Andile Ngcaba, founder of Convergence Partners and executive chairman of Dimension Data Middle East and Africa, has been named to an international panel that aims to address the issue of Internet governance.
The Future of Global Internet Cooperation panel will meet for the first time in December, in London, and its report, which will include principles for global Internet cooperation, a proposed framework for such cooperation, stakeholder relations, and a roadmap for future Internet governance, is expected to be released for comment in early 2014.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was the catalyst for the panel. Estonian president Toomas Ilves will chair the panel.
Vint Cerf, VP and chief Internet evangelist for Google, former ICANN chairman and co-founder of the Internet Society, will serve as vice-chairperson.
Commenting on the formation of the panel, Ngcaba said: "The world, technology, society, politics, constitutions, religious doctrines, ideologies, and the economy - nearly all aspects of human life - are now being driven by the Internet.
"There's no law, regulation or global treaty that's not influenced by the Internet. Consequently, there's a growing dependence on the Internet globally, which is driving stock market trading, motor vehicle navigation systems, maritime movements, air traffic, and travel, to name a few.
"Every document in the world will be on the Internet. And with an estimated 50 billion-plus devices predicted to connect to the Internet in the future, we are today paving the way towards the Internet of things where almost everything will be connected to, and available online. This means governing the Internet requires a new way of thinking and governance."
The panel's other members are:
- Mohamed al Ghanem: founder and DG of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority; former vice-chairman of the UAE Information and Communications Technology Fund.
- Virgilio Fernandes Almeida: member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences; chairman of the Internet Steering Committee; national secretary for Information Technology Policies.
- Dorothy Attwood: senior VP of Global Public Policy, Walt Disney Company.
- Mitchell Baker: chairman of the Mozilla Foundation; chairman and former CEO, Mozilla Corporation.
- Francesco Caio: CEO of Avio; former CEO, Cable and Wireless and Vodafone Italia; founder of Netscalibur; broadband advisor in UK and Italy.
- Fadi Chehade: CEO and president of ICANN; founder of Rosetta Net; technology executive.
- Nittin Desai: Indian economist and diplomat; former UN undersecretary general; convener of Working Group on Internet Governance.
- Ivo Ivanovski: minister of Information Society and Administration, Macedonia; commissioner to the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development.
- Thorbjorn Jagland: secretary general of the Council of Europe; former prime minister and foreign minister of Norway; chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
- Olaf Kolkman: director of NLnet Labs; "evangineer" of the Open Internet; former chairman of the Internet Architecture Board.
- Frank La Rue, labour and human rights lawyer; UN special rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression; founder, Centre for Legal Action for Human Rights.
- Robert McDowell: former US Federal Communications commissioner; visiting fellow, Hudson Institute's Centre for Economics of the Internet.
- Liu Qingfeng: CEO and president of iFLYTEK; director of National Speech & Language Engineering Laboratory of China; member of Interactive Technology Standards working group.
- Lynn St Amour: president and CEO of the Internet Society; telecoms and IT executive.
- Jimmy Wales: founder and promoter of Wikipedia; member of the board of trustees of Wikimedia Foundation.
- Won-Pyo Hong: president, Media Solution Centre, Samsung Electronics.
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