I had the opportunity to be in Mexico as part of a group of colleagues from diverse sectors – governments, civil society, the technical and business communities, and academia – who came together in order to organize the first edition of “Dialogues on Internet Governance”, held in the city of Mexico on November 4-5.
It was a pleasure to be a host in my own country, welcoming so many colleagues from sectors as diverse as the business and technical communities, governments, academia, international organizations and civil society, who came together for two days to discuss the future of Internet governance. Clearly, this meeting did not just address the multistakeholder model – it also succeeded in putting it into practice. This initiative was conceived in this spirit, in line with the logic of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) – the largest global initiative to give a voice to all stakeholders – and it is also in this spirit that the “Initiative Group” encouraged these dialogues.
During the event, which featured prestigious national and international speakers, I showed a video that Fadi recorded specially for the occasion, highlighting multistakeholderism as a recommended practice and thanking Mexico for leading this initiative. Watch Fadi’s video (in English) here.
For my part, I underscored that multistakeholderism was ICANN’s founding principle, and this principle continues to be innovative despite the hurdles we may find along the way – which we can overcome if we work together. What counts is to be able to listen to one another, have a space to exchange ideas and understand that, even though our views may differ, all stakeholders aim at preserving this great collaborative invention of humanity: the Internet.
The event had great on-site and remote participation (in just one hour, there were 350 tweets with tags about the meeting). It addressed topics related to the Internet Governance Forum and its local/regional versions, intellectual property and open access, freedom of expression and human rights, massive surveillance, the Telecommunications Reform in Mexico, the TPP and the global summit to be held in Brazil in 2014, among others. These are some interesting tags I recommend if you want to learn about the debates held in these two days: #gobernanzadeinternet; #IGFMX; #GobIntMX.
I would like to thank the Multistakeholder Initiative Group for organizing the Dialogues. Special thanks go to Oscar Robles and Manuel Haces from NIC.MX for their contributions to this significant initiative that concerns us all.
