We would like to kindly invite you to participate in a Policy Workshop on the Next Generation Internet, jointly organised by DG Connect, and DesignLab, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, and Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences of the University of Twente. The workshop will bring together professionals from government and industry, as well as experts from academia and beyond.
What will the internet of the future look like?
The internet is (still) developing at an incredible pace and is becoming a more and more central role in our societies. Originally intended to facilitate the exchange of small amounts of vital information between academics, government agencies and the military, in less than fifty years it has become the default communication channel for billions of actors. While it is an enormous feat in itself that the internet was able to scale and adapt beyond imagination, it is becoming clear that, with its increasing prominence, the requirements that it serves have changed dramatically, and that these are currently not reflected in its architecture and policies. Technical challenges, such as the rapidly developing Internet of Things, as well as societal challenges, like privacy, autonomy, the moral consequences of AI and even fake news, need to be addressed. Notably, these challenges are becoming ever more closely intertwined and need proper debate with people from various disciplines around the table.
Next Generation Internet initiative
Last autumn the European Commission launched the Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, aiming for a more human-centric Internet supporting European values of openness, cooperation across borders, decentralisation, inclusiveness, transparency and protection of privacy. The NGI initiative is a broad and long-term initiative, mostly focusing on new technology areas like a better protection for private data, new internet architectures, decentralized data systems and new discovery and identification tools.
More information on the EC NGI initiative is available at https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/next-generation-internet-initiative and https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/next-generation-internet.
Purpose of the workshop
The purpose of this workshop is to brainstorm novel ideas for innovative research topics in the domain, and to have an open and multidisciplinary discussion of the approach the EC is taking in preparing for the launch, for example:
- the process (open consultations, engagement between policy and research)
- the type of research topics (technology- / socially-driven)
- the tools to be used
- the ends to aim for
Agenda
12:45 Doors open, coffee & tea
13:00 Welcome (Victor van der Chijs, University of Twente)
13:05 Introduction (Frank Kresin, DesignLab)
13:10 Next Generation Internet Initiative (Fabrizio Sestini & Nicole Muessigmann, DG Connect)
13:35 Technical Challenges for the NGI (Aiko Pras, EWI)
13:50 The Civil Perspective (Mieke van Heesewijk, SIDN Fund)
14:05 Privacy, Security, and Digital Freedom (Andreas Peter, EWI)
14:20 Morals, Ethics & Post-Privacy Concerns (Peter-Paul Verbeek, BMS)
14:35 Audience response
14:50 Coffee Break
15:00 Brainstorm session
15:45 Plenary presentations
16:15 Response by EC
16:30 End of meeting