IGF Greece 2021 (1st Internet Governance Forum Greece) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 13–14 November 2021, Greece's first national IGF met at the University of Athens' informatics department, drawing more than 800 free participants in hybrid format with 35 speakers.
Under the question 'How and who governs the Internet in Greece?', it covered security, accessibility, data protection, digital transformation, the circular economy and e-waste, and AI.
A civil-society-led, university-hosted, free-of-charge launch — the origin of a series that would later rebrand as the Digital World Summit Greece.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on IGF Greece 2021 (1st Internet Governance Forum Greece) 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)

Item	Detail
Official name	IGF Greece 2021 (1st Internet Governance Forum Greece)
Dates	13–14 November 2021 (The UN IGF NRI page announced the first annual meeting for 2–3 October 2021, but the meeting actually took place on 13–14 November 2021 (NKUA, TEE and Papaki records concur; one university notice says 12–14). The October dates appear to have been postponed)
Venue	Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; hybrid with livestream
Theme	'How and who governs the Internet in Greece 2021?'
Participants	800 (More than 800 attended free of charge (per sponsor Papaki's post-event report); 35 speakers and 8 workshops (per the Technical Chamber of Greece))
Host	Organised by the Institute for the Internet and the Just Society, under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Governance, the Municipality of Athens and the UN, with support from EURid, ISOC and ICANN

(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. Who Governs the Internet? — The Founding Question

Sessions: Overall theme across the two days and 8 workshops

Billed as 'an innovative dialogue platform open and accessible to everyone', with balanced representation across academia, the technical sector, industry, government and civil society [2][3]
Internet pluralism, accessibility and the shape of regulation were the founding debates [2][3]

2. Data Protection and Security — Meeting Citizens Where They Are

Sessions: Security and data-protection sessions

Internet security and personal-data protection headlined the programme (per Papaki's post-event report) [4]
Free admission and 800+ attendees mark it as a public dialogue, not an experts-only meeting [4]

3. Circular Economy and E-Waste — Environment on the IGF Agenda

Sessions: Circular-economy and e-waste session

E-waste management and the circular economy stood alongside AI and state digital transformation as pillars [4]
Putting environmental impact on a national IGF's founding agenda was ahead of the curve in 2021 [4]

4. Hands-On Workshops — From Concept to Implementation

Sessions: Workshop 'From Concept to Implementation: How to Get Your Idea Online' and 7 others (ethical hacking, disinformation, the future of internet governance)

A practical workshop on domains, hosting and website building featured EURid, registrar Papaki and Elpida Vamvaka, president of the NGO Homo Digitalis [3][4]
Workshops on ethical hacking and misinformation kept the format participatory rather than lecture-style [3][4]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What was new here?

A. It was Greece's first national IGF — November 2021 at the University of Athens, more than 800 free participants, organised by a civil-society institute with government and UN patronage.

Q. What was discussed?

A. 'Who governs the Internet in Greece?' — security, data protection, AI, plus e-waste and the circular economy, with eight hands-on workshops from ethical hacking to getting a website online.

Q. Why care?

A. It is a working model for launching a national IGF from the grassroots: a university venue, free entry and civil-society leadership rather than a ministry-run conference.

What Is Greece IGF? (for first-time readers)

Greece 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 2021 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.