Engineering Institute to hold Caribbean Internet Governance forum

Regional technology experts will share their insights on global Internet Governance issues, from a Caribbean perspective, at an upcoming forum hosted by The University of the West Indies (UWI). Internet governance deals with the development of shared principles, policies and programmes that shape the use and evolution of the Internet.

“In the global, multi-stakeholder Internet Governance model, the Internet is seen as a borderless resource belonging to no single entity. Instead, it is managed by a global community of governments, corporations, technologists, academics, civil society and individual end users,” said Patrick Hosein, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Technology at UWI, St Augustine.

This multi-stakeholder model is used by the Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TTNIC), the Registry for the .tt ccTLD, of which Hosein is the CEO. He also chairs the Computer and Communications Society (CCS) of the Trinidad and Tobago Section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEETT), which is sponsoring the forum in association with the Trinidad and Tobago chapter of the Internet Society (ISOCTT) and the TTNIC.

Speakers at the forum will deliver interactive presentations and answer participants’ questions about Internet Governance. The ultimate aim is to strengthen the Caribbean presence in international fora where the future of the Internet is being determined.

Speakers at the forum include Tracy Hackshaw, ICANN GAC vice chair; Cintra Sooknanan ISOCTT president; Jacqueline Morris, member of the multi-stakeholder advisory group of the TTNIC; and Albert Daniels, ICANN Global Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the Caribbean. This forum is being held during the same week as the South School on Internet Governance which will provide more intense training on Internet Governance to a select number of fellows.

The forum starts at 6.30 pm on May 1st and will be held in Room 101 of the Faculty of Engineering at the UWI, St Augustine. Registration is free and open to the public.

IEEETT CCS plans to hold a second seminar on 5G networks later this year.

More information is available from the  IEEETT CCS Society secretary.

The Caribbean region and the global Internet: David and Goliath 2.0

Caribbean societies remain severely underrepresented at international meetings where decisions are being made concerning the development and governance of the global Internet. And for a region already burdened with a number of complex, deep-rooted and interrelated issues, the consequences of that chronic under-representation could be dire.

“The Internet presents wonderful opportunities for social and economic development,” said Albert Daniels, Caribbean-area manager for the Stakeholder Engagement Team of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“But if global Internet Governance policies continue to be developed without the input of the Caribbean, then we will not recognise those wonderful opportunities or know how we can exploit them.”

Since 2013, the Saint Lucia-born Daniels, who is attached to the ICANN Engagement Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay, has been working to improve the level and quality of regional representation.

Missing the boat

“If the Caribbean does not participate in the global dialogue where important decisions are made about changes in the shape and direction of Internet policy and standards, then the region will tend to remain unaware of those changes, and that is true whether or not those changes are working towards our benefit.”

The irony, Daniels said, is that the Caribbean, because of its unique geo-political configuration, has great capacity to affect global policy-making. He gave the example of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which advises the ICANN Board on issues of public policy.

“Membership in the GAC comes through accreditation, and there is a seat available for every Caribbean nation,” Daniels said.

He explained that the Caribbean region, being composed of several sovereign states with small populations and in close proximity, has an almost oversized potential to weigh in on ICANN's global decision-making processes.

“As a whole, the region represents a substantial portion of the votes available at the GAC,” Daniels said.

“At the time that I joined in 2013, there were only four countries from the region represented--Jamaica, Trinidad, Montserrat, Cayman Islands. Since then, I've been able to assist Grenada, Dominica and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union with their GAC membership process, and they are now full members. The CTU has also become a member with observer status, as a regional treaty organisation.

"If half of the Caribbean countries would participate in the global dialogue, the region would be a force to be reckoned with. But policies are being developed without our input and as a result, they may or may not be working towards our interest.”

Casting a wider Internet

He offered ICANN’s new gTLDs programme as a specific example of how the region could be missing out. The gTLDs are the letters immediately following the final dot in an Internet address. Through the program, the number of gTLDS could expand from 22 to thousands.

“New gTLDs give corporations and regular Internet users the chance to operate under a name of their choosing, which helps enhance competition, innovation and choice. The new domains represent an opportunity for local communities, charities and small businesses to stand out from the crowd,” Daniels said.

“We could consider .Caribbean or .hotel or .rum, any name that a business person feels can create a commercial opportunity, not just at the national level but in the global marketplace.

"But what happens in the case where you have a commercial entity expressing an interest in a domain name that can also represent a geographic region like the Caribbean? Well, then the commercial entity could possibly get the domain name, simply because our region is sorely underrepresented and doesn't in the decision-making process.”