10 Dec 2018: Call to Action Towards Our People-Centered Digital Future

Image from NASA.gov, Earthrise (1968) from Apollo 8

On 10 Dec 2018, Constellation Research is organizing a historical assembly of Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, Dame Wendy Hall, Mei Lin Fung, and several additional positive #ChangeAgents to discuss the community, organizational, social, and global impacts of the Internet’s future and the unfinished work to be done. By 10 Dec, almost 50% of the world will have access to the Internet just as the world celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.

Titled “Our People-Centered Digital Future,” the event recognizes that by March 2019, 50% of the world will be connected to the Internet. This inflection point marks an important moment for examining the “unfinished work” of the Internet and discussing the community norms, human rights and social contracts required in this exponential digital era. The goal of the event is to:

• Both share the lessons of how we got here and, more importantly, where we need to go for the next 50 years
• Keep the Internet an open model and discuss what human rights will be like in a digital world
• Use this historic opportunity for humanity to complete the unfinished aspirations of the Internet

While we must provide access to the Internet to every person, we must also maintain our human rights in this digital era. Together, we can demonstrate a better way forward for the Internet by championing positive #ChangeAgents.

This special event kickoff seeks to assemble key individuals to share ideas, insights and actions that ensure that the Internet remains a force for good. The event’s focus will address society, education, environment, technology, and the future of human rights and inclusion. The agenda can be found here.

I’m excited to be joining the event both to discuss the work that Vint, Mei Lin, and several others with the People-Centered Internet coalition have been doing over the last year — as well as to consider what new challenges we need to take-on in 2019 and 2020. As we look toward the future I’d like to put forward a bold proposition:

• Historically over the last 400+ years, we’ve organized by geography. Geography generally meant there was a normal distribution of perspectives on an issue, centered around a mean, with a small amount of extremes on either side. If there was a divergence on an issue that became two “un-centered” usually there was civil war and the geographical space would either split or find an eventual reconciliation towards a mean.
• Organizing by networked however, especially networks where individuals connect with other people they “like” or share similar perspectives with, follow not a normal distribution but rather a power law distribution, which means there’s a long tail with more extremes.

Cumulatively, I’d suggest that extremes produced by power law distributions represent one of the surprises and challenges to address for our digital future ahead — how do we transition from geography to networks and still find ways to operate as open, pluralistic societies?

Hope you can join us, either in-person or online, for the 10 December event. A big thank you to Constellation for organizing the assembly. Also, I’d like to extend congratulations to Doreen Bogdan-Martin for her new role with the ITU. Onwards and upwards together!