A high-level official Egyptian delegation is due to participate in the third meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be convened between 3-6 December 2008 in Hyderabad, India.

During the meeting, Egypt will receive the chairmanship of the IGF as Egypt will host the fourth IGF meeting in 2009.

The Egyptian delegation comprises senior officials from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA).

An estimated 1,400 delegates from governments, academia, industry and civil society are likely to attend the Hyderabad meeting. Leading IT companies, Internet Service Providers, information security professionals are also expected to take part in the event.

Held under the theme "Internet for All", this year’s meeting will discuss topics like reaching the next billion users, promoting cyber-security and trust, managing critical Internet resources and the ‘internet of tomorrow’.

This year’s theme complements that of the 2008 World Telecommunications and Information Society Day, which was ‘connecting people with disabilities’. The theme underscores the importance of ensuring that world’s 650 million people with disabilities are included while moving towards the objective of giving internet access to the next billion people.

The First Internet Governance Forum was held in Athens in 2006 where Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology participated in the forum. The second forum was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2007. The Egyptian delegation, mainly from the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA), was one of the biggest delegations from the Arab World that participated in the Conference.

About IGF
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is a multi-stakeholder forum for policy dialogue on issues of Internet governance. The establishment of the IGF was formally announced by the United Nations Secretary-General in July 2006 as one of the outputs of the Second Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).