"NEW DEVELOPMENTS WILL MAKE THE INTERNET MORE CONVENIENT AND EFFICIENT." FIRST NATIONAL INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM STARTED IN MOLDOVA

In Chisinau, the first Moldova Internet Governance Forum (MIGF 2020) was started, which takes place on November 23-24 and has become a platform for an open dialogue of various stakeholder groups: civil society, technical and scientific community, the private sector, government and state institutions.

"Moldova joined the global IGF family in 2020. That is in the year when the coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of digital technologies and the urgent need to enhance the role of such events as a platform for dialogue," said MIGF national coordinator Alexei Marciuc at the opening of the Forum.

According to him, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the role of the Internet in the world has grown suddenly: "The pandemic has become a catalyst for the development of communication services, digital tools for business and education, but at the same time has generated new challenges. In particular, the risks associated cybercrime, dissemination of deliberately false information, personal data leaks."

"All this requires a pooling of efforts and the development of effective methods for using the Internet," said Alexei Marciuc.

Vitalie Tarlev, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, responsible for information and communications technology, welcomed the launch in Moldova of the IGF initiative to support openness and freedom of use of the Internet in Moldova. "We cannot deny a value of the importance of the Internet in a modern society. The Internet now became vital infrastructure, especially in a pandemic crisis," the Secretary of State said.

According to him, Moldova continues to work on creating the necessary market preconditions for the development of Internet access - this is one of the strategic objectives of the Digital Moldova 2020 Strategy. "The participation of community on Forum is important to supervise the process to support the respect of the final users’ rights and for neutrality of the Internet,"accentuated Vitalie Tarlev.

At the opening of the forum, representatives of partner organizations addressed the participants with a welcoming speech. A number of well-known speakers and experts from Moldova, Canada, USA, Netherlands, Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and other countries of the world took part in the four sessions of the first day of MIGF. Some of them participated in the forum from the studio in Digital Park, and some joined the online discussion.

As noted by Vinton Cerf, vice president of Google Corporation, the coming years will probably be the most significant period in the evolution of the Internet. "The Internet still has many areas for development. We have great potential and new developments that, when applied to the Internet, will make it more convenient and efficient than it is today, and will help bring the Internet closer to people around the world," Cerf said.

The MIGF is supported by international partners including ICANN, IGFSA, Internet Society, SecDev Foundation and RIPE NCC. Among the national partners of the forum are the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Technical University of Moldova, Digital Park and private companies in the field of IT technologies and electronic communications: StarNet, RTS, MUK, PaloAlto, Bitdefender, RSD. The Realitatea Media Group broadcasts the event live.