON: Thank you. My name is Sophie Tomlinson. I'm from the International Chamber of Commerce. And the International Chamber of Commerce is an international business association with local chambers in 130 countries. I'm getting a bit of echo. Maybe that ‑‑ thanks.
So what we do at ICC is basically create self-regulatory tools for private sector. We produce policy statements in all different areas to do with perhaps arbitration, intellectual property, and also of course we focus as well on digital economy issues.
When we are at IGF, we are participating for an initiative called ICC business action to support the information society. So what we do here is that we gather our cross-sector membership which has from small businesses, but also large corporations. And we gather them here at the IGF and try to create a vehicle for private sector to engage. So we contribute to the IGF agenda by suggesting workshops with topics the private sector business will be interested in following. We also set daily business briefings for business participants at the IGF. So this is isn't only for our members. And we invite and we encourage all business participants at the IGF. So if you are a business in here and you are wanting to meet other private sector representatives or hearing the key topics that are going to be discussed each day at IGF, I really urge you to come to those meetings, they are at 8:00 every day in workshop room 2.
Another thing that we have organized for business as well this year is the IGF app. We have one that is specific for our members, but we have also organized one for business participants at IGF. So, again, this has a lot of different material on key sessions at IGF that should be interesting for private sector. So I urge you to download the app. It's on the app store. It's ICC net go app.
And I have got a lot of fliers and different materials here with me. So if you want to come see me afterwards or ask any questions, please do. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Moving to our newcomer, anyone else who wants to ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE: Mark from Microsoft. I would like to repeat some of the comments made by people at the other end of the table about what a great place this is to meet, touch base. It's a wonderful opportunity to meet people across the spectrum to talk about technology, policy, and the like.
I have a list of all the things that we are doing here. We have nine people here today. We are covering child sexual abuse imagery, terrorist content, Internet governance, sustainable development, spectrum, sovereignty, net neutrality, digital economy, accessibility, universal acceptance, IPv6, and some more things like that. So you can see what a broad opportunity IGF is. There isn't anything like it, really, to cover all of those areas in a single week with a pretty small team, and walk away having accomplished something, made connections, spread ideas, advanced policies.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, mark. Anyone else who wants to briefly introduce their organization? Okay. Good.
So, now we have had people from yahoo, Google, Facebook, ICC and Microsoft, did I miss anyone? Okay. Great. Now that we have had everyone comments on why they are here, the technical communities as well as companies, I would like to open up the floor. I think there are two type of formats: Either you kind of go and chat with them, or the other one is do you want to ask questions at the table? Which would you prefer?
Okay. I feel like the pressure of asking a question on the table might be a little more daunting. So, yeah, I would just like to break out into groups, you can just kind of like walk out, you know who is who, hopefully you have been paying attention. Now you know who is who, you can go and chat with them, ask them about questions that you might potentially have, so thank you.