CCT Second Year Jeremy Pesner named Internet Society Next Generation Leader

Second-year CCT student Jeremy Pesner has been accepted to the Internet Society’s Next Generation Leaders (NGL) Programme. The programme helps Internet professionals between the ages of 20 and 40 develop their leadership potential where technology, business, policy, and education intersect. While fellows are traditionally from developing nations, Jeremy was one of four Americans accepted to this year’s cohort of 100 NGL fellows. He will undertake both an academic and practicum component as part of the programme.

The academic segment will be an online course entitled “Shaping the Internet – History and Futures.” The course covers essential topics for effective interactions and relationships within the Internet ecosystem and key concepts and emerging issues in Internet governance, including:

• historical background to the development of the Internet;
• fundamental key principles and characteristics that underpin the Internet;
• characteristics of Internet model of development;
• dominant Internet technical and policy issues;
• main Internet stakeholders and their respective roles;
• perspectives on key policy and regulatory issues; and
• legal issues, including privacy and intellectual property rights

Jeremy will be collaborating extensively with other fellows to provide a rich, multicultural discussion around these and other aspects of the Internet.

Additionally, to fulfill the practicum requirement of the programme, Jeremy will act as an ambassador of the Internet Society to the 7th Annual Internet Governance Forum, to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 6-9. Ambassadors help explain and promote the Internet Society’s positions on public policy issues related to the themes of the IGF, and they add local and regional experiences and insights to discussions and interventions during sessions and workshops. In turn, IGF Ambassadors gain valuable experience from exposure to diverse stakeholders from all parts of the global Internet ecosystem and benefit from the high visibility of their engagement. Jeremy will host a briefing to collect requests and feedback to take to the forum, as well as a debriefing to report back his experience and what he has learned.

Jeremy is extremely grateful to the Internet Society for initiating this programme and taking the lead in educating young leaders in Internet governance. He is also grateful to the CCT program and Professor Michael Nelson, without whom he would not have gained the knowledge and skills to be a competitive applicant for this programme.