Australian Internet – governance community moving forward

Updates

Blog post: What to Make of the Inaugural NetThing 2019

By Quoc Pham,Senior Product Manager at Neustar Registry Solutions, CircleID, Dec 02, 2019 From the article: NetThing 2019 felt like an...

Protest banner writing says #Save Our Internet

Updates

From the Media: The Australian Internet Community Says The Government Isn’t Listening

By Cameron Wilson, BuzzFeed, October 29, 2019. At the very first panel of a brand new event hoping to bring the...

Updates

In the Media: Cyber Security Strategy 2020: Civil society experts slam ‘national security’ agenda

By Stilgherrian for The Full Tilt, ZDNet, October 29, 2019. From the article: "The Australian government needs to drop the "national...

Welcome to NetThing

NetThing is the renewal of an annual forum to strengthen Australia’s Internet community, and consists of robust Australia-based Internet policy exploration and discussion. Over time we aim to become the re-birthed, reinvigorated Australian connection to the Internet Governance Forum.

This annual forum will focus on:

- Building a diverse and inclusive Internet community in Australia.
- Exploring national and international Internet governance policy issues.
- Sharing technical expertise and policy understanding in a way that people with less technical experience can understand and relate to.
- Acting as an apolitical and non-partisan forum advocating the benefits of the Internet and related services and technologies.

It functions as a symposium where a diversity of views and perspectives are shared but will not itself seek to formulate final positions or make decisions.

Outcomes for participants

- Acts as a forum for individuals, community groups, industry leaders, government representatives, academics, students, media – all Internet users –to discuss Internet-related issues in Australia together in a connected and collaborative way.
- Insights and knowledge gained inform your respective communities and networks.
- Insights and knowledge gained inform and build towards regional and national initiatives global initiatives (IGF World Forum).

Internet community matters

Join us in building a diverse and inclusive Internet governance community in Australia. The voice of Australians in shaping our Internet is important for our future

Who is NetThing (auIGF) for?

It’s for individuals, community groups, industry leaders, government representatives, academics, students, media – all Internet users. For you.

Internet matters

The Internet shapes many aspects of our lives in real and profound ways. Policy, technology, and rights matter.

You don’t need to be tech

Let’s share technical expertise and policy in a way that we can all understand, relate to, and talk about – regardless of technical experience

Apolitical and non-partisan

We don’t have a political agenda, we just want everyone to understand and feel empowered to speak to national and international Internet governance policy issues

Built by community

NetThing (auIGF) is run by a core of committed volunteers and a number of organisations that believe that having people at the centre of the Internet matters

Sandra Davey

Chair of the NetThing Steering Committee. Sandra has worked tirelessly to bring together a team of people who care deeply about Internet governance and the future of the Internet in Australia, so we can all collectively come together and learn and share on this day!

Dr Tobias Feakin

Dr Tobias Feakin is Australia’s inaugural Ambassador for Cyber Affairs. He leads Australia’s Whole of Government international engagement to advance and protect Australia’s national security, foreign policy, economic and trade, and development interests in the internet and in cyberspace.

Ian Peter

Ian Peter has extensive experience with Internet usage in the Asian Pacific region dating from 1986. Ian has been one of the founders of Internet civil society movements in Australia, actively advocating for citizens involvement in internet issues.

Lizzie O’Shea

Lawyer, writer, and broadcaster. Her commentary is featured regularly on national television programs and radio, in her expertise of law, digital technology, corporate responsibility, or human rights.

Samantha Yorke

Sam works in Public Policy and Government Affairs at Google Australia, with a focus on privacy, safety and security. She is an accredited mediator, technology lawyer and policy advisor with twenty years experience working within the digital media and technology sectors both in Europe and Australia.

John Stanton

John Stanton is the Chief Executive Officer of Communications Alliance. He is a seasoned communications industry executive with over 18 years of experience.

Willem van Ketwich

Senior Developer at ThoughtWorks and is on the Policy Committee at Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA).

Rupert Taylor-Price

Rupert Taylor-Price is the Founder and Chief Executive Office of Vault. Rupert founded Vault in 2012 driven by his strong desire to improve citizen’s lives through government.

Holly Raiche

Holly has an MA and an LLB, is a non-practicing Solicitor in New South Wales. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Law Faculty of UNSW, where she teaches Communications Law, and is also lectures at the Department of Media and Communications at Sydney University in Internet Cultures and Governance.

Sam Dickinson photo holding sign that says observer

Samantha Dickinson

Sam is a writer and Internet governance consultant with expertise in analyzing and explaining Internet-related issues under discussion at ICANN and at intergovernmental forums.

Bronwyn Mercer

Bronwyn was a 2017 Youth Ambassador to the Geneva IGF. Bronwyn works as a cyber security analyst in the banking industry.

Bruce Tonkin

Bruce has been involved with the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet via ICCAN since 2001. He has been an active participant in policy development for the .au ccTLD, and is the current COO of AuDA.

Dr Heron Loban

Dr Heron Loban is a Torres Strait Islander woman with family connections to Mabuiag and Boigu. Dr Loban is an academic, lawyer and expert in consumer protection. As a lawyer she practiced in commercial law, native title law and criminal law, though now works as a Senior Lecturer in law at Griffith University in Brisbane.

Gunela Astbrink

Active in disability policy, program and research for over 25 years and brings this experience to Internet governance. Gunela has organised workshops and spoken at national, regional and global IGFs.

Julian Thomas image giving a presentation

Professor Julian Thomas

Director of the Technology, Communication and Policy Lab at the Digital Ethnography Research Centre at RMIT University. Professor Thomas develops and publishes the annual Australian Digital Inclusion Index.

Inga Pflaumer

An Indie game developer, devops and systems analyst at SMG Studio, organiser of Women In Game Development Sydney meetup group, Sydney Unity GameDev meetup group and Get That Game Done group.

George Fong

George has more than 30 years of experience in the ICT sector, particularly in the development and implementation of regionally based ICT projects and strategies.

Wayne Hawkins

The Director of Inclusion with the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).

Paul Wilson

Paul Wilson has nearly 30 years’ involvement with the Internet, including 20 years as the head of APNIC, the Regional Internet address Registry for the Asia Pacific. He’s has led APNIC’s development as a provider of critical Internet services and as a key contributor to Internet growth and development throughout the Asia Pacific.

Annaliese Williams

Annaliese Williams is the Director of Internet Governance at the federal Department of Communications and the Arts. She is responsible for domestic and international internet governance and has represented the Australian Government at major international meetings including the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the International Telecommunications Union and the Internet Governance Forum.

Samantha Dickinson

Sam is a writer and Internet governance consultant with expertise in analyzing and explaining Internet-related issues under discussion at ICANN and at intergovernmental forums.

Caroline Fritsch

Caroline is the Manager Policy and Strategy at Australia’s country code Top Level Domain Administrator. She is passionate about industry and the Australian community being involved in shaping the development and implementation of regulatory frameworks.

Adam Gosling

Adam worked at the coal face of multi-stakeholder Internet Governance overseeing the development of IP address policy for the Asia Pacific region and tracking intergovernmental negotiations at the ITU for many years. He counts surviving the WCIT as a ‘Rite of Passage’.

Joseph McCarroll

Joe is Acting Director of the team at the Department of Communications and the Arts that leads engagement in the International Telecommunication Union, the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Telecommunications and Information Working Group.

Vanessa Teague

Vanessa is an Associate Professor in cybersecurity at The University of Melbourne. Vanessa is an expert in the security of electronic voting, and known for her work on secret sharing, cryptographic protocols.

Lucie Krahulcova

Lucie is the Asia Policy Analyst at Access Now, based out of Melbourne. She supports the growing policy work of the Asia Pacific team. Her key expertise is in export controls and surveillance trade, cybersecurity, data retention, encryption, and Net Neutrality.

Matt Tett

Matt Tett is the Managing Director of Enex TestLab. Matt is well known globally across industry and government as a highly technical straight shooter. Effectively translating complex technology to the lay-person. He is also chair of IoT Alliance Australia (IoTAA).

Geoff Gerrand

Geoff is a principal regulatory advisor in Telstra’s Corporate Affairs division, advising on the legislative obligations for the structural separation of Telstra.

Sandra Davey

Sarah Kirkby

Co-founder of ProductSpace, Sarah has over 12 years of experience working with digital products and services, across industries including media, e-commerce, software, public sector and Adtech.

Erin Turner

Erin leads CHOICE’s Campaigns and Communications Department which fights to keep industry and government accountable and achieve real change for Australian consumers.

Angus Murray

Angus is a partner at law firm Irish Bentley Lawyers, Vice President of the Queensland Council of Civil Liberties, the Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia’s Policy and Research Committee and Co-Founder of the Legal Forecast.

Sam Floreani

As Code Like a Girl’s State Director of Victoria, Board Member of the Australian Privacy Foundation and aspiring Data Scientist, Sam is all about information privacy, gender equality and the data that brings it all together.

Pia Andrews

Pia Andrews is an open government and data ninja who has been working in making the world a better place for 20 years. Pia believes that tech culture has a huge role to play in achieving better policy planning, outcomes, public engagement and a better public service all round.

Mike Chisnall

Digital Slavery – Time for Abolition? is the title of Mike’s most recent article. Mike has been a senior executive with the ACT Government, he undertakes research in socio-technology at the University of Canberra’s Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis (IGPA) and is a digital consultant.

Johanna Weaver

Johanna is Special Adviser to Australia’s Ambassador for Cyber Affairs and Australia’s representative to the United National Group of Governmental Experts on cyber.

Bart Hogeveen

Bart is an Analyst working with the International Cyber Policy Centre, at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Jordan Carter

Jordan Carter is Chief Executive of InternetNZ. Jordan is internationally respected for his expertise and leadership in internet governance processes. Recently, he played an influential role in the Christchurch Call to Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online, co-led by the New Zealand and French Governments.

Jenna Price

Jenna Price is a Fairfax columnist, and an academic at the University of Technology Sydney.

Tim Lo Surdo

Tim is the founder and national director for Democracy in Colour. Tim has extensive experience as a campaigner, including leadership roles at Oaktree and Jhatkaa (India’s equivalent of GetUp!), he co-founded Open Sky – one of India’s most well-known performance art communities.

Sonia Sharma

Sonia has wide ranging experience advising on technology, cyber and telecommunication with Maddocks. As a lawyer with previous experience as an Editor in the music industry, Sonia brings a unique focus to dealing with legal issues and risks associated with data, information, technology and content.

James Penprase

James is an Assistant Secretary at the Department of Communications and the Arts with responsibility for digital platforms and online safety. Over the last decade he has worked in a range of roles in relation to media and communications policy, including the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry and the reform of media regulation.