Internet Society Board of Trustees Statement on updated Mission and 2018 Action Plan

ISOC logoAt the conclusion of its meeting in Singapore on November 17-19, 2017, the Internet Society Board of Trustees released the following statement:

The Internet Society Board of Trustees congratulates our staff, our Chapters, and all of our members for coming together during the Internet Society’s 25th anniversary year to celebrate the past and to shape the future. This has been an important year with many accomplishments, including the global InterCommunity event held in September, which connected people from around the world and shone a spotlight on our work together. We believe this past year has set a foundation for the Internet Society to be an even more effective community and organisation going forward.

To prepare for the future, the Board — in consultation with the wider Internet Society community — refreshed our time-honoured and tested vision and mission statements. We believe the robust dialogue about our shared aspirations and goals reflected the passion and commitment of our community, and resulted in a reinvigorated statement of our vision and mission, consistent with our original commitment to an Internet that is for everyone. The updated Internet Society Mission Statement that we approved at our meeting is as follows:

The Internet Society supports and promotes the development of the Internet as a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives, and a force for good in society.

Our work aligns with our goals for the Internet to be open, globally-connected, secure, and trustworthy. We seek collaboration with all who share these goals.

Together, we focus on:

  • Building and supporting the communities that make the Internet work;
  • Advancing the development and application of Internet infrastructure, technologies, and open standards; and
  • Advocating for policy that is consistent with our view of the Internet.

We also approved the organisation’s 2018 Action Plan, which focuses people and resources on innovative ways to make a difference in:

  1. assuring Internet access for the hardest to reach places on the globe;
  2. addressing security challenges emerging from the growing Internet of Things;
  3. strengthening the global Internet’s routing system; and
  4. promoting collaborative governance as tool to address a range important issues.

We also strongly agree with the 2018 Action Plan’s emphases on building a strengthened global Internet Society community and organisation, and on fostering key new initiatives that amplify the organisation’s ability to bring about change.

Finally, and importantly, as we work to #shapetomorrow and keep the Internet Society’s commitment to openness, transparency, and community-driven processes, we began exploring how to allocate the people, resources, and energies of the Internet Society for the future.

We agreed to work through a strategy for long term sustainability and impact. The Internet Society’s 2017 Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future, created through an extensive process of input from our community and beyond, will serve as a starting point for further dialogue to create a future-looking plan for addressing emerging issues of concern to our community.

It has been an eventful year, and we look forward to building on it in the coming years. We want to applaud our committed staff and its leadership for the good work they do every day to ensure that the Internet is for everyone.

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