The first African Internet Governance Summer School in Durban kicked off on 9th July 2013 with an introductory dinner. The diversity of participants, presenters and facilitators across Africa and the world was amazing.
Presenters with rich knowledge on Internet Governance were lined up from Nepad, ICANN (NCUC), Afrinic, APC, Afilias, CGI.br, University of Aarhus, and University of Zuric among others.
On day two, participants volunteered to role-play by belonging to different stakeholder groups of either Civil society, Government, Media, Private sector, Academia, and Technical community, where they were expected to develop a policy document of an IG topic of their choice. During plenary, the stakeholder groups worked hard to undo the policy documents of the opposing side until consensus was reached on the policy documents presented by each stakeholder group. The moderators and Chairman were keen to control the Stakeholders who had heated debates.
The networking opportunity for the school was great with participants mingling freely and exchanging ideas, information, and lessons learned on IG issues from their respective regions.