The 16th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held on December 6-10 in Katowice, Poland, in a hybrid format. The main topic of the forum is Internet United. The program includes more than 250 sessions and traditionally addresses the most pressing problems of our time: socioeconomic integration and human rights, Universal Acceptance, market regulation, environment and climate, inclusion and digital collaboration, trust, security and stability.
Experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ are largely involved in IGF 2021.
Chief Analyst of the Coordination Center Maria Kolesnikova will take part in the session titled How Can We Achieve a Multilingual Internet? on December 8. The session will focus on the role of Universal Acceptance as a key driver for a multilingual internet. Participants will try to answer questions about what a multilingual internet is, what makes it multilingual, what obstacles make its development difficult and whether there are examples of successfully overcoming these obstacles. Participants will also give their recommendations on the next steps to creating a multilingual internet.
The session will begin on Wednesday, December 8 at 5.35 p.m. Moscow time.
Youth Projects Curator of the Coordination Center, Ilona Stadnik, will make a presentation during the round table Rising to Current Challenges Facing Schools of IG on December 9. Ilona Stadnik will talk about the results of the Russian Summer School on Internet Governance organized in 2020 and 2021, and will share her experience of conducting online school classes and events. Participants will share their experience in organizing internet governance schools in their countries. They will discuss how to improve internet governance and what capacity-building tools and mechanisms are needed for interested parties to effectively collaborate and participate in the internet governance.
The session will begin on Thursday, December 9 at 3.50 p.m. Moscow time.
On December 10, the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ and the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) will host the session Universal Acceptance for Wider Access through Collaboration, which Maria Kolesnikova will moderate. The main topic will be socioeconomic integration and human rights. In this session, participants will address issues related to social inequality and the pandemic: what did we learn, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, about the relationship between digital inequality and socioeconomic inequality? What lessons can be learned regarding the pandemic and internet-related human rights? What does this say about strategic approaches to digitalization and digital integration?
Speakers will also pay attention to inclusivity, rights, roles and responsibilities of interested parties. For example, what should be the responsibilities of governments, businesses, the technical community and civil society, academic and research sectors, actors at the community level in relation to digital inclusivity and attention to human rights; and, finally, what is needed to effectively and efficiently carry out existing tasks.
The session will begin on December 10 at 11:30 a.m. Moscow time.
Register for IGF 2021 and join the live streams from the forum halls. Welcome!
