Broad summary of the conference

There was an enormous amount of information and debate during the ten sessions at the conference yesterday. Despite our best efforts as bloggers, we were only able to cover a few threads. So, in an attempt to provide a more overarching and objective summary of the day's events, several of the OECD staff have put together a few points to act as an unofficial review. A more formal and official document will be prepared and supplied to the OECD members, but this should serve as a useful, quick overview of the day.

Full transcripts of every session can be found here. 

Programme

Session 1: THE FUTURE OF THE PARTICIPATIVE WEB: CONVERGENCE AND DIVERSITY
Sessions 2: CREATIVITY AND THE INTERNET ECONOMY: BUSINESS AND SCIENCE
Sessions 3: CREATIVITY AND THE INTERNET ECONOMY: USERS, GOVERNMENTS AND CITIZENS
Sessions 4: CONFIDENCE AND COMPETITION IN THE INTERNET ECONOMY:  OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES OF THE PARTICIPATIVE WEB
Sessions 5: POLICY ROUNDTABLE: OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FOR POLICY

• Profound changes are under way and yet to come in the economy and society, brought about by the participative web.
• Not just business impacts
• Reinventing government, politics and civic life
• Challenge how to balance the needs to govern efficiently and effectively and fairly against the opportunities this set of technologies present and how quickly and unpredictably they change
• Difficult to assume what the market place and impacts will be and what policy should look like
  

• Access to high speed networks (including wireless) and closing broadband gap, addressing new digital divides
• Role for government investment in infrastructure?
• Improve access to research and access to education and public information
• Fostering new types of media literacy
  

• Intellectual property issues
• New ways of rewarding creators (ISPs collecting blanket fee?)
• Questions around safe harbours and liability of intermediaries
• Network neutrality concerns 
• Competition policy and network effects: monopolistic (?) role of access to content 
• Interoperability and standards 
• Digital identity, Privacy, and Control
• Intersection between the local physical reality and legal frameworks, and the global differences in cultures and laws
• Government role: Way in which government engages with the new participative citizen. Are governments ready? (Are citizens ready?)