As the 20th Internet Governance Forum gets under way in Lillestrøm, Norway, the RIPE NCC team keeps track of the topics under discussion, with this year's theme being "Building Digital Governance Together".
This 20th edition of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) takes place in Lillestrøm, Norway against the backdrop of discussions on whether to renew the mandate of the IGF along with the twenty-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS+20) taking place at the United Nations General Assembly later this year. The theme for this year’s IGF is Building Digital Governance Together’ and features over 150 sessions in four main themes:
- Digital Trust and Resilience
- Sustainable and Responsible Innovation
- Universal Access and Digital Rights
- Digital Cooperation
Day 0 - Monday, 23 June
Build digital governance together
Day 0 got under way with an opening session by the host country Norway. Norway is quite unique in that it has achieved 100% Internet access
RIPE NCC Managing Director and CEO, Hans Petter Holen was on the big stage along with panellists Carol Roach (IGF MAG Chair), Thomas Schneider (Swiss Cyber Ambassador), and Elise Lindberg (CEO, Skygard). The panel discussion set the tone for many of the sessions that will follow across the week - how can we build digital governance together and what can a multistakeholder forum like the IGF contribute to this?
As put by Karianne Tung (Minister of Digitalisation and Public Governance, Norway): “A balanced multistakeholder model doesn’t happen by accident; it must be cultivated through sustained effort.”
The ‘I’ in IGF stands for ‘Internet’
Every IGF sees a slew of sessions on the latest trend and unsurprisingly, AI is in the limelight this year. And amid the AI hype, there is a renewed focus on the foundational layer on top of which all these services run - the infrastructure and resilience of the Internet itself.
The resilience of the Internet is the other big theme that we are likely to see cropping up over the week here. Day 0 saw three sessions dedicated to this - two on subsea cables and one organised by the RIPE NCC.
As we see the development of AI, the growth in IoT devices and an uptake in digital governance initiatives, it is all the more essential that the foundations of the Internet remain robust. We heard from representatives of the Norwegian and Croatian regulators, ICANN, Smart Africa and the NRO, highlighting different aspects of Internet resilience.
In some ways, the discussions around subsea cables feel like a continuation of the discussion held during the Cooperation Working Group session at RIPE 90 earlier this year. There were two sessions on the first day alone addressing issues of infrastructural security - a plenary session on the protection of subsea cables and a workshop on securing basic Internet infrastructure.
A key takeaway from both sessions was that although the Internet is capable of routing around damage during an outage, this should not be taken for granted. Preparation and coordination across groups is essential to ensure Internet resilience during a crisis.
The Day 0 session was concluded by a midsummer reception in the striking Oslo City Hall. As more than one speaker emphasised - the future of the Internet can only be shaped by all of us together.
Comments 0