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ISOC urges Internet Governance Forum to spur spread of the Internet
Reston, VA and Geneva, Switzerland - 30th October 2006 - Spurring the deployment of the Internet should be at the heart of the discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens Greece this week. The Forum has a unique opportunity to substantively address a range of issues central to the greater deployment of the Internet including the challenges and opportunities in access, openness and the free flow of information, multilingualism and security.
With an overarching theme of development and capacity building, the Internet Governance Forum should contribute to the deployment and increased usage of the Internet around the globe, and particularly in developing nations.
"Internet deployment and access can contribute to economic development and human capacity building but the vast majority of individuals across the world face fundamental challenges in terms of bandwidth availability, cost of both network access and Internet capable terminals, and the lack of local content," said Lynn St.Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society. "Let this be a meeting about spurring the deployment of the Internet. We have an unprecedented opportunity to sit down and look at some challenging issues that impact the spread of the Internet - we should do so collaboratively and in the spirit of sharing experiences and best practices, with a commitment to bringing the Internet to everyone."
The Internet Society has supported the Internet Governance Forum from its inception in Tunis at the conclusion of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 through funding, through participating in the Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group, and through sponsoring speakers, workshop panelists and participants for the Athens meeting.
"The participants in the IGF will be addressing some of the most serious roadblocks in the way of more universal Internet deployment. Solutions exist, if the will is there, and if we all keep focused on the objective of maximizing access," Ms. St.Amour said. "It is all too easy to politicize these discussions and focus on arcane topics of little benefit to the individual user. It is far harder to take constructive action."
The Internet Society has organized, along with key partners, two workshops for the Internet Governance Forum meeting in Athens:
- Participation Workshop on increasing developing country participation in organizations responsible for the management and administration of the Internet: www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/IGFworkshop061031.pdf
- Building Local Access Workshop on local, national and regional infrastructure deployment, regulatory environments and capacity building approaches for driving ICTs in developing nations: www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/docs/IGFworkshop061030.pdf
About ISOC
The Internet Society is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in
1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and other Internet-related bodies who together play a critical role in ensuring that the Internet develops in a stable and open manner. For over 14 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time.
For further details
Peter Godwin
Communications Manager, Internet Society
E-mail: godwin@isoc.org
4, rue des Falaises
1205 Geneva
Switzerland
