For the past 28 years, the Internet Society has been home to a global community driven by a common idea: when people get access to the Internet, amazing things happen. They can share ideas, build communities, connect to education opportunities, improve health outcomes, and more. The Internet has become a force for positive social and economic change.

Over our nearly three-decade-long history, there has been significant progress toward reaching our goal of an open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy Internet available to everyone. In 1992, the year the Internet Society was founded, there were fewer than 14 million Internet users. By the end of 2019, more than half of the world’s population – 4.1 billion people – were online. Governments around the world have embraced the Internet, realizing the opportunities it provides for education, entrepreneurship, employment, and access to healthcare, as well as language and culture preservation and promotion.

The Internet Society has a long history with some of the projects we discuss in this report. We’ve been involved with community networks and IXPs for many years. Others, like routing security and encryption, are more recent areas of activity for us. That said, all of these projects have something in common: a sense of urgency to act. Our work to grow and strengthen the Internet is more important now than ever. Nearly 3.5 billion people remain offline. The Internet is under threat by governments around the world, who increasingly do not view it as a force for good. And online misinformation, election interference, and use of the Internet for criminal activity are contributing to declining trust in the Internet.