[announce] ICANN CEO Speaks at Opening of Internet Governance Forum

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http://www.icann.org/announcements/announcement-12nov07.htm
ICANN CEO Speaks at Opening of Internet Governance Forum

Dr Paul Twomey says entire Internet community benefits from
co-operation, co-ordination

12 November 2007

RIO DE JANEIRO : Dr Paul Twomey, President and CEO of the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, took part in today's opening
session of the 2007 Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

"The Internet Governance Forum brings together a diverse group of
individuals in the aim of sharing knowledge and experience over and
about this one global interoperable Internet," Dr Twomey said.

Dr Twomey said the Internet community should be proud of its global
accomplishments of over one billion individuals online, trillions of
dollars of business annually over a network of millions of computers
communicating with one another across the globe, and the ability for
individuals to communicate and interact with others unprecedented in
human history.

"But with this extraordinary change also comes challenges. And that is
what this Forum is about — bringing together people to talk, review,
discuss and hopefully solve some of the issues that are before us," Dr
Twomey added. "The agenda of this meeting captures them. Most important
of course is access. Our discussions at the IGF will mean nothing to
someone not able to get onto the network in the first place.

"ICANN like other Internet organizations is very committed to its
multistakeholder and open way of doing business where any one from
governments, the technical community, business and civil society can
participate. We are very pleased that the IGF is also following this
model," Dr Twomey added. "ICANN has a participator community of up to
20,000 people involved in our decision making process. I would like to
issue a personal invitation to all the people here today to join that
community and help its development and evolution."

Dr Twomey said he also looks forward to the discussion on the other IGF
agenda themes of diversity, openness, security, and for this year's IGF,
critical Internet resources.

"The Internet is the medium, the issues themselves represent many areas
at many layers. We look forward to the discussions over the next days
and the exchange of views where further cooperation, coordination, and
collaboration can contribute to the Internet's increasing use for the
billions of users not yet online," Dr Twomey said.

Read on
--
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org