Transcript - Internet Governance Plenary

Kuo-Wei Wu: On this panel, we are talking about Internet governance. The purpose of this Internet governance panel is because, as you know, on 6 to 9 November, there will be UN IGF meeting in Baku and so for the Asia Pacific region, as I know, there is actually we run the Asia Pacific regional IGF in Tokyo this July, and I think it's a very good time for us in the APNIC meeting to have this panel too to allow the APNIC community to follow the process and also prepare to participate for the IGF Baku meetings.

Before I go on, I try to go on some of the administration stuff and to let you know how I'm going to run this panel.

First of all, I will make a very quick introduction for 3 minutes and then the panelists will be asked the questions. He or she, when I ask him or her a question, he have only 8 minutes to present whatever the comment or his answer is.

After the panelist I'm asking, I will invite at most two other panelists to comment or answer the question, have some dialogue on the stage.

For each of them is only 2 minutes. Thank you very much for the APNIC arrangement. I have a timer here.

In the Tokyo meeting, I don't have a timer, so I use my iPhone as a timer, moving around to each panelist.

Then after we finish the whole session for five panelists and then we maybe have another roughly 15 to 20 minutes left, and then I'm more than happy to open to the floor if any people, audience, any participants from the floor, if you like to dialogue or question or comment with panelists, you are welcome and come to the microphone over here. From the floor, please keep your comment or question as short as possible. I will try to manage each participant on the floor. You can speak for 90 seconds.

So we can finish in 90 minutes precisely, so you can go for lunch. Of course, before you go for lunch, I will invite Sunny to come up with some registration follow-up. This is basically the format I'm going to run.

Before I do that, I would like to introduce you to the panelists on the stage. The first is Raul Echeberria. I think everybody knows him. Does anybody not know who Raul is? He is the CEO of LACNIC and also he's a former Chair of ISOC. He has so many titles.

I can talk about his titles for at least 10 minutes. He was the WGIG member and he is a MAG member in IGF still.

The next one actually is Peng Hwa Ang, who is actually from Singapore. He is a professor from Nanyang University. He actually does research. He has a research centre and at the same time, he was the WGIG member also. If you have a question about the WGIG report, these two persons you can complain around, you can go to the microphone and complain what the WGIG report looks like.

The next one of course you know. He is the main host of this meeting, Paul Wilson. He is CEO of APNIC and I just knew he is appointed as a MAG member of IGF I think from this year.

Then the next one is Duangthip. I try to pronounce whole name, but she told me "Thip" is good enough. She is from ISOC and she is located in Bangkok, Thailand.

The last one is Sunil. Sunil actually is Centre for Internet Society from India. I think we have a wonderful geographic distribution.

So those are the panelists and so I will start my panel.

The first question I will go to Raul, since he's one of the most senior ones in the Internet governance from WGIG and also he communicates with ITU so often in IGF, almost every time.

So the first question I really like to ask Raul is, as you were one of the WGIG members for 2004 and 2005, how did those issues concentrate and come out with outcome as what we see from the WGIG report? Also I like to ask another question, since he's MAG member of IGF and as you know, the IGF is kind of the platform for the people, the multi-stakeholder to do the communications, but I think some of the people know, some people not really enjoy the platform, just talk, no solutions.

Raul, can you comment a little bit about the WGIG and also the IGF process.

Raul Echeberria: Thank you very much and thank you to APNIC for inviting me to be here in this panel, with such distinguished colleagues on the table.

First of all, I would like to say that everybody knows who you are, Kuo-Wei too. But the WGIG work was a very interesting experience, it was the first time, as far as I know, that a multi-stakeholder group was formed under UN umbrella for doing an intense work about Internet governance.

It was very interesting, because everybody had to learn from each other's experiences. The level of the discussion was very good. At the beginning, I felt that we were just trying to explain to the others how things work on the Internet, but the quality of discussion was increasing every day.

Many people think that the most controversial issues at that time were issues related with the root server management or root zone file management. My view is a little different. I think that the most controversial issues at that time -- and it explains a bit why we have not had more agreements in the last few years -- the most controversial issues were those related with human rights.

So I remember some -- I have some anecdotes that I will not share now, because of the time constraint, but that illustrate very well what I'm saying.

I think in the last few years what we have seen is exactly that, is conflicting views about the value of human rights and how the society should be organised and what is the role of governments in the society.

So when we see some governments that have in the real life previous to the Internet, already had views, specific views on how the government should control many activities or how the government should manage many activities, even restricting the human rights because human rights are seen as something limited to the bigger good of the society.

The same concepts are expressed when we discuss about the Internet. This is the reason, because while those conflicting views remain in the world, we will continue having different views about how the Internet should be managed or how things should work on the Internet.

Another thing that I see that is influencing very much the discussion on Internet governance is the dispute, the leadership dispute in the world.

There are many countries that are disputing every day the US leadership, for example. Especially those, the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, China and India, are disputing the leadership and so they want to show also in this field that they have their own views and they are not comfortable just with following the routes that are dictated from other parts of the world.

Also, we can see other countries that would like to be part of or want to be part of this group, like South Africa, for example, that also are part of this dispute.

I think that the Internet governance field is a safer field for having those discussions than other organizations.

For example, if you have strong arguments with other countries in WTO, for example, probably you will have to pay some consequences, because your trade with those countries will be affected in some way. I think that the Internet governance is a field that has been very appropriate for showing this dispute of leadership in the world, because there are not very much consequences, political consequences of those discussions.

Those two things, I think, the different views on the society as a whole and human rights and the views about the leadership in the world, are influencing very much the discussion. I don't think that we will have full agreements on the most important points while those disagreements remain in place.

Kuo-Wei Wu: In that case, I would like to ask another question for you: Since we already have IGF platform, what is the relationship with IGF and eventually by the end of the year is WCIT? That is also an UN activity, what is the relationship between that, or no relationship at all?

Raul Echeberria: I think they are two different processes.

IGF is a very useful platform and even for those that probably criticise IGF, it is also a useful platform and even the fact that no resolutions are taken there, it is clear that the international agenda on Internet governance is settled in IGF environment.

So we discuss in IGF the things that will be discussed later in every organization around the world, so it is a very useful place and a contention box for disagreements.

We have seen strong discussions, like, for example, the one on IFSA proposal last year and even the fact that no resolution was taken, it was very influential, the discussion that took place in IGF for defining the future of that proposal.

WCIT is a very different process and we could talk -- I only have one minute -- it is a different process. I think that the same as I said before, the different views about the society as a whole, this is what justified proposals that come from China, Russia and other countries that -- in fact what they are saying is that this is the way they see the world. So this is the way in which they would like to see Internet working. That it is clearly a different view than the one that we have on the same issues.

Since WCIT is consensus based process, because it is a binding conference the outcomes of which should be ratified later in every member state, I don't think that we will see those proposals, extreme proposals gaining too much support in that environment, so I'm very sceptical in the sense that they could be approved.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Does any panelist want to comment or add a question to Raul?

Raul Echeberria: I deserve congratulations. I finished exactly at 00.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Right now is for panelist, if you have any question for Raul, you have 2 minutes. I will invite two of you.

Ang Peng Hwa: Raul, it's interesting, you are wearing a couple of hats. You are running an RIR and you have been president of ISOC. From those positions, your stakeholders within your organizations, are they satisfied with the IGF? Because talking to many people, many people want some kind of recommendation at least some kind of -- action is a bit too difficult to ask, probably, but at the very minimum, they want some recommendation. Maybe you can speak to us from the point of view of multiple hats that you are wearing.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Raul, you want to answer that?

Raul Echeberria: Yes, I think the answer to the first question is "yes". I think that the stakeholders are satisfied with IGF. I think at least I have not seen strong complaints from my region to IGF.

I think that what is becoming more and more important is the regional process and regional IGF preparatory meetings and I think that probably we will see in the next few years, more deep discussions in that level than in the IGF world itself. But I don't see pressure from my region except probably from Brazil that has made specific proposals, I don't see much pressure on having an IGF taking resolutions or making specific recommendations.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Any other comment? Paul, please.

Paul Wilson: I think a general comment on the IGF is that -- there's plenty to be said on IGF and WCIT as well, but I think it's important to put the IGF into context and to just think about why we're talking about it here. Because it did start 10 years ago, nearly, with the outcomes of the WSIS meeting in Geneva and at that time, it was seen that the Internet was important enough and it had enough reach and scope and that it had created a number of pretty serious governance issues and there was a general consensus, I think, that Internet governance had become an issue and I think we should bear in mind that 10 years nearly have gone by since then and the Internet is really very much larger than it was back then and that IGF has been with us during most of that time or half of that time helping a great deal with the way Internet issues are being handled.

I think it's important to have some perspective and to look at the IGF as a process that's ongoing and not just as an event that happens every year and an event, for instance, that should have some recommendations at the end of each event.

This is a long and complex process and it's one that will evolve over years and it has evolved over some years.

The IGF compared with the size of the Internet is really an extremely efficient institution, if you like.

One thing that struck me this year was the report from Boston Consulting Group, which valued the Internet economy by some of its own measures, the Internet economy in the G20 countries is big enough to put the Internet into the G20 and within four years of now, the Internet economy will be bigger than Germany's economy.

We are talking about a very large, a very significant amount of money and investment and interest there and I think it is absolutely reasonable that the IGF has chosen a solution to a number of issues, it will be ongoing and that, as Raul himself said, the issues of the Internet are going to change and they are going to change quite rapidly and continually.

The IGF, as a process that is ongoing, I think is an important understanding.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. The next panelist I would like to ask is Peng Hwa. Peng Hwa, of course, you are the WGIG member. Also, you are the founder of the Asia Pacific Regional IGF, and you have been the chair for three years already, and you run the Asia Pacific region IGF from Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

First of all, I would like to ask you, can you comment and also tell us what is the outcome of the Tokyo meetings? So that the participant to understand what is outcome from Tokyo meeting, the Asia Pacific meeting and how you are going to report this one in the IGF meeting in Baku. Please.

Ang Peng Hwa: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all about the APrIGF. The Asia Pacific regional IGF was started some years back now. I don't know if you guys were aware, but we were the last region to have a regional IGF. I was kind of shocked when I heard that we didn't have one, because I just assumed that something was happening and then I discovered that every region had had their own IGF and they were giving feedback to the IGF and especially -- that was a meeting in Sharm El Sheikh at IGF No. 4 and No. 5 will be the sort of the end and then you will have a new mandate.

So I got together with some people, I spoke to Paul and a few others and they directed me to Edmon Chung of DotAsia, the CEO of DotAsia, and that's how we kick-started this APrIGF.

The first meeting had quite a bit of support from the Government of Hong Kong, the CIO, Jeremy -- sorry I forgot his last name now, happened to meet Edmon at the airport in Oman, so travelling long distance can be quite useful, so they connected and they said how about doing this and they said, good idea, let's do it. So the first APrIGF took off with a big bang, I would say.

They called in Vint Cerf as well, they called Wolfgang Kleinbacker and then Edmon tacked on something called the youth IGG. I think we may have been the first region to have Youth IGF. Edmon has successfully carried it out. What happened was at the IGF camp and the youth role played the different roles of government, stakeholders, civil society, business, and then they have a competition to present to some judges at the end and the best groups would get to go to the IGF the following year.

So after I guess IGF in Hong Kong, they went to Vilnis, some in Singapore went to Nairobi and so forth.

So they have been going on, there will be some youth IGF activities as well at the next meeting at Baku.

So our Asia Pacific IGF, we have a slightly different vision, in the sense that our view is that we do want to carry on this work. We think it is important. We think it is important to spread the word to the next generation.

I don't know if it's sort of an Asian thing, but we are thinking of the next generation all the time, so we want to spread the seed there.

I think my own view is slightly different from what Paul and Raul have been saying about the IGF, in terms of a process and not necessarily having some kind of recommendation.

If you do any kind of venture, if you lead any kind of project, you do need some -- what the Americans would call low hanging fruit. You do need some short-term success. If you keep on doing the same thing and don't see results, people are going to drop off. So you do need some quick successes.

So I have been looking for some recommendations that we can bring to the table and the recommendations must come up sort of naturally, people must agree without it being forced.

So in this meeting in Tokyo, by chance, I will say, I mean, it really wasn't planned, it's a bottom-up process as you know, everybody gave input, we had a planning meeting, DotAsia supported the teleconferencing, so we all met on-line to talk about it. There were a couple of issues for which there was unanimity on the panel. I will give you two of them.

These are the two I will present to the IGF at the end of this year.

The first is IPv6. Everyone agrees that it is critical to deploy. It's very important to have in process. APNIC is fully aware of these issues in terms of propagating this information to the stakeholders and to the members.

We have done some surveys as well and of course our research scientist, Geoff Huston has been pushing the IPv6 message.

IPv6 is one issue that everybody agrees is important to work at and this requires, again, I mean in a way it's a beautiful problem, if there's such a thing, because it unites everybody. It's a problem we all agree needs to be worked on and when it is solved, everybody benefits. So it's a great problem in that way.

The second one is surprise, surprise, privacy for cloud computing. The panel was of the view that in order for cloud computing to work, we need to solve the privacy or actually I'm going to be a bit more technical, data protection issue. So these are two issues that it seems I can recommend to the IGF that the community can work on.

I don't know if you think it's really small steps, but that's what I meant when I said low hanging fruit, it's really low hanging fruit; you don't even have to jump to get at the fruit. It's there, stretch of the hand and it's there.

There's one more thing that in this Asia Pacific IGF that we did in Tokyo, and this is an experiment, this is ICT for disaster relief. You will know there was an earthquake off the coast of Japan, the tsunami that struck the north-eastern part of Japan's main island.

One of our members, Izumi, many of you know him, led a team to look at that. This discussion had begun last year in Singapore, as a small group meeting, a parallel session, talking about how to use ICT for disaster relief. How do you use mobile technology, how to use your SMSs, your Internet, Twitter and so forth.

Then this year, we were able to see for ourselves.

This group could grow big, because you can see the benefit of having this. It solves many problems. If you solve a problem like this, you will solve many problems. You would solve the problem of network congestion in case of national emergencies, situations where our technology that we are all familiar with can really save human lives so I think this area has room to grow.

Just to make some other minor observations. The IGF as I see it has what we call a soft power to recognise issues. I think the IGF is powerful in that way. It doesn't take action. It's just not designed to take action, because people will start too much of this political manoeuvring. But it has an important role to recognise issues. So I think when we bring up the issues of IPv6, of privacy for cloud computing, of ICT for disaster relief, especially in a time when we all acknowledge what is happening with this global warming, the effects of too much rain, too little rain and so forth, I think the IGF has a critical role and it can really move the industry and it can really benefit users.

The soft power to recognise issues is very significant for the IGF.

Okay. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Okay. Before I open for the panelists to come in about what Peng Hwa was talking about, actually, Peng Hwa prepared the slide and I'm sorry, I did not allow him to put a slide here, but you can go to the APNIC 34 meeting website to download his slide.

Does anyone want to comment about what Peng Hwa was talking about? Any one of you? Please, Sunil.

Sunil Abraham: I was just typing down the three recommendations from the APrIGF, IPv6, privacy for cloud computing and ICT for disaster relief. With the first two, the governance implication is clear. Usually there are laws or policies at least which ensure that appropriate action is taken. Did you think that ICT for disaster relief would also result in some form of formal governance or required some form of formal governance prescriptions?

Ang Peng Hwa: No. ICT for disaster relief would not be so much for that, but what it means is that you have to think about how you handle disasters. For example, in Japan, the disaster station actually became a trap, because it was on low ground so those people who went there actually drowned when the waves came because it was low ground, so you therefore need to set up your disaster relief stations and so forth, for example, on higher ground.

Of course, the power went down, so then you need to plan for how you have back-up power in a case where your power goes down. It's not so much the -- quote -- political governance issues, but more the engineering governance issues. I think the technical engineering part would be important. Governance covers a whole spectrum, not just one policy, but also the technical engineering aspects and clearly in this case, the engineering aspects would be important.

There may be some sort of policy in terms of, for example, sharing resources at a time when it is critical, so you need some rule needed to say that in emergency, for example, all the towers must be able to accept competitors' signals, for example, something like that. But otherwise, I see the main part of it is in this area as being somewhat more technically oriented, at least at this point in time.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Anyone want to comment or ask a question of Peng Hwa?

Duangthip Chomprang: You said that the IGF is actually a platform that possesses soft power in terms of exploring and recognising issues in Internet governance, which I think is accurate.

But the fact that it's soft power and this is Asia Pacific, how well can we position our Regional IGF to get more visibility to get people more involved? I know we do Youth IGF which I attended which was excellent, but I guess if we were to compare that with other Regional IGFs, how do we compare and whether we can do something more to create that.

Soft is good, but soft itself does have less -- I don't know, less oomph, to get people to understand what we do.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Peng Hwa, can you answer?

Ang Peng Hwa: Thip always gives me the hardest time of all. Calls herself a friend, but here we are.

Seriously, Thip, yes, actually, I have given much more thought to just getting these APrIGF going then comparing ourselves with the others. So maybe the next step should be to benchmark ourselves against the other IGFs.

I think I'm not looking so much at comparing ourselves with the other IGFs, Regional IGFs, because right now the big part of it is just getting people on board and like I said, I think to get people on board, you need to show some "quick successes", your low hanging fruits, to say, yes, you come away with something as opposed to, yes, we had another talk session.

Although, yes, I know there is the difficulties involved in trying to have recommendations, I think that there should be some quick successes, I think once that is done, then more people will come on board.

As for the Tokyo one, I think we are showing some substantive results, as well as having ICT for disaster relief, that will likely bring more people on board as well. I think if we pursue the track more good things will happen.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. The next one I would like to ask, Paul Wilson.

Paul, as you are the DG of APNIC and also the MAG member of the IGF this year, is any process or topic changing particularly in this year for the Baku meeting? At the same time, I would like to ask one more question.

As you are the DG of the APNIC, and you participate in many of the ITU meetings, what do you think about the WCIT and the ITR they are looking for? What is the relationship between the IGF in Baku and also the WCIT in Dubai? How can we approach that, because the WCIT seems like a voting process, is not -- as we are civil society or NGO, we cannot participate in the voting, and how you approach them, please?

Paul Wilson: Okay. Thanks, Kuo-Wei. Yeah, I have a few things to say, I guess, about topics for IGF this year and particularly about the relationship, your second question, with WCIT. I will just start with some general comments again, I think.

Again, about what the IGF is here for and why we're supporting it.

APNIC and the other RIRs, like many of the Internet organizations, are quite strongly supporting the IGF.

I think it's important to understand that that's a decision that's been made and it's one that stands for the time being.

It did come out of a long process, a process that in fact started in the early part of last decade, sponsored by many organizations including the ITU, and it was after a long and very considered process that the IGF came out and it's established, I think, it's important to understand also that it has established a track record, they have been outcomes of this process.

Pre-IGF of course was the definition of the multi-stakeholder process which sounds like UN speak, but it actually is a really important concept, it's kind of a revolutionary concept in the inter-governmental world.

The IGF, if you look at and if you accept the outcomes of that long process, pre-IGF really is the best model that we have and there is no competitor for it.

The IGF is supported therefore by a lot of us and the NRO for instance have doubled our funding for it from this year.

But it is a living process and there are many things that will definitely change in it. I think I feel I have been slightly misrepresented by my colleague on the right here in terms of IGF outcomes. I think what I have heard very much from my own discussions with other participants is that there is a need for a more visible outcome from the IGF and I think that can be delivered through a growing record of the proceedings and the results of the IGF that could be more consciously developed and laid down.

There is a sort of sense in which the IGF is an event every year and that it restarts and I have gained the sense that people see something repetitive in the fact that they go back and there are some of the same discussions happening again and again. So we do again need to see it as something that will lay down a track record.

There is this need to reconcile outputs with kind of decisions or recommendations and that also is something that needs to be understood, because if you get into a room like you have at the IGF and you look for decisions or recommendations, then inevitably they become negotiated. They become serious, substantial, negotiated outcomes and it's at that point that they really become political and meaningless.

I would repeat the words that Markus Kummer, the former head of the IGF secretariat, used to say, which is that the IGF is not a place for decision making but it's a place where decision makers attends and they get a lot of value out of being there.

I think a reconciliation of the conflict between of a sort of disagreement or a misunderstanding between outcomes and concrete outputs is the sort of thing you might see in the production of case studies of developments that have happened as a result of IGF or that could be linked back to IGF rather than IGF itself coming up with something that people would see as a momentous decision or recommendation, because as I say, that's almost impossible to achieve in the circumstances.

As a MAG member, I really am very interested to see IGF continue to evolve through small steps, as Peng Hwa said, and through an evolutionary process that's ongoing.

I think while I have been appointed to the MAG as an individual and MAG positions are not representative, I really can't help but bring the views and the inputs from this community into the MAG. I say that quite openly and I take it quite seriously, that I think it's really an opportunity for us as a community to shape the direction of the IGF to have this Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group putting inputs in and I really hope that I can help to bring inputs from this community and capture those and thereby help us all to affect the IGF outcomes.

Finally, on WCIT, yes, I think there are going to be a lot of linkages between the IGF that is going to be happening in October and WCIT that's happening in December.

The recent decision of the ITU to open the WCIT documentation for public access is going to help that, because there's now a lot more documentation that's available and that will provide food for thought and fodder for arguments at the IGF meeting, but that said, there's still a real clash of cultures between those two events.

Whatever way you look at it, the WCIT meeting is not a multi-stakeholder event. The decisions that it makes will be purely up to the governments who are present and whether other contributions are considered or not is their decision according to their whim.

The other thing is that the meeting, even during its two-week process, can take contributions right up to the very last minute and it actually will be during those two weeks that the real critical negotiations happen and those are negotiations regardless of contributions that have been made and there is the opportunity for the wider community to contribute, but regardless of those contributions, it is in those last two weeks that the real rubber will hit the road in terms of negotiation, and that again is an inter-governmental process and it's also one that will happen after IGF, so it will be really impossible for the IGF two months earlier to anticipate what's going to happen at WCIT and have very much influence.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. Anyone want to comment or ask a question to Paul? Raul, please.

Raul Echeberria: Since you are looking at me, so I think --

Kuo-Wei Wu: Yes.

Raul Echeberria: It is more a comment than a question.

Since you came back to WCIT issue, there was something that I wanted to say before that some of the proposals that we are seeing in WCIT, as I said before, shows the different views about the world.

For example, one topic is the security. Some countries are trying to include concrete statements about Internet security and ITRs. What they are showing is a view, a centralist view, assuming that there is a central infrastructure on the Internet that could be controlled and in that way, the security problems on the Internet could be solved.

But all of us here know that the Internet doesn't work in that way, and the security on the Internet, does not depend on the control of a central infrastructure in any country or on a global level, but depends on things that are done by everybody in the world, users and content providers and infrastructure providers and so the only way to approach that issue of security is in a collaborative way.

This is why the multi-stakeholder model takes big importance in this discussion. So I think that we have to support all the approaches that are based on the view of the multi-stakeholder model and the collaboration among different stakeholders and not to support those views that are based in different view of the world and different view of the Internet that we think will not be successful, even considering that those proposals are based in good faith, but they will not be successful in a way.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. Any other question or comment about Paul, please?

Sunil Abraham: I think to compare both the IGF and WCIT is inappropriate and not really useful. A non-profit representative at APrIGF on stage said, look how easy it is for me to attend the APrIGF and look how hard it is for me to participate as a non-profit in WCIT. My response to him was I don't go to jail for recommendations that emerge from APrIGF, but I go to jail for recommendations that emerge from other fora, say the WIPO, which is later implemented in national law.

The multi-stakeholder model clearly has worked in technical policy building, but we still don't have a clear standard or model to make it work in the other area where there is a policy vacuum. Until we answer that question, it becomes very difficult to dismiss the whole of WCIT until we have a reasonable alternative.

Kuo-Wei Wu: That's true. I think these two meetings have very different format and cannot be compared. I agree.

Yes.

The next one I would like to put the question to is Thip. I know you are from ISOC and also you are located in Bangkok, in Thailand. I know that ISOC always have some kind of statement or proposal for IGF or WCIT, whatever. Since you are in Bangkok and if any people in this region, would like to have some kind of comment or regarding the Internet governance or something like that, how your position and your role and we can make communication with you and then you can summarise your comment and back to the ISOC headquarters and then bring out something like that. Also can you comment about the ISOC statement, recently it come out regarding the WCIT, you know that?

Duangthip Chomprang: I'm going to try to do that in 8 minutes and I might be speaking faster, because I have so much to share and first of all, I hope everyone knows who ISOC is, or at least Internet Society is. Our longstanding position has always been that the principle of Internet and what makes the Internet is the development itself should be open, global and for everyone.

I sometimes go up to people who use Internet and ask them "What is Internet?" and I get lots of different versions of what Internet is.

But the most important thing that we need to realise is that Internet is a global phenomenon, but it is not a natural phenomenon. I say this because I want to convey to everyone that we all have personal responsibilities of how Internet is understood and how the issues that we are now being faced with, with different views about how the Internet should be governed, what is Internet and so many other areas that touch upon public issues and our public interests relates to Internet.

We all know that the Internet came about because a group of people -- scientists, engineers -- had a great idea to build this thing called the Internet, and it came through a voluntary -- it's a very multi-stakeholders, very bottom-up approach and it's consensus based.

That's the legacy of how our value and where the Internet should stand, so anything that we speak about Internet governance should also engender those values.

Yes, I'm based in Thailand, but our office is in Singapore, and Thailand basically is the seat of where the policymakers for Asia Pacific are and I'm quite involved in the WCIT process and a lot of processes.

Maybe I can speak more for the ASEAN group, since I know we have India and I think Peng Hwa, you may speak for Asia and also Singapore.

First of all, in Asia, in general, the Internet governance discussions and issues are not well versed.

It's still infantile stage. A good example is the fact that our region was the last to have the IGF. In Thailand, just two weeks ago, there was the first public IGF meeting. I know Australia -- with the exception of Australia and New Zealand where they have their own IGFs and I understand that India has been involved with them, that we will have an IGF in India next month.

This is all new, new to the consumers, new to the citizens, new to everyone, policymakers. So what's missing in Asia is information, neutral points of reference, research on the implications of Internet from a socioeconomic development perspective. Those are not out there. So what we get are views and challenges, whether in the media or from different people with different perspectives and they're not wrong.

But we also need to have certain anchors, certain ideas what those values are, because even the global Internet governance is finding some sort of a common principle or value that we want to go ahead and move towards. One good anchor right now is the WSIS, you know, where it speaks about anything that talks about public issues relating to Internet that it needs to be embraced in a multi-stakeholder process and that was taken up by the OECD group, so they actually have a principle which is a very positive sign on how Internet policy decision-making and process should be.

I was in one of the meetings in APAC and a lot of the APAC countries were talking about looking at the OECD's framework of policy-making on Internet issues.

Coming back to ASEAN, it has ten countries, the original ASEAN had five: Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Philippines. As you know, 2015 is when we are targeting to become a common market, a common family.

Incidentally, or coincidentally, Thailand was actually the country that came up with the idea of this ASEAN community as in a country, not as a common market, right after World War II, on the same understanding among the countries in Southeast Asia that we needed to be independent to determine our own destiny and it came more from a socio perspective, making sure that people were taken care of. There was no political sentiment.

Hence, ASEAN then became ten, including Myanmar. So if you look at the ASEAN declaration and the ASEAN's approach towards ICT and Internet, it is trying to form its position, but I think it will probably be forming in the same way that the original ASEAN was formed and that is based on a community, to become liberal, open market for people and the communities at large. It has cultural aspect to it as well.

That's what I believe, at least in terms of the ASEAN countries, where the Internet governance discussions and development will move.

On WCIT, it has become so political and you read in the newspaper, in the media, but it's important that we keep up with WCIT. ISOC's position has always been that it is open, it engages with everyone, it's bottom up, it's inclusive.

Paul was mentioning that there is a positive move by ITU to provide more information to members through -- I think if you have a Thai account, you can basically get into it, but the Thai account does have different levels of access and information and not all proposals are actually disclosed, some are not disclosed.

I would say it's very encouraging that ITU is looking at those measures, but I think more can be done.

Bulgaria and Netherlands are two countries that have recognised that there needs to be more done to inform the public so the public can be involved. So they have actually provided access to the public to give comments which they can then also review and consider as part of their proposal. More needs to be done.

So we are positive that the WCIT process which is going to be in Dubai -- it is a very long process, but it is one where it needs to reach consensus. Therefore, we all need to get involved at our personal level or at whatever level that we are at, to provide the right understanding of what this means and the implications that it has.

Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Okay. Anybody want to raise a question to Thip? What about the former Chair? Can you comment on ISOC? Paul, please.

Paul Wilson: I would like to just acknowledge the work that ISOC has done in helping to coordinate some of the voices from the Internet community globally. I think ISOC does a very good job and has played an important role there. But I would also say that it's really important for there to be a clear diversity of views that come from regions and countries and organizations as well into this process, because a single global message will never be interpreted so well at a local level as a message that comes locally or that is reinterpreted and delivered locally.

We can't all lean on ISOC, neither can we all lean on APNIC or any other organization. This is really a call, I think, for as much local action as possible.

I mean, there's a governance term called subsidiarity which is a terrible word, I'm surprised I can even remember it, but it means that local problems should be solved as close to the problem as possible.

You don't provide a national solution to something that's very local. You don't provide a global solution.

I think that's something that has been identified in Internet governances as an important concept, which again means local action by all of us.

We're not doing too badly in this region, actually.

I would mention also that Bangladesh has had some very successful IGF meetings, Japan likewise, and I understand India is coming up, as well as Australia and New Zealand. So we are not doing too badly on that, but I think the distributed messaging and the kind of grassroots messaging needs to continue.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Any other comment about Thip? So I can move on to the next panelist.

I will open up to the floor later on.

The next one I would like to ask is Sunil. I know you are doing academic and also the research about Internet governance. Can you share what your study and what is your finding about Internet governance, no matter whether it is global or regional or India. That is the first question.

The second question is as you heard, actually, Russia, China and also India raise the proposal in WCIT about some of the issues. How is the consensus generally inside your countries, how they communicate with your people and how is their expectation from the future of the Internet, they imagine. Please.

Sunil Abraham: We haven't done extensive research on Internet governance. We focus on very specific areas like IP and accessibility, openness, et cetera, but I will try to answer both your questions.

Just last week, about 50,000 people of north-eastern origin fled from about four or five Indian cities because of the circulation of rumours on social media and on SMS, both network technologies. Going back to the point that Thip made earlier, if the emergence of a technology is bottom up without any formal state intervention do we therefore need to regulate it? If you look at very old technology, food also similarly emerged bottom up. Today we have large multinational corporations, but no state intervention behind the setting up of restaurants and hotels, but food is heavily regulated in the US today, how much salt you can put into food, how much transfat you can put into food is heavily regulated in the US, not so much in India. It's because there is evidence of harm and because the public has empowered policymakers asking them to regulate the private sector to check this harm.

So it becomes important that we agree that some regulation is necessary, some regulation is inappropriate and has to be dismantled and it's important that we identify that type of regulation as well.

Moving to your second question, which is how is the Indian government formulating its policy positions and is there any type of consultative process, both in the context of the CIRP, the Committee for Internet Related Policy, and in the context of WCIT. Unfortunately, the Indian government on these two areas does zero consultation. Civil society on the whole was not informed at all of the proposals or the positions that they will take in Dubai. So there is very little we can do about it.

We try to pressure the government from outside, but so far we have been unsuccessful.

Our research so far has been focusing on these big controversial questions and trying to make sense of it from an Indian perspective. For example, the US Government champions the cause of Internet freedom and many US civil society organizations have also adopted the very same rhetoric.

The trouble with the Internet freedom per the US definition is it's very restrictively defined, in the sense that access to knowledge is not considered part of Internet freedom. But in Russia, in Brazil, in South Africa and India, we cannot imagine Internet freedom without access to knowledge.

Again, it seems very suspicious that the state department of a country is using civil liberties but in a very technically specific way. They are not advocating for civil liberties in a technically neutral way. If you turn on television here in your hotel rooms, in Phnom Penh or in India, you will realise that Indians and Cambodians have much more television freedom than Americans have. Would it then be a legitimate case for the Indian government to constantly criticise the American government in public fora saying that you don't have television freedom? So I think you need to think about it in a holistic fashion and if you're really talking about civil liberties, then it should be civil liberties across the digital domain and across all other sociological aspects, not just a specific technology in a vacuum.

The trouble with WCIT, though I don't know much about the actual proposals and every time I speak to an expert, it's like getting an expert to interpret the Bible or the Quran or getting a lawyer to interpret a law. There are so many interpretations and very few of them converge, so it's very difficult for someone like me to make sense of what is being said.

Sometimes critics of the WCIT process are making a mountain out of a molehill, the so-called Internet kill switch proposal already existed as a telecom kill switch provision. The reasons when the kill switch can be deployed is consistent with human rights treaties like the ICCPR. Again, it's not very clear whether that's truly a concern or whether a lot of noise is being made about something that's not particularly important.

The other worry that I have as somebody that has worked at WIPO -- CIS is accredited at the World Intellectual Property Organization and we are now trying to get accredited at ITU. We have collaborated with ITU for about four years, but mostly on accessibility to telecom infrastructure and other network technologies -- is whether this is an attempt to discredit multilateral fora. That becomes a real concern.

If you notice all the key IP negotiations have shifted completely away from WIPO. ACTA, for example, was a pluri-lateral treaty and so is TPPA. If you ask me, these have profound implications for Internet governance. So Internet governance is already happening, but it is happening away from multilateral fora.

Why is this so? Because developing countries have managed to organize themselves at WIPO and the development agenda is now centre stage. There is a lot of talk around limitations and exceptions to intellectual property. This is not the rights holders agenda that the US and Europe want. The most important treaty today being discussed there is the treaty for the visually impaired. If such treaties come about, it not only helps the visually impaired or the blind in India which is 3 per cent of the population, but in India we have 30 per cent of the population which is illiterate, the very same accessibility technology is useful to that section of the population.

So we should not be focusing on discrediting multilateral fora. Of course it's right for us to point to them that this particular bit of Internet governance is none of your business, because it's being handled competently elsewhere, but we also need to have some positive agenda for them too. We should have some good suggestions about what they can do more appropriately.

Accessibility is one, the transparency and autonomy of national regulators is another high level objective that comes to my mind.

Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Very good point. Anyone want to comment or ask a question of Sunil? Raul, please. I think it's a very good comment.

Very good topic.

Raul Echeberria: I just want to say that I fully agree with what he says, about not discrediting the fora and trying to work with them in order to have a positive approach. I think in fact this is a wrong strategy that some colleagues from the Internet community are following, just to speak bad about WCIT and other fora instead of trying to look for a positive approach.

I fully agree with you. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Okay. Any other comments? If not, maybe it's about the time. I would like to open the floor. Does anybody want to go to the microphone and raise your question or make your comment? You can point to a particular panelist or you can also make your own comment. Please, 1 minute 30 seconds each and then you can come around.

But Naresh, you want to go first or Dmitry, you want to go first? Naresh, you are generous.

Okay, Dmitry, please.

Dmitry Burkov (ICANN liaison RIPE NCC): Thank you for the opportunity to ask a few questions. I have two questions. First, you mentioned WCIT, WCIT, WCIT. But what you expect, what could be the real outcomes of WCIT and what could be potential consequences? Positive or negative, or will it work at all? Who can answer?

Kuo-Wei Wu: Anybody want to answer? Raul, please.

Raul Echeberria: This is a personal approach. My personal view on that is that WCIT is one of the few binding conferences of ITU, so the outcome of WCIT has to be ratified by all member states. If some resolutions are taken by majority in WCIT, it means that there could be a risk that those resolutions could not be ratified later by member states.

So I think that this is a risk that ITU will not take. So my view is that they will try to get as many conclusions by consensus as possible so I don't expect really to see any of those really strong proposals that are coming to the table having support to be approved and included in WCIT.

But that doesn't mean that things will disappear from the table. I think that the discussions will remain and those issues will not disappear automatically after WCIT is finished. But I don't think that any strange things will happen in WCIT. That's my personal view.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Any other? Paul?

Paul Wilson: I tend to agree and the more alarmist the predictions are for WCIT's possible dangers, I think the less likely those particular dangers are, but what that means for us is that any proposal, any serious proposal that goes to WCIT and is not satisfied will stick around and whether it's good or bad, it will be with us beyond WCIT. I think it's important for us in this community to see that this is not just one event after the other.

We're not going from one emergency or one highlight to the next as time goes on, we are actually engaging in a process that's laying down a foundation of useful material that's building understanding, that is hopefully promoting commonsense and the health of the Internet along the way rather than predicting disaster and then deciding to collect the pieces afterwards and regroup.

Ang Peng Hwa: Sunil and I were just talking before we came out that we hear different interpretation and it looks like we have to do the hard work of finding out what WCIT is really saying. The alarmist view seems to suggest that it is a clash of visions.

The vision of the IGF is a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance. The WCIT approach seems to do without the multi-stakeholder model, which means civil society will be left out and much of the discussion will be dominated by government and business.

The concern is not so much that we in civil society will not be sharing power in some way, the bigger concern is that at the end of the day, your best thinking, your innovations will eventually be left out and in the end, it will hurt everybody.

That's kind of the bigger vision, bigger view of the clash of the two visions.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Can we get Naresh?

Dmitry Burkov (ICANN Liaison RIPE NCC): No, because I want to remind that the outcome of WCIT is a new version of ITR, International Telecommunication Requirement.

Moreover, I want to remind that previous ITR were not ratified by United States, Canada, UK and so on.

And it works. It works up to some level. Because the most of this document is declaration. It's just about the document itself, because we speak about WCIT, WCIT, but what's the result? Second point, I have heard today a lot of time when Russia, China were mentioned with some proposals. Which Russian or China proposals are so dangerous? Sorry, I'm a member of a working group, of a government working group on WCIT process. I know weakness and so on.

I know the ITU process is that all old contributions are still on the list, even if they were obsolete. Because ITU Secretariat insisted that even obsolete and non-working contributions should be on the list as historical.

What I want to ask, please, give me a source, concrete example. What's wrong with Russia? I know what's wrong. But it's absolutely different things which I heard here.

Second point, I never seen any China proposal inside WCIT process. Why China mentioned all this time? Also the same related to India. Sorry. Please, as Raul very often repeated, Russia, China, India, I want to hear what concrete proposal was wrong?

Kuo-Wei Wu: Okay.

Raul Echeberria: I think that I didn't mention China's proposal on WCIT, I didn't say anything. I spoke about some proposals on security and I didn't mention Russia either, but you assume that it was a Russian proposal, and you are right. I was speaking about a Russian proposal.

There are more than one proposals on security issues and those are the ones that I mentioned. I can read the text if you want, but I think that you know the text already.

Dmitry Burkov (ICANN Liaison RIPE NCC): If you read the text, its text, because it's an open question, should operators be responsible for spam, for fraud on the network? It's about security.

Second point, it's a requirement that operators should be responsible for their network security.

If you will read. Yes, US strict position that all security questions should be outside and should be based on bilateral. I participated in US-Russia negotiations and I know their concrete positions. They prefer to work on bilateral. They can join any treaty on this issue. By some reason, by regarding Patriot Act, it's clear. But it's not an issue, but if you will read, I simply ask you, please read documents before you will speak something about us. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you.

Naresh Ajwani: My comments are in the capacity of Chairman of subcommittee in FICCI responsible for hosting the first MAG Conference in India.

I must thank Kuo-Wei for acknowledging my generosity and in the light of it, I must tell you that IGF format is where the participants and panelists get equal time.

So I'm sure we conduct this session also in the same order.

Frankly, I really don't know, because which order I need to speak, but definitely I couldn't agree more with Sunil than whatever he has commented on India.

With Duangthip, who referred that IGF is in infancy stage, especially in Asia side, and in India, it has not even started. Our position in Baku will only emerge after the 4 and 5 October IGF session, but I would like to share with all of you out here, Netan Desai, who is one of the founders of IGF, has agreed to be a mentor of India IGF. Minister has agreed for a curtain raiser on 24 September, State Minister Milind Deora has agreed for valedictory session, Minister Sachin Pilot is also being contacted. 18 international speakers have already confirmed. The MAG includes -- which is supported by ISOC, thank you, ISOC -- government, private sector, IT industry, telecom and Internet service providers, companies related to Internet ecosystem, civil society, foundation for media professionals, students and youth, academia and, as I mentioned, ISOC.

We look forward to your visit, and my objective of coming on the mic was to tell you and request you, let's not bring any piece on Asia level because even in the countries the views are being formalised. Once they get formalised, we can definitely bring it up to the level of Asia Pacific or Asia, whichever we feel comfortable.

But as of today, it is being evolved, give us some more time and in due course, we will position our things. But, yes, I must take the opportunity to invite all of you for this 4-5 October conference. It will be really meaningful for all of us. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. Anyone want to answer or just comment? If. No, let's pick up another audience member.

Duangthip Chomprang: Actually, I would like to congratulate India. Sir, I'm not sure where you are from. I know you are from India, but we are definitely looking forward to participating in the IGF in India and so many important people will be there. Also, it will be more than an important event, because India actually by population will be the largest Internet user in the world. In many regards, you are taking the lead in this region to give us perhaps future solutions or ideas of what we should be forming these IG discussions.

I also want to share with you a bit of concern, but not in an alarming way. I'm not alarmist myself.

I attend and participate in all the of the WCIT preparatory meetings for Asia Pacific and India has always been there, except for the last one two weeks ago which was actually the final preparatory meeting.

It's good to hear that the Indian government will be there at the IGF in India and be an endorser of this event. That's a very good sign. Thank you.

Naresh Ajwani: Not only they are there, there is a change in the position. As you know, the position was taken by Ministry of External Affairs for taking Internet under United Nations, which my friend Dmitry may not know be knowing it was a BRIC position, there is definite big change in the situation. It is being talked about again. It is open to the community. But let me just share with you what the community feels about it.

Again, in a lighter way. Is better to be under one devil than to be under 50 devils. That is the precise viewpoint we all have been endorsing.

In no way that means ICANN should not be ...

Definitely it has to be, it has to move out of one country and move to other countries, but definitely we are not in support of any other position and we are advocating at every platform, at every forum that somehow India's position looks like a general position which is Internet for all.

You are very right when you referred India can bring more solutions because the bottom of the pyramid is where the Internet is going to evolve. The next billion Internet users would be from those emerging economies.

They don't go through dedicated devices, they go through a shared PC concept. The shared PC concept is responsible for -- we call them cyber cafes or Internet kiosks -- 60 per cent of Internet users in India. Their issues are different, their challenges are different and I think that's what everyone should be focusing upon.

Thank you very much.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Paul, please.

Paul Wilson: I just wanted to make the comment I think which is illustrated here, that it is difficult and risky to talk about governments, to talk about countries or economies as though there is just one government, because governments actually are multi-headed beasts and we have departments of foreign affairs, we have departments of telecoms, we have departments of information technology, ICT, digital economy, et cetera and these all have different orientations, often very different orientations.

I think both in the case of India, as Naresh has just said, in the case of Russia and others, of course, we have possibly quite different positions. It was fascinating being in St Petersburg recently and meeting the new Russian Minister for Communications who is 29 years old and spent a good deal of his time at the meeting on his iPad and I think it was fairly obvious that he was potentially, possibly likely to have a different position from the Russian Department of State, Department of Defence, et cetera, who may be speaking more loudly.

Again, I won't try to represent Russia at all, Dmitry, but I think it is really worth bearing in mind that the situation seen across the globe is extremely complex and for anyone trying to understand it fully, it's an expensive process. It's something that's representing a large overhead for all of us who are involved.

Thank you.

Naresh Ajwani: You would be delighted to know, just only a month back, deputy security advisor, deputy national security advisor has initiated the process of consensus building within civil society, industry and the government and everything is being drafted as a one group.

I think things are changing.

Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you.

Duangthip Chomprang: I just wanted to kind of follow up on Paul to Dmitry, is it, in a very simple but complex way.

The original document for ITR is something like, not a lot of pages, and if you look at the proposal now, it's over 300 pages. Imagine, just the fact that it was actually a very thin document and everybody still had to decipher it and now you have over hundreds of pages of modifications and changes.

Yes, we need to follow and understand all of these issues, not superficially, but basically to take the time to understand them, whatever that perspective may be, be it from a particular country like Russia or even India.

Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: I think we can allow one last participant to raise a question. Kenny Huang.

Kenny Huang (APNIC EC): Thank you. I almost forgot what I'm going to comment on.

Back to the original definition of the Internet. As the panelists mentioned earlier, there are so many versions of definition of Internet. What sort of issue we care about. That could be e-commerce, cloud computing, security, could be many facets.

So back to the very early beginning, what sort of issue we care about? I think back to the fundamental, how to make Internet functioning covers three parts, three factors. One is naming, one is addressing, one is routing.

The three elements of Internet make it operate properly and even the three functions themselves didn't have very strong correlation. So we have split different constituencies to deal with different functions, different features, to make it more focused, to focus on our issue to solve our policy regarding the specific area.

So I'm not quite sure what WCIT or IGF is going to lead into but as a participant in APNIC meeting, I think all the attendees have a very clear agenda in mind, what we represented, what's our best interest to be here.

So I would like to ask on behalf of the community, what's the strong correlation between address community and the WCIT or IGF and how the APNIC can be involved, what sort of impact or implication in the future once the decision is made in the future. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Anyone want to answer that?

Paul Wilson: I think there is one issue here which is quite closely related to Internet addressing and Internet infrastructure and that is the integrity and the continuity of the Internet as we know it, which is as a global point-to-point neutral network that allows open communications.

I know that's an idealist model and many would say it dissolved many years ago with the advent of NAT, et cetera, but I think it is still an ideal to which we can aspire and it's an ideal to which we can actually return fairly concretely with the successful transition to IPv6.

So without again going into the specifics of any particular proposals, I think what we want to make sure and what we want to identify in any of these processes is where we might have a proposal that threatens the globality, if that's a word, of the Internet, the neutrality of it, the ability of any two points on the Internet to communicate using the Internet protocol as freely and openly as possible.

If we have proposals that start to cut lines through the Internet, that cut hard divisions through the Internet, whether it's at the infrastructure level or at layers 2, 3 or 4, then those are proposals the implications of which may not be completely clear, but they are proposals which I think we need to sort of analyse and identify in order, as I say, to preserve the Internet that we know, that we love, that has proven its worth, that we're all here and involved with building.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Because we are running out of time, can I ask each of the panelists, can you give words, what is APNIC community or the member and might be more than APNIC community, you know, also from the different regions, what they can do or what they can participate in the IGF, the process and what is the best way for them to do it? Can one of you, maybe we can start from Peng Hwa, what is your recommendation or suggestion for our members here in community how they can participate in IGF process?

Ang Peng Hwa: The IGF process is really bottom up. So it's open to you to participate. It depends on what issues strike closest to your heart. It's a whole plethora of issues there, from the kind of political, critical Internet resources side to spam, content regulation, security, and the other different groups that are out there that are meeting to try and solve some of these issues. So an issue that strikes close to your heart, I would say you should be there to participate.

From what I observed, because I did a survey talking to people, countries vary at the level of the kind of issues that they face and at the depth of issue that they face as well. So I think each player would be different.

It also depends on the resources you have, because I know it's expensive to be in Baku for a whole week, the travel, the time and so forth. You may not come away with something substantive, at least in the short term, but I think that's a price that we should be prepared to pay, we see it as an investment to the way that we run the Internet.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Paul, what do you recommend your members?

Paul Wilson: I think to be clear on the role that each of us individually play in the Internet and where that may be effected or may have an effect on the IGF multi-stakeholder process. Multi-stakeholder-ism, the multi-stakeholder process doesn't mean that every stakeholder needs to play every role and understand the concerns of every other stakeholder, but you need to understand what your own concerns are and what your own views and platform is and to represent that.

I tried to articulate before the link between Internet addressing and the potential outcomes of different governances decisions, really is a threat potentially, there is a potential to change or to impact upon our assumptions about what the Internet is, in infrastructure terms, on the global nature of the Internet infrastructure.

So I would suggest to be focused, to understand again what your concerns are to take an interest in what's happening at the IGF, again luckily there are very good remote participation opportunities for IGF, if you can't actually make it there -- I expect most can't.

But that would be my recommendation to stay in touch and to actually tune into what's happening in Baku.

Sunil Abraham: I want to make a very general point. As a technical community, you are well aware that bad technology cannot be fixed by applying policy bandaid.

Sometimes bad policy can be fixed through technology innovation, circumvention, et cetera. A lot of the proposals at most of these fora have profound implications so as a technical community, you should keep an eye on it and whenever it's impossible to solve the bad policy through technology, then you must raise your voice.

That is very important.

Duangthip Chomprang: Everyone says a lot of good stuff.

I do agree with everyone and also I know we were saying that WCIT and IGF are separate platforms, they are different mechanisms, they are different design differently. I totally agree with you.

But there are certain elements in WCIT which perhaps we need to understand which may have a long-term consequence on IGF in the future. So as much as I would like to keep them separate, let's also be aware that those implications will be real implications in the future, if we do not also play a part in understanding how that works.

If you need more information, definitely ISOC would be one of those organizations and I know APNIC also can provide information and you can also go to our website and whatever in order to get more information. Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: I think Raul is the best person to end this whole process.

Raul Echeberria: Thank you very much.

I think in the first couple of years, we only had the global IGF so we started to see the growing number of regional IGF meetings, which was very good. So we started to see later national IGF meetings.

So it seems that we are bringing this multi-stakeholder discussion fashion to the local level.

It is a very good tool for influencing the global discussion, but also for discussing the regional and local matters.

I think the impact of IGF and the IGF style of discussion, is very important. So my recommendation for people is try to engage in regional meetings like the one that Peng Hwa was talking about and also in local meetings and if there are not local meetings to be engaged in, so just to promote them and to engage in discussions with others, trying to have more influence as I say before.

Thank you.

Kuo-Wei Wu: Thank you. This is about the end of the panel. Before we end it, can we give all the panelists a big applause, because thank you very much for all them to join us in the discussions.

APPLAUSE

Kuo-Wei Wu: Don't forget it. Before you leave this room, Sunny would like to come out to give a little bit about registration follow up.

Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE

Sunny Chendi: I would like to thank you for accepting our invitation to moderate this session at the last minute and planning it so well. As you can see, he did a really quite good job here and I was very impressed sitting there, asking questions to the panelists and had a very good discussion with you as well. I would like to congratulate you on running this session very well.

Just a round of applause to Kuo-Wei Wu, please.

APPLAUSE

Sunny Chendi: We have a token of appreciation for you.

I would like to request Paul Wilson to hand it over to you.

APPLAUSE

Sunny Chendi: One each to the panelists as well. Thank you so much for being here in Cambodia and accepting to be panelists.

APPLAUSE

Sunny Chendi: Thanks, Paul. We'll break for lunch, same place, and then come back at 2 pm for the APOPS 2 session. APOPS 1 had the session yesterday. Some of you probably attended it. We'll come back for APOPS 2 and then we go into Policy SIG 1 session late in the afternoon.

Thank you so much for joining and we'll see you back again.