NL IGF Event 2023 — Future-Proof Internet Governance — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 12 September 2023, 'NL IGF Event 2023' met in Utrecht, where over 80 participants debated 'Future-Proof Internet Governance' in the run-up to the IGF in Kyoto that October.
Waag's Marleen Stikker opened by insisting society — citizens included — must set technology's direction, with sessions on implementing the DSA, Internet standards, the EU AI Act and the UN's Global Digital Compact.
With ICANN's Adam Peake previewing the Kyoto meeting, the event tied directly to Japan — and, by moving from The Hague to Utrecht, showed the national IGF need not have a fixed home.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on NL IGF Event 2023 — Future-Proof Internet Governance draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

📍 Held in Utrecht, not The Hague — evidence that the NL IGF event does not have a fixed host city

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	NL IGF Event 2023 — Future-Proof Internet Governance
Dates	12 September 2023
Venue	Utrecht (venue name not stated in the sources)
Theme	Future-Proof Internet Governance: The Power of Multistakeholder Collaboration
Participants	Over 80 representatives from government, business, civil society and academia
Host	The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, SIDN and ECP — the NL IGF consortium

(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. Keynote — Who Decides Where Technology Goes?

Sessions: Opening keynote by Marleen Stikker (founder of Waag Futurelab)

Stikker addressed technology's role in society and the direction of digitalisation, stressing the inclusion of citizens in the debate and the embedding of public values in technical design [1]
The event's premise: governance is 'future-proof' only when civil society and academia sit as equals beside government and business [1]

2. Implementing the DSA — Commission, Industry and Justice Ministry at One Table

Sessions: Session 'Digital Platforms' with Menno Cox (European Commission, DG CNECT), Michiel Steltman (DINL) and Eleonora van Hoorn (Ministry of Justice and Security)

With the DSA newly applicable to very large platforms as of August 2023, the European Commission, the Dutch digital-infrastructure association and the Justice Ministry worked through implementation [1]
In a parallel session, Niels ten Oever (University of Amsterdam) used an interactive quiz to make Internet standards — and their power — visible as a governance topic [1]

3. The AI Act and the Global Digital Compact — Rule-Making on Two Fronts

Sessions: Sessions 'Artificial Intelligence & AI Act' (Lisa Vermeer, Ministry of Economic Affairs; Jord Goudsmit, Considerati; Ariën Voogt, Stichting Algorithm Audit) and 'Future of Internet Governance' (Alisa Heaver; Jacco-Pepijn Baljet, Foreign Ministry)

Policy officials, consultants and an algorithm-audit NGO assessed the EU AI Act, then in final negotiation, anticipating regulation and auditing in the year generative AI exploded [1]
A UN-focused session covered the Global Digital Compact and the IGF's future mandate, and ICANN's Adam Peake previewed the Kyoto IGF (8–12 October), wiring the national debate into the international process [1]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding — it was the preparatory forum whose discussion became the shared Dutch brief for the UN IGF in Kyoto the following month.

Q. What was the core question?

A. Whether the multistakeholder model can survive an era of hard law — with the DSA in force and the AI Act closing, dialogue-based governance had to argue for its own future.

Q. Why does it matter?

A. It fed directly into the Kyoto IGF hosted by Japan, and its DSA and AI Act implementation debates prefigure regulatory design questions in every jurisdiction.

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

Netherlands 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 2023 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.