The Ninth Russian Internet Governance Forum has officially opened in Saint Petersburg. This is the second time that the Forum is not held in Moscow; this time the host is Saint Petersburg, “Russia’s second capital”. The youth aspect wasn’t forgotten either: on 5 April RIGF 2018 speakers and experts gave lectures to students of Saint Petersburg.

At the opening of the Forum the importance of youth was highlighted by Andrey Vorobyev, CEO of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ: “I believe that active involvement of young people in Internet governance is a very important process. Last year we started this trend in Innopolis and this time we carry it on in Saint Petersburg. Apart from meetings with students of Saint Petersburg universities we also announce the results of IP&IT Law contest. It was very nice to see so many young faces among the participants. It’s clear that young people are interested in issues of Internet governance and this is why next year we plan to create a youth chamber at the Coordination Center, which will oversee educational and awareness-raising projects in the field of Internet governance. I’m certain that together with youngsters we will be able to make our events even more interesting and modern!”

Leonid Levin, ROCIT (Regional Public Center of Internet Technology) Chairman of the Board, State Duma deputy and the Head of the Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, in his welcoming speech noted the importance of the main topic of the Forum in 2018 – cybersecurity. “Today, more than ever, what seemed a cliche becomes important - challenges that the world community faces, threats to the progressive development of the Internet and issues that we need to deal with in order to guarantee its connectivity, stability and security. The list of these challenges, unfortunately, only gets longer, while the challenges themselves become more sophisticated. Our work to ensure security of users, interest of private and state sectors online becomes increasingly more difficult”, pointed out Leonid Levin.

Georgy Gritsay (ANO “Tsyfrovaya economika” (translated Autonomous Non- commercial Organization “Digital Economics”), Sergey Plugotarenko (RAEC), Sergey Grebennikov (ROCIT), Wolfgang Kleinwaechter (Aarhus University), Alexandra Kulikova (ICANN), Chris Buckridge (RIPE NCC) and Leonid Todorov (APTLD) also spoke at the opening of RIGF 2018.

A special award is given at the Russian Internet Governance Forum each year – the Order “Service to the Internet” (https://cctld.ru/ru/activities/virtuti- interneti/ Virtuti Interneti). The award winners are representatives of the Internet community, business, science and state, who made a significant contribution to the development of Runet and global Internet. Two order bearers are present at the RIGF 2018 - Wolfgang Kleinwaechter (2016) and Sergey Plugotarenko (2017). This year the award was given to Alexey Platonov, General Director/CEO at the Technical Center of Internet. From 1992 to 2010 Alexey Platonov headed the Russian Research Institute for the Development of Public Networks (RIPN). He was one of the founders of the Russian Backbone Network for Science and Education RBNet. He is one of the founders of the RELARN association.

After the opening of the Forum, the award ceremony for the winners of the III National youth competition in intellectual property and information technologies law “IP&IT Law” took place. Coordination Center together with IP CLUB and with support of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications organize the contest. Even though the list of winners was known ahead of time, until the last moment it remained a mystery what places each of the winners held. So, Linar Safargaleev (Ural State Law University) is on the first place, Anastasia Semyonova (Moscow State Institute of International Relations) is second and Anastasia Sukhareva (Research Centre of Private Law under the President of Russian Federation) is the third. The participant who won the first place also received another very important award – the medal of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Probably the most well known Russian expert on cybersecurity Alexey Lukatsky (Cisco) delivered a special lecture for Forum audience on the topic. In the lecture “Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity” he talked about new threats and aspects of ensuring information security of the state and society in the modern world.