October 1, 2009

Originally, I planned to post about this before the actual date, but as it often happens, priorities got in the way and here I am now, reflecting on things post factum.  So, what happened on October 1, 2009 to deserve a blog post?

September 30th was the expiration date of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)/Joint Project Agreement (JPA) between ICANN and the US Department of Commerce.  This special arrangement between the US Government and the pivotal organization in the Internet Governance came under a lot of criticism over the years and has generated calls for greater transparency, oversight, and internationalization of ICANN, with an overarching  theme of increasing participation of various stakeholders being those governments or the civil society.

Initially, the MOU was supposed to last for three years, but it ended up being used for eleven.  Nominally, under the MOU, the only body that could review ICANN’s activity was the US Government.  At least in theory, this oversight gave the US Government direct control over ICANN, despite the rhetoric of bottom-up decision making and multistakeholderism.  In practice, I am not sure how much direct control was actually exercised; it seems that most influence came through soft power and ICANN made numerous efforts to increase transparency and international participation in its activities.

The big change offered by the Affirmation of Commitments (AOC), which was signed yesterday, is that it replaces the earlier agreement and exposes ICANN to public oversight.  As Rod Beckstrom, the CEO and the President of ICANN, wrote in an op-ed in the Guardian: “We are entering a new era of coordination, not control – where the internet is governed by you, the users.”  Well, at least nominally.  According to the AOC, the different aspects of ICANN’s activities will have to be reviewed, at least every three years, by a various committees where the US Government will have only one sit, together with other representatives of the ICANN community.

Overall, the announcement of the AOC and the first round of responses was surrounded by rhetoric of independence and further internationalization of ICANN.  BBC News wrote that “US relaxes grip on the internet,”  Guardian titled their item: “US relinquishes control of the internet,” and  “Internet News” announced that “U.S. Cedes ICANN Control to the World” (other outlets had similar titles).  On the ICANN’s website, there is an entire collection of responses from industry leaders and politicians from all over the world, who solute the AOC.  Some of the US newspapers were a bit more critical.  The PC World published an article titled: “U.S. Loosens Grip On ICANN, Domain Chaos To Follow?” where they discuss ICANN’s intentions to introduce new top level domains and domains in non-Latin characters.  However, the overwhelming majority of responses are applauding the supposed independence.

More specifically, the independence stems from the fact that the review of ICANN’s activity will be no longer conducted by the DOC, but by a committee of supposedly independent experts and will be also put out online for public comments.  That is again, nominally.  In fact, there are reasons to question the independent character of this committee.  As Ian Douglas of the Telegraph notes, members of these committees will still come from the ICANN circles, thus implying little change in the character of the oversight.  Milton Muller adds to it by highlighting that people who are going to be reviewed by the committee, i.e. the ICANN management, are those who are responsible for nomination of committee members.  According to AOC, the CEO of ICANN and the Chair of the Government Advisory Group (GAC) are those who appoint the review committee members.

The other aspect highlighted in the AOC and in the responses to it is the private sector leadership.  Even though there is literature suggesting otherwise, the commonly held perception, especially in the diplomatic circles, was that the US Government is leading ICANN.  In practice, again, there were much more shades of gray and the industry played an important role in steering ICANN in particular directions (Milton refers to this as well in his review of AOC).  In the current arrangement, the governments are getting a heavier say in the process.  Even if they are not formally in a decision-making position, they are now in a position where they directly involved in setting the parameters of the discourse and who is getting the stage.

Personally, I still find it difficult to see beyond the rhetoric of independence and internationalization at the moment.  While this is presented as an important step, it remains to be seen how significant the actual change is going to be, particularly in terms of public participation in ICANN’s activity.  One of the points that struck me in the interview Rod Beckstrom gave to the NPR, was him equating public participation to the participation of the governments.  Indeed, this is the view held by many States that were eager to have a more significant say on issues of Internet Governance; the rhetoric there is that governments are representatives of their people and they know the best how to take care of their people’s interests.  While this may be acceptable in some cases and in some cultures, it is definitely not a homogeneous take.  I doubt that many people affiliated with the civil society or civil rights activists, particularly in places that do not excel on that front, will agree with that equation.

I think the affirmation, even though it represents a somewhat expected compromise, is a positive step and the rhetoric surrounding it is encouraging.  However we still have to wait and see if the actions will align with the rhetoric and whether October 1, 2009 will be remembered as a pivotal date in the history of Internet Governance.  Moreover, this step makes the upcoming Internet Governance Forum particularly interesting and I wonder what kind of effect this announcement will have on its agenda.  I guess we will see the first signs tomorrow at IGF-USA that will take place in Washington DC.

Apply for ICANN fellowship!

If you are interested in the Internet Governance issues (or even more generally in the politics of the Internet) and you live in a low income to upper-middle income economy, you should definitely apply for ICANN fellowship to attend one of their meetings.

I have recently discovered ICANN dashboard, which allows you a glimpse over their various statistics.  As you can see in the chart below, as long as you meet their qualifications, your chances of being accepted are rather high.  For example, in the last round of fellowships there were 33 qualified entries and all of them got funded.  Meeting the qualifications criteria is the greatest barrier to entry for this fellowship and it is not completely clear to me how so many unqualified people apply.  From reading the fellowship conditions, the two basic criteria are your citizenship and having at least some relevant experience.

Unfortunately, I don’t have more details about this opportunity other than what is available on their website.  Nevertheless, and regardless of what you may think about ICANN and its role in the regulation of Internet, it seems like an interesting chance to observe the process of Internet policy deliberation in real time.  The next ICANN meeting will take place in Seoul, Korea, 25-30 October 2009, however at this point you can only apply for the following meeting to be held in Nairobi, Kenya on 7-12 March 2010.  The fellowship applications window for that meeting is September 28 to November 6, 2009.  Good luck!

P.S. The underlying logic of limiting fellowship eligibility to people from developing countries is completely understandable, but it would be great if ICANN could at least link to other resources, which are open to people from the rest of the world.

Beware of the Skypzzz!

Rhetoric has been always a very powerful tool in promoting both policy and business agendas.  Russian telcos are now putting the old-good argument of security in promoting legislation that may allow them to succeed where their European and other colleagues have failed.

It seems that all around the world the telcos feel threatened by Voice over IP (VoIP) applications that run on their infrastructure and offer free of charge voice services, with Skype being an iconic example*.  Only recently, the European telecos tried to argue for unfair competition and asked to discriminate against the use of VoIP on their networks.  The European Commission took a firm stand against it arguing for principles of net-neutrality also on mobile networks.  In the US AT&T, together with Apple, work against VoIP applications such as Skype and Google Voice to be used on the iPhones.  It will be now up to the FCC to take a stand on that issue.  Finally, the Israeli leading mobile service provider, Cellecom, is also seeking ways of limiting its users’ access to VoIP and some other technologies, under the slogan of “quality of service.”  The Israeli Ministry of Communication actually took a pro net neutrality stand in this case, but the argument is still going on.

In Russia, however, the local industry decided to make the long story short and instead of appealing to amorphous concepts such as “fairness” in competition or “quality of service” it turned to a more basic instinct – fear.  According to this article, Russian telcos have warned the Kremlin that:

“…the foreign-made VoIP software, easily downloaded from the Internet, is a threat to national security because it is resistant to eavesdropping by Russia’s intelligence agencies.”

To make things a bit spicier, they also added some nationalism.  The lobbying group was quoted saying that:

“The majority of brands operating in Russia, such as Skype and Icq, are of foreign origin and therefore we need to ensure the defense of national producers in this sector”

While some civil rights activists are concerned with the state openly talking about spying on people, others view it a bit more pragmatically.  In a recent hearing on the subject it was estimated that in about 3 years 40% of voice traffic in Russia will be VoIP.  This creates a significant incentive for the industry to cooperate on legislation that “will bring order” to the VoIP market.  Indeed such an effort is currently underway in Russia.

There was limited, but critical reaction on this topic in the mainstream Russian media and  even the blogsphere reacted only on the margines; some expressed concerns, others healthy sarcasm.  I wonder though, if conversations about VoIP are going on in other countries as well, and if so, what arguments are made against and for it.

* Disclamer – I use Skype and, to the most part, like it.

Intel is doing it smart

At the last WTPF meeting I learned about the Magellan laptop project of the Portuguese government.  Every participant was provided with such a laptop for the duration of the forum, at the end of which the laptops were supposed to be donated “to children in a developing country.”  I am not sure where exactly they went, but many of the participants got to keep their laptops and were provided with a lot of information about the project.

The Magellan initiative, named after the 16th century explorer, is a collaboration between Intel and the Portuguese government.  According to Mr. Mario Lino, Minister of Public Works, Transport and Communications, it is part of the government’s commitment to development of the “information society” in Portugal.  The aim is to deliver those laptops to 1.1 million students registered in their e-school program and supposedly 800K have been already deployed.  Moreover, the initiative is looking to expand beyond the Portuguese borders.  A number of times during the forums it was mentioned that a really large shipment of Magellan laptops (if I remember correctly about 200K) went to Columbia and shipments to other corners of the world are on their way.

The project representatives I talked to at the forum were not ready to say how much it would cost if someone wanted to by a batch of these machines.  They sold them on spot for 250 Euro a piece, but told me that the price will be negotiated per project depending on the quantities and the educational needs of the client.  From my neighbor on the flights back to the US, whose kid participates in the program, I learned that in Portugal those laptops are distributed for 50 Euro maximum (if the family is not eligible for any additional subsidies).  If the family falls in certain category, it would get not only the laptop for free, but also an internet connection as long as there are children aged 8-10 in the household and their participate in the program.

Indeed, the program is very well known in Portugal.  I was lucky enough to receive one of those laptops and carrying it around and taking it on the plane attracted both attention and comments of the locals who were really proud about their local laptop traveling to the US.

Digging into it, Magellan laptop is the Classmate PC in a different cover.  I think Intel have handled it really smart with this project.  They gave the Portuguese government the ability to repackage their Classmate PC so that it could be presented to the world as a Portuguese laptop and the Portuguese government could take the credit.  In other words, the Portuguese government rips political dividend while helping Intel disseminating their technology.  Sort of a win-win situation.

The laptops are indeed assembled in Portugal (from parts made in China), which makes it the first European laptop.  My version came with Windows XP in English, but from my neighbor on the flights back I learned that machines distributed in Portugal come with dual boot of XP and Ubuntu.  Moreover, they come with an educational software, which according to my neighbor was rather buggy and not very useful.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the software.

The size, the design, and most importantly the purpose of the laptop (and the entire program), raised an immediate comparison to OLPC and XO, but on that (and more on the specs of the laptop) in a latter post.  In the meantime, here are few more pictures of the machine with some comments.

Zotero lawsuit update

Thanks to Veronica’s attention to everything, I just found out that Thomson Reuters lawsuit against Zotero was dismissed by a Virginia Circuit Court judge in early June.  Here are some snippets of the news from SlashDot, Chronicle of Higher Education and more.  I wish I could read the actual order for details and explanations, but so far I don’t think it is available.

Tackling your creative minds

I really need to tackle your creative minds with a techy/geeky question.

Veronica received a basic Arduino kit for her birthday.  If you’ve never encountered it before, there are explanations in the link and here is also what Wikipedia has to say about it:

Arduino is a physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment that uses the Wiring library to simplify writing C/C++ programs that run on the board. Arduino can be used to develop stand-alone interactive objects or can be connected to software running on a computer (e.g., Adobe Flash, Processing, Max/MSP, Pure Data, SuperCollider).

Here is another interesting discussion of Arduino.

Basically it allows you to add interactivity to objects by hard-wiring and programing the board and adding to various sensors.  We played with it a little bit and made various LEDs blinking in various fancy ways.  But now, we would like to find a more interesting, creative and maybe even (but really not necessarily) useful project.  This is where I need your help.

What would you do with Arduino?

To start the process, here are some interesting ideas we found on the internet:

• Taking pictures triggered by sound, movement, etc. – 1, 2 (super cool!).
• A couple of varieties of POV – 1 and 2.
• Twittering plants and fetuses.

And some claim that this can also be done using Arduino:

They even have a MySpace page, but this is slightly too much for us I think, at least at this point :)

So, what do you suggest we should build?

The words of WTPF 2009

If you happen to follow this blog, you have probably noticed the relative silence in the last month or so.  I was, and still am, extremely busy primarily with working on my A-exams and moving on with shaping my dissertation ideas.  One of the upcoming highlights is me going to the World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) to observe how international telecom policy agenda is being shaped in real time and to conduct some preliminary interviews with people who steer this process.

As many other similar events (such as the IGF) the forum is not aimed at producing binding resolutions.  Instead, its explicit aim is to set the agenda for the global telecom policy making.  Here is how it is described on its website:

It (WTPF-DE) is not designed to produce prescriptive outcomes with the binding force of an international treaty; rather, it strives to foster productive debate and build multi-stakeholder consensus on constructive ways forward.

This is why I think it is particularly fascinating event and this is why it will be interesting to look at how its outcomes describe MICT, priorities of related industries, and the associated regulatory principles.  Preparing for the trip I was pleasantly surprised to discover a wealth of information that the ITU made available online.  For example, there is a repository of all the iteration of the “Report by the Secretary General of ITU”, which is the pivotal document of this meeting.  In its preamble, the report states:

Decision 9 of the Antalya Plenipotentiary Conference states that arrangements for the fourth WTPF shall be in accordance with applicable Council decisions. In accordance with Decision 498 of the 2000 session of the ITU Council, discussions at the WTPF shall be based on a Report from the Secretary-General, incorporating the contributions and comments of ITU Member States and Sector Members (available at: http://www.itu.int/osg/csd/wtpf/wtpf2009/report.html) which will serve as the sole working Report of the Forum.

Since I am interested in words and in discourse, I thought to play a little bit with what was available.  Together with Veronica, and with the help of the Many Eyes project, we created the following visualization of the current Report by the Secretary General of ITU – the report that is at the basis of the upcoming discussion.  Here is what we got:

This image shows the 150 most common words in this 53 pages long document and the relative size of the word signifies its popularity.  As we can see from a quick glimpse, this forum is going to be about ITU, Internet, networks, services, issues, international, ICTs, countries, use, resolutions…

The decision in 2006 called for convergence to be the main topic of this forum, yet, as we can see in terms of popularity, the word “convergence” is loosing to many other concepts.  This is not to say that the discussion cannot focus on convergence using different terms, but I find this detail interesting.  it is particularly interesting, because if you look at visualization of the first draft of this report (before numerous comments by stakeholders were absorbed in it) the word “convergence” was much more dominant (you can see visualizations of drafts 2 and 3 in the links).

These visualizations do not tell us much about the substantive content of these documents, but I think they are a nice way to have a brief glance at the terminology that is dominating this debate.  I hope to continue following and blogging more on this subject.

Your comments will be highly appreciated!

ITU: The future of ICTs video contest – deadline March 31

In the video below a really nice, but nameless, girl is advertising the current ITU video contest titled “The future of ICTs” using some really “fancy” video effects.

Leaving aside the particularities of the video, the competition itself looks like a good opportunity for those of you who are interested in getting their ideas heard and perhaps even make it to the upcoming World Telecommunication Policy Forum in Lisbon in April.

In a nutshell, you have to have something visionary to say about the future of media, information, and communication technology, you have to be between the ages of 18 and 26, you should speak in English, Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French or Russian, and you need to know how to shoot and upload videos to YouTube.

The deadline for your submissions is March 31.

Currently there is only one video response published on YouTube, so I guess there is still room to compete.  Here is the link again (you should read the conditions carefuly) and good luck!

OLPCorps Africa – March 27 deadline

Although it received quite a lot of (somewhat just) criticism on OLPC news (here and here with the second post trying to make sense of the first one), I think this is quite an interesting move on behalf of OLPC.  I think there is a lot of the youth potential, which the author of the blog post is overlooking and I would like to share this opportunity with those of you who are interested in OLPC-related activities.  For example, I think it may particularly interest those of you who were at the last ITU YF in Bangkok and had an opportunity to be thoroughly introduced to the XO laptops.

Here is the gist of the initiative:

What?

OLPCorps Africa is a unique grant program focused specifically on learning in Africa. Student teams are equipped with the tools, resources, and know-how to develop grassroots learning environments in an African country of their choice. OLPC is drawing upon the world’s student leaders to spark a university-led grassroots initiative in this global learning movement. Through OLPCorps Africa, OLPC is creating a global network of student leaders who will create a lasting impact at the local level, build a network of student activists, and initiate a grant program that will become renown.  (source)

Eligibility? - Undergraduate and graduate students, over 18 years old, from any country.

How?

$3,500,000 for 100 teams of college students to get $35,000 in support for 10 week projects in Africa. Each group gets 100 XO laptops, assorted hardware, a $10,000 stipend, and 10-day training in Kigali, Rwanda, before being sent out to projects. (source)

When?

The workshop will begin June 8th and end June 17th. Teams should arrive at least 1 day before. However, teams are encouraged to arrive as early as the 6th in order to adjust to the time-difference and leave room for flight-delays or any other unexpected circumstances which may arise. (source)

The duration of the Grant Program is 10 weeks (June – August), including the orientation in Kigali. Teams should arrange with their local partner to stay for at least 9 weeks. (source)

Proposals deadline is March 27th.

Please consult the wiki of the project for further details.  Note that there are many people there who are looking for local partners to form a proposal team.  So, if you are in Africa, you may find good partners there.

I was also excited to see that there is a group of Cornell students who have applied for this opportunity.  I hope to get in touch with them and offer them my help.  If any of you is applying, I would be also glad to hear about that!  Please let me know if I can help, particularly with linking people who are looking for partners.

Good luck everyone!

Learning from students

One of the good things of being a teaching assistant (TA) is that I am getting exposed to a great variety of views and opinions of the students I am working with.  It is somewhat scary to think that many of these students are ten years younger than me, but it is often fascinating to learn how they are using MICT and what they are thinking about technology.

So I decided to share a couple of insights I have learned from (and about) my students.

Insight #1: Last semester I TAed for an intro communication class.  At some point (somewhere in late October) we were talking about the upcoming election and the use of MICT in election campaigns.  Specifically, the students were presented with a way of assessing political websites in terms of interactivity, hypertextuality, and social presence.  At the end of the class the 102 students were polled about what aspect of the website would be most important to them.  Thanks Laura and Sue, who agreed to actually count all the votes, I am able to share them with you:

• Interactivity – 35.3%
• Hypertextuality – 34.3%
• Social presence – 27.5%
• Combination of a number of aspects – 2.9%

If I recall the discussion in class correctly, this means that (1) the students appreciated an ability to “talk” to the candidates, express their opinions, and get involved in discussion, and (2) they appreciated an option to learn more and in depth about the subjects presented on campaign websites.  Needless to say that this is not by any means a rigorous or comprehensive study and we cannot really learn anything substantive from it, but nevertheless I think it is an interesting indicator.

Insight #2: The class I am TAing for this semester has a blog where the students have to post weekly assignments.  In the last assignment they had to observe their own usage of their mobile phones for a couple of days and then discuss issues that bothered them the most.  I have no numbers to provide this time, but here is what I learned from reading their reflections:

• They are connected! Not that this needed any proof from me reading the blog posts (PDF), but it is really amazing to read about the central role this device is playing in their social life.
• They are very responsive. One of the most common complains was about phone calls and text messages interrupting their studies, their sleep or their class sessions.  On the face of it, what can be easier than simply turning your phone off, but it turns out that missing phone calls or taking too long to response to text messages is not very socially acceptable.
• They want control.  As one of the common solutions, many students offered to have an equivalent of tagging so that they could catalog people in order prioritize phone calls and text messages as they arrive (note that this is different from assigning different ring tone to individual contacts).  Another popular feature they have advocated for was an ability to link their calendars to their mobile phones, so that the phones would ring, vibrate, or turn off according to their schedules.
• They don’t like uncertainty. Another commonly suggested feature was status notifications.  On the one hand, they want to let people know why they are not responsive or signal to people when it is appropriate to contact them.  On the other hand, they want to know why somebody is not answering their calls or text messages.
• Mobiles are social. Anther common complain was that the phone rings in inappropriate times (class, library, etc.).  It turns out that people really care about this and it is considered very embarrassing even to the digital natives.

Again, none of those observations is subject to any rigour, but I found reading these blog posts really interesting and insightful.  Hope you will find those interesting too and I wonder if any of the mobile industry players is actually working on developing some of the features the students have advocated for.

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