On May 1 2015 the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information presented Digital Financial Services & Emerging Payments: Disruption, Development And Innovation In A Global Context at Columbia University in NYC. The ability to pay efficiently, reliably and securely is one of the hallmarks of the development of modern economies. This was the 4th annual conference that looks at the disruptive effect and real-world implementation of mobile payments, mobile financial services and crypto currencies in the developing and developed world. It brings together a high-level group of international speakers featuring entrepreneurs, US & International regulators, investors, academics, payment aggregators, banks, philanthropists, manufacturers, lenders, law enforcement, payment organizations, and industry analysts. The conference was webcast live via the Internet Society livestream channel. Video is below
Today Thursday April 30 2015Tech Innovators – a civic initiative of Internet pioneers convened by VCXC founder Daniel Berninger – will celebrate the inaugural “Internet Independence Day” to mark the 20th anniversary of the commercialization of the Internet, following the decommissioning of the National Science Foundation’s NSFNET. The group has written to Congress requesting that April 30 be officially recognized as Internet Independence Day. Today’s inaugural event will include remarks by Bob Metcalfe, professor, University Texas; Bryan Martin, Chairman, 8×8; Charlie Giancarlo, senior advisor, Silver Lake; Dave Farber, professor emeritus CMU, board member, ISOC; George Gilder, author; Jeff Pulver, founder, Zula; John Gilmore, activist, co-founder EFF; John Perry Barlow, lyricist, co-founder EFF; Les Vadasz, former EVP, Intel; Mark Cuban, founder, AXS TV; Michael Robertson, founder, MP3.com; Ray Ozzie, founder, Talko; and Tim Draper, founder, Draper Fisher Jurvetson. It will webcast live on the Internet Society’s Livestream Channel.
An update on forthcoming Internet Governance events from the Internet Society’s Senior Director of Global Internet Policy Constance Bommelaer.
May has traditionally been a busy month for Internet governance discussions in Geneva. This year is no different, but the stakes are higher for those who care about the Internet and its future.
2015 is the year where we celebrate the 10 years of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). For the past 10 years, governments, the private sector, civil society, academia and the Internet technical community have worked together at the local and the global levels to make the Internet a useful tool for development. We now have more than 3 billion people online, with growth mostly in developing countries. We have more work to do to reach the vision of an “Internet for Everyone”; but much has been achieved and we should celebrate success.
May will be populated with a series of WSIS-related meetings taking place in Geneva. Here is some background information to help you navigate and engage in these discussions :
CSTD(4-8 May): This is the last phase of the WSIS review process before the UN General Assembly process begins in June. A report on ” Implementing WSIS outcomes: A ten-year review ” will be discussed, and a Resolution on WSIS will be negotiated, which will provide important guidance for the events to happen in New York in December. Raul Echeberria, VP Global Engagement (ISOC), has been invited to deliver a high-level statement at this occasion.
IGF MAG and Open Consultations(20-22 May): The Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) will continue preparations for the 2015 Internet Governance Forum, to be held 10-13 November 2015 in Brazil. Much efforts are spent on intersessional work and ongoing progress with Best Practice Forums, a format that focuses on sharing lessons learned from dealing with tangible issues such as spam. A new track on developing ” Policy menus forConnecting the Next Billion” has also been launched. We will be sending a separate note on how to concretely engage in this work next week.
ITU Council 2015(12-22 May): ITU Council meetings are open to all ITU Member States as well as ITU sector members and are available as webcasts to Member States and sector members. It is expected that the Council will discuss the role of the ITU in the WSIS process.
ITU WSIS Forum (25-29 May): WSIS Forums provide an annual avenue to take stock of progress on WSIS Action Lines. The Internet Society is organizing a set of sessions (collaborative security, local content) and will have high-level representatives delivering policy statements. The theme of this year’s forum is ” Innovating Together: Enabling ICTs for Sustainable Development “. More to follow as we get closer to the event.
The original WSIS process took place soon after international agreement on the creation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Similarly, this year’s final WSIS+10 review takes place shortly after the follow-up to the MDGs, the so called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to be adopted in New York, 25 – 27 September 2015. It is already quite apparent that the SDG process is going to influence the direction of the WSIS beyond 2015 towards the contribution of ICTs for development.
As you can see, 2015 is a busy year for Internet Governance and the Internet Society will continue to be on the front and facilitate the participation of the Internet community. For an outlook and key global and local IG tracks this year, visit our Internet governance timeline : http://www.internetsociety.org/igtimeline
Additional information will be circulated w.r. to each of these events. In the meantime, if you plan to participate or have any questions, please let us know!
Constance Bommelaer
Senior Director, Global Internet Policy
The Internet Society http://www.isoc.org
On April 22 2015 the Copyright Society of the USA’s New York Chapter presented a luncheon panel – Old Agreements + New Media = Big Issues? Performing Rights Organizations, Rate Courts and the Department of Justice – at the Princeton Club in NYC. For decades, ASCAP and BMI have been subject to antitrust consent decrees with the Department of Justice, which include restrictions on the ways in which these Performing Rights Organizations can and can’t issue licenses and a framework on how disputes over royalty rates are to be resolved. Recent rulings in the “rate courts” have addressed the ability of publishers to withdraw their performing rights for certain digital uses, with different results coming out of the separate ASCAP and BMI proceedings. With these developments leading to headaches for licensors and licensees alike, everyone is starting to ask whether the consent decrees and rate court procedures themselves should be overhauled. Last year, the DOJ opened both consent decrees for review, asking important questions about their relevance and effectiveness. A panel of experts discussed the key considerations. Speakers: Richard Reimer, Senior Vice President, Legal Services, ASCAP; Stuart Rosen, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, BMI; Kenneth Steinthal, Partner, King & Spalding LLP. Moderator: Jacqueline C. Charlesworth, General Counsel and Associate Register of Copyrights, the U.S. Copyright Office. Video/audio is below.
On Wednesday April 22 2015Silicon Harlem hosted the Digital.NYC Five-Borough Tour– a series of public events to directly introduce New Yorkers to Digital.NYC, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive hub for the city’s tech ecosystem. The Five-Borough Tour events introduced the site features; presented panel discussions with City tech leaders and some of the city’s most celebrated tech company founders and investors; and offered networking time for attendees to connect with others in their local community. Leading New York City digital companies and organizations participating in the Five-Borough Tour included IBM, Control Group, TinyBop, Startup Box, Meetup, General Assembly, Vizalytics, and Harlem Biospace. This event had a special guest – FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. It was webcast live on the Internet Society Livestream ChannelVideo is below.
Today Monday April 20 2015 at 6pm, the OpenITP Techno-Activism Third Monday‘s forum Civil Liberties In the United States tackles the nexus between tech and the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States. From political efforts to outlaw government surveillance, to active citizen-surveillance of repressive actors, to viral exposés of corruption, tech and the Internet – and the increased transparency they bring – have changed the game. Leading activists will discuss the state of play. Speakers: Naomi Wolf, Author; Shahid Buttar, Director of Bill of Rights Defense Committee; Mike German, fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice. The event will be webcast live via theInternet Society Livestream Channel.
Members of the Internet technical community – the African Top Level Domains Organization (AfTLD), Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Society (ISOC), Latin American and Caribbean TLD Association (LACTLD), the Ripe Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), Dr. Michael R. Nelson, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty, George Sadowsky and Andrew Sullivan, have issued a statement following the recent Global Conference on CyberSpace 2015 (GCCS2015) in The Hague.
April 17th 2015 9:00am-5:30pm the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, in collaboration with the International Telecommunications Society, presents Back From the Ashes? A Next Generation of ICT Regulations and Their Implications at Columbia University NYC. This Event/Workshop will cover the various regulatory aspects of emerging next generation technology in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector. With the recent decision by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules on Open Internet or “Net Neutrality,” the role of regulation in the ICT sector has once again been highlighted. The ICT sector continues to undergo significant changes: OTT services are proliferating; Google is pushing into the wireless sector and deploying fiber in selected communities; the ubiquity of WiFi is encroaching on data services offered by traditional cellular providers and some firms are attempting to displace the voice cellular services with a network of WiFi. A series of panels will examine the ICT policy implications. The event will be webcast live via the Internet Society livestream channel.
Today Wednesday April 15 2015 at 9am EDT the Internet Society will hold a Community Forum – an open dialogue about a number of current issues. Hosts will be Raúl Echeberría, Vice President for Global Engagement, and Olaf Kolkman, Chief Internet Technology Officer. Topics include: 1) A regional update the Latin American and Caribbean region: 2) Some of the top issues related to Internet Technology; 3) A review about where we are on the Internet Governance debate featuring data from the recently completed ISOC survey on the topic; 4) Details about our upcoming global virtual event: InterCommunity 2015. The Forum is open to all Internet Society members via the ISOC Connect platform. Simultaneous English & Spanish translation will be available.
On May 1 2015 the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information presented Digital Financial Services & Emerging Payments: Disruption, Development And Innovation In A Global Context at Columbia University in NYC. The ability to pay efficiently, reliably and securely is one of the hallmarks of the development of modern economies. This was the 4th annual conference that looks at the disruptive effect and real-world implementation of mobile payments, mobile financial services and crypto currencies in the developing and developed world. It brings together a high-level group of international speakers featuring entrepreneurs, US & International regulators, investors, academics, payment aggregators, banks, philanthropists, manufacturers, lenders, law enforcement, payment organizations, and industry analysts. The conference was webcast live via the Internet Society livestream channel. Video is below
On Wednesday April 22 2015 
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