UNESCO Open Forum: towards open, transparent and inclusive governance of the Internet

Attracted around 70 participants and gathered seven experts, the UNESCO Open Forum successfully took place on 16th September at the fifth meeting of the Internet governance Forum in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The freedom of expression and to privacy issues have already been discussed at two workshops, this Open Forum was dedicated to other key IGF topics: multilingualism in cyberspace, Open Educational Resources (OER), Open Access to scientific information (OA), Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and accessibility for marginalized groups. 

Moderator:

Mr Jānis Kārkliņš, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information (ADG/CI), UNESCO 

Introductory remarks:

Mr Rod Beckstrom, CEO ICANN 
Read the remarks by Mr Beckstrom addressing the importance of internationalized domain name and cooperation with UNESCO

Session 1. Multilingualism in cyberspace

Speakers:

  • Mr Baher Esmat from ICANN Middle East, presented the Egyptian success story in the IDNccTLD Fast Track Process.
  • Mr Daniel Pimienta, President of FUNREDES (Fundacion Redes y Desarrollo) Saint Domingue, Dominican Republic, presented a UNESCO sponsored study entitled “Twelve years of measuring linguistic diversity in the Internet: balance and perspectives”.View the PowerPoint Presentation made by Mr Pimienta.

Session 2. Open access to scientific information and open educational resources

Speakers:

  • Mr Indrajit Banerjee, Director of the UNESCO Information Society Division, introduced UNESCO Open Suite Initiative.
  • Mr Abel Packer from the SciELO.org Open Access (OA) initiative introduced SciELO and its pioneering work.  View the PowerPoint Presentation made by Mr Packer.

Session 3. An initiative on developing inclusive information policies using ICTs in education for persons with disabilities

Speakers:

Back to top