INTA Participates in the 20th Internet Governance Forum in Norway

INTA participated in the 20th Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which was held in Lillstrom, Norway, last month. IGF has become the most important forum covering Internet policy and governance in recent years.

Charles Shaban, INTA’s Chief Representative Officer, MENA, was selected to serve on the IGF Multistakholder Advisory Group (MAG), which worked on the program for this year’s IGF. This year’s theme was “Building Digital Governance Together,” and the main sessions were organized across four sub-themes:

1. Building digital trust and resilience;
2. Building sustainable and responsible innovation;
3. Building universal access and digital rights; and
4. Building digital cooperation.

Representatives from high-profile Internet companies—including Meta and Open AI—spoke in one of the Forum’s first sessions about the latest developments in artificial intelligence (AI), and what to expect when artificial general intelligence (AGI) arrives within the coming years. American actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt spoke out in defense of the rights of authors and content creators, pointing out how AI systems take their data without consent or compensation.

INTA Board Member Daniel Zohny (Abion, Switzerland) participated in the session, “Game On: Exploring IP and Resolving Disputes in Esports.” Mr. Shaban participated in WIPO’s Open Forum and the workshops “WGIG+20: Glancing Backward and Looking Forward,” which covered the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), and “Open Forum on Digital Cooperation in the Arab Region,” where he spoke about the need to make the MENA region’s voice heard in global Internet policy forums.

Side meetings were held with the IGF Leadership Panel (LP) and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) undersecretary. These discussions covered many subjects, including the following:

• How to ethically govern AI;
• How recent geopolitical developments should affect the IGF mandate;
• Increasing the IGF mandate’s relevance;
• Envisioning the future architecture of the IGF; and
• The implementation of the UN’s Global Digital Compact (GDC) principles into IGF processes.

Although every effort has been made to verify the accuracy of this article, readers are urged to check independently on matters of specific concern or interest.

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