Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected

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In the spirit of Paragraph 50 of the Tunis Agenda, our panel aims to highlight best practices that will help in “turning the digital divide into digital opportunity”, and will look at what can be done to promote broadband penetration and access to infrastructure. By forging better Internet governance environments through dialogue and interaction, stakeholders can work together to build better local infrastructure and more efficient deployment of infrastructure.  Internet technical community experts, policy-makers, and development experts know well the challenges that exist in promoting deployment of Internet infrastructure.  From public-works challenges to human capacity development, each country may have their own unique challenges.  Provisions and policies must be put in place to ensure that broadband connections are developed, maintained and improved to sustain the rise in Internet traffic and particularly to accommodate the fast growth of video traffic. Against this backdrop, this workshop proposes to assemble a group of experts and practitioners to discuss observations from the field (practical examples and information) about how to help encourage connectivity and to “lift” barriers to connectivity. We also will identify barriers for investment faced by the private sector and tries to define ways to improve the policy landscape and identify a sustainable economic model to foster private investment. We plan to do this by identifying connectivity challenges and by identifying best practices for working with all stakeholders to manage those challenges. The developing country perspective will be reflected, and the workshop will specifically address what is needed in practical terms to connect the unconnected – eg low-cost devices, open systems and public / private partnerships. Workshop participants will engage the audience to encourage a dialogue that seeks feed-back from participants. An output of the workshop would be a collaborative “living” list of best practices and observations identified during the workshop that can serve as a baseline to be added to given national and local dynamics.

Panelists

• Raj Singh, Internet Society, Male, Technical Community, SINGAPORE, Asia-Pacific Group
• Martin Levy, Hurricane Electric, Male, Private Sector, UNITED STATES, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
• Christoph Steck, Telefonica, S.A., Male, Private Sector, SPAIN, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
• Jennifer Haroon, Google, Female, Private Sector, UNITED STATES, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
• Simon Milner, Facebook, Male, Private Sector, UNITED KINGDOM, Western Europe and Others Group - WEOG
• Pranesh Prakash, Centre for Internet & Society India, Male, Civil Society, INDIA, Asia-Pacific Group