The Internet Society provides leadership in addressing issues that confront the future of the Internet, and is the organisational home for the groups responsible for Internet infrastructure standards, including the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
Discover Today's Internet Society. Read ISOC's brochure...
The Internet Society acts not only as a global clearinghouse for Internet information and education but also as a facilitator and coordinator of Internet-related initiatives around the world. For over 15 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time.
The Internet Society has more than 80 organisational and more than 28,000 individual members in over 90 chapters around the world. ISOC has also created regional bureaus to better serve the regional Internet community. The Latin American and Caribbean bureau is located in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the African bureau in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and the South and Southeast Asian bureau in Suva, Fiji.
Through its sponsored events, developing-country training workshops, tutorials, public policy, and regional and local chapters, the Internet Society serves the needs of the growing global Internet community. From commerce to education to social issues, our goal is to enhance the availability and utility of the Internet on the widest possible scale.
The Society's individual and organisation members are bound by a common stake in maintaining the viability and global scaling of the Internet. They comprise the companies, government agencies, and foundations that have created the Internet and its technologies as well as innovative new entrepreneurial organisations contributing to maintain that dynamic. Visit their home pages to see how Internet innovators are creatively using the network.
At the start of 2008, ISOC launched a set of longer term, strategic activities, called "initiatives". The initiatives which will drive ISOC's activities in 2008-2010 are:
Access Initiative
This initiative focuses on enabling access to the Internet by addressing the fundamental impediments to Internet growth and usability.
Technical Capacity BuildingFor the Internet to grow and be sustainable, network operators need the technical capacity necessary to build, maintain, and protect networks, as well as make informed choices about new infrastructure implementations and methodologies. With Internet technology changing rapidly, capacity building needs to be an ongoing process and local information-sharing mechanisms must be in place to sustain knowledge transfer beyond classroom trainings. ISOC’s technical capacity building program goals are to:
Train network operators on basic and advanced internetworking skills and techniques,
Build regional and functional operator communities that can maximise knowledge, experience, and skills transfer and problem solving, and
Foster technical leadership within communities that sustain and advance local capacity and more fully participate in regional and global Internet technical and governance forums.
Policy, Regulation, and the Access EnvironmentRegulatory impediments to internetworking, onerous licensing requirements and other regulatory and policy factors can slow or prevent Internet growth. ISOC’s goals for the Policy, Regulation, and the Access Environment program are to:
Encourage policymakers at the national and international levels to adopt ICT policies and positions that promote the expansion and reach of Internet infrastructure on a national and global basis.
Facilitate the elimination or revision of national Internet and telecommunications regulatory impediments to Internet growth.
Educate policymakers on contemporary Internet issues in order to promote sound decision making.
Educate policymakers and regulators on the broader economic/market and social factors that impact Internet development.
Enabling Access for Under-served CommunitiesUnder-served communities – including people that use non-Latin language scripts, people with disabilities, and geographically remote and dispersed communities – face additional challenges in accessing the Internet. ISOC will work towards enabling access to the Internet by under-served communities with goals to:
Advance the development and distribution of technologies that support the use non-Latin language scripts on the Internet (in a manner that upholds the overall end-to-end connectivity of the network).
Advance the development of technologies and the business case for facilitating the use of the Internet by people with disabilities.
Educate policymakers and industry on the challenges, needs, technologies, and opportunities of increasing Internet access to these communities.
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