Call for APrIGF 2019 Workshop Proposals

Workshop proposals can be submitted via our online submission system within the deadline. An automatic confirmation email will be sent to the registered email with a special workshop ID. Organizers are allowed to edit their proposals before the submission deadline. Valid workshop submissions will be reflected online within 48 hours.

Interested workshop organizers should review the below evaluation criteria and the various session formats carefully before submitting a proposal. Some successful workshop proposals examples are provided for reference.

Submit a Proposal Now           Edit a Proposal

Overarching Theme: Enabling a Safe, Secure and Universal Internet for All in Asia Pacific

Sub-Themes:

1. Safer Internet, Cybersecurity & Regulation

The growing concerns on issues such as misinformation, fake news, hate speech and harassment, online violence and terrorism, organized cybercrimes, data breaches, etc result in a decrease of trust as well as a wave of state regulations to mitigate the cybersecurity risks. To maintain the cyberhygiene, what kind of policies and governance model shall be adopted to tackle these issues and achieve a safer Internet? What should be the key considerations for states when creating these regulations? How shall we maintain legal interoperability of laws and extraterritorial data protection on the Internet? Should the Internet be regulated by the states solely and what is the impact of these existing regulations on the Internet? How should the balance be drawn between state interference on Internet infrastructure and a free and open Internet?

On the other hand, there is a call for the co-existence of diversity for a peaceful collaboration towards a safer Internet. How can the Internet community participate more actively in the international cybersecurity discussions and encourage more co-operative measures? What shall the digital ethics be for businesses? How shall we take into account the concept of public goods and the commons vs. data ownership and privatization of knowledge? To enhance trust and security, how can we enhance the capacity building effort and how do we bridge the gap between technical and non-technical understanding of securing the Internet?

2. Access & Universality

Internet as an important mean for access to information and knowledge, connecting the unconnected to such global resource remains a fundamental and primary goal. There are evidence that digital divides within national populations, are associated with factors such as geography, gender, age, ethnicity and disability. In many cases, these are consistent with structural inequalities in society as a whole, and so with differences in access to other goods and services. Beyond mere access, how do we measure the quality and ensuring it is affordable and equitable? How can we facilitate better access by encouraging more local contents and linguistic diversity as well as the adoption of Universal Acceptance (UA) and Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)? Digital literacy and e-government development are also key components to empower digital citizenship and civil participation.

Universality includes striving for an Internet that are free from fragmentation. How shall we uphold the universal principles? How do we ensure the Internet is integrated and interoperable with the same values? What is the role of open technology playing in achieving universality?

3. Emerging Technologies & Society

Emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cryptocurrencies and blockchains are highly prevalent nowadays with rapid developments. How do we encourage permissionless innovation while maintaining algorithm accountability and ethics? What are the opportunities and security risks behind these technologies? How shall we govern these technologies and or not at all? How does ICT provide solutions and impact on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) such as climate change, health and well-being? How shall we embrace the digital transformations and overcome the challenges?

On a societal level, social media is ruining our identity, relationships, career, health and created videocracy. What are the impact on individuals and how that affect the society as a whole? How do we mitigate these emerging issues? What are the relations between Internet and the economy in developing countries?

4. Human Rights Online

Human rights shall be respected and applied universally to physical and internet space in the areas of access and development, freedom of expression, right to assembly and privacy as well as on the right to education, health, culture and to a broad range of other rights.

Issues such as online censorship, Internet shutdown, gender-based violence and inequality, privacy invasion are often observed in Asian countries.

What are some best practices on these issues and likely impact on freedom of expression? What is the GDPR impact in Asia to the growing data collection and analysis in digital economy and IoT businesses? What is the importance of encryption with regards to the rights of online users? In addition to policies and tools, how can we make people more aware of their rights and the privacy standards?

This sub-theme may also include other issues such as deliberative democracy in internet age, direct democracy in digital era, wiki democracy, data democracy and AI democracy, etc.

5. Evolving Role of Internet Governance & Multi-Stakeholder Participation

The Internet community is going through a structuralization or institutionalization period of IGFs and SIGs around the world. Multiple capacity building effort on its history and evolution are proposed to help define the role of IGF and the community in the Internet governance processes.

Throughout the last 20 years, there has been a discussion which puts governance and regulation in contrast. There is a difference between a multi-stakeholders governance model and a government-lead regulatory model. Furthermore, in the international arena there has been a contrast between multi-stakeholders approaches with multilateral approaches. Will the Internet need to be regulated more heavily by governments? If that is the case, is there a need for new regulatory processes to be able to be more inclusive to different multi-stakeholders groups especially the underrepresented communities like indigenous communities, religious minorities and people of all genders? How can we make the multi-participation model more effective and efficient in policy making?

6. Digital Economy  

What are the impacts of the massive growth of online platform and e-commerce to the traditional businesses especially in the Asia Pacific countries? What is the cost of digital economy and the security issues?

How shall we address the legal issues including consumer protection, intellectual property rights, data protection, and social responsibilities of Internet industry? How can we empower underserved communities and regional in this digital boom?

Below are some of the examples of possible sessions, workshop organizers are welcome to suggest new ideas.
 

1. Roundtable (60/90 mins) – Interactive dialogue with all participants with designated moderators and not more than 2 speakers.
2. Workshop (60/90 mins) – A more hands-on oriented session with small break out groups. e.g. role-play discussion, fishbowl discussion
3. Tutorials (60 mins) – A capacity building or peer-learning session on specific issues for newcomers or general participants. The format of delivery shall be clearly described in the proposal.
4. Open Forum (30/45/60 mins) – A space for any organizations to showcase their recent Internet governance activities, research findings or any new initiatives to seek engagement or collaboration within the Asia Pacific Community.
5. Fireside Chat (30/45/60 mins) – Share your experiences and ideas, and invite reflection or feedback
6. Bird of Feather (BoF) (30/45/60 mins) – An informal discussion session designed to connect the participants of shared topic of interests without a pre-planned agenda
7. Hackathon (Flexible) – Meet-up for collectively & collaboratively improving software or hardwares
8. Panel (60/90 mins) – Presentation and viewpoints sharing by speakers on a particular topic. The number of speakers on the panel shall not be more than 6 to allow sufficient time for interaction with the floor.
9. Other –  You can also create your own formats, as long as they fit within the allocated times and spaces.

Deadline of Workshop Proposals Submission: 18 Mar 2019, 24:00 UTC (Mon) (Extended) 29 Mar 2019, 24:00 UTC (Fri)
 
The Program Committee 2019 within the Multi-Stakeholder Steering Group (MSG) is responsible for evaluating all the workshop proposals received. A preliminary list of selected workshop proposals will be announced in mid April by which workshop organizers are expected to finalize their speakers or coordinate on a merger session (if required) within a month. The draft program agenda will be published by early May.

1. Relevance
Are the specific issues to be addressed by the proposal clearly correlated to the designated sub-theme and relevant to the overarching theme of the 2019 APrIGF?

2. Detailedness & Clarity
Does the proposal provide all information requested in the CFP, specifically: fully expounded issues, intended discussion outcomes, viable approach to discussion, and the choice of panelists (and their availabilities). The status of confirmation and relevance of panelists to the issues discussed will also be taken into consideration.

3. Inclusion and Diversity
Does the proposed session represent viewpoints from multiple stakeholders and provide diverse geographical, economic, gender and cultural perspectives? Are there at least 2 different stakeholder groups on the panel? Are the listed panelists qualified to represent various distinct stakeholder groups? Does the session contribute to the overall diversity of the APrIGF event?

4.  Engagement
Does the session organizer provide details of how the session will be run to promote discussion and engagement from the audience? Does the format selected, the number of speakers and the length of the session proposed support participation from the audience? Does the session organizer given enough information about how they plan to incorporate remote participation and contributions into the discussion?

• The MSG would like to see more collaborative discussion among the participants and panelists; therefore we encourage proposals that foster interactive dialogues with on-site session moderator confirmed. A description of how you intend the session to be conducted i.e. a clear objective, method/process and scope for participation (from attendees) would help the Program Committee better understand your proposal.
• While there is no strict upper limit of workshop submission from each organizer, the MSG strongly encourage each organizer to focus on submitting quality proposals to enhance the chance to be selected.

**Workshop Mergers: Upon evaluation, the MSG may suggest selected workshop organizers with thematically similar proposals to form mergers in order to accommodate more diverse and quality sessions on the program agenda. Organizers are under no obligation to accept a merger, but risk losing the opportunity to hold their workshop.

• Be inclusive and foster new connections between participants.
• Respect diversity of opinion, religion, experience and background.
• Design your workshop to fit the APrIGF 2018 themes.
• Respect your time allocation, plan to maximize the use of the time available and include audience and remote participation.
• Invite different organizations or projects to collaborate on the workshop with you, remember diversity is key.
• Promote the APrIGF among your network and promote your session.
• Submit a session summary report within 2 weeks after the conference.
• Participate in the Synthesis Document development and contribute learnings/feedback from your sessions.

• Join the APrIGF community discussion mailing list to seek collaboration or speakers. You may send a subscription request to the secretariat.
• Send a message to our MSG members who volunteered to provide feedback and suggestions of speakers for workshop proposers via this online form.
• Look at the 2019 Potential Speakers List to see if any volunteers from the community will be relevant to your workshop. 

1. Roundtable: Empowering Change with Data: Measuring Youth Digital Mobility
2. Open Forum: Case Studies of Censorship, Surveillance, and Transparency Reporting in Asia
3. Workshop: Effective eGovernment for empowering Pacific citizens
4. Panel: The Role of the key stakeholders in Disrupting the Dissemination of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online

Content

1. What constitutes a good workshop proposal?

A good workshop proposal shall have clearly defined and relevant issues to be discussed with concrete discussion questions and agenda. A workshop with a confirmed list of speakers at the time of submission is highly preferred.

Speakers

1. How many speakers should I invite?

The program committee encourages interactive dialogue among the speakers and the audiences, hence the maximum number of speakers shall not exceed 6. The committee would like to see a diversity of speakers from different gender, stakeholder groups and possibly geographical location included.

2. Where can I seek help in finding speakers?

You may join the APrIGF community discussion list to seek interest on the mailing list. Alternatively, a potential speakers list has been set up which consists of community members who volunteered their names. Yet workshop proposers have the responsibility to evaluate the suitability of the volunteers for your own proposal. You are also welcome to submit a request to the MSG advice form. More details could be found in External Resources Section of the CFP Guideline.

3. Is it possible to have remote speaker?

Yes. Remote participation is available via adobe connect or other similar tools. However, one workshop should not have more than 2 remote speakers while the moderator must be present on-site.

Proposal Submission

1. Can I submit more than one proposal?

One organization/individual is allowed to submit more than one proposal. The Program Committee will consider the ia However, the priority and the chance of a second proposal being selected will be lower as the Program Committee would like to encourage more new workshop proposers.

2. Am I allowed to edit my proposal after submission?

Yes. You may edit your proposal until the workshop submission deadline.

3. How can I edit my proposal?

You may edit your proposal at http://apps.2019.rigf.asia/user with your workshop ID received from the auto-generated email at the time of submission.

Attendance

1. Must the workshop proposer be the moderator?  

No. The moderator could be a different person than the workshop proposer. A workshop proposer is however responsible to submit the workshop summary report and update the online workshop page.

2. Will I get funding support to attend the conference if my workshop is being accepted?

No. APrIGF has a Fellowship Program with separate evaluation process. All workshop organizers and speakers shall arrange their own travel plans.