Researchers from the Imagining the Internet Center conducted a video survey of Global Internet Governance Forum participants in Brazil in November, 2015, recording interviews with people from dozens of countries and various stakeholder groups about the ongoing evolution of the Internet. Use the video viewer to see their responses. Click on the first video to begin a player that will cycle through all visible on this page or click on those you wish to view. To see additional videos, click on the numbers at the end of the video column to display additional videos – there are dozens more than you see here. The question on this page:
HOPE: What is your greatest hope for the future of the Global Internet Governance Forum – what should it ideally accomplish for the world?
Among the respondents are leaders involved with the Association for Progressive Communications, the Council of Europe, ICC Basis, the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group, Internet Engineering Task Force, ICANN and the Internet Society and business and non-governmental organization leaders from dozens of global regions/countries.
Background:
Since 2006 the United Nations has facilitated global Internet Governance Forum meetings to encourage discussion of issues. IGF is one of the World Summit on the Information Society efforts toward sustainable development. The IGF does exert any overt control over the Internet. Those tasks are taken on by many other global multistakeholder organizations, including the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), all of which consist of people who are continuing to evolve an open network on which more and more people can exchange a widening range of communications.
The Internet of 2015 is complex and becoming more chaotic. It is estimated that more than 3 billion of the world’s more than 7 billion people have access to the Internet.
As Internet accessibility, quality of service and responsivness becomes more and more vital to day-to-day actions, entrenched institutions and newly rising organizations are challenged to identify and navigate intertwined threats and opportunities.
Global politics and everyone’s social and economic futures are weighing heavily in the balance of the decision-making of the multistakeholder organizations that have influence over the future evolution of the Internet.
Many additional global organizations are continually working to assess how their involvement might move the future forward in concert with the technical organizations for positive change, thus the Global Internet Governance Forum is at a turning point in its own evolution in 2015.
People who participated in answering the survey questions include:
Vint Cerf, vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Google, United States; Wolfgang Kleinwächter, professor of Internet Policy and Regulation, University of Aarhus, Denmark; Shita Laksmi, Freedom of Expression Program development manager, Humanist Institute for Cooperation (HIVOS), Indonesia; Mohit Saraswat, founding member of the ISOC United Arab Emirates chapter; Markus Kummer, member, ICANN board of directors, Switzerland; Raúl Echeberria, vice president of global engagement, the Internet Society, Uruguay;
Mary Uduma, president of the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA); Janis Mažeiks, permanent representative of Latvia to the United Nations; Mark Svancarek, principal program manager, Microsoft, United States; Wanawit Ahkuputra, deputy executive director, Electronic Transactions Development Agency, Thailand; Julia Reda, member of the European Parliament (Germany);
Arsene Tungali Baguma, member, the Internet Society Ambassadors Program, Democratic Republic of Congo; Emilar Gandhi, Africa project policy coordinator, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), South Africa; Nicolas Seidler, policy advisor, The Internet Society, Switzerland; Silvia Hagen, CEO, Sunny Connection Consulting, Switzerland; Juliana Rosas, Secretaria de Estado, Comunicacao Institucional (Brazil); John More, council member, Greater DC Chapter of Internet Society, United States;
João Paulo Martins, sub-coordinator of promotion and events for PBTur, Brazil; Lee Hibbard, Internet policy coordinator, Council of Europe (France); Sonigitu Asibong Ekpe, member of the ministry of agriculture and natural resources, Nigerian State Government; Pierre Bonis, deputy CEO, The French Information Network Centre (AFNIC); Hoi Yan Wong, member, Hong Kong’s Youth Online; Godfrey Twesigye, CEO, The Unwanted Witness, Uganda; Giovanna De Minico, professor at the Universita degli Studi di Napoli Federico II (Italy); Juan Diego Castañeda Gomez, researcher, Karisma Foundation (Columbia);
Tawany Fernandes, volunteer, IGF (Brazil); Tamyrrys Fernandes, volunteer, IGF (Brazil); Lucas Belmont, student, Lucas Belmont, student, Academia Nacional de Estudos Transnacionais, Brazil; Rafik Dammak, computer engineer, NTT Communications, Tunisia; Viviane Vinagre, student, Academia Nacional de Estudos Transnacionals, Brazil; John Carr, secretary, Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety (United Kingdom); Marcelo Paes de Carvalho, executive director, Incartaz;
Subi Chaturvedi, member, MAG United Nations for IGF, India; Patrick Curry, director, British Business Federation Authority (United Kingdom); Jack Deasy, director of government business development, O3b Networks, United States; Ingo Friese, research engineer and project manager, Telekom Innovation Laboratories, Germany; Gonzalo Navarro, member, ICANN board of directors, Chile; Oreste Pollicino, associate professor of law, Bocconi University (Italy); Gregory John Ryan, project coordinator, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, Brazil;
Claudio Furtado, president, Paraiba Research Foundation, Brazil; Sgt. Frank Pace, City of Phoenix Police Department (United States); Robin Gross, executive director, IP Justice United States; Bouziane Zaid, undergraduate studies coordinator, Al Akhawayn University (Morcco); Manu Bhardwaj, senior political advisor on technology and Internet policy, Office of the Under Secretary of State of the U.S. State Department (United States); Dominic Bellone, program officer, Freedom House, United States; Courtney Radsch, advocacy director, Committee to Protect Journalists, United States;
Marta Ortega, Peru manager, ONGAWA, Engineering for Human Development (Peru); Michiel Steltman, director, Digital Infrastructure Netherlands (DINL); Belinda Exelby, head of international relations, Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), United Kingdom; René Arnold, department head, WIK-Consult, Germany; Shreedeep Rayamajhi, ISOC ambassador for the IGF, Nepal; Tunde Muskibau Akanni, lecturer, Lagos State University (Nigeria); Arthur Gwagwa, senior research fellow, Open Technology Fund, Kenya; Rahul Gosain, director, Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) for the Government of India;
Anna Masera, spokesperson, Italian Parliament; Mary Uduma, president, Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA); Olga Cavalli, director, South School on Internet Governance, Argentina; Andrea Saks, chairperson of joint coordination activity on accessibility and human factors at the International Telecommunications Union, United States; Dominique Lazanski, public policy director, Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA), United Kingdom; Robert Mambwe, assistant director of IT, Zambia Police Service; Carlos Guerrero, member,Youth IGF Project, Brazil;
Hugo Bezerra Mendes, employee, Polícia Militar da Paraíba (Brazil); Sara Saeed, COO, doctHERs, Pakistan; Ana Beatrize Lemos, student, Centro Universitario de João Pessoa (Brazil); Hasanul Haq Inu, minister of information, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh; Mubashir Hassan, general secretary, ISOC Pakistan Islamabad Chapter; Amit Ben Arieh, field service engineer of satellite communications, Orbit, Israel; Marianne Franklin, professor of global media and politics at Goldsmiths, University of London (United Kingdom); Malcolm Hutty, head of public affairs, London Internet Exchange (LINX), United Kingdom;
Helga Mieling, national coordinator, Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology; Benoît Thieulin, president, French Digital Council (France); Fabiano de Moras, student, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil; David NG, director of community development for DotAsia Organisation (Hong Kong); Sandro Barros, general director O3b Networks, Brazil; Pedro Vilela Resende, member of the Youth IGF Project (Brazil); Aditi Gupta, project coordinator for Global Partners Digital, United Kingdom; Courtney Radsch, advocacy director, Committee to Protect Journalists, United States;
Nii Narku Quaynor, founding chairman of AfriNIC, the African Internet numbers registry, Ghana; Omar Mansoor Ansari, president, TechNation, Afghanistan; Rodrigo de la Parra, vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean at ICANN (Uruguay); Steve Crocker, chair of the ICANN board of directors; Alex Gakuru, regional coordinator for Africa, Creative Commons (Kenya); Robin Gross, founder and executive director, IP Justice, United States;
Joseph Alhadeff, vice president for global public policy, Oracle, United States; Danny O’Brien, international director, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), United Kingdom; Olivier Crépin-Leblond, vice chair at ICANN At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), United Kingdom; Christian Singer, director, Austria’s Ministry of Transport, Austria; Garland McCoy, founder and president, Technology Education Institute, United States; Hernan Vales, human rights officer, United Nations (Argentina); Milton Mueller, public policy professor, Georgia Tech (United States); Christian Möller, media researcher, The Information Society (Germany); Michael Oghia, ambassador, ISOC-IGF (Turkey); David Gross, partner, Wiley Rein LLP United States).
– Global Internet Governance Forum 2015 video interviews were conducted by Michael Bodley, Leena Dahal, Gary Grumbach, Jacob LaPlante, Paige Pauroso and Jackie Pascale, undergraduate researchers from Elon University’s School of Communications, under the supervision of Kenn Gaither, Aaron Moger and Janna Anderson of the Imagining the Internet Center.