Keynote presenter:

Richard Wike
Director of Global Attitudes Research Pew Research Centre Washington DC, US

Dr. Stephen Tankel
Associate Professor, American University, Adjunct Senior Fellow, Centre for a New American Security, American University

Moderator:

Syed Munir Khasru
Chairman, IPAG

Panelists:

Ambassador Latha Reddy,
Co-Chair of the Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace, India

Dipakshi Mehandru,
Senior Advisor Government Affairs & Public Policy Dell Inc.

Wike, in his Keynote Presentation stated that public opinion, including those of the Muslim majority countries, was not in much favour of extremism or terrorist organizations. The basis of this finding was a survey done in 2015, where data was collected from large population countries and big majority in these countries had negative view about extremist groups. Data showed the threat of ISIS topped the list of international threat followed by climate change and cyber-attacks respectively. It was in Japan, that cyber-attack topped the list of international threat. He further added that people in Europe think that the influx of refugees would lead to more terror attack in their country.

Dr. Tankel, in his Keynote Presentation made observations that there is no single policy fix, public or private for these issues. He also said that there is tension in combating online radicalization with encryption security (used by terrorists) on one hand and privacy issues on the other hand and that there is a need of public and private collaboration along with international collaboration for combating online radicalization

Ambassador Latha Reddy said there has to be an enhancement of international peace, security and stability by engaging stakeholders, and proposing norms and policies which would guide state and non-state actors in cyber space. She further pointed out that the recommendations need to be advocated in action and people should ensure that the state and non-state actors do not conduct activities which substantially damage the general availability and integrity of the public core of internet including routing, DNS certification, trust and communication cable. She mentioned that the Budapest Convention on cyber-crime and GDPR have been significant development and suggested that new mechanisms like innovation, openness and access need to be incorporated to secure the medium from damages.

Ms. Dipakshi Mehandru discussed about the four pillars of engagement, namely trust, innovation and entrepreneurship, high skill labour force, and sustainable development, through which national, regional and international cooperation could help in increasing the safeguards for the system. She highlighted that internet penetration presently amounted to 24% of the population and it has been anticipated that by 2021, 2 in every 5 people would be connected to Internet. She recommended that the society needs to develop a culture of risk taking for tackling such challenges and also start thinking about the issues of sustainable development now with a future in mind.

Syed Munir Khasru, the Moderator of the session, observed that the Keynote Presentations point to a trend where there is not much public support for terrorism. The Panel stated that social media platform help build networks, identify groups of people, howsoever small, who support terrorist activities and extremist ideologies and create a global network with multiplier technology. The panelists suggested bilateral and regional cooperation initiatives, education by engaging students, teachers and parents, research and development and promoting diversity as potential positive game changers