The Assignment

The Internet Governance Forum 2007 will be held November 12-15 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It will be the most recent installment of the WSIS process which I have followed from afar since 2003. The International Development Research Centre has been nice enough to send me as a reporter to the conference, an offer for which I'm most grateful.

I've been assigned to cover "openness," one of this year's themes. What better way to promote the topic itself then by blogging the proceedings as much as possible? I'll be posting throughout the conference and will do my best to summarize the debate. Moreover, I'll be adding critical commentary from the Canadian perspective.

I should begin by adding that I'm a law student and that the proceedings will inevitably be filtered through something of a legal perspective. That said, I'll do my best to accurately cover technical discussions, as the Internet is ultimately a technical platform attempting to incorporate the many variables of humanity.

I leave for Rio on November 10th. If you're looking for something to read from the Canadian perspective, Prof. Michael Geist's website is always a good bet.

Expect to hear more soon..
Your correspondent at large,
Jeremy Hessing-Lewis