A ceremony was held in Beijing on 7 March 2014 to kick off preparation for the construction of “China Internet Museum”, the country’s first official Internet-themed digital museum. Under the guidance of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the project is to be undertaken by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), Internet Society of China (ISC), CAS Computer Network Information Center (CNIC) and China Science and Technology Museum (CSTM). Leaders and representatives of CAS, CAST, ISC and other organizations attended the ceremony and extended warm congratulations on the commencement of the project.

The ceremony, also served as a press conference, was presided over by Huang Xiangang, Director of both CNNIC and CNIC. According to Mr. Huang, China Internet Museum will be a digital museum themed with and based on the Internet to show the splendid history and great achievement of China’s Internet development from multiple perspectives and to spread Internet knowledge.

Carrying forward the Internet Spirit and Building an Open and Shared Platform
Twenty years ago China opened its door to the Internet, which marked the beginning of its transition from a traditional industrial society to an information society. Today, the Internet not only has penetrated into every aspect of people’s daily life but also become a powerful force to drive innovation. Although China’s Internet industry is relative young compared with traditional industries, its role in promoting overall social and economic development is increasingly obvious.

At the conference, the significance the museum was fully affirmed by Hu Qiheng, Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, former President of ISC, Honorary Chairwomen of CNNIC Working Committee, and one of the major movers of China's access to the Internet. She expressed her hope that all parties involved in the project would work closely together on a collaborative basis to build the museum into an important platform which is open to, interactive with, and shared by the public.

CAS academician and Deputy Secretary-General Tan Tieniu said that the museum will provide a good reference for the future development of China’s Internet by recording past history, summarizing development experience and saving authoritative information. Innovation and development of China's Internet needs a public platform where knowledge and culture can be shared and disseminated so that more people can better understand China’s Internet and play an active role in its construction and development.

Panoramic Display of Content in Diversified Forms
In the history of China’s Internet development there have been many memorable milestone events, and numerous people have made admirable contributions, leading to the emergence of new things one after another. In the meantime, Internet innovation and development has also facilitated the application of cutting-edge technologies and products. According to Dr. Li Xiaodong, Executive Director of CNNIC, the China Internet Museum will adopt diversified technical means to give presentations in graphical, visual, audio and virtual forms. In addition to the construction of a website-based digital museum, a museum APP will be launched by which netizens will be able to “visit” museum while on the move. Other social networking platforms such as Weibo and Wechat will also be given full play to realize more interaction between netizens.

 
Exhibition sections of the museum and the contents of each section will be planned and organized by focusing on the important people, events and things that have produced a profound influence on the development of China’s Internet. When construction is completed and the digital museum is open to the public, various theme activities will be organized such as network thematic forums, online discussions, theme exhibitions, saloon talks, etc., and these activities will extend from online to offline so as to enable more effective interaction between the Internet industry and the netizens.

 
Open and Interactive, the Museum will be built for the People and by the People
To collect as much information and material as possible, Internet users and all sectors of the society are encouraged to make contributions to the museum in their own ways. As one of the undertakers of the museum, ISC hopes to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of Internet-related enterprises and public institutions for building and running the museum, said Gao Xinmin, Vice President of ISC.

To better cater for the needs of Internet users and encourage them to get involved in the construction process, a series of netizen activities will be held to solicit suggestions and opinions from them. The first of such activities will be organized in shortly which is a collection and evaluation themed “Twenty Examples to Demonstrate Internet-Caused Changes in People’s Lives”, to invite netizens to look back on and talk about major Internet events that have happened in the past 20 years and have brought profound changes to the Chinese society and peoples’ lives.

For detailed information about essay solicitation, please visit:
http://internet.cn or http://互联网博物馆.中国