APNIC participated at the 11th Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2016) held in Guadalajara, México, from 6 to 9 December 2016. Over 2,000 delegates from 83 economies participated in approximately 200 sessions, with thousands more joining online.
Read Paul Wilson’s review from the event IGF 2016: Human capacity for Internet development
The overarching theme of the meeting was “Enabling Inclusive and Sustainable Growth”, encompassing many topics including critical Internet resources; cybersecurity and cybernorms; ICTs in the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals; international trade agreements and the digital economy; Internet governance capacity-building; youth and gender challenges pertaining to the Internet; and the need to enhance multistakeholder cooperation.
APNIC staff joined at least a dozen IGF sessions as speakers or panellists, and participated in many other sessions. They also met with members of the APNIC community and colleagues from other Internet organizations.
APNIC activities:
- Paul Wilson participated in many panel discussions and other events including:
- Speaking in the ‘High-Level dialogue’ session on the first day of the IGF.
- Chairing the Asia Pacific Community Meet-Up (APrIGF Open Session). The group of around 70 participants discussed how to increase private sector and government engagement with the APrIGF; how to increase Asia Pacific participation in the IGF; and how to strengthen the linkages and contributions between the three levels of IGFs.
- Advocating for the need to build human capacity in the development and provision of Internet infrastructure and services at the main session on ‘Assessing the Role of Internet Governance in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)‘.
- Contributing to the ‘NetGov, please meet Cybernorms. Opening the debate‘ workshop, which considered ways to bridge discussions on cybersecurity across the Internet governance and security communities.
- Speaking at the ‘Best Practice Forum on IPv6 – Understanding the commercial and economic incentives behind a successful IPv6 deployment‘ session.
- Helping to facilitate a workshop (WS240) on the ‘internet.nl’ infrastructure initiative, an initiative of the GFCE that promotes the deployment of open standards.
- Invited remarks during a working dinner of the European and Chinese delegations, organized by the ChinaEU Association.
- APNIC staff participated in the SEED Alliance Awards ceremony, featuring FIRE, FRIDA and ISIF Asia award-winning projects. Paul presented awards to the winning recipients of the ISIF Asia grants, introduced the APNIC Foundation, and made closing remarks to end the session.
- ISIF Asia grant recipient, Andrew Toimoana, presented on the newly established Tonga CERT (CERT.to) at the ‘Cybersecurity – Initiatives in and by the Global South’ workshop.
- Sylvia Cadena spoke on the panel of ‘ICT4D: Connecting CS roles on access, finance & knowledge‘. She also organized and facilitated the session ‘Networks & solutions to achieve SDGs agenda-Internet at play‘.
- Siena Perry spoke at the ‘Markets, communities, public policies on access and human rights‘ workshop.
- Siena also worked with other RIR staff in organizing and attending a display booth for the Number Resource Organization (NRO), which provided a meeting and information point for the RIRs during the IGF week.
- Pablo Hinojosa co-organized and chaired ‘NetGov, please meet Cybernorms. Opening the debate‘ workshop (WS132).
- Pablo also spoke at the workshop ‘A New Social Compact for Internet Governance‘.
- Numerous side meetings were attended:
- Paul and Pablo participated in a meeting of the NRO Executive Council.
- Paul participated in a meeting of Internet technical community organizations, informally known as I*.
- Paul met with the Secretariat of the World Internet Conference (Wuzhen Summit); the CEO of CNNIC; the President and CEO of the Beijing Internet Institute; and representatives from the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE).
- Paul and Sylvia introduced the APNIC Foundation to interested individuals and organizations throughout the week and attended a private meeting with Vint Cerf of Google to discuss the Foundation.
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