On Wednesday, October 26 the Internet Governance Project at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Public Policy honors Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence Strickling for his leadership in bringing about the privatization of ICANN. The event will also explore the implications of the transition for the future of Internet governance. The public is invited.

The transfer of contractual control of IANA from the US Commerce Department to the operational communities is one of the most significant events in the evolution of the Internet, and is also a major development in the global governance of information and communications. ICANN’s 1998 creation was a major innovation in supra-national rule-making, comparable to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in the 1990s or the UN’s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in the 1860s. ICANN’s privatization, which occurred last Saturday, October 1, allows its rule-making to cross political borders, and puts in place a new type of global regime that is without precedent.

Assistant Secretary Strickling will be the featured speaker at this event, receiving recognition for his persistent and principled commitment to putting “the global multistakeholder community” in charge of IANA and ICANN. The event will also feature remarks on the long term implications of the transition by a panel of experts, including Internet Architecture Board Chair Andrew Sullivan, Georgia Tech professors Milton Mueller and Peter Swire, and the Internet Society’s Senior Policy Advisor Konstantinos Komaitis.

Program Schedule

4:00                  Welcome, Dr. Kaye Husbands, Chair, School of Public Policy

4:05 – 4:20       Dr. Milton Mueller
Professor, School of Public Policy and Director, Internet Governance Project. The IANA transition’s significance for global Internet governance, and an appreciation of Assistant Secretary’s Strickling’s role in it.

4:20 – 4:50       Assistant Secretary of Commerce Lawrence S. Strickling

4:50 – 5:00       Award presentation

5:00 – 6:00       Panel Discussion: the future of global Internet governance post-transition

                         Andrew Sullivan, fellow at Dyn, Chair of the Internet Architecture Board

                         Assistant Secretary Strickling

                         Peter Swire, Georgia Institute of Technology

                         Konstantino Komaitis, Internet Society

6:00 – 7:00       Reception

A live webcast will be available. Watch the IGP Twitter feed @IGPAlert and this blog for the webcast link.

The School of Public Policy is a unit of Georgia Tech's Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.