AprIGF 2012 Tokyo — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. The 3rd Asia Pacific Regional IGF met at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo on 18–20 July 2012: 278 participants from 28 economies, 105 presenters across 22 sessions, and nearly 20,000 remote views via Ustream.
2. A year after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Internet's role in disaster relief headlined the agenda alongside IPv6, cloud privacy and new gTLDs; each session's areas of agreement were fed into the global IGF in Baku that November.
3. It was Japan's first time hosting the regional forum, run by IGF Japan and the ISP association JAIPA — and a milestone in sharing the lessons of 3.11 with the wider Asia Pacific.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on AprIGF 2012 in Tokyo 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. Disaster Relief and the Internet — Sharing the Lessons of 3.11

Sessions: Plenary 1 'Internet for Disaster Relief and Restoration' and Session A1 'Reports from Local Governments' (18 July)

• Yahoo! Japan presented its 3.11 response as a possible model for disaster response, while Taiwan shared the experience of its Typhoon Morakot disaster information centre [1]
• Officials from the cities of Tagajo, Soma and Sendai reported first-hand; exploring ICT for disaster relief was named among the meeting's areas of common agreement [1]

2. IPv6 Transition — Agreement on Its Criticality

Sessions: Plenary 4 'Critical Internet Resources: IPv4/IPv6' (20 July)

"Some new areas of common agreement were the criticality of IPv6, the need to work on privacy in order for cloud computing to take off, and the need to explore ways to use ICT for disaster relief"
— Ang Peng Hwa (Chair, APrIGF Multi-stakeholder Steering Group — Report from the Chair) [1][3]

• APNIC Chief Scientist Geoff Huston, Japan's MIC and Google discussed the state of IPv6 deployment after IPv4 exhaustion and how to accelerate the transition [1][3]
• APNIC organised the session, opening the region's addressing-policy debate to a general audience [1][3]

3. Cloud Computing and Privacy — a Precondition for Take-off

Sessions: Plenary 2 'Global Cloud Computing and its Challenges' (19 July) and related sessions

• Moderated by Microsoft Japan, panellists from NTT Communications, Fujitsu, GE Healthcare, MIC and the Wharton School debated cross-border cloud challenges from industry, government and academic perspectives [1]
• That privacy must be addressed for cloud computing to take off was recorded among the meeting's new areas of common agreement [1]

4. New gTLDs — in the Year of 1,930 Applications

Sessions: Session B1 'The Impact of New gTLD' (18 July)

• With the first-ever gTLD application round drawing 1,930 applications worldwide in 2012, ICANN board members and Japanese registry figures (JPRS, GMO Registry) debated the impact of the new domains [1][4]
• Applications from Japan meant new registries beyond .jp — including city domains — would soon emerge [1][4]

5. Keeping the IGF Alive — and Formalising the APrIGF

Sessions: Opening plenary, 'State of the IGF' session and closing plenary

"The IGF is possibly the best example of a global multi-stakeholder forum, and we should keep it alive and ongoing"
— Paul Wilson (Director General, APNIC) [3][1]

• The Number Resource Organization announced it had doubled its yearly contribution to the IGF process to USD 75,000 [3][1]
• Formalisation of the APrIGF itself began this year — a programme committee endorsed by the AP* community and new transparency processes — with outcomes reported to the global IGF in Baku in November 2012 [3][1]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What is the APrIGF anyway?

A. It's the Asia Pacific edition of the UN's Internet Governance Forum — governments, business, civil society and engineers meeting as equals, with the results fed into the global IGF (held in Baku that year).

Q. What stood out in Tokyo 2012?

A. Held a year after the Great East Japan Earthquake, its headline theme was the Internet's role in disaster relief — from Yahoo! Japan's 3.11 response to first-hand reports by affected cities such as Sendai.

Q. Why does it matter now?

A. IPv6, declared 'critical' here, now underpins everyday connectivity, and today's online disaster-information tools trace straight back to discussions like these.

What Is AprIGF? (for first-time readers)

AprIGF 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 2012 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. Report of 2012 APrIGF Tokyo（大会報告書） — 2012 APrIGF東京開催委員会事務局（IGF Japan・日本インターネットプロバイダー協会） (accessed 2026-07-10)
2. 2012 APrIGF Tokyo 公式サイト — APrIGF (accessed 2026-07-10)
3. APNIC supports the regional IGF in Tokyo — APNIC（ニュースアーカイブ） (accessed 2026-07-10)
4. 2012年度事業報告（APrIGF東京開催の報告を含む） — 日本インターネットプロバイダー協会（JAIPA） (accessed 2026-07-10)
5. 日本におけるインターネットガバナンス関連活動の経験と課題（資料3） — JPNIC (accessed 2026-07-10)
6. APrIGF 公式サイト（歴代開催地一覧） — APrIGF (accessed 2026-07-10)

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 18 July 2012, 09:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 10 July 2026, 23:16 (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