Seed Alliance at IGF Mexico

The Seed Alliance members, FIRE Africa (AFRINIC), FRIDA Program (LACNIC), ISIF Asia (APNIC) will be present at the 2016 Internet Governance Forum, which will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico, on 6-9 December.

During the IGF, the Seed Alliance will organize two workshops, one on cybersecurity and one on innovation and entrepreneurship, hold the Seed Alliance Awards Ceremony, and offer an opportunity to interact with grantees and Award Winners at the Seed Alliance booth in Guadalajara’s Palace of Culture and Communication, home of the Internet Governance Forum.

On Tuesday 6 December, the Seed Alliance will hold its first workshop of the week, which will focus on cybersecurity initiatives developed in and by the Global South. The session will be moderated by Carlos Martínez, LACNIC CTO, and will include noted speakers, all of them cybersecurity experts, including ISOC’s Olaf Kolkmann. This workshop will explore how developing economies are working to address cybersecurity issues, highlighting successful initiatives in their corresponding regions.(https://www.intgovforum.org/cms/igf2016/index.php/proposal/view_public/26).

In this sense, it is worth noting that this year the Seed Alliance included a specific category, funded by the Internet Society, which provided financial support to initiatives seeking to improve Internet security in the region: Protecting the TOR Network against Malicious Traffic in Brazil, BGP Security by RENATA (Colombia’s National Advanced Technology Academic Network) and Developing Tonga National CERT.

  • Prepared by Campinas State University (Brazil), the project for Protecting the TOR Network against Malicious Traffic seeks to implement a solution to the growing malicious code traffic operating over this network.
  • BGP Security by RENATA (Colombia’s National Advanced Technology Academic Network) involves implementing origin validation for BGP routes in RENATA’s network backbone.
  • In the case of the Tonga CERT, the project lead by Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Environment, Climate Change, Information, Communication, Disaster Management (MEIDECC will work on creating the first national CERT in the Pacific region.

Award Winners 2016

On Tuesday 6 November, the Seed Alliance members will also present the 2016 Awards recognizing eight innovative initiatives and practices that have contributed to the region’s social and economic development. These are:

  1. AgriNeTT by the University of West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago)
  2. Mexicoleaks (Mexico);
  3. Restoring Connectivity: Movable and Deployable Resource ICT Unit (MDRU) by CVISNET Foundation (The Philippines);
  4. Towards A Fairer Electoral System: 1 Person, 1 Vote, 1 Value by Tindak (Malaysia);
  5. All Girls Tech Camp by Give1ProjectGambia (The Gambia);
  6. DocmeUP (Ghana);
  7. Kids Comp Camp (Kenia) and
  8. Tobetsa and WiFi TV Extension Project (South Africa).

To conclude, on Friday 9 December, FIRE, FRIDA, ISIF Asia will hold a second workshop on entrepreneurship and innovation in the Global South. This workshop will analyze the challenges innovators and entrepreneurs must face in developing countries and attempt to identify opportunities for Internet innovation in the countries of the Global South.
https://www.intgovforum.org/cms/igf2016/index.php/proposal/view_public/212

Finally, a Seed Alliance booth will be set up at the IGF Village, where FIRE, FRIDA and ISIF Asia Award winners and cybersecurity grant recipients will be available to share with Forum participants.