IGF MKD 2018 (North Macedonia IGF) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. In late October 2018 (probably the 31st) the second IGF MKD met at FINKI, the computer-science faculty in Skopje, with the IGF, SEEDIG, EuroDIG, ICANN and RIPE all represented as international partners.
2. Three sessions covered cybersecurity and trust services, GDPR with AI and intellectual property, and disinformation and media literacy — plus the launch of a Youth IGF MKD.
3. Moving from the foreign ministry to a university and spawning a youth wing, this was the consolidation year: a national IGF becoming an institution rather than a one-off event.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on IGF MKD 2018 (North Macedonia IGF) draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Founding Youth IGF MKD — Bringing Youth into the Engine Room

Sessions: Announcement by Marko Paloski in the opening session (11:00–12:00)

"As a registered and recognized national IGF initiative, IGF MKD received financial assistance from IGF SA, on two occasions for the national events in 2017 and 2018 (from the IGFSA statement)"
— Aleksandar Icokaev (founding coordinator, 2023 IGFSA statement) [1][2][4]

• Student Marko Paloski announced the Youth IGF MKD in the opening session — the same Paloski who would take over as national coordinator in 2023, making the youth wing a genuine succession pipeline [1][2][4]
• Lynn St Amour (chair of the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group), SEEDIG's Sorina Teleanu, EuroDIG's Sandra Hoferichter, ICANN's Andrea Beccalli and RIPE's Chris Buckridge gave the small national forum an unusually strong international line-up [1][2][4]

2. Cybersecurity and Trust Services — An Academic CIRT and the Legal Framework

Sessions: Session 1: cybersecurity and trusted services (12:00–12:40)

• Security expert Predrag Tasevski reviewed the country's cybersecurity record, and FINKI's Prof. Sonja Filiposka presented FINKI-CIRT, the first academic CIRT in the country [1][2]
• Ana Malceva of the Ministry of Information Society covered the legal framework for trusted services — putting the technical, academic and government sectors on one panel [1][2]

3. The Year GDPR Arrived — Data Protection, AI and Intellectual Property

Sessions: Session 2: data protection and intellectual property (13:00–13:40)

• Meeting months after the GDPR took effect in the EU, civil-society expert Liljana Pecova-Ilieska laid out the compliance challenges and dilemmas for a non-EU country [1][2]
• Prof. Ivica Dimitrovski spoke on artificial intelligence and the GDPR — an early national-forum treatment of the AI-versus-data-protection tension — while React's Eli Mufisovski covered online intellectual property [1][2]

4. Disinformation and Media Literacy — Journalists Meet Civil Society

Sessions: Session 3: media, media literacy, fake news and disinformation (14:00–14:40)

• Coordinator and lawyer Icokaev, journalist Branko Geroski and Konekt's Nikica Kusinikova returned to disinformation — in the year of the name-change (Prespa agreement) referendum, when disinformation was visibly shaking national politics [1][2][3]
• The forum closed with conclusions and recommendations, and youth radio station Radio MOF recorded and published the full proceedings, with civic media acting as the archivist [1][2][3]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did this meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding — it was the second edition of the annual stock-taking where government, academia, business and civil society reviewed the year's issues, closing with conclusions and recommendations.

Q. What changed from year one?

A. The venue moved from the foreign ministry to the FINKI computer-science faculty, and a Youth IGF MKD was founded — its student announcer became the forum's national coordinator five years later.

Q. Why should I care?

A. How a non-EU country lives with the GDPR is every exporter's question, and this was disinformation debated inside a country whose referendum year was being shaken by it.

What Is North Macedonia IGF? (for first-time readers)

North Macedonia IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2018 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. Agenda 2018（IGF MKD 2018 プログラム） — IGF MKD（公式サイト） (accessed 2026-07-11)
2. Програма 2018（マケドニア語版プログラム。FINKI学部長を「フォーラムのホスト」と明記） — IGF MKD（公式サイト） (accessed 2026-07-11)
3. ИГФ МКД – Форум за управување со интернетот Македонија（全編収録映像・約4時間・2018年10月31日公開） — Radio MOF（青年教育フォーラム系ネットラジオ） (accessed 2026-07-11)
4. Aleksandar Icokaev – Statement of Interest（初代コーディネーターのIGFSA提出声明） — Internet Governance Forum Support Association (accessed 2026-07-11)
5. IGF MKD 公式サイト（年次アーカイブ一覧） — IGF MKD (accessed 2026-07-11)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

• IGF official (NRI list): https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives
• Japan IGF: https://japanigf.jp/
• Yuki Nakazawa's blog: https://nkzw.jp/category/igf/

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 27 June 2018, 16:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 17 July 2026, 12:32 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹