“Uncertainty, agency, and the future context of internet governance: a foresightful conversation” is an article I co-wrote for the Journal of Internet Technology and Politics with colleagues Lucia Vesnic-Alujevic, Sophie Mitchell, Zoe Hawkins, and Cho Khong.
We explore how the structures, dynamics, and value of internet governance may play out in different scenarios – and the implications for the situations and decisions we face today.
This Friday, the Foresight Club of the European Parliamentary Research Service hosts a presentation from Sophie Mitchell, Chief Communications Officer of Australia’s domain name regulator auDA.
Do check them out and, if you’re free, join Sophie and the European foresight community this Friday, 11th April, 9.30-10.30am Central European Time, via Webex.
I recently joined the Information Security Forum’s Mark Ward and auDA’s Sophie Mitchell for a short podcast discussion exploring foresight, uncertainty, cybersecurity, and Internet governance.
We looked at these issues through the prism of auDA’s recent scenarios for the future of the Internet and ISF’s own Threat Horizon foresight product.
A group from the University of Oxford’s Emerging Threats group have written a response to the auDA future-of-the-Internet scenarios, exploring them from an emerging threats and geopolitical security perspective.
You can read “Mapping the Future of Internet Governance and Security” here.
Australia’s Internet domain name self-regulatory body, the .au Domain Administration (auDA), has released a public version of its scenarios exploring the future of Internet governance. I’m pleased to have supported auDA in this process, and you can find the full scenario set here.
auDA is endorsed by the Australian government to administer the .au domain, with a mission to ensure it is a secure, accessible, and trusted asset for Internet users. In addition to its domestic duties, auDA also advocates for the .au domain and participates in global Internet governance processes. The organisation’s Future Scenarios Project provides a basis for wider strategic and policy conversation about our networked world and its governance, and how they might evolve in times to come.
You can read auDA’s own blog introducing the scenarios here – and there’ll be more to come, from auDA and myself, in due course.
How might global Internet governance change in times to come? What uncertainties surround our networked world, and how might they play out in ways that challenge the assumptions underpinning “business as usual” today?
Together with Australia’s auDA and a wide range of international stakeholders, I’ve worked to develop a set of scenarios for the future of the Internet in 2044.
They invite all of us who work with digital technologies to consider plausible, challenging, and relevant futures that offer fresh vantage points on the issues we face today.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 