One of the most innovative technologies on display at the recent World Summit on an Information Society (WSIS) was a new networking system presented in the Japan Pavilion. The technology allows for making network connections through the human body, carried over the small electric currents present in all of us. The potential applications cited, such as alarms for pill containers, were not especially convincing. However, the idea of human networking technology is a potent metaphor for the greatest value of the two-year WSIS process.

The ostensible focus of WSIS was a set of political meetings, facilitated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Internet governance and the development of a global information society. Not surprisingly, the U.S. refused to cede much ground on Internet governance. In the foreseeable future, ICANN will continue to administer the web; perhaps this is not a bad outcome compared with the prospect of governance by an international body. In terms of building a global information society, little happened beyond the development of impractical policy documents and flowery declarations by politicians. In sum, the political process was a disappointing failure.

Yet the Summit was more than just a political process. Indeed, WSIS was among the first United Nations processes to integrate participation of the private sector and civil society. Also, as a two-year process, it allowed these players to engage more fully than any previous international process. According to the Tunisians, more than 23,000 people attended the meeting in Tunis; many more participated in a range of related meetings around the globe over the past two year. Despite the bumbling of national representatives, this engagement of businesspeople, activists and social entrepreneurs enabled WSIS to succeed in building a set of critical human networks. The value of these human networks has important implications along three different dimensions.

At one level, the WSIS process facilitated knowledge-sharing on a global scale about how we are building an information society. The tens of thousands of participants from around the globe, hundreds of presentations and meetings, and thousands of publications have helped formulate visions for how information and communications technologies can help us more fully achieve our human potential. While we have not emerged with a single concept of what this means, the multiple overlapping ideas are a source of strength, as they represent fertile ground for the continuing development of a knowledge society.

Perhaps even more important, the WSIS process facilitated a negotiation of understanding of what building an information society between the developing and developed worlds means. Governments from developing countries were pushed to articulate their technology policies on a world stage. OECD nations needed to examine how funding for ICTs in the developing world, as well as at home, fit into their priorities. Multinational technology corporations saw it in their interest to articulate their outlook on using ICTs for development, and in many cases, to launch exploratory initiatives. Smaller scale enterprises in developing countries looked for the opportunities to grow. Civil society organized itself to push for openness and equity in this arena. Most important, tens of thousands of people from around the world were engaged in a broad conversation about what technology is making possible, what is working, and what is not.

Finally, WSIS represented a marketplace for financing the information society. In Geneva, in Tunis and between the two, governments, businesses and social entrepreneurs networked, developed proposals and sought out and made investments. While one can bemoan an overall lack of resources—and perhaps the waste of resources in these glitzy summit meetings—there is no doubt that funding connections were made, deals were cut and that a great deal more money flowed into developing a global information society than if WSIS never happened.

So, even though our global polical leadership could not get its act together, WSIS still worked. The inclusion of business and civil society enabled the process to succeed despite itself. Networks of government, businesses and NGOs working on information society issues have flourished, our global knowledgebase has grown dramatically, and more resources flowed to development of an information society. Have we achieved all that was hoped for? Most certainly not. But don’t lose hope--or contact. The process continues, most tangibly with the announcement of a Third Global Knowledge Conference (GK3) in 2007, where we will continue to build an information society, anchored in the strength of our growing human network.