Today marks the official start of the 10-year Review of the World Summit on the Information Society (a.k.a “WSIS+10”) here in New York at the United Nations Headquarters. All year long our policy activities have been building toward this event, and as our President and CEO Kathy Brown wrote yesterday, we are encouraged by the “outcome document” and are looking forward to the discussions this week – and to translating the statements into actions in the months and years ahead.
Our Schedule Today
The main WSIS+10 schedule kicks off with an opening session at 9:00am US Eastern (UTC-5) where our team will be in attendance. During the middle of the day we will also be participating in multiple side events (see the official list) from 13:15 – 14:30:
- Women’s Empowerment in the Digital Age: Implementing WSIS Outcome and Agenda 2030, organized by the ITU – UNHQ Conference Room 6 – Kathy Brown will be speaking
- Building on WSIS+10: Putting Knowledge Societies at the heart of the 2030 Agenda, organized by UNESCO – UNHQ Conference Room 12 – Constance Bommelaer will be speaking (although the UNESCO schedule still shows Kathy Brown as speaking)
We also will have Sally Wentworth attending a third side event:
- Digital Economy and Sustainable Development, organized by ICC-BASIS, AflCTA and the African Union – UNHQ Conference Room A
Based on the “UN Web TV” schedule, we expect that the first two sessions will be streamed live out of New York at:
http://webtv.un.org/live-now/watch/wsis10/
Any events streamed are also typically recorded for later viewing. We do not currently have any information about streaming of the third side event.
Events on Monday
While the WSIS+10 Review formally starts this morning, yesterday was quite an active day of meetings and side events. Our friends over at the GIP Digital Watch have nicely summarized the activities in:
We will also be posting further updates as some of the specific video recordings become available.
Following Along Today
If you would like to follow along as the WSIS+10 events unfold today, you can, as noted above, watch the UN’s live video stream.
You can also follow the “#WSIS10” hashtag on most social networks, including both Twitter and Facebook.
You are of course invited to follow us at @InternetSociety on Twitter and other social networks if you are not already doing so. We’ll be sharing out our views, images and other materials as the day goes on.
I would also suggest visiting our main WSIS page where we have background information, documents, reports and other content that will help you understand what is happening this week in New York.
Now… it’s time to begin!