At this week’s meetings in Paris of the OECD Committee on Information, Communications, and Computer Policy, OECD member states learned details of a major conference being developed USCIB, BIAC (the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD), and the OECD. The conference, “Growth, Jobs, & Prosperity in the Digital Age: OECD Shapes the Policy Environment,” will be held March 10, 2014 in Washington, D.C.

In opening remarks to the OECD Working Party on the Information Economy, Anne Carblanc
of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (STI) urged member governments to participate in the conference, which will highlight the OECD’s work on challenges and opportunities in growing the digital economy. “Through this program, we hope to increase the visibility of OECD work in context of Internet commons,” she said.

The half-day conference, which will be held at the Microsoft Policy and Innovation Center in Washington, will feature commentary by STI Director Andrew Wyckoff, senior U.S. officials, and leading industry experts. Their remarks will build upon topics explored during this week’s OECD meetings, including: enhancing trust and boosting innovation in the digital ecosystem, jobs and entrepreneurship, defending stakeholder principles in Internet governance and ensuring cross-border data flows. (The conference agenda will be available soon.)

By mid-week, OECD members had made progress on a number of important initiatives, according to Barbara Wanner, USCIB’s vice president for ICT policy. These include:

–          further work on a survey study on the economics of, “Copyright in the Age of the Internet”

–          agreement to revise the OECD 2002 Security Guidelines, building on the year-long work of the Security Experts Group – to which USCIB members directly contributed\

–          possible work on new study on the economics of the transition to IPv6 – the latest revision of the Internet Protocol, which provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet.

BIAC and USCIB representatives provided informed commentary on each of these projects and will monitor them closely as they progress.

Staff contact: Barbara Wanner

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