Intertitle: What are your hopes for the future Internet? Your fears? What action should be tak­en now for the best future?

Adiel Akplogan: My hope is that the Internet con­tin­ues to devel­op based on its under­ly­ing cul­ture, which is an open tech­nol­o­gy that is acces­si­ble to every­one. A tech­nol­o­gy that allows inno­va­tion with­out per­mis­sion. I think that is key, and from my own exam­ple, if I did­n’t have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take that tech­nol­o­gy open­ly because it was acces­si­ble and inno­vate and do things with­out ask­ing any­one, I would­n’t have done what I did. So my hope is for the Internet to con­tin­ue to be that tech­nol­o­gy. The tech­nol­o­gy that gives oppor­tu­ni­ty to peo­ple to do things with­out hav­ing to ask anyone.

That said, it has anoth­er corol­lary which is because it is open, because it’s avail­able for every­one, because every­one can do what­ev­er they want with the Internet, it pos­es anoth­er social issue. Which is secu­ri­ty. How do we make sure that every­body knows and imple­ments the best prac­tices that make the Internet sta­ble, secure, where peo­ple can still have con­fi­dence in the tech­nol­o­gy. And that I think is my fear. How do we make sure that we close, as much as pos­si­ble, the gap between the devel­op­ment of the tech­nol­o­gy and the pol­i­cy­mak­ing? We need to make sure that both coa­lesce at some point to allow the tech­nol­o­gy to devel­op but also to allow peo­ple to be con­fi­dent that this tech­nol­o­gy not only impacts their lives but can help solve a lot of prob­lems that we have. But we need to match the tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment with pol­i­cy that can give and improve the con­fi­dence of users.