The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. 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 event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> SEBASTIAN BELLAGAMBA: My name is Sebastian Bellagamba. I'm the Regional Bureau Director for Latin America and Caribbean. We have plenty of familiar faces around. Thank you for coming. Plenty of youth people. Young people around. So that I like. We are going to have a minor presentation, a small presentation for starting, Sally Wentworth on my right, she is the Vice President of Global Policy Development of the Internet Society and Raul Echeberria and Karen Rose will be presenting on new work that we developed this year on future Internet scenarios. After that we will try to set up a workshop and work on several issues that are raised by our Internet scenarios so we can collect your thoughts and opinions from that. With that said, I will turn to Sally now to start the presentation. Thank you very much for coming.
>> SALLY WENTWORTH: There we go, good morning, everyone. And I think our slides are coming in a minute, okay. All right. So my job here is to introduce you a little bit to the Internet Society, and then to hand it over to my colleagues to run us through a thought exercise on the future of the Internet because, as we all well know, the Internet is constantly evolving and constantly changing and it is important for us as a community to think through what the future looks like. What kind of future we want, and then what we need to do as a community to help shape that future. So are our slides ready? No. Okay. I'm just going to wing it.
Just by way of introduction to the Internet Society. We were founded in 1992 by some of the fathers of the Internet and founded to be a voice for the Internet. We were founded to be an advocate for the growth of the Internet worldwide, ultimately for the empowering and betterment of people. So we at the Internet Society believe fundamentally the Internet should be a place of opportunity and it should be a medium that strengthens communities, that ties people together, and that ultimately strengthens and contributes to humanity around the world. So it is not technology for technology's sake. It is technology for people.
I will try one more time and then I am going to give up. All right. We had slides at one point. They're very pretty. So from the Internet Society's perspective since 1992 we have really grown and evolved as the Internet as grown and evolved. We began very focused on how do we expand the technology around the world, right? How do we build the capacity of individuals and leaders in countries to build the technology, to innovate on the technology, and ultimately to grow that technology in their countries? And we have maintained that focus. That is a key aspect of the Internet Society's work and we have added to that dimensions related to public policy, related to community building, and related to the global Internet governance discussions that you are all having here today and this week.
Our work is divided into a number of key areas that I'll talk about. But the most important thing for all of you is that the Internet Society is fund mentally a community. It is a community that believes in the Internet and we want all of you to be part of our community. So it is again not just about bits and bytes and wires and spectrum. It is really about people.
And the way we do that at the Internet Society and the way we're organized to that end is through a network of chapters. We have about 136 chapters around the world in many of your communities. We hope all of your communities someday. Those chapters are a network of volunteers that believe in the Internet, that want to build it in their communities, and that want to be part of a global community that cares about the global Internet. And the work of these chapters is diverse. It is as diverse as the community itself. Some of our chapters are very focused on building the technology. I know that the Japanese chapter, for example, is very focused on IPB6 employment and focused on the Internet of Things. The chapter in Washington, D.C. is very interested in policy matters related to Internet governance and related to security and privacy. So our chapters around the world do a lot of different things. And that's the beauty of the Internet, right? They tackle issues related to challenges in their local environment.
The Internet Society Global is here to be a voice for that at the global level. To be an outlet, to be an advocate for the growth of the Internet worldwide. And we try to harness the power of those chapters in order to be a voice in forums like the Internet Governance Forum. In technology venues like the Internet Technology Task Force, in ICANN and the United Nations, OECD and around the world. Wherever the Internet is being discussed, debated, built, developed, we hope the Internet Society is there.
So I think I have Raul here now as my partner in crime. Come up here. So I think maybe I'll turn to Raul to talk about our priorities for 2017, the areas we plan to focus on for the next year and beyond so that you get a sense of the kind of work that we're trying to do with the global and regional and local levels so that you can think through how you might interact with us and how you might join into our work. And Sebastian and Karen are our time keepers. You want to tell us? Five minutes. Over to you, Raul.
>> RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Good morning, everybody. I think we are in the morning yet, right? It is very nice to see this room fully packed. We have a small room but the thing is that people -- the good thing is we see this group together. It is nice.
Sally already said many things so I will add some few things in five minutes. But we have as one of the things that I think that we have achieved in the last few years we have integrated the work we do on the ground and the work we have always done on the ground. The work for which the Internet Society is very recognized and the capacity really developing infrastructure. We have connected this work with the policy work and with the community building work that we do. So it is fully integrated. In fact, this is the reason, because we have only two priorities, two main priorities for 2017 that our access and trust. Is because we have all the work of the organization integrated under those priorities. And I think this is what makes the Internet Society organization is this integration, is that we have a consistency between the things that we do when we support or we are directly involved with in projects like the wellness for community, connecting remote villages, with the work that we do in the U.N. when we go to the debates, participate in the debates about sustainable goals or any other things. And this is what makes our organization unique is the integration. We always say that the Internet Society work in the intersection between technology, policy and community. And this is -- has never been as true as it is now. I think this is in one way, is an advantage of our organization that we have.
On the other hand, it is a huge responsibility because we have to feed the expectations that we are creating.
And our strategy on development has been for a long time based on four pillars. And we see -- we can see in this meetings, in this ITF we can see clearly the work we're doing under the pillars. One of the pillars is developing of infrastructure. You know all the work that we do with exchange points, forums, issue and best practices for operation of the networks and the work that we are doing now in the last few years in the wireless community. Together with other organizations in partnership, partnerships are always very important for us. In partnership with other organizations we have convened yesterday a very good meeting and other activities this week with all the people working on those community things and really it is very important. At this moment we have supported at least 40 something projects for connecting different locations in different parts of the world. Some in partnership with our chapters. Like in the case of the chapter in South Africa or the Mexican chapter, or the Venezuela chapter and Columbia, trying to get a chapter and want to be involved and we launch our project next year in Georgia, the country, of course. And this is --
Our second pillar is the community building project. This is the work that you can see here. IGF ambassadors, the youth program. This is an incredible work and really I are not speak very much about that because I saw your heads and I think that you already know about that work.
The third pillar is capacity building. This is something that is a training in different aspects. We are training people on technical things and policy things. Engaging the people in their Internet goal and discussions in a meaningful way. Giving them tools to participate. So we have those training activities all across the -- all the spectrum on different topics that we cover.
And the fourth one is bringing the expertise that we have from this work on the ground to the policy debate. And so this is very clear, this is what we are doing here is -- and there are -- the Internet Society has been directly or indirectly in partnership with others or just by ourselves, we are participating in this support of the attendance of 200 people here in this IGF. It's an incredible number. This is exactly that. We're bringing the people from our community to participate in a meaningful way in the policy debates. Not only here. We hope also it has an impact at the local level.
So I will not speak very much. I will only say that what already Sally mentioned about the importance of our chapters. And in this year and we will continue doing that in the next years, we are working very much in providing tools for the chapters. Because the chapters are very important because this is the way -- we have 90 something people organization but we have an impact usually as a much bigger organization because of our organization and members, our individual members, the people that are part of our community that are always around the Internet Society and our chapters. Because it is -- they are very important in advancing our mission in different places. So we have much more than 90 people working for the Internet Society.
The board has been very supportive in that direction not only supportive but also pushing for that direction for providing more tools to the chapters where we have launched many programs like beyond the net, by the way, today is being launched a beautiful brochure that you can see later about the impact of the beyond the Internet program that you will love, I am sure. I hope that all of you feel like myself, very proud of the work that all of us together are doing on that.
But also supports for funding, the administration, the needs of the chapters and also Sally and Karen have been working very much in providing avenues for the chapters and all our members to participate more actively in providing in the development of policy statements, policy papers. All those briefs that we are launching all the time. So I hope really this is a very -- I'm very enthusiastic with that. It is not only just achieving -- oh, yes, we are achieving the mandate of giving of the opportunity to the people to participate. No, this is we're getting opportunities for really receiving the benefit for your experience, your knowledge, and so all together can really put this organization in the best place for the benefit of the worldwide community. So I know that I spoke more than five minutes, but you know what everybody say, who has the mic has the power. (Laughter) I'll introduce Karen Rose and she will lead us through this thought process of the future of the Internet.
>> KAREN ROSE: It's so wonderful to see so many people here. This is great. I hope you are going to enjoy a little workshop that we want to do with all of you. It will be a little bit of a challenge with the size of the group but I know everybody is a good sport and is going to participate. What I would like to do is talk to you a little bit about set things up and talk to you about a project that we started earlier this year looking at the future of the Internet and looking at future Internet scenarios. Thinking about different ways the Internet could evolve in the future. Why should we look at the future, right? We know really that the future of the Internet is uncertain. As much as we've come to rely on it today and understand it today, the way that the Internet is today may not be like this in the future. Potentially for better, potentially for worse and more challenges.
We know there are many forces of change currently right now that are going to impact the future of the Internet. Technical forces of change, policy forces of change, economic forces, social forces, even environmental forces. Things are happening now that will impact the future of the Internet. The purpose of our project is to start thinking about what may be in store, and what may be at risk for the Internet in the future. And how these forces of change could impact the Internet for users globally. We're also trying to address today's key issues more effectively and understanding a little more of the future landscape. And it's really been a collaborative project drawing on input from all across our community. I know some of you here have participated in some of our surveys. We're trying to really take all the energy and knowledge from our community and trying and think a little bit further about the future. We've kind of focused to protect to 7 to 10 years' time. So we're not thinking so far out that we know how far and how quickly technology changes.
What I would really like to do is to start getting people to think about how different the world can change in 10 years' time. And I'll give you a few examples here of assumptions that were made about technology in various different ways. What people thought, and what really happened. So the first example I have here is from William Orton, who was the head of the Western Union -- Western Union Telegraph, right? In 1876 he said this: he said, "The telephone has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication." Right? That was in 1876. In less than 10 years' time, in 1886, we had telephone wires sprawling across the landscape of New York City. We had telephone wires from a beautiful telephone tower scrolling across the landscape of cities in Europe and Latin America and around the world. So he believed it, an expert, but think about the change that happened in less than 10 years.
Going down here Philip Franklin, who was the CEO of the White Star Line that owned the Titanic, which was built with some of the best engineering possible at the time said, "We're perfectly satisfied that the Titanic is unsinkable." He said this in 1912. What happened? April that year the Titanic sank, surprising everybody, right? So even the thoughts about the best engineer possible, right?
What are we not thinking of in the future? And what are vulnerabilities that could happen? Albert Einstein, I love this. We think of him as one of the big leaders. In 1932, he said, "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable." And what happened less than 10 years' time? In 1942, we had the first nuclear reactor. Okay, similarly, with computers, right? Ken Olson, the head of Digital Equipment Corporation in 1977 said, "There is no reason anybody would want a computer in their home." What happened? Less than 10 years later, in the United States and emerging in Europe and elsewhere we had this boom in home computing, right? So this just goes to show when we try and think about the future, we have to be prepared to think about things that might be unexpected. We need to challenge our own assumptions about what we know today, and projecting them onto the future.
All right, so in terms of the proper sect so far and our future Internet scenario work. We've gone through and have collected a lot of information from our community. So we've conducted over 115 expert interviews from around the world. We had two surveys which had over 1500 responses from our community, including our members and chapters and others. From this we collected about 200. We distilled it down. I want to say Grayson with the youth fellowship was an intern on this project and talk to him about how fun it was trying to get the information down into something we could analyze. We had over 200 trends and uncertainties we identified on the community. Forces of change on the Internet. We boiled it down into nine high impact plans and issues. We'll preview it with you. We just put it out yesterday and we have these cards. Later after this session we would really like your input as to which of the drivers of change you think will most impact the future. We're going to have four narratives under development about what the future Internet might look like. Different mutations in seven years' time.
Just to go through the challenges and uncertainties identified by our community. I have to say in looking through the data, there is a lot of people with a lot of hope for the future of the Internet. But overwhelmingly our community really believes this is the time of uncertainty. That there is a number of challenges being brought to bear on the Internet today that will impact the future. A lot of people don't know in which direction these are going to play out. Some of those issues which we have on our website and after this session or when you go home we would love to get your input on, we've distilled them into nine areas. First of all, is the increasing role of government. By and large most people think the role of government is going to increase in the future in one way or another. But the real question for the future is in what way, right? Are governments going to interact with the Internet in a way that enables its growth or restricts it? What about things like surveillance? How are governments going the react to cybersecurity issues? So the increasing role of government has come up as a big question as to which way that will play out.
Artificial intelligence and machine learning came up a lot from our community. There is a lot of real importance here. Will people be able to understand and have transparency in the decisions that artificial intelligence and machine learning is making in relation to our Internet experience? Will we know what kind of information and content we're being served up? Will we know how objects connected to the Internet are behaving in a world where there is artificial intelligence and machine learning making these decisions for us? What is going to be the role of the human going forward if more of these decisions enabled by the Internet and machine learning are being made automatically?
The future of the marketplace. Consolidation, big platforms rising. Whether we'll have commercial fragmentation on the Internet. The potential for innovation in the future, right? Is it going to grow, is it going to be smaller in 10 years' time? Those were raised.
Challenges to media and culture. Very briefly we know when we've seen what has been going on in terms of how people socially interact and with the media. A lot of concerns about what happens to the role of journalism and unbiased information. Social media, right? Things like fake news that we have today. How are those going to be projected out into the Internet of the future? Could I get the slides back up, please? Thank you.
Cyber-attacks and cybercrime. Not only about the growth of potential cybercrime and how we'll react to them on a technical and governmental level, but also what governments may do in response to cybercrime. What people may do in response to cybercrime and cyber-attacks. Will people withdraw from the Internet? The evolution of networks and standards about how the fundamentals of the Internet itself will change. Changes due to things like IOT. The future of personal freedom and rights.
And lastly, the issue of new and evolving digital divides, which is what we want to talk about more in depth today. I'll just say that in terms of the cards and the website that's on the back, there is a longer summary, relatively short but a more explanatory summary of some of the debates and tensions raised by our community about these issues that we want to use to look is into other scenarios and want your input into what are the most important and have the most impact on the future of the Internet.
For the workshop portion of our session -- next slide, please, oh sorry, thank you. So we talked about these nine big issues that came up. Well, given the theme of the IGF this year, we really want to talk about one of them here and get some discussion going. Which is about new and emerging digital divides. One thing that's come up from the feedback and information is that it's possible, right, if we project out 5, 7, 10 years' time, maybe we've been really successful in getting everybody online, right? Many of us around here are working to make that happen. So if we potentially assume in a world that we've been successful 80% of the people have Internet access, maybe 100% have the ability to have access but are not on. If we assume we've been successful, what does the digital divide look like potentially in 5, 7, 10 years' time. The real observations from our communities the digital divide may fundamentally transform into an issue not just about who has access and who doesn't, which is the way we think about it today largely, to even if you have access, can you equitably participate in the Internet? Do you have the same opportunity to participate in the Internet as others?
Some factors that have been raised by our community for growing gaps are things like the rich and poor even in the same country if we project out 7 to 10 years' time. If you have access only through slow technology versus somebody in the same country that has access through high speed broadband. What is the digital divide and the difference in the ability to meaningfully participate in the Internet look like? So divides between countries, divides within countries, divides between gender.
All of these issues have come up. At the same time, you know, and on sort of a more economic level, concerns that developed countries may continue to accelerate their innovation, their use of technology more quickly than developing regions can actually catch up. So will we see greater digital divides in the future about the ability to meaningfully participate and benefit from the Internet or will we see the divides lessening in the future?
So -- okay. So this is what we want to try and do. We have a really big group so we're improvising in our number of groups here. We want to have an interactive discussion with people in this room about some of these questions, because we would really like your input and your feedback. So what we're going to do is separate into kind of five small groups. We'll basically have people turn their chairs and I'll go and try to point out the groups. But what we would really like to do is see if we can have this discussion on three questions, each group will have a question. So why don't we have group one over here. So what we want to do is be in the mindset that we're 10 years out in the future. We have 80%, 90%, 100% Internet access. What is the nature of the digital divide going to look like? We'll have group one, if you can turn your chairs over here. Just around in a circle.
We'll look at question one. Group two, if we can kind of turn your chairs around over here. Group three kind of around this corner over here. We have a big group four. Who -- you want to take group four? Stand up group four over here and group five over here.
>> Can we get the slides up? Slides.
>> We need the slides, please.
>> So what's our question? Any one of these.
>> Any one of these.
(Small group discussions)
>> KAREN ROSE: We need everybody to start wrapping up. Get your big ideas and get back to your seats so we can wrap this session up. Michael -- Mike? You heard me. We're wrapping. Okay. Okay, everyone. If you could come back to your seats. There are lots of good ideas. Just tell them to put their good ideas on the survey.
>> MICHAEL: Okay, let's get going. We have 10 minutes before we have to get out of this room. Everybody take a seat. I'm Mike Nelson with the DC chapter of ISOC. One of our favorite things to do in our chapter is something called a slam where we get great ideas from people and then we share them with each other and then we rank those ideas so we can focus on the ones that everybody really loves. So we're going the try to do something really unusual. We've all been in meetings where there are break-out sessions, right? What do you do after you have your break-out sessions? Somebody stands up and says this is what we talked about and it is always a very boring summary because they try to do something that covers everything is little bit. We aren't going to do that.
What I'm going to do is get two good ideas from each group, you will have 30 seconds -- 30 seconds to summarize your good idea, and a good idea has three things. It has the problem you are trying to fix, the person who is going to fix it, and the benefit that you will get from doing it. So 30 seconds to do that. And then we'll vote -- all of you will have a chance to vote. You all get two votes. There are 10 proposals, two votes. After each proposal I'll ask for the vote. Those of you who want to say I love that idea, put your hand up. But you only get to put your hand up twice. And then after that -- practice after me, everybody say the word, oh boy. One, two, three, oh boy. So we'll do a test to see if you think it's going to be a really hard idea. So there is a prize for the hardest, most controversial idea as well. Okay.
As an example, I gave this example to my group. My crazy idea, the problem in some countries you have two few people providing Internet access and they charge too much. So in some countries you are paying five times more than the Internet than somebody in the next country next door. And people don't know how badly they are being treated. So I'm going to find an Internet billionaire who will develop an app that lets me in 30 seconds report how fast my Internet connection is, how much I pay and how many choices I have. And the result will be a global map showing where the Internet is good and where the Internet is bad. And that will get people mad. Okay. So I just need volunteers and, of course, if you go early, people will have more votes to give you. You don't want to be the last person. People may have already used their -- who will give me a 30-second summary? I know there are three really good ones over here from our group. Okay. Okay. Here we go. You have to step up.
>> I think one of the problems is people don't know how to work with Internet. They don't know how to make it work. We need to have a digital education with digital education in local context. We can develop it and develop this knowledge and even reduce the gender gap or even age gap but we can use this education we need to government and private sector work together through developmental the subjects in schools, in different -- even -- I don't know, to develop more multi-lingual content on the Internet. We needed indication.
>> MICHAEL: That was 36 seconds. How many people vote for that? Hands up. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 -- 21. Put that up on our chart. Okay, next. Are you okay?
>> Okay. Well, the problem should we start with? Well, one problem was people do not use Internet because they think they do not achieve or identify the value added to their use. The solution we posted was bring attention on the services, government and services. For example, access to general government services but this access should be user friendly and there are other necessities that can be sold by the use of Internet.
>> MICHAEL: Quick vote. Okay, who wants to use one of their votes for this and support this proposal. Hands up. , one, two, three, four, five. Okay. Six. Seven, eight, okay. Eight. Very good. Who is next. Are you next?
>> I'm bringing the remote contribution so the problem is we're still leapfrogging and we could use more of the cell phones with no wire line and in order to achieve meaningful participation we need to bring the right kit which involves knowledge, hardware and software
>> MICHAEL: Who was that from? Jolie McPhee New York chapter. How many like that idea? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, -- 14. From an engineer the suggestion that we get the right equipment. I know there is one here.
>> Thanks for that. Speaking about the value proposition and the idea if you want people to come online, it needs to be a bottom-up process. People want to get online in the first place. Understand local needs, understand why people want to be connected, and understand why even if they have access to the Internet it doesn't just come down to cost, it comes down to having access to content in a language you understand. Having access to government services that you need. Having some benefit from the Internet.
>> MICHAEL: Very good, 29 seconds. Two hands. That is allowed. You can use all your votes on one proposal. I should have explained that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 -- 40, 41, 42 -- 45, whoa!
(Applause) Am I supposed to vote on mine? I didn't see anybody put their hand up.
(Laughter)
(Laughter) I will be the last. Do you have a proposal? Okay. Good.
>> So to give people meaningful access it's about they want -- you need to make sure that they trust what they will have access to. So for youth even if they don't yet have access, give them an understanding of the basic mechanisms of the Internet. You need to understand what the IP space is, names, servers, only in that way will they understand what trust means and then they will be primed and ready to have meaningful access.
>> MICHAEL: Thank you. Very short and quick. Okay. So the vote. Who likes the idea of enhancing trust. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 -- 20, 21. I never ignore Niko. Okay, next proposal.
>> Our group was talking about how the digital divide is growing and it is under the assumption that access technology will grow enough that devices will be the problem with the digital divide. When we talk about growing IOT trends, the greater gaps between brain and technology, we think that this is going to become a problem of which countries have the most advanced technology. For that reason we've come up with the idea on the spot to incentivize local education and not waiting for one country to provide them with better technology.
>> MICHAEL: Perfect, 31 seconds. What's the vote? How many votes for that one? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 -- 27. Excellent. Okay. We have one here?
>> Problem is even though in 10 years we have all Internet access the digital divide will remain. The person who will solve it is all the stakeholders.
>> Within that the stakeholders need to work with the governments to make sure that connection for the Internet for the people and can use the Internet and to have the skills to participate and receive education to receive the skill to receive the Internet equal.
>> MICHAEL: You got five extra seconds because you did a duet. The vote on that. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. 18, okay. 19. Okay. One last proposal.
>> Hi. I think we need to recognize individuals and organizations who are providing and respected Internet access at a much lower cost they have today. An X price for Internet access.
>> MICHAEL: That's a 10 second proposal that sounds really good. It gets my vote. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17. Okay. So we had -- because you were so brief we have time for one more.
>> All right. Last but not least. So we need to get more people online but they are not going online because someone is telling them Internet is not safe for them. Especially the younger ones. So we need to deal with this. All stakeholders need to go together but mostly civil society. We need to educate our parents to be enough educated on Internets and digital world and involve the government to start discussion of programs and put them in the curriculum so that's in every single school. Young people are educated on safety and that's how we will make sure so many people are going online.
>> MICHAEL: Okay. Excellent. Tell the mothers and the fathers the Internet is not always bad. Votes. How many votes? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 -- 22, okay. My proposal was to be a global map of where the Internet was working and where it wasn't so people got mad. Using cell phones. A vote on my first proposal for those of you who have a vote left. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 -- you didn't vote.
(Laughter)
What was it? 11. Okay. 11. Now we have to do the oh boy vote real fast. Do we have time for that? No? It's all up there. Okay. So we aren't going to do the oh boy thing. Okay. Do we have five minutes? Four minutes? Okay. Let's go down the list from the bottom to top. Okay. So teaching parents not to be scared of the Internet. One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: Not too bad. Recognizing organizations that make big advances in Internet access. Giving an award to somebody who has made a break through. One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: That's a little harder, okay. The louder the oh boy, that's kind of like oh boy, that's going to be hard. We're trying to judge. We want to focus -- we want to pay attention to what is going to be hard and where we need some work. Greater multi-stakeholder work with government. That was the proposal over here. You get a prize for being hard. Okay, one, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: I heard a lot of sarcasm in that one, too. Extra points for sarcasm. Incentivize local technology development so the technology is more useful. One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: That wasn't too hard. Have youth understand basic aspects of the Internet so they can trust it. So they have meaningful access. One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: That one is an easy one, I see. Better understanding of local needs so that people can understand how to get online and get governments to get more excited. That was our most popular one. That got 45 -- that was no government, that was another one. This one got 45 votes. This is the big proposal. How hard is it going to be? One, two, three.
>> Oh, boy.
>> MICHAEL: Moderately hard. Okay. This was the one from remote from New York. Make sure we get the right equipment to the right people so that access is easy. One, two, three.
>> Oh, boy.
>> MICHAEL: You have faith in the engineers, good. Another one was the government services, that was a way to entice people online. One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: Okay. Faith in the bureaucrats, too. Bring attention to -- then the -- we have to do an assessment of why people aren't online. A marketing survey kind of help understand what the barriers are that are keeping people offline. Your proposal, right? One, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: Hire a consultant and it's done. Last one was the one my proposal which was the idea of doing a global map of Internet access, one, two, three.
>> Oh boy.
>> MICHAEL: I think we have a tie.
(Laughter) Anyway, you guys have been a great audience. We should have had two hours. We would have had three times as many ideas. Thank you for being here.
(Applause)
>> MICHAEL: Thank you, everybody, for participating. And we are going to take the information and the discussions that we had here and consider it as part of the next phase of our work. Again, if you haven't gotten one of these cards with the website on here, we would really love if you could go online and review the nine areas that have come through our consultation and let us know which ones you think are going to be most important to the future of the Internet. Pick up a card on the way out and thank you very much for your participation.
(Applause)
(Session ended at 11:52 A.M. CT)