ICANNWiki:Interview with Adrian Carballo (2025)

Internet & Digital Governance Library
Title	Interview with Adrian Carballo on the origins and evolution of the South School on Internet Governance
Format	Edited text transcript of in-person interview
Date	Mar. 24, 2025
Interviewer	Iago Capistrano
Interviewee	Adrian Carballo
Permanent ID	49275

Adrian Carballo
Community	ICANN Community
Country	Argentina
Organization	South School on Internet Governance

(Iago Capistrano)

How did the idea of founding the South School on Internet Governance (SSIG) with Olga Cavalli come about? What were those first years like?

(Adrian Carballo)

This dates back to 2003. That's when we started to think about what we could do to get more people involved in these issues, as well as countries and governments.

In 2005, the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society was held in Tunis. What Internet Governance means was defined there. At that time, both Olga Cavalli and I traveled to many meetings where policies and the future of the Internet were discussed, and we realized that there was very little representation of Latin America and the Caribbean, including meetings in our region. There would never be more than around 4% of LAC participants in any event.

After evaluating several models of how to make known everything that was discussed in these meetings, we realized that an overall lack of training was the core issue, and that's how we thought about putting together the South School on Internet Governance. In 2009, we held the first edition in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the engineering faculty, which lent us a classroom at the postgraduate school. After talking to several companies, we got the funds to be able to grant scholarships to 26 students, and bring 40 speakers, both regional and international.

The first edition was a success even though the classroom that we had was really small, to such an extent that we had to put speakers outside of it so that all attending people could listen to the talks. After this success, we were thinking about how to move forward, and we took on an even bigger challenge, which was not to always do it in Argentina, but to take it to different countries. And so we started taking the school to different countries, and for 17 years now, we've been doing so, including outside of the LAC region, in the Organization of American States, in Washington D.C.

The school was assembled with the cooperation of some key partners from Internet Governance academia during its first editions, but after some years, it consolidated under the umbrella of the international institution called CCATLAT, which is the Training Center in High Technology for Latin America and the Caribbean, based in Uruguay. Oscar Messano is its president, I am the secretary.

Whenever we thought about setting up the school, we always considered having a scholarship model for all participants which provided free education, accommodation, and meals. This became a reality thanks to the support that private sector companies gave us. These were institutions that understood, let's say, the importance of being able to bring these issues to people of different countries, and reach meetings where politics and the future of the Internet were discussed.

As a result of this, we've had increasingly more support from various organizations, which allowed us to bring in a greater number of students, as well as more speakers. Year after year, we've been growing, first with 26 students, then with 70, then with 100, 200, and now we're giving out 400 scholarships a year, 200 that are face-to-face, and 200 that are virtual.

So we are very happy with the evolution we've had, the growth from this embryonic idea that was there in 2003, and that today we are already talking about more than 8,000 students who have passed through the school, either virtually or in person.

(Iago Capistrano)

Let's talk about challenges. What were the biggest ones you've faced in organizing the SSIG?

(Adrian Carballo)

Several countries are usually interested in hosting the school, so we put together a sort of protocol to be able to manage the requests. Currently, the country has to send us a letter of interest, which is then presented to the CCATLAT Board, and once the country is decided upon, we then need to find the correct host to help us carry out the event in that country.

But the issue is that each country has a different overall cost for services and goods, and the challenge is knowing the size of the budget that holding a given edition will require, considering preserving the standards of quality that we set for the school. This then takes aligning the budget with how much the country is willing to invest in the initiative, and in the event that this budget is insufficient, we need to figure out the correct local companies to come in as sponsors.

We have three types of scholarships, one in-person, the other virtual, and a third that is a longer-term extension that provides the student with a diploma. In these three cases, we first hold an introductory course, then the school course that is openly broadcast to any interested party, and finally the candidates that want to proceed to a diploma must put in research work. All of this evidently requires money so that we can offer this for free to students. So proper budgeting is often a vital concern.

The idea is to try to continue going to countries that we haven't been to yet. Now if you think about it, to take the school to a new country means that each year we are more or less starting from scratch, seeking new fruitful relationships and adapting to a new environment. So, it's not easy, but it really is a challenge that we have taken willingly.

Also, well, most other events such as the school that take place within a week usually have maybe 30 speakers, but our week can have up to 100 speakers. It's very intense.

(Iago Capistrano)

In my case, I didn't know what Internet Governance was, but in 2023 you brought the school to Campina Grande, in the countryside/interior of Brazil, and that was close to my house. That was the start of my career in the field, and now here we are in an ICANN meeting chatting about it! How was the experience of taking the school to the northeast of Brazil, which is underserved and sees very little of such initiatives?

(Adrian Carballo)

The question was that while we were always doing the school in the capitals of each country, for many years we wanted to take it to the interior, because that was a population that might have been getting lost. In 2023, we finally got the chance to fill that gap by holding the in-person event in the northeast of Brazil, in Campina Grande, instead of the capital of the state of Paraíba, which is João Pessoa.

Through contacts, especially Cláudio Lucena and Percival Henriques, the possibility of arranging this event arose, and there I traveled to several meetings with the vice-governor, the governor, secretary of State, etc., The funny thing was that the universities, the people of the public sector, the companies, all asked us the same thing: "why here?", to which I replied: "why not here? We have to go to the interior too".

In particular, there is an extremely interesting academic pole in Campina Grande, and I think that, as in your case (Editor's note: "your case" is referring to Iago), we had the opportunity to motivate different people to be able to continue or getting started on subjects that otherwise would not have been known outside of the framework of the school, considering the variety of issues that we touch upon.

That's why the governance of the Internet is not just about the technical ecosystem, but a lot of issues need to be addressed that have to do with the quality of the Internet today and with the future of the Internet, whether when we talk about Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, robotics, or quantum computing.

One of the reasons that it is important to involve all the sectors in a multistakeholder fashion is that and when a professor brings up a particular issue, the students listen to that perspective but are then able to decide how the information fits within their reality, what interests them the most. This model, like the one that CGI.br is leading, is very interesting.

(Iago Capistrano)

How did you handle the 2020 pandemic and what came out of that? How has the project been evolving since?

(Adrian Carballo)

We did carry on in the midst of the pandemic, which force us to reinvent ourselves and go from being totally face-to-face to being almost fully virtual. This wasn't easy, because we couldn't find a company that would give us all the tools we needed. We were being offered a lot of physical resources but little virtual innovation, until we found a company that would really give us all the tools to be able to do it properly. We wanted more than just a Zoom meeting, doing something much more dynamic, which is what we got.

During the height of the pandemic the school was virtual, and that we carried on as a hybrid event, and this proved to be the best format, that is, both face-to-face and virtual. This allowed not only to have students students from the region of the meeting, because we always employ simultaneous translation between English and Spanish, and when we do it in Brazil, out of respect for the country, we add Portuguese. This allowed us to have students from India, Egypt, Europe in general, countries Trinidad and Tobago, and so on.

Another very important step that we took was that while we already gave certificates to students, in 2020-2021 we made an agreement with the University of Mendoza which allowed us to also grant some of the students with an international university diploma in Internet Governance and Regulations. Of course, this depends on the student complying with the three stages of the training, engaging with the community, and producing a research piece.

As a diplomat by trade, I'm very proud of this. Very happy.

We have since received two awards from the International Telecommunication Union. The first one was for best Internet Governance training project in developing countries. After that, just as we were carrying out the school in Buenos Aires, we were granted the award for the best international cooperation project, being selected among 8,000 submitted projects.

Editor's note: Adrian is referring to the "World Summit on the Information Society Prizes" that the South School on Internet Governance was awarded, one in 2022 Source and the other in 2024 Source.

(Iago Capistrano)

Tell us more about what the students and what you've observed their experience has been over the years.

(Adrian Carballo)

As I was saying, we are working with 400 scholarships per yer, but the total number of applicants is generally close to 3,500. We observe that those who are not able to get a scholarship often continue applying year after year, so interest is sustained.

The networking that takes place within the school's space is very important, and we keep seeing former students of ours within spaces like ICANN, the IGFs, the NICs, and so on. There were a lot of people who we introduced to Internet governance by us and are now in very significant positions. One of them is even leading ICANNWiki! (Editor's note: Mark W. Datysgeld)

And this is interesting because not only there is networking among the students, but between the students and the speakers, which has led to many collaborations and job opportunities. Students have also ended up becoming speakers and remaining within the school's environment, which over these almost two decades has generated an actual community and network of like-minded people.

Anyway, there are a lot of former students who have been placing themselves in strategic positions, both in the private sector and public sector, and that helps us a lot with the diffusion of everything that we carry out. That's why more and more people keep hearing about and seeking the project.

(Iago Capistrano)

Adrian, congratulations on the beautiful trajectory.

(Adrian Carballo)

It was my pleasure speaking to one of the school's students and seeing your progress! Thank you.

Latin America/Caribbean, according to the ICANN Geographic Regions (ICANN Geographic Regions).