Chinese delegates Zhuang Rongwen and Lin Nianxiu and those from Laos, Thailand, Turkey, Serbia, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia at a Belt and Road Initiative event pose at the 4th World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, on Sunday. Zhuang (fourth from left) is Cyberspace Administration deputy head. Lin (fourth from right) is National Development and Reform Commission vice-minister.WU ZHIYI / CHINA DAILY 

In the early days of the internet during the late 1960s, the technology wasn’t purely meant for a worldwide access. It existed among a few interconnected networks in the United States and later joined by others in Europe. Later on came the World Wide Web (www), of which credit is given to Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Today the internet is accessible across the globe, from Wuzhen in China to Timbuktu in Mali, from the Samoan islands in the Pacific to the West Indies, and from Mumbai in India to all of Eastern and Western Europe, leaving it footprints in areas far from where it sprang.To take a cue from President Xi Jinping’s 2016 statement, “the development of the internet knows no national or sectoral boundaries”.

This is true of this year theme for the 4th World Internet Conference held in the water town of Wuzhen, Zhejiang province, “Developing Digital Economy for Openness and Shared Benefits-Building a Community of Common Future in Cyberspace”. And I will add “with no boundaries”.

I am particularly interested in the keywords, “Shared Benefits and Common Future”. In our current digitized age of the internet of things (IoT), and high-tech products, the question I ask myself is, “what will be the future of the internet” with regards to the foundation currently being laid, bearing in mind that a century or two from now, our age of internet would be regarded as primitive?

To answer before I make a deduction, I say the internet today is supreme to what may come after it, simply because this is the foundation. Our generation is in the process of building a community of common future in cyberspace with a strong solid foundation in security, openness, and shared benefits, as themed for this year’s conference.