As the internet turns 25, it faces a future pregnant with promises and menaced by those who seek to control the most universal tool created by humans.
States will inevitably seek to control the internet, web pioneers heard as they gathered this week in California.
British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, known as "father of the web," Google vice-president Vinton Cerf and a long list of engineers and computer experts turned out for the event.
Also there were Fadi Chehade, president of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN; Jessica Rosenworcel, a member of the Federal Communications Commission; and Ford Foundation President Darren Walker.
They agreed on the democratising power of the internet, but also warned about attempts by governments and other actors to rein-in the web as they called for a cyberspace free of restriction and accessible to everyone.
The FCC's Rosenworcel advocated for technologies that improve the access of people with disabilities to information.
Chehade cited the words of an unnamed Latin American vice-president who told him that given governments' fondness for power and the web's status as a powerful tool, states will inevitably seek to control the internet.
He stressed the importance of defining a role for governments that dissuades them from attempting to control an open and free internet.
Warren said politics and regulatory policies are the main threats to the web.
To bring about changes in a democracy requires collective participation, and the web has an enormous potential to mobilise people which has not been used fully so far, he said.
Moh Reza Haghighat, an Iranian engineer with Intel's innovation department, said new technologies soon to be incorporated in computers, such as 3D cameras, will allow a more intuitive interaction between users and electronic devices.
"The devices will be able to see you, listen to you, sense you," he said.
There was also time for reminiscing, as Berners-Lee, who back in 1989 established the first communication between a client and a server using a HTTP protocol, praised the spirit of co-operation that helped to develop the web.
He said it is essential to preserve an independent and neutral web.
"We need to make efforts creating, but also defending the web," he said.
At the same time, he criticised popular platforms such as Twitter, which, according to Berners-Lee, amplify extreme voices and make the world more polarised.
"Twitter is a medium that enhances extremism," he said.
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