The first preparatory meeting for the 2011 Internet Governance Forum has ended with a significant degree of uncertainty thanks to…
Blog Read MoreHaving spent the past three days grumbling and moaning about the Internet Governance Forum 2010, I pre-decided it was time…
Blog Read MoreIf you were to list Internet conferences in terms of boredom, the IGF would come mid to top-table. It doesn’t…
Blog Read MoreI was the remote moderator for two workshops at the IGF today: Digital inclusion: reaching the most socially excluded people…
Blog Read MoreVilnius is the capital of Lithuania. And Lithuania is north-east of Poland and underneath Finland. In an exhibition center on…
Blog Read MoreI posted the video of the United Nations’ representative Sha Zukang losing it about a week ago but forgot to…
Blog Read MoreSo I’m sat in the opening ceremony of the Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh – a cosy cinema…
Blog Read MoreI am leaving my job as general manager of public participation for ICANN on 25 November. Yesterday, the COO sent…
Blog Read MoreI was at the United Nations in Geneva last week to watch what was happening to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as it prepares for its third outing, this December in Hyderabad, India.
Actually I was there for a different reason – an ICANN consultative meeting on the future of the organization the morning before the UN meeting – but it seemed daft to fly all that way and not check out the day of open discussions about the IGF. Plus I have a real soft spot for the IGF and the people that have worked extremely hard to make it a success.
I was a witness to the IGF’s creation, on paper, at the World Summit on the Information Society back in 2005, and then followed it all the way through various preparatory sessions as a reporter.
At the inaugural IGF in Athens, I was asked to be the conference’s “blogger-in-chief” – a position that, ironically enough, my current employer tried to veto. As a semi-official part of the IGF, I also got to see behind the scenes, and was impressed with the hard work, dedication and calm handling of what was an enormous and risky experiment. A lot of people at the time confessed to turning up just to see what would happen – spectators to what could have been the biggest diplomatic car crash for a decade. In the end, despite the odds, it shone through.
Blog Read MoreIf anyone ever wondered whether the Internet was vital, or if the new Internet Governance Forum suffered from a lack…
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