The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. 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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>> MODERATOR: Good morning, everybody. I'm going to stand up so you see me. Hi, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We're about to start the session. My name is Monica Calisti. I'm helping a number of initiatives in Europe that are working on the next generation internet. There is an initiative launched by the commission.
In a few seconds, we'll have Olivia, the head of the next internet unit at DG connect that will present us the initiative. Then, we will have also two other speakers. And I will have moderating, of course, we want to do an interactive session. Even people behind my back are supposed to participate. I was told we shouldn't take the microphone and we should switch them after we speak.
>> I wanted to give you an overview of the initiative we LAUMPLGed about two years ago, which is the next generation internet. To build a better internet. Can you go back? An internet of humans. So that is an internet that is centered on humans. Let's go to the next slide. I'll give you ‑‑ I give you an overview of where we are coming from. What we want to do in the initiative and how we want to do it.
And it was available to implement this initiative. This is a very basic representation of the evolution of the internet. The internet has become essential in the way we connect to each other, the way we form ourselves, and our opinions. It is something that is a decor of digitalization of the economy and the society.
And this is only going to increase. So this is why we try to use this triangle. The idea is that we think in 10, 15 years time, the internet will be totally indispensable for all activities. Two consequences. One is that the internet, it's not neutral infrastructure. Make sure it abides by our principles and values.
The second thing is that if it becomes indispensable, then you don't want to be out. So it will be very important to make sure that everyone is included in the internet. That everyone is connected. That everyone has the interface to use the internet that everyone has the skills to be able to make the most of the internet. Next slide.
No, the slide before. Sorry. Yes, very quickly, important to look at the values of the internet and where we are today. So initially, the internet was meant to be as the head said yesterday, the network of networks. That is completely decentralized. It was meant to be robust and resilient.
It was a platform for open collaboration, sharing of information. And I read, for example, the report that was issued last week in the web submit. He says that he launched the worldwide web to make information available to everyone. And it's, of course, a platform that supports innovation. If you think about commercial and noncommercial innovations. And very importantly, it was premised on the voluntary exchange of data.
You were sharing information, but you were not supposed to be tracked. Of course, the picture of today is completely different. We have large players who control big markets. We have these players control large part of the data that is available on the internet. They have become in some cases, bottlenecks or points of entry for new entrance.
So they can dictate the conditions at which new companies and services are being provided on the internet. And of course, they are every week issues with cyber security incidents which can help really bad consequences. Factories shutting down, hospitals shutting down.
And then, then, of course, who can say that they fully control their data on the internet today? Of course, there is new framework, at least, in Europe, GDPR. But do people really have the tools to control their data? This is certainly not the case . These are being challenged.
Next slide. Of course, doesn't go. So then, the next slide, when it's going to arrive, tells you that yes, it's here. Of course, it has not gone unnoticed by the end users. The end users are concerned. And they are increasingly concerned about what usage is made of the data. And you see the figures are relatively high, a built old. They are for sure higher today. We could be much more advanced in terms of digitalization. Cloud remains limited and extremely limited in small companies. There is a huge potential and we want to use it.
Next slide. Okay. And then, the last element of context that I want to stress is the huge technology push that you have today. And this is being discussed in the various workshops in the IGF. If you think about artificial intelligence and machine learning, which is already used in the internet and will be increasingly used if you think about IUT and intelligent things. There will be connected and integrated cars on our streets.
If you think about virtual reality, if you think about blockchain, which is technology that is running today which is going to expand. And that has a huge potential for decentralization or allowing end to end transactions between the internet users. And of course, there is all the modifications, the improvements in the architecture of the internet.
So, it is clear that the internet is going to be completely reshaped out of it. In Europe, we want to also provide the solution. Because we think it's the way to make sure our values, our expectations are incorporated into the internet. We need to develop the technologies to do that. The next slide, unfortunately, my commissioner is in charge of the digital part for you was here. Yesterday, but she had to leave and could not give her speech. The internet as we see tomorrow has to be trustworthy, has to be resilient, sustainable and inclusive.
These are the values, these are the targets that we fix ourselves. If you go to the next slide, so the vision in a way, is that we are going to develop the technologies in line with our core values and expectations. We want the internet to be trustworthy. We mean by that, people need to be in control of their data. They need to decide who has access to their data, what usage has gone out. They need to be able to restore their consent. And we think this is ‑‑ it's very important.
It will allow much more usage of data. If people trust the data are in the control, they will give, they will give them more willingly. And there will be many services that can develop on this basis about health care, if you think about small cities, improving traffic, et cetera. The infrastructure, the internet has to be much more resilient.
We need to have in the architecture of the internet, security by design. So important to develop the technologies. And this is why we are proposing in the European Commission a European service security session which will allow to test these technologies.
We need the internet that is much more decentralized and we count on technologies like blockchain to secure a transaction between users, end users and public administration. It can also be used, for example, for trustability of information on the internet. The information is coming from, knowing where.
Inclusion is essential. So inclusion means, for example, you should be able to interact with the internet. I don't have the figures in mind. But we don't all speak English by far. And it's very important to have our own languages and 21st century, I think it should be possible to have that. It's important to have the right interface. And when technology can create a gap, it can also help to reduce the gap. Artificial intelligence assistance, for example, could help people with disable, elderly people to be fully connected to form of internet.
And of course, we need also the connectivity so yesterday several times the speakers reminded half of the world is still not connected. A bit more granularly, in Europe, you still have a lot of people who are not connected with appropriate speeds. We need to work on this and make it inclusive. And the internet needs to be sustainable.
We cannot have ‑‑ the internet is going to grow exponentially. We cannot allow the consumption to follow the same path. We have to have an energy consumption that is much more contained. So we need data centers that are energy friendly, consume far less energy. These are the different elements we put in our vision.
Go to next slide. And it's really something. It's an initiative of the commission. We have started it. But we will never be able to do it on our own. We develop the technologies ourselves. We need and we want to build a community around this project. A community that will help us refine our vision and we need to refine it. Because it's an initiative for the next ten years. But also community of (inaudible). Not only community we discuss how the internet should look like. We want people who help us develop the building blocks, develop the technologies. And for that, we need to involve not only our usual suspects.
I mean, we find a lot of companies, a lot of universities. Of course, we want them to be involved in the initiative, but we want to go beyond our comfort zone and finance internet innovators. And they are less organized than our usual ‑‑ the usual, usual partners.
They can be a university student. They can be somebody who has an idea who wants to start to implement the project. They can be innovators. We want to reach out to all of the different communities. And we feel this is what we need to implement the project. We need to applied research and long‑term research, things which are in line with our core values and create this movement to launch an internet of humans.
Next slide now. So just to be a bit more clear, Michiel is going to give you more information. So we are going to use the special type of instrument. And there are research program, which is called Horizon 2020 to finance directly people with ideas. Who are going to finance individual innovators who work on an individual project.
We finance big consortium for several years, here, we are going to refinance people. I mentioned who we're going to finance. Researchers, innovators, startups, social innovators, as well. So the purpose is not to develop a new app or develop a new website, the purpose is to develop technology building blocks. And here, I give a few examples of those areas which we have already decided we're going to invest in.
For example, privacy and enhancing technologies. How can we use technologies such as personal, artificial intelligence assistance to help people control their data? How can you use blockchain to develop new ways to manage data inside the city?
How can you make sure that you know, your identity is not your social media account. Your identity is something you control. And you control the credentials to have access to certain services. You are not obligated to give the whole information in the Facebook account to connect to WI‑FI network. These are the type to finance. It will be in our perspective, small grants. 50 to 200,000 grants. But it could be smaller grants or bigger grants. We shall see.
For a limited period of time to we have in the project. Next slide. So just ‑‑ I'm close to the end. The road map, what I want to say here is that it's an initiative for the next ten years. We started it this year. We're going to fund the first project in December already. But then, we are ‑‑ we have proposed to the European member states and the European parliament to fund this initiative under the European Union which would allow funding between 2018 and the end of the next budget which is towards the end of 2020, 2030. I think this is the time if you want ‑‑ if we are serious about changing the internet, we need ten years to do it. And we need appropriate level of funding.
So we have not decided the funding for the next frame of program. This is still under discussion. But to give you an idea for the last three years. It's 300 million euros and in particular, it will be around 70, 80 million euros. And that's my last slide. Very ambitious initiative to involve the innovators. We want to build an internet of humans centered on human needs.
We're going to directly finance people so it's not a committee. I made it clear to the startups. It's not a financial instrument, it's grant. We give you the money for you to develop your ideas and an initiative. I encourage everyone, the whole community to be engaged from the start. And I stop here.
>> MICHIEL LEENARS: I work for a charity. I know some people here, from the operational technical community. Awesome you're here. So we got involved with the commission because we recognized there was an actual opportunity for this to create a change. Obviously, the work for charity has been giving out its own money for decades. Between internet and all kinds of technical standards.
Funded to our hidden service. Really, all of the way across technical spectrum. But when, we're thinking about fixing the internet, that's a really much, much bigger ambition. And it takes the volume and the level of scale of the European community and the larger impact to make that happen. So can I have the next slide?
Well, this is basically our starting point. Is that whatever we hate about the internet today, we can start fixing it today. Next one. As was mentioned, an interesting interview as we recently ‑‑ after gave his acceptance speech for the ACM award, he actually said this is an internet that has become a dystopia in 29 short years and we have to fix it. And it's become even antihuman.
This wonderful scary phrase from Robert Oppenheimer that the internet has become death, destroyer of worlds.
I mean, from an optimist, we seriously messed up with this vision. So obviously, in the last decades, we've seen a fair amount of gold rush. And when I first engaged in this, I was involved with another unit from the commission. And this was really about creating big, big European companies that could match the economic power of the big players to create ‑‑ we accept that this is no longer the case. We are almost colonized. Really shouldn't be aiming for that kind. Rather, just fix the internet.
So the gold rush and trying to become rich off of this is not really ‑‑ can I have the next slide? We're in a more serious situation now. And this is the page that we envision. So there's ‑‑ in the technical communities, this term, work for the internet. I work from the internet. My main driver to do something. This is actually what we can help people do. You can't apply for a job for the internet.
But it comes pretty close. You can summon the idea. An individual, student, whatever you are. If you have a good idea that can help the internet forward, you can work from home and do all of the things you want to do for the internet with money given to you. You don't have to ‑‑ it doesn't have to come out of your research budget from a standard. It doesn't have to ‑‑ don't have to talk to a manager. You can just take the time to do whatever is necessary.
And obviously, in a followup to the community like many of these standards, that's a relatively rare thing to do. Next slide? Mentioned first, the NGI vision. The culmination of a process that was, then, during the NGI study.
And it's really ‑‑ technology sticks. And we are getting more addicted and deeper ingrained and the technology we depend on. Makes it harder to switch if we buy yet another fridge for another service we subscribe to that doesn't support. It entrenches us and makes it more difficult to switch.
If you want to switch anything ever, this is the moment to do it. And it sounds like a crazy idea. It's really the largest thing that we've ever done as mankind. May seem like the pinnacle of engineering ever. It's just 10,000 people for a decade. Impressive as that was, we have an internet 3.8 billion plus people. And everybody has an opinion about people making shitloads of money on this. And they have completely opposite ‑‑ there are many conflicting positions here.
So if you want this ‑‑ well, yesterday was said that the (inaudible) would be a Chinese internet, California internet. If there's going to be a third way. If the rest of the community gets any say in choosing, then obviously it's going to take a huge effort. This is what I just mentioned. Is that to make some historical comparisons. The guy on the right is the guy, one of the people that invented the atomic bomb.
And he was banned from being an economist. The other one was ‑‑ works for the Nazis on the rockets and bombed many cities and he was taken into the US and got to lead the US space program got to lead people to the moon. We have to understand that ‑‑ wouldn't be able to tell which of the two crossed that to be broken down. This is devastating. Technology is very important for society.
We have this enormous technical capability that we need to harness. And we need to give it a good structure. And the NGI is actually, what I consider to be the first serious effort. Clean slate approaches where people do things left and right. Lots of people ‑‑ lots of interesting separate stuff. But it all falls down if you don't really have a structure to actually make things work. If you want to launch a rocket and it gets built separately from the steering room, from the heat shields, then the thing is not going to thrive.
So the initiative that ‑‑ the next generation initiative is basically, running the two green hexagons. Versus the other two gray ones are working as we speak and launching, as well. This is going to be a much, much bigger puzzle. And the idea is to make things fit together. And for that, you need some different type of assembly. And the commission in its wisdom has actually chosen rather awesome starting points.
It starts from the port of making stuff work in the ‑‑ it makes stuff open first. Because it can't scale internet if it isn't open source. And it does open standards because you need open standards for stuff to work across geographic boundaries. We make sure that standardization is based on actual operational work.
So you need to tie to people who actually need to run it. Some academic exercise. You need both. You need to tie this to operational and technical communities as soon as possible. And then, you get reusability of results.
So well, if you do this kind of thing, then if you mentioned, traditionally, you would have professional grant writer at a company writing immense procedure. Most people hire people. People say, we pay somebody 15%, 20% to write the grant application. And so an immediate loss of heat as soon as you start the project.
We try to turn things around and say, well, if we ‑‑ the people that apply for this type of funding, they are just engineers that are dissatisfied with what they have to do. They're students or housewives and they have a greater need to fix something. You don't want to burden them with a lot of overhead. We want to lower the cost to make it easy.
And we want to help people. Because if anybody would be given 50,000 euros in a year's time to do something, what do you know about accessibility? What do you know about localization? What do you know about software licenses? If we want software to be used, the licensing has to allow for that. And there are a lot of conflicting licenses people don't know about. We help them with this. Help to go to standards.
It's a difficult world where ‑‑ where you just have an idea of how to enter that field and huge list of people that have been there for decades and how do you enter that field? We actually have people on the way. We provide a responsible disclosure procedure. If you're building privacy and technology, you're helping people to hide information. And then, you publish weaknesses on your record, you can't have that.
Most projects I know don't have one. So we will provide for all of the budgets. We will be sure there's documentation. There's another weakness that everybody runs into. We have we make sure that people apply secure software guidelines, make them reproduce. All of this is complementally. They don't have to listen to the experts that do this kind of thing.
Meanwhile, they can focus on doing what they should be doing. Instead of just writing code they can on their machine and three other people can download and compel if they get the limits to set it up, we want to make sure that everybody can look into this and can help design this and actually ‑‑ once the projects is done.
And independently set every project. This is also, I don't think it's ever been them, but every project gets a security audit, up front and at the end. And this is the kind of ‑‑ it's not hand holding, but it's auxiliary that an individual meets in order for this to fly.
So, well, I guess the main idea is we have all of these best practices and we help people to achieve those goals. Those social goals. We want, like Oliver mentioned, we have accessibility as a core requirement. We want all blind people to be able to access all of the tools we create. We will enforce this. And that is ‑‑ we will support people in doing so. So the output works. And I guess that's the key thing.
Just a quick show that we're not doing this alone. This is a huge community what we're working with. And each of them is a specialist in the field, nonprofits in the field. And we are working with them. The technical and operational community, as well.
Basically, if you know anybody working on something interesting, I promise this will be the best subgranting mechanism ever. I've been in this industry for 20 years. I solemnly believe I have not seen anything this advanced that can actually deliver the results that we would need.
All we need is the talent. And I'm sure you know lots of interesting young and old and male and female that can submit projects. Please, do so.
>> MARYANT FERNANDEZ: Hi, everybody, I hope you're doing amazing. So I work for an organization from NGOs from across Europe. And some of the members are international. And so, our focus is, of course, the promotion of fundamental rights including privacy, personal data protection. I was asked today to focus on privacy interest among all of the priorities and values outlined. And by the previous speakers.
I actually like that, you know, people at the center of this commission initiative, because it's not very often we can see that. And I also like the initiatives aim at bringing trustworthiness. And the internet of trust. But it's important that there's credibility behind it. I like the word trustworthiness. Because that goes along with the talk. The slogan.
And so, just mentioned before, your results and that show in Europe, there's more and more among the average users about their privacy concerns and implications when they can conduct online activities.
On the internet, the personal data can be collected sometimes with us even knowing about it. Data used or even to discriminate against us. Our location can be easily accessed and used by companies and even social media activity can influence.
Obviously, this has to change. And of course, this initiative is not going to be (inaudible). One of the main recommendations we would have is to make sure this is not a siloed initiative, this can be (inaudible) initiative. We also mentioned the GDPR. Of course, the organization, we really welcome it.
Of course, it's not perfect. It's a result of a political compromise. But it's the first step to ensure that people are in control of their data. And so, not only we need initiatives like this one, but also policy and regulation to allow the tools to, you know, to ensure there can be enforcement of people's rights.
And the issue focusing on has been the power that big companies have. And how powerless people feel about it. As we have heard from previous speakers, the internet is really being in the hands of a few. And this is undermining innovation, competition, fundamental rights. Our private and personal autonomy. And economy.
And in the next, should evaluate the role of private actors in our society. And we're happy there's some alternatives that are trying to be promoted. And it's not only important to promote alternatives. For example, to fund privacy enhancing technologies but also to facilitate the switch. Because it's important that exists. But how easy is it for the regular user to say I don't want to use dominant service, I want to use another one. How easy is it for the user to change?
For example, I can say, okay, I delete my facebook account. And it can be a very simple thing in principle to do. But maybe, I actually use my facebook account to access many other things. This is something that ‑‑ one thing that is important to address. Everybody should play a role. Not only about the big tech companies. Or even some other companies, also, users, but also importantly, governments. At the commission included, of course.
And as I was saying in the beginning, and I would like this to be my main message to get out of me today, is the need to build coherence across initiatives and policy streams. It's important that, for example, we understand that we can promote personal data protection, privacy and freedom of speech by tackling, for example, manipulation. We can enhance personal data protection, by fostering more security.
And values need to be cross cutting. We cannot have policies, for example, misinformation that only big tech companies can abide by. And this is important not only for people's rights but also for more competition and innovation on the internet.
To sum up, so what future for the internet? First address the tech giants and independents. The gate keeping not only from the anvil of platforms but also from different other actors. And in this sense, it's important to tackle the root of many ‑‑ the online money participation model. And everybody should obviously play its role. And it's important to have comprehensive approach. And we basically wish the best for this initiative.
We have been involved. Not me, personally, but mostly my colleagues. And yeah, we're looking forward to see what develops. And thank you.
>> Great. Thanks a lot. You've heard a lot. You've been given a lot of information. And I've seen all of you taking notes. The slides will be made available on the website of the NGI initiatives. So NGI. Great. So I will say a few words before, actually, asking a few questions from the audience. And I see that Peers has arrived. Great. This is an initiative that needs all stake holders to make their part. It's an initiative open to your contributions. And that's why we have tried to make it very inclusive, very open, providing information, gathering information.
And actually, nobody should feel excluded. And so, there is a very simple way to provide your input on the topics on the main issues on the main priorities by the NGI consultation platform that is in line. You can provide your input at any time.
So it's not that you have to open for specific deadlines, especially with the open calls mechanism. A much more agile way of getting onboard, organizations all across Europe. And the reason number two, which has been made available you can make it visible, actually, to the other players. It's an online model, very simple. Very intuitive. But with the goal, really, to connect all the players and the internet transformation.
And finally, the resource dedicated to the open (inaudible). This information is being uploaded. So the project started a couple of weeks ago. So many more details on the applications, procedures. This is one of the main questions you might have. These will come through.
So stay tuned to that page. And another big for the community, the future internet innovators, researchers is going to be in the (inaudible) 2018. The internet levels and networking session. As you can see, really trying to link visible all the efforts and try to engage all of the stake holders.
We can now open the discussion. And I would like to see if there's any questions, comments, I look all around because it's 360 degrees audience. So where is any question? Who wants to break the ice? Everything was extremely clear.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name's Josh. Could you speak a little bit more about E identity efforts? I mean, if it's going to be an internet of humans, seems like verifiable identities online is really important.
>> I can answer. In this call, there's some room for this. But there will be another specific round of (inaudible) which is fully dedicated to identity. Well, basically ‑‑ the way this is a staged approach. The commission first looks to the organization like ours, intermediaries. And then, it's ‑‑ if you're interested in ‑‑ not in hosting and giving out money to hundreds of projects, then, basically, you wait for a year and go to NGI.edu and closely watch that.
>> Yes, this is something that will launch in 2020, work on the identity. But it has been flagged as a key aspect. Also, will probably fund projects around transferability of information. And there, making sure that we know who ‑‑ from whom the information is coming from will be very important.
>> I'm Mike Nelson with Cloud Flare in San Francisco. But I'm going to be the historical person here even though I'm a physicist and ask a historical question. I'm having deep feelings of deja vu. 20 years old, I was working at IBM working for John Patrick and we started the next generation internet project.
It was started by founder of Netscape, then Surf. We were a great success because we got people throughout the industry to start thinking about the future of the internet. So we had a very limited goal. You have a much more ambitious goal, which is to fundamentally change the way the internet evolves.
Can you point me to a model you're using? Something in the technology space or some other area where you're able to say, this worked? They actually did change the course of technology development? This is an open‑ended question. I'm not trying to criticize what you're doing. I think it's great you're focusing on the great issues. Technology is easy, politics is hard.
Give me an example you can point to, the EU or US or some international group did what you're trying to do. It is incredibly ambitious.
>> Maybe I start. Give views. Yes. Probably the branding is not ‑‑ it could be better. NGI has been used on several occasions. I think the real burn for us is internet of humans. So the idea that we're going to do ‑‑ to develop the building blocks of the network in the way that serves better people.
We don't really have a specific model to follow. The purpose ‑‑ I think we are very good in the European commission and governance. We are very good at regulating.
This is what we have been doing. Yeah. Let's be frank here.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Some of us would argue you're not. You've got too many people doing it.
>> But the starting point is that regulation in this area is not sufficient. It's very good to have cyber security, cyber security framework. It's good to have ‑‑ we have a very good framework on network identity in Europe that allows interoperability. I could go on and on. But we feel this is not sufficient.
We also need to develop the technologies. And we think there is a way to develop the technologies while taking into account our values, our expectations. Here, I did not use the slides where we are specific on all of the topics we are going to cover. We have chosen the topics very carefully to be sure that every time we fund something, this is with a specific goal.
So privacy enhancing technologies, we'll see the solutions. But the idea is that it allows people to control their data. And it allows people to control their identity. When you say, for example, that you use Facebook for having access to several other services, this is wrong. We should not use ‑‑ should be alternatives to that. And it should be sure what type of information, what type of credential when access of service via Facebook or another identity is service.
So that's rather the approach. Very hands on in selecting the topics. To make sure that we develop this new kind of internet. This is also ‑‑ we're taking a risk here. We are starting a new way. We are starting a new way in terms of using cascading grounds. In terms of really ‑‑ it's partly initiative. So we are going to give, to grant individual innovators. We will see what comes out of it. But this is why we are using the services of others who are really good contacts in the community to make sure we get the good proposals.
And we will adapt. But I would say the metric is we have a vision. We have the good community to help us. And we can adapt to right where we want to go.
>> I think the model. And IBM was part of the switch is that the open source communities, basically, the model. So prior to Linux, IBM and winning all of the others, I can't think of a company starter after 2000 that isn't basically about Opensource in the back end. So I think the majority of the infrastructure at the software level, is now opensource. And I think that's the decentralized model where you can get good people curated and give them grounds to focus on what they think is good. I think it's been tried and I think it could potentially work with the alignment we have. Folks, on deployability, that's a unique thing. I have not seen projects that package all of the things and will actually monitor the propagation of all of the software.
So we'll actually have quite a hands on approach where we guide people to do what we think is necessary to help and to link to the technical community. Actually helping us out. So it's ‑‑ yeah. I know there was a Wikipedia from generation internet. We will hope to ‑‑ to not let the other ones be forgotten. But make this a second generation. Because we really in the first generation as is.
So optimists effort, it's not titanic 3, it's ‑‑
>> That's the best model I could think of. That and apache. So thank you.
>> MODERATOR: I see another person. Please go ahead.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. I'm a digital rights activist. I'm working for not one, but two initiatives that seem very relevant to the session. One is the learning platform for GDPR, which is all about teaching the essentials of GDPR from the citizens' perspective. There's not been too much of that.
It's all about companies trying to comply. And we've secured funding for the project already. But I'd really like help for promoting this initiative. And will probably kick off at the end O the month. And the second initiative is the my data network, which is mainly about a framework trying to give back the control of personal data to citizens themselves.
As I understand, Finland is going to promote this during the European Union ‑‑ we have paper available for years and years already. And we're in the process of creating a global NGO and people can still join as a founding member of the movement until 15th of November when they're having the founding meeting in Barcelona. That's Thursday. So please approach me if you could offer any help on these issues. I'll read up on NGI and see how it can help out. But if you know people I can contact or anything else helpful, let me know.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I think any related initiative, in fact, should be raised. And this is one of the major reasons why we said please get in contact with us. And this is definitely the momentum, the right time to bring momentum.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi. So my question was do you solely concentrate on technical solutions to what you're looking for? Or do you want to bring in researchers? And I'm asking this because we're working on the project. Because we're exploring the lengths between climate change and the environment. And technology how interplays and how we can change stats. My question is, will that be relevant to your initiative?
>> I mean, the core of the initiative is really to build the technologies. So this is what the intermediary is going to do. However, we have a number of support actions. Which will help us build the community ‑‑ I think the entry point would be these support action in particular.
We have one on the strategy and, I think, this is the place where to discuss how to mix the requirements coming from different communities. So that we can ‑‑ we can certainly connect you to.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Any other questions? Before we ‑‑ okay. Then I suggest that we give the floor to Piers hiding in the back.
>> Thank you. You've got a lot of information to start. So I'm not going to add to the information download. I'm going to reflect as a way of suggesting what the NGI initiative is about and branding aside, never think of an original name. Hopefully, explains itself. Two questions or interventions. The gentleman who has left but was thinking about the past. It's been done before, it's been tried before.
Obviously, nobody would be able to change the internet on our own. Nor is that our aspiration. It is to actually have some sort of inflection on the development of the internet so that some of the values which European Union holds and many other institutions, organizations and individuals share can actually have a greater place in the shaping of technology and above all, the implementation of the technology as we go on in the future. That's the positive hope that the internet provides is that we can, actually, influence these things.
We shouldn't be cynical or negative about it even though we do have to be realistic. Therefore, this gentleman in front of me from Finland, that's exactly the sort of intervention we're looking for. There are a lot of other people, individuals, and communities who are working with the same ambitions. We're not trying to coopt. In fact, we mean to share and learn and triumph and work together for individual and other initiatives. That's exactly, again, what we hope to achieve.
No one entity or organization could ‑‑ yeah. Okay. I'm used to being heckled. I'm going to finish by saying, listening to the discussion, I wanted to reflect as a way of suggesting what it is that NGI is about. Monica, you're going to give more practiced call information as how people can further get involved. And that's what you're going to do. Please, thank you for your interest today. Let us help you. And let's share as we create what is going to be used.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Actually, I provided already the information. But I would like to take the opportunity to thank all of you, I've seen several people that took notes. So I hope that feedback and comments will come even offline. And I think more important point is that underlined is that we have to many stake holders, policymakers, researchers in many different fields. The ambition is huge, of course. And in fact, this is ‑‑ I think a pioneering experiment. We need to really gather the society to change the internet. Because the internet has become such a pervasive part of our lives that nobody should feel excluded.
And I think this is the ‑‑ there is a lot of optimism. And we must be optimistic because it's about the future of our society. And I don't know if there's any other question or any other comment to close. On my side, I would like to thank Valentino for organizing the session and all of you for being here. Enjoy the rest of the meeting.