Measuring the Internet: An Overview of Internet Society Pulse

Part 1 - Lead Organizer

Contact Person

Matthew Ford

Organization / Affiliation (Please state "Individual" if appropriate)

Internet Society

Designation

Technology Program Manager

Gender

Male

Economy of Residence

United Kingdom

Primary Stakeholder Group

Technical Community

Part 2 - Session Proposal

Your proposal is for

Main Conference (Day 1-3)

Session Title

Measuring the Internet: An Overview of Internet Society Pulse

Track

Inclusion Sustainability Trust

Session Format

Showcase

Where do you plan to organize your session?

Virtual / online

Specific Issues for Discussion

At the Internet Society, we believe that the Internet is for everyone. Our work centers on increasing the Internet’s reach, reliability and resilience, as well as ensuring that the Internet remains open, globally connected, secure, and trustworthy. But how do we assess whether our efforts – and the efforts of other Internet Industry organizations that facilitate the smooth functioning of the Internet – are working?  There are many people, projects and organizations that are collecting data on various facets of the Internet, but there’s currently no single site that provides a curated set of information. So, to help everyone gain deeper, data-driven insight into the health, evolution and availability of the Internet, we’re building Internet Society Pulse. This session will offer an overview of the Pulse platform and the Internet Society's efforts to document and reflect on the harms of Internet Shutdowns, which include diminished trust in local Internet ecosystems and damage to the economy. The session will also outline how the team is measuring Internet resilience in Africa as well as how it is measuring the adoption of technologies that enable the Internet to keep growing, evolving and meeting the changing expectations of users.

Describe the Relevance of Your Session to APrIGF

The Internet Society Pulse showcase is relevant to APrIGF tracks of Inclusion, Sustainability and Trust. The Pulse platform is tracking the occurrence of Internet shutdowns which negatively impact the sustainability of Internet services and seek to exclude specific people from accessing Internet services. Shutdowns also impact the ability of people to trust that Internet services will be available when they need them. Our work on specific tracking the adoption of specific security technologies is very relevant to the theme of a trustworthy Internet which depends on the widespread adoption of these protocols that underpin the security and trustworthiness of all Internet services today. Thirdly, our work on building an index of Internet resilience is closely aligned with the APrIGF track on Sustainability. We're helping to examine the factors that combined make up a resilient Internet experience for end users, and helping to grow awareness about the importance of these elements in fostering a sustainable Internet for everyone.

Methodology / Agenda

The Measuring the Internet team from Internet Society will present an overview of the goals, objectives and functionality of the Internet Society Pulse platform. This presentation will including a demonstration of how we're curating information about the occurrence of Internet shutdowns, tracking the adoption and evolution of enabling technologies, and measuring Internet resilience. The team will then be available to answer questions from participants about the presentation, our objectives with Internet Society Pulse and our plans for the coming months. We hope to engage with participants and ideally identify potential data partners and collaborators that can contribute to the platform from their personal experience of the issues discussed..

Please provide 3 subject matter tags that best describe your session.

#shutdowns #resilience #measurement

Moderators & Speakers Info (Please complete where possible)

Please explain the rationale for choosing each of the above contributors to the session.

The contributors constitute key personnel from the Internet Society Measuring the Internet team and as such are best placed to present the objectives of the Internet Society Pulse platform, it's current features and operation, and plans for the future. And most importantly opportunities for the APrIGF community to get involved.