Welcome to the Official Website of the 1st Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), to be convened between 30 October - 2 November 2006 in Athens, Greece. At this site, you will find useful information about the Forum, the state of preparations, as well as important documentation related to Internet Governance issues.

We congratulate the Tunis Government, the people of Tunisia and all those involved in the success of a multidimensional World Summit, which exceeded all expectations. The Summit deliberations and the content of the final documents received worldwide media attention catapulting issues such as the “Digital Divide” and “Internet Governance” near the top of the global agenda. By bringing together Heads of State, leading personalities from Civil Society, the Private Sector, and many other fields, the Summit established firmly the foundations of a multistakeholder, inclusive, democratic and transparent Information Society which respects human rights.

The Minister of Transport and Communications of Greece Mr. Michalis Liapis offered formally, in his speech at the Tunis Summit, to host the inaugural meeting of the IGF (Internet Governance Forum) in 2006. We are therefore ready to play our part, live up to our commitment and deliver the IGF Meeting the same way we gave the world the Olympic Games.

The near record attendance figures of the Tunis Summit brought about a thorough revision of our initial estimates. We now think that a number of around one thousand participants for the Athens 2006 IGF meeting is a more realistic working hypothesis. therefore, we have chosen a highly modern and well equipped hotel as the Forum venue, that can support such an important event. It is worth mentioning that the Forum venue is situated by the sea, in one of Athens most beautiful suburbs. Appropriate accommodation for the Forum's participants has been arranged; we have chosen a number of class hotels located near the Forum venue in order to provide easy and fast access to the Forum.

The IGF Greece 2006 structure consists of eight main sessions. The Greeek Minister of Transport and Communications Mr. Michalis Liapis will chair the opening and closing sessions, whereas the other sessions of the Forum will be charied by a high level panel of speakers from all around the world. A proposed programme outline for the Internet Governance Forum is currently availble at Official Site Program.

In order to provide useful information and specific solutions to individual requests of those interested to participate in the IGF Greece 2006, we have set up the IGF Helpdesk.

We declare our determination to work closely with the office of the SG, all regional groups and other relevant parties for the timely preparation of the inaugural IGF meeting in Athens.