ICANN OPEN FORUM

FINISHED TRANSCRIPT

    

EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM

BALI

BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

OCTOBER 24, 2013

2:30 P.M.

WORKSHOP 60

ICANN OPEN FORUM

    

 

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     This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.

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     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Good afternoon, everybody. I've been given the honor of moderating the ICANN Open Forum which is a tradition at every IGF meeting. My name is Bertrand de la Chapelle. I'm the director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Project and I am also a member of the ICANN board and I used to be the French representative for the French government in the governmental advisory committee.

     The exercise of doing an ICANN forum at the IGF is always a delicate exercise because we're outside the space of the ICANN, but a lot of people who are participating or coming to the ICANN forum at the IGF are actually, for significant number of them and I see that in the room, people who participate in the ICANN process. And so there's always one danger which is that if we begin to address basically the issues that we're addressing at ICANN and we doing an insider discussion, the whole meeting is lost for a lot of people who are actually not part of the ICANN space, and to be frank, it is a little bit demobilizing those who are coming here to see what is ICANN, what is ICANN doing, just to get an update and maybe to be enticed to come participate or follow the activities of ICANN.

     So I will try to with the help of the different people who will come and speak to use this meeting at the IGF not to create an ICANN meeting within the IGF, and I know it's always difficult, but to take the opportunity of the IGF to allow ICANN and the ICANN community to report, to explain to people who are coming to the IGF and maybe not following the ICANN activity on what ICANN does, what are the achievements and what are the next steps. So fundamentally, this is what we'd like to do.

     Along basically two tracks. There are a certain number of things that have happened in the past few months that ICANN has progressed in or has undertaken. And there are certain number of things that will happen in the months to come that you might be interested in participating in if you're not following ICANN in general or if you're already passionate of the ICANN community.

     In addition, beyond those elements that are very factual, this IGF has seen a certain number of initiative and things related to the Montevideo declaration, the announcement of a potential meeting in Brazil. This is not fundamentally the topic of the ICANN forum. There have been many discussions so we'll try to focus on what the activities of ICANN are. That being said, if at the end of the session we have enough time and you really have questions, some of the people in the ICANN space may be in a position or not to answer given the flexible state of the situation.

     So without further ado, it's my pleasure to ask my chair, our chair, Steve Crocker, Chairman of the Board of ICANN to come and make a general introduction because it's also historic perspective coming up.

     >> STEVE CROCKER: Thank you, Bertrand. So as Bertrand emphasizes, this is about ICANN as opposed to a lot of larger issues and this IGF is all abuzz about the much bigger issues which is a very good thing. But let me just stay focused on ICANN itself for a bit.

     ICANN is now ‑‑ I guess next month will mark its 15th anniversary. So that's been a pretty long haul, and the transformations have been enormous. ICANN was organized to ‑‑ ICANN was organized to provide a home for the IANA function, to promote competition and choice in the domain name system. And early on, the creation of the registrar system dramatically reduced the cost of registrations. And over time, we've become a much more business like and solidified system, gone through a major reorganization in the 2002 time frame roughly. And in many respects, a lot of the earlier issues are long behind us, and we're an up and running solid operation.

     Of course, most of the attention is on the parts that are not under control or that are still evolving. In the past year, for example, we have put a lot of energy in multiple tracks into the rather thorny issue of who is information and the registration. And let me just emphasize that by list three distinct major efforts all related to the same thing. There is, of course, the "who is" review team report and the recommendations. That's part of the affirmation, the commitments. And we're in full high gear implementing those recommendations.

     There is also a very substantial change that has been imposed or implemented in the new registrar accreditation agreement and that is the result of very long standing, long running negotiations, most of which are around the same set of issues. And then finally, a year ago, the board took a look at the sort of deep structural issues of ‑‑ behind the existing who is system that has evolved over a 40‑year period and said it's time to take a fresh look and initiated yet another effort along a strategic structural reassessment track the first piece of which is the work of the expert working group and its report is emerging and will be discussion, and that's the beginning, not the end of that effort.

     We also have during this year and is about to emerge the accountability and transparency second, second round ATRT2 we call it look at the accountability and transparency of our processes. And another bracing set of recommendations will appear and challenge us to improve yet more what we're doing.

     And then just incidentally, we've taken care of business along the path we set on eight years ago. And new gTLDs have been put into the root yesterday, I think. And it's big news somewhere and it's business as usual from a different point of view. I've heard everything from, yeah, what's new? To how come we aren't making a very big deal about this. So it's actually, when one steps back and looks at the span of time, it's been a pretty substantial growth period. And a couple of years ago, I noted when we were 13, that that's typically a very gawky, awkward age. And 15 still has much of that, but beginning to develop a little bit of the poise and ability to go out in public and looking around all the time.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Thank you, Steve. To illustrate a little bit the challenge of the ‑‑ of the exercise of doing this at an IGF, I will pick the three ‑‑ the three elements that Steve has mentioned to make a small explanation of each of the works that have been used because there are maybe a lot of people in this room that are not familiar with the ICANN environment and for whom the words themselves do not trigger exactly a clear understanding. Who is, as you may know, is the general directory service that allows people to know who is actually the person who has or uses a particular domain name at the second level in the top level domain space. It is a distributed set of that basis without getting into detail it's a sort of very large address book that says, Mr. So‑and‑so, Mrs. So‑and‑so is actually the person that has bought or acquired the license, the capacity to use this domain name at the second level.

     This registry was built initially for the technical actors, and so it was a registry available to all with the names and addresses and the contact from details and so on. In the course of time, with now more than 200 million domain names and 2.5 billion users who live in very different countries with very different privacy laws, there has been an ongoing debate for more than ten years within the ICANN community because those informations were on the one hand made completely publicly accessible were used for a lot of things, and on the other hand, were sometimes not accurate because people didn't want their private data to be visible. Therefore, it didn't serve fully the very purpose that it was intended for.

     Without getting into detail the reason why I mention this is because as Steve explained, a couple of months, a few months ago a certain number of initiatives have been launched to move to a new generation of directory services that accommodates accuracy and privacy protection. It is a very difficult thing because it's at the international level, and defining these processes is not easy, but it's just to illustrate that on one very sensitive topic, ICANN is a space where global arrangements can and are developed on very sensitive issues like privacy.

     The second element is the ATRT2. That's a nice acronym, but as Steve said, it's accountability and transparency review. In 2009, ICANN has changed the nature of the relationship it had with the United States government regarding not the INF function but where it was attached sort of.

     Until 2009, a certain number of contracts, memorandums of understanding or joint project agreements, successively, had at regular intervals, every three years on average made an evolution where the United States government was confirming that ICANN was in charge of the coordination of the system of unique identifiers. It has not maybe been noticed enough.

     But in 2009, the series of agreement has changed towards the now so‑called affirmation of commitment. Sometimes a piece of paper makes a big difference. This affirmation of commitment has changed one limited but fundamental element. And this element is that instead of having an evaluation every three years by the U.S. government on whether this contract should continue, the contract or the arrangement is ongoing and the evaluation is being made by the community. This means accountability and transparency to the community and all stakeholders. And without getting into details, every three years, there is a group of people composed of representatives of government, Civil Society, private sector, all the different constituencies of ICANN which review the framework under which ICANN functions.

     I want to highlight this as well because it is a unique review mechanism. It a unique self‑reflecting system that is a huge component in the multi‑stakeholder approach, this capacity to self‑evaluate because there is no, for those functions, there is no supervision now externally. It is the community itself that bears the supervision.

     And finally, I'm smiling because during the last few years, whenever people were talking about ICANN, everything was about the new gTLD programme and the issues regarding the new gTLD programme and so on. And rightfully so because this was and this is a major change in the domain name system.

     As you know, the domain name system is at the top level divided in country codes and geographic and generate, sorry, top level domains, and for a long time, apart from a few limited editions, the number of generate top level domains, the global top level domain; .com, .org, but also the name for .jobs and others were very limited in number.

     And the mandate that ICANN was given a long time ago, almost from its inception actually, there is an objective of making the best use possible of this common resource which is the naming space. Let's call it a semantic spectrum for explanation, this ‑‑ there are words that are useful and words that are not. There are words in one language, words in another language. And who is ‑‑

     Oh, oh, oh. Okay. And who is able to manage a registry with those words or ending in .sports, .Berlin or .anything else. Oh, sorry. For the scribes, all the preceding comments were from Bertrand de la Chappelle, not from Steve Crocker. Thank you, Sebastian.

     So just to finish on the new gTLDs, a huge process has been launched several years ago that went through very extensive series of iterative development in the structure to define the rules to allocate those names. Who is likely to be allowed to apply for a new gTLD, what is the process and all the procedures that are in place to do this.

     And so after many years, a first set of recommendations was adopted by the GNSO, the Generate Name Supporting Organization, that set a certain number of policy parameters. And then a whole second process was the development of an applicant guidebook, pretty thick, that detailed the whole process. Make a long story short, this has occupied ICANN a lot.

     And in a remarkable way, the first four, I think, domain names at the top level that come out of this process, more than 1,900 initial applications were made. There will probably be a little bit more than 1,000 top level domains. The first four have actually entered the global root zone file when? Yesterday or just today?

     And this is what it should be. It is a remarkable achievement and an almost nonevent. That's what ICANN is about, remarkable achievement that shouldn't be noticed.

     So this makes a transition. I'm trying to illustrate some of the topics for some of the issues related to privacy. The accountability and transparency regarding the accountability framework of the organization and the new gTLD is one of these activities.

     At that stage, are there any questions or comments on what was just said before I move to the next thing? No? Okay.

     So as a next step, I was explaining right now that ICANN has been very busy with the new gTLD programme. And it is not only a policy development, it's a lot of implementation and operational implementation, and as you probably know or at least a lot of you know, for about a year now, we have somebody that I cannot call a new CEO anymore. He's been our CEO for a year. And I would like to ask Fadi Chehade to maybe come and illustrate a little bit what in addition to the management of the new gTLD programme ‑‑ was the manager of the, you can stand up, just to, for people to know you. Recognize the person who heads the department that deals with all the gTLDs and so.

     So Fadi, could you please explain what are the other things that you do and that ICANN does in addition to the gTLD programme management? Also the offices, the security aspects and so on?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Yeah, we do have other things in our mind that keep us busy as well. Well, let me start from the top. I mean, many of you can go on our website and look at our budget and our finances and our projects and, you know, we have north of a couple hundred projects that are outlined on your website. If you haven't seen it, go to myICANN.org.

     And when you go there, you can very quickly tell ICANN what you want to learn about all the time and the website will automatically send a customized newsletters for you. But also there, there is a tab that says projects, I think. If you go to that tab, you will see everything ICANN is doing. And this is a bit of news for you. In Buenos Aires at our upcoming meeting, we actually went a little farther and will be showing the budget attached to each of the projects so you also know where we're spending our money.

     I don't think many organizations get to that level, but we're trying to push the transparency as far as we can so everyone knows what we're doing. We have a large number of projects that fit into four broad categories that we outlined from the first day we started a year ago with a new administration.

     ICANN ‑‑ a lot of focus at ICANN, a lot of the media at ICANN, a lot of the people attending ICANN meetings think that all we do is new gTLDs, right? And I think the new gTLD programme, which was going on for eight years until when, until today, so today is the first day we have new gTLDs in the root after eight years. And in fact, as soon as we're done here, there is champagne waiting outside the room for us so we can all celebrate together.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: You mean literally?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Literally.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Wow.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: They won't let us bring it in otherwise I would have been ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Maybe we wrap up very quickly.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: He's French, so he's happy we're supporting his economy. But, yes, there's quite a bit of French champagne right outside the door.

     But it is, in fact, a great day because today we have confirmation that four new TLDs have been added to the root of the Internet. This just happened. But we do that, and that division which brings ICANN about ‑‑ yeah, plus or minus $80 million a year, is run by Akram Atallah, the president of the global domains division, and that's obviously an important area of our work and an area of our work that we're moving more, now that the programme is out and it's sucked all of the oxygen of our attention, we should really now make sure all the other parts of ICANN that run are clear and are helped to also evolve in scale like this area.

     But this area is an important area and it takes a lot of our time. And ICANN has been really a leader in not just making it operationally efficient, but also in rooting it in the public interest. A lot of things we've done with the PICs are just the beginning of how we make public ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Whoa, whoa, whoa. The PICs?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Public interest commitments. We've asking every new registry to make public interest commitments. This was never the case before. And any of you who find out that a new registry is not meeting their public interest commitment, a very simple link on our website, you report them. And we have a big compliance team that will make sure they comply with their public commitments.

     So this is ‑‑ in addition to that we have a large team under Sally Costerton, who is sitting right there next to my boss, Steve Crocker, and Sally is responsible for all of our global engagement.

     What does global engagement mean? It means we need to broaden the base of people involved in the ICANN work because you must appreciate that for years, the people involved in the ICANN work were very good in English and were largely in the U.S. and Europe. That is not sustainable. We cannot have global legitimacy by having people discuss things largely in English and who are from a certain part of the world or, frankly, from countries where people have money to go to these meetings.

     So global engagement is about reaching out to the edges of the globe, bringing people into the process, building tools, building capabilities, languages that allow us to engage more people into the policy process, especially now that many presidents after giving a speech are running around asking their people, hey, who decides these things in our country? Who decided this policy? We want to make sure from the bottom up they get answers, they get people telling them, hey, we're part of the policy process.

     And today I will tell you that if Mexico pushed hard as they are from the top say, who in Mexico is deciding these policies? Not many people.

     So our legitimacy means we broaden the base, and that's what Sally's responsibility is. And just to give you an example, when Sally and I started a year ago, in all of Asia, we had one guy. We'll have twelve people in Asia by end of March. Asia Pac, Asia Pac. I got it. She caught me on this one. She was about to tweet. No, Asia Pacific. Asia Pacific. In Africa we had no one ‑‑

     Oh, Kuek is our leader in Asia. He just joined us. You should all meet him. Asia Pacific, our leader in Asia Pacific, although with Save. So we're broadening that base. We're bringing more people. We're building tools. We're enabling people to participate. That's a long term process, but we're investing heavily in it. So that's engagement. That outcome is GDD.

     Of course, we're also investing quite a bit on the technical and security area. So you heard me announce last week in India, we're opening the first center of excellence in the world on DNS security. We got the top research agency in India to co‑invest in a multi‑million, multi‑year programme to bring knowledge on DNS security that the world could share. So these are real investments we are making in enhancing the security of the Internet in enhancing the understanding of it and we do a lot of things by the way that no one talks about.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: The plumbing.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: The plumbing. I'll mention one thing before I get to the plumbing. Last week, one of my team members briefed me that, hey, I just want to give you some good news. We participated in a global effort to break down a child pornography ring. And you think, what is ICANN doing with a child pornography ring? Well, simple answer. Where does child pornography get put up? On a website. Well, where is that website hosted? Well, probably at some hosting company that was given the website name by a registrar, who's hopefully a registrar reseller in the ICANN network. We have a public responsibility to help with that.

     We have some of the smartest people in the world in that space and that took us months to nail that child pornography ring. It took us through LA, to Panama. We had to work with the Attorney General in Panama to find the roots of that company. One of our team members who speaks Spanish went into the company records, public company records until he found connected ‑‑ these are investigative efforts that we do with law enforcement. Then we brought the registrars and the registries, and it turns out that this ring actually is in Russia. And then we had to involve Russian authorities. ICANN does all that work quietly in the background for the public interest.

     And the last thing that Bertrand helped me, reminded me, there's also this thing called the root of the Internet that somebody needs to pay attention to. And the root of the Internet, as I explained to many people including my mom who is 87, you know, doesn't understand all this stuff, she says, why do we need a root for the Internet? Well, I remind her, as I'm sure all of you know, is that the Internet is not one network. It's tens of thousands of networks.

     The one thing that unites us is the fact that there's an address system that is enabled and guaranteed by a single root. Somebody needs to pay attention to that and think about it. If the root address system is one of the few things that makes the Internet one, it's probably a target. Because if somebody wants to bring the Internet down, one fabulous way to do that is to bring down the root.

     So there are a lot of responsibilities that ICANN takes and takes very seriously. ICANN has ‑‑ this year we have a year budget of about $150 million. We have 240 people. We're going to be about 300 people by end of June, so this is a substantial operation that has a lot of work, a lot of effort. And on top of that, unlike any operation I've run before other than my Boy Scout club is ‑‑ it's run from the bottom up. And I'm learning that because I've never run anything from the bottom up. Okay?

     I think that part of it makes ICANN uniquely legitimate because if that bottom up model fails, if we do not keep investing in it and bringing more people, that Sally is helping us bring to the bottom of the tent, working with the communities, then we lose our legitimacy. That's where our legitimacy comes from.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Two things. You mentioned two elements that I would just like to ask you more about. Yeah, I'm still Steve Crocker. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Steve. We have a new chairman ‑‑ you mentioned. Sorry. I did. My name is Betrand de la Chapelle, and I would like to be ‑‑

     For this crowd, why you understand the laughter in the room, the scriber is translating, Bertrand like in French, BBC, and that's enough.

     Anyway, two questions. You mentioned ‑‑ B as in boy. Say moderator, that's okay. I'm the moderator. Moderator.

     Two questions. You mentioned the word "compliance." And you also mentioned the example of catching a ring of actors.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Yes.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Very quickly. ICANN has ramped up its compliance mechanism, but it's also, this compliance mechanism is built on something that is extremely important that the people don't necessarily understand exist is that ICANN is the structure that helps develop what is called the accreditation agreement for registrars and also the registry agreements, and in those agreements, there are many provisions.

     And can you just remind us that the discussions and the negotiations for the registrar and registry agreements have been completed recently because it's ‑‑ it's a global instrument that cannot be developed by individual governments or actors. It is something where ICANN is a public function collectively.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Yes. This is very important, and I actually learned that as I started the engaging with the registrars. ICANN has an accreditation programme that has one thousand registrars in the world, so the registrars almost, either the last point or the next to the last point where you go buy a website.

     Of course, a famous registrar many people know in the U.S. is, for example, GoDaddy. Right? That's a thing ‑‑ that's one registrar of a thousand that are accredited by ICANN. Of course, some registrars sell you the website name directly. Others sell the website through a reseller.

     And as part of our role, we ensure that the registrars that are accredited are under a contract that obligates them to meet certain requirements that serve the end user whom we call a registrant, the purchaser of the website name. And as Bertrand said, it's interesting because registrars don't operate typically within national jurisdiction. All right?

     So GoDaddy, for example, is in Arizona, but in the United States, but people buy website names from GoDaddy all over the world.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: And it's actually a fundamental quality of the system that you can buy it from different places.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: You can buy a website name from anywhere in the world. So the fact that ICANN can set one registrar agreement for any registrar operating anywhere on the planet provides us a mechanism to get a transnational contract in a way set across all boundaries and ensures that if a registrar is operating in jurisdiction A, they will follow the same rules even if they are selling the service to someone in their jurisdiction or any other jurisdiction. And that's something, for example, even, you know, the EU couldn't do or the United States government couldn't do. They could not force ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: On their own.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: On their own. They couldn't do it. So they come to ICANN, they give us insight along with other stakeholders, and we work together to pick a new agreement.

     And this year, I'm happy to say, under the leadership of ICANN, we worked very hard to get a new registrar agreement called the registrar agreement 2013 which enhanced the ability of ICANN to ensure the service to the registrants, to the end users. And for the first time, we told these registrars that they're not our customers, that our customer, if I could use the word, is really the end user and they're with us partners in serving that end user, but our main focus is not the registrar, even if some people think the registrars pay all the money so you should treat them as your customer. They don't pay us the money. They collect money on your behalf and give us a piece of it, but really our customer is the end user, and it is our job to protect the end user, and hence, we have the compliance function that ensures that if registrars don't perform, and you've been seeing our compliance team has been cracking.

     Now, cracking ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Ramped up.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: We are ramped up. First of all, I took this team, put it under me, so it's never influenced by those who collect money. It's under me. And secondly, we tripled its size. And thirdly and very importantly, in fairness to the registries and registrars, because many of them are excellent companies, we shifted their approach from being kind of regulatory to a partnership. Let's work with the registrars and the registries to make this a better marketplace.

     And I must tell you, most of the complaints we receive to the compliance office come from a very small portion of our registries and registrars. People paint everybody with one brush. But the majority of our registries and registrars are excellent in partnering with us to make this a better model. Please.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Second question.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Yeah?

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Yes. Second question. You mentioned this work where ICANN, some ICANN have participated with other actors in efforts to handle things related to a child abusing ring. That is a very sensitive issue here which is that this is getting ICANN in the realm of content.

     The thing is at the same time, the infrastructure operators who are coming to ICANN for the infrastructure, the governance of the Internet aspect are actively involved in efforts to solve those issues. And the reason why you presented it a little bit as something that ICANN does is not to say ICANN wants to put that in its mandate. It's just that today, there's no host. And that actually all those actors want to find ways to work together. Am I right?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Very true. This is a very good point. So for all the debate that's been happening at the IGF where people say, why are we talking about Internet Governance issues that are unsolved and topics that are unsolved, because there are. There are many topics that there is no home for them to be addressed.

     So ICANN gets the pressure. People come to us and say, well, you solve this. Aren't you running the Internet? We're not running the Internet. We do names and numbers. We're a technical community. That's what we do. But the pressure is mounting on us. So part of our goal to address the larger issues which we're not part of is to frankly keep us focused on our end, what we should be doing.

     In fact, ICANN should become smaller, not bigger. It should focus on what it does. The only way it should get bigger is in involving more people so we can say we're truly legitimate and inclusive. But the bigger issues, the issues of content and how is Internet is used and who does what, we should be very much in the background.

     If there is a legal issue, if we're approached legally by an edict from a court, we have, we have to do, if it's a process, we have to respond to it. Right? But we don't want to be instigating or participating or leading. We really don't know.

     How many people here have ‑‑ are quote/unquote new to the ICANN community? I'm just curious. My boss is raising his hand. Okay. So we have a dozen people or so who are saying we're new. So to you, I extend my sincere welcome. I hope you find this community welcoming. We are an open transparent community as best we can. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. But come make us better. So welcome to ICANN.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Thank you. Go ahead. Yes, yes, of course. I was about to ‑‑ go ahead.

     >> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you so much. And my name is Subi Chaturvedi, and I teach communication and new media and Internet Governance in a university women's college in India. And we also run a foundation called Media for Change. From a developing country and an emerging economy perspective, I'm really happy to be here because this is and thank you for making it simple. A lot of these acronyms and names and numbers and ‑‑ and that is what we swim with in trying to resolve this with, but when you talked about the other things that you do, we were really happy and welcome to receive you in India and have you make the time and engage with the young leaders community, about a thousand of them from different parts of the country.

     When you talk about institution building, and I have a question that stems are from the process of multi‑stakeholderism, and I want to borrow your words, Mr. Chapelle. When you talked about a bottoms up process, you also talked about going up, so it is good to be bottoms up, but where is it that they are going when you talk about the way forward?

     And also the fact that we want to be in the room. We ‑‑ there's a lot of trust that is invested in institutions like the ICANN. From a developing country perspective, a lot of us are not in the rooms when these wonderful conversations take place, so when you say multi‑stakeholderism, it's a good thing to have a hub, and I posed this question yesterday, but I didn't get an answer, so I will keep knocking at your door until I get one from you.

     How is it that we get to be a part of this conversation? Because it is a finite resource that we're talking about when you're giving addresses and numbers, and what is the legitimacy of the conversation that we have as a community? Are these recommendations accepted, deferred? And how do you resolve notes of dissent? So if you could respond to that?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Well, first of all, Sudi, thank you for your question. I know how much you deeply care about the inclusiveness of this model. I was recently in India and Sudi was kind enough to walk me into a hall of hundreds and hundreds of students who are eager to participate in this discussion, and we engaged them, and frankly, remarkably, so many young people want to be part of this discussion. They want to join us and I thank you for making that possible and I hope we get more of that.

     Look, the less happens in ‑‑ by leaders and ‑‑ in some organizations, the better. What is happening at this IGF which we will remember, I hope, for many IGFs to come is we're seeing a breakdown of the walls that separate some groups from other groups. We're broadening the conversation. I'm being very candid with you. Our community sometimes silos the discussion so you have Civil Society having their little discussion and then you have the technical community having its discussion and you have the business guys having discussion. And they, in the ICANN community, sometimes these people talk, talk, talk, and they, their discussions never meet until they get to the board. And that's not good.

     We have to break these walls and involve everybody from the beginning into the debate. And the more we do that up front, the more we involve people in the cross‑community discussion and ensure that voices of dissent are heard, are a part of the process at every level, the more we're legitimate. The less we do this, the more we cook up the solution.

     Now many people felt with this recent discussion about Brazil and Montevideo, they felt, who are these guys in Montevideo who got together and issued this statement? Right? It's easy to quickly ‑‑ there's some cabal there that, here they are, one, two, three. They're mostly here. But who do they think they are to issue a statement? And frankly, from the outside, I agree with you, who are they to issue a statement? Okay.

     They happen to the CEOs of five, six, ten, eleven organizations, I think, that are involved in Internet Governance, but this statement I must give credit to all those who are there that this statement was meant to make this meeting and all the meetings since in the last few weeks kind of say, okay, how do we work together?

     The statement from Montevideo was somewhat provocative to stop and get us to move the needle and talk. But now we cannot continue making statements from some group that meets in Cairo. Enough. Right now, we need to remove these walls, invite everyone to participate in the discussion.

     So I just went the see the Civil Society groups, and they said, we want to be part of the discussion. Great. You know, do you have nominees that can be the liaison to your communities? They gave me four names.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Fadi, you are not following the process of this meeting.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Which meeting?

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: This meeting.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: This meeting. Okay. So Civil Society has asked me to ‑‑ you will be involved, and your voice, every voice.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Today I want to talk, give the floor to comment, come on. Sally, may I ask you to pick on this, to continue on the ‑‑ on the engagement policy and the offices and the different actions in the different regions.

     >> SALLY COSTERTON: Thank you, Bertrand, or Beth, as we shall call you. I think it's great actually. That's good.

     I think most of you know who I am, so anybody who is new to our community. Again, I would very much add to Fadi's greeting. I view it as a personal triumph as you are stakeholders and we're engaging you, so something must be going right, and that's my day job.

     We have a mission or I have a mission for my team which is very big, to try to ensure that everybody in the world who is affected by ICANN's work in their life, their business, that they know it, that they realize. And in some cases, they have rights and responsibilities. In some cases, they just have rights.

     Most people don't know we exist. Most Internet users don't ‑‑ they're not aware of how the Internet works. They're not aware the IGF exists. There's a lot of people out there. Steve and I were debating exactly how many, and I thought, well, Steve Crocker should know. And the answer was somewhere between 2 and a half and 2.7 billion Internet users. We're going to settle on that for now.

     A priority in my role as Fadi was saying is how do we make sure that we reach different groups in a way that makes, that is relevant for them, and I'm going to talk a tiny bit about that. And I'm going to rely on Bertrand to say, okay, stop, that's enough.

     There are different ways of tackling this kind of problem and we need different kinds of resources. In every case, the work that we do is extremely collaborative and I wanted to make one observation before I talk about how we structure it.

     And I've just been on a panel this morning about regional engagements with lots of other colleagues in different Internet organizations who do the same kinds of jobs that I do, come to these kinds of meetings. And we were talking about an issue that's very close to my heart and some of my team are in the room so they may shut their ears at this point because I'm going to say something nice about them.

     We recruited a lot of people this year. We particularly recruited a lot of people outside of North America and northern Europe. My team is probably twice the size it was a year ago when I joined, just head count. And going to find those people has been a very interesting process. Because on the one hand, I'm really happy to say that a lot of people want to come to work at ICANN. My inbox is hopping, people.

     Fadi says, many of us are. This is a great thing. I think this is great. For those of you in the room who have been involved with ICANN for many years, I hope that you will feel good about this because I think in a way it's a sign of really progress that people want to be part of this organization. But when you bring in people, particularly to do these engagement roles, they need to be a certain kind of person and we tend to think about them in rather categorized way. Are they Italian? Are they part of the technical community? Are they a policy person? And, of course, we need those functional things.

     It doesn't make sense to put somebody into a job who doesn't know anything. They're not going to be very good at engaging. But I have found the most important thing is the kind of person they are. They need to be genuinely collaborative. They need to not have an ego. They need to be able to listen. And we say to suspend their agenda. In fact, they shouldn't really have an agenda.

     The role of engagement at ICANN is largely a facilitative. It's about helping all of you and the many other people that we don't know yet to get our work done.

     Now, so I have some support people and I'm blessed. I've been very lucky in my past. I'll happy to say on the record this is the best team I've ever worked with in terms of diversity, in terms of spirit, and this is the board, this is the whole community. It's my staff. It's not just the people immediately on my team. It's a very rewarding team. So it's a very rewarding process.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: How many locations, Sally? There are the three major facilities.

     >> SALLY COSTERTON: Yeah, I was just going to come onto that. So we have three hubs which I think most people know about it. We can take it in Q and As. One in Los Angeles, one in Istanbul and one in Singapore, and they're time zone based. They're supporting the time zone slices of the world.

     In addition, we have engagement offices. So the regional vice presidents who are sprinkled around the room who are engagement heads are based all over the world. There are eight of them right now. We've just put somebody new, very senior, into China. We have a China engagement center. You can e‑mail it. They will answer the phone and they will help you. There are two billion of them, as in Chinese, two billion Chinese people, and one person at the moment in an engagement office in Beijing. But we're making ‑‑ it's a start. It's a big development, very, very important process of our engagement process in Asia.

     So we are moving around the world in terms of people on the ground. We are working increasingly closely each one of those vice presidents now has set up a working group, a community working group. Balanced as much as we can across our four meta groups, our governments, our technical community, our academics and our Civil Society. It's not perfect.

     And business, I'm so sorry. Thank you very much. Business is very active in some regions and less so than others, and that's a reflection largely the maturity of the model, but the goal is to have an even balance of resource.

     And these guys, the two that are sitting here which is why I am pointing this direction are at various stages of building really quite sophisticated engagement plans with different types of community members and other Internet Governance groups in region and in country.

     The final thing I would say is about scale. Because I have, maybe we probably have 25 people overall in the engagement team. 25 to 2 and a half billion is still a pretty small ratio. I'm not a great mathematician, but I'm ‑‑ it's going to be a long journey, guys, if we go at this rate. So we have to, guess what, use Internet based tools, what a surprise, to scale.

     And in another part of the forest, at ICANN, there is an incredibly energetic process going on led by a man who many of you have worked with called Chris Gift, who is a very inspiring, very innovative. He's nodding his head because these guys work pretty well together. And they are building very innovative platforms and tools and programmes that help us solve problems about how, a lot about how to engage people that don't know us yet. Addressing language issues.

     We have a big language and transition team. We're now doing six languages most of the time and we're also writing Portuguese, and especially recently. So I hope you will look at things like ICANN labs which is Chris' workshops, participate in that. I think that covered most of the ‑‑ does that cover what you needed me to cover?

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Absolutely. There is another track regarding the evolution of the meetings themselves, but maybe we can ‑‑

     >> SALLY COSTERTON: We can ‑‑ yeah, I'm conscious of your time.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: There's a question of time. There was ‑‑ I have to apologize. There were two people who had a question before and I don't want to forget it. You had a question, and you had a question. Please.

     >> MANU SPORNY: Thank you. This is probably going to be a fairly naive question as this is my first interaction with ICANN. My name is Manu Sporny. I'm the chair of the Web payments group at the World Wide Web Consortium. So currently, what we're doing is we're building payments into the core architecture of the Web. This is going to make it so that you can send money just as easily as you send an e‑mail halfway around the world. As you can imagine, there are a lot of regulatory issues, identity issues, things that ICANN already does for a registrars.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: That's something that is very interesting.

     >> MANU SPORNY: So a lot of what ICANN does translates to the work that we're doing. Now, the problem that we have is the W3C is composed mostly of technical people. Right? We don't have a lot of policy lawyers, government, Civil Society involved. ICANN certainly has that. I guess my question is, you know, I'm hearing that ICANN doesn't necessarily want to expand its, what it does, but there's also this parallel conversation about there being some kind of community created to deal with these sorts of issues, right?

     We need to discuss this stuff with policy people. We need to discuss it with Civil Society, and we need people to feed input back into us. So my question is, who should we work on? Or who should we work with on this stuff? Specifically, identity on the Web, specifically, you know, payments and agreements between countries to flow payments easily.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: So if I understand correctly, is there a replicable methodology or something?

     >> MANU SPORNY: Yes.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: That can be used ‑‑ Steve, do you want to ‑‑

     >> STEVE CROCKER: So it turns out in a prior life, I was a co‑founder of cybercash where we did a lot of work with doing payments on the Internet, and it is indeed a mixture of technical issues and regulatory issues. And market forces and a lot of other things. So just on a personal level you got my attention. I'd like to chat some. In terms of how much ICANN can help, yeah, we have a lot of attorneys, we have a lot of interactions with governments and so forth. But I shudder at the idea that we might be viewed as the pathway for filling in all the pieces you don't have.

     We can help a little bit with identity, a little bit, but basically, there's going to have to be another structure somewhere.

     >> FADI CHEHADE: As a matter of fact, if I understood correctly the question, it was not so much requesting ICANN to do something, but who could you talk to to see what are the component principles that led to the multi‑stakeholder model being implemented in our space and how they could potentially be implemented in yours, a separate thing.

     I have a timing ‑‑ a timing issue because there are several hands that have been raised and it's important that questions can be ‑‑ can be asked. So we'll make a round of questions. And ‑‑ no, I had David Martinon first. No, no, no. David.

     >> DAVID MARTINON: Thank you. And there is no French complicity in that. So I guess what my question would be very naive, too, and very technical since Fadi said that ICANN is a technical organization. So absolutely no political consequence, but does the process of internationalizing the INR function go with any kind of technical challenges, and if yes, what, how many time could be necessary to solve those problems?

     >> FADI CHEHADE: Okay. There was another, there was another question in the back.

     >> OMAR ANSARI: Thank you. My name is Omar Ansari. I work for the Afghanistan ICT alliance. Afghanistan, with all good things happening in the country, there are some not good things happening in the country as well.

     We have some areas that are extremely ‑‑ they only transportation means that work there is donkeys. And even we have donkey ambulances. So if you're interested to see this, you can see it on my laptop. I'm not sure if you can see it from there. You can Google it, donkey ambulance.

     The reason I'm mentioning this, that in the world, there are countries and people who have different needs. And those needs are completely different than other countries. In ICANN, if you see there are countries that are engaged and countries that are missing, and there are countries who are not engaged. Now if we're talking about engagement, we need to work with the countries that are not engaged and there should be special programmes developed for the not engaged countries so that our ‑‑ they're brought into the process and they are part of the ICANN family. Thank you.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Without opening up the discussion, I encourage you to touch base with Sally and to discuss in particular all the mechanisms for fellowships and the local engagement that can be done. Cheryl, you had a question?

     >> CHERYL LANGDON-ORR: No, I have an answer. Shock and horrify those of you who know me, that I have an answer. I had a response specifically to you, but now I actually have something to say to you as well.

     Whilst ICANN itself as the entity may not be a perfect nexus to meet your need, there are parts of ICANN that are very, very engaged as you've noticed in policy. They have attracted a number of amazing people, resources and bodies, so by going down a level and talking to the component parts that are involved in policy, and a number of us can give you those names, I think you'll find access to the types of Civil Society, business, legal and other, in many cases, quite thick bodies, so I just want to make that ‑‑ not necessarily in the name of ICANN, you can probably find a pathway to meet your needs.

     And I just wanted to say to you, of course, that there is a number of things that under Sally's, Sally's guidance and her fantastic team, it's happening, it's happening fairly quickly.

     So we do have things that will be more and more public that will assist directly is a simple question and an expert answer system is a whole lot of things that being tested out now to see what gets good public support, and so, yeah, I think watch this space because there's a whole lot of things that should be rolled off very soon to meet to exactly meet your needs, and there's no such thing as a silly question, of course.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Thank you, Cheryl. Just for the presentation, Cheryl Langdon‑Orr is currently the chair of the nominating committee, of ‑‑ yes, after ‑‑ you're absolutely right. Oops. And the former chair of the at‑large constituency that Olivier Crepin‑Leblond is currently.

     Just an indication, I'm sure that there are people in the community that will be interested in thinking about the models. Don't hesitate to either come to the Buenos Aires meeting or talk to us afterwards and we can point you to people. A last question and I keep your question maybe for the last element because it's more related to the beyond.

     >> AUDIENCE: It's actually, sorry, not a question. As you've heard, there's a several number of these strategy panels for ICANN. And there's a specific one headed by Vinton Cerf called The Strategy Panel and ICANN's role in the Internet Governance Ecosystem. There's 16 members of the panel and 16 of us are actually here at the IGF. So if you do have any input into that process, in other words, ICANN's role in the Internet Governance Ecosystem, please find myself, Pinder Wong, or any other of the 16 members of us who are here. Thank you.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: That's a wonderful segue, into Theresa to talk a little bit about ‑‑ no, no, no, please come. You cannot escape.

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: It's wonderful. Thank you very much. So as ‑‑ has said, there are some strategy panels that have been put into place, but let me put this into context first.

     So first, I'm Theresa Swinehart. I've been ‑‑ I joined ICANN which is now a new organization from when I joined it the last time. So I can attest that it's a living organization.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Describe the ‑‑

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: Yeah, which now is ‑‑ which Theresa and a heart, which is not usual.

     So ICANN has several review processes that exist and it also has a strategic planning process and it has these strategy panels and I want to put the strategy panels into context. When the bylaws were created, it had review processes added into it to ensure that the organization was a living organization, that it evolved as the Internet evolved and as it needed to serve the stakeholders globally.

     And so it's a very, very unique process that exists. And I know that sometimes it become confusing with all of the review processes that are in place. But it's the value of the organization and the value of the model for us to be taking advantage of.

     The affirmation of commitments, which was also touched upon, again, another way to ensure that the review mechanisms of the organization keep it alive and serving the community.

     Strategic planning process, likewise, are we going in the right strategic direction? And now I'm supposed to come up front. So there we go. So I can see everybody.

     So the strategic planning process, again, a process that sets out the strategic plan for the organization, community input into that process and that then informs the operational and business planning of the organization.

     So where did the strategy panels fit in? Well, as the organization evolves over time, there are certain themes that are arisen from the community input that really do need to be addressed and how do you bring the organization to the 21st century and move it forward in that context? So one of them that Pindar referred to is ICANN's role in the Internet Governance Ecosystem, and that is, in the Internet ecosystem, in the communities in which it opportunities, but also in the Internet Governance space. What is its role and responsibilities there?

     Now this panel is going to be serving ‑‑ has quite a few participants on it, as Pindar had alluded to, including Pindar, who if people don't know, is actually involved in ICANN's early formation. We go back for a long ways and times are different now. So we really do need to look at that aspect of the organization moving forward.

     There's also one on technical innovation and that's being headed by Paul Mockapetris, again, looking at ICANN's role in the technical innovation part.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: For those, the audience who does not know particularly know the different names, Paul Mockapetris is nobody else than the, one of the major inventors of the domain name system, the R key itself, so it's actually a nice way to come back in to see how we will evolve or can evolve.

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: Perfect. Okay. There's another panel on ICANN stakeholder innovation. How do we actually engage with the community and use the tools that exist in the 21st century and in the world we operate in now as opposed to in the world we operated in when we were formed, in order to engage the community.

     The other panel is on public responsibility framework. ICANN is a large organization. It has resources. What elements are also serving for our public interest responsibility? So those ‑‑ those panels ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: And this one is chaired by?

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: Nwakanma.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Nwakanma? From Ghana?

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: From Ghana.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: And the previous one is?

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: Beth Novak.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Oh, the real Beth you mean?

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: The real Beth, yes, not the Bertrand Beth, but the real Beth, exactly.

     So these panels were announced on the 14th of October, they have a fairly aggressive time frame, but they also have a time frame which is really seeking to engage with the community. They will have their discussions. They will have outputs that will be engaging with the community for community input and then wrap up their work in January.

     The final piece that will be put out for public comment and then will help inform the strategic plan, but they are not giving recommendations to the strategic plan itself.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Very operationally, there will be meetings, I suppose, in Buenos Aires in a couple of weeks during the ICANN meeting dealing with those panels. If people come to the meeting, it's okay. They will be able to see or interact.

     If they are not coming to the meeting, I suppose that most of the sessions that those panels will be holding will be remote participation enabled. And where can people potentially follow the work or chime in? Is there a specific location on the website that is easy to access?

     >> THERESA SWINEHART: Yes, yes. We will have ‑‑ first of all, you should go to the website and look up ‑‑ you can see the information about the strategic panels themselves. And then for the Buenos Aires meeting, there will be information available on how to engage with them.

     As the strategic panels go through their public consultation process and as they're engaging the community through various tools, whether it's webinars or other tools that exist, that information is also on the website and will be available to everybody. So we are making this as open and community engaging as we can.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Thank you very much, Theresa. I have a question from ‑‑ if there are other questions ‑‑

     >> PAUL WILSON: Also not a question, actually, Bertrand. also not a question. I hope that's okay.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Sorry?

     >> PAUL WILSON: Also not a question.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: You mean responses? That's not possible.

     >> PAUL WILSON: Yes, that's right, contributions. I'm Paul Wilson. For the scribe, that shouldn't be too difficult.

     I'm ‑‑ I represent APNIC which is one of the IP address registries. And even the five RIRs, the five of the IP address registries together represent a pretty small slice of what goes on in the ICANN world. Maybe not quite as small.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Just the RIRs, for those who are not following all this, are the regional Internet registries which are the five organizations in the different regions that actually distribute the Internet protocol addresses, the IP addresses.

     >> PAUL WILSON: Thank you, Bertrand, because that's the first reference to numbers that we've had so far. That's okay. We are sort of used to that. I met a new ICANN staffer so, maybe a year ago, and said to her, is still here by the way, said, well, of course, ICANN is about 95 percent names and 5 percent numbers. What do you think? And she said, numbers?

     So numbers are the IP addresses and the RIRs are responsible for allocating the IP addresses. We rely on ICANN for the INR function, which alongside doing all the work on the root zone of the DNS also happens to allocate the IP addresses to RIRs. And so we really do rely on ICANN to do a good job in that particular, in that particular function, we support ICANN. We have, have done so for years, although we predate ICANN, and, in fact, we have supported the structure at ICANN itself.

     And I think I can say personally, I think ICANN is doing a good job these days. ICANN is in good hands these days. And I really do commend the board of ICANN for hiring Fadi and enabling the work that he's doing. Because, you know, as far as I'm concerned it's in the right ‑‑ it's in the right direction.

     And we ‑‑ we rely on ICANN not just to do a good job on IP addresses, we rely on ICANN to do all of its responsibilities properly, even though those responsibilities are sort of outside of our ‑‑ of our scope. And so again, we support ICANN for that.

     But I would also like to say I think that Fadi is a guy who is moving very fast, and he's got a very broad vision, and he's talking about a pretty big wide world outside of ICANN and risks possibly as seeing as going too far and too broad, but I don't blame him for what he is doing, because just as we are responsible within the RIRs to make sure we are worked within an environment that is functioning, I think ICANN is responsible for making sure that the environment are contributing to the fact that the environment around it is functioning well as well and so.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Because it's to be consistent with a lot of ‑‑ connected, yeah.

     >> PAUL WILSON: And it would be absolutely negligent to be sort of heading forward, particularly in these times, without having that really broad view, so I think ‑‑ I do commend ICANN for that. I think we do appreciate it.

     I think at the ‑‑ at the operational level, ICANN is doing some great stuff. I think moving the gTLD stuff into a division of its own is really going to help, I hope, numbers not to be completely lost as they have been in that huge job that ICANN has got to do. And there's quite a lot of other stuff that we're ‑‑ that I think we can be happy with so I wanted to, I wanted to make those points in particular.

     I wanted to take the opportunity, also, to pinch a bit of the glory around the champagne that's coming later, but the RIRs, we assemble under something called the NRO, the Number Resource Organization. The Number Resource Organization sign an agreement with ICANN to form the ASO and so on. And you hear us represented as the NRO quite often in the intergovernmental forums and at ICANN as well it was actually.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: You by the way have a booth here. If you want more information, there's a booth.

     >> PAUL WILSON: It's a point of communication with the RIRs collectively, and so we're not all repeating ourselves constantly as we tend to do. But anyway, just lastly, the NRO was formed by the signature, signatures on a memorandum of understanding on the 24th of October, 2003. So today is the ten‑year anniversary of the NRO, so that's ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Wow.

     >> PAUL WILSON: Thank you very much.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: I'm sure that it's also the reason why ‑‑ was a surprise anniversary for you. Isn't that well planned? A quick question and I'd like to ask Heather if you don't mind to ‑‑

     >> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you. I'm John Wilson from ‑‑ I'd like to share this opinion. I'd like to thank ICANN person for taking and getting ‑‑ new leaders from developing countries. So given this, I want to share my ‑‑ our, this experience, just ‑‑ policies from developing countries. I will going to try to copy the rules from developing country, we make ‑‑ face a couple of challenges.

     So my request to ICANN, please try more and more negotiate from developing country so they participate in ICANN and participate in ‑‑ process so ‑‑ developing countries in ICANN should be ‑‑ then we don't need to copy and paste the rules in our developing country.

     So my request, please, try to understand how developing countries views and try to take necessary steps in ‑‑ develop countries need ‑‑ thank you and also thanks to ICANN.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: You're welcome. Actually one element of answer was what was discussed regarding the registrar accreditation agreement when it is something that doesn't require copy and paste because it's a single agreement. The second thing is that one way to engage developing countries is also to engage their governments, and it's a very nice transition to give the floor to Heather Dryden, who is the representative candidate, also more importantly the chair of the governmental advisory committee which is the group of governmental representative within ICANN. How many countries now are represented in GAC roughly?

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: 129.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Wow. 129 countries in the GAC. Pretty nice crowd and they're all in agreement and always in consensus, right?

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: Absolutely.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Yeah, as they are anywhere else.

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: Would you like me to stand? I'll try. I feel uncomfortable having my back to people.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: So come here.

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: All right. So yes, we have 129 governments, but we also have about 28 observer organizations that are also represented in the committee. And they are regionally based or expert based, so we have some UN organizations like UNESCO and WIPO that are really quite active in the committee, as well among those 129, of course, some are more active than others, but it's important to have representation from all the regions.

     As you've heard, the policy making function is really ‑‑ is really the main task of all the activity that takes place at ICANN. And in order to have outcomes or decisions that reflect regional differences and different approaches based on national legislation and so on, then you really do need to have a good broad representation among the members. So we've heard about some of the ways in which participation is encouraged.

     Well, in the GAC, up until perhaps a couple of years ago, we didn't have interpretation services but now we do. We have all UN six languages plus Portuguese and as well as we have a fellowship programme, and this has made a tremendous difference in our ability to visit a region, interest governments in participating and retaining them. And that's something that's been really difficult to do in the past.

     As well, you've heard all about the gTLD programme. Well, for the GAC we were given a very speaking role that we haven't had before as part of the running of that programme, as part of the roll‑out of the programme where we could comment and be quite influential on top level domains that governments would find sensitive or controversial. And this has actually brought as well quite a bit of attention and participation into the GAC.

     We've had as a result some interesting experiences in dealing with issues that are not a common feature of the deliberations that take place in the committee. And that's been kind of challenging in some cases. But it is a really important for governments and their representatives in the GAC to be able to work as part of this wider ICANN structure and to be able to move as quickly as possible, because, as we've heard, the organization is about evolution because that's how the Internet works and it's very dynamic and so on. Well, it's certainly the case for governments that we feel under pressure.

     In other settings where governments participate and work with each other in a more traditional environment, they really get to determine their own agenda and their own priorities. However, if the policies are being initiated outside the government committee as they are at ICANN and there is an interest or a need to influence those decisions, then there is a pressure there on governments to try and be rapid and to provide their inputs to provide their advice in a timely way.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: To be frank, I've been as I mentioned before in the position of being a member of the GAC actually, one of the vice chairmans. And there are very few international organizations where I see a governmental representative working full weekends to wee hours to contribute to a participatory programme, so I thank you, want to say thanks to the commitment to some of the GAC members that I see in the room. I see UK, France, of course, Sweden, yeah. And so just to see, one element ‑‑ oh, yeah.

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: I see a few more. It will take a while.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: I'm not looking at everybody. I can spot because they stay in the community. Just any ‑‑ the new gTLD programme has been extremely time consuming, and it has been a huge effort, huge collaborative effort. What do you see as the elements in the next few months or years that will be important for the GAC in terms of the evolution of the organization? Any highlights or things that you would like all of the community to be aware of and work with the GAC on?

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: Well, I would point to the evolution of the GAC because it is growing in size and the advice that we provided in the last few years has become much more detailed and substantive compared to what we provided before. Yeah. So there are a lot of pressures on the committee to keep working this way. And of course, if the committee is successful, it generates a lot of attention. And sometimes that success can actually provide an additional pressure as well because if people ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: More exposed ‑‑

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: If governments see meaning in the committee and think it has influence, then they're going to be that much more interested in being influential themselves within the committee.

     And so it's really becoming increasingly politicized, and sometimes the debate focuses more on rules and procedures. And, again, that kind of thing you would see in a more traditional setting. And because it's a working level committee that needs to generate advice on public policy issues, again, that needs to be quite specific in order to be useful, in order for the board and for the community to be able to take it in and work with it.

     So all of this, I think, makes it very challenging and consensus processes take time as well, and if you imagine the committee growing or more and more, then that's also going to just make things take too long ‑‑

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: And also because the topics get more attention today. One thing I wanted to highlight is for people who are in the larger community, we do not necessarily participate in ICANN, it's one of the places where there are three meetings per year and where the connection with governmental representative, even from your own country, is actually a channel that allows very informal discussions that you would not necessarily find at home just like in any international conferences. So if it is only to be able to connect with other people from the, from your country, come to the ICANN meetings.

     Paul, you wanted to, a question?

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: A friendly question, right? Paul.

     >> PAUL WILSON: Friendly, a friendly question, yes, for sure, for sure. We had a nice meeting this morning with Kuek and Jia Rong of the Asia community talking Internet cooperation in Asia. One of the discussions was about ‑‑ Asia Pacific, thank you.

     One of the discussions was about bringing activities together, finding intersections and collaborations and cooperations across a whole matrix of intersections of sort of modes and subjects and the prospect of a joint regional focused ICANN gathering within, under the banner of one of the existing and alongside one of the existing regional meetings came up some mechanism for providing a platform for different parties to be coming together be the working together and also cross‑fertilizing activities.

     So, for instance, we might have apTLD in the Asia Pacific as well as the ccNSO, as well as APIX, as well as various different, different regional groups that already come together under the banner. One of the ‑‑ I see that as a way of cross‑fertilizing, of attracting interest in ICANN and from ICANN community in what's going on in the region.

     And one of the sort of the measures of success I would have of that would be if we could get a good subset of GAC members from the regional to actually come to along an event like that and sort of seeing the value, seeing not from the ICANN meeting perspective but just from the regional perspective, getting a good exposure to what is going on in the region.

     And I'm just wondering what you think of that. Is it a pie‑in‑the‑sky idea to actually get these folks to a meeting like that? And if you don't, then we'll support it, thanks.

     >> HEATHER DRYDEN: I think that's a good idea. I mean, it's easy to see the value in that. And as the committee grows, as well, you see an increasing interest in working on a regional basis. I mentioned that some of the observers in the GAC are regionally based, so I see them as being a really useful means for helping support and prepare their members or their region for a GAC meeting. So it's not a huge leap to then say, well, would those same governments see value in tacking on to, you know, other related meetings where there would be that kind of cross‑fertilization. And, you know, in some cases, I think GAC members are looking for those opportunities, and, yeah, looking for that, so it just makes sense, I think.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Great. Great. Thank you very much, Heather. I have managed the time with a little bit of delay so I have two more person. I would like to ask Olivier Crepin‑Leblond, who is the chair of the at large, to tell us just in a few words what at large ‑‑

     >> OLIVIER CREPIN-LEBLOND: They're putting my name all together. Okay. Well, we've only got a few minutes.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Yes, and the second thing is to talk about the at‑large summit next year.

     >> OLIVIER CREPIN-LEBLOND: Thank you very much, Bertrand. I'm here to speak to you about the at large and actually respond to a few questions which were asked a little bit earlier. First the at‑large itself, well, where the committee that deals with Internet users. We're an advisory committee that effectively brings the input from Internet users around the world into the ICANN processes. And that's no easy task because the world is rather large which means we've divided the world in five regions. We have got regional at‑large organizations that tap into pretty much nearly I wouldn't say every country, but we try to tap into every country around the world to at‑large structures which are effectively computer clubs, user organizations, got Internet Society chapters, very, very diverse community of people who use the Internet.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: I know the site of at‑large, and the site of ICANN that is a part of at‑large, you can find the relevant at‑large structures in your country to get in touch with them.

     >> OLIVIER CREPIN-LEBLOND: You can. And if there isn't structure in your country, which is the case, and in fact, in Indonesia, there isn't any at the moment ‑‑ there isn't yet, yes, because what I've done throughout the week is to actually go and see local organizations, if they wish to join as an at‑large structure. And there is several that have said that they will be joining.

     So we're looking forward to receiving their applications. So to the gentleman from Afghanistan, who spoke earlier, we are waiting for an application from your country, so we might need to speak a little bit later.

     The interesting thing is that because the community is so diverse, we don't have experts in DNS or experts in ICANN, the work that ICANN does. We actually have people whether who are Internet users, and I will contradict our good CEO Fadi in saying that their customer is actually the Internet user, not only registrants, but anyone who uses the Internet because if you go on a website, no matter whether you own a domain name or not, it needs to work, so ICANN needs to be responsive to these people. And so this is pretty much what we try and push forward.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: At‑large advisory committees, one of the advisory committee?

     >> OLIVIER CREPIN-LEBLOND: Well, we've got 160 at‑large structures. If they all spoke at the same time, it would be an absolute nightmare, and we wouldn't be able to get anything done. So through an organization where we have a pyramid, we can start with the bottom up process by grouping the pyramid into the five regions and then having the ideas and all of the input coming up from five regions into an at‑large committee which is composed of three people from each one of the regions, two of them selected by the region itself and the third one selected. Well, next year, I guess ‑‑ next year, not yet, but next year, by Cheryl's committee, the nominating committee, and I'm sure there they will be looking for people to apply for positions in the at‑large, so that's an important, very important fact.

     Briefly on the summit, I'm know ‑‑ I'm always at the end, aren't I? The summit, yeah, I'm here just to wake you up before the next session.

     The summit, 160 at‑large structures. Very, very difficult to get everyone woken up at the same time. The earth is round, so it's always 4:00 in the morning somewhere and it's very difficult to get people to work all together on big problems. This is reason why ICANN has very kindly managed to allocate a rather large sum to ship everyone over to London in June 2014. We'll have all 160 at‑large structures, hopefully actually more than that since we'll probably have the Indonesia at‑large structures by then, and I cannot tell you about the agenda because it's the at‑large structures that are making the agendas themselves. It's really their summit for themselves and for ICANN as a rule and for all of you, and you're all very much invited to participate in the summit.

     We all work with open doors, and I hope that I'll see many of you over in London in 2014 which by the way will be the 50th meeting of ICANN as well so a double cause for celebration. Thank you.

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: Thank you, again. Would like to finish this session by touching briefly on some of the elements that have been discussed and the things that ICANN has been involved in, in particular, the emergence of the Montevideo declaration, but also the discussions about the meeting that is going to be in ‑‑ taking place in Brazil and also the platform or the activities together energies around improving the system of governance and the reason why I was asking the question to Fadi earlier regarding the ring of child abuse images is because it illustrates the tension and the types of issues that today do not have a home to be handled and shouldn't be handled by ICANN but need a home to be addressed.

     And with apologies for having run the meeting a little bit long, Olga Madruga‑Forti is a member of the ICANN board. She is from Argentina. You can tell us a little bit about this, and there will be other opportunities I'm sure to interact on those issues as well.

     >> OLGA MADRUGA-FORTI: Okay, hello everyone. I'm Olga Madruga‑Forti. And how much time do I have, Bertrand?

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: I think the five minute like the previous statement.

     >> OLGA MADRUGA-FORTI: Okay, I'll tell you what. Internet Governance, what it is, how it's evolving, why does it need to evolve? Five minutes. Yeah. So why don't we try ‑‑ I will suspend my presentation and we go straight into questions, and I'll tell you why. Is there anyone in the room that did not go to some forum in the course of the week about the need to do something and evolve the model and the multi‑stakeholder model of Internet Governance in response to external forces and current day international dialogue? No hand.

     Every single seminar or panel that I have gone to has touched upon this in the course of the week in some way. I think that's really evidence in and of itself of the fact that it is the hot topic of the day. Things are evolving. Things are changing around us. And that is why within ICANN with Fadi's work, the excellent work of all of his executive team and the staff and in cooperation and dialogue with the board have set out a certain short term plan of action and response, and it began with Fadi visiting the ISTAR community and President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil to talk about what are the concerns of governments and other stakeholders around the world regarding the model that should be addressed. As a result of that conversation, it became clear that there is a vacuum, there is a lack of platform for certain kinds of issues that the current multi‑stakeholder model does not have a home for.

     And there are other concerns regarding the continuation of the IANA contract between ICANN and the United States contract, developing country concerns that are, do not fail to have a home for dialogue but certainly do not have a concerted place for resolution and honing in on that dialogue in a multi‑stakeholder fashion and in one place.

     As a result, it was the idea of President Rousseff of Brazil to establish a platform for that dialogue and she graciously announced a conference to take place in Brazil where stakeholders could coalesce and come together. From that announcement, that stemmed for ICANN, really, how do we help in that process? And the idea came about that there should be a panel of experts that thinks about where are the spaces that are unfilled, what are the concerns? What are some ideas as to how those spaces will be filled?

     Can anyone tell me what some of those concerns are out there? Cybercrime, security, child pornography, developing countries concerned, more of a shared space on equal terms around the world in terms of what is Internet Governance. That's just to give some examples of what are the concerns out there.

     Well, now we know that that meeting will take place probably the first week of May in Brazil. Brazil considers itself the host of the meeting and not necessarily the leader or sponsor of the same. It is a rare example of a potentially recommendation making body that will include on equal footing all kinds of stakeholders. Governments, users, business interests including infrastructure builders and service providers, experts on very important issues of the day, like intellectual property, experts all coming together to think about what is missing in the multi‑stakeholder model, Internet Governance space and perhaps make some recommendations and help us along on a path forward.

     So you can see that that is an ICANN activity that is not necessarily integral within its day‑to‑day activities, but it certainly impinges upon the future of ICANN and the multi‑stakeholder process. And I think it's time for all of us to both toast the future of the multi‑stakeholder model and the events of the day. So Fadi. (Applause).

     >> BERTRAND de la CHAPPELLE: We can continue the ‑‑ yeah. Thank you very much for having attended. There is an invitation to join outside to celebrate both the entry of the new TLDs in the root and the anniversary of the NRO. So thank you very much.

     If you have further questions, there are several people who are either members of the board or people who have spoken. Don't hesitate to approach them and continue to ask them what you think about. (Applause)