Swedish Internet Forum: Wrap up and close

Below is a video and transcript of the close of the Swedish Internet Forum on 19 April 2012.

Olof Ehrenkrona (OE): Can I start with asking all those who... In the team who are still standing on their feet to stand up. And there you are. Let's give the team a great big hand.

[applause]

OE: And can I then ask the moderators and the still living panelists to stand up. Some of you. Yeah, some of them. Let's also give them a big hand.

[applause]

And thanks to you, we have had such vibrant discussions and we have not been hesitating to take on also the most difficult questions. This is very, very much thanks to you and what you have done. This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. There will be a continuation and let me then ask Bela Szombati from Budapest to come here and present very, very shortly the next event, upcoming event in Budapest.

Bela Szombati: Well, thank you. Very shortly, though I can't exactly see the clock.

OE: I can.

BS: Alright. And you will let me know.

[laughter]

It is an honor because it's almost like Budapest will be a followup event to Stockholm. And actually in a way it is. In another more technical way, it is a followup event to a conference that the British government organized last year in November on cyberspace, which was meant to look at all the possible uses of cyberspace and the relationship between the use of cyberspace and economic growth and social progress and international security and safe and reliable access to the Internet and cyber crime.

And we will move along these lines and organize something similar, something based on the free and secure use of cyberspace where more better security is at the service of free and even better use of the cyberspace. So we'll move along the London lines and will see where we can specify it further, where we can be more concrete. And my very modest claim to fame here is to gather some ideas from the Stockholm conference and I think I did get some very good ideas from your conference and I'm very grateful for that.

We'll try to look, many people mentioned here, a better dialogue among stakeholders and among all the stakeholders, and this is exactly what we'll try to do, to build on better dialogue and cooperation between governments and the private and the public sector, also to include even better, the NGOs and civil society organizations and also to make the Budapest event as open as the Stockholm event has been.

And I think that's a very good lesson for us and for me it's a very good way to conclude what I'm trying to say which is we'll try to involve people just like you've tried to involve people here through the most interactive way possible, with a complete possibility to follow for the online community, through live streaming and also organizing a parallel youth forum for the very young people so that they can discuss the same topics, the same themes and also to be able to discuss their own solutions and their own answers with participants of the main conference. And if we can do all of that then we can I think carry forward this whole process of dialogue about the use of cyberspace and of the Internet. Thank you.

[applause]

OE: Thank you. And as a token and as a reminder of the importance of freedom, please take this.

Seems we have an airplane coming up. So I will ask Martin Fleischer to come and present the next event in Berlin. And I know that you have your airplane, so you will be short.

Martin Fleischer: Yes. Thank you very much. Let me first thank you and the Swedish government for organizing this conference, which I have found really successful both in content and atmosphere.

And joining the beauty contest, we had a cyber security conference last December in Berlin as a joint venture between the government and various academic institutions and in the same pattern we will hold a conference on human rights on the Internet in mid-September in Berlin, and I'm looking forward to carry on some of the issues which have been opened up here. Thank you very much.

[applause]

OE: Thank you. And you will also get this reminder of the Stockholm meeting. Welcome. And we will also have a followup on the heart coalition and Champier Campaneris. Is he here? No, I can't see him. Well, then I will say that there will be a followup in the heart coalition track and that will be in Kenya in September, I believe it's scheduled for and we hope that many of you will be able to come even there.

And then I will also say that we'll have a Human Rights seminar in Seoul arranged by the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs and the French Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Asia-Europe Foundation discussing human rights on the internet in an Eastern Asian context, which of course everyone knows has very interesting implications. Then I will ask Annika to come. Annika Bell from the Swedish authority dealing with these... Yeah... Well, you should tell what you are dealing with actually.

Annika Bell: Okay, so on behalf of the Director General at the Swedish Post and Telecom Agency, Authority we say nowadays, I'm very delighted to be here to meet you all in these important discussions. I'm also very happy to announce that part of these discussions will continue at EuroDIG, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance here in Stockholm. And that's going to be at the 14th and 15th of June, so it's in two months.

EuroDIG is an open and transparent multi-stakeholder forum and gives a great opportunity to meet representatives across sectors of society -- governments, business in this industry, as well as civil society alike -- to discuss public policy issues of Internet's future, its challenges and opportunities. I should say that the purpose of EuroDIG is twofold. First, is to raise awareness in Europe and among European stakeholders about the relevance and value of multi-stakeholder dialogue on the Internet governance.

And the second is to help European stakeholders to exchange their views and best practices on issues to be discussed at meetings of Internet Governance Forum, IGF, including the identification of common ground shared by all European stakeholders and highlighting the diversity of experience of the different European stakeholders.

So again, I'm very happy to welcome you all to take part at EuroDIG 2012, and to participate you can register at the website. It's eurodig.org, and on this site you will also find a draft program of the conference. So, I look forward seeing you in June. Thank you.

[applause]

OE: Thank you. And you will also get some remarks from the Stockholm conference. One of our co-sponsors and co-arrangers, Staffan Jonson of SE.

Staffan Jonson: Thank you, Olaf. Well, I noticed there are quite a lot of events to go to further on this coming year so this won't be the first one, it will be the continuation. I represent the Internet Infrastructure Foundation in Sweden, also known dot SE, so we're the organization, the civil society organization that runs the SE zone or the country code top level domain as it is also known.

I just want to extend a huge thank you for your participation, your engagement, your energy invested in this meeting. And it has been a true pleasure to meet you all and discussing these issues. So, thank you very much for us, as well.

[applause]

OE: Thank you, Stefan. Our goal with the Stockholm forum has been to create a platform for dialogue. When we started this a few years ago, we were only a handful of experts/activists meeting in Stockholm and coming together to prepare the process in the UN Human Rights Council.

But part of this preparatory work was to read these dialogues in Buenos Aires, in Bangkok, in Delhi, in Johannesburg, in Cairo, which Frank La Rue undertook them. We understood fairly soon that here was a great opportunity to discuss cyber politics with some of the most advanced thinkers, some of the most advanced practitioners and activists in this field. Things happen very fast in this realm and there are always new issues to penetrate. I personally believe that we made the right choice when picking the development perspective for this particular conference.

These meetings have confirmed the importance of this particular aspect on ICT and the connection between freedom and development, both socially and economically. We, here in this room, will all continue our march through the global institutions to make some sort of quote from Rudi Dutschke. But, as we are moving on we need to halt now and then. We need to halt in order to nourish a bit. We need to halt to get a sense of direction and to find out the next steps to avoid the obstacles and identifying the opportunities. This we do in fora like this, and with people like you. It is you, all participants, that have made this event a success and it's your ideas and your views and your intervention that will inspire us in the work to come. Thanks for coming to Stockholm, and welcome back.

[applause]

[music]