It's a question that everyone has asked at one time: Who controls the internet?

The answer, of course, is no one. But just how can this be? How is it possible for nearly two billion people to interact with one another every day – posting words, linking videos and tagging photographs – without someone, somewhere making sure it all works properly?

Part of the explanation lies in the organisation that I am the chief executive of – the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann.

Icann was formed 11 years ago today through a combined effort of the US government and the technical community that built the network itself. And today we celebrate the remarkable success of that effort by doing a very unusual thing: ending the agreement that was responsible for our success.

If that sounds counterintuitive, it's because the power of decentralisation, something that has been lying dormant for thousands of years, has been unleashed by the internet. Think of the traditional industries and powerful companies that have been humbled by the leaderless, location-less internet. Seemingly chaotic groups, with constantly changing memberships, have outpaced and out-organised the best structures that business minds have built. How?

The answer is by harnessing the power of the individual and by empowering people to make decisions collectively, as opposed to having them handed down to them: coordination over control.

For over a decade, Icann has been the body responsible for coordinating the domain name system – where the words written by humans are attached to numerical addresses used by computers, with the end result that we can type in "google.com" or "icann.org" and end up at a website hosted on some server, somewhere in the world.

In that time, we have seen internet users grow by 20 times, and domain names expand from just over two million to just under 200 million.

It would never have been possible to manage that degree of growth without Icann's unique structure. Icann seeks to allow everyone affected by the internet a seat at the table. We do that through a range of supporting organisations and advisery committees that represent different groups – from governments, to businesses, to the companies that run the domain name infrastructure, to the technical community, to you the average internet user.

In this "multi-stakeholder" environment, we also run a unique decision-making process where the community itself identifies issues of concern, works on them and publishes them for public comment so that everyone else can review and comment. Only once a broad consensus is reached is the issue put before a board, itself made up of diverse representatives, for a vote.

This structure was not the one Icann started out with, but it is what the community itself has developed through two iterations of structural changes – the result of which is that Icann now incorporates within its bylaws a review cycle of its constituent parts.

The advantage of this joint, collaborative decision-making is not only that many minds are put to work on the same problem but also that the end result is accepted by and acceptable to all parties, making the results all the more powerful.

And it was this collaborative process that was behind the conclusion of Icann's agreement with the US department of commerce, as well as creating a new affirmation of commitments that puts the global internet community in the driving seat as the ultimate arbiter of Icann's success.

By using the very skills and processes that Icann has developed and matured, based on a philosophy of coordination and not control, we have an agreement that I believe puts Icann in good stead for the next 11 years.

But if you think that's the end of the issue, you could not be more wrong. With the signing of the affirmation of commitments, Icann is now accountable to the global internet community – and that means you, the reader of this article.

If you want to ensure that the internet continues to develop and evolve in a way that makes the most of its enormous potential, it is up to you to get involved and participate within Icann. I look forward to seeing you help us tackle the next set of issues that this extraordinary network will throw at us.