Vinton G. Cerf, vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google, is making a global call to support initiatives such as Common Good Cyber, which is trying to help make a safer Internet for all of us. Below is a transcript of his testimony.

Hello, my name is Vint Cerf. I’m one of the pioneers of the Internet. And as all of you know, it’s spread around the world. It’s a global phenomenon. Billions of people use it every single day. And yet, we are not as safe as we would like to be in this online environment.

It’s certainly gotten a lot worse than it was 50 years ago when this project was first started. So, I want to draw your attention to an initiative that is trying to help us make a safer Internet for all of us. This is called the Common Good Cyber initiative, and it is led by the Global Cyber Alliance, the Cyber Peace Institute, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (otherwise known as FIRST), the Institute for Safety and Technology, and the Shadow Server Foundation.

What’s this all about? It’s a global initiative. And the goal is to identify and unearth sustainable funding models that will help support groups which up until now have typically worked in this space on a voluntary basis without consistent funding.

And I think all of you would agree that consistent funding is needed for sustainability for projects along these lines.

So, the time has come to find a way to support this kind of initiative.There was a recent Common Good Cyber workshop in Washington D.C. to highlight both the initiative and some of the challenges that are associated with it. By any reasonable measure, 120 people attended this event. It’s a success in that sense, but it won’t be a long-term success unless we find ways of funding these kinds of activities.

I would invite you to go to the website (www.commongoodcyber.org) and have a look at what they’re doing and how you might be able to engage.

It’s really important that all of us contribute to an effort to make the Internet a safer place for everyone.