The Internet is a fundamental component of economic, social, and political life around the world. It currently connects more than three billion people, and it is estimated that 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. The stable and flexible functioning of the Internet is increasingly important for developed, emerging, and developing countries and their citizens.
The governance of this ecosystem has long been the concern of a selected group of stakeholders, but the number of interested parties, both state and non-state stakeholders, is increasing as global connectivity spreads. Internet Governance is a contested topic, where the Middle East and Adjoining Countries School on Internet Governance (MEAC-SIG) will try to offer understanding, framing, and actions to be taken in this Internet governance current environment. It will offer potential governance scenarios and analyse its international, regional and national political, economical and technical implications.
MEAC-SIG aims at stimulating the MEAC regional Internet community and ensure effective participation in regional and global Internet Governance fora.
The MEAC-SIG will help individuals from the Middle East and Adjoining Countries [1] to better understand the global and regional Internet Governance issues, settings and processes while gaining access to comprehensive and structured knowledge on the various aspects of Internet Governance, and the actors, issues and settings surrounding it.
The MEAC-SIG will offer a 5-day intensive learning course spanning five tracks. The course will cover the political, legal, economic, socio-cultural, technological and other dimensions of the Internet Governance (e.g. academia and research) within the context of the MEAC regional imperatives. The program is expected to carry theoretical sessions, role-plays, and participants engagement activities.
The MEAC-SIG program intends to continue community development by creating an alumni network and have students engage in ICANN, ISOC, IGF, Arab IGF and other relevant regional activities and fora. Those involved will ensure that the MEAC-SIG program is rotated on yearly basis to various countries of the region.
We are inviting Academia and Research, Civil Society and NGOs, Government and Public Sector, Technical Community, in addition to the Private Sector and Businesses from the Middle East and Adjoining Countries to take this unique opportunity to attend taking into consideration the limited seats available.
The window for applying to attend the school is now closed.
The first edition of the MEAC-SIG took place in Kuwait during May 25-29, 2014 with a generous invitation and host from the Kuwait Information Technology Society (KITS). More can be found at MEAC-SIG 2014.
The second edition of the MEAC-SIG took place in Tunis Gammarth, Tunisia during May 25-29, 2015 with a generous invitation and host from the ISOC Tunisia Chapter. More can be found at MEAC-SIG 2015.
The third edition of the MEAC-SIG took place in Beirut, Lebanon during 8-12 August 2016 with a generous host from Social Media Exchange (SMEX). More can be found at MEAC-SIG 2016.
Nic.tr (".tr" Domain Names) Administration has been registering second level ".tr" domain names since 1991 within Middle East Technical University, which had provided internet connection to the country for the first time with the guidance of IANA and ICANN. Nic.tr Administration is currently located in METU Campus - Informatics Institute. It is a full member of CENTR since 2007 and attends to international working groups and meetings regularly. Along with domain name registration and administration, Nic.tr also organizes trainings about the issues like DNS Security and internet governance with the participation of people from different institutions and countries. Nic.tr also hosts some international activities from time to time, such as Menog (2016) or Meac-Sig (2017).
Nic.tr strives to provide the very best in technology and quality and adopts an objective, active, innovative and a non-discriminatory approach that puts public's interest first. Nic.tr continues to put the foregoing description of its mission into practise with an increasing service quality through its experienced and knowledgeable staff and high quality technical equipment in accordance with the socio-cultural conditions of the country.
Middle East Technical University
Ankara, Turkey
Google Maps (here)
You can download the guide here (PDF)
For further reading, folks are encouraged to read/watch content found at the following links:
For any questions or inquiries, please write to the MEAC-SIG 2017 Steering Committee at meac-sig-sc [at] icann [dot] org .
Agenda can be found here (PDF)
Video recordings of the different sessions can be found on YouTube (here)
[1] The MEAC Region covers the 22 Arab States, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.