EURALO Trip Assessment 2 DRAFT

The re:publica is one of the largest and most exciting conferences about digital culture in the world. Since its foundation in 2007, it has grown from a cozy blogger meeting with 700 participants into a wide-ranging “society conference” with 9.000 visitors at the eleventh edition of re:publica 2017 in Berlin. Representatives of digital culture share their knowledge and decision-making tools and discuss the future of the information society. Here they can mingle with artists, activists, scientists, hackers, entrepreneurs, NGOs, journalists, social media and marketing experts and many others. This fosters innovation and creates synergies between net politics, online marketing, network technology, digital
society, and (pop) culture. ( https://18.re-publica.com/en/page/about-republica-2018 )
The re:publica 2018 was a great and well organized event with a very diverse range of participants and topics. The sessions were split in different tracks e.g. Arts & Culture, Research & Education, Politics & Society, Business & Innovation, Media & Journalism, Mobility & City, Science & Technology, Leisure & Lifestyle, re:publica.
This year’s motto was: “POP the filter bubbles step out into the public and make net culture and politics tangible for everyone. POP is an opening-up and an invitation and, because of that, it’s going to be more colourful, more open to discussion and more danceable than ever before!”
Besides the conference there were plenty of side events, meet ups and networking sessions. The re:publica is a real tremendous and stunning event for people who care about the evolution of the Internet and the net culture itself.

Registration and prevent on Tuesday May 1
I arrived on Tuesday May 1 in Berlin, completed the registration process for the event and observed the conference space for a bit. Afterwards, I already had first contacts with potential members and explained them the Internet governance policy engagement opportunities in the multistakeholder ecosystem. Especially, the contribution of EURALO, their role in the ALAC constituency and ICANN’s different engagement programs e. g. NextGen@ICANN program, NextGen@ICANN Ambassador program and the Fellowship program for new interested individuals who want to shape the future of the Internet.

Attended panels on Wednesday May 2
● Welcome everybody - it's re:publica and MEDIA CONVENTION Berlin time! - Tanja Haeusler, Johnny Haeusler,
Markus Beckedahl, Andreas Gebhard, Helge Jürgens, Anja Zimmer
● Opening Keynote: How an Algorithmic World Can Be Undermined - danah boyd
● Blockchain: Digital Identities for Everyone? - Andreas Proksch, Marit Hansen, Andrew Tobin, Franz von Weizsäcker
● Governing the Internet Infrastructure as a Commons - Mirjam Kühne
● Whose Future? Automation anxiety, ecological apocalypse, and the struggle for the future of labor - Peter Frase
● Exploring standards for algorithmic transparency - Andrea Hackl, Laura Reed, Djordje Krivokapic, Vladan Joler
● Who will control Big Data, the currency of the digital age? - Steven Hill, Lena Ulbricht, Matthias Spielkamp,
Annette Mühlberg, Daniel Opper
● Beyond Recognition: Cyberspace’s past, present and future - Wendy Chun
● Mensch und Maschine –wer programmiert wen? - Ranga Yogeshwar
● Commons-based Communities: Viable Alternatives to Digital Capitalism? - Gabriela Sanchez, Jan-Felix Schrape, Leonhard Dobusch, Adriana Groh

Attended panels on Thursday May 3
● Make the GDPR POP! - Reclaiming data rights through citizen education - Karen Melchior, Sonja Zell
● Digital rights defenders under threat: Strategies to resist fear, surveillance and (self-) censorship - Abir Ghattas,
Nighat Dad, Erin Saltman, Andreas Proksch, Lorena Jaume-Palasí
● Fighting for Transparent Conditions For Consumers and Smart Devices - Marilia Monteiro, Gerd Billen, Nicola
Jentzsch, Matthias Spielkamp
● Citizen Science and Environmental Data: Why Everybody beats Anybody - Sean Bonner
In the evening I was invited to a networking event of Amnesty International and met people from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wikimedia, Tactical Technology Collective and informed them about EURALO’s engagement opportunities and the policy focus of our region.
Attended panels on Friday May 4
● Building a sustainable information ecosystem for human rights and democracy - Rebecca MacKinnon
● Equitable Pioneers for the Digital Economy - Trebor Scholz
● Bots, Mobs und Flags: YouTube manipulieren für Anfänger - Christoph Krachten, Tabea Rößner, Younes Al-Amayra
Daniel Budiman, Rayk Anders
● The Krypto Economy: Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble - Andrea Bauer
● An approach to adversarial research - Surya Mattu
● When Spies Come Home: Inside the Consumer Spyware Industry - Joseph Cox, Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai
● 42. warum wir nach fragen, nicht nur nach antworten suchen müssen - Felix Schwenzel

One of my preferred panels was “Make the GDPR POP! - Reclaiming data rights through citizen education” where we were split up into four groups, went around four stations and each station had one question to work on. Afterwards every group had to present their citizen education ideas.

In my opinion there is a big range of diverse and driven people who are interested in Internet related topics who could be potentially recruited as EURALO members.

In future, I would highly suggest presenting a short session about EURALO’s work and ICANN’s engagement programs to inform participants properly. Eventually, a good thing would be also to prepare some giveaways and additional information material for fascinated people to give them a deeper understanding and great outreach result.

Nevertheless, I think it was a great outreach and I talked to a lot of younger and also older interested Internet users.