A brief report by Maureen Hilyard
Hi everyone,
A brief report from me on the recently completed APRIGF at the Far Eastern Federal University on Russky Island in Vladivostok, Russia.
There was just a small representation from the Pacific at the event, but I think we all did well in providing a Pacific perspective in the sessions we attended. James Ahwai from Samoa was new to the IG scene and as an introduction was a panelist in the Opening Plenary on “The State of Play and Outlook for Internet Governance in the Asia Pacific” as well as providing a Pacific perspective in just about every session he attended. Jon Brewer, Anju Mangal and myself, as older hands in the IG world, did the same when the opportunity arose. Anju also moderated the final Plenary on APRIGF Multistakeholder Participation in the Global IGF.
Former PICISOC Chair, Rajnesh Singh did a great job not only as the APRIGF Chair but also as the stand-in moderator on many occasions, such as the Digital Accessibility panel which included Gunela Astbrink who participated remotely.
I took a workshop (gratefully also attended by my Pacific colleagues) which was a followup to a session on “eGovernment for Empowering Pacific Citizens” which I took at the APRIGF in Vanuatu last year. This time Cherie Lagakali (attending remotely) provided an excellent overview of Fiji’s new eGov website which our working groups studied to compare it with those of some developed countries. Anju also provided a report on the eGovernment Roundtable that she and Andrew Molivurae attended in Korea last month.
There were 22 workshops at this APRIGF with topics covering:
Day 0: community involvements as an introduction to the Fellows and Next Gen participants
Day 1: Opening Plenary, Big tech, Shutdowns, Internet Security, Universal Acceptance, Digital Talents, Safety for Children online
Day 2: Accessibility, Governance of Crypto Assets, IOT Security, Digital Identity and Human Rights, Localised Internet, Child Safety Complaints Tools, Youth Participation, Cyber Norms, ICT Laws, Language Diversity, eGovernment
Day 3: Hate speech, AI, IPV6 Deployment, Community Networks, Digital Security, Coping with Misinformation, Lessons Learned from 10 years of Russian IGF, Closing Plenary
Each day ended with a session spent gathering views from participants on the day’s sessions. The APRIGF Synthesis Document will provide a summary of each of the 6 themes created by these inputs which will provide a summary of important takeaways from this event. I will make it available on our website when it is finalised
Contributing to the success of this event was a great communications team who were on hand in each of the session rooms. The state of the art equipment at the university ensured quality sessions with clear inputs by every participant (both remotely and in the room). Real time transcription as well as multiple screens, were also available. The sort of thing we can only wish for in the Pacific. But it certainly raised the benchmark for ensuring that we had a great conference. Many thanks to Mikhail, Leonid and the Russian APRIGF Team.
