Date: Thursday, 27 June 2024
Time: 06:00 - 07:30 UTC (for the time in various time zones click here)
How do I participate in this meeting?
English Conference ID = 1638
Zoom Registration: https://icann.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYof-CvrzMuE9BdvSheeFrfIca8pbULBwLZ
Recording: EN
Zoom Recording: EN
Chat: EN
Participants:
EN: Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Satish Babu, Fidya Shabrina, Zakir Syed, Ian Chiang, Tomslin Samme-Nlar, Ahmad Umair Suhaidi, Ali AlMeshal, Amine Hacha, Amrita Choudhury, Aris Ignacio, Ashirwad Tripathy, Ashrafur Rahman Piaus, Barkha Manral, Bikram Shrestha, Bukola Oronti, Charles Mok, Faheem Soomro, Gopal Tadepalli, Hadia Elminiawi, Harisa Shahid, Iqra Ejaz, Jasmine Ko, Juliana Harsianti, Jesse Nathan Kalange, Kapil Goyal, Mary Rose Ofianga, Maud Adjeley Ashong Elliot, Maureen Hilyard, Mohammad Abdul Haque, Mohammad Kawsar Uddin, Muhammad Altaf, Muhammad Shabbir, Nabeel Yasin Amin, Nur Adlin Hanisah Shahul Ikram, Phyo Thiri Lwin, Pranav Tiwari, Priyatosh Jana, Saima Nisar, Sana Nisar, Sarai Tevita, Shah Zahidur Rahman, Shita Laksmi, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy, Sébastien Bachollet, Tatiana Hound, Udeep Baral, Wintrop Yu, Yug Desai, K Mohan Raidu, Wenyin Cai, Hong Xue, Kalpesh Chaudhari, Baburam Aryal, Bibek Silwal, Rida Ashfaq, Abdulrahman Abotaleb, Kossi Amessinou, YingChu Chen, Madiha Shafique, Md Mahedi Hasan
Apologies: Lyndell St. Ville, Justine Chew, Holly Raiche
Staff: Gisella Gruber, Athena Foo, Siranush Vardanyan, Mikhail Anisimov, Yeşim Sağlam
Call Management: Yeşim Sağlam
You are invited to participate in the interactive APRALO ICANN80 Readout organized by the APRALO Policy Forum on Thursday, 27 June 2024 at 06:00 UTC for 90 mins, featuring At-Large, GAC, GNSO, and ccNSO panelists as well as an ICANN80 Fellow, all from the APAC region.
Panelists will discuss their respective key takeaways from ICANN80 and participants are welcomed to join in the conversation aimed at identifying where and how end-users may play a role in any next steps to each of those takeaways.
Moderator:
Cheryl Langdon-Orr, At-Large Leader, based in Australia
Panelists:
Satish Babu, APRALO, based in India
Fidya Shabrina, ICANN80 Fellow, based in Indonesia
Tomslin Samme-Nlar, GNSO Council Vice-Chair & GNSO Councillor, currently based in Australia
Zakir Syed, representing GAC, based in Pakistan
Ian Chiang, ccNSO, based in Taiwan
Agenda
Roll call - Staff (2 mins)
Welcome & Introduction – Cheryl Langdon-Orr (3 mins)
Let's chat! - Three rounds of Q&A with panelists, including audience participation (80 min)
What are one or two of your takeaways from ICANN80?
What do you see as the next steps to those takeaways, and/or how would you progress them before ICANN81?
How do you see individual end-users playing a role in those next steps?
Sum Up: Next Steps for APRALO - Cheryl Langdon-Orr (5 min)
Close
Panelists & Moderator Profiles
| Satish Babu is an At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) Member representing the Asian, Australasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO) and a the former Chair of APRALO. He is the ALAC Liaison to the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) and the Co-Chair of the At-Large IDN WG. He represented ALAC on the IDN Implementation Guidelines 4.0 WG that worked during 2015-2018 and also represents ALAC on the EPDP on IDNs. He is based out of India and volunteers in multiple organizations including ICANN At-Large, Internet Society, IEEE and the Computer Society of India. He is an open source advocate and the founding Director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) of the Government of Kerala, India. |
| Fidya Shabrina is an experienced strategist with solid proficiency in public engagement and media. In the last 7 years, Fidya has applied her expertise covering law, cybersecurity, media production and Internet governance in academic, public, and business sphere, across multiple countries in Asia Pacific and North America. She is skilled in diplomacy and negotiation across multilingual environments with her Native Bahasa Indonesia, Fluent English, and Basic Arabic, Basic German, and Basic Korean language skills. She strives for results by maintaining a strong relationship with both colleagues and clients and she is an ICANN80 Fellow. |
| Tomslin Samme-Nlar is a Cybersecurity researcher and executive with a keen interest in the political, military, diplomatic and higher-level management aspects of issues where cybersecurity, strategy and diplomacy interact in Africa. He currently works as a Senior Principal Consultant for Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories and also as the Director of Research at Gefona Digital Foundation (a local think tank in Cameroon). He is also a panel of experts member at the Security Institute of Governance and Leadership in Africa (SIGLA), a Faculty of Military Science research institute of Stellenbosch University, South Africa. He has had previous roles as a contractor for the Kenyan National Intelligence Service, other government agencies and telcos. Tomslin is a current councilor in the GNSO Council, the current NCSG Policy Chair and co-chair of the first IANA Function Review Team at the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Tomslin has a master's in Cyber Security, Strategy and Diplomacy from UNSW Canberra at the Australian Defence Force Academy. A Bachelor's degree in Technology Management and Computing from Portsmouth University, UK and other certificates including a certificate in International Law of Armed Conflict in Theory and Practice from Leiden University, a certificate in Diplomatic Theory and Practice from DiploFoundation and an associate degree in Business Administration. |
| Zakir Syed is currently Director, Internet Governance at the Ministry of IT & Telecom, and is an ICT strategy and research professional having in depth knowledge of emerging technologies, policy & regulation, Internet governance and latest trends in the role of ICTs in different sectors. Before joining MOITT, he has been working with different for-profit and not-for-profit organizations in the MENA and South Asia regions. Zakir is an alumnus of the ICANN, APrIGF, and MEAC-SIG fellowship programs and has been active contributor to the regional and beyond region internet governance and policy dialogue. He was also nominated by the Internet Society as their Ambassador to the United Nations’ IGF 2017 in Geneva. He is a Software Engineer by training, and has numerous international certifications and trainings to his credit. |
| Ian Chiang is Director of the Department of Domain Name Services at TWNIC. |
| Cheryl Langdon-Orr has been involved with ICANN since its earliest days. She has served in a number of capacities in several parts of our Multistakeholder Community over this time including several Leadership roles and has contributed to many aspects of the work of ICANN ranging from GNSO policy development processes, to ICANN-wide organizational reviews, and ICANN org operations, finance and budgeting matters. For more information on her ICANN specific activities please see her wiki home page < cheryl.langdon-orr/ > |
1 Comment
Shah Zahidur Rahman
Takeaways from APRALO ICANN80 Readout
By , Jasmine, Barkha Manral and Shah Zahidur Rahman
June 27th, 2024, Thursday
Q1. What are one or two of your takeaways from ICANN80?
Satish Babu: He began by discussing topics covered at ICANN80, including EPDP and IDNs. Although no UASG session was held in Kigali, other communities discussed IDNs. He highlighted the open SSAC sessions and emphasized the importance of At-Large, detailing its technical and non-technical roles within ICANN.
Zakir: He started with a brief introduction about GAC. He discussed the High-Level Government Meeting (HLGM) held on June 9th in Kigali, which served as a valuable forum for ministers and senior officials. The discussions focused on multi-stakeholder engagement, increased cooperation for Internet governance, and the digital divide, particularly addressing the connectivity challenges in the African region. Overall, the HLGM provided a platform for government representatives and industry leaders to support and engage in multi-stakeholder Internet governance.
Fidya: She acknowledged things have evolved since ICANN 66. She believes we need to be cautious about how we navigate through the Internet which is an open space. Yet we need to be mindful of how we go through so we don't trespass on our rights and others.
During ICANN 80, she attended a session regarding registry Voluntary commitments and the threats to registrants rights. It was mentioned that preserving freedom of expression is one thing, and avoiding risk for safety and well-being is another thing. Therefore, setting particular measures are very important to recon determine whether things are being done accordingly.This is likely a follow up from the newly adopted gTLD subsequent PDP Process during ICANN 78 since October 2023, and this recommendations envision that applicants will be permitted in some cases required to enter the registry agreements containing public interest commitments.
The Internet government spear continuously evolves and develops another point of takeaway. She noticed that ICANN has conducted new adjustments and initiated new ways of running things at its most recent meeting.
She had pre-meeting mentoring calls with Will Alami - during each of these meetings, there were always guest speakers from particular constituents, so fellows can raise questions and also share their thoughts. Regarding ongoing issues on this constituent that intersect with fellows’ own expertise and interest. Fellows have their own mentors where some of them are attending this readout session today When fellows can ask and consult mentors whenever there are any questions arise
Ian: There are two important things to consider during the Kigali meeting. He shared,
but there is a gap between actual practice and the policy. ccNSO has had three meetings to discuss how the practice will comply with the policy. There is a gap between these two things. They are pleased to have the ccTLD managers and to have a direct conversation with Anna, the representative, and talk about how they can do things and what the feedback from the ccNSO.
Moreover, ccNSO has held a World Cafe to discuss improving ccNSO. In the recent voting, they've seen a low voting rate, nearly just over 50%. That is an occasion for them to talk about how they can encourage the members to vote and if there is any reason members don't vote. Is there anything Ian’s team can do? Maybe to lower the voting rate, and if that happens the ccNSO solution will be represented by all the CC communities. It is noted that not every ccTLD manager is a ccNSO member. This issue should be discussed because any CC policy will affect them, so ccNSO tries to discuss how they can increase the voting rate. This is to make the policy more legally meaningful.
Besides, ccNSO attempts to have different kinds of workshops or committees as a means to benefit ccTLD Managers. Since ccNSO has many issues like technical sharing, e.g., one section talking about domain abuse, we learnt that ICANN recently amended the accreditation agreement. There's something ccNSO can do from then because ccTLD also had DNS abuse issues in its own digital territory. ccNSO try to see if there is anything they can learn from ccTLD.
ccNSO is very organized. When any issues arise, the chair of ccNSO would like to have a broad discussion during the members' meeting and then form an organized workshop committee or working group to discuss certain issues. Every time, ccNSO meetings will be held by all the committees and the working group. He believes there'll be a lot of things to be discussed and details between 2 ICANN meetings. ccNSO will have more discussions during each working group or committee in its own individual section. there were webinars or their mailing list. That is how ccNSO does the policy discussion.
World Cafe was particularly focused on some opportunities for improving processes that ccNSO is integrating into its continuous improvement program. For example, the voting rate, for which they just have a work of faith. They were divided into 6 groups for different topics, trying to collect the members' feelings or ideas. Afterwards, the chair of ccNSO or the Council will decide whether they need a working group to have a further discussion. If there is any progress, there will be a presentation at the next meeting, ICANN 81.
Tomslin:
The personal takeaway going into the meeting is the conversations around the singular evaluation
from a GNSO perspective because it seems it was still under control and conversation with the Council small team. But when at Kigali, it seems to be on a lot of people's minds. One thing he took away from that was a lot of community members were concerned about the possibility of both non-commercial applications winding up in a contention set with commercial applications and how the non-commercial ones could understand if that happened.
Q2. What do you see as the next steps to those takeaways, and/or how would you progress them before ICANN81?
Fidya: She explained that though she is not specifically from a policy making background on a national level, she is very keen interested to work in policy making. Her future endeavors is to continuously engage with those policy makers on a national level; those that she experienced at ICANN 80. There are representatives from Indonesia National ICT Council and also PANDI. There is a lot of attention on installing the digital ID in Indonesia(her home country). She is also interested to give her input on GNSO(Generic Names Supporting Organization) Transfer Policy, which aims to provide enhanced domain name portability.
Tomslin:
The Council small team plus which has members from all as SGNC is in the community walk into appoints of jamata experts are currently still heavily and heatedly debating this topic. He believes they expect to have some outcome definitely before the ICANN81 as the next step. Once that small team decides on that, that's not a given deal because the whole Council still meant to vote on the recommendation that comes out of that and the Council requires a supermajority vote. There are still a few hurdles ahead to jump over this one.
The second one was on data occupancy, in which a couple of community members have been very keen on seeing the world go forward. Despite he haven't put together a scoping team to work out what needs to be done, the scoping team was told because of a lack of data.
Now, ICANN proposed an alternative that they could not collect with good reasons to collect the data that determines accuracy from the registrars and registries. It offered to collect DNS historical data. The problem with this one, which is what the count was looking at in Kigali, was that this data only provides information on the processes of the registries and registrars as opposed to providing data to assess its accuracy. Regarding the next steps, the Council needed help to work out what they'll do next with this while in Kigali. It is agreed that counsel will take this to their constituents and look at the options provided by ICANN staff to see what we can do with this. If there are any other intelligent ways to move this work forward or if we simply cannot move forward.
Satish:
Currently, UASG is a Group in the ICANN ecosystem; it is neither a SO or an AC. The very name Universal Acceptance Steering Group does not reflect what it is. Some governance deficit issues have cropped up lately, so the UASG has worked in the last couple of months, and currently, it's ongoing until the next meeting on governance restructuring of the UASG.
We had a session during the prep week: the structure that we have now is from 2015 which was an ad hoc structure at that point in time because we know quite what to do with it, so that ad hoc structure with a feeling that it has outlived its utility. Satish’s team is looking at how to improve it. On continuous improvement mentioned by Cheryl, there is a need for it in this case being structurally not just in terms of function.
They are putting in measures. For example, there was no need for a SOI which is quite different from other devices, and so they have now insisted on. SOI for every member of the group that the process is ongoing.
There are also some other restructuring of some of the working groups. A proposal still needs to be finalized, but it needs to be dissolved or merged, etc. The three technical groups are untouched: the tech working group, the EAI and the measurement working group. At the same time, the rest of it is transforming.
EPDP has been on a long journey since August 2021 and is entering its 4th year. The 1st phase is all done. The board also approved a second phase, which is currently ongoing. There's a public comment in which ALAC also gave a submission. During the Kigali meeting, Sathish’s team has taken up all the comments. They discussed ALAC comments and they are happy to report that it's been accepted
Q3. How do you see individual end-users playing a role in those next steps?
Satish:
Fidya: Individual end users can give insights and comments on how they are navigating the internet system, the functioning of gTLD and what impact it is causing in her work.
Zakir: GAC open meetings now especially happened in Kigali, one of the important topics discussed, was the choice regarding the DNSSEC implementation is dependent on individual registrants given high importance by GAC. GAC gives high value to strategic plans and to the end user to come and be part of the open discussion of GAC..
Tomslin: IDN EPDP final reports will go for public comments between ICANN 80 and ICANN 81. Those are opportunities for end users to submit comments on an individual basis directly.
Ian:
End users can start discussions at their national level with local ccTLD - ccNSO is mostly for information sharing. While each ccTLD does its own operation ICANN’s ccNSO is a space where best practices and experience are regularly shared, e.g. TWNIC has an end-user group/ business/ govt to talk about .tw operation. End users can also join in observing what ccNSO does by checking the website and sharing learnings from others with local, and national ccTLD. If end users want more information, they can go to the regional level, e.g. APTLD. Also, they can join the ICANN mailing list, become fellows and attend ICANN meeting
Questions asked by Participants
Participant: Muhammad Shabbir
Q1: For Zakir, Would you be able to elaborate more about capacity-building initiatives, including the GAC role?
Answer by Zakir: Zakir answered by discussing the High-Level Governance Meeting (HLGM) and the importance of connectivity and infrastructure in the African context, emphasizing the need to continue capacity-building initiatives. Examples include ICANN Fellowship, NextGen, School of Internet Governance (IG) at national and regional levels, and the UN-IGF. He stressed the value of effective community participation for maximising benefits and highlighted the Applicant Support Program (ASP) and the associated applicant guidebook to facilitate this process.
Amrita intervene
Turnover in GAC is high - the learning curve is high - need to keep building capacity for new applicant support program - APRALO - key countries
Q2: For everyone, Summit of the Future event, draft 0 under discussion, what is ICANN's role in positioning the Summit of the Future?
Answer by Amrita: GDC will be done by member states, but ICANN has been submitted when required and speak up for technical community - development - separate mailing list of WSIS+20 plus can share view there - ICANN hosting webinar, strengthening community and have to create a platform to exchange views like a dedicated website for sharing information and perhaps can speak to GAC rep to speak to New York officers who will be on negotiation - explain different perspective of the threats.
Participant: Kossi
Q3. Policy development is a very difficult concept to clarify for more people from the end users group. How far can they contribute to the Policy development process? Many local NGO, like NGO women in Benin, look for support to provide more capacity building for ladies and women coming from unconnected areas.
Cheryl answered If someone wishes to have some voice during the process we need to consider diversity of connectivity and timezone - outputs of discourse and conversation can be managed by local outreach/engagement sessions - either within the region, bringing voices to policy people (2nd benefit) as policy process. Cheryl encouraged don't be frightened to get engaged in Policy development.
Satish encouraged the use of ICANN Learn, School of IG - somewhere close to you that you can more easily access.
Amrita response was that “ Many people are concerned - if you can find an issue and an example that will be helpful… The Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG calls are held weekly, and open genral participation is welcomed to observe and listen, suggested to subscribe to the mailing list and patiently keep participating. Things take time to capture, not to give up!”
Participant: Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
Q: Not all end user concerns are addressed in a broad framework,; Just as the GNSO provides an umbrella for NCSG and NPOC, is it possible that AtLarge / ALAC could encourage focused concerns such as global consumer concerns with a subgroup such as "Global Consumer Group", for example?
Answer by Cheryl: Anything is possible, but that concept was not part of the Policy workshop at ICANN80; perhaps something to bring to a future Holistic Review as a contribution to part of an entity's Continuous Improvement Program(CIP).
Next Steps for APRALO
Cheryl: Emphasizing the importance of increased engagement, attracting more end users, disseminating more information, and encouraging more commenting. She also highlighted the significance of meeting the right people at the right time, maintaining accountability and transparency despite uncertainties, and underscoring the importance of APRALO being engaged in policy development.