The Next Generation Internet Summit took place at the 6 and 7 June 2017 at the European Parliament. It was a very relevant and timely event focusing on internet trends with views from civil society, internet pioneers, researchers, industry, artists and decision makers from Europe, Asia and the US.
An overall summary of the main outcomes of this summit: The future internet must reflect better European values such as openness, privacy, security, diversity, inclusiveness and a level playing field for all. It must address the real concerns among citizens, such as lack of trust, lock-in effects and lack of choice, as well as a lack of respect for. Those concerns have been confirmed by the citizens campaign ran by a wide range of media companies in preparation of this NGI Summit (see the draft report).
“The next generation internet must be more than the Internet of things.
It must be the Internet of values.”
First Vice-President Frans Timmermans at the NGI Summit
Currently, the users’ fear focuses especially on job losses, fake news, undue influence over the democratic process, unwanted exploitation of privacy, uncontrolled shared economy, hate speech, radicalisation, lack of inclusiveness are some of the negative effects in our increasingly connected digital world. And nearly 80% of the respondents of the citizens campaign consider important limiting the increasing power of dominant platforms aggregating data.
These outcomes show that now it is the time to elaborate the open and continuous discussion with the key actors and all Member States to shape our future internet – therefore the European Commission launched the Next Generation Internet initiative. Please follow the NGI ongoing discussions and developments on @NGI4eu and join the conversations on Futurium.
– Report from Nicole Muessigmann, European Commission
