More than 300 visitors took part in this year’s Serbian Internet Domains Day (DIDS 2015), held at the Metropol hotel in Belgrade and organised by the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry Foundation (RNIDS). DIDS 2015 was the sixth annual conference on the development of the Internet globally and in the Serbian .rs and .срб domain spaces, held this year under the slogan “Which Internet Film are you in?”.

The all-day programme, divided as always into three blocks, saw IT professionals from all sectors of the economy, Internet providers and accredited registrars come together with other local Internet users to hear the experiences of some thirty conference speakers from home and abroad.

In the first block titled “Masters of the Internet” the topic of discussion was the forthcoming changes to the global governance of the Internet. Without proper and impartial translation of domains into IP addresses and their fair allocation to billions of connected devices, the Internet would become fragmented. As of September, oversight of these tasks is due to be transferred from the US government to “all of us”,  that is to the global Internet community, and a multistakeholder model of Internet governance established.

“According to this model, ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) would have full authority to administer the global network, whilst countries, corporations and other stakeholders, acting within various bodies, would be able to make proposals and take active part in shaping policy and practice relating to cyberspace, but not take autonomous decisions. The proposed model is rather complex and formalised, and could lead to a lack of inclusiveness for stakeholders,” said Vladimir Radunović, director of cyber-security and e-diplomacy at the DiploFoundation and moderator of the “Masters of the Internet” panel debate.

The second block, titled “Call ‘E’ for Commerce” was dedicated to e-commerce in all its aspects: legal and financial, promotional, logistical and software-related. Participants in the panel debate were local experts in the field who presented specific solutions from the practical experience of their own online projects. Block moderator was Miloš Petrović, web entrepreneur and blogger.

“The Serbian public does buy online, but e-commerce has still not fully taken root in the minds of retailers. Things are changing, though, and more and more companies are having sites built with e-commerce platforms in place. At the same time, there is no longer a distinction between foreign sites and local sites. The Internet is global, and that is how consumers already perceive it,” explained Petrović.

The third block, titled “A Promising Domain” was, as ever, reserved for important sites on the national .rs and .срб Internet domains, covering everyday topics which illustrate the potential for the creation of quality content as well as for global business. This block was moderated by Radomir Lale Marković, co-founder and manager of content marketing agency TAG Media.

RNIDS is the only organisation to have arisen from the Internet community in Serbia that has in recent years supported the development of the Internet in Serbia. In addition to managing the national top-level Internet domains, its supplementary objective is the development of the Internet in Serbia, and especially of local content. “DIDS is the most visible and probably most significant way in which RNIDS gathers together the community from which it arose and assists it in achieving its full potential. This year DIDS took on a regional significance with the organisation of the Regional Internet Forum on the second day of the event, which also served as a preparatory meeting for this year’s EuroDIG – the European Dialogue on Internet Governance – to be held in Sofia,” said Danko Jevtović, RNIDS CEO.

Additionally, the sixth annual conference on the development of the Internet globally and in the Serbian .rs and .срб domain spaces received the support of ICANN, the lead organisation for the administration of the Internet and its global structure.

More information on the DIDS 2015 conference, as well as links to video material and a photo gallery from the event, can be found at dids.rs