Diplo Blog

Public speaking ranks among the top five things that scare people.  Some of us would rather jump into a pool of spiders, hug a clown, or willingly sit through a dental procedure without anaesthesia, just to avoid the possibility of being publicly embarrassed. In this text, I will share a few things that I found extremely important for overcoming that fear and becoming a better 'public persona' in general.

Our May WebDebate looked at standards as tools for managing international relations and discussed the process of negotiating and implementing the standards. Standards define our everyday lives in ways most people do not even realise. It is important to understand what standardisation is, that a standard can shape our habits and make life much easier. At the same time, we also need to realise that agreeing on a standard is sometimes a process that needs to reconcile different interests.

Renewed discussions on state behaviour in cyberspace, developments in the USA with regard to net neutrality rules, and Uber’s new legal woes in various jurisdictions around the world were among the main digital policy developments in the month of April. These and other developments, trends, and regional updates were the subject of April's just-in-time briefing on Internet governance - our monthly appointment on the last Tuesday of every month - which took place on 25 April 2017.

A year after the first report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy, national and international governmental surveillance activities remained in focus in the second report.

Based on contributions from: Evelyn Namara, Meri Baghdasaryan, Adriana Castro, Alessia Zucchetti, Victor Ryan Biran, June Okal, Derek Yam, Manuel Sebastian Roa Gomez, Lai Ying Jojo Tang, and Michael J. Oghia

An underlying theme of the discussion during the visit to Diplo’s CreativeLab in Belgrade by students from the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD) was on how: ‘Digital art and digital policy are disciplines that deal with the same issues from different perspectives, using different methodologies.’

The Internet entered the conference room out of sheer necessity. It has become a common part of all conference venues and provides the twenty-first century way of conducting events, as well as reporting from them.

In our April WebDebate, we discussed Education Diplomacy, which could be described as the use of diplomacy to further education as a driver for development. We asked: What is Education Diplomacy? Is it still diplomacy? What are the approaches to Education Diplomacy? What knowledge and skills does it require?

China’s International Strategy of Cooperation on Cyberspace, WikiLeaks disclosure of the US Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) hacking arsenal, and the second report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy were among the main digital policy developments in the month of March. These and other developments, trends, and regional updates were the subject of March's just-in-time briefing on Internet governance - our monthly appointment on the last Tuesday of every month - which took place on 28 March 2017.