EU consultation on the future of the internet
So far in our articles highlighting open consultations in which you can take part and influence decision-making, we have included examples from industry, district council, county council and national government. Today, we bring you a European Union consultation on the "Next Generation Internet". As the consultation page states: "The Internet has many diverse stakeholders from the research, technical and business communities, but the views of citizens and the civil society deserve more attention. We believe it is the right time to take a fresh look, with a broad and inclusive perspective."
With 615 million internet users, the EU is the world's single largest online market. This consultation is designed to find out what we want to see from the internet in the future - the views of ordinary people (identified in the consultation as "civil society"), not solely official representations from business or technology interests. All aspects of the internet are included, from networks and technologies to services and applications, socio-economic innovation, and policies over the internet's usage and development.
The first part of the survey is quite general, but the later questions focused on technology areas are more technical (and optional - the instructions state that you do not have to reply to all areas). They cover the "Internet of Things", ways of interacting with technology, personal data privacy, distributed architecture, software technology, network protocols and artificial intelligence, with the option of adding other technological areas that you consider important but that are not included elsewhere. You are also asked to comment, in very general terms, on the broad type of research you think is needed and who should be doing it.
If you want to take part, go to the online consultation and complete it by the deadline of 9th January 2017.
Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/next-generation-internet-initiative [accessed 11 December 2016]
https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/NGI [accessed 11 December 2016]