Pakistan School on Internet Governance to be launched

Islamabad
Realising the significance of internet as a fundamental component of economic, social and political life, the Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan, will launch Pakistan School on Internet Governance (pkSIG) with an inaugural four-day workshop from October 5-8, 2015 at the HEC Secretariat.
The partners of the activity are premier international organisations in Internet Governance including Asia-Pacific Network Internet Centre (APNIC), Internet Society (ISoc) and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
The pkSIG will offer an intensive learning course spanning several tracks. The course will cover political, legal, economic, socio-cultural, technological and other dimensions of the Internet Governance within the context of the Pakistani national objectives. The programme will include practical oriented workshops, round tables, and case presentations.
The participants of the workshop will be students, researchers and professional from different sectors including government and private sector institutions, civil society, NGOs, business community, technical community and academia.
The resource persons will share with the participants best international practices regarding global and regional internet governance issues, settings, and processes while gaining access to comprehensive and structured knowledge on the various aspects of internet governance, and the actors, issues and settings surrounding it.
As the governance of ecosystem has long been the concern of a selected group of stakeholders, the pkSIG will try to offer understanding, framing and actions to be taken in this internet governance current environment. It will offer potential governance scenarios and analyse its international, regional, and national political, economic, and technical implications.
The speakers will narrate the history of internet since 1950s and the story how it evolved over the years. The session will cover internet users statistics, infrastructure, internet QoS, ISPs in the country, mobile operators, sea cables, the ccTLD, the IDN ccTLD, root-server instances, IXPs, stakeholder groups, IPv4 and IPv6, international involvement, mobile apps, 3G/4G, smart-phones, research and educational networks, the role of academia in the internet development, social media usage, local content and various other topics of the interest of internet users.
The ISoc and its chapters and membership criteria will be introduced on the occasion along with the presentation on ICANN, its supporting organisations and advisory committees.
The school will also talk about the necessity of developing proper policies for today’s internet at the national level. It will also stress the need for cyber-legislations at the national and regional level due to the “border-less” nature of the internet. Simple knowledge and understanding of the internet is enough to attend this school.