The Internet Governance Project was prominent at the Forum. Below is a summary of our activities.
IGP partners Mueller, Hofmann, Mathiason and Cogburn participated in the successful pre-Forum conference of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet). See story below.
IGP partner Jeanette Hofmann was selected by civil society groups to speak in the slot for civil society at the concluding session of the Forum. Her comments can be seen here. Hofmann also co-facilitated, with Elizabeth Longworth of UNESCO, the joint IGP-UNESCO workshop on content filtering and blocking.
IGP partner Milton Mueller moderated the intense and exciting workshop on DNS root zone file management. A short written summary of the DNS workshop is available here.
IGP partner Derrick Cogburn made it possible to include remote presenters in both of our workshops. Professor Ron Deibert participated in the Freedom of expression panel from Toronto, and technologist Thierry Moreau participated in the DNS workshop from Montreal. The experience provided valuable lessons on enhancing virtual participation in global policy dialogues. Further refinements in implementation will be made in Rio. While the sessions that IGP co-sponsored were not recorded due to technical difficulties, furture sessions will be archived on the IGP website.
IGP partners Derrick Cogburn and Lee McKnight linked the IGF in Athens with the Caribbean Internet Forum in Grenada. The session, “Building Bridges from Athens to Grenada to Syracuse” had five speakers from Athens — Dr. Cogburn, Dr. Alex Trigona (Diplo), Jenniffer Britton (Caribbean Telecommunications Union), Theresa Swinehart (ICANN), Ambassador Clark (Barbados) — providing an overview of the substantive discussions and tone of the Athens meeting; one speaker from Grenada, providing feedback on what was happening in Grenada; and questions from students and faculty from Syracuse.
IGP partner John Mathiason spoke at the Framework Convention Workshop, and IGP partner Milton Mueller was a panelist on the main plenary session on Access, where he discussed issues of telecommunication policy.