[npoc-voice] I-Inform Alliance

["klaus.stoll" <klaus.stoll@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Friends

Greetings and I trust you all had a good Holiday Season and a great start to 
the New Year. 

There have been a lot of developments in Internet Governance in the last month, 
and if one thing has become clear it is that the old structures need support 
and input to get the job done. A lot of thinking has taken place and one of the 
results is the creation of the I-Inform Alliance. I have attached the draft 2.1 
of the alliance below and I want to invite you to comment freely on it. I also 
would like to invite NPOC to become a founding and key member of the alliance 
and I therefor propose that we might discuss the alliance at the NPOC monthly 
call next week. If you and your organization would like to become active in 
I-Inform please let me know and I also would appreciate any suggestions that 
concern how to support the establishment and running of the alliance in 
practical terms. I-Inform is badly needed and it needs to hit the ground 
running in order to get its job done. 

Yours

Klaus

I-Inform Alliance

Draft 2.1

Internet Governance today



Internet Governance(IG), has been likened to a country where 0.1% are in charge 
of 99.9% of the population. 99.9% of Information Technologies(IT) users are 
uninformed consumers. In the case of IG, the vast  majority of IT users are 
completely ignorant even of its existence. This is not just a problem for the 
99.9% that are disempowered and voiceless, it is an even bigger problem for the 
0.1% concerned with the structural integrity and safety, regulation, policy 
making and governance of modern ITs. The legitimacy and effectiveness of IG is 
in direct proportion to the ability to create general awareness and engagement 
of IT users. The biggest challenge for all those concerned with IG today is the 
lack of awareness and engagement of the vast majority of IT users.



ITs have become a global public good; they have become a “common”, an 
instrument for human existence and development of highest importance and value. 
A global public common such as the ITs, can only function when all stakeholders 
are able to participate effectively in them. IG has to become a topic of common 
debate and interest for everybody like peace, the environment and climate 
change are today. IG becomes a topic of widespread interest and importance when 
the users of IT understand that it is IG in all its aspects that is keeping the 
network running and the technologies developing.



Many organizations, conscious of the importance of IG, have taken on the 
challenge of raising awareness and engaging the general public in IG, but no 
initiative has yet the desired and necessary impact. ITs and its users are one 
big cosmos; whilst individual IG stakeholders and their initiatives, however 
big and global they are, can cover only specific aspects of IG that are in 
their direct remit. In doing so, they are only able to reach a tiny proportion 
of the overall IT users. What is necessary is the ability to engage with vast 
numbers of IT users globally and to convey the message of the critical 
significance of IG for all. 



A pre-requisite for effective awareness building and engagement in IG on a 
large global scale are joint initiatives that bring together many IG 
stakeholders with their different motivations, roles, functions and abilities. 
Such joint IG initiatives need a collaborative stage on which they can be 
initiated, sourced and coordinated.





I-Inform  is an alliance for collaborative large scale IG awareness building 
and engagement with  IT users everywhere.



Vision: 

To inform and educate the global general public about all aspects of IG in 
order to enable engagement, participation and informed decision making.



Mission:

To unite all Internet Governance Stakeholders in a collaborative alliance that 
enables them to upscale, create and implement large scale IG awareness building 
and engagement initiatives for IT users everywhere.



I-Inform: Proposed Activities

·         To bring together all IG stakeholders to share the need to raise 
awareness and engagement of the global general public in all aspects of IG.

·         To act as a platform that allows IG stakeholders to interchange and 
disseminate information IG related information freely.

·         To enable partnering with, and up-scaling of existing IG initiatives.

·         To enable alliances to implement on a large scale new collaborative 
IG awareness building and engagement initiatives.

·         To act as a depository of available IG materials.

·         To act as a multiplication, dissemination and distribution channel 
for all matters IG related.

·         To act as a one stop shop for all information available on current IG 
issues.

·         To act as a point of engagement, interchange and collaboration 
between IG stakeholders and the world media.

·         To promote and engage in innovation and creation of new IG awareness 
building and engagement activities.



I-Inform: Expected Outcomes



·         Large scale awareness building and engagement of the general public 
in IG issues.



·         INFORMED IT Users will make INFORMED choices that will result in 
INFORMED policy making and result in the sustained development of the common 
good of IT’s.



·         Strengthening and renewal of those organizations engaged with IG. As 
more people know about the role and importance of IG, more people will engage 
with it. As more people engage and participate in IG existing governance 
structures will reevaluate and reform themselves, based on the much broader 
input, in an organic ongoing process. This process of renewal will not be a 
revolutionary one but an ongoing process of evaluation and reform that is based 
on broad participation of all stakeholders. An informed general public will 
lead to organic changes and reform in the organizations themselves that will 
make them more stable, effective and relevant.



·         Strengthening the IG Ecosystem. Organisations active in I-Inform will 
have a platform that allows them to informally work and act together and in 
this way learn to understand and respect each other which results in a 
strengthened overall IG ecosystem



·         Creation of win/win situations. The biggest argument for the alliance 
is that everybody that engages with it is winning, as everybody and all sectors 
engaged will achieve outcomes that are beneficial for them. The participation 
and support of the campaign is in the self interest of all IG stakeholders.





I-Inform: Rules of Engagement



·         The Alliance is open to all Internet Stakeholders that share the goal 
to inform and educate the global general public about all aspects of IG.



·         The Alliance is outcome and impact orientated.



·         The Alliance strives to achieve its goals with a minimum of formal 
organizational structures and overheads. The Alliance will start and stay as a 
virtual organization and not strive to become a new formal organization.



·         The members of the Alliance have different roles and functions but 
share a single goal.  Different stakeholders in IG have different roles, 
functions and policies; some are mainly interested to manage a “common”, the 
stable root system, others basically represent national interests whilst 
another group is looking out for the right conditions for the Internet to be 
used as the basis of economic development and growth. What unites them all in 
the I-Inform Alliance is the urgent need for collaborative large scale IG 
awareness building and engagement with IT users everywhere.



·         The I-Inform Alliance has no policy making role, membership in the 
alliance does not indicate agreement with specific policies of, or automatic 
affiliation with, other alliance members.





I-Inform : Steps of Implementation and Timelines



The alliance needs to be initially coordinated and organized by a neutral 
organization that has interest, mandate, experience and capacity to do so. This 
organisation is the Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation (GKPF).



GKPF will execute the creation and management of I-Inform under its 
“e-readiness and capacity building” working area.



Next steps:



1.       A call to arms, (Jan-March 2013)

        In this time the following main steps will be undertaken:

a)      Refinement of I-Inform concept and promotional materials

b)      Registration of I-Inform domain and creation of www site

c)       Creation of I-Inform discussion list (initially on GKPF www site)

d)      Informal talks with heads and key players of relevant IG organizations; 
these talks will have to include conceptual and implementation issues, funding 
considerations and commitments and governance.

e)      Dissemination of I-Inform Promotional material.



2.       Collecting expressions of interest and support (Jan 2013-ongoing)

        The I-Inform promotional materials will include a call to express 
institutional and           individual interest and support of the alliance.



3.       Implementation of a Alliance Core group (March/April 2013)

                      After the initial talks with organizations and received 
indications of interest and support a I-       Informed implementation core 
group should be formed. The core group should use conference calls to discuss 
the further promotion and planning and in particular start preparing a business 
plan… 



4.       First Alliance Planning meeting resulting in a two day I-Inform 
inaugural meeting in Spring 2013. Possible meeting host are IICD (The Hague, 
The Netherlands) or CTIC (Gijon, Asturias, Spain). The task of the inaugural 
meeting will be to create a strategic and business plan draft



5.       I-Inform Alliance Plan of action and Plan of implementation.