IGF Venezuela 2018 (Foro de Gobernanza de Internet de Venezuela, IGFve) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 23 October 2018, at Foro XXI in Caracas, ISOC Venezuela convened IGF Venezuela 2018 (IGFve) — preceded by a workshop pre-day — the only verifiable meeting of the country's national IGF.
Fifteen agenda themes ran from the state of telecoms infrastructure and human rights online to Internet blocking, disinformation, payments and cryptoassets, and the future of .ve, with over 40 speakers spanning regulator CONATEL, civil society and the technical community.
Amid a deep national crisis, government and civil society discussed connectivity and censorship in the same room — a rare record of dialogue. No later edition of Venezuela's national IGF has been verified.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on IGF Venezuela 2018 (Foro de Gobernanza de Internet de Venezuela, IGFve) 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 Venezuela 2018 (Foro de Gobernanza de Internet de Venezuela, IGFve)
Edition	First edition — the only meeting of the Venezuela IGF (NRI) verifiable in primary sources. Contemporary coverage also described it as the second such event coordinated by ISOC Venezuela and the fourth of its kind in the country; UN NRI records date the initiative to 2018 with Andrés Azpúrua as coordinator
Dates	23 October 2018, registration from 07:00 to 17:00, with a pre-day of self-organised sessions and free workshops on 22 October
Venue	Foro XXI, 5th floor, Centro Letonia, Av. Eugenio Mendoza, La Castellana, Caracas (near Altamira metro station)
Theme	Regional governance themes
Host	The Venezuela chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC Venezuela)

(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. Internet Blocking and Information Control — The Defining Issue of Crisis-Era Venezuela

Sessions: Agenda items on in-depth analysis of Internet blocking and on information and disinformation, with Andrés Azpúrua (VE sin Filtro/ISOC), Mariengracia Chirinos (IPYS), Carlos Correa (Espacio Público), Marianne Díaz (Derechos Digitales) and researcher Iria Puyosa

An in-depth analysis of Internet blocking stood as its own agenda item — a bold move in 2018 Venezuela — with Azpúrua of blocking-watchdog VE sin Filtro and free-expression groups on stage [2][1]
Puyosa was slated to present her research on the 'contamination of the public agenda on Twitter in Venezuela', bringing data to bear on disinformation and propaganda [2][1]
Human rights online, privacy and free expression anchored the fifteen themes, carried by press-freedom and rights groups IPYS and Espacio Público [2][1]

2. Infrastructure and Access — Crumbling Connectivity and the State's Role

Sessions: Agenda items on the state of communications infrastructure and universal access, with CONATEL's Alexis Anteliz and Avilio Labarca, industry body Casetel and Telefónica Movistar

"It is fundamental that governments actively participate in these events to develop the Internet"
— Andrés Azpúrua, President of ISOC Venezuela [2][1]

The state of telecoms infrastructure and the challenge of universal access headlined the agenda, with two CONATEL officials sharing the stage with business and civil society [2][1]
Accessibility, cybersecurity and gaps in public policy rounded out a systematic map of the connectivity crisis, with industry (Casetel, Movistar) at the table [2][1]

3. Payments, E-Commerce and Cryptoassets — Survival Strategies for a Digital Economy

Sessions: Agenda item on payments, e-commerce and cryptoassets, with Aaron Olmos (DASH) and Richard Ujueta (Cavecom-e)

Payments, e-commerce and cryptoassets got their own agenda slot, with speakers from the DASH cryptocurrency ecosystem and e-commerce association Cavecom-e [2][1]
A companion theme, 'the Internet for Venezuela's development', captured the search for digital lifelines amid economic hardship [2][1]

4. One Multistakeholder Day — Government, Civil Society and Technologists in One Room

Sessions: Across the forum and the 22 October pre-day of free workshops: digital evolution in Latin America, blockchain, copyright in digital environments, and IoT education

"(Internet governance) defines the general rules for the use of the Internet in a society"
— Robinson Rivas, Central University of Venezuela (UCV) [2][3][4][5]

Over 40 national and international speakers and eight moderators — journalists, academics, technologists — with a strong technical bench: Nic.ve, LACNOG and ISOC's regional bureau (Raquel Gatto) [2][3][4][5]
ISOC Venezuela funded ten students from the interior, and themes stretched to women in technology, the future of .ve and safe social-media use, staging a deliberately open dialogue [2][3][4][5]
No subsequent annual meeting has been verified, and UN NRI records still list the annual meeting as 'to be confirmed' — making this one-off crisis-era dialogue all the more valuable as a record [2][3][4][5]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What kind of meeting was this?

A. The first — and only verified — national IGF of Venezuela, convened by ISOC's local chapter. One day in a Caracas conference hall packed fifteen themes and 40-plus speakers, from the telecoms regulator to rights groups and the crypto industry.

Q. What made it remarkable?

A. In the middle of a political and economic crisis, the watchdog that monitors Internet blocking and CONATEL, the regulator widely seen as doing the blocking, appeared at the same event — a rare multistakeholder experiment.

Q. What happened afterwards?

A. No follow-up edition has ever been verified. The official domain lapsed into an unrelated website, and UN records still list the annual meeting as 'to be confirmed' — a measure of how hard it is to sustain a national IGF in a country in crisis.

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

Venezuela 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.