Contributions to the Net neutrality debate

At the World Summit on Information Society + 10 Review,  Anita Gurumurthy delivered a speech as civil society representative, at the closing ceremony.

Icann, the global authority dealing with domain names, is hastening the threat of monopolisation on the Internet through its new scheme
to sell generic words (like .beauty, .books, .search). IT for Change wrote an opinion piece in a leading English newspaper daily about how Icann is getting away with the problematic plan of putting up parts of our language up for privatisation. A day later, the daily published an editorial piece endorsing the same, which can be read here

Parminder Jeet Singh was invited by the South Centre, the Geneva-based inter-governmental thinktank, to address the developing country diplomats on global Internet-related policies and the appropriate institutional mechanisms for this purpose.

Anita Gurumurthy, Executive Director, IT for Change presented a paper at the Asia Pacific Regional Consultation on Women’s Public and Political Life in Asia Pacific’ organised by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD), from 19-20 September 2012, at Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal.

IT for Change wrote a paper titled 'A development agenda in Internet Governance - Outlining global public policy issues and exploring new institutional options' for the IBSA (India, Brazil, South Africa) seminar on global Internet Governance that took place on 1-2 September 2011 at Fundação Getulio Vargas, in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The event was organised by the Brazilian Ministry of External Relations, with support from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee and the Centre for Technology & Society, as well as governmental and non-governmental actors from India, Brazil and South Africa.

For the 4th IGF (14-17th September 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania), IT for Change partnered with the Association for Progressive Communications, Centre for Internet and Society, Global Partners and Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition to hold a pre-event on “Internet Governance and Human Rights : Strategies for Collaboration and Empowerment” on September 13. Among others, the event was attended by Frank La Rue, UN's Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression. The event sought to frame Internet Governance issues in rights frameworks – civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights, along with the right to development.

At the annual meeting of the UN Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2011 IT for Change co-organised a workshop  on 'A Possible Framework for Global Net Neutrality' along

The Heads of the States of IBSA acknowledged the importance of the IBSA Dialogue Forum as an instrument to promote coordination on global issues and deliberated on a few topics that are recorded in the Tshwane declaration. The Rio seminar also accepted to set up an IBSA Internet Governance and Development Observatory, which was a proposal first made by IT for Change.

IT for Change participated as one of the five civil society members of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development's Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (WGIIGF). IT for Change submitted two input papers arguing that processes need to be developed to strengthen the IGF for more concrete outcomes.