The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. 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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>> CRISTINA MONTI: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are going to start in a few minutes. Can I kindly invite you to get closer here to the center, as we are not a huge crowd. Might be useful to be closer. Thank you.
Good morning being ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this open forum from the European Commission. And thank you for being with us just before the lunch break. So my name is Cristina Monti, I work in GT connect. We would like to present to you a recently launched initiative, which is called next generation Internet.
I will briefly explain the context of this initiative, and why this is relevant for Internet Governance.
Then, my colleague Valentina Scialpi will explain where we are at the moment and what are the next steps. And then we have two colleagues from Gartner, Clementine and Katherine. They will present a study that the European Commission has asked them to perform, to help us develop a longer term strategies and to identify what are the most promising priority areas, where the commission should invest in terms also of research activities.
So on the context very briefly, you might be aware that the European Commission over the last years has been very active in Internet Governance, and has been promoting a vision of a free and open Internet, a vision where human rights and democratic rule of law are defended and promoted also online and this has lead to an increasingly clear vision, also supported by all European Member States that sees the multi‑stakeholder model as very important in this ‑‑ in this area.
What ‑‑ so we will continue in this direction. So we will continue promoting and defending this multi‑stakeholder approach. But we also see that this course in Internet Governance is now shifting. From a debate that was predominantly focused on the technical layers of the Internet, the decor of the Internet, and that's, you know, culminated in 2016, in the successful Ayana transition, we see the Internet Governance that the discussions are now moving and focusing more on the social and the economic challenges that the digital revolution is bringing. We this as a way that the multi‑stakeholder can provide only way forward.
So this leads us to think that we need more holistic and multidisciplinary approach and in this context, we would like to reorient also our research activities into ensuring that the Internet of the future will have the users and the citizens at the core of it. We think as European Union we have much to contribute into this debate in precisely defending the vision of an open and free Internet and we believe that we have strong foundations already there like for instance we have strong rules on privacy and data protection, we have strong competition rules. We have clear rules on net neutrality, and also we have strong consumer protection rules. And so these are areas where we think it's important.
So in this context, why the next generation Internet. The whole content behind this is really to harness the potential of the Internet for development and social good and it is why we have started a reflection on how will the Internet evolve, and how can we bring research and policy together to the benefit of the citizens.
So by introducing these human centricity, we aim precisely at the Internet that delivers more to people than it does to date. And with this short introduction, I will now leave the floor to my colleague, Valentina. Thank you.
>> VALENTINA SCIALPI: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here. We will try to engage you but also be brief because we all know that it's lunchtime and as my colleague Cristina mentioned this new initiative at the European Commission, the next generation was launched last autumn in 2016. In a multi‑stakeholder approach. In fact we conducted online and offline consultation, and we received a number of contributions by different stakeholder, including civil society, private sector, research, et cetera.
And we decided today is the initiative ‑‑ there is up an initiative on an agile and flexible method, based on European values, that's why European, including rights to privacy in and the control over data. The result of our effort provided us three main pillars for research this year.
The three main pillars is privacy one, and the second one is decentralized data governance and the third one is discovering and identifying technologies. We have right now opened the call for proposal ‑‑ for the proposal. It's getting ICT 24, and it will run until April 2018. But the effort will not stop there. We will continue for 2019 as well. And the long‑term strategy of the NGI is to set as a main pillar for the framework program of the European Commission for the next program, it's called FP9, that will run from 2021, until 2028. So we're talking about a time frame of 10 years.
As I mentioned, it was through an effort of public consultation and multi‑stakeholder consultation that we came up with the three pillars for the 2018 call, but at the same time, we ‑‑ we continued consulting and engaging stakeholders through a consultation platform that we ran on our NGI website and we will feed together with the every of our other partners like the NGI study. We feed and it will provide us the three or more topics or pillars for research for the 2019 call. And at the same time, we provide the long‑term strategy and vision for the ‑‑ the long‑term ‑‑ the time frame that we have for the next ten years.
And without further ado I will leave it to our colleagues in Gartner that will provide you more details on the long‑term strategy.
>> PANELIST: Yes, thank you, Valentina. So I will introduce the NGI study that we worked on since March this year. So when funding research on the future Internet, it's really difficult to make a long‑term prediction of what are the winning technologies, what are the business models, or even what would be the social acceptability with a new ‑‑ that the new global users, the leaders will be using.
So this is why we need a new approach to funding research. It will have to combine continuous stakeholder consultation, and long‑term research and also applied research.
So our study developed a research program that cultivates research in a different way. So the new model of research replaces the consortia, doing basic research with competition and organization of individuals and it also involves different and new actors like start‑ups and SMEs to carry out applied research and the program is built to continuously adapt itself.
NGI aims to build a lasting ecosystem that will accompany EU research all the way along to the next generation Internet. Our study started in March and it will end next February. So what have we achieved in one year. We have liaised with the ecosystem at large and asked them what the future Internet needs to be like and what needs to be fixed. We have listed all the technology topics which need attention, and mapped the ongoing initiatives and research that we're addressing them already.
We have built a research program with this new approach to address all the issues identified and last but not least, we have defined the vision of the Next Generation Internet which leveraged different drivers for change, that are necessary to date.
So we are finalizing today all of these points I mentioned. We also have identified all benefits for the calls for proposals that we have listed. These calls will be presented by Katherine, just after my presentation, and now we are disseminating our work broadly. So we are ensuring the broad Internet ecosystem is aware of this. This is why we are here, of course. But we will also be at various popular open source developers conferences, as well as ministerial and other political conferences.
The study team is a partnership of Gartner, and experience and anticipating disruption and planning for it. And LNET, a foundation based in the Netherlands is founded on many of the same reasons that this studdie is mandated for, to fund projects that fix the Internet.
We have on board of our study, main key organizations and stakeholders of the Internet. To name only a few the European Internet Exchange Association, ADREA, SSFE, et cetera.
So this was an overview of the aim of the study and where we stand today.
I will now talk you through the vision, for the next generation Internet.
It is up on the screen above me. The vision states that the Next Generation Internet is an Internet of human values. So the next generation Internet shapes the value centric human and inclusive Internet. The Internet this way will enable human potential and mobility and creativity. So this is the first of the four drivers for clang, that build a vision and that guide the whole research program that we have defined. The three other drivers for change are resilience, trustworthiness, and sustainability. So the Internet of the human values needs a solid technical foundation to build on and the next generation Internet needs to be robust. It needs to be adaptive and resilient in the face of evolution.
Think about the Internet of Things that will place devices even in our bodies, whatever companies or partners of the network go down by any disaster, the effects on the rest of us should be close to zero.
So resilience is the second driver for change.
But there's another dimension to trust. It's above this physical availability of the network. We need transparent, logical environment that's completely logical. Transparent in terms of what data tracks and transparent in terms of choosing browsing profiles and understanding anywhere consequences, just to give a few examples.
Citizens as businesses should want to continue to use the Internet and fuel trust when doing so. So by design, it should protect free speech and private enterprise. It aims to be a true global comment and we'll create the tools for this trustworthiness, the third driver of change.
The long‑term success of the Internet and interoperability is key for sustainability. It fosters diversity and it grows the potential for disruptive innovation, but this extends far beyond the technical wheel. It will achieve a sustainably open environment for the cultures and the economy.
So what do we mean by this? An example would be that ‑‑ the notion of freedom of use the Internet, enabling local and multilingual communities to use the Internet. Another example of sustainability and openness is greening the Internet. How about providing transparency mechanisms on the environmental cost of the Internet and on the different solutions that will make use of it.
The sustainability is the fourth driver for change. This ‑‑ for any questions, we have this poster also at one of our ‑‑ at the booth of the NGI, and for the anecdote, we heard that Vint Cerf saw it yesterday and was enthusiastic. We are asking you what you think about our first draft vision, obviously and we are welcoming you to interact with us.
And now I will ask Katherine to talk about the work program and the impact that it will have.
>> VALENTINA SCIALPI: Sorry, to briefly intervene. I forgot to introduce, also Frederic Donck, the main purpose on this panel is to bring some gender balance.
(Laughter).
>> FREDERIC DONCK: No man, no panel.
(Laughter).
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Jokes aside, Frederic is here because sigh sock has recently conducted a very interesting exercise in which we believe is very relevant also for next generation Internet initiative and he will share with us some of the lessons learned from that exercise and we think it's also a starting point for a continuous engagement and discussions on these topics. So sorry. Please. The floor is yours.
>> FREDERIC DONCK: Okay, the NGI is not just about the research and ‑‑ (Off microphone comments).
We are seeing that there's a lot of wealth on the initiatives in the past, and that have been trying to address some of the shortcomings we were mentioning or some of the objectives that we here, they have interesting technologies but they have not been rolled out at scale.
One of the key elements that we have been discussing in the consortium and our partner at the back of this room here, hello, is really that to be sure that any results that will be coming out of these calls, out of these initiatives can be really put into real life, into the broader Internet.
So that's caused certain problems and also something that are embedded in the calls we want to propose to the commission and I'm going to mention in a moment.
There's going to be things coming from different teams. So each team is going to propose very interesting solution. So the solutions in the various teams may well be in the sense difficult to integrate together, or maybe having an impact on the overall Internet when trying to put them together.
The second thing is that all the changes that are going to be proposed will be rolled at scale, the Internet needs to still be working.
So meaning that we need to think about some singlets for some of us it may look like continuous integration and continuous developer, in the sense that what is bringing economy, growth, and allowing millions and billions of citizens to do what they have to do, still needs to be working, while we are trying to fix some of the flows of the infrastructure and while we are putting the new mechanisms that will be needed in order to have the visions really into practice.
So that's one of the key elements we have been discussing, and it's meant that the teams that are going to be answering to the calls, the commission is going to found, needs to take ‑‑ somebody needs to take ownership of the solution, and of this integration test and deployment with the broader Internet.
So in a sense, it means that there needs to be guidelines and there needs to be rules for each of the projects so that's part of the things we are proposing to the commission. And it means also that there needs to be a certain level of automation, in order to allow this scaling up, which by itself is going to be a call. Okay?
So not only the call is going to try to find solution to abolish this, but there's a mechanism next to that in order to allow the solutions to be really working and providing the values they should be providing at scale.
What does it mean? It means that perhaps what we are going to face is the largest collaboration issue ever in the history of technology because the internet is the biggest animal we have there in terms of technology, and if a lot of teams are going to be working and changing things at the same time, or in sequence, it needs to be coordinated. It needs to have a certain level of collaboration, which is very much into the topic of today's and these days things which is about governance, but it is also about common rules and common procedures and common agreements on certain things that the projects will have all to take into account, in order for this huge founding to be successful.
So one of the other aspects in terms of collaborations is having different people collaborating to have more creativity. So one of the other underlying things we have been seeing discussing within the consortium and with the experts we have been interviewing, that there's a need to have the calls targeting the specialized Internet communities, the people that really know how to solve the issue, but the need to collaborate together, because it's unlikely that the answer will be in one technology. It will be in a mix of different technology to go and it's going to be ‑‑ the innovation will also come from start‑ups, individuals, small companies, that today are not used to ‑‑ if you allow me these things ‑‑ to deal with the complexity of answering calls for the commission, which is by itself a sport that you need to master if you want to be successful.
So one of the key underlying principles that we are suggesting in the NGI project is to enable this smaller and let's say, very creative and nimble teams to collaborate together.
One of the key things also that is going to be in our calls is the fact that the teams need to demonstrate how they are going to ‑‑ and they built a vision ‑‑ so impact multiple drivers and as many drivers as possible would likely be the criteria.
And also how they are going to deploy. So both the really visionary and the very practical aspect in order to have this money having an effective impact on the Internet.
So what we are going to share now with you in terms of the calls is really much a draft. We are still discussing it with the commission, but the underlying assumption that there will be a certain number of things that will be funding during age 2020. So the current program and there are things that will be in the next one, after 2020, and that will be a continuation and an expansion and an extension and of new topics on the key topics I'm going to mention to date.
So take that as a draft, but as Clementine mentioned, the commission and ourselves, we are very keen to the feedback and this program ‑‑ this project, the NGI is very much collaborative. So as many feedback we can have as a topic is always welcome. That's part of the consultation of methodology of the projects.
So one of the things I mentioned before is as a precondition to have each project get organized to have maintainability by design.
Thank you for using maintainability. I have difficulty to say the word. That's really one of my colleague's fault. Which means we need to express what are the tools, what are the automated ways in order to do the changes at scale, and also to comply to some extent ‑‑ comply is perhaps a big word, with a number of shared procedures and the application of best practices for each of the projects in order to be able to deploy at scale. So all of these things are going to be put as a prerequisite in the call, but could be also a call by itself.
One of the call in 2020 then is going to have a theme enabling transverse. It's from a user point of view and it's thinking about the platform that we are able to monitor the Internet with the transparency and with both the security and the identity‑related issues.
So for example, you have somebody asking me ‑‑ asking you for money on your screen and you assume it's your daughter because she needs money, are you sure it's your daughter? All of this will be the first topic of the 20‑20 calls we want to suggest, enabling them to be align with the driver for change. The second one is about architecture, re‑innovation. It's been that it's the underlying fabric of the Internet and of the web itself that needs to be modified, that needs to be upgraded or changed in order to avoid some of the issues we are seeing today, that were, in fact, by design created at the early stage of the Internet because the Internet was not done for what is used for today.
So it means we are having here an intent to have architectural weaknesses that are going to be solved. So solution proposed that will look at this aspect, even at the lower level of the Internet.
Of the second thing is really to have lessons learned applied, taking into account some of the failures, and trying to have a type of a clean slate, simplifying, for example, protocols and updating some of the paths that today needs to be updated.
The search call we are suggesting is really about openness. It's about ensuring for the users that they can have possible services, and they can have what we call data decoupling. So it means that a user, you and I, could be both to use a service that is matching their needs, their rights, their value, and they should be able to switch providers without what we call friction, so without losing your data, without using thanks and without having a headache in order to change. And they also should be able to lose the condition in which the services are run, and where the data are stored.
So that's one of the key things with the openness goal and obviously the solutions have to be in a way that is preserving the democracy, and that is not creating other issues in the way the people are going to use the Internet, because that's one of the things that we have discussed as well, is that many of the technology we could have in order to use ‑‑ to find security solution or find more openness, could be used in a very bad way as well, if they are miscovered.
So that's part of the things we also want to be sure. That's the way it is expressed, we are not evading the problem if we can avoid them.
There's several other calls under discussion for the NGI, let's say flagship program after 2020 in the nice ‑‑ number the framework of the European Commission likely, and it's about probably IDing user‑friendly transparently mechanism for one, and a second one is imploring the user for the freedom of choice.
So it's very much like what I said for 2020, on steroids. So accelerating the money and the effort and having learnings of what is going to be done in the current framework and seeing how to accelerate that in the next one.
Open point is about working on maintainability. Because maintainability as a lifestyle. Another aspect that is going only to be launched in the next one is what we said about greening the Internet. So being sure that all of this extra changes on the infrastructure and everywhere, doesn't add too much conception of natural resources, not impact so much the planet in terms of pollution or decrease the impact we already have today. So that's another topic also under discussion. So another thing we want to have an underlying principle is that the assessments of the call's answer. So for the record, we would be very much again in terms of the demonstration of both the drivers. So answering the issue from an end user perspective and not only from a ticky tacky perspective.
Pap and obviously the last thing it needs to be put at scale.
>> Thank you.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Thank you very much. I think I mean from my perspective these are very promising areas. We are well aware that the Internet is still at the beginning, it's still at its infancy and we still have to see many more developments in the future. So without further ado Frederic, if you would like to share some views on the exercise of ISOC has done.
>> PANELIST: Thank you. We were able to contribute to this NGI exercise and I can see we have much in common. There's some shared Ann here in your report and so in a few minutes, I will be able to talk you through that. You will find that in your booths, the Internet Society booths over there. We also will find it online.
Before I get there, let me refer you to a book by Thomas Friedman ‑‑ thank you for being late. And he sees us in what he calls the age of acceleration. He says that there are three big firsts, and that's technology, globalization and technology change. And they are operating right now at once and it might create fee and this is what we see. We see governments or building walls, shutting borders or whatever is happening, including in Europe, when it's about Internet, there's temptations to just control the Internet, manage it in a way that you just are able to see what's happening and the doors shut down. I mean, that's really happened a lot those last month.
Obviously, I have some empathy for the politicians who have to respond to those crisis who face so many challenges, but don't you see they don't have the right views. They are using tools from the past to address issues from today and from tomorrow.
Take encryption that is a big deal, including in Europe nor most governments. What we see is that there are a high temptation to try to manage it, or to try to remove it, or to try to have access to it, period.
We believe there are many other options, right? But that means that we should offer new tools to address the newest issues of those days and we believe that a consensus built approach is one of them. This is what we spend or time discussing here those days. So let's think about that when we go through any conversation about the Internet of the future.
So we started an exercise in 2016, took us a year to digest more than 3,000 response. We have been through more than 100 interviews across the globe, speaking to leaning lights from technology, from the technical community, and from governments, experts, academics civil society, of course. So it took us a long time and we decide that we would not try to polish the crystal ball and tell you what it is that will happen soon. I mean, others have done that in the past and we have seen the results, you know, the internet never forgets anything. So we not even take a risk to try to predict the future.
Yet we thought we would try to show what we called the drivers of change. And we have identified through the many answers that we have got six drivers of change. H the Internet and the physical world, the Internet of Things. Artificial intelligence, interoperability and standards and then the role of governance. I won't develop on all of these. I would like to give you a sense of what we discovered and maybe the first big issue that I see, we heard from the community that we consult was a shared sense, a mixed sense of optimism and illusion, especially from those people who invented and created the Internet. It was an open platform. Openness is good but it also allowed the bad guys to join the club.
So it also was created as a platform based on trust, the economic, the political, the personal, social, substantial development of the Internet, you just can't say bye‑bye to these.
So a mixed sense of optimism and illusion. And also between regions. It was interesting to see the people are fairly negative and skeptical. When you go to Africa, you see people see their life being improved. So this is also maybe something different by regions.
So first, we have heard that indeed we need to implement new thinking, new models just describe one of those, but people say, hey, in order to address the issues of Internet, with definitely need to tackle new models of thinking, new models of resolution of problems.
Ethic is something that came back quite often. We need to put users but also human and human rights at the center of anything that we might be discussing, especially when we talking about artificial intelligence algorithms where you see little interference from the human beings on that.
Maybe the more important stuff that I recollect is cyber threats. Not everybody says we need to address cyber threats because if we don't ‑‑ we don't address that as a priority, we take the risk of undermining the trust and this is how the Internet works.
So let me talk about cyber trust. In particular, because this will be strength inned and emphasized by ‑‑ you need to tell me how much I have.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: We're basically almost done. It's at ‑‑ what time?
>> 1:20.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: No, no, we have a little bit of time.
>> PANELIST: As a minority, I claim a little bit more.
So cyber trust, we are talking about where we have the DGPR soon. We need to who will be compliant by the way, right, but we have it and it's just a wonderful staff. We should be very proud of it, Europe is showing a lead.
But a global level we neat to rethink accountability of many stakeholders and maybe first the data handlers which the GDPR does by the way. So we need to reinvent incentives and liability models.
So in the last two minutes that I have, let me drive you ‑‑ but you will find that on this report that you will find online, we got recommendations. We got nine recommends. Let me pick three of them. Human values must drive technical development, not the other way around. This is about ethics, right? I remembered this line that keeps obsessing me and that is that youth and the new generations are not attracted by mission any more but they are driven by values. So we need to address values first.
We need to apply human rights online, as well as offline and we need to recall that shutting down the Internet is not a solution. And last but not least, encryption is one of those means that will help recover trust and encryption is not a threat to security, far from it. So this is a new paradigm that we need to keep in mind. I would love to continue, but I understand that my time is over. So thank you and I'm open to questions.
Thank you.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Thank you have very much. And yes, I think these remarks are really interesting and I see a lot of interconnections and also what the commission is aiming at with this next generation Internet initiative. So I would now like to open the floor for any questions or remarks or suggestions you might have.
Yes, please the gentlemen over there.
>> PARTICIPANT: Well, I think on the stage when you talking about GDPR, you know, in the European Commission and pushing some type of data production to global, but to be honest, I feel a little bit one worry about, that something will happen.
First of all, you might be thinking about what can a GDPR really apply. I believe some of the country, they don't care, and you can believe you know, some country, they just don't follow their GDPR. And you can't do anything about. That's the first problem with the GDPR.
The second problem with the GDPR, when you apply, then you actually create trouble for many countries.
They respect the GDPR and for those countries, they don't care about your plan commissioner the GDPR. You actually develop or generate for the laws of the country, they do respect you and you really give the advantage for the laws of the country that they don't respect.
I don't know how you are thinking about the issue, but it happens, but I foresee the different version from next year.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Maybe I can just give a quick answer, concerning the GDPR per se, which is a little bit out of the scope of this open forum, but the GDPR actually very new, even if it's entering into application in a few months, it is based on rules that in Europe, we have been having for the last 20 years.
And actually, also it's something that is really about citizens' rights. And if companies are dealing with data, belonging to European citizens. Now these are the rules that have been established in a democratic way by European parliament and by all the governments of the European Union. So this is now the rule of law, and has been shaped in you a democratic context.
This is what I can say about the rules we have in Europe. I understand, that you know, this might create more problems for certain companies that are in other countries, but if they are selling products or providing products to European citizens, well, these are the rules they have to comply with.
And actually, from, you know, our perspective, we are really proud of these rules. These are really at the core of the values that we would leek to promote in the future.
So this is what I can say, bust, again, I think this is a little bit beyond the scope of this open forum.
Yes, we have a question. Over there.
>> PARTICIPANT: Yes. My name is Cadu. I'm from Brazil and when you are talking about next generation Internet and the human values, the core values that we want to see online, I think that the youth has a ‑‑ a major role to play too.
We talk about reshaping the research and the Internet and you addressed some great and important points when we are thinking about the next generation. I would like to see what are your plannings on youth engagement and for these type of initiatives. I saw a lot of youth programs and the IGF. I'm a part of one of these, of these youth programs and we were talking about this maintainability of the projects. I think that we must keep projects that are especially for the youth too.
Most of the research ‑‑ not most of it, but a vast amount of the research that is directed to the Internet is also coming from youth, from youth that are producing knowledge, not only in Europe, but in Brazil, we see a lot of this all over the world.
So what do you folks think about it?
>> PANELIST: Yes, actually our research initiative. Address among other researchers ‑‑ I mean, one of our main group is young post‑Doc, and young researcher that will contribute. So computer scientists and shelters and social scientists and, yes, it's actually one of the group that we are targeting.
So the youth is there and actually start up in SMEs and start up in SMEs normally includes a lot of young, brilliant minds. So it is covered among others. Yes, please.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you so much, I'm Helga. So thank you very much for your presentation. It was personally interesting, but I would like to know if there is not a certain danger of increasing of augment risk. The Internet is global. If we look only at the European efforts this is certainly something that we support, but we are not alone in the world. So please have a look at the over development.
Also the sustainability development goals, this is something that we have to look closer at. Thank you.
>> PANELIST: Yes, for sure. Actually, in our proposal for FP9 which is the next framework program, we include specifically connected to the NGI, a connection to the SDG focusing on ICT number 9, saying that the next generation Internet, among other things needs to help inclusiveness and access broadly and globally. So we also address that part, but we need to work more for sure.
>> PANELIST: And the vision states that the IGF should be a few global commons. So we are not framing anything around the European territory.
>> PARTICIPANT: I'm from the Swedish regulator. Given that the big operators are and all the work around the digital economy is something that the US Tass been doing quite well but what Europe is really lagging. So how do you take that into consideration when do you this mapping. Industry and what kind of forces are in play for the research program? Thank you.
>> PANELIST: Thank you for your relevant questions and we are touching some of the issues that we are also trying to address. We are very well aware that we lack big players and actually, this effort of are investing research money in a more strategic approach that is really our consideration or our hope to develop new champions as well.
Based on our strength, and that is why also this effort to mobilize the research efforts so we tried to develop a new methodology and a more strategic approach in the way we provide funding for research in Europe to try to address specifically these weaknesses that we have identified.
>> PANELIST: Thank you for these comments, actually. You know, we are obsessing in Europe about this, and some governments, that's where we try to find a way to track investors and new big champions, but on the Internet things might evolve so rapidly, and I believe that the principles is that we all can do competition, on the Internet not wait through the network and try to manipulate the Internet.
I think the European values, and also in the regulations take network neutrality. I don't want to launch this conversation here. But when I see ‑‑ but I did. Yeah, I launched GDPR and now I will launch this. I will completely hijacked this conversation. But when I see what's happening in the US right now, with some thought from this current administration and how they want to address the neutrality, it might be a shift and change in paradigm and I believe this is a good lesson at some openness and guarantees might just also guarantee economic development.
Thank you.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: There is an online question.
>> There is an online question and from Norman Garcia, she says Gartner first panelists said this is a dynamic carrier and that nobody really knows what to expect from NGI and this makes a lot of sense. But then she says that we have listed all technology topics that need attention. So the question is ‑‑ what does this mean? There's nothing in place?
>> PANELIST: It gives a opportunity to look they dynamic approach to defining the work program. Obviously at this point, we have a list of technologies today that need fixing today. But we're also working in a bimodal way in the sense that we are being agile and flexible in the way of the work program will be defined in five years based on the need that will be seen in five years.
>> PANELIST: We have an online consultation platform where, you know, we collect more feedback and went engage feedback for the FP9, it's 2,021, and 2028, it's especially from now and unfortunately, we cannot know what needs to be fixed or to be supported in a few years. So that's still open. It's not fixed now.
>> PARTICIPANT: Yes, I'm from the University of Zurich. On your slide, you state that the NGI strives at reimagining and reengineering the Internet for third millennium and beyond. Are you really serious about that?
>> Can I answer that?
>> PANELIST: I think we have to name the author of this.
>> I'm dead serious about it.
If you think about how fossilized technology comes and if you look at telemetry and what they define from at ten years and not the VoIP technology, but if this fossilizes into society, if there's not a technology that's ‑‑ that has the potential to fossilize as the Internet is fossilizing because it's so engrained in everything that it's very hard to change. We may have a lot at changing it once but we are actually just on generation one only. The next generation is the second generation. We are still on one. And we ‑‑ if you think of any person on the Internet now and you have to say something and I can kill you if you lie about him, you can say he's using IPv6. You can't say he's using any other technology than this PIP, UDP, SMTPE, and from there on, we are going into the dark countries.
From there on you have a risk of Russian roulette. It's very fossilized already and even if we have a single shot, yeah, what else can replace it? So it could potentially last a thousand years. It could be shorter but it could potentially last a thousand years.
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Thank you very much. So this is a way to sow the level of ambition.
It's true.
So ‑‑ but we need the help of everyone. All the stakeholders involved?
>> CRISTINA MONTI: Indeed. If there are no more questions, I would like to really thank you very much for being here with us today.
On my side, I'm really happy that for first time while we are attending the IGF, we are able to bring forward a very concrete initiative that we are doing this, and trying to build a new synergies and bridges with the Internet Governance, stakeholder community, and the research stakeholders that we are already addressing in other parts of the commission.
So I think this was a very good first step from my perspective, and I also finally invite you to get in touch with us or visit the website, if you would like to have more information.
Thank you very much.
(Applause).