This year the IGF troupe heads to the beaches of João Pessoa, Brazil, where the 10th annual meeting of the Forum will be held from 10 to 13 November. The overarching theme for this edition is “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development”. Under this general moto, a number of different subjects will be covered, including Cybersecurity and Trust; Internet Economy; Inclusiveness and Diversity; Openness; Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation; Internet and Human Rights; Critical Internet Resources and Emerging Issues.
Telefonica will be there with a mixed team of our local operations, Vivo, and our corporate Telefonica, S.A. based in Madrid.
This year we expect interesting debates around the issue of Net Neutrality and Zero Rating, the way to connect more and more citizens to the Internet and procedural matters for next IGF editions (if the UN GA decides to prolong the IGF further, something nobody doubts), more precisely about the kind of outputs this Forum may have, if any, and the way to adopt them.
During the last months groups of interested stakeholders have been very busy at preparing documents as Outputs from the Dynamic Coalitions, Draft Documents from the IGF Best Practice Forums and also an interesting and very comprehensive document on Policy Options for Connecting the Next Billion. All of them will be presented and discussed during the next days.
On Monday, during the so-called “Zero day”, a good number of sessions will attract the attention of the attendees. Just to name three of them, there will be one organized by the Government of Brazil, “Social Role of Communications and Strengthening Freedom of Expression”, another by the Italian Chamber of Deputies, “Internet Bill of Rights” and a promising “High Level Leaders Meeting”.
This time Telefonica co-organizes a workshop together with ASIET and the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information entitled “Digital Economy in Latam and its Sustainable Development (Tuesday 10 November from 16:00-17:30, room 4). You are more than welcome to attend it in person or, if you are not travelling to Brazil, via remote participation.
Our Public Policy team will keep you updated along this week. Follow us in our blog and in Twitter (@tefpublicpolicy).