Hi everyone. My name is Kathleen Scoggin. I am the program coordinator for the tech law and security program over at American University. So I just want to echo off the welcomes that everyone already gave. Thank you so much for having us here. We are happy to be a co sponsor for the second year in the row. I also have the pleasure of introducing tripti Sinha, our keynote speaker for today. Her bio is long and full of lots of great experience that she can pull on today for this talk. She is currently the Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at the University of Maryland in the Division of Information Technology, she leads advanced cyber infrastructure and Internet Global Services in the mid atlantic crossroads. She has three decades of experience in Internet and cyber infrastructure technologies, including leadership positions in engineering, operations, finance, governance, advocacy and policy, basically every part of it. In her current role. She is the chief executive of the max which operates a high performance regional research and education 100 G network for advanced Cyber Infrastructure Services and research and as the executive and operational head of UMTS global operation of DNS brute services. When it comes to her ICANN trajectory. She previously served as co chair of ICANN route service system advisory committee from 2015 to 2018, when she was nominated to the ICANN Board of Directors by the nominating committee where she is now chair, we were very lucky to have her here with us today for the topic of her keynote, the state of the Internet, the power of truth, the importance of trust and our hope for the future. She'll provide insight into how the Internet that operates on voluntary standards and best practices continued to be a force for good. So please throughout her talk today, be thinking of your questions and comments as we will take them after Now without any further ado tripti.
Thank you, Kathleen. Good morning, everyone. I would like to thank the hosts and organizers for inviting me to this exciting gathering of your of young minds in this beautiful and historic city of San Juan. thank you especially to Gladys Nieves, the president of EDP University. It is truly an honor to join you today. Not only as a representative of ICANN, but as a fellow scholar from another university. As Kathleen just mentioned, I've been at a university before the majority of my career. It is a pleasure to meet you and I look forward to learning a few things from you. The 2024 North American School of Internet governance is not merely a symposium, it is an opportunity to shape the Internet of the future because everyone here has a role to play. I understand that this is a third time naysaying is held in Puerto Rico and hosted by EDP University. And indeed, it is a testament to the vibrant and active Internet community of Puerto Rico. And I'm also led to believe that this is the birthplace of NASIG as well on this very street. Am I right, Pablo? I think that's yeah. So the Internet is one of the most revolutionary innovations in human history, by democratizing access to information. The Internet has transformed how we exchange ideas, conduct business, and connect with others. Indeed, the Internet has become the lifeblood of today's society. You asked me to speak about the theme of your symposium, the state of the Internet, in the context of the power of truth, the importance of trust, and our hope for the future. Your title compelled me to think deeply about truth, trust and hope in the context of Internet technologies, and the Internet as a fabric of pioneering services. So, as we embark on this three day journey, here are my thoughts and I will start by framing key elements of your symposium theme. First, let's talk about the power of truth. What is truth? In simple terms, truth can be defined by the correlation of a statement with its veracity which is 14 fortified by facts. To further elucidate the meaning of truth. Let's look at its antonym falsehood, wherein a statement is not correlated to the associated facts. Now, coming to the power of truth, what is it? Truth which is grounded in fact, and whose accuracy has tangible evidence is coupled with the power of knowing the reality of that truth. Moving on to trust and it's important, what is trust? Trust can be defined by the attributes of reliability, authenticity, integrity, truthfulness, openness, transparency and competence. These attributes are the foundation of relationships and transactions and coming to hope for the future. It is a state of belief and optimism based on expectations of a positive outcome for the future. Now, let me tie these concepts to the Internet, its infrastructure, its governance and the services that write upon it. And while doing so, I hope to address the complex mesh of trust, truth and our future hopes in our Internet enabled reality. It is important to understand the roots of our digital interconnected world. Internet technologies were constructed on foundational principles of open standards and open architecture and interoperability. The Internet operates based on a system of voluntary standards, best practices cooperation and trust. When these technologies developed the Internet, essentially a change agent was released. The ensuing transformations from that change rely on the critical architectural element of digital Trust, which is key in ensuring that the fundamental three functions of the Internet, digital transactions, digital communications, and digital relationships are reliable, trusted and secure. Once there is an assurance of these attributes, online services come with integrity, security, and social adoption. Now let's look at trust from a layered approach in the Internet service stack. One the technical underpinnings of the Internet must operate with integrity, with reliability and within a framework of rules to information exchange on the Internet, in other words, data deserves protection, and appropriate management for it is a pivotal agree ingredient in transactions and information. Three, Internet application services and future innovations, create opportunities and untruths add complications. Next, I will share some facts on trust truth and the technical underpinnings of the Internet. As I mentioned earlier, the Internet and other technologies were constructed using technology standards and protocols that were created on the bedrock of openness and trust. intelligent individuals came together with an intense desire to push the human mind to the limits of innovation, to create the building blocks of what became the Internet and related technologies. And these principles continue to operate today in innovation spaces. While the mind continues to do exciting things like invent and create. Trust and truth play an integral role in emerging technologies and their interoperability. to harness the human mind to create and adopt technologies. People must be confident of a trusted environment worthy of risk taking. I would like to highlight these dynamics with examples specifically from icons technical remit. A very important concept is that of an authoritative source of truth. While we often take for granted the seamless functionality of the Internet, achieving this level of reliability is no small feat. The Internet operates harmoniously due to a complex interplay of global networks, adhering to standardized protocols. Crucially, these networks operate on the premise of a shared understanding a unified source of truth, the internet's unique identifier systems governing protocol usage during Internet communication. These protocols operate on a fabric of implicit trust and truth. In the early days of the Internet, truth stood as a cornerstone of this groundbreaking technology. Its architects understood that establishing trust relied on maintaining a singular source of truth and yet I identify systems. The Internet Protocol registry is maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority i Anna, exemplify this principle, serving as a testament to the discipline required to uphold and authoritative truth. This dedication ultimately fosters trust amongst users and stakeholders. Yeah, Anna thanks functions cater to the technical underpinnings of the Internet and trust is an implicit expectation at this level, in that when the act of communication all In the Internet is initiated. A user or service must know that the request will go accurately from a source to a destination. I will now share some thoughts on trust and data. All transactional systems rely on data for any system to be useful and effective, and data driven decision making. It needs to source input data to be reliable. So it is critical that while we depend on deriving value from data as strategies employ for data curation, it is imperative that we build an infrastructure of trust and how data is done. This management includes the process of creating, organizing, maintaining and securing data, it stewardship, privacy and governance needs must be established. Such infrastructures when developed with thought and care bolster a foundation of digital trust. Today, trusted services on the Internet are essential to a knowledge based economy, driving innovation and connecting people across the globe. Emerging innovations and advancements in technology such as artificial intelligence AI, rely greatly on trust and truthful data. For example, the power of AI is realized by intelligent and trusted algorithms, which receive input in the form of trusted data, which in turn, are computed to produce an artificially generated intelligent outcome. These outcomes need to be truthful to serve humanity in any meaningful way. Such as our reliance as a global society on trust, from trusted technical underpinnings of the Internet to trust the data to trust it systems to mention, but a few.
And now a few comments on Internet application services and future innovations creating opportunities and the proliferation of untruths. There is no question that the Internet and information technologies have been and will continue to be agencies of change. We have witnessed profound human progress with the development of these technologies. Countries with established and strong economies have become stronger emerging economies have witnessed transformative growth as they become global forces to contend with on the world platform. Opportunities are created where technology permeates the transformations brought about by the Internet has enabled an information revolution how news and information is consumed with the creation of novel multimedia news outlets to citizen journalists sharing their voices online. Blogging vlogging Tik Tok is a modern concepts of expression and influence. Social media platforms connect world communities and manners never seen before. However, these incredible new modalities of connection and information are accompanied by narratives motivated by the dark side of humanity. We see these dynamics at play while I speak today, for example, we're in the throes of a complicated global geopolitical, political climate of aggression, where one person's truth is another's falsehood. With neither being guided by objective reasoning, or an ability to be verified with facts. The lack of truth and trust and content has very little to do with technology protocols or technical methods, but more with the state of the human condition. It is a far more complex matter to address beyond the reach of technical solutions. misinformation is driven by perplexing human nature with the intention to do harm. These dynamics are spreading untruths, using modern technical modalities of the Internet seriously impact the landscape of digital trust and truth. In the face of these challenges, we find hope for a brighter, more interconnected future. The internet's potential for positive transformation is boundless and it is our collective responsibility to harness this potential for the benefit of humanity. Therefore, ICANN is working within its narrow technical remit. To make the Internet more inclusive. We dream of a future where anyone regardless of location, language, socio economic level of culture, can access the Internet. Today despite the Internet ubiquity in many parts of the world, significant portions of the population remain unconnected. A lack of access to the Internet impacts access to education, services, healthcare and economic opportunity. Expanding this access is not just a matter of developing the infrastructure, we must address accessibility, digital literacy and the creation of locally relevant content and services. governments, the private sector and civil society must collaborate to ensure that everyone, regardless of their location or native language, can reap the benefits of the digital age. Therefore, we strive to create a more multilingual, inclusive Internet. For the Internet to be truly universal, the domain name system must accept all languages and scripts. The majority of the more than 1200 generic top level domains today use the Latin script, many current Internet users and most of the next few billions users to come online or part of communities that speak and write in languages with non Latin scripts. We must continue to address this linguistic imbalance. The ICANN community is spearheading several new projects, with the goal of better adapting the Internet to the diverse languages and cultures of the world. one facet of ICANN's work in this areas promoting universal acceptance or UA, which ensures that all domain names including new top level domains and internationalized domain names and email addresses are treated equally, and can be used by all Internet enabled applications, devices and systems. UA is one of the obstacles we must overcome to facilitate the onboarding of the next few billion Internet users. Our vision for the future encompasses increased access digital inclusivity and empowering the next generation. It is not merely a vision but a call to action, future Internet governance leaders with their digital fluency and innovative spirit, all the key to shaping the internet's fate. We envision a world where every individual regardless of the background has the tools and opportunities to thrive in the digital age. It is a world where the Internet is a force for equity bridging the gaps that persist in our global society. As we look to the future, I encourage each of you to explore ways to get involved to contribute your ideas and energy to the ongoing evolution of the Internet. In governing the vast, interconnected web of technical infrastructure that spans the globe, the multi stakeholder model has proven to be highly transparent and equitable. This model enables participants from all sectors to come together as equals to share their views and work towards consensus based decisions. This approach of broad inclusivity and democratic participation has yielded a system of voluntary standards Best Practices cooperation and trust. Our approach of multi stakeholder governance driven by collaboration and shared responsibility supports a unified global Internet for us all. It has produced a working Internet for over 40 years with exponential growth in traffic and uses. It has served as a platform of innovation that has led to revolutionary change. The multi stakeholder model has allowed the Internet and the digital economy to flourish, while protecting against unilateral decision making and top down control. Since 2005, the international community including all governments have accepted the multi stakeholder model of Internet governance during the World Summit on the Information Society. Recognizing the vital roles of all parties and maintaining and evolving the Internet as a global resource. Next year, United Nations will reveal the Western outcomes, and the UN General Assembly has the opportunity to reaffirm and improve on the achievements thus far. Let us once again pledged support to the multi stakeholder model as the most adaptable and effective approach to Internet governance. When everyone has a voice the Internet remains inclusive and trusted. Let it continue to be a catalyst for growth and innovation founded in trust. So I will conclude by saying that the state of the Internet is very good. The power of truth and the importance of trust are absolute imperatives. They require discipline and rigor to sustain as fundamental principles in the innovation of technologies in the operation of infrastructures and services, in matters of Internet governance, in the societal adoption of digital services, and in our hope for the future. It is our collective responsibility to create the future of the Internet, a future that is inclusive, democratic, democratic and driven by global public interest. This future is only possible if we continue to pursue truth, build trust, and nurture hope for the promise of the Internet. Now I would be delighted to open the floor for questions and discussion. Thank you for the invitation to share my thoughts with you today. And I look forward to some great conversations.
Want to do this? I'll just go.
Hi, everyone. So now we're just going to open up to some questions. I believe someone will be running with the mic, if I'm not mistaken. So we'll take questions both in person and online. I think I don't have to tell you all that this is a rare opportunity and to take it. So I have a question to start, if you all think about it and get to that. So that was a great talk. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. I think a lot of us are either students or ICANN fellows, and are always interested to learn in where you fit in the multistakeholder model. And given how many different opportunities there are were kind of where to start.
Oh, oh, thank you for the question, Kathleen. So where does one fit? In? General?
Yeah, how to figure that out.
I would say just about anywhere. And I kid you not might give this talk to the new fellows inside the ICANN ecosystem when they join us. And you don't need to be a technologist to be involved. I want to make that absolutely clear. I mean, the Internet, yes, it was put together, the building blocks were put together by brilliant minds, and the protocols and standards brought to the Internet together. But in the end, this fabric provides service to the world. And it comes in the form of communications transactions. And we need to develop policies that helps us stay in this environment. So just about anyone from any background can break into this area. Inside the ICANN ecosystem, we have constituencies, find your consists constituencies, they range from technical bodies to policymaking bodies to civil society, there's a home for everyone. And we really truly need everyone's voices. Because oftentimes technologists have tunnel vision, they're really good at building something. And then they sort of unleash it. And it's time for the rest of humans, you know, the human community to come together and put a, you know, a wrapper of policy around it, to talk about all the you know, pitfalls and the successes that could potentially come out of releasing any new solution. Thank you. Yeah, of course, ahead.
I'm Milton Mueller at Georgia Tech. So I was really intrigued. You know, the the theme, truth trust, these are very broad philosophical themes, and I was wondering how Internet governance would intersect with those. And I thought it was very smart and very correct for you to emphasize the role of the IANA in providing, let's say true, in some sense, the correct information for global compatibility for the unique identifiers on the Internet. But I'd also like to clarify, you know, one of the things we've done with IANA and with ICANN mission when we reformed it, during the transition was we created a barrier. And we said ICANN is not supposed to be regulating content on the Internet. And I can is not supposed to be the determiner of what is true or false in terms of what people assert. So I wondered if you could engage with that question. So
first, I would absolutely agree with you that content is outside of ICANN's remit. And the truth and untruth on the Internet is a problem that we face as a global community. And that is insane. I hope my your takeaway was not that ICANN should be involved in Absolutely not. It has very narrow technical remit, and we remain within the boundaries of that remit. But the bottom line is in any new technol technology, a solution that comes to bear in our human society, you have the good, the bad, and the ugly and bad content is something that we all have to contend with. So one, it's certainly not with an ICANN instrument, but we as a global community have to address that. And I can tell you no technical solution will solve that problem. I hope that is that what you were looking for? Yeah, but
also, you are responsible for the domain name system. Route Information. Yeah.
And that's integrity. And the truth of that is very important.
Absolutely. And so there's truth plays at multiple levels, for example, protocols, and how they operate and exchange information. They must remain There must be fidelity to how they operate, they must remain faithful and truthful to the way the protocol is specified. And if that truth breaks down, everything above the stack begins to break down. And you see this even in hierarchies, human hierarchies, look at the military, there's a protocol, right? And when that protocol breaks, bad things begin to happen. And it's the same with technical protocols. So there's a level of truth that occurs at every stage in the stack layer of of services, if you will.
I think we have another question in the back.
Oh, good morning. Thank you for your presentation. I have a question. So I am a lawyer who is interested in policymaking, especially on the data privacy sector. And currently, I'm doing research on universal acceptance, and for that specific region, focusing on the East African region and sort of translating everything to the Swahili language. So I'm working on the policies around that. I want to I'm kind of taken aback by your shoes on the Internet governance, and I just want your input on a policy, how can we put that what you've spoken about truth in the Internet space, in a policy setting?
So I want to make sure I understand your question. So how do you insert truth. And
so I'm working on our research on universal acceptance. And part of what we're doing on the policy, part of it is actually how to make the Internet space more accessible to other communities, especially those in East Africa. So when we are working on this policies, we also just want to make sure that the Internet space is kind of acceptable to everybody. And what you just say, it is a very big input to my research, because the truth on the Internet space is what we really lack right now. So I want to I want your input on how we can capture that in a policy form, especially to the universal acceptance letter.
So I think I understand what you're saying. But if I could separate it into two segments, which is as Milton was just with the exchange, we just had about truth inside the technical infrastructure. Now, how does that translate, that translates to protocols and standards, behaving truthfully, and complying to the way they were specified? That is the truth within a technology infrastructure. So whatever new specification comes out, once it's released, it's ratified, a standard is ratified, and by the time a technical standards ratified, it goes through numerous iterations, to ensure that it actually stands the test of time and it is truthful, and it is, you know, it is it can be released. So once that is released, the technical underpinnings of any system solution Internet, the the technical handshaking, if you will, need to remain truthful to the specifications. Now, there's the other layer, the content layer, which really no one quite owns that per se. And that's where that landscape is getting very complicated. And that in many ways, is at the mercy of human nature. And so you've got, you know, false news and bad stuff that's out there. And that really, I believe, will change only with the human condition, when you have to look at why do people spread falsehoods, there's got to be some kind of outcome they're hoping to achieve. But that's more about shaping human nature. And that's a very complicated, philosophical, sociological problem. Thank you.
Okay, now we have a question.
Hello, my name is Benjamin accumulate. And I think this last questions kind of touched what or what I wanted to ask. But my question is to the point where you said culture. And I've been following us work for a while now. And I find out that it's more appealing to non Latin script. Languages, it's easier to use the nuances in those environments to say okay, once we turn it to non Latin, if it's Latin script is very applicable. Once we do this, all of that we can make it accessible to these other languages. But there are Latin script languages that are on that are not as dominant as other ones and they speak other languages. So how to preserve their culture on the Internet is not possible currently. And so that's where I'm thinking, how do we look at UAE? Not just from that technical non Latin script approach, but to other languages that needs to survive so that we can have this multi dimensional world. And then Internet can truly be universal. So that would be my question to you. Because when you talk to this technical team is always like, no, that's we're not looking at that yet. But that is the pitch, you're making a culture. And all of that is preserved languages. But it doesn't look like that what is happening. So that's my question to you. How do we really make Internet truly universal?
So, within ICANN, I keep going back to ICANN, because I'm representing them right now. But within ICANN there is called the UA SG universal acceptance steering group, I would encourage you to join that group. Now. That's just one tiny slice of the pie. It's very complicated hill to climb. And we have to get all the other technology vendors in the space and Silicon Valley and elsewhere that also have to come on board. So it's so if you look at work getting involved with USG. They're looking at everything. However, we need to bring along other technical partner partners in the ecosystem, you know, technology solutions, providers, people who are developing languages and other systems and email systems and so forth. And that's outside of ICANN remit, but we need partnerships. So the work is being done. I don't know who who you're working with. But I would encourage you to join this group. It's called the UA SG. And I hope that answers your question. Thank you.
Are here on the other side?
Before we go to the next question, Ben is really involved in in ICANN and UA as well and other constituencies within ICANN. So he's a veteran already. So
So Ben, maybe we can talk offline, because I'm hearing something else from what my understanding is what's going on. So let's talk offline offline.
All right, thank you very much. My name is Abraham Selby. I am a postgraduate student at UCL. I find very interesting with your speech and narrative. And my question is going into in terms of academia, my appreciate Nasik, because they are also trying to close the gap in terms of academic and related to Internet trust. My research, in my academic level has been focused on trust, cyber warfare, and Data Trust and Internet trust. Looking at the change and evolution of Internet, and icons work, how are you bridging the gap in terms of curriculum? And how do you match with the universities? We're also training people in terms of Internet works, technology, emerging protocols that is changing the world because things keeps changing, and academia? How are they up to date? Does ICANN have their relations to academia that they provide some kind of academic curriculum support for them to get students to learn up to date policies and regulations related to Internet? So this might question thank you very much.
I think I understand what you're saying, which is in the early days, the Internet was created by academics, and then it kind of gets unleashed, and it goes into the big wild world. And now you've got entities like ICANN that have been stood up and so forth. And are the academics still in touch with what's going on? Right. I think that's what your question is, how do we get them more involved? So I believe, I know Naylors group here is she's part of the global stakeholder engagement group within ICANN. And they have an effort where they're reaching out to various communities, including academia. Now, I will agree with you with that. And since I work at a university, I can attest to the fact that yeah, many, many universities haven't the foggiest idea, who manages you know, the unique identifier systems. And what is Diana? What is ICANN? It's just taken for granted. It's there and it better work, you know, but someone's doing a you'll be surprised how many people don't know where it all happened. I was having a conversation with a world renowned professor from MIT recently and told him I had to go to an ICANN meetings like oh, yeah, what's ICANN? Isn't it that group that manages the DNS, and this is somebody who understands how the Internet works. And I said, Well, do you know what the root zone is? And you know, the zone file? And he's like, Of course I do. So I said, someone has to keep it up someone updates. So anyway, it's amazing how you answer your question. I'm getting down to the bottom. Yes, I can nail this group nail if you could connect with him later. They are reaching out and but universities are, I mean, it's still, the vibrant communities are still developing stuff, you'll be amazed. Now I will say it is different from 30 years ago when very much. When you looked at innovation, people looked at universities, but now because of the Internet, you have citizen inventors and citizen scientists. And I mean, just what anyone can do anything is specially when it comes to software engineering. Right? When it comes to building hardware, it's a whole different ballgame. But universities are still quite active, I worked. So I can tell you, especially AI, and those that's not the big buzzword. Quantum and AI are two big buzzwords and universities are really very, very active there. But yes, ICANN is doing its part in reaching out.
Think we have a question at Google in the back and then in the front here as well. Hello,
my name is Pedro, Lana, for the record. I'm a part of ISOC, Brazil and NCC. And my question is mainly related to the hope domestic, although it has some points of contact with trust and true fruit. And maybe you can also answer that in your personal capacity since I know that ICANN is doing some internal consultations on that. Considering these processes, really important processes that are happening with internal governance nowadays, that business plus 20 plus 27 for the future and GDC and admin yell less than what should be the if we have to choose one the main priority of organizations that are responsible for essential parts of the Internet, such as ICANN, IETF, etc. On when participating in this process, what is probably the most important thing, we should be careful, or the near future when preserving the Internet as far as for good.
So if I understood you correctly, you're saying in Internet governance, what is the most important thing that we should be focused on? But
especially to the processes that are happening right now? This was sent at GDC? And everything? Yeah. So
I would say, one, my biggest concern is if I have a concern is that we have to ensure that new paradigms are not put in place because I personally, this isn't my personal opinion. I do not believe that there is a better model than the multi stakeholder model. And the reason why I say that not just because it's a cool sounding word, but because how else can you bring all the voices to the table, you give this? The management, the governance of all these new infrastructures, whether it be Internet governance, or now there's AI governance is the next big thing. And if you give it to an entity, one segment of society, you have lost your voices. So I think it's very important that we preserve this model. And one way to preserve it is just to do our jobs well. And then the model speaks for itself. And then you don't really need to defend it per se. And then people point to a model and say, look, let's emulate more of that. Because they do such a good job. And honestly, when you look at the last 40 years or so this model has served us very well. So that if I have a concern is like because when you look at the global climate today, there's a lot of unsettling things happening. And there is a desire to change this paradigm. So I would focus on just multistakeholder ism. Thank you.
I will get to this question I'm going to take is there one online as well? I'm going to take that one first, and then we'll take your question, I promise.
Okay, so I'm Alfredo Calderon, moderating the participants that are online. There's a question from Siva. He's asking, what would I can do, within and beyond it's really remit to build an Internet of trust and truth. And I think you've already answered part of that question. But wow,
what would I can do beyond this remit? So first and foremost, we cannot act outside of our remit, period. It's that's baked into our bylaws. We cannot act outside of our remit. But just as a private citizen, what would we do? That's a very, very difficult problem. And when you look at the world, 8 billion people in the world 5 billion of us connected to the Internet with the remaining most likely coming on board soon. Each of us has 360 degrees of freedom to do whatever we please once we're connected, and we can spread lies we can put bad information out there and The concern I have and I don't know if I'm answering your question I'm sort of wavering into a more philosophical discussion is that I cannot emphasize the importance of data and the need for it to be truthful. Because in particular, I cited AI as an example, have you, I don't know, if you've played with AI engines, it is mind boggling the kind of stuff they can do today. I mean, I'm a software engineer, and I put in a few sentences into an AI engineer that actually spewed out code, and I looked at the code and was pretty good. It was quite good. I was like, Wow, can you imagine getting that as a blueprint? And just modifying it a little bit? So what if bad actors start bad data into engines? And then what do you get at the other end? Right? So that in particular, I cannot emphasize the importance of data, the labeling and tagging it making sure it's unbiased? How do you decide if there's bias in it? How do you create it? How do you time it? How do you know its shelf life has expired? How do you know what's current? All of that is so critical. So to answer your question, What can I can do within our technical remit, we have to ensure that we are truthful. And we preserve our fidelity to our mission and to do things truthfully, and comply with protocols and specifications. That's the best we can do. But coming to the global community, it's hard. It's hard. And I, you have to this is a philosophical discussion is an economic discussion, what drives people to do bad things? And I think it really is imbalance. It's the haves and the have nots, right? There's always the sense of who has something, why don't I have it, and then emotions come into play, then organized emotions and organized crime and, you know, rogue states and all that stuff is born. And then bad things begin to happen. And I think once there's an equitable, equitable distribution of wealth, and when you look at wealth in the world today, there's been massive distribution of wealth never seen in human history. When you study human history, you look at Kings and Queens, and there was a concentration of wealth, but you'd look at society actually, we all are quite well off. There's never been this kind of distribution of wealth, yet, at the same time, we're headed in another direction, as well. So somehow, we've got to do this redistribution of opportunities, and, you know, a kindness and all the other things that come together and, you know, people just want to live and let live right. That's fundamentally what we all want. So, I don't know if I answered the question, but it's more of a pillock philosophical response and personal opinion. Thank you.
Then I'm gonna go over here.
All right. Thank you very much. My name is Theo rose. I'm a student. So my question is quick, but in two forms, so I tried to make it as simple as I can. In your presentation, you said something that I love that there is more space, and that more people should get involved. I was just wondering, in most conferences, or after taking part in schools, we are excited in the school. As young people, we have so many ideas, we want to do more. And then once we are done with school, and we go back to our daily lives, like, I don't think I fit in, I don't think I can do that. So my first question is, how do we get so much strength and zeal to get involved and to keep going? Because I'm sure for yourself, you've had so much experience and growth in the space, he just didn't just pop up like that it took so much work. So how do we get motivated to keep working to take keep taking part in events and training and loving it and seeing growth and not just coming in at one place all happy bubbling around, and then just pass out? Other and that is one. And secondly, just building up on that in terms of mentorship and how we can find our feet in? I've always been having this discussion. I don't think I belong and I fit in because I'm a pure journalist, train work like that, currently in academia as well. When I looked through what you said, like you don't have to be technical to fit in my question still remain? Where do I fit in? I mean, there's policy, what if I don't want policy, but still want to fit in? Without having to go through the technical? How do I go in there? How do I get mentored into the system? I mean, I just meant like physical like, ooh, hold your hand to take you through the system and say, you can do something here. This is how you build up on it.
I do hope you make. Yeah, no, actually, it's a very good question. And I actually can answer the question for you quite well. So. So one, you said, How do you know what to do for I'm a firm believer that you have to do what you really want to do. You've got to have a love for it. Like I love doing what I do. And I, you know, I have a science and math background and studied computer science and so forth. So I had a passion from for that when I was young when I was your age. And so that's fundamental. And, and then just roll up your sleeves and just just sort of immerse yourself in it. And you said, you know, you're not a technologist, hey, look, when I was doing in this field, believe it or not, there were only men. So you don't I don't need to be a man to get into this field is my point is don't put any barriers in front of you. And eventually, human beings are nice people, people recognize that they will go beyond, you know, our artificial barriers. I mean, I cannot tell you, pretty much the majority of my career, I was the only woman whether it was in class or in meetings, or leading a project and so forth. But people are nice. And then when you work hard when you like something, it comes from inside and you will work hard, you will find your space. And yes, well, I look back at my 30 plus years, it wasn't an easy climb. But if you like something, you will persist. I hope I answer your question.
Alfredo. And then I think this is
Alfredo and I'm asking for a privilege to talk a little bit addressing some of the things that tripti mentioned. My background is in science. I'm a chemist. Back in early 2010, I think it was 12. I went to an ICANN meeting, after an ISOC workshop leadership workshop in Argentina in Buenos itis. And I saw all these people talking about ICANN policy development and the issues that we had at that time. And I said, Well, I think they're missing something. And you know what they were missing my voice. So I spent seven days with them. And actually, at the end of the events, I asked, personally, to get involved in some of the working groups within the app large community specifically. And ever since I've been involved. I've been a fellow. I've been a mentor. I've been sharing some working groups, because I feel that my voice is important and my perspective, although I'm not a technical person, but I'm learning. And that's part of the process, you have to learn the language you have to identify is striptease pension, where you feel that you can contribute more. And if you have projects, bring them to the table, they might be something that we can I can keep in mind that I said we because I consider myself part of ICANN already. Maybe we can find a place for your idea in terms of developing a policy or something that we're missing within the remit of securing the identifiers within the Internet ecosystem. So having said that, I do have to mention also that person that I talked about academia, what we're doing here in Puerto Rico with North American School of Internet governance has an academic component where we're trying to reach out even to high school students. And we actually had a two day event yesterday and the day before, where we brought in high school students and did sort of a capacity building day for each one of those groups of 2530 35 students with their professors, or teachers. So So those are some of the ideas that you can take back home. And we can help you out developing the curriculum, the activities you want to help hold during the day, or if it's more than one day. And in the case of North America, and Nyla. We're here to help you. So if you reach out to us, we'll gladly share what we have. And we can probably adopted for your community, even Europe, Africa, wherever, wherever you are located. So reach out to us. We're here for the three days, and we'll be at ICANN as well. Thank you.
Great. Can we give one additional round of applause for tripti Oh, thank you, everyone.
