Dear Participant,
It is a pleasure for me to welcome you to the Cyber Dialogue conference in Toronto, Canada from March 18 to 19, 2012. The conference is hosted by the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto with sponsorship by Google, Microsoft, Internet Society (ISOC) and Afilias. Additional support is provided by the Government of Canada, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the SecDev Group.
The first Cyber Dialogue conference was held in 2011 around the theme “Securing the Cyber Commons?”. We aimed to address the challenges of balancing cyber security with respect for democracy, governance, and human rights, and the preservation of cyberspace as an open commons. It attracted over 100 participants from government, civil society, academia and private enterprise. Building on its success, we are pleased to host the second Cyber Dialogue Conference.
This year’s Conference once again convenes an influential mix of global leaders from government, civil society, academia and private enterprise to participate in a facilitated conversation around the question “What is Stewardship in Cyberspace?” Stewardship is widely defined as an ethic of responsible behavior and management of resources, especially in reference to domains that are considered “commons.” The theme thus builds upon and expands last year’s.
Our aim is to offer you a conference that will help develop a richer understanding of stewardship of cyberspace and identify where accountability gaps exist, or where policy adjustments might be advocated, on the basis of real case studies and empirical evidence. It is also our hope that we will help contribute to a broader understanding of cyberspace strategy as a whole for stakeholders from the national security, human rights and private sector communities with a joint stake in these issues.
We will be holding Cyber Dialogue 2013 and welcome suggestions on themes that continue the conversations we started in 2011.
I look forward to the coming two days of richly moderated discussions on these important issues.
With best wishes,
Ronald Deibert
Director
Citizen Lab and Canada Centre for Global Security Studies
Munk School of Global Affairs
University of Toronto