Irene Misoi: I’m rep­re­sent­ing Dorcas Muthoni, one of the inductees who could not to come. She just had a baby about a month ago, so she was not able to travel.

One thing that I guess has con­tributed to Dorcas being select­ed as an inductee is try­ing to get many more women to get into careers in com­put­ing by build­ing capac­i­ty in Africa. And this she did by start­ing an orga­ni­za­tion called AfChix Africa that has got chap­ters in more than twenty-two coun­tries. And what hap­pens is we train women in IT, espe­cial­ly sys­tem admin­is­tra­tion in Linux. And that means devel­op­ing capac­i­ty for the Internet, espe­cial­ly in women. There are very few women who are in IT, espe­cial­ly in Africa. And that prompt­ed Dorcas to start the orga­ni­za­tion AfChix, which now has helped enhance and build capac­i­ty for and encour­age more women to get into IT. 

Intertitle: Describe one of the break­through moments of the Internet in which you have been a key participant?

Misoi: This has hap­pened through the var­i­ous train­ings that we have giv­en to the women. Training them in Linux sys­tem admin­is­tra­tion. You know, Linux is one of the open source oper­at­ing sys­tems that a lot of orga­ni­za­tions use to run the ser­vices that of course run the Internet. And we’ve cre­at­ed capac­i­ty for var­i­ous coun­tries, the African coun­tries espe­cial­ly, by train­ing more and more women. We’ve car­ried out train­ings in Senegal, Dakar, and a lot of the par­tic­i­pants are com­ing from the uni­ver­si­ties. Either final-year stu­dents or third-year stu­dents that are fin­ish­ing and there­fore get­ting out into the job mar­ket. And of course with Linux sys­tem admin­is­tra­tion skills, we’ve impact­ed some knowl­edge into them that they can be able to run net­works in var­i­ous organizations. 

Intertitle: Describe the state of the Internet today with a weath­er anal­o­gy and explain why.

Misoi: The future of the Internet I can say is bright. And this has brought togeth­er a lot of peo­ple. And espe­cial­ly look­ing at Africa, it’s reach­ing peo­ple and help­ing get solu­tions to prob­lems. And espe­cial­ly in med­i­cine or in health, e‑health, there are some remote areas that peo­ple do not want to go and work in because of the remote­ness. And some of these, the Internet has that made it pos­si­ble for doc­tors wher­ev­er they are to be able to admin­is­ter through some of these apps on e‑health, and famine also, and so many oth­er areas. So I can say the Internet has a bright future. 

Intertitle: What are your great­est hopes and fears for the future of the Internet?

Misoi: My great­est con­cerns, espe­cial­ly cur­rent­ly, are secu­ri­ty on the Internet. And espe­cial­ly for the younger chil­dren. There’s so much on the Internet, and prob­a­bly try­ing to con­trol it maybe is not good. And there is of course a lot that is good. Controlling it for the small­er or the younger chil­dren I think is a major con­cern. But I know soon­er or lat­er, I believe there could be solu­tions that could aid in mav­ing sav­ing or you know, pro­tec­tion, to maybe access­ing mate­r­i­al that is not good for some of our generations.

I’ll say that the hopes for the future of Internet, I hope that we’ll be able to be con­trol the con­tent that is being put on the Internet. This is espe­cial­ly for con­sump­tion, for the var­i­ous age groups. Because cur­rent­ly I think even the small chil­dren can be able to access some of the infor­ma­tion that is prob­a­bly not good for their consumption. 

And I also hope that—speaking about Africa especially—there are some areas that con­nec­tiv­i­ty has not got­ten into. So we hope that orga­ni­za­tions like Internet Society and oth­ers con­cerned, and our gov­ern­ments of course, will be able to orga­nize to build infra­struc­ture in some of these areas that do not have con­nec­tiv­i­ty. Because that’s a chal­lenge, and look­ing at what the Internet can do, I believe peo­ple should have the con­nec­tion so that a lot of these oth­er things, oth­er ben­e­fits, that come with the Internet, they’ll be able to har­vest from it. 

Intertitle: What action should be tak­en to ensure the best pos­si­ble future?

Misoi: I think the actions that can be tak­en to make the Internet bet­ter are…one, I think the secu­ri­ty bit of it, I think we need to do a lit­tle more of the secu­ri­ty aspects. Because there are a lot of cyber­se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns that are com­ing up cur­rent­ly. But I believe the engi­neers will come up with solu­tions that will be able to solve some of these prob­lems. I know of forums that are cur­rent­ly doing a lot of ongo­ing work that are help­ing come up with solu­tions to be able to resolve some of the cyber­crime issues that we have.