On 19 May 2025, Sally Wentworth spoke remotely to the 2025 South School on Internet Governance (SSIG) in Mexico City.
Hello! I am Sally Wentworth, President and CEO of the Internet Society and the Internet Society Foundation, and it is my great pleasure to speak to you all as part of this South School on Internet Governance. It is also always a pleasure to follow Vint Cerf, one of the founding members of the Internet Society back in 1992.
In 2003 I was a bit like many of you – brand new to the Internet space. I had graduated with a Masters degree in International Political Economy and I was early in my career as a Senior Policy Advisor for the US Department of State.
But that year I was part of something extraordinary. The governments of the world convened in Geneva for the first part of what was called the World Summit on the Information Society or more simply “WSIS”. It was convened by the UN because it was clear that our society was moving into a new age where the flow of information was changing the world. And it was clear then – as it is still sadly today – that there was a great inequity between those who had access and those who did not. The “digital divide” between developed and developing countries… between urban and rural… between rich and poor was understood to be one of the great challenges of the digital age. The world was also grappling with the question of who should control or govern the Internet? Was the Internet like traditional telecommunications technologies or was it something new, something for which a new governance model was needed?
That first Summit in 2003 in Geneva adopted a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of Action for creating an information society.
This was followed in 2005 by a second WSIS Summit in Tunis, Tunisia, which adopted the “Tunis Agenda” a document that included action lines and a framework for how we would work together globally to build a truly inclusive information society. As a young diplomat, it was an amazing time because this was really where the global consensus on what we now call “Internet governance” was forged.
And as part of this large gathering of the governments of the world, something remarkable emerged – the admission that the future of the “Information Society” must be shaped by ALL of those who are part of it. Not only governments, but also businesses, civil society groups, universities, the technical community, nonprofits… and just regular people. All of us have a stake in the Internet’s future – and the Internet Governance Forum or “IGF” was created as a place for all stakeholders to gather.
And here we are, twenty years later, in the midst of what we call the “WSIS+20 Review”. The global community is evaluating our progress in achieving the aims of the World Summit on the Information Society and charting out a vision for the next decade.
If you are doing anything in global Internet governance in 2025, this is the conversation.
A Vision
But before we can really have that “review” of these particular UN documents and actions, we need to step back and ask ourselves a critical question – what is our vision for the Internet we want?
Over the past years I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many different people about what they want for the Internet and some common themes emerge.
Here are five that are critical.
First, there must be Internet. The fact that 1/3 of the world’s population, nearly 2.6 billion people, still does not have access to the Internet in 2025 is a terrible injustice. As increasingly everything we do is done online, and with so many advances happening in worlds such as artificial intelligence, it is simply unacceptable that we are leaving people behind.
Second, Internet connectivity must be affordable and accessible to everyone. It does no good to run a fiber connection in front of someone’s home, or to give them a satellite dish or a mobile phone, if they cannot afford to pay for the connectivity. According to the ITU, a smartphone can cost up to 40 percent of average monthly income in some countries. And mobile Internet is 14 times more expensive in Africa than in Europe.
And it must work for everyone, including people with disabilities. Around 15% of the world’s population has a disability of some kind. A truly inclusive information society means that persons with disabilities can acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services within the same timeframe as individuals without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use.
And, content and services should be accessible in a person’s native language so that they can fully engage and interact online. Despite the existence of roughly 7,000 languages and dialects worldwide, only about ten languages dominate the Internet, so there is a lot of work to do.
Third, Internet connectivity must be reliable and resilient. We speak of “Internet resilience” as the ability to maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of challenges to normal operation. Interestingly, in 2025, we’ve seen more disruptions of Internet connectivity from large power outages than we have from government shutdowns. So, investing in resilient infrastructure is essential.
Fourth, a person’s Internet experience must be safe and secure. People need to be able to trust that the information they share online is protected from criminals or others with malicious intent. They need to be able to share information confidentially, and to have some protections from fraud.
Finally, people want the ability to share their ideas and services with the world. People don’t want to just consume content from large media sites or tech platforms. They want to be able to bring their ideas to the world. The success of the Internet over the past 50 years is due to what we call “permissionless innovation”. Tim Berners-Lee did not have to ask anyone to launch the World-Wide Web. Jeff Bezos did not have to ask permission before he launched Amazon online to sell books. Marcos Galperin did not have to get permission when he created the Mercado Libre online marketplace.
The strength of the Internet is that the next great idea or service could come out of someone in Mexico or Panama or Uruguay. No one has to ask permission. They can just bring their ideas to the world.
And this is so critical right now because around the world we see people seeking to put restrictions on that kind of global sharing. Governments speak of “sovereignty” and wanting to impose borders on the borderless Internet. We need to push back on this. We need to remind governments that the success of their digital economies is because of this permissionless innovation.
This is the Internet we want.
Affordable. Accessible. Multilingual.
Reliable. Resilient. Permissionless.
Safe. Secure. Multistakeholder.
And a force for good in our society.
This is OUR Internet. This is the Internet FOR everyone.
So How Do We Get There?
So how do we get there? How do we get to that Internet we want?
Many of the building blocks are already in place.
The Internet today is built on the voluntary open standards created by organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force, the “IETF”. Those open standards – built not by governments or mega-corporations, but by anyone who wants to be involved – create the foundation upon which all online world is based. These are critical, and we must continue to support their development and ensure policies support the use and growth of open standards.
Connecting the remaining 2.6 billion people in the world is a definite challenge. All the “easy” connections have been made. The remaining connectivity gaps are often in rural and remote areas, impacting vulnerable or marginalized populations.
But we’ve seen an example that works – “community-centered connectivity”.
In this model, a local community working with experts from the Internet Society or APC or others determine a sustainable business model that works for them. The local community gets trained to ensure that they have the technical skills necessary to build and maintain the networks over the long run.
It is also important that government policies and regulations support community networks. Finally, it’s essential that the local experts are connected to and technical communities in their region in order to ensure the connectivity is sustainable and keeps growing.
We have seen this work right here in Mexico with multiple indigenous communities in the Oaxaca region. We have seen this work in the Gaba gaba community network in Papua New Guinea and Waimanalo community in Hawaii. We have seen this work in the Khunde community on the slopes of Mount Everest in Nepal, and in hundreds of other communities around the world.
It is our belief that, with the right support and training, local communities can connect themselves to the Internet, maintain that connectivity, and, in the long run, defend that connectivity.
They know what to do when it breaks.
It is not easy. It is not quick.
But it works.
And we are committing over $30 million dollars over the next five years to bring this model to more places across the world.
This is a key part of affordability, reliability, and resilience.
Another building block is the core infrastructure that ensures that local connectivity is both resilient and affordable. The Internet is a global network of networks, and right now there are over 70,000 networks that interconnect to form this “Internet” of ours. But sometimes those connections happen in strange ways.
For example, there was a time when an email sent by one user on one network in Mexico City would actually travel to the US before coming back to Mexico City to reach the destination on a different network.
As you can imagine, this adds complexity, increases costs and lowers resilience.
The solution is for network operators to agree to connect to each other at an Internet Exchange Point, what the technical community calls “peering”, and agreeing to share traffic. This keeps traffic local, makes it more affordable, more reliable, and more resilient.
Our Pulse website indicates there are now eight IXPs across Mexico, which is excellent to see. This investment and support for IXPs should make the Internet in Mexico more resilient and more affordable. This weaving together of the local networks is critical to achieving the Internet we want.
A critical building block for a safe and secure Internet is encryption.
From when we wake up in the morning to when we go to bed at night, we rely on encryption every day. It safeguards the personal security of billions of people around the world and the national security of countries everywhere. Whether it’s our private messages, online banking, air traffic control, medical data, or e-voting, our online information must be protected against eavesdropping and tampering. Unfortunately, we see policy proposals emerging all across the globe that would compromise encryption and undermine the security and privacy of citizens, companies, and institutions.
As you go out and work on policies, I ask you to remember that encryption is the key building block of our secure online future. If you need more information to help, I encourage you join the Global Encryption Coalition. There are now over 466 members from 108 countries who are working to ensure policymakers and others understand why encryption is so important to all of our online security.
Finally, I want to mention resilience. It is increasingly important to understand the relationship between electricity and Internet resilience. If there is no electricity to power routers, switches, receivers, and data centers, then there is no Internet.
Because, quite honestly, this is where your region has much to share to the rest of the world. The island of Puerto Rico recently had an island-wide power outage. Lights went out and all was dark.
And yet… Internet connectivity continued! Not as strong as normal, but still there. A member of our Puerto Rico Chapter explained it simply: many houses have solar panels and battery backups, many towers for mobile networks now have backup generators. It was all enough to continue to power the access points, devices, and infrastructure to keep connectivity flowing.
Contrast that to the experience a few weeks later with the nationwide power outages in Spain and Portugal. No power, and basically no Internet. Policymakers and industry need to take steps to improve the resilience of the Internet infrastructure that we all depend upon.
This is how we get there. These are the building blocks we use. This is how we build the Internet we want.
Homework
Given that this is a “school”, let me leave you with some homework.
First, form a vision of the Internet that YOU want – and HOLD ON to that vision. I’ve outlined what I’ve heard, and what I believe is critical, but you need to form your vision. And then you need to use that vision as you shape the policies and programs that will define the future Internet for your country or community.
The challenge we face right now is that there are many other competing visions out there for what the Internet should be. There is one view right now that sees the Internet as place of high crime and terror – a place that must be controlled and suppressed. There are governments that would like to make the Internet a place of surveillance and control. There are other commercial actors that would like the Internet to be a place where you can only “pay to play” and that you must seek corporate permission for everything you do.
We need to push back against those visions, and provide a positive vision of how the Internet can work for everyone.
Second, do all you can to learn about how the Internet actually works! So often we see proposals from policymakers that are extremely well-intended and are seeking to solve real problems out there on the Internet – but they have no actual chance of working because they don’t align with how the Internet is actually put together.
We at the Internet Society have free online training courses that you can take, and we also offer a few fellowship programs. Partner organizations have similar training programs. We also have a platform at pulse.internetsociety.org that provides you with data and measurements about how the Internet works in your country. You will learn a great amount this week here at the SSIG. Whatever opportunities to have to learn more about how the Internet really works … seize them, because you will become a better policy maker or advocate and you will create better policies that have a better chance of solving real problems.
Third, get involved with your local Internet Governance Forum. While there is a global IGF coming up next month in June in Norway, there are national and regional IGFs happening all around the world.
This is perhaps one of the most exciting outcomes of the IGF. Not just that it has a global event attended by stakeholders from around the world, but that it has spawned a global movement of local IGFs where people in a country or a region have come together and said that THEY want to be part of shaping the Internet in their country or region. Not just governments, but everyone.
And if you don’t have a local IGF, start one! There are many examples you can now see. There are guidelines and agenda. At the Internet Society Foundation, we have a program that offers funding for local IGFs. We have many local chapters around the world that we can connect you with who may be able to help.
Fourth, find out how you can get involved with your country’s participation in and preparation for these global negotiations about the Internet. Sometimes, asking the simple question of your government officials, “How can I help you prepare for WSIS+20?” can open the door to shaping your government’s position. And if there isn’t a way for you to be involved, then you have an opportunity to open those doors. This is one of the areas where the Internet Society chapters are so impressive – they are working with their governments and insisting that local voices are included in Internet policy development.
Finally, embrace the opportunities and enjoy being part of and further building the community of people who care about the Internet’s future. Look around you there in the SSIG room and online. These are the people who will help you.
Build the connections. Build the human resilience.
This is the Internet we want.
Affordable. Accessible. Multilingual.
Reliable. Resilient. Permissionless.
Safe. Secure. Multistakeholder.
And a force for good in our society.
This is OUR Internet. This is the Internet FOR everyone.
Thank you for being here in this South School on Internet Governance.
Thank you for being champions for the Internet’s future.