This page has links to interviews captured during the meeting of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development on the Future of the Internet Economy, in Seoul, Korea, June 16-18, 2008. Foreign ministers, business leaders, technical experts, and representatives of civil society and academia conferred at this OECD ministerial event, with the goal of comparing experiences, seeking answers to common problems, and coordinating domestic and international policies.
To view a slideshow with OECD photos set to Secretary-General Angel Gurría, click here.
OECD, is an international organization headquartered in a secretariat based in Paris. It has 200 committees, working groups, and expert groups that collect data, monitor trends, research social changes and evolving patterns in trade, environment, technology and other areas and forecast economic developments.
At the Seoul gathering in 2008, a team from Imagining the Internet conducted video interviews with the following 30 people, asking about their hopes and fears for the future of the Internet.
<View FULL transcript of ALL interviews by clicking here.>
David Gross – Ambassador and US Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy. Since 2001, he has had overall responsibility for the formulation and advocacy of international communications policy for the United States. He has a law degree from Columbia University and also has specialized in telecommunications issues in work for AirTouch and Vodafone.
Marc Rotenberg, President and Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy organization that addresses access to information, encryption policy, consumer protection, computer security and communications privacy. He has worked on expert panels for OECD, ITU and UNESCO. He is a co-chair of The Public Voice.
Gwen Hinze, International Policy Director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She works on policy and legal analysis for EFF’s international program, which focuses on educating global policy-makers about the need for balanced IP regulation that protects creators, preserves access to knowledge, fosters innovation and empowers digital consumers. Based in Australia.
Hamadoun I. Touré, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union. He was an officer with INTELSAT from 1985 to 1996; he was previously Africa’s regional general manager for ICO Global Communications, and directed the ITU’s Telecomm Development Bureau. His PhD is from the University of Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics of Moscow.
Kevin Martin, chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission. He became a member of the FCC in 2001 and was made chairman in 2005. He has a master’s degree in public policy from Duke and a law degree from Harvard. He previously worked in a Washington, DC, law firm, served as an adviser to the FCC and was special assistant to the US president for Economic Policy.
Parminder Jeet Singh, executive director of IT for Change, based in Bangalore, India. He is active in advocating for Civil Society’s role in Internet governance in the WSIS and IGF processes. He co-authored the book “Government@Net: E-governance opportunities for India” and leads research and projects to bring ICTs to disadvantaged women and the poor.
<View Video>
Ndeye Maimouna Diop Diagne, director of technologies of information and communications for Senegal and a member of the Internet Governance Forum Multistakeholder Advisory Group. She is president of the IPv6 Forum of Senegal and vice president of the Internet Society of Senegal. She also served on the UN Information and Communication Technologies Task Force. <View Video>
Peter Kim, founder and CEO for Pandora Television, a Korea-based company that is the first video-sharing site to attach advertising to user-submitted video clips and provide unlimited storage space for users’ uploads. One of Korea’s most active venture industrialists, he also founded Korea’s first domestic e-card service and the largest screensaver company in Korea.
Suvi Lindén, minister of communications for Finland. She previously served as minister of culture in Finland from 1999 to 2002. She has been a member of the Finnish Parliament representing the National Coalition Party since 1995. She has played active roles in Finland’s Foreign Affairs Council and the Committee for the Future.
Takashi Enomoto, executive vice president for corporate strategy and global business for NTT Data Corporation. He began working for Nippon Telephone & Telegraph in 1975, and his department was spun off into the private firm NTT Data in 1988. He is an expert in system integration. He managed the US branch of NTT from 1990-92.
Joseph Alhadeff, vice president for global public policy and chief privacy officer for Oracle, based in the US. He is chair of the BIAC Committee on Information, Computer and Communications Policy. He is also vice chair of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Electronic Business and Information Technology Committee.
Shira Perlmutter, executive vice president for global legal policy for IFPI. She previously served as a vice president and associate general counsel for intellectual property policy at Time Warner; consulted on electronic commerce copyright issues at the World Intellectual Property Organization; and was associate register for policy and international affairs at the US Copyright Office.
Peter M. Robinson, president and CEO for the U.S. Council for International Business, the American affiliate for the International Chamber of Commerce, International Organization of Employers, and the Business and Industry Advisory Committee for OECD. He previously worked at the American Institute for Foreign Study. He is a fellow of the Foreign Policy Association.
Willemien Bax, deputy director general for the European Consumers Union of the European Union, based in Brussels. The European Consumers Union represents the interests of 33 national consumer organizations from 23 countries. It advocates for more involvement of Civil Society in international policy decision-making bodies.
Fouad Riaz Bajwa, liaison for Gerry Morgan Foundation, Canada, and country director for LPI-Pakistan. He is an advocate for Civil Society’s voice in Internet governance and has worked on projects for the World Bank and United Nations, and he founded the Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan. He participated in the WSIS meeting in Tunis in 2005.
Garth Graham, director of Telecommunities Canada. His work is tied to enabling communities and governments to apply information and communications technologies in community development and to plan national strategies for ICT use. He has worked in Vietnam, East Africa and the Yukon Territory. He has been with TC since 1993, and he is based in British Columbia.
Marie Shroff, privacy commissioner for New Zealand. She has held this leadership position since 2003, leading efforts for the promotion of privacy and positive personal information-handling practices in communications. She previously held the post of secretary of the cabinet/clerk of the executive council for 16 years.
Roland Schneider, senior policy advisor, Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD, based in France. TUAC is the interface for labor unions with the OECD, an international trade union organization with members in all OECD countries. He previously worked for the Economic and Social Research Institute of the German Federation of Trade Unions.
Michael Geist, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, Canada – the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law. He is the author of a number of articles and government reports on the Internet and law and is a columnist on technology law issues for several major newspapers and the BBC. He is creator and consulting editor for BNA’s Internet Law News.
Elsa M. Garmire, a professor at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in the US. Her research interests are tied to optics and semiconductor devices. She holds a number of patents, is a councilor of the National Academy of Engineering, and chaired the National Academy Committee to Assess Technological Literacy from 2002-2006.
Taylor Reynolds, an economist and communications policy analyst at OECD. He focuses on worldwide broadband growth issues, emerging wireless technologies and network neutrality. He previously worked at the International Telecommunication Union and as a consultant for the World Bank and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Carolina Rossini, is a Brazilian attorney currently pursuing an advanced degree in Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy at Boston University. She holds an MBA and advanced degrees in law and international negotiations and worked as an attorney for Telefonica Telecommunications Group, served as an IGF Fellow for DiploFoundation and works for Harvard’s Berkman Center. <View Video>
Katitza Rodriguez, a co-chair of The Public Voice, which represented Civil Society at the OECD meeting, is director of the International Privacy Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. She is author of EPIC’s 2005 and 2006 “Privacy and Human Rights” reports. She is also a DiploFoundation tutor and earned her law degree from the University of Lima in Peru.
Son Kuswadi, head of the Intelligent Control & Robotics Lab at the Electrical Engineering Polytechnical Institute of Surabaya, Indonesia. He is a lecturer on control systems. He attended the Graduate School of Information Science and Engineering at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Eugene Yoon, a researcher and leader of the office of international cooperation at the Korean Educational Development Institute.
Alison Benney, media relations, OECD, Paris. She is responsible for providing information about OECD’s people and projects and is a writer for the OECD Observer.
Masud Selim is director of overseas sales and marketing for BCI, Bangladesh.
Glen Jackson is an English teacher in South Korea.
Yeon Su Kim is an intern with OECD.
Jung Hyun-Seok is an intern with the Republic of Korea.
Sites of interest tied to this OECD 2008 Meeting:
2008 OECD Declaration on the Future of the Internet.
PDF links from The OECD Civil Society – Organized Labour Forum.
A video made previous to the OECD Seoul meeting to explain the event.
You can view how people answered the YouTube question “How can the Internet make the world a better place?”
More than 80 videos can be found on the YouTube site, including a statement by Angel Gurría, secretary general of OECD.
A statement by Internet Protocol inventor Vint Cerf about giving more people access to the Internet
and a statement from Markus Kummer, executive coordinator of the IGF Secretariat.
The videos on this site are offered for use under a Creative Commons Noncommercial License allowing no derivative works. Executive producer, Janna Anderson; producer, Glenn Scott; videography, photography, reporting and editing by Ashley Barnas and Craig Campbell.