IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
16 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION R/N 7
1430
RUSSIA IGF
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Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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LEONID TODOROV: So it's time. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leonid Todorov, and I work for ccTLD.ru and we are here, colleagues of mine, Andrey Romanov, Julia, also from ccTLD.ru, and she does marketing and PR for our company. And we are here to highlight on the recent -- on the recent Internet Governance Forum, Russian Internet Governance Forum, that took place in Moscow in May. That was a groundbreaking event for us, for the national Internet community, so we would like to share our views on how we organised and ran that.
First of all, I would like to start with some, let's say, structure for our meeting because I will do the first presentation. You see the title of this, that's all about the background, concept, challenges, and some fundamental outcomes of this event. While Julia will tell more about the structure of the IGF, I mean, in terms of participants. Who were those key stakeholders and participants that were engaged in the process and contributed to our event. And finally, Andrey Romanov will give a more detailed explanation on how we structured our forum agenda wise, which issues were most important as priority for our first groundbreaking event.
And then, of course, we will be happy to answer your questions if any, and we expect some feedback from the audience. We will appreciate your comments as well as suggestions as to how we should enhance our next event which should be done about that, because we are, of course, in the process of developing the consent of our next IGF.
So let me begin with a very famous expression which became probably trivial already in the global politics. I just still remind you that Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister -- the British Prime Minister -- once said about Russia it is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. But perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. So we probably believe Mr. Churchill was right, and probably the event we are about to tell you of is kind of reflection of that Russian national interest.
Next slide, please. So the background for our event was both typical, probably, of any nation about to embark on this mission and also country specific. Because first of all, that was the groundbreaking event, which means we had no previous record of running such events.
Secondly, what is new probably for you is that major stakeholders in Russia -- let's put them stakeholders, but I will just elaborate on the issue a little bit later and Julia will add some comments as well. Major stakeholders were absolutely unaware of what IGF is. I mean, the concept, the structure, and the mission of the IGF. So there was like, you know, previously uncharted territory, as we like to say.
Third, probably most critical point, is that no one in Russia, except for a very tiny fraction of experts, has ever had any expertise in the Internet Governance, which means that this subject has not ever been taught in the universities, in Russian universities. And there are just a handful of experts that do some research in this area, and I must say -- well, I checked that on the Web, and I must say that these -- this research mostly concerned, well, some practices which are -- and some approach which are typical of the European Union. So it means they didn't dare go beyond that area, I mean, the European area. They didn't dare to explore some other perspectives on Internet Governance, on the IGF.
And finally, as far as multistakeholder practices are concerned, I have to admit that we don't have such practices in Russia. Of course, there are some shining examples of public-private partnerships in Russia, but beyond that and apart from that, I would say that -- my colleagues may correct me -- but there are no -- not so many examples when the civil society, for example, or the academia ever contributed to any serious projects, particularly in the area of the Internet and Internet Governance.
This structure of major stakeholders, let me just briefly describe that, is very specific in Russia. We have, of course, our government, and as in any transitional economy, in any transitional country, the government still pretty much dominates the country's political, economic, and social life. While the civil society still remains very nascent, and we are just at the beginning of this process of transformation into a genuine full-fledged democracy.
At the same time, academic research, due to obvious economic and social reasons, is, I would say, has been in decline, and again, I'm ashamed to confess that Russian educators are known for being supportive of that very nice saying that one quotation is plagiarism, and many quotations is research. So that's what they are doing mostly. They are just citing foreign and Russian sources rather than doing some original research in many areas.
Which means that both the academia and the civil society were not that active, and we didn't -- we couldn't count on their serious support while preparing this event.
And that happens vis-a-vis a very rapid expansion of the Internet in Russia because Russia was one of the most leading nations in terms of the growth of the Internet audience in the country. Of course, we still lag behind developed countries in terms of Internet penetration rate, and less in terms of the population who have permanent access to the Internet, broadband in particular.
Still, the Internet is a very, I with a say Harsh and very discussed, very debated issue in Russia. And you may have heard already that our president is a big fan of the Internet personally, and he has just started. He has a page on Twitter, so he tweets, and we have some very nice examples of how they tweet, even during government meetings.
Anyway, next slide, please. While preparing this event, we enjoyed enormous support from the Ministry of Telecommunications and Mass Media, which is a principal actor in Russia as far as administration of -- that's the agency that administers the area of telecommunications in Russia. And given that very specific structure of let's put them again major stakeholders, and again, given that we didn't have that database of those whom we would like to invite for the event and those who would love to contribute to that but had no information or no access, we used all channels of communication, both formal and informal.
For example, just for you to understand, Russia is a very big country, you know that. But you may be probably unaware of the fact that we have 85, I guess, regions, or 83 regions or provinces. So we wanted to cover them all, and we wanted all -- all key stakeholders from those provinces to come up to Moscow to take part in that event.
So we asked the Ministry of Telecommunications, for example, to disseminate this information amongst those regional telecom administrations, and that was done, and through that, I mean, using that channel, we reached out to prospective participants and contributors in the regions. We also used our informal connections within the Internet community and, you know, that go and spread the word principle really worked because people were trying to pass over this message, so we were pretty much networking at the same time, as well as passing or spreading this message throughout Russia.
And again, given that we had -- we elect that level of awareness necessary and sufficient to ensure -- to ensure nowhere else access of that event, we were trying to capitalize on the loads of the new idea for Russia, so we deliberately developed our schedule of preparations in running the event to have it coincide with the launch of dot RF, the Cyrillic, to make sure the general audience, the public at large attention will be focused on that event, and that should help us to attract the audience to the -- to our event, the IGF.
What's important about Russia, the same thing about the world, you cannot run a show without celebrities. That's clear. So in our case, there are two kinds of celebrities we would really like to have contribute to our show, and those are, of course, those representatives, high-level representatives, of the various government agencies and primarily the Ministry of Telecommunications. And those Internet experts and practitioners whom we invited to explore a bit of Russia and to see how we tried to build these new form of activity in our country. And they were quite responsive, I must say, and we have had many guests, Rod Beckstrom, Markus Kummer, and some other prominent experts. And of course, they attracted a lot of public attention, and they used this opportunity to promote the idea of multistakeholderism and all those approaches we practice in the area of Internet Governance, and particularly with respect to holding these Internet Governance Forums.
Next slide, please.
Of course we faced serious challenges, and those were how to market that event if you have the total unawareness that was -- that was a very serious challenge because we faced also tight deadlines. Let me remind you that the new IDMTLD was launched on the 13th of May -- on the 12th of May, and we started our preparations in December in anticipation that that IDMTLD would be delegated over some time, so we tried to more or less fit our schedule of preparations in the ICANN's operational schedule, that fast track process.
Of course, we have a very good team, but before that, we hadn't had any experience in running events of such magnitude. You know, to invite up to 500 people, to make sure that the logistics works well, especially for those who have been in Moscow -- and Mr. Gomes can confirm that, can prove that, that it's a nightmare just to go around the town, to commute from the outskirts to the downtown, and so forth. So that was a very serious challenge as well.
Again, we were -- it was really hard to find the adequate audience. Sometimes we had Internet practitioners. Sometimes we tried to deal with the Internet community. Not all of them were supportive, I have to admit. Anyway, that was research as well as marketing endeavor.
And of course, we faced a very serious risk associated with that simple fact, that if that IDMTLD hadn't been delegated, we would find ourselves in the very awkward position, to put it mildly, and that was a very risky bet, but you know, we Russians love to run risks, so well, we made our stakes, and there was no way back.
And of course, communication. What message we have -- had we to deliver to our prospective participants? Again, given that they were absolutely unaware of what IGF, the concept of IGF is. Let me remind you that the country still bears pretty much the post-Soviet legacy, and you know, again, it's not a secret that those anti-American sentiments have long taken roots in our society, not conscious -- not on the level of, let's say, conscious perception, as for example, in Europe, just to -- to prove and to build on the national identity. Rather, it's kind of very subconscious level because of that communist time brain-washing, when we were taught, obviously, that whatever is made in the United States is really bad. So the Internet is an American invention, so the Internet is bad, and the mere idea of Internet Governance entity, IGF, is probably an -- is an American invention, so we should be very cautious about that.
We should treat it with great caution.
And the remnant of the Imperial mind-set had also had that imprint on the collective mind. What lessons that IGF actually can teach us? Shall we go in that direction? Why cannot Russia concoct its own way to tackle the issues associated with the Internet Governance? Those were very natural questions.
And finally, probably because of that Soviet legacy, with all those Communist parties, Congress, and all other shows of equal magnitude, we lack and still lack these cultural dialogue, so -- which means that it's more like a monologue-based society. We have a top leader to tell us what to do, so we have to listen to him carefully, make notes, and implement whatever he instructs us to do.
At the same time, our people and those whoever lecture, whoever the chance to lecture in Russia, they know how hard to get feedback from the audience. Nobody there is to stand up and challenge the speaker. The speaker's authority is indisputable. You cannot just simply say you may be wrong, sir. You know, I have a different opinion. Plus, this means that our student, our audience, they elect the skill of being outspoken. Whenever we try to say something, even now, even me, sometimes we are confused, we are ashamed, we are not that logical in presenting, in discussing certain issues. And that's quite a problem for us because, you know, you can never have a dialogue without igniting the audience, without pushing the audience to react somehow, to discuss issues that might be very interesting and critical for them.
Next slide, please. Anyway, as again, Andrey will tell more about the IGF agenda, there were some fundamental outcomes which I would like to highlight right now. So first of all, with these first Russian IGF already in history, Russia is no longer that uncharted territory. We are on the global IGF map. We have joined the global IGF community.
We believe -- I believe -- that that event was critical as far as raising -- I mean, this mission was to raise awareness -- that was clear to me -- to go from that level of nonexistence up to the next stage, which is some awareness, in certain areas, certain regions, people do understand that there is such a thing as IGF, that there is an opportunity for everyone to contribute to that, to stand up and to be engaged in a discussion where every word is heard.
Quite unexpectedly -- it was a surprise for me -- the civil servants were very active in signing in as well as academics. For academics, I can understand that because clearly they want to learn more. They want to interact with prominent experts, one of whom is in this room, by the way, and he interacted very intensely. But as for civil servants, I was really perplexed, I would say, at seeing so many of them in Moscow for the IGF. And they claimed that that event was absolutely instrumental, critical for their understanding of how the Internet works and of all the fundamentals of Internet Governance. They had no idea at all.
Well, as far as community, the Internet community, you know, we Russians, we tend to be critical. You know, we tend to be suspicious about certain events. And we received some comments, quite unfavorable comments, about the event, particularly, something like these guys, they teamed up with the government to do something about money, and they tried to capitalize on these IDMTLD launch just to make more money. So it's all a fake democracy. We shouldn't contribute to that.
There were, of course, more responses, but I must say the Internet community has remained pretty much split over the issue. So we have a long way to go just to make them believe or to have them believe that the IGF is something different.
Business community, well, they were quite inactive. I must say, they mostly remained ignorant, except for a handful of telecom companies who helped us. Probably we should think of some possible allures, such as an opportunity to meet a certain representative of big IT companies, person to interact with them. I still don't know. I have no clear answer to these.
Well, we understand. We had some guests from the so-called newly independent states, which is CIS and the Baltic Republics. There were not so many of them. Just a reminder, that was in the midst of the financial crunch, and quite understandably, many people couldn't make it for the event.
And let me also note that we missed a certain part of our prospective participants simply because -- I mean, Russian participants -- they lived too far, they reside too far from Moscow, and you know, air fares are prohibitably high for them to come, so they couldn't afford that.
Remote participation is still a new thing for Russia, and we should think of that as well for the next IGF.
And we understand that we have had our own event. Our Ukrainian colleagues have just had their own IGF. It may well happen that some other nation, like, for example, Kazakhstan, may aspire to have their own IGF. But as we live in this common space, the Soviet space, and we still -- we have some common features such as, for example, language because you understand many of us still speak Russian, especially in those post-Soviet states. We believe that there is a window of opportunity for us to capitalize on these separate national IGFs and to move ahead to build that regional Eurasian wheel, IGF, which would help us build a kind of collective platform to discuss our common challenges to help each other to communicate, to find those solutions or to suggest some solutions which might be fruitful for all the parties concerned.
Well, I'm done. Thank you. And let me give the floor to Julia.
JULIA CHINIKOLA: Okay. So my name is Julia Chinikola. As was mentioned, I am council member of ccTLD.RU, responsible for marketing and communications, and it was my sphere of responsibility to do something else for this forum, and let me remind you where we were at the moment.
(Off microphone)
And about 40% of population use Internet at the moment once a week. It's a lot. We have more than 25% of householders who use Internet, like broadband Internet, which again is a lot, being used average in Russia. In Moscow, we have more than 70% Internet iterations, and in the regions of Russia, it's becoming to be 20. And now you see Internet is coming to be a real power, and we understand that RF is the subject also, and that's why it's a great time to communicate the idea about RF to this population, about Internet Governance, what's this, and probably it was a good idea to make this together.
For us, the most common -- in Russia, and Prime Minister, RF is used everywhere. Every time in breaking news. So it's very recognizable thing.
And it was very logical, easy, and natural to use RF like user domain, which we are taking care about. And in this education, we started to do some promo for RF, for RF and also for Internet Governance, like the subject. And we got very serious support from our President, from our Ministry, and because of this, probably because the new look to the Internet Governance in general, we've got a very good interest of media to this.
And we arranged a lot of events, and the Russian IGF should be the top one, like (Off microphone) probably.
Okay. We made a lot of events, as I mentioned. It was prepared since spring 2009. Then it was distributed, and probably we made some even teasing events for the community. We tried to push them to be more active, and probably I would like to say a couple of words about online conference with Minister Shegolev, and we pushed the community to ask more about Internet itself, Internet development, about Internet Governance. Sometimes we help them to ask questions and bring these -- try to keep them interested in this subject.
For instance, there was some questions about what Internet is, who manage Internet, where is the red button of Internet, so all of these subjects were really discussed in mass media and in Internet community.
So Russian IGF was like the -- of this topic, and here is some thing which I should say again but probably from different point of view to combine with -- (Off microphone) -- Russia, it wasn't possible to stay away from the methods of Internet Governance. If we will not do these like the country, we will meet the effect that developed rules will not take into account the realities of our country.
Also, started to be more active in terms of international activity and in terms of our government participation and in terms of ccTLD.RU participation in international events. And for Russia, it was very important to know that having a lot of Internet conferences, we had no common ground for discussion. The global issues of Internet, Internet Governance, worldwide as well as in Russia.
So this way we explained why Russian IGF is needed and why ccTLD.RU, and realise that there is no other organisation, of course, who should start this process in Russia because coordination centre for dot RU is just nonprofit, non-government organisation, and probably the main goal of coordination centre, just dictate, push us to realise development of Internet, not only domain space.
So after getting all this motivation, we started. Just some pictures how it was. It was mentioned already that we combined two events, Russian IDA launch together with Opening Ceremony for the Forum itself. We've got a lot of celebrities because we combined them, and you can see how it looks like. Probably you can recognize some of these faces. In the centre, down picture, down left, probably, you can Mr. Kolesnikov, Director of the Centre, and probably you can recognize Administrator Shegolev and Rod Beckstrom.
Okay. Now just time to talk about participants. Already mentioned how it was difficult to find the stakeholders for this event they not feel themselves like multistakeholders, and we try to do this in different way. Goal was just to invite about 300 people to get more or less representative coverage of this subject, but we got much more. And registered, we got more than 600 people, but some more than 550 came. It was difficult to find key players from different sectors, but lucky, you will see it later, we've got it.
So how it looks like by countries. Of course, we had celebrities, as was mentioned, from worldwide. But it was very important to invite Russians for this, and Russians came, and they participate like attendees, but not only. They participate like the moderators, the speakers. We tried to find the best practices and explain why this best practice is just best practice for Russia too.
And you can see how big interest it was from USA because this was huge delegation of USA, this conference.
The Department of Commerce, of course.
Julia CHINIKOLA: But also all other countries were represented good enough, and you can see it's more than 30 countries here. But Russians, again, it was our main goal to bring this awareness to Russia.
And if we will talk by sectors, multi-stakeholders, for instance, we just split them several baskets -- baskets probably not good word, but it is. We need business. We need civil society. Of course, we need our state, our government, and media.
I just keep science and education like a separate group. You can see it. But probably you also can calculate them as the civil society too. In terms of business, we just split this sector to the registers for Internet domain name, for Internet community, for telecoms, and service providers like the -- like smaller group, and just business from different business sectors, agriculture, manufacturing, et cetera.
From this picture, probably you can see how representative it was, and we did a lot to get all of them, to inform all of them, and to get these more than 500 people to our event, we distributed our information to thousands.
Here are some media highlights. Probably I would like to share this with you and just marked by red the main messages, which tried to be used by mass media. You can see again there is no term "Internet Governance" in Russia at all. We have Russian phrase "Internet management," and just right after you should be asked who manage this Internet, and where is the red button, of course.
You can see we just try to tease the sector, try to tease the community, mass media, and by this we explained and explained and explained what the Internet Governance is, and because of this, we got huge interest to Internet, like the subject, and Internet, domain name, and special IDS, welcome RF again.
So you can see just several of them, but very speakable, probably, and we've got breaking news on all TV channels. We just come to be very professional and popular in Russia after this.
And some lessons which I should like -- which I'd like to summarize right now again -- and again and again -- RF and Russian IGF was very logically conducted. They not only started together, we did a lot to keep them together, and RF, probably thanks to RF, RF just brought project number one for Russia this year.
Also, if we will talk about Internet Governance, it was really first open discussion, first Open Forum to start to discuss this.
We were happy to get so top-level support from our government as well as from mass media because when we started to communicate this idea in December 2009, people in mass media thought we were crazy. But finally, we've got like interest of this.
Probably just one more should be mentioned. It was probably our main role to start this discussion. I am happy that I used to work for coordination centre for dot RU/RF now, and we're happy it was so representative discussion in Russia.
It was said already probably it's time to distribute this discussion for all post-Soviet countries because we met huge interest from our neighbors. Let's do it together.
LEONID TODOROV: Well, thank you, Julia. As I mentioned, we are pretty much monologue based community, so -- but I just want to ask Andrey to somehow shorten his presentation so that not to steal all the time for the discussion and questions. Thank you.
ANDREY ROMANOV: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Andrey Romanov. Thank you very much for the opportunity to address you. I will share with you about the problem. I will try to be brief enough to save time for your possible questions.
You can see -- next slide, please -- you can see on this slide the first part of the list of the forum sections. We have included in the programme issues which are usually presented in the programmes of the global forum. Also, we tried to reflect on local specificity in the formulation of the subject matter and, of course, in selection of speakers.
First, about plenary session, which opened the forum, focused on issues of bridging the digital divide. Like elsewhere, digital divide in Russia means no equal opportunities for access to the Internet. Digital divide programme must be viewed from different perspectives, both in terms of regional difference, differences in opportunities between the urban and rural residents, between the young and elderly.
The problem was not only with technological challenges, for example, the physical accessibility of the Internet, but also in social, such as existing disparities, in general economic development, education, healthcare, financial standing, et cetera.
What are the goals behind this challenge? Where is Russia in the global Internet in this respect? What shall Russia and the global community undertake in order to get over the digital divide? These are other issues debated at the plenary session by leading Internet experts and representatives of the Russian government.
We had two keynote speakers. They were Igor Schegolev, minister of telecommunication and mass media of the Russian Federation, and Lawrence Strickling, assistant Secretary for communications and information, Department of Commerce, United States.
The second -- no, no. The list. Legal issues on Internet Governance. Internet Governance, irrespective what aspect is involved, technological, economic, and social issues, always contains the legal aspects. The development of legal base for the Internet in Russia is still at the initial stage. More discussions was on the Internet legislation, comprised the debate on two main models on development of the Internet legislation. -- already existing legal standards on the Internet or development of absolutely new laws for the virtual space.
This section focused on aspects of the Internet regulation, both abroad and in Russia, reviewing latest legislative initiatives on creating the Internet laws for Russia, including the Internet's impact on changes in the corporate models, the responsibility of Internet providers in terms of corporate.
The participants also presented their views on the Internet as an object of legal regulation and on the lenience of the legal regulation in cyberspace.
The next item was global Internet security. With Internet global expansion gaining momentum, it has become increasingly exposed to all kinds of crime, including the new generation of online criminal activities. This calls for development of more efficient and proactive cybersecurity policies and instruments. While there is no broad international consensus on the notion of cybersecurity, personal, corporate, national network security and infrastructural resilience.
The problem becomes even more complicated as the Internet has no borders and does not fall under jurisdiction of any individual state. Nor there is universal law to apply to cybercrime. Roundtable participants discussed Russia's and international policies and mechanism of countering cybercrime.
The next item was balance between transparency and privacy protection in Internet Governance. Participants of this session discussed international and Russian approaches and practices of privacy protection in the Internet and balance between privacy protection and imperative to counter crime in cyberspace. Has one person's information been stolen and fraudulently misused in the cyberspace, and are there ways to sufficiently counter this?
Where is the demarcation line between the government's right to know and the individual's right to protect his privacy in a free and democratic society?
Attempted to find the answers to these critical questions.
Then it was about internationalized domain names. We had a special section on this issue. Some nations, including Russia, have applied for -- and to launch new -- it looks like the monopoly of ASCII scripts is coming to an end totally.
The first lessons from Russia and other nations' efforts to launch their audience have informed the agenda of this roundtable. I must say that the delegation of IDNOT.RF for Russian Federation, the beginning of its life in the root was one of the Forum's tables.
Next slide, please. We have the section on sociocultural aspects of the Internet Governance: Education, science, and culture. In the age of globalization, the most efficient ways to preserve and foster national identity, and at the same time, promote diversity throughout by means of the Internet. The roundtable has gathered together leading experts to discuss breakthrough initiatives that would help boost up the Internet's potential to effectively capitalize on -- in the areas of research as well as culture.
They have also tried to articulate the Russian stance with regard to core issues of Internet Governance, access, diversity, and openness.
Then we have a section on managing the critical infrastructure of the Internet. Here is what has long caused the global Internet community concern. The transition from IPv4 to IPv6, importance on new TODs and development, the Internet -- information and its prospects.
The internationalization of critical infrastructure management.
And the last meeting was about Internet Governance. As new challenges and opportunities for Russia and the world. Internet Governance is a unique issue that has for years generated the international debate on public policies with regard to critical elements of Internet Governance and to secure robustness, resilience, security, civility, and development of the Internet.
The interaction between and engagement of all the major stakeholders on the future of Internet forums, a big component of the process, and again, WCIS.
Entering the previous uncharted territory, it is crucial to make sure they have a say in what is shaping tomorrow's Internet system and its governance system. This necessitates communication, dialogue between the major stakeholders. This will address few problems the closing session of the Russian IGF has focused on.
I should specially note from the report of Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator of the Internet Governance Forum Secretariat dedicated IGF as a new soft model of Internet Governance. Thank you.
LEONID TODOROV: Thank you, Andrey. Let me just stress that these are soft -- I mean, this model of soft governance was really an eye-opening concept for the Russian audience. Everybody was sort of stunned at hearing this. Is there any soft governance, indeed, in the world, and particularly in Russia? So that was the question after that session.
Well, now we are ready to take questions, if any. We are sorry we -- yes, please.
MARIANNE SAKALOVA: I am Marine, I am from Belarus, and I have a whole list of questions, which only proves Russia can play a leading role in the region. I am here representing academia as I teach social history of ICGs, and I ascribe myself to civil society as I'm doing much just to involve civil society into Internet Governance issues.
So I should say that Russia is very happy to have ccTLD as a promoter of Internet Governance, as in Belarus, our ccTLD is under government right now, and they are not very active in the movement of the society on discussions of Internet Governance.
So my questions, maybe they are a little bit specific, so you can answer them privately, are just to elaborate a little bit on what were the key arguments for telecom ministry to involve them into the Internet Governance discussions?
Then, you said that it was rather difficult to find adequate audiences. So, then, what do you mean by this adequacy? So I do not mean just to name the parts of society, but what are the criteria of these adequacy?
And then I would like to ask you what is your view of the wide digs of Internet Governance issues because I have been at one of the previous sessions, and George Sadowsky said that he doesn't see -- as far as I understood -- that he doesn't see much perspective on this wide approach to Internet Governance, including ecology, including human rights, and all these issues. And Internet Governance, ICANN, and the discussion started quite in another area.
And just the last question. What are the relations between -- or in what way would you see the relations between Eurasia Internet Governance Forum, if it happens, and European Internet Governance, so EuroDIG? And is there necessity just to make two regional dialogues, or can you participate in it? Thank you, and sorry for elaborating too much.
As I previously said, we think that this list of issues is important for Russian community, and we do not want to shorten this list because of -- we really understand that all these items are very important.
I think it is slightly specific for Russia, but once again, it's important for the Russian Internet society.
Maybe we should widening this list because we have some other issues which now are away from our list of items, but if you will have more time next time, we will include additional items in the list.
And I think we should think about the Internet Governance in wider forum because very many questions are not only technology, you have spoken about human rights. I think this issue is in the list of the Internet Governance. Thank you.
Thank you. So let me just briefly answer the three other questions. Well, first of all, how we got telecom -- you mean the industry or ministry? Ministry involved. Well, it's obvious. You have always -- I mean, you have always tried to sell something, so you should then package your message, you should get people engaged by selling them a great idea. So for example, that's got to be a groundbreaking event. We should pan the post-Soviet zone, so that will be our merit, our fortune, and we will be in the media and stuff like that. Plus that will probably give you due credit, I mean, for the Ministry as an agency that spearheads this process in Russia.
So I mean, that was pretty much that I would say marketing and all those attempts to sell a packaged message.
Second, about adequate audiences. Well, we have academia. We have some national civil society. But how to find those for whom it's not just a regular discussion. For example, we have the Moscow State University for International Relations, and they are famous for being one of the best schools in international law, journalism, and so forth. However, I must say that -- this is my personal perspective -- professors there lack a proper knowledge. I mean, they're still living in the Soviet time. They are obsolete. They are outdated with their views, with their perspectives. And this would have been a shame if they had taken the floor.
Third, relations between the -- that prospective Eurasian form and EuroDIG. Well, I believe there is room for cooperation. We talked to Lee Harvard of the European Council. He is pretty much supportive of this idea to have these Eurasian forums. Of course, we will have EuroDIG engaged. We are not that close territory anymore, so we welcome this type of cooperation, and we think that their expertise and their experience, their rich experience and the record of running events like this, of getting audience and, you know, to structure these events, is invaluable for our future endeavors.
I'm sorry.
WOLFGANG KLEINWAECHTER: My name is Wolfgang Kleinwaechter. I had the privilege to participate in the Russian Internet Governance Forum, as I had the privilege to go around seven or eight national IGFs or regional IGFs in the last year, so I can compare a little bit, and I want just to share some observations with you because the Russian IGF was, as far as I can see, the largest one -- (Off microphone) -- logistics and the content. Everything was really well prepared, and it was very impressive to see this. And when it was said Russia is now on the map of Internet Governance, I think the forum proved it. There was no real differences.
And I discovered also another difference because I was in many conferences in Russia in the 1990s, and in the last couple of years. The whole sign of IGF was totally -- the whole design of IGF was totally different, but probably this is different. My understanding of Russian was from the past. So to me it was a surprise to see this is possible to do a different way, and I wanted just to congratulate.
A final point is when you said we do have to cut off dialogue and we express our sorry. What I discovered is the side effect is next to the speaker, coffee breaks, discovered immediately I was talking to people, having discussions, and probably this is a long-term investment into the next generation of the Internet Governance. And the final part as regards EuroDIG, I only encourage the Russian Internet community to become part of this team which prepares EuroDIG to deploy speakers from Russia in the various panels, so this will help to understand each other. It -- isolation is always bad. And if you keep inviting people to your forum, go ahead this way. Thank you.
LEONID TODOROV: Thank you. We are running out of time. Our British colleagues are knocking at the door.
CHUCK GOMES: I'll be very brief. First of all, like Wolfgang -- I'm Chuck Gomes from VeriSign. Having participated in the forum, I complement you. It didn't look like a first-time effort at all. I also appreciate the context you provided in terms of the background you are coming from. It really gave a lot of understanding to the success of the Forum and made it even more impressive. Thank you.
LEONID TODOROV: Thank you, Chuck. You made huge input to this -- I'm sorry.
Very short comments. I have been participating in the last plenary session, and, I too, am impressed with the organisation and how things have been good. Only one thing I noted, that there is not -- there was not so much interaction. And then you did well when letting the presentations to occupy almost all the time, and in the end, but some interaction was happening in the end in many cases, and this was positive. In the future, perhaps you should encourage more the people don't to be shy. Thank you.
I'm sorry.
LEONID TODOROV: Well, if there are no questions or if you have any questions to discuss, we can do it in the lobby because, you know, we are through, and thank you very much for attending this workshop, and we are looking forward to seeing you at next IGF, and that will be posted on our ccTLD.RU home page. Thank you very much. Thank you.
(Applause)
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