NPOC Trip Assessment 2

I attended the tenth EuroDIG in Tallinn between the 4th and the 7th, representing NPOC. We decided to cancel our pre-event there and because the CROPP funding was only for one person accommodating, I didn't feel comfortable organising it all by myself, even though Estonia is a fairly familiar territory for me.

On the fourth of June, I took a tram and a boat and then tram again, to get to my hotel in Tallinn from my home in Helsinki. The travel cost ICANN 119€, which included a buffet on the boat, both ways. ICANN travel agency suggested to get plane tickets, which would've been slower, less comfortable and more expensive. Door to door, my trip took about three hours to reach Swissotel, the best hotel in Estonia, which also happened to be the location for the EuroDIG.

At the hotel, I had received a delivery: brand new NPOC brochures that I ordered from an Estonian printing service. 500 brochures including delivery, for 156€.

Same night I met the Copyfighters in a restaurant in the center of Tallinn and had a pleasant evening with some discussions on copyright while enjoying some of the local festivities. Quite a few of them were from various Pirate Parties from around Europe, if not all of them, and among them was a good delegation from Finland, too.

Each year young people (18-30 years old) residing in all European countries are encouraged to proactively represent the European youth throughout the EuroDIG process. This year there were two pre-events: YOUthDIG and Copyfighters.

On the fifth, I went for lunch with Jesse Järvi and Tapani Tarvainen and were discussing Jesse joining NPOC as an Effi representative. In the afternoon, I joined William Drake's session on "Forced data localization and barriers to cross-border data flows: Toward a multistakeholder approach" which was a very interesting presentation on the current stage of internet fragmentation.

On the morning of the sixth, I set up NPOC's flyers on the ICANN desk and was manning the desk until Estonia's president gave her welcoming address. After that it was Lithuania's president's turn and then the secretary general of EuroDIG. The atmosphere was very upbeat, even though the place itself was much smaller than in Brussels the previous year. https://livestream.com/accounts/12493954/events/7461355/videos/157645246[livestream.com]

After that, I was sitting at the ICANN desk, pretty much until lunch, albeit catching a small glimpse of the discussion presented by Tatiana Tropina, on "Alice in wonderland – mapping the cybersecurity landscape in Europe and beyond"https://livestream.com/accounts/12493954/events/7461355/videos/157645246[livestream.com]

After lunch, I went to see "Community connectivity – Empowering the unconnected" https://livestream.com/accounts/12493954/events/7461527/videos/157650822[livestream.com] which was presented by Luca Belli, who I've worked with the community connectivity issues in the IGF as well as RightsCon as a panelist and a moderator, respectively. We will most probably meet again in the Geneva IGF and I'm also doing a website for the DC3, that was kicked off in the Guadalajara IGF. DC3 stands for Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity and it aims to connect "the next billion" building network infrastructure by the community, for the community.

I also attended the speech of the Norwegian prime minister https://livestream.com/accounts/12493954/events/7461355/videos/157653490[livestream.com] and a very interesting discussion after it, in the "Internet in the “post-truth” era?" - discussion. I also had a nice encounter with one of the panelists, Jessikka Aro, who is a Finnish reporter and is being targeted by Putin's troll armies for exposing some of their propaganda and financial connections. We continued the discussion at the official EuroDIG party.

On the seventh, I was staying at the ICANN desk again. Had a fair amount of people coming for a chat and started to realise that I'm starting to get familiar with ICANN and could actually answer most of the questions straight off the bat.

The most interesting session in the whole of EuroDIG was Michael Oghia's presentation on "Drowning in data – Digital pollution, green IT, and sustainable access" https://livestream.com/accounts/12493954/events/7461536/videos/157705971[livestream.com] Before I left for the Open Knowledge Estonia's reception a few kilometers off, I still had time to watch Göran Marbys speech towards the end of the day.