APNIC staff, Paul Wilson and Klee Aiken, recently attended the second World Internet Conference – Wuzhen Summit (WIC) in Wuzhen, China, from 16 to 18 December 2015.
The WIC is hosted by the Cyberspace Administration of China and Zhejiang Provincial People’s government, and is now being planned as an annual event. The theme of this year’s conference was “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All: Building a Community of Common Future in Cyberspace”.
President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, attended and gave a keynote presentation about the future of the Internet in China.
The event welcomed around 2,000 people from 120 countries representing governments, international organizations, enterprises, technology groups, and non-governmental organizations. A “trade show” style exhibition, the “Light of the Internet”, was also held alongside the conference.
For future events, the Chinese Government is constructing a new conference and exhibition centre dedicated specifically to WIC. It is expected to be completed in time for WIC 2016.
APNIC activities at WIC 2015 included:
- Paul Wilson was a panellist at the Cyberspace Governance Forum on the ‘Open dialogue on Internet infrastructure in post-IANA era’ panel.
- Paul was invited to be a part of the High-Level Advisory Council, which is expected to provide advice on the future of WIC.
- Paul and Klee attended various other sessions, which tended to focus on future applications and implications of the Internet in areas such as development, culture, and economy.
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