On June 21, the section, Internet in Your Native Language: Universal Acceptance, opened a series of seven online events of the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance (SEEDIG). This is the seventh SEEDIG conference and second held online. The event is one in a series of regional forums on internet governance.
Experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ took part in the section, moderated by Dusan Stojicevic (Gransy). Coordination Center head analyst Maria Kolesnikova spoke about the fields of work of the local initiative devoted to Universal Acceptance in the CIS countries and Eastern Europe. Among them are technical support and cooperation with developers, system administrators, hosting providers and mail service providers, as well as the involvement of research and businesses circles, state agencies and end users in the process of the introduction of UA.
Maria Kolesnikova also noted the importance of building dialogue with state regulators on Universal Acceptance as part of the efforts to preserve the local culture and identity, promotion of the use of a country’s official language on the global network and providing better communications with its citizens. “The governments play an important role in introducing UA, because they serve as an example and create demand for products that support UA, plus they develop policies designed to reach readiness for Universal Acceptance,” she added.
Among the discussion participants also were Mark William Datysgeld (ICANN), Kristina Hakobyan (ISOC AM) and Dijana Milutinovic (RNIDS). Participants in this section emphasized that Universal Acceptance remains one of the leading concepts of the future internet: according to the UN, 3 billion new users will join the global network, and most of them will use non-Latin fonts. The introduction of Universal Acceptance will make the online environment user-friendly. The only way to deal with technical issues and to overcome administrative obstacles is to boost cooperation between all stakeholder groups.
