The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Hello, everyone. We don't have our interpretation connected yet. I know many of you are experiencing problems to connect to a session because the website is not working properly. And I just want to ask the IGF support if they can help me get interpreters ready for the session. I'm going to share the names in the chat right now. Christina is connected. And she's one of the interpreters for Portuguese. So if you could help me, get her connected. I will let you know now the name of the other interpreters so you can connect them as well.
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Hello, everyone, I'm going to continue speaking in English. I want to ask the support of the IGF team so they can connect the interpreters. I see now it is connected. Thank you.
>> This session was organized jointly with the two of us. So this edition of IGF LAC space will get together organizations and research community investigators to start sharing projects and research conducted in 2021. We're going to have two parts. The first of them is the organizations of the region will share the most outstanding projects and how this has contributed to Latin America and the Caribbean internet. And the second part, we will discuss the research documents on the user development evolution of the internet in Latin America and the Caribbean. So we are going to try to give you an informed debate and opportunities for regional collaboration.
We wanted to tell that you the session as you may have seen will have interpretation into English and Portuguese. And I wanted to tell you that because of time constraints and as we have many presentations from different organizations in this part of the session, all of them will be three-minute long. So I'm going to be checking time. And when those three minutes are due, then I'm going to have to interrupt you so that everybody has a chance to speak. So without further ado, if you agree, we can start with our first speaker who will be Gabriella, manager of LAC-IX. Are you ready?
>> Good morning. I can share? We are not allowed to share the slides. I think that you handle them. It's disabled.
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Yes, I think that the support people should enable us to share. Gabriella, can you start?
>> Yes, I can send them to you if you want to share them.
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Yes, please do.
>> In 2020 and 2021, because of the pandemic, we had to go through our time, a much faster and we managed to do many, many things. And of course, we try to make the most of live activities next year. The most important thing to highlight is that we have a collaboration scheme between three internet organizations the internet society and LAC-IX. And through which we have signed an agreement with support at strengthening of the exchange points in the region.
This year we've had meetings with others in one (speaking non-English) Rome, London, different continents that have enriched us a lot as an association. So we have participated in different forums of the Caribbean region and Mexico, the community of the internet society. So we've been very active in all the regional and international forum.
We have implemented and this is essential, a technical team of the IXP people. More than 70% are actively involved in mailing lists, WhatsApp, and technical content sessions. We have organized sessions with the IXP of Ireland and other IXPs from different corners of the world. We have incorporated for our members meetings to be even more inclusive. We have included an interpreter, supported by the internet societies so that we can open the doors to members in English. Essentially in the Caribbean or to invite people from outside the region to participate in our meetings.
We organize jointly with LAC and the support of the internet society and the peering forum of Latin America and the Caribbean and for the first time since the beginning, we have held two sessions. Very enriching and with a lot of participation. We have conducted training sessions and we have organized technical sessions with tools for traffic monitoring, et cetera.
We have increased our dissemination through our website, through Twitter, and even through a podcast that was launched recently. And implemented by LAC together with the internet society. And talking precisely about this, about collaboration which is essentially for us. We are conducting very in-depth studies of survey, IXPs in Latin America and the Caribbean. And they'll be available soon for the public. And we are sensing and developing all of the potential IXPs that may appear or intending to come into a region to give them the support.
And finally to make the most of time, the chart here that I like the best about us, at present, we are 18 members. We exchange traffic in over 80 physical infrastructure’s locations. But essentially, we are a family. We are one family. Of Latin America, sorry. And the Caribbean. As a community and we work jointly in the strengthening of the internet exchange, internet traffic exchange in the region. Thank you. Thank you. If you have questions, I'm absolutely available. Thank you for the time. And space.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you. So now let's listen to the next, director of LACA. So you can move forward with your presentation.
>> So thank you. Thank you. I'm very happy to greet you, even though online. And first of all, congratulations because we can repeat this IGF space.
>> You in the orange, hey, come on -- next to all these people.
>> Hopefully now we'll be able to do that. So thank you. Again. So LAC is -- we are a very young organization and Latin America and the Caribbean. We were created this year. And we want to be a neutral space for the debate and the improvement of public policy and digital training and education in Latin America. We have just begun. And one of the activities is that we have organized digital development talks with different players in the region. But I wanted to talk to you about an initiative that we are talking about. And there are many members of the session present. It's the alliance for encrypting in Latin America and Caribbean.
>> This says cross-cutting partnership with different stake holders from region that with one common objective, namely proactive agenda. That defends the interest and coding in order to be able to have secure browsing that creates capacities among the different members and the different stakeholders of the region. And creates a need of encryption. With governments that might act in a coordinated way. So this is a cross-cutting partnership that is open to all. As Secretariat we just launched it a month ago. And we encourage all those to participate, all those entities that agree on the interests of defending a strong encryption in the region so that they can participate. We'll be participating in further projects too, but because of the time constraint, I didn't want to expand on this initiative that we have launched this year together with many other stakeholders about participating here. So thank you very much for the opportunity to address you in this session.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you for your presentation. And we will go over to the presentation of director of (non-English) and the school of internet governance. Welcome. You have the floor.
>> Can I share my screen?
>> SANTIAGO: Yes.
>> OLGA: Can you see my screen?
>> SANTIAGO: Yes.
>> OLGA: Congratulations for organizing this space. The school on internet governance and 13th virtual edition is to participate in national region and international meetings on the internet so we represent the interest of the region. This is third consecutive year and second session we have organized. We organize this at a television set so that we can have a different virtual experience. At least in the sense of having a different format compared to other virtual events. This year in addition to the full week of synchronous and virtual work it had been in-person meetings so this year we did include some new thing which is what I wanted to share with you on request from students from revised editions. We incorporate an eight-week course which was asynchronous videos that was specially prepared and podcasts, materials all specially prepared both in English and in Spanish. And there were 620 fellows from 42 countries. And we realize that we have participants from all over the world. And allowed us to expand horizons. Many fellows are from the region but also from Asia, Africa, Europe, from all over the world because we have translation, this has been possible. We also developed an app so that all the fellows can continue to not only through the computer. Here you have picture of the studio. And hopefully next year would like to have at least a hybrid event as I said, from 42 countries. More than a hundred experts from all over the world. And the previous weeks as well as the five full days of activity. We had training center on technology, Latin America, and the region. And the agency of the OAS this year in the month of November. We organized the fifth edition of the school of internet governance. This was a virtual meeting for the second time. This year one of the new things of the program that was we had 200 trainees included the concept of traveling to Argentina. So in addition to privacy and AI, we had four special panels from the Argentina where I'm from. So this idea was most welcome by the attendees. And I would like to thank you for the opportunity of participating. All the sessions both in English and in Spanish. And through YouTube. You have the data for registering on the screen. And thank you very much to our colleagues. Who allowed me to organize this. Thank you so much for your help and for providing this opportunity.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you for your presentation. We will now go to presentation who is member of the organization for the program of communications.
>> VALERIA: Hi, good morning. Let me tell you briefly of what we do briefly at what we do at the civil society organizations. We have been working for 30 years already to build conditions that allow people to have equitable access to the internet and the potential of the digital technologies to improve their lives in democratic society. Let me tell you about the work that we do in two specific areas. These were developed with a special focus this year. The first has to do with environmental sustainability and the intersection with digital technology. And the second one is on the need of imagine the future of the internet govern and have multiple options on the first point. I would like to highlight the 2020 edition of the global information society watch. The world monitor of the information society. Well, and this initiative that has been for more than a decade in order to provide critical outlook on the civil society on specific topics.
And this is in the context of the status of the information society in 2020, the addition at the purpose of this focus between environmental sustain. And digital technology. And in that sense to contribute to the understanding of the constructive role that technology can provide in order to deal with 10 environmental crises. In addition to that, to identify the challenges posed by the use of technology for the environment as well as the use of the technology to achieve accessibility on the website of the global information society.
Once you have the full version with the regional report, the country reports from Latin America, from Asia, Europe, and Africa, in the case of Latin America, there say very interesting analysis that I recommend you read. This has 20 do with the main challenges posed in the region. For example, the negative impact on the local communities regarding extraction, the triangle that is used for the devices. And how the lack of access to the internet in some local communities including the Indigenous communities has an impact on this topic, the lack of transparency and how data management is carried out by governments and other stakeholders that threaten those who defend territories. And the lack of adequate systems to manage. And an association I would like to that we have developed a guideline on circular economy. This explains step by step the negative impact of the digital devices on people and on the planet. It also provides some guidelines regarding the convenience of adopting a secular focus for the production use and elimination of the digital device, both the watch and the guiding are included. And regarding the second topic, regarding the future of the internet governance, let me tell you briefly that on the 8th of December in the framework of the IGF, we do have a session on this topic. The outcome of a process that we have been developing over the past months including Latin America. This in the sense of holding conversations to imagine what is a scenario that we would like to have in future regarding internet governance and the sense of ensuring transparent, participatory, and governance as well as democratic participation in Latin America.
We are collaborating with ally and digital rights. We're working together with them in order to collect the analysis of the different stakeholders as to how they view the situation. We have a session on the 8th of December. This will be as far as I understand 16:50 time. But the idea is that we can leave with a common framework of an approach with a view to have in future regarding internet governance but only in the sense of strengthening the IGF but also in the emergency of some of the processes as those developed by the United Nations. And others. So this is what I wanted to share with you. Thank you for the opportunity to address you. And congratulations. It's very interesting to learn what is happening in other parts.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you for your presentation. We go over to the next speaker. Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean in ICANN. Are you ready?
>> RODRIGO: Yes, I'm ready. It is a pleasure to share with you in this world this presentation. I would like to congratulate everyone for continuing organizing this space at IGF and hopefully next time we'll be able to get in-person.
From the standpoint of ICANN, we have organized one further year of the cycle of the three annual ICANN meetings. These were virtual meetings. These were events, small focus on developing policies and discussions. We really have missed the interaction that takes place when we meet in person, but hopefully next year things will go better. Regarding the activities of the region, we have continued organizing together with our community, with our regional community, that lack space of ICANN which is like the cousin of this space we have here. And the participation of many of you. We approach important topics for the ICANN community. One of these topics is that the ICANN community is still in the process of defining a new round of new general domains of high level. We still don't have the dates, but it is advanced stage. Hopefully, next year we'll be able to have more clarity regarding dates and knew modalities. It is important to highlight that we experience the previous round which has served to be able to cater to topics that are subject to improvement with respect to the previous one. So we see there is the opportunity to still participate. The definition of the rules, one of the important things of the ICANN community and in the context of the pandemic has been of analyzing which has been the effect of the pandemic, both in terms of the traffic of the DNS as well as malicious behaviors or threats to the DNS. A couple of studies were carried out in this context. And as expected, traffic has increased. The same happens with the malicious activities without having a negative effect on the daily operations that the TMS.
For the case of Latin America and the Caribbean, we started regarding the awareness raising of security related issues of the DNS. We have campaign for the social media on this topic. And in general, in addition to the different initiatives that we have regarding the regional strategy, next phase and the workshop that was now organized virtually, in addition to that, we organized the series of programs that are focused or developed which are custom made, custom defined. This was organized in different countries such as Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico, and will continue organized this work.
These are activities that have to do with training, DNS, and ICANN in general.
So if there's anything that has become evident in the pandemic, the internet as we know it today was conceived with its principles and an open network infrastructure has proven to be resilient and reliable platform. So all of the economics, social, political activities have continued to -- we've been able to continue with all of them. And this opens some room for reflection to maintain these principles that must be observed today. There are in countries in region and across the world there, are initiatives that could be against these principles. So what we must do is to avoid information, education, the technical operations of the internet not to affect these principles so. In the different forums contributing with a technical activity in the region with many players including you, we must act together.
There may not be a negative intention to affect them, but we have to prevent the unexpected consequences so. We are continuing to work. Next year we'll start again. With a virtual meeting, I'm sorry, but we reached time. Just the final words. Yes, that's all.
>> SANTIAGO: I'm sorry for interrupting you. So now the presentation by General Manager. Are you there? Could you --
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: She said that he had a problem. So he won't be able to connect. So we can move forward with the next one.
>> SANTIAGO: Yes, please. Regional Vice President for Latin America and Caribbean for the internet society. Christian, are you there? Could you start?
>> CHRISTIAN: Thank you. I wanted to tell you a few things about the organization. We are all in a 30-year-old organization, but it has evolved in recent years. At present, it's three organizations or sub-organizations. First, we have the foundation. I invite you to present the foundation, the website of the internet society foundation. Different grant. And funding possibilities. And I'm sure that you all might find a useful. And also the engineering task force, EDF. We are very interested in promoting and it is getting more participation of the region. All those that have a technical background or if you want to collaborate with the internet standards, please visit IDEF and check the areas that are being debated. Those are mailing lists. Anybody can participate. So if you want any help. And if you need any support to participate, approach the chapter or approach us. And we can help you. And of course, we have the chapters that are a pillar. It's contact with the community. The community that helps us and strengthens us. And there are chanters in all the countries in the region. If you don't be throng a chapter, visit the internet society website. It's free of charge. Choose the chapter of your country. And there you will see there are mailing lists and many opportunities to collaborate. Among other things, the chapters organized in many cases, the IGFs in the country. So if you're interested in the IGF processes you see in your local chapters, you see an opportunity for collaboration.
In addition to the chapters collaborate with projects of the organization until this year we had projects divided into two big areas. One of them is the internet growth. As I said, the internet society was created almost 30 years ago by the internet pier ins to promote the development of the internet. One of the things that have to do with development have to do with taking more and better internet access. And with the pandemic, it became evident so. One of the projects has to do with community networks, looking for different models so that wick connect that part of the population that is not online yet.
And especially in our region, it is important to look for more ways because sometimes the market cannot cover all the needs so. If you are interested in access issues, especially in rural areas, and distant, disconnected community, you can approach the chapter and visit the ISOC website. We sometimes organize pilot projects in the countries to show that we can create sustainable programs. There are also projects to promote the IXPs in distant areas. Gabrielle collaborated a lot. It says group of volunteer people interested in the internet operations of people with experience. And their companies are competitor there, is collaboration between them because it all depends on that collaboration. So we promote the local technical communities. So get close to LAC and IXM if you're interested.
And we also have a project that has to do with strengthening. We want the internet to be reliable, more secure. And one other project has to do with protecting those pillars that we consider that are critical characteristics of the internet and to that end, there's a model that serves to analyze the impact of regulatory measures on those. So if work with policy, advocacy, public policy, and regulation, well, you may be interested in knowing the potential impact of some actions. So I invite you to approach the internet society and to collaborate with the ISOC and collaborating with the internet. Thank you.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you, Christian. Now integration, Kevin, you have the floor.
>> KEVIN: It's wonderful to see all of you. We are accustomed with the virtual events of late. We have been vesting a bit of time and resource for a more hybrid formats. But as others have mentioned, we need to get back to signature face-to-face to continue growing our community. I am going to speak about four initiatives from our community and development activities. Firstly, I mentioned that there says report that is due to be published very soon. So earlier this year, together we researched a project for the internet's technical success factors and drills down on the protocols that we take for granted such as DNS and others. And this report the new proposals that we are seeing on the horizon, for instance, new IP, DOA, and others. So there was an RFP that was launched in February and March of this year and a group was chosen. So I would like to invite you this Wednesday of December, the LAC IGF at 9:45 to hear more about the findings of the report. And soon afterward, I'll put the links to that session.
The next initiative is the program which is our regional fund for innovation development in the Caribbean. As many may know, there's two systems of support. One which deals with awards which acknowledge ongoing of completed projects and offer up to U.S. $10,000 plus participation in the ceremony. And we have grants. We seek to support new projects and offers between 10,000 and 40,000 U.S. for new projects with execution time of 12 months. The area included internet stability and security, of which we had seven winning initiatives. Free and open internet for which there were five. And internet access which were five. Again, just as we place in the chat the link to the selected projects this year. And you can have more details on each of them.
And I would like to speak about our IGF women mentoring program. That is somewhat self-explanatory. The I.T. women program offers a leader from the technical community to six up and coming female internet professionals. The mentors of this program are going to help the mentees with the tutoring of the technical pay there they need to present and disseminate. And the mentees will have to give a lightning talk at LAC37, and they have access to other training opportunities.
Last but not least, I would be remiss not speak about the program 20. And you will see more from my colleague Paula in a bit. We are winding up the second cycle of 2.0 which is our premier government support program. 2.0 was born out of the pandemic and the fact that there were less and less face-to-face internet governance initiatives and also the need for there to be some sort of repository of information that people across the region can use intersectionality. So the idea is that we wanted to have more detailed research on five select themes from the perspective of communities. And these five themes for this year include impacts on human rights, additional inclusion u, security and trust, internet and productivity which is a new area compared to last year and expanding and strengthening NRIS. So our candidates have three months to undertake to research and they can present this research in various outputs including reports, animation, videos, blogs, and the like. And again, the benefit for them is they gain exposure through LAC communication platforms. The views are not necessarily the views of LAC, but you hear more about the now with Paula and of course the ideas that we can get to know and get to become more familiar some of the issues impacting us with regard to internet governance but from a community's perspective. So I think I have touched on everything that I wanted to touch upon. I'll leave the links with you so you can enter and see more details of what we have been doing. Thank you very much.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you, Kevin, for your presentation. Now, yes, General Manager if you are there, can you start with your presentation? Let's go on with the next. General Manager of DOD. Can you start?
>> ROCIO DE LA FUENTE: Thank you. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us at IGF LAC space. I'm going to be brief because it's already late. We had a technical issue. Many of you may know that LAC DOD went through the transition process. I've been in LAC for four years but I'm presently General Manager. So we had many internal changes. And we could -- we have a very important virtual community with the DODs of Latin America, Caribbean and reinforcing the work of the internal working groups that articulates many of the activities that we conduct in the CCTLD's community. This year, again, we are conducting training with our members.
The cycle is also supported by other organizations of the region. In this presentation, I wanted to focus on the progress made in two specific projects which are two projects that have a regional impact beyond the CC TLD communities. The first one is the any cast. Which we have been presenting -- we are presenting in other groups and the any cast cloud is work that has different benefits. It reduces response times and continues to robustness of internet in the region. We can better manage the load and improve the infrastructure. So one of the benefits of the cloud in recent times is reflected here. So we're able to expand the cloud. The last node we added is the one from Chile. This is in line with a trend of incorporated traffic exchange points as nodes in cloud. This allows to expand the network and we also added the last client which was the VR which is a (?) Because added .ee, managed to have 16 clients so more than half of the members representing almost the entire CC TLDs from the region and are part of the any cast cloud. So this is something that we are very pleased about. The second project I want to speak about is the illegal content forum. And I'm aware that many of you are familiar with the event. And that many also participated as speakers. The latest edition of the illegal content forum is a space that tries to bring closer the prosecutors and lawyers and the law enforcement agencies for Latin America and the Caribbean to the internet community. We seek to provide training on the operations of the internet. And how different issues should be tackled such as online appeals. The last workshop was last week. This was the fourth edition. And the second that we organized virtually. This is a three-day event with 110 participants from different countries. We believe that one of the most valuable things was that among the speakers we had. We had representatives from different sectors in. We managed to bring this knowledge closer to them, the awareness on the network security and stability. And although we seek to have a regional event, this achieves connecting the local actors with the authorities of the different countries.
So we're very pleased with the results of this forum. So those would be the two regional projects that I wanted to comment on. So thank you very much for participating. The floor is yours.
>> SANTIAGO: The next presentation Executive Director of digital rights. If you are there, you can start with your presentation.
>> JAMILA: Good morning, everyone, it is a pleasure to be here to listen to you and to follow you. Although in this virtual format. Hopefully, we'll be able to meet in-person soon. I would like to with you some of the developments we had this year. I'm going to mention something you might be aware of. Digital rights are a human rights organization based on Chile that acts in Latin America. We have been working for five years. We have incidents on public policies. We organize training activities this. Year we had an internal transition. And that is why I am now the Executive Director. You might have met Maria who used to be the previous Executive Director. And since sent Carlos is our former public policy director. And I was a regional coordinator. And I am now the executive management. And pleased to share these issues with you in different spaces. In substantial terms. I would like to state that we have made efforts in order to cast more light on the use of AI in the region. We organize six case studies and implementation of AI in Latin America. And four have been published and two are almost finished. They analyze in different fields since predictive policing, one of the recent studies through to implementations in the health sector, justice, and the delivery of social benefits. These are cases from four different countries. Based on the cases, we conducted a study where we analyzed the regional trends on the topic. We are preparing recommendations on the subject that would like to take to global forum. This explaining the experience we have in the Latin-American region. And we are working in partnership with the CETI. In the sense of developing public policies. So the invitation is open. If any wishes to know more about this course, we're organizing a future propose people to participate in the event. So this is a moment in which we are disseminating this among people from the governments in the regions. So you have my contact details if wish to be involved in this topic.
In addition to that, we have developed two more strategies. One is specific studies on the use of technologies during the COVID pandemic. We published two studies together with the consortium which is the network of 11 organizations that worked on digital rights issues and that has joined in to monitor the implementation of the so-called COVID apps during the pandemic in the region as well as the associated risks.
We have very interesting indications in some cases, some things are being questioned even at the level of the judicial level. We organized a study trying to map the use of facial recognition in the region. This in order to make a contribution to the public debate, the debate up for public policies in region. We also have partnership with organizations to finalize let me briefly comment on the following topic.
We maintain the digital rights in Latin America. This is to respond to emergencies of different types that have to do with the infringement of digital rights. These are small funds provided to more than 40 organizations in the regions since 2019. This is a permanently open fund. And I can share details with you so that you can share this with your communities in the event of coming across difficulties so this could be a reference for you. It has been a pleasure. And thank you very much for this opportunity.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you for your presentation. Malia, Executive Director.
>> FERNANDA: I'm the Executive Director of the center for technology studies and society. This is an interdisciplinary center with three components. We provide training, investigation, and dissemination regarding training. We have the traditional activities of our program. We have a pioneer program. We used to have in-person training activities. And of course, the changeover to virtual events. Cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, philosophy, and ethics. So this is a program that is reviewed and expanded every year. We have the program on internet governance. And many former students are also here in the session. This is a program that used to be a hybrid program prior to this concept we have now this year, we had a virtual event. We have a greater, more time dedicated to program. We included students from eight countries of the region. And finally this year we launched a degree on internet infrastructure. This is an asynchronous format in line with the running times. So you can somehow design your program. We have these training activities in place right now. And in regard to second topic of research. It is a pleasure to see that we are expanding center in this regard. This year we published several papers. Some will be presented in detail. For example, the cities were selected by the IDB for a program to promote ecommerce in the Caribbean. This highlights the responsibility of the intermediaries. We also have an area that works on copyright. This is in the context of the internet ecosystem. Together with the university, we launched a call for specific publications. We receive proposals from Germany, United Kingdom, Argentina, among others together with Mexico, we have a project published, a journal economics and digital society. The topic was to consider ICTs in the post-pandemic path. This is a project that is still open if you wish to publish anything. You can take this into account. It's the great space to disseminate topics such as these who are Latin America. And we're making progress with the second addition of the project. This project seeks to understand and consolidate framework of ethical principles to the application of artificial intelligence. We think that in the next coming week, the first documents will be released. This was an open call. We highlight this because it's important to have these spaces to promote investigation among young people or young researchers. So we provide the opportunity for them here.
Then we finished investigation. The final report is still pending. Supported by INII this which is the use of data in schools creating schools for digital city. This is a very ambitious project. Which was then reformulated in order to organize this virtually. We work with secondary schools in Argentina and Chile.
We will listen to further details later another project we are enthusiastic about is a project on assessing the potential impact of AI and the Latin America judicial system. This is an ambitious project. And we will have more details about this later on. We have the honor of having selected to develop research of internet indicators. This research is a global survey group of cities, a team of cities. S working on this. We hope to have preliminary results in December. Sorry. Zap you're past your time. So we'll go on to the next speaker.
>> I will include the remaining of the talk in the chat.
>> SANTIAGO: Now Jose Director of the internet (?)
>> Yes, can you hear me?
>> SANTIAGO: Yes, we can hear you.
>> MARIA: They'll show my presentation. Well, let me get started because we don't have much time. Well, our association internet XR is a business organization with a small, with a businesses of different sizes but most of our members are from Mexico. In addition to what Sandra may share with you with the name of Maria now, we have a corporate governance that enables us to face the various challenges that we face here in Mexico with regulatory part and public policy. And here we want to highlight that we hold an annual meeting, assembly now on November 24th to elect if steering committee for 2020-2022 promote a transparency in the region.
So let me start describing the project that sit highly relevant for us and although we had already done something about this some time ago, it's now very important because it was selected by OAS for, and its safe internet for all or secure internet for all. This is a project that is aimed at strengthening first of all awareness for children and adolescence. Also includes a cybersecurity study for companies and users in general. Also focusing parents and vulnerable populations. And finally, here we also have a regulatory study on the current state of the art in Mexico. What are the implications or the regulation of current regulations for fight against child pornography and human trafficking. And now with OAS, the idea is to do this jointly with people who are already working at this and also to contribute with their own work to strengthen the preventive schemes in our region.
So the work also project we have SMEs in Mexico. This is an alliance with the IIG. These are topics where we've had different Latin America researcher, the idea is to study on the use of cloud computing. And the idea is to help with in the public sector in Mexico. And finally, well, we have already published a study on the economic impact of the delivery platforms in Mexico. This is a study that was performed here for the first time. And it will automatically have a component on the regulatory part as to what works better for the Mexican ecosystem. However, all the initiatives mentioned here also have the possibility of being shared and studied so that in tend, to the extent possible, they can be adopted and produced in other countries in the region. So with this, I close my participation. I went too long. Unfortunately, here I have you my data and we are ready to answer any questions you may have. And we are very happy to collaborate with you in future projects. Thank you.
>> SANTIAGO: So now General Manager has --
>> SHELLEY MARSH: Close this first part of the session. Are you there?
>> LIA: Yes. I can present?
>> SANTIAGO: Yes -- well, you're not host yet. Now you are, yes.
>> LIA: All right. I'm going to do it very fast. LACNOG is a nonprofit organization that operates, well, the headquarters are in to gather the people in the region to exchange experience, to participate in events and sharing spaces, to share the experiences and in addition to become an agent of reference in the operations of the internet. To strengthen and our vision is to strengthen the relations with the network operators in region. And to generate knowledge and promote innovation in the working groups.
So our main objectives are to promote discussion, exchanging information, and to learn and collaborate. Depending on the needs of our respective regions. How do we work? We work as volunteers, the LACNOG staff members, and also, we work for all the members and the organization is through a list. You may subscribe through to a mailing list. We exchange messages. And we promote the various themes, and we also share some solutions of problems that have been recent in the region.
Our line, we also promote, control difference, effective communication, and the ethical behavior. We have an ethic participation document. And our commitments are excellence, service to community, innovation, honesty, and the responsibility when conducting our work. To-date, we have about 1200 members. The organization has a programs committee. They are in charge of calling for proposals of annual event. And we have a board. They are the decision-makers. And then the specialized working groups that happen present the different works, the community presents. The key component is the community itself. It's everybody, all the people that interact in our listings.
Now and the General Manager is the secretary of the organization. Our scope is for the LAC region.
We have 1205 participants, and, in our staff, we have about more than 50 volunteers. We have 11 events with this year's hybrid. And nine working groups. So those are the statistics. So far, the countries have this worked the most until 2020. There you have them in order. We won't deep into that. Organizations that have worked. Gender analysis. We have identified the of the lack of women's participation. We are trying to promote this together with other organizations in the region. Brazil clearly, well the women that have nominated Brazil ranks first. Mexico, the United States, and Venezuela, but we also have work from other regions. Sequel the most popular topics DNS, security, routing, management, manners, and government. So these are the component, these are of our boards. The programs committees’ representatives of the various countries.
And how we contribute with these working groups. And to abuse for the analysis of abuse in the networks, DNS issues, good practices, and network operations. And we have IETF working groups. And IoT, the internet of things, training of the different types through the different countries, peering, setting peer, and organizations that are the country's operators’ groups. And routing. And training of course. So that is what we wanted to say. And as a nonprofit, we look for partners to work in these operations. So that may share information about the people who operate in the network. Thank you.
>> SANTIAGO: Thank you for your presentation. We want to thank all the speakers of the different organizations. And now we'll give the floor, we'll start with the second deposition.
>> Perfect. Hello, everyone. It's a pleasure to it's a pleasure, even if virtually. We don't have much time but as said, we are going start to with the second block for the new proposal this year focusing to present research papers and papers of relevance for the use and development of the internet, the Caribbean in 2020. And in this while that we have, we will get to now six projects of research that Kevin mentioned earlier. This is a program, 2.0, give grants to people interested in work on the governance of the internet received from the communities. And it is important to highlight that the selection of the candidates of the program was done by an independent selection board. And now projects are 100% under the responsibility of the people. We're going to work with cities in Argentina on the mentioned a few minutes ago. And finally, and before I give the floor to the speaker, let me that one with the new space, what we try to do is inform about the interest of the community and of course to promote debates and new opportunities for collaboration in the region.
So without further ado, I'm going to mention them to list them alphabetically and remember each has three minutes to present your key findings. Let me start by recognizing Angie. She participated of LAC. And studied challenges and access strategies for information and technology, ICTs, internet platforms in women over 40 and during the pandemic for ework. So you have three minutes. And if you go any longer, I'll interrupt you.
>> ANGIE: Thank you all. I'm going to put the stopwatch because if not, I'll go on and on. So the elegant title is that but, in a tweet, or more in a marketing, the research has to do with work office. I don't have to speak of access because we all know what we talk about when we speak of access, but the idea was to -- that during the pandemic, we saw that we had to take our work home. But when we added this gender perspective that is very important to be included, we realize that not only were we conducting work, but we also did the home with chores. Including educating children. So we were a bit row Manhattan Nick the use of technology, but I don't remember if you said, well, now that we have the internet, we continue to socialize but how real was that, how real was the access that women had specifically to do all this work. And that was precisely the big question. When I started with this research, I wondered whether we could find an intersection between the internet, gender perspective, and technology. Regarding access, what this has to do with the number of devices you do. Specifically we did in-depth interviews of public consultation in order of public service, to see what was happening. One thing we did was there was fear. There was fear regarding the use of technology because the lack of knowledge on tools to carry out that work. And women age above 40. In practice, we had to decrease the age to 35 because of the employability and occupation in the statistics we had at our (?) we saw the people feared accessing. There was a lack of knowledge. We also found issues related to the type of activities. We also see the social media that people started connecting and we spoke about the movies we saw and so on. But cautions regarding the use of internet were repeated again and again. And people who were worried about security and protection of privacy. And people said it had to do the work at home, but I don't know how to access. Or what would happen if I'm a meeting with my boss and the connection is interrupted, what would happen? So using all that input, we prepared a proposal. And the current pillars. Training in the use of tool, strengthening support network, the holistic focus on the sectionality. We speak about physical awe on my and the decisions from the economic standpoint, but we need to speak about digital autonomy. I've run out of time. I invite you to listen to the podcast that are available in Spotify. We have a series of podcast which is like soap opera, like a Mexican soap opera, so I recommend you listen to these podcasts.
>> Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. We now give the floor to the next speaker. You have the floor.
>> GONZALO: Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity. And introduction. Thank you for advancing what is about, many of the colleagues. Also spoke about this iconic of cities. Now this investigation was on major issues of cities. Speaking about evaluation of preparation of the sector in five Latin-American countries to incorporate artificial intelligence. From the standpoint. So these emerging phenomena and which is not visualized in the government sector. And we have five very different cases in terms of the economic resources of the countries, of the resources these governments and the social, historical history of these countries so. This is a lengthy project and on the support of foundation and the cities.
There were three researchers from five countries. We had to create the analytical framework from scratch. This became like an insight in itself. The objective was to understand and map the public policies available but also those that were imagined because many things have not been developed but what are the things that could be improved through the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Some countries had things that had been implemented and other countries projected some of these cases. So the idea to see how describe the things that were developed. I will briefly show you the findings, but the main challenge was how do we prepare an analytical exploratory framework that allows us to tackle this. The judicial sector had not been studied at all. And now studied through the typical tools of comparing. This was not a comparative study; this is a case study using the same framework. But the idea is not to rank the countries in order, for example, to 100, that was not the case. We didn't want to fall into that. And we didn't want to just have a picture of this. Have a holistic study and focus not only the capacity but capacities but also on the preferences not what the countries want to do but what they can do but they would like to do. I will share the link of the website. We find digital strategies available in more countries. AI, only in the government area. S available in countries. In the case of justice, only in Colombia. Regulations only in Chile through the DEPI. The initiative, sorry, but initiatives only in Argentina and Colombia. These are like exceptional cases. We saw that much has to do with hierarchical agencies in Colombia or the city. That's having to do are with a social and economic resources of the wealthiest district in the country. The use of expert systems is more disseminated. We see this in Mexico. And then dynamics of change is something we also observed. Dynamics regarding the institutionalize change which was decreasing through the use of AI. Strategic partnership, nothing can happen without strategic partnerships at whatever level. Also between different countries. Nobody can make progress on their own. And of course the pandemic has led to the perception of urgency of the use of AI in the government level. Now everyone sees that dedicating to artificial intelligence on more bureaucratic issues and issues that are less complex might indicate to where these are really needed. These are human resources. This is the website. You have the national report, the compiled report, with the general introduction, and this is the team with a different members of the team. In charge of the team, the director of cities.
>> Thank you. Thank you. Well, the order we had three researchers are not yet here. We are contacting them. So I will continue the order we had, and I'll give the floor, participated in 2.0 program. He spoke about digital health policies, where do we stand and what can governments do, welcome, Mark. Hello, can you hear me?
>> MARK: Thank you. Hello, everyone. It is a pleasure to be here today. I'm Mark. I'm a director of small consultancy and internet governance. And during the leaders’ program, we were able to have a pilot study in Latin America. This topic that has been studied over the past year; this was a successful pilot project. And these are some of the results we obtained which were interesting but also a cause for concern.
We asked four questions. That's having to do with intersection of the internet and health.
Can you see my screen?
>> Yes.
>> MARK: So you can see here that for example purchase of medication through the internet is legal only in four out of the 10 studies countries. These are not necessarily legal, but these are like in a gray area which might lead to deception. We also see concern regarding the legality of telemedicine in five out of the 10 countries. The legality is ensured by law. But in the other half, this is not available. So these results show that there's a need to better outline these issues in order to discuss them effectively and propose regional policies. We have an extended, we presented an extended forum to the project. And we were selected. We now have the opportunity in the course of 2022 of all the countries of the region, of the LAC region. And I'm happy about this. The idea is to look for more variables. This will be possible through LAC. This is a great opportunity we have because I have been wanting to do so for quite a number of years. The objective is to have this available for the IGF next year. And we'll hopefully share the results with you on that opportunity.
So these are the health online indicators for the LAC region. This will be published in three language, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. It has been a pleasure to be with you today. Thank you.
>> PAULA: Thank you, Mark, perfect timing. The next speaker is Mario, gender violence online during COVID. The view from central America. You have the floor.
>> MARION: Thank you, Paula. I work for an organization based in Panama. And we promote the defense of digital rights in Latin America. The progress of the pandemic led to shifting the in-person activities to the virtual arena. In that sense, the cycle of violence continued in the virtual area.
So this led us to an exploratory study on online violence during the pandemic. There's a regional fact. And central America and Dominican Republic, there was no data on this. And for this reason and other reasons, we produced the online gender violence during the COVID pandemic. The idea is to have inclusive policies to tackle this problem. We organized an open survey to obtain information from seven countries. The survey was designed and disseminated with the support of women's rights organizations as well as other agencies.
We would like to highlight that we had wide view of gender violence of different people.
The online gender violence has not been very well developed in legislation. And some results show in seven countries main victims were women. And mostly with online harassment. This was a most and especially from the age of 14 to 18. So they were minors. And this reveals that the people are not going to the legal framework because they don't trust unjustice or not familiar with the mechanisms to claim or among other reasons that we should discuss. And I'll give you the link in the chat, there's also attacks, and we conducted research there too. To fight against the digital violence in central America and the rest of the rejoin and with that topic, as a matter of fact, we were very happy to have been selected by program so that in 2022 we will conduct the projects. And so that we can -- will safely in the internet. Thank you.
>> Well, we have two projects so let's cross our fingers. The digital divide reported in Panama during the pandemic.
>> RAISA. I'm going to be as brief as possible. Well, as the national political and social studies in Panama, it's a center many where I am a researcher, the idea was to see the digital divide, how it became evidence during the pandemic. And we were interested in seeing how the social media covered it. So we saw the coverage of the media for six months between March on with looking at it from the point of view of a social inequality. The its most unequal country in the world including to the World Bank. We analyzed 140 pieces of news that were disseminated and different editorials. And we were interested in seeing how representative center of media approached the issue. And we applied the criteria on journalists that is selecting the sources. And we analyzed the topics that appeared. And we were not surprised. But it is quite surprising for those who think that the digital divide is not so evidence that the topic that made the digital divide into news was education, 84% were related to complaints and difficult at as that the parents faced as well as teachers when they had to engage in online education. The peak was in August. And it was very curious because there were 34 pieces to and 30% of them had to do with free bandwidth. And that was the motive, that led the teachers to take the streets. So to take to streets. And so there was a considerable number of people that were affected because of the digital divide. And this was something disappointed coverage, despite the fact that this happened to something that would last longer in time because solving the digital divide we know that is not a simple thing. But the following month, the coverage of this topic went down with just to mentions. And this was discussed only from a single source. The official source with press release, government press releases over about 40% of the notes included the official sources as the single source.
And very shallow discussion of a very complex topic as I said initially. In a context of unequal development. We would have liked to include a broader range of sources and to more in-depth analysis.
Now the interesting thing is thanks to the pandemic, the digital divide is turned into a topic of research, it's a topic that is seen as more relevant. And in addition as scientific communication topic, it has become more relevant and that regard and we are discussing with the funding agencies and the scientific and technological supporter, we are considering a project but looking at it from a regional perspective.
>> Thank you. And with, that we continue to investigate, and I want to thank the colleagues and now I'll leave a link in the chat.
>> PAULA: Thank you, perfect. Well, we have run out of time. I am told that -- it's going to present her presentation. She's leaving the info of her project so you may get to know her project. And from LAC cities, we facilitate the contact for any other information that you may wish. So thank you all. And I understand that we have to close the session.