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"The Internet has an unlimited future"

Kathrin Reinhardt / dfJune 30, 2014

Addressing the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn, U.S. Internet pioneer Vint Cerf foresees that "the network has only invented one or two percent of all the possible applications that it could support."

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Vint Cerf
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

In a video message for the DW media congress that started today, Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf, Vice President of Google and widely known as one of the "fathers" of the Internet, addressed participants attending the 2014 Global Media Forum. From June 30-July 2, experts from around the world and a variety of disciplines are meeting to discuss "From Information to Participation - Challenges for the Media" at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany.

According to Cerf, "the Internet has an unlimited future because it's all about software." He says the reason the global network has become so popular is that it "has been an open environment for all the time since it was invented … It is very important to preserve that character because that is what has allowed the Internet to be such a powerful economic force," Cerf told Deutsche Welle.

National barriers are harmful to communication

He urged countries not to build barriers around their national networks. "It's harmful when it comes to the economy and it hurts the global human communication that we have been able to establish with a network of this form."

Pointing out that no one is in control of the Internet due to its "highly distributed, fully collaborative environment," Cerf said that "a multi-stakeholder model for Internet governance is in fact the best way to move forward. The technical community, civil society, the private sector and governance all have a role to play when it comes to policy about the Internet's technical use and its use in business and the use by ordinary users."

International partners and co-hosts

DW's national and international partners for the 2014 Global Media Forum include, among others, Amnesty International, Deutsche Telekom, the Grimme-Institut, NATO, the United Nations, the Vodafone Institute for Society and Communications and Voices of Africa.

The conference is co-hosted by the Foundation for International Dialogue of the Sparkasse Savings Bank in Bonn. Support is also kindly provided by Germany's Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the City of Bonn.

  • For more information about the conference, go to www.dw-gmf.de.
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  • To watch the live stream of selected events, go to www.dw.de/media-center/live-tv/s-100825/channel/9798
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  • Audio recordings of the events will be made available continuously on soundcloud.com/dwgmf. You can download the files in MP3 format.