Interpreter: Good morning the English side. The French side is asking me to translate the internal discussion they're having right now. They have to stop the recount for Tijani and they're going to talk about Adobe Connect sometime shortly. Now they're asking Tijani to start the conference.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Is Fatimata here?
Unknown: No she is not there.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: We are going to start the conference call. I'm asking Gisella to start the roll call.
Gisella Gruber: Good afternoon, good morning, this is AFRALO conference call. On English Pastor Peters, Mistura Aruna, Titi Akinsanmi, Mohamed El Bashir, Adetokundo Abiola. On the French we have Alioune Badara Traore, Michel Tchonang, Yaovi Atohoun, Hadja Ouattara, Etienne Tshichimbi, Aziz Hilali, Tijani Ben Jemaa, Fatimata Seye Sylla and Olivier Crepin-Leblond. We have apologies from Dave Kissoondoyal. From staff we have Matt Ashtiani, Silvia Vivanco and myself Gisella Gruber and the interpreter today is Pierre. At this time I would like to remind everyone to please state your name for transcript purposes. If your line is not working properly please keep your line on mute.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Fatimata is excusing herself because she couldn’t join us today. It turned out we have the follow-up of the actions from December 7, 2011. The individual membership and the vote we carried out we are going to have for the vote. At this time we are not going to make any change, we are not going to modify. We are going stay where we are. We have open consultations. The various things [inaudible 00:03:11] and someone wants to talk? Yes Alioune go ahead.
Etienne Tshichimbi: I cannot hear you Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: What can I do because I'm talking as loud as I can?
Etienne Tshichimbi: We would like you to speak louder.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I assure you I am trying to speak as loud as I can but we have a problem with the line. The first thing I talk about is the open consultations. The universal acceptance and the Item 3 is the ideas and variations. Listen I'm not going to waste that much time on the agenda. I think you read the discovery and the consultations note that we have there even if you cannot hear me. The Item 4 on the agenda is the report. Yes Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Leblond: Thank you Tijani. I just want to make a point. It's clear what is on the IDN and variance issues, this is a subject that is important for the AFRALO members. The rules policy review that has a deadline of 18 March, I'm asking everybody to read that report because we have enough time until then because we want AFRALO to make a recommendation on that report.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Olivier. We are going to Item 4, we have the report - the [inaudible 00:05:56] for the candidates and you know that [gTL] has finished the reports during the meeting in Dakar. And we’re going to talk about this report. We accept the [inaudible 00:06:19] of that report. And we are going to talk about the staff and a few of the people. I just joined this group one week ago. The staff did prepare a few documents including the creation of the panel and the support that we need to give to the staff.
The colleagues handbook - the [inaudible 00:07:04] that it will have regarding the program, right now this group is putting together and they're working hard, on that program. That is open since January. We would like to be in a position to put together this program. And what I'm learning from that is that they are going ahead with that work and they are doing very well and the work is going forward. The days and weeks to come are going to be very important with the creation of the panel of that group.
We need to include the member of the community within the [inaudible 00:08:26] we would like to have people that are not part of the [inaudible 00:08:31] to be part of it. The project was presented and we want the panel to be uniquely with the members of the community. And we would like the experts also to be part of the community. This is the kind of thing that we talked about at this time. I'm going to the next subject. If you don’t have any questions I'm going to - yes Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: Thank you very much. But the report that you mentioned the new documents for the candidates I just have the version coming from 11 January. We are working hard on that already. We would like those documents to be translated in French as soon as possible. And all the documents in English are already ready and we would like to communicate with our members and I am requesting that we can go a little faster with regards to this translation of the documents. And what I heard is that the new version is going to [inaudible 00:10:49] shortly so we need to get on that, thank you very much.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Yaovi. We need to understand that those documents are on real time. And I think you're right about that we need to welcome translation of those documents. I'm sorry for that. Other questions with regard to the help that we need to provide to the candidates? No there are no questions and I'm going to give the platform to Mohammed El Bashir who is going to talk about this report.
Mohammed: Hello I was on mute. Tijani I was on mute so I just wanted to confirm that this is my item to talk about the NomCom update?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Is Mohammed present so he can comment on the next agenda?
Mohammed El Bashir: Okay I am here. Yes I would like to speak about recent updates on the NomCom. As you know the NomCom has concluded lots of work and finally the announcement for expression of interest has been published on the ICANN website. And this year the NomCom -
Interpreter: Excuse me Mohammed, I can barely hear, can you restart and speak a little louder so I can hear you?
Mohammed El Bashir: Okay, no problem, okay can you hear me?
Interpreter: Yes, now I can hear you and go a little slower.
Mohammed El Bashir: Okay, sorry for that I will try to be slow and loud and clear. I would like to give AFRALO and update about activities on the NomCom. At the Dakar meeting, the NomCom has been working very hard to finalize criteria for evaluation internal processes for this year. And also preparing for the expression of interest to be publically announced which this has been done recently. I have circulated to the mailing list information about an opening of this period. But I would like to remind again that in this -
Interpreter: Hello?
Mohammed El Bashir: Yes, can you hear me now because I can hear you very well. Hello?
Interpreter: Hello?
Mohammed El Bashir: I can hear you very well.
Interpreter: Now I can hear you back but there is a static noise. Can you just give me a second to ask - okay now it's much clearer, can you restart again for me please?
Mohammed El Bashir: Okay. The NomCom will be selecting the following positions to the following leadership positions in ICANN. the NomCom will be selecting three Board members, two At-Large members and those At-Large members will be from Europe and North America, one GNSO council members and one ccNSO [inaudible 00:17:00] member. In the last year the NomCom was doing external work, in terms of finalizing criteria for selection and also information and expression of interest.
I have circulated to the mailing list before information about the opening of this period of accepting applications or candidates for those positions. And I would like to encourage again the ALSs or you can individually approach people you know in our region, if they are interested to apply to ICANN on those positions. For Africa we have a Board member that will continue for our next term which is Mike Silva from South Africa. And we have a Board member that already has departed which is [inaudible 00:18:08] in Dakar meeting.
[Inaudible 00:18:13] and on more African Board members because there is a lack of and I think the focus on Latin and South America but still it will be good to reach out to potential candidates in other positions as well and also the Board if we have good candidates. The information is already on the website www.nomcom.icann.org.
I would like you to share it with your network with an emphasis on social media or your official networks so we can have good candidates applying from Africa. Thank you.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Mohammed. What you have done is very good Mohammed and we would like you to circulate an email on the list and thank you one more time Mohammed for what you have done because if we are limited only on a conference call we won't be able to reach out to everybody, so send the work you have done to the email system so everybody can have those applications.
Mohammed El Bashir: Okay I will send a summary and more details also to the mailing list.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Mohammed. And Fatimata just joined the conference call so I'm going to have Fatimata taking the platform.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: This is Fatimata, I'm sorry for the delay and first of all I would like to say Happy New Years to all of you. Now we are going to talk about the future activities. We only have three minutes for that. Tijani I couldn’t hear you.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Is Titi here?
Unknown: Yes Titi is here.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I want to compliment the effort that the president of ALAC has been doing, this is the first point. And we want to talk about the presentations of the meetings, the second point. We are working on the procedure of that meeting in order to have the objections if needed and to the community before the meeting. And also we are working on the program that we were talking about earlier. We are also working on At-Large program and right now we are working on the work we are doing in Dakar and the report we are working point by point.
And the other point that I wanted to talk about was the finance and the budget. I did send a template in order for people to send their requests regarding the budget in order for us to work on it. And I did send an email to AFRALO. And right now they are gathering all the information in order for us to keep working on it in order to have a teleconference to talk about the budget -- this is what is the essential item.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you Tijani. Do you have a question for Tijani or if you have any complimentary information for everybody. No we are okay, thank you. And now we are going to talk about activities within AFRALO. And I want to know who is going to talk about this. Go ahead take the platform. Can Wilson take the platform, hello?
Interpreter: The French channel is asking Wilson to take the platform, is Wilson there?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: We are going to the next point. The next activities of AFRALO. I would like everybody to intervene.
Unknown: Can we talk about the report of [inaudible 00:26:53]?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes, go ahead Tijani; go ahead with your ALS report.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Regarding my ALS we did organize December 6 a day where we could have a meeting with the Board members. We are trying to reach out to the members and the community. That was the first activity. The second activity we have general meeting among the Africans. The third activity we want to have a conference on [inaudible 00:27:50] a national meeting and the more people we have the better it will be. We want a day to reach out to everybody. We would like to have a meeting by session among the people using electronic tools to have those meetings across the Atlantic.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you Tijani that is very good. Do we have another ALS who has recent things to talk about?
Alioune Badara Traore: We did have a group meeting. We have an exercise, about 40 exercises and we did have this work. And we still are trying to reach out to people who can be a member and I believe our membership is going to get a little higher. This is all I wanted to say.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Do you have another AFRALO point you want to make? Thank you very much to [inaudible 00:30:02]. If you want we can go to the Item 6 of the agenda. We are going to talk about the candidacy of [Tamroon] to become part of ALS. And we want the AFRALO comments in order to validate this candidacy and what can be recommended for that candidacy? I would like to know what you think about this candidacy. Yes or no, you want us to accept this candidacy?
If someone wanted to say something about that point because everything that is going to follow, Alioune already talked about. If there are no comments we are going to accept [Tamroon] candidacy.
Alioune Badara Traore: I want to talk a little bit.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Go ahead Alioune.
Alioune Badara Traore: What I want to say is at this point it is to accept [Tamroon] candidate.
Unknown: I want to tell Alioune that I'm okay with what he says. But we want everybody else’s opinion.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Aziz did send on the list a comment about this candidacy and at this point we no comments from nobody and we want to be able to tell them what is the view of everybody in order for us to report back to them with regards to that request.
Unknown: Okay no problem.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you Tijani, thank you Alioune. If there are no suggestions regarding that point we are going to go to Item 6 and the budget for 2013. We have a request in AFRALO give all the requests based on what is going to happen in 2013. The deadline was to be 10January. We had many follow-ups. We did work in the office and we made a proposal that we sent and we put it on the Wiki and I put it on the list on the 9th because I wanted to go a little faster. Due to the vacation time we did not have any reactions.
And finally it was what was sent. And now I'm going to let Aziz talk about it. And I'm going to give the platform to Aziz in order to give more clarification regarding the 2013 budget requests.
Aziz Hilali: Hello?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes Aziz?
Aziz Hilali: Are you hearing me?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes.
Aziz Hilali: I was trying to intervene earlier and nobody could hear me. You are asking me to talk about the work that AFRALO did regarding the budget? Okay I want to make sure everybody understands it was myself, Fatimata, Tijani, we have a conference call and we have a proposal. We have two projects that was submitted for 2013.
First to organize a program to reinforce the capacity, the building capacity regarding all the programs that are going to happen in Dakar, that is the first project. And the details Tijani did work on those details. Also the project at ICANN level - those are the two projects that we submitted.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you Aziz. Do you have questions based on those requests? Did you read that request that I sent? Do you adopt those requests? Do you think it's good or not? The request to be a member, ICANN and the [Tamroon] member ship I want to talk a little bit about it. The [inaudible 00:37:21] that we did transmit that proposal at ALS level. I think it's a very good request and good application. And we need to make a decision and we cannot delay any further or wait too long. We need to decide which days AFRALO is going to give an opinion to ALAC.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: It's the 24th.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: Thank you, it's based on [Tamroon] request in spite the fact that it's a very good request or application it is okay not to have a quick reaction. We need to react based on - we need to think about it before we give a reply. And the other thing is we need to react on email. Sometimes we don’t get the email. We want everybody and it's important that everybody can react. And we need to give to everybody a deadline to reply. And then we will take into account only those who react on that request. And we need to remind people so they can react on that.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you for your suggestions. I want to know if we can have a proposal based on that. Because based on what you're saying, you're asking us not to move forward. If we have 20 people who react what can we do? The deadline is the 24th. What do we do? Well will just have to wait. During the teleconference it's the opportunity we have to talk about different subjects. My answer is clear for those who didn’t react, what [inaudible 00:40:48] people who are not reacting what should we say about that?
Okay so are we going to give the response based on the majority of the people who reacted or what? I'm giving an example. If assuming we have six people who reacted and four said yes and two said no, what do we do? Because we have 20 members, do we give answers based on those who voted or if the other people are not participating we are not going to force them to participate. I don’t think that will create a problem because the candidacy of [Tamroon] is a very good candidacy.
That is not the problem. If in fact we have three people who reacted, we need in fact to wait until everybody else reacted on that candidacy. And regarding [Tamroon] this is a situation that is important everywhere in Africa. And we have to take a position. Tijani go ahead. Yaovi is also asking for the platform.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: First, our mission is to see whether or not there is a problem based on that application. If in fact, there is no problem with that application we need to talk about it. If there is any other problem, whatever the problem is, if people are not manifesting there is no manifestation from the members AFRALO’s position is going to be a favorable position. Now to conclude on that scene we are going to wait until Friday in order to have yes or no. If there is no reaction it's going to be favorable reaction. Yaovi you have the platform.
Yaovi Atohoun: The problem is people are not giving reading because if they're not [inaudible 00:44:39] if we send them documents that they are not reading, it is not that they don’t have a position. But they need to be in position to read the document. They need to read those documents and for example, this is my position, there is a document. I was only able to read that document today. We need to see if AFRALO can call on those members that need to do the job and ask them to go read those documents, read the requests and have a position on that, thank you very much.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: We are going to Item 7 which is the joint meeting AFRALO Afri-ICANN that is scheduled on - José - we have a meeting. We don’t want to make an exception based on some - José. And I'm going to ask Tijani or Aziz if they have anything to say about that.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: And we need to take into account or take to that meeting that same way we always do. The point I want to say, we need to talk about which team we are going to have for that meeting. I'm going to ask to send email to every member so they can propose the theme that we are going to have for that meeting. And the theme needs to be based on the present preoccupation that we have. We cannot have a theme that has nothing to do with how [inaudible 00:47:05] preoccupation. The preoccupation of Afri-ICANN or AFRALO this is what I'm talking about.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you Tijani, Aziz do you have something to add?
Aziz Hilali: ICANN has no response at this time. [Inaudible 00:47:51] going to start the discussion right away. We can have a proposal. Is everybody okay with those ideas? We can have a meeting at the San José in AFRALO about Africa?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Fatimata?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I understand Aziz. I saw the mail circulating. We are going to have those proposals and we are going to make quick decisions about those proposals and when we get to the deadline we are going to circulate those suggestions on AFRALO’s list and Afri-ICANN listing.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Tijani are you done?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: And we are going to combine those proposals for the next meeting.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Okay thank you, Aziz?
Aziz Hilali: I just want to complete what Tijani just said. We are going to have a discussion so just have the discussion. I'm just trying to send him the ball back. Don’t forget that he understood all these things.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Do we have any objections based on the seven points? Any comments? We are going to go to the last point, the miscellaneous requests, do you have any points? Just information I want that Olivier already started that information before you come here. We are trying integration between Adobe Connect and make a case with At-Large with the internet. We have a few disconnections. On that Adobe Connect when we make that test, the quality of the sound was excellent, very good, mainly for Africa where connections on the phone is so bad.
If all the country like [Tamroon] have on - we can have a conference call on the internet as well. We are working on it. We are going to make a proposal on the weeks to come and we are going to make a test with some people from AFRALO. We will see how the connections will be. And if everything works perfectly we will see how we can use the conference call in February and to integrate the internet as well. We are going to have audio and internet as well. We are asking the technical people to make progress on that.
Gisella Gruber: Fatimata this is Gisella. Just [inaudible 00:52:15] I want on the French channel and English channel so we can still have audio connection.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Okay thank you. We are waiting patiently to have that integration.
Yaovi Atohoun: Based on this late news request the community has developed a framework and we did make a test on those platforms. And we can ask questions Friday based on miscellaneous requests. Just to inform you, we want to better the system by integrating the community so they can ask a question, just to inform you.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you; do you have another point, miscellaneous questions? I think for the next meeting who ask for the meeting to start at 6:30pm in order to allow more people to participate, including myself, do you have an objection based on that request?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I'm completely favorable to that proposal.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Do you have any objections?
Yaovi Atohoun: I'm okay with that request.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: For the next month’s meeting, the next Friday will be the 1st of February. Today is the 18th because of the meeting, the holidays. We would like to propose the meeting to be on the 8th rather than the 1st.
Unknown: I'm okay with that, I don’t have any objections.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Because the 1st I won't be in the [inaudible 00:55:39]. That is good so it's adopted. Do you have something else? On English channel do you have anything else? We would like the next month’s conference call to be starting around 6:30 rather than 6 o’clock. Okay this is what we are going to do, thank you. Are we okay? We are saying thank you to everybody it was very quick today and I'm wishing you a nice evening.
And we are going to follow-up on everything we need to do and we need to give an opinion by Friday in order to adopt the [Tamroon] candidacy, our obligation. The discussion is going to take place, ICANN and AFRALO at San José. And what else? I think that’s it, that’s what we are going to do online as far as ICANN participation is concerned. Thank you to everybody and have a good evening.
