On June 25, a regular general meeting of the Internet Technology Center Regional Public Organization (ROCIT) was held. It was chaired by Leonid Levin, chairman of the State Duma Committee for Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, and chairman of the ROCIT Board. The meeting participants discussed issues related to the organization’s activities. As a result, Leonid Levin was re-elected as ROCIT Chairman for the next five years. The meeting participants also elected a new board, while the director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, Andrey Vorobyev, was re-elected as a board member.
Mr. Levin noted that over the past few years ROCIT had proven itself as an organization that unites internet experts and digital enthusiasts in order to protect the interests of Russian users. ROCIT, based on constant cooperation with Runet hotline users, takes an active part in discussing the relevant legislative initiatives and represents Russian users’ interests in international organizations involved in internet governance.
“The global network is evolving towards further expansion, and its ecosystem is becoming more autonomous. In this situation, our format for a digital public organization is becoming more necessary to protect people’s rights and freedoms. This helps ROCIT swiftly monitor society’s needs and respond effectively to the problems,” Levin said. Levin also said that ROCIT, as the founder of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, has been progressively protecting the position that a non-commercial organization should regulate national domains in Russia with consideration for the opinions of all interested parties. Thanks to the active position of ROCIT and other public organizations, it has been possible to ideologically preserve and formalize this approach to governing Russian ccTLDs in the recently approved law on “a reliable internet.” Levin emphasized that “the state should participate in ccTLD governance but only as one of the parties, while disallowing the monopolization of the national domain space.”
The meeting participants also discussed ROCIT’s participation in the governance and further development of the .ДЕТИ gTLD. They noted that the specialized domain zone could serve as a foundation for a children’s internet. ROCIT has experience in implementing educational projects, including those designed for very young internet users. It was decided to propose that ROCIT take part in the governance of .ДЕТИ registry: the Smart Internet Foundation supporting internet initiatives.
ROCIT has organized a range of events to promote Runet, including by increasing internet users’ skills. The meeting participants noted that it was important to hold more practical and less formal, or bureaucratic events, which address three key issues: to inform users of the advantages of internet technologies, to increase user skills in the digital economy, and to provide information security.
“For many years ROCIT and the Coordination Center have held important national events to promote IT technologies. It is hard to overestimate the significance of these because school and university students are the main audience and participants in most of these events. I believe that the main goal of my work on the ROCIT Board is to provide the children and teenage audience with new opportunities to find out as much as possible about the global network and the safety rules. The young generation’s digital skills are the foundation of a safer internet in the future, and this is one of our organizations’ main goals,” Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ Andrey Vorobyev said.
