FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OCTOBER 24, 2013
2:30 BALI
WORKSHOP 68
E‑PARTICIPATION IN IG PROCESSES
The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Eigth Meeting of the IGF, in Bali, Indonesia. 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.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Folks, I think we can start ‑‑ we have a challenge now. We have, I think five, six, seven remote participants at the moment. I'm not sure they can hear us yet.
Let us know when they can hear us.
To some extent it will be unfair to start the workshop if those people cannot hear us. But we're doing the workshop with remote participation, we want to be equal.
Let's begin discussing among ourselves as I'm sure that they'll discuss among themselves as well, and we'll try to link the two spaces.
First of all I want to remind you, this is the second round of this workshop. The first round was basically ‑‑ this is the third round of this workshop!
The first was in Nairobi two years ago. We wanted to draft the E‑participation Principles, what should be the main principles of E‑participation? We started with collaborative drafting of the document back then which means all of us in the room basically did the drafts.
We repeated that, improving this draft last year, and this year we want to somehow wrap up this process and complete the E‑participation Principles for the IGF.
Here is the document. We'll try to go through, just give it away, a copy of each for everyone. You may have it or you can take it. So you can pass through, maybe read while we're discussing it ‑‑ you can distribute it. Thank you.
At the same time ‑‑ and a copy over there ‑‑ you have the iPad, right? A hard copy here, please.
All of you that have laptops or any kind of gadgets, instead of reading your e‑mails and browsing the Web this session ‑‑ which I know everyone does ‑‑ I invite you to open this link. This is the link to the current version of the document and when you're asked to enter the password, this is the password you insert. It will help us draft the documents together collaboratively during the session.
Can you see it? You can't see it. Let me see. I can probably show it here. Here it is, more copies are here if you want. Here is the link. I encourage you to open the document. The folks in remote will do the same.
Ginger is with us somewhere in there.
Ginger is behind this initiative, three years. She's the one that should be editing the document as well and helping the remote coordination and also remote moderating, connecting the two spaces, so we'll try to interact. I don't know how technical this will work.
That's a point of this exercise today.
To start with, I would like to talk about the importance of the remote participation, many of us don't realize it. We have 20 in the room and another 7 online, but this is yet another step so we hope that we'll manage to explain to all of the others the remote participation is very important and a complex process.
I want to start maybe with some of you, to ask a question to some of you. You probably feel, the few that are here, you feel you have participated in the workshop, you feel you're at the IGF, right?
Do you think that Ginger who’s now online is also at the IGF?
Who thinks that Ginger whose online now is also at the IGF? Does it mean that those people that are not physically present are not participating in the IGF? To what extent is physical presence important? What is here?
Is here if we're here physically, or is here if we participate? Do we need to participate as diplomats would say on equal footing or on any kind of participation should be considered okay, that's fine enough? They can follow, they can read, they can hear maybe, that's fine. Maybe they can write, send something, that's fine.
Did we manage to make the voice go to the remote space also? Not yet. Working on that. Working on that.
This is the ‑‑ this is the goal of the exercise: It is to try to build up this E‑participation Principles.
To start with, maybe we can put ‑‑ I don't know if it is too complex to put the video on now. Ginger's video on. Is it okay?
We can put Ginger's video ‑‑ yes.
Ginger says in reply to the question, which proves she's here or at the IGF, Ginger and others are definitely at the IGF but it does not feel the same the other way around. There's no video and audio.
Since Ginger is in Wisconsin and it must be freezing over there, it is definitely not feeling the same way as here.
We need a tone?
Stop it. We'll try to put the tone on.
This is the video. This is a prerecorded video, we're not going to pull your leg. The point was, when I asked Ginger if she wants to jump in, if she wants to jump in with a remote video or prerecorded video she said no, no, I want to prerecord a video because I want to also show that remote participation takes a lot of preparation and you have to have a backup so when things don't work here, like here, you have a chance to say what we want to say even through the video message.
She prerecorded this message. She was afraid that I would put it in spite of her efforts ‑‑ we'll put her short message about the principles which she explains why the principles are important.
Let me see if we can put the voice on.
>> GINGER PAQUE: Hello everyone.
This had their beginnings in the workshop in the 2011 IGF convention, continuing at the 2012 IGF and will reach a final draft here in 2013.
This collaborative document is to be edited during this workshop using the link that you have been given. As we speak, I'll add my suggestions for the principles from this IGF. It includes principles on promoting inclusiveness, multi‑lingual support to non-English speaker, to ensure equality of participation between present and online participants, dedicating remote moderators as an important part of the panel and workshop design, building capacity and developing guidelines with clear dissemination of training materials and information, providing multiple platforms and media web conferencing, for example Webcasts, chat, twitter, social media. That are easily accessible for all, including those with disabilities.
As remote participation has evolved we're becoming more demanding. I have two more principles to suggest, principles that have not been raised previously. I hope we can discuss them here.
First, time zones of meeting venues and compensating strategies should be considered to make sure they foster effective remote participation. The 13‑hour time difference, for example, between Wisconsin, where I am, and Bali makes participation in this IGF difficult for me and others I'm sure find themselves in a similar situation.
I now better understand and more fully appreciate the challenges facing people from the Pacific Time zones as they work with the rest of us online every day. One online strategy that could help with the time zone challenge somewhat is to schedule workshops at more reasonable times, times that would facilitate more participation. Perhaps the earliest and latest sessions. Another possibility is to schedule programmed discussions which could offer input into other sessions.
My second suggestion is that remote presenters should be given equal footing with presenters and panelists. What can be worse than preparing a presentation, perhaps even prerecording it and arranging to be online at an inconvenient time only to find that the moderator does not include your presentation on the panel because other events have taken precedence? This has happened in the past and already seems to be more prevalent at this IGF in the numerous panels we have had so far. This is an issue that must be addressed.
I hope to see you on the document shortly editing with me. Please take the time to comment, your input is very important.
Have a great IGF.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Ginger.
I'm thinking again, trying to put on the link one more time, if any of you want to join again. Trying to think if we should add as one of the challenges what we had at the beginning of this meeting, should we wait for technical problems to be resolved in a workshop or not? That's also a challenge. Especially when it doesn't work, the workshop, it just goes on, nobody cares about the remote participants.
The focus of this session today should be not as much on specific details of remote participation but the participation between the two meetings, specifically the IGF meetings.
I ‑‑ we wanted to hear this time a couple of people who had experience with E‑participation with involving people into the process, into the political process through the e‑tools. I'll start here, asking for your thoughts on how your thoughts are to involve civil society or any other into the process. I don't know if you have had a chance to go through this first set of principles; if not, we encourage you to go through. Give us the feedbacks.
>> Thank you very much. I have had a chance to look through the principles. I was asked to focus on Internet policy making through the E‑participation and was going to give my experience in participating in the processes because as we know the IGF is wonderful but not policy making.
So, I have had the experience of participating through the ITU and the time differences between New York, where I'm based and Geneva is a problem.
One thing I noticed recently is that now more and more we're seeing governments actually e‑participating. When there is governments participating remotely there is more emphasis on giving the speakers the floor and making interventions and the ITU has done a good job of making E‑participation available and being responsive and they have had very, very good moderators. That's one aspect to share.
The principles, once they're more finalized they seem to be in good shape but once the working group is in a position to bring them forward, maybe bringing them to governments and into the governmental organizations to get by in.
A big problem with the Internet Governance is the capacity of developing countries and small countries to actually go to every meeting and to engage when they need to and they're more and more using remote participation. If you bring the principles to governments, to get their buy in and into the intergovernmental associations or any forum to participate in, that would be a good way to bring them forward and have them met by governments and not necessarily when published but when you're in a place when you're comfortable with them.
Second, I have noticed when I'm in person at these meeting, many colleagues that need to be at work, they're not, there what's effective, is to find other ways of using Skype, different types of communication to actually bring them into the discussion and then be able to share their concerns when the people in the meeting actually have a voice. That's not ideal, obviously a big institution hosting the meeting should make that available, sometimes it is the most effective way of getting other who is are not able to come in person to participate.
I think I'll stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions and see how this discussion advances.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: A question straightaway, since you're involved in the policy making process, following the E‑participation, do you have the impression that the governments or whoever is the institutions behind policy making processes, do they really understand the importance of E‑participation? Is it more kind of a bumper sticker, yes, we involve people, they don't really feel that this is involving people, don't really feel the merit of that, they don't really devote to doing that?
>> I think I'm going to take the easy way out. A bit of both depending on the venue.
When it is an intergovernmental meeting, multistakeholder, inclusive, they'll put the remote participation in place. Governments are on the other hand, they feel they need to ‑‑ and to make every country make an intervention if they request to.
Most recently I was on a meeting with the Saudi delegation at the ITU on remote participation, if you're familiar with that delegation, they're vocal, they ask a lot of questions, they really want to be involved.
I think that the moderators were able to accommodate them, but that was something new. Maybe not something that they have seen as much. In other venues they generally want to include remote participation and I think that the last year's forum was the first where they really did that, had people making presentations from remote, remotely. I think it is something that they're proud of. I don't know if they see the value in it inherently or something that sounds good, seems good, are very proud of it.
It is hard to say I think when it comes down to decision making, they don't ‑‑ it is more of a sticker that they can say a multistakeholder, in Civil Society pushing for remote participation, but more and more if governments do, it will be more of a necessity.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I ask, because I have the impression that not only the IGF and regional IGFs and so on, that it is a good thing to have special remote participation to show it, but then not many people really realize how complex this process is between the events, how complex it is to organize, human resources time, finances, so on, to really make it work, especially between the two events. It is not only about the remote participation at the event.
If you want to add something or ‑‑ Emilar, you may want to add to something. What is your experiences with the remote participation with these processes?
>> EMILAR VUSHE: I'm Emilar Vushe, and I work with the Communication of Progressiva Communications and I'm based in South Africa.
APC is a network and organization. We have 46 members in 33 countries and our staff members are in 16 countries. We do most of our work online.
Our experience is that E‑participation is not only about technology, it's about people and what we have tried to do is to build a capacity of our members and staff we work on projects with. We have found we have challenges even with the staff because we're not all best ‑‑ we're best in different countries, mostly global south. You will find that some challenges we have, even on connectivity issues, on being able to actually be confident with the technology, to use that technology tools that you have, you may want to work on somebody with Skype, somebody on Skype but they may not be able to use it, or their connection is very expensive.
APC, what we have done, we have allocated resources to build capacity of not only our staff members, but also our members and we have held the first African IGF with partners in South Africa to build the capacity of our partners to be able to participate meaningfully, not just off line but also electronically.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I think, too, two important obstacles from there, that you mentioned.
One, the knowledge, capacity to manage with that and to know how to participate.
The second, the technology, the bandwidth, right?
The capacity, that means that you have to train the people.
How do you overcome the problems of the technological nature, the bandwidth, would any kind of a text based communication help? Even like social media?
Then there are the obstacles when it comes to People with Disabilities, blind people that may not be able to read it? Do you have experience with that? Any recommendation we may build in to the principles when it comes to overcoming these challenges?
>> EMILAR VUSHE: I have noted some recommendations.
We cannot achieve inclusiveness without more broadband, universal inclusiveness, we just end up talking it.
If I don't have access to the technology, there is no way I can participate in this meeting. Some people may want to participate but they don't have the basic connection or the basic access of Internet. When we do the live editing, whatever, we can maybe put some of that on the document.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: You can do it immediately. Just do it. Feel free. Ginger is catching some of the notes and putting it in, she's in the U.S., you, everybody else, you do it yourself as well. Yes.
>> EMILAR VUSHE: (Audio issues).
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: That's one of the things that Ginger mentioned, the other was the time zones. We have had those problems as well. Working across the time zones.
(Audio issues).
>> EMILAR VUSHE: (Audio issues) there is a suggestion in this document. I also am ‑‑ (audio issues).
(Audio issues).
>> That's absolutely correct. We're watching this right now on the screen, we're having a classic example of trying to do a patch, a makeshift method of getting blind participants to call in. It is not working.
In the past we have managed that kind of by the skin of our teeth to do this, in previous IGFs. The problem is deeper than that.
Manufacturers design their platforms as one size fits all. Captioning has been included inside some of the remote tools. We're using one in particular at the moment. There are others. I have a lot of experience with those. It is not just that.
Also, blind people cannot raise the hand to be able to comment. We have to train people who are moderators, people who are chairman in how to deal with multiple disabilities with people who are going to be online.
The other problems, if you have a captioning part enclosed, it often blocks what else is there, not a lot of other people are able to use it, the rest of the tools that are on there.
I actually have ‑‑ I have a presentation in my own area, my own workshop, 38 tomorrow, where I go into greater detail.
Do you have my picture? I will put up a picture here of the note sign language interpretation and show you another problem. What's going on?
Ginger, if you're listening to me, there is no mention of person with disabilities in your document. I would like to see that changed. I have two sentences ‑‑ there is a picture.
The picture is showing a young woman, I don't know how well it is viewed. That's a sign language interpreter. The male on the iPad is a deaf participant. You see there are three machines, one for the remote, one for the captioning. The reason why there is three tools, meaning it is duplicated at the deaf man's ‑‑ that's Christopher Jones, a Dynamic Coalition member and whose also a vice chair, he's totally deaf, he's with a group I chair in the ITU. This is all exactly the same equipment. You have six pieces of equipment for him to participate. Not everybody can afford that.
The problem also deals with the fact that if we do happen to have many participants, some of the other tools that are available, like Skype, everything else, what we would call conferencing with video without upgrading and buying the method of that particular tool so that even though you can have a conferencing tool that allows it for the persons with disabilities. Manufacturers, they have had to have to cooperate and make these particular tools interoperable then they allow us to use them.
If you cannot train a person who has a disability because he cannot use the machine, that's one thing. If you don't have broadband, that's another thing.
If you can't have that person be able to use that communication tool, the conferencing tool, even to train them to use it in the first place, I have a ‑‑ for Ginger, I would like for him to make a comment here ‑‑ we need to train moderators on how to deal with persons with disabilities and we get quite a bit of this. There is no program to train the moderators to say to a blind person whose had to call in without going through the communication tools, they have to either have a toll free number, or to pay for the call or to be called back, HI, I'm using Jerry as an example. Would you like to make a comment? Would you like to say anything? In this particular moment we cannot do it, it is not working, allowing them to speak. It has to be a manual process, not one which is technically done.
When you have a blind person using it, he's using audio. You with me so far? If he's listening to the meaning, he has to switch that off in order to able to navigate, he's missing that meeting. The question ‑‑ the area of discussion may just move on and he won't get there in time.
It cannot be used for technical meetings. We have blind engineers, there is a famous one at Google so people that are in industry generally have disabilities that function at a very high level and they're not able to use it as it stands now.
The other thing, other than the fact that we need to redesign these tools, which is going to take a little time, we have to set up advance in a way that we know that these people are coming on in the possible remote participation. That's when we say do we have any special needs? That should be on every registration form that exists for every mailing that's used for participation.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Ginger is taking notes.
>> I see someone is raising hands. Should I stop? Allow that comment to go through?
>> I think also we have Jerry on the live connection.
>> (Audio muffled).
>> I have a copy of this, I'm not able to add wording ‑‑ I have a disability, I'm not able to do this live, I promise I'll do that and go through it and in fact I'll send the presentation which will be tomorrow dealing with that.
Do you want to try ‑‑
>> When you apply for the participation, you should be able to say what you can and can't use and I think it is quite irrelevant for the principles.
(Audio muffled).
>> Can you hear me? Hello?
>> I think we hear you. We want to hear about your experiences of remote participation and including people that cannot necessarily be able to use all of the tools that are available today.
>> I'm not sure. Can you hear me?
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Yes. I can hear you.
>> (Audio muffled)
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. Thank you, Jerry.
The audio was bad but we managed to hear bits and pieces.
This gives us a picture of how complex this is. I think I definitely agree, is the necessity to test way ahead so that we're assured that the testing worked and that the people can be effectively involved in the discussion.
I wanted to maybe ‑‑ do we have any comments from the remote?
>> Ginger could hear Jerry better than we could, and she has added his comments already.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: She may also be able to ‑‑ I can ask her.
Ginger, if you can, just put a couple of bullets back to remote space so that we can read them because our ‑‑ we couldn't hear as good as you could hear. Maybe we can read back some of Jerry's main comments. Right.
Okay. Now, let me try to move on this ‑‑ I don't know if we really want to try anything ‑‑
>> It should be on.
This is something that we may want to do.
On the bottom of the mike you can mute it, that feedback is maybe causing some of the problems. I'm surrounded by wonderful tech people that always make us turn off our mikes if we're not using them.
Another thing I would like to add, one of the things that's very important, it is not only do we need to include persons with disabilities but we need to put them in every single document that we do and that they're acknowledged and that they're recognized and we need to also write a guideline for moderators and a guideline for chairman on how to run a meeting.
One of the things that happens, it is that when you're dealing with deaf people, for example, it takes time for the interpretation to transpire.
If I have a deaf person participating remotely and we're speaking and captioning or if he's actually looking towards the person that's going to be speaking for him, it takes time. He may choose to do several sentences before that person who’s interpreting and versing for him actually says it.
A thing that's happened, people that do chair meetings don't have the patience, they want to go fast. They want to get going. I'm not saying you're doing that, you're not. You're great!
The point is, we have to also remember, as I told you earlier, you did beautifully, ask blind participant to comment, to speak, we have to do that manually. We cannot rely on the remote moderator to do that if they can't raise their hand, use the chat box and also this effects the people with physical disabilities and perhaps one of the only ways we can actually do this and is to have different screens, hopefully the people who design these remote tools, where people can switch to the screen that applies to them. The blind have a different one. The deaf have a different one.
You don't cover up the chat box or the document or the tool, like captioning. You also need captions to be able to be adjusted by people with visual problems. That means changing the color if you're color blind, making the font bigger if you're sight challenged, that means being able to scroll up or down if you have a learning disability so that you can stop it and go look at what somebody said, put the scroll back on and re-catchup.
Like I said, it is more complex than what I have said here. We need to add these things to this document and I will be happy to work with Ginger later and we'll do that.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to say all of those things.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: (No audio) Is this on? The participants, (audio muffled).
>> Do you want to read that again?
>> Okay. We had an audio problem.
Again, Ginger's comments from Jerry: Platforms must be accessible by Persons with Disabilities, registration for conferences must include information about special needs of remote participants, for example those with wheelchairs, tools (audio muffled) dealing with Persons with Disabilities and platforms for special needs must be addressed.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. (Audio muffled).
>> Thank you.
>> Thank you for that.
>> I would like to bring up a couple of points.
Let's talk about the participation, to start with the idea of the remote participation. A lot has happened since then, and I have been to many IGFs and many different political spaces related to this process here. I have learned a lot. I have heard a lot. I would like to bring some political thoughts and it may be ‑‑ it is not really negative, it is constructive. I have to think of a better word to frame it in English.
There was a question asked in the beginning, which was are their remote participants in the IGF and not all the people raised their hands and said, okay, so, does it mean that they're not participating? I do think that the two questions are the same. I would not say that they're in the IGF, I would say that they are participating, there are different levels of participation, you can hear what people are saying here, you can signal that you have something to comment, sometimes you can follow the discussions by twitter, by Facebook, by Skype, social networks.
The participation, you are outside of this room, you have a ‑‑ (audio muffled) this is really, really important. You know, to have the presence, to look someone in the eye, to make your points to come across.
I would say it is not the same that they're here in the IGF. I feel it is dangerous if we frame like that because I think that there are many people in developing countries that try to find resources to actually be here.
If we go along with the narrative that it is the same, the people, we say, okay, so you can participate remotely, so I think we have to be careful in how we frame it.
Another thing I would like to comment on, I think we have come far politically with remote participation. This was something that was on the IGF improvements. It was recognized as an important part of the IGF and everybody came to defend it strongly and it has been something that has politically legitimatized the IGF. So, I feel that the understanding is important and I have created a culture that ‑‑ that moderators ask okay, are there remote participants? You have to have social protocol. It is a considerate think to ask, but have we really conveyed the message it is important to have remote participation in terms of inclusion and people that are saying, okay, it will be a great thing to do, let's do that. They're here. (Audio muffled).
We also have to have the resources to be implemented. It is what we have said in the working group. Okay. Let's have it. You need to have the resources to it.
Frankly, we almost do not have the resources to have this IGF, it was almost canceled. How can we as a community that believes that this is a cornerstone for complete inclusion can (audio muffled) how do we say the message, it is important for inclusion but also secured for ‑‑ I don't know if ‑‑ if we should ‑‑ some ideas that just cross my mind. Maybe we can talk to someone meaningful, important from a political coalition to raise the topic, to try to secure resources for it. (Audio muffled)
It is silly. Really silly, but sometimes on the political level it works.
Who is the person that we could bring in to get the remote coalition here, maybe someone that can go anywhere and remotely participate? I don't know. Just throwing ideas out.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: They're all very good things when it comes to the first part, I definitely can't agree (audio muffled).
Secondly, resources: Today we had a discussion on that as well, about participation and the fact is, that in the last year and a half I have been serving we have hardly managed to have (audio muffled).
It is important to ask remote participants. I'm not really sure, I think that the initiatives should be something to follow‑up on that. A couple more comments.
>> Thank you. I'm a student.
Well, initially I ‑‑ we're a country that has 1,000 islands, you can imagine, just to make a connection between here, New York, you know, we have already spent hours, to be honest, on this, to make connection. Can you imagine how the obstacle we face next year and the following years, if the E‑participation will become our permanent program on ICP?
My point is that E‑participation in policy making, process policy making, and I'm wondering, which process that we have to enter with E‑participation? Is it in the definition, is it in policy relations? Is it in interpretation? There are a lot of steps to make the policy, the public policy. Which step ‑‑ and in every step we have to make E‑participation eligible and then how? For me, it is kind of like I'm from government, of course, I get a lot of complaint on how we're so close, not hearing everybody while making policy. Then the thing is, or even with the E‑participation, it has to be applied in making policy just a bit like ‑‑ you have to open everybody's mind set, that if you cannot participate in formulating policy you can't participate in implementing policy. We have a lot of process in making policy and ‑‑ if you can participate in one step, it means that you don't participate in other steps. This is a ‑‑ then I want in this policy, I saw CFI, so, it was kind of like this is a draft that you show me. I want you to make the process of policy making itself have the E‑participation have to be applied in every process.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you for the comment. I definitely invite you to produce yourself directly in the document if you wish.
Really, if all of us want to do it, when it comes to the comment, I think it really goes well with the agenda of this, the focus of the session. It is the participation year round, not just for the event, but throughout the year, in between the events, that's a division into a couple of different phases of policy making, it is really precious and we have to reach them.
Can we give a priority to the physical participation but then going back ‑‑ back to this.
>> Thank you. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, colleagues. Good morning.
I just wanted to say, the IGF, the E‑participation, it is good with where you're working. I'm from Africa and when there are (audio muffled).
>> There's a problem with that microphone. We lost that captioning.
Can you hear us now? Okay. Excellent. Not sure if they're typing that themselves or transcribing me.
Finally, the financial, as I said, because Nigeria, so what we are recommending is that the programs, the facilitators, we need to have that, they have to be there and they have to be trained to participate.
Also, there needs to be put in place resources that are required. I think they use the facilities, and they use (audio muffled).
If you look at the people coming, then the resources, it can be completely different. A budget should be put in place. We should look for a budget. A budget, we should start finding out if there is that, people say, okay, there is a budget for that for physical travel, but then we have (audio muffled) have E‑participation. Only the benefits of E‑participation (audio muffled).
>> I guess Ginger had some of that, and fitting that in the document, it just added that in the document. The participation, it requires training, serious approach, requires funds.
We have two comments.
>> Not necessarily, no. There was a link, we can show maybe again the link on the big screen.
We have two calls, right?
>> Yes. First I want to say thank you to Jerry for his comments through Ginger.
Stephanie has a comment on taking the discussion seriously enough: Could it be that the people that can really make a difference are able to attend in person and therefore unable to really appreciate the remote participation.
(Audio muffled) to correct you I think it was earlier, at the ITU we're mandated to provide (audio muffled) in the six official languages.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you.
>> To answer one question, first, with the remote participation, I work with UNESCO, this year, we have reorganized and it is important for UNESCO to have the remote participation, we never had that before, also with the IGF. Thank you to all of you. It was quite successful because it had participation from 78 countries at different sessions.
Afterwards, you look at the different countries that participated, Brazil, Switzerland, United Kingdom, you have a lot of contributions from the globe that participated in the high participation rate, there were bold results in the E‑participation.
There was a point made before, and that's a discussion that's going on here, and the excitement at this IGF perhaps is also what we're seeing in the official buildings and the discussions are sometimes out in the corridors and just relationally and that's important, but the E‑participation of the principals. E‑participation is not about technology but the social context, it is important. I would perhaps invite afterwards other people to acknowledge and understand how this is being done. I think that is really one of the weaknesses as I see it so far that this relationship E‑participation is not fully there, but maybe I don't understand that.
Briefly, the tools, you have invited us to speak about, UNESCO hosts a community, and there were 5,000 participants or subscribing participants in 27 communities and there also we can see how much effort it takes to build up the community and to animate it. I think that's a lot of things you do not see behind and sometimes there's a question, if you do those kinds of things, there is the participation. It is working for us for the inclusiveness and also the success of doing this, that these efforts and resources, we have had little resources and we'll continue do it. We have had a large geographical distribution and we were able to ‑‑ at sometimes we couldn't physically always, many, many people are ‑‑ sometimes it is a choice. He made it for the remote participation.
My question again is on the relation of participation on examining that, how to do that. I would love to learn about it.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. We'll give you the Website. (Audio muffled).
>> There is a buildup of the community, a precious way of E‑participation between the events and crowd‑sourcing for the discussions.
Briefly coming back to that, for example, we have built up an open source platform. We did, for example, research which was posted and then you develop the platform, people could edit, comment on the platforms. It was a big effort and also the accommodations of the meeting. Afterwards they were really questioning, we had a few comment altogether, we could have well received them and posted them as well. Sometimes it is not all easy, even with this big community where you have potentially a big reach out.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you.
Now, back on the remote question, maybe a question for anyone: The social relation between the people can be really established. (Audio muffled) can we compensate somehow the lack of ability to meet face‑to‑face and even to some extent know each other, see each other, can we compensate at least a bit on that? Does anyone have any experience in that?
>> AUDIENCE: (Audio muffled).
>> What I say ‑‑ is it ‑‑ what I say that, when I ‑‑ the E‑participation, the people, somewhere, at the end of the process, they have to have the preparations. You have the assessment and the physical contact that you have, it will at one time happen but you cannot really create that, what people have physically. That's what we have with the E‑participation.
>> The context, the physical connections, you can't really making it different accepting that.
>> In the case of E‑participation, for this particular round, remote participation, we need a team not just of technical facilitators, but the human relation facilitators. When we go to places we're going to see what you're looking at now, the rates, where you're coming from, are you still jet lagged? I have people sleeping in the room? What are you wearing? What's the food like? Who did this? Who did that? So, these are the things that grapevine.
There is a Civil Society, there was a big fight, there was a government meeting, someone was sneezing, these are the things that add life to it. The pictures, we need to take pictures of the funny moments, food, the arrival at the airport, it is not just a technical part for people to see the transcription and the video but what happens after the ideas ignites. That's very important. To take picture, up load them, so people can comment on the pictures.
Thank you.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: That deals with the privacy, depending on the photos.
>> Yes. I was one of your 800 people from the Caribbean and I met this IGF, the person that remote moderated my interventions from Nairobi two years ago. Improving the remote, physical Delegates, we need a chat place involving all meeting participants. Remote Delegates can chat between themselves, which they're doing currently on this stream, but not able to exchange information with physical Delegates.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: We'll get back to that later. I just want to bring this back in.
The IGF, I'm not going to ask anything, I'm just going to say what you think you should.
>> Hello. I'm doing a remote coordination this year for the IGF 2013. You probably know me, transcribers.
So, I have a few points to make. Of course, I have 100 to make, but I'm not going to make that here.
People with disabilities: If you're talking about equal footing and a process that includes everyone on equal footing people with disabilities, that want to participate remotely, they should have the same situation, the same help as other people. We cannot say oh, they can just call and pay because the remote participant that's not disabled, they can come freely so we cannot say that. We cannot say also that we'll get you an assistant, they want to be independent. Independence is important for everyone and we have to help in that.
We need to provide a platform that includes the conversations with other participants. Other points, time difference, you have to start in many afternoons.
This year we have not seen many remote participants, that's one of the reasons. Among other technical and other difficulties, it is time difference. We wanted to have them to sit together, to discuss and send us questions and comments, if not for that project. That's another project.
They're also ‑‑ another point I want to make is about remote participants. You know when you want to go physically, you get ready, you take a shower, you put your shoes on, then you don't just get out of there, then go to the conference, do you? Remote participants should also be ready. They should read, they should know where they want to go, if they don't know, they should ask. We're able to respond of course maybe sometimes with e‑mails but we're ready to respond. So, contact us. Tell us what you need. Prepare for the conference. Read the workshops if you want to comment on them, read the background paper. Get information so that you can contribute. Test your system.
Those are my comments. Of course I have more.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I think the point about preparing for the IGF is definitely not only for the remote participant but for everyone. Many people do not properly prepare.
>> I'm from Nigeria. (Audio muffled).
Traveling for this kind of conference, it is a bit difficult because of funds. Having said that, I believe that the revision of the technical tools, where the funds are available.
Different time zones, always a challenge. My suggestion would be ‑‑ I apologize, I didn't get her name ‑‑ why don't we really set up facilities in a way that the contents of a lecture, so that even with this, we could also get the contributions with the time zone, I think that's what also happened.
Thank you. Oh! One more thing, sorry.
The principles, I think we should ‑‑ they should try to consider those that may not have the facilities that require active visual expression remotely.
Thank you.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you.
I think it is just ‑‑ Ginger mentioned in the beginning, with the video, she said there may be different combinations, getting input in the data process but it is harder for Ginger over there, she's in our time zone as well as hers. We can go to sleep at the end of day here.
We ‑‑ an interesting observation, they ‑‑ (audio muffled).
>> Can you hear us? Can you jump in?
>> Yes. I can hear you, thank you very much. I presume you can hear me so I'll go ahead.
I'm getting ‑‑ I'm ‑‑ okay. Thank you very much. Thank you for having me participate.
The discussions, they're very, very illuminating and interesting. I think we face a lot of these issues. The remote participation project of the ITU about three, four years ago. The discussions with the ITU, the interesting thing, we were ‑‑ you know, there is a community out there. I think ‑‑ I'm going to make a short intervention. I think there are three important things we learned.
The first thing is, you need to be realistic. I don't think you can underestimate the complexity of what you're trying to do with remote participation. I think we have seen here it is very difficult to take these two levels and bring them together successfully. It takes a lot of time, a lot of technical preparation to do this in order to make sure that you have the audio issues, you have the video issues, that people can follow the conference and can make input. It’s not an easy thing to do.
When you're also putting together a wish list, we need to think about the fact that each of those ‑‑ each time you add something to the wish list, you're making it more complex. I think you're going to have to be ‑‑ everyone needs to be realistic on what we can achieve within the budget constraints that we have now.
The second thing is, I think unique to ‑‑ to focus ‑‑ have an objective on what you really want to achieve. I think the rule we came up with, we need to give preference to delegates that are physically present.
I say preference, what I mean by that, we look at the golden rule, you don't disrupt the committee, the Delegates, they have very little tolerance for issues, the physical meeting is degraded, that really could jeopardize the remote participation progress. Probably the key to the success of the meetings was the training of the remote moderators. These were often students we would find and train the students to be the interface between the physical meeting and the remote participants. By that, what they would do, they would queue up the remote participant, make sure that the audio was there and make sure that the interaction between the physical meeting and the remote meeting went as seamlessly as possible.
That's not to say we didn't have tractable problem, of course we did. I'm saying in that context, a formal U.N type environment that the appetite for experimentation in these types of meetings is very limited. We have to do a lot of preparation to make sure to minimize these.
I think that the remote moderator could do a lot to bring the two worlds together. I think you can do a lot in terms of ‑‑ what I would call narrow the technology.
I made the point earlier about the fact that they moment you can see the people in the room. I have a good sense. Unfortunately we don't have a back channel. I think if we could sit together, if we could have a common chat space for all participants, that would help to meld these meetings as well.
So, I don't want to go on any longer, I think these are things we have to think about when preparing these, you have to keep it simple. We have the budget restraints, every time you add to it, it makes it more difficult to run the meeting.
The next thing is to really look at the role of the moderators and thirdly, how can you have this carry on in a seamless way. One point that I didn't mention, that I did want to mention.
This can make it simpler, if you don't worry about multiple language, that's great, when you go into the multiple language scenario, the benefit is far more complex and far more costly. Okay, I'll end my intervention there. Thank you.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: The mike is on. Okay. I have a number of questions to get back to you, but the time is up.
Sorry? Okay. We'll have ‑‑ we have the last comment from the floor. (Audio muffled).
I don't know if we have Ginger on the line. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? Yes?
(No audio).
>> Seems we can't get the connection.
Let's ‑‑ our time is almost off. I wanted to ‑‑ can we switch that off? Whatever? Thank you.
I wanted to give a back comment: I have asked when we started, we were late, waiting for the other participant, the remote participants to be connected, don't worry, take 20 minutes more they said, or even more, we had issues, but it is a specific situation.
As a wrap‑up, I want to give also the microphone to Bernard who was basically behind the implementation of most of the remote participation thus far together with the remote participation working group to maybe try to wrap up the discussion to consolidate our wishes into practice which is not always that simple. You can join remotely or with the microphone, whatever you prefer.
>> Thank you. I hope the remote participants will hear me.
I have been doing the remote participation for the last four years. I have small bullet points I would like to share with you.
One, there's no problems in remote participation, there are challenges. From my perspective, I have faced lots of challenges like doing the last four years and I hope ‑‑ okay, the captioning is working.
One, the lack of resources, we already talked about that. From the perspective of the organizer, there is not much return of invest but we all agree on this, there is a huge return of the invest for the remote participation. We need to convene this area to organizations which are probably outside of the IG domain so that they also use remote participation but as well as convince the current IG organizations that they need to invest more into Internet Governance to push more resources.
The second challenge, awareness. Here I'm talking about awareness for the organizers of the sessions, that they understand how remote participation works. How to actually make it work.
The success of remote participation is not just about the remote participants or the remote panelists or the room moderator but about the moderator of the session giving the floor for the remote participants just as we're doing in this session.
So, the other part of our awareness, I hope the captioning is working now? Cool? Is online awareness.
People need to know that remote participation is working, will work, and will continue to work.
They need to know that it exists. Some people say oh, there is remote sessions? I didn't know! You know, they need to know about it and remote participation is not only what you're seeing on the screen right now. Remote participation is twitter, Facebook, social media, people reporting what's happening in the room, what's happening behind the room, what's happening in the roof. As a friend said in the bathroom ‑‑ no, I'm joking. If the person has to wait, this is the kind of remote participation we're looking at, not only the chat and others in the room.
The third problem ‑‑ sorry, challenge, it is that remote participation has a higher risk of failure. If someone tries to connect with remote participation and cannot connect they'll leave the room.
I give the example of this session. If someone called ‑‑ someone called the session, they couldn't hear the voice or see the voice, they left after 5 minutes, unfortunately. Those are the challenges in remote participation.
Then you say these are all technological limits, I tell you no. These are ‑‑ first there is machine factors, like the browser we are using, the operating system we're using, the software we need to install, the hardware maybe not compatible but there is also the human factor, and the human factor here is most important.
I talked already about our awareness, we need as far as we have spoke, we need readiness, but we also need protocols.
At the moment, there is no such thing as a remote participation protocol. There is no RFC, no ‑‑ nothing. Nobody says how it functions, nobody knows how it is supposed to function.
This is a huge, huge space we need to explore and we need to work on. Of course I'm not mentioning the new development of softwares which brings me to my before last idea.
The user experience is the most important topic that we need to build on in remote participation. People feedback on why it worked, didn't work, that's what we need to build on.
That brings me to the last point. How can we adapt in order to fix the glitches happening? Basically the remote participation could not work, we need to fix it, right? First we need to prepare, as we said before. Try and test in advance. Most importantly, as I said, evaluate. We need to evaluate what's happening, build on it, and evolve.
I'm pretty sure most of you know how remote participation has evolved in the last few years. We started simple Skype and then now we're using web EX. Prepare, evaluate, evolve, hopefully within the next few years we'll have a better model, a better framework.
I remember in UNESCO, we have had ‑‑ in February, we connected remotely to UNESCO, and with the plus so, they were remotely connected, we had two parallel events at the same time connected remotely, each in a different connect, platform. It was amazing, the first time this happened, it worked. People were so happy as well as others.
To conclude my thoughts, we need resources, we need awareness, we should remove the high‑risk of failure. We need to work on machine factors as well as human factors. We need to prepare, evaluate, evolve how we think about remote participation and the way forward to get it and most certainly we have to write protocols and procedures on how it should work.
Thank you very much.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Bernard. I think we're making a record with breaking the time.
Last word to Ginger.
>> Ginger says sorry, please invite everyone to continue to make chat comments and edits or to contact me by e‑mail, especially Bernard, to include their feedback as we work towards some principles and a protocol.
>> VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: She took my closing comments.
Thank you for coming. Thank you for pushing all of that through to [email protected]. You could also Google Ginger. You will find her.
Thank you for coming. We'll continue to work on this document and finalizing it. Thank you.
[Applause]
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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