Netgain Challenge

In recent years, there's been a new narrative advanced by some that the internet, especially access to reliable, high speed quality internet, should be considered a public good, in the same vein as other public utilities. This argument has played out in different ways around the world. At the international level, the UN has put forth several new ideas for Sustainable Development Goals, access to the internet as a human right is among them, as is access to information, and within the framework for the post-2015 SDGs there are also underpinnings that freedom of expression is an enabling right needed to achieve the other development goals.

Challenge: There is an urgent need for scholars, activists, NGOs, members of government, and business to articulate and instill a new public service orientation of content and access in the highly fragmented, complex and unstable media environment of the 21st century.