The Internet Governance Forum is organized annually, to bring together stakeholders to set public policy regarding matters of governance. This year it is the 14th annual forum, hosted by the Government of Germany in Berlin from 25 to 29 November 2019 under the overarching theme: One World. One Net. One Vision.
The Forum has three main themes: (1) Data Governance; (2) Digital Inclusion; and (3) Security, Safety, Stability & Resilience. All stakeholders are invited to join onsite in Berlin or online.
The opening ceremony included Antonio Gutteres, UN Secretary General, Angela Merkel, prime minister of Germany, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the world wide web, and Vint Cerf, former ICANN president and internet pioneer.
Topics at the Forum this year include The Online Freedom Coalition, equity and social justice in a digital world, ethics for the young digital talents in the era of AI (Universitas Indonesia), the evolving ecosystem: ICANN’s role in the security and stability of the Internet (ICANN), children’s rights in the digital world, Applying Human Rights and Ethics in Responsible Data Governance and Artificial Intelligence etc. etc. Online attendance is an option, but the talks are being recorded and they will be online after each session.
One of the sessions was the pre-WSIS-2020 conference 2nd physical meeting phase, which was organized the second day of the conference, discussing the ongoing preparations towards the WSIS Forum 2020 and its preliminary results and so much more. This is because the 2nd phase of WSIS, held in Tunis in 2005, formally called for creation of IGF, & set out its mandate. The creation of the World Summit on the Information Society was proposed by ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (Minneapolis, 1998) & it was a multistakeholder process from the beginning.
Watch video of IGF: