[governance] Fwd: [Pacific IGF] Pacific IGF - Draft summary - Part 1 - Sessions 1&2, Saturday Morning

Sat Apr 9 01:25:02 EDT 2011

This was our morning session at the PIGF.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Keith Davidson <keith at internetnz.net.nz>
Date: Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 3:42 PM
Subject: [Pacific IGF] Pacific IGF - Draft summary - Part 1 - Sessions 1&2,
Saturday Morning
To: IGF-Pacific at googlegroups.com

Pacific IGF Saturday 9 April 2011 -
Opening Session

*1.           **Keith Davidson introduction*

Keith welcomed people to the Forum and introduced Dr Jimmie Rogers.

*2.           **Dr Jimmie Rogers – SPC Director General*

Dr Rogers opened proceedings with a prayer. He explained the background of
the SPC facility in which the IGF is being held.

In his opening statement, Dr Rogers made a broad survey over the
opportunities and challenges the Internet poses for the Pacific, and the
potential it offers as a tool for development.

SPC's role is limited in the Internet area, as it is mainly a zone for
private sector innovation. Provides a platform in partnership to assist the
development process.

He highlighted an MOU signed with NetSafe in New Zealand, to help members of
the Pacific community develop a safer Internet.

A challenge he posed is how to make sure the Pacific voice is heard globally
in the Internet arena.

Keith thanked Dr Rogers for his address, and asked him to pass on to the SPC
staff his thanks for the organisation of the event.

Keith noted the history of the IGF, where at the end of the 1990s the
cross-cutting nature of many core Internet issues were becoming clear – but
where there were no proper forums to address them.

The WSIS process led to the first global IGF in Greece in 2006. The first
agreed cycle of five is complete, and a sixth is being held this year. They
have become a very useful forum for discussion of a wide range of Internet
governance issues, and have spread to be held in national and regional
domains as well.

They allow policymakers and others to discuss the issues they face and work
out ways to tackle these that aren't always based on regulation or
legislation in the first instance.

Keith welcomed the other keynote speakers for the event, and then handed
over to Peter Dengate-Thrush.

*3.           **Peter Dengate-Thrush – Chair of ICANN*

Peter's presentation summarised the origins of the Internet, the basis of
the IP address and top level domain name allocation, the origins of ICANN as
a multi-stakeholder governance body for Internet resource allocation,
ICANN's structure, the recent activity of ICANN (IDNs and security, among
other things) and an important highlight on what ICANN does not do (deal
with content).

Peter also spent some time discussing in depth recent changes to ICANN's
relationship with the United States government, the progress in implementing
IDNs which allow countries to have domain names completely in their own
script rather than having to use Latin scripts, the implementation of new
global Top Level Domains, and the exhaustion of the IPv4 address space.

Keith thanked Peter for his presentation, and introduced the third speaker
Don Hollander.

*4.           **Don Hollander – Citizen*

“A day in the life of an ICT-enabled village.”

Don's presentation outlined the many uses of ICT that have become available
in the village setting, from small businesses, to healthcare, to church, to
connections with relatives far away, to shop stock management.  Presentation
was first given in a similar form to a meeting of Pacific ICT ministers in
Wellington in 2006.

The vision of five years ago is becoming real across the Pacific, with the
Internet a fundamental driver.  Opportunities remain to manage and govern
the Internet well enough to serve the people.  But opportunity is already
there.

Keith thanked Don for his presentation, and noted that the Internet is not
yet everywhere.  While there is faster and more available Internet, new
issues need to be confronted along with the rollout.  A whole host of public
policy issues arise: freedom of expression, fighting SPAM, free association,
the need for outreach and so on.

As many problems in front of us as there are behind.

The IGF allows people to share experiences and develop their own solutions:
developing new ideas and new approaches is the point of this event.

The panels will be short and provocative, and then allow time for questions
and discussion and the sharing of ideas.

Keith also noted that he was apologetic that the organisation of the IGF had
not been necessarily done through a multi-stakeholder process – the time was
not available to allow for this.

Second Session: Internet Access for All

*5.           **Maureen Hilyard - Introduction*

Maureen introduced herself and her speakers, and gave a briefing about what
PICISOC is – the Pacific chapter of the global Internet Society. Represent
22 countries with 681 members. They support the Pacific IGF to foster
exchange of views, promote learning & understanding, and look to best
practices & solutions.

A collective Pacific voice is needed in the international forums – and this
Pacific IGF gives the opportunity for such a voice to be developed.

Universal access is a key theme for PicISOC – getting services to unserved
or underserved people. Webb Henderson report analysed range of policies in
place across the Pacific – mixed. Lack of liberalisation feeds into lack of
access.

*6.           **Gunela Astbrink – Leveraging technology to give voice and
reach for people with disabilities*

Gunela comes from ISOC-AU in Australia.

In summary, the presentation noted the scale of disability in the region
(around 800,000 in the Pacific) and that the response to guarantee social
inclusion and respect has to be broadly based.  Technology provides many
opportunities for people to be included, to communicate with each other and
to continue with education, for example, independently.

In discussion:

·   Are there any heartening success stories?  No portfolio of success
stories yet assembled in the region.

·   How has ISOC-AU affected standards on these issues? Gunela outlined a
range of examples.

·   Cochlear video conferencing analysis in Samoa – suitable when 1mbps
connectivity available, saving travel.

*7.           **Ian Thomson – on seeding remote access*

Ian has a background working practically in the Pacific, including helping
roll out OLPC.

Key points:

·   It's not about the technology

·   It's not about the money

·   Multi-stakeholder approaches take time, but donors are often focused on
demonstrating short-run success.

·   Target should be on everyone to be involved – not simply particular
chosen services. This creates the widest possible ecosystem of interest,
leading to most support.

·   Lots of trials and pilots have been done, but very few have scaled up.
Not appropriate to do more pilots and trials; focus needs to be on rapidly
scaling up. Need to just get on and do it.

Maureen thanked Ian for his presentation, and noted her regret there aren't
more Governments present here, to hear the message about going from trials
to mass rollout.

*Discussion*

·   In Fiji, there is a universal service programme funded by international
call minutes. It's one thing to legislate it, but even post-liberalisation,
there is a lack of follow through to access deficit reduction. Inconsistent
policy a real issue, creates difficulties across the islands.

·   Cook Islands and Palau have 100% connectivity. It's not impossible but
it is difficult.

·   It's not about the money but it is about the financing (Vanuatu) – hard
to collate demand and funds in the face of inter-agency competition etc.

·   Is there an opportunity for the private sector to be an intermediary
between departments to get them working together?  This is the traditional
role for the operators.

·   Change requires commitment from senior people in government to agree and
push it through.

·   Scaling up not working but already understood? From a social science
perspective, the particular situation of each country is important, and is
the key to maximise benefits and mitigating problems. No silver bullet, and
a case-by-case approach is needed.

·   Cook Islands perspective: the outer islands have been done by Telecom
Cook Islands. Benefits to health and education services. Health – saving
costs of travel of up to $4k a return trip, for basic analysis and
diagnosis. Greater teacher training opportunities too.

·   Airport Authority perpsective – interagency negotiations agreed as an
issue. Points of demarcation and interactions with different agencies in the
terminal has been an interesting negotiation.

·   Solomons – Distance Learning Centre example, a packet network: problem
with ongoing costs once material installed. Schools didn't have enough
users; technology failures too. Solomons Telecom assisting in improving the
service.

<LUNCH>
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