Charles Mok: Maybe we should just start by doing a roll call and making sure who is here. Okay, did anyone or Gisella make notes of who said their names or who are on the call or we should say our names?
Gisella Gruber: Yes Charles, first of all Happy New Year to everyone. On today's APRALO call on Tuesday 3 January 2012, we have Sala, Holly, Cheryl, Charles, Pavan, Siva, Olivier; from staff we have Silvia and Heidi. No apologies noted today. And Maureen should be joining us shortly. Could I please also remind everyone to state their name when speaking for transcript purposes? Thank you over to you Charles.
Charles Mok: Thank you. In that case, this is Charles for -
Hong Xue: Hi, I didn’t hear my name. Sorry Charles, this is Hong Xue.
Charles Mok: Alright Hong. Did we miss anyone? Maybe that’s the question to ask.
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Rinalia.
Holly Raiche: Yes, I didn’t hear my name either.
Charles Mok: Is Olivier here also?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: I am yes. And my name was called.
Charles Mok: Okay then we have enough people to start the call.
Gisella Gruber: Sorry Charles the line is horribly echoing I guess we need to mute someone.
Charles Mok: Okay can everyone who can mute themselves mute themselves for the moment. I don’t know if it's me. Is that better? I can hear myself.
Gisella Gruber: It's louder, it's still echoing.
Charles Mok: Yes, is it better?
Unknown: Yes.
Charles Mok: I can still hear myself. Okay let's get started I will just ignore my own voice. Let's see we did the roll call and let's take a look at the action items from the October meeting. The last meeting we had should be November? Right and let me go to - yes we have a list of action items. Should I just quickly go through them? I will just quickly go through them and we can all report whether that has been completed. Staff to work with the regional officers to send APRALO ALS the APRALO brochures, can staff report has that been taken care of?
Heidi Ulrich: Yes the APRALO brochure has been translated into Chinese and Arabic. And they have both just today the Arabic was proofed by Tijani and with a lot of corrections. But that one is going to back to the language services manager and the Chinese has also been proofed by native speakers and it's still with the language services manager. We will follow up on those.
Charles Mok: Okay and thank you, that’s [inaudible 00:04:29] and we will continue to look at that item in the next meeting. The other matter is the APRALO ALS to work with staff to learn of members of each ALS. Has that been worked on?
Pavan Budhrani: Charles I think you're reading action items of October.
Charles Mok: Yes, that’s right.
Pavan Budhrani: It should be the one from the November. I will send you the separate list on the -
Charles Mok: I think I may have the - the link seems to be wrong that’s why I am wondering.
Holly Raiche: Actually Charles and I've noticed I put the wrong one initially in the Adobe Connect room on the agenda the links are so close together that it looks like one. If you approach the far right side, that’s the November one. I've just put the November 29 APRALO action items in the Adobe Connect.
Charles Mok: Okay I got that one, okay. Good so yes now I have the right one, that’s why I was wondering, we had the meeting in November. About the [inaudible 00:05:42] staff to provide a scheduled call with the - okay about the webinar on what WHOIS is, report staff again to provide update and schedule a call with APRALO executive, the status on that please?
Holly Raiche: Charles what's been going on in the emails it was they were looking for a date sometime in between late December early January and basically what we said was “Well let's call that when - let's reschedule so that everyone can indicate what time.” And it was supposed to be an agenda item today to say who is interested and maybe we can do a Doodle or something. It's just rescheduled just because it was not convenient for everyone who wanted to attend.
Charles Mok: Right okay so Holly would be helping us to follow up on that setting up the call.
Holly Raiche: Yes, I am happy to do that.
Charles Mok: Thank you. Okay Cheryl providing the link for the new registrants rights issues, I think that has been done, right? Regarding the JIG single character issue, the Wiki has been done and APRALO statement, that we have done that. Holly to have something ready about the ‘thick’ WHOIS issue by the next call, Holly can you update us on that?
Holly Raiche: The WHOIS?
Charles Mok: It says here you will have something ready to update us about the ‘thick’ WHOIS issue by the next call.
Holly Raiche: Okay we were up to see - oh the WHOIS webinar. I think people will have seen Alan’s draft which looks really good. The talk that has been going on about it has been the privacy issue but I think Alan quite rightly says there will probably be a PDP and that’s where we can start with - Alan has drafted a really good statement. Privacy will come in but I think if people see Alan’s statement - has anybody seen Alan's draft ALAC statement? If not I can just circulate it. I think it's quite good. And it's a good place and in fact I can circulate that and then that can be the basis for people who want to participate in the WHOIS webinar.
Charles Mok: Okay.
Holly Raiche: Okay I will circulate Alan's draft.
Charles Mok: The next item is staff to send [inaudible 00:08:37] to increase developing economies participation in the new gTLD programs, JAS statements to the whole ICANN community to see if there are comments or input. This one has staff done that? I don’t recall what this is about?
Heidi Ulrich: Actually it was decided that that particular public comment would not - the ALAC would not be making a comment on that particular public comment.
Charles Mok: Right, so it should be sending the - isn’t it about sending the statements to our community to see if we have any comment rather than the whole ICANN community?
Heidi Ulrich: I think it was, yes.
Charles Mok: [Inaudible 00:09:28].
Heidi Ulrich: If the ALAC were to make a draft statement to send to the APRALO list for additional comments but it was decided that - not to prepare a statement on that issue.
Charles Mok: Okay that issue probably we - this issue is probably something that we can put behind us at the moment because we seem to have a lot of other issues more pressing to work on. And the last issue, I was just reminded this morning about APRALO to send the whole APRALO region the link for the improved project task force. I've asked Pavan to arrange that as soon as we can. Pavan that has been noted right?
Pavan Budhrani: Yes, I will take a note of that and I will do it.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. Let's see any other update on the action items? I think we need to move on then to the policy issues on the open public consultation. We have on the agenda a list of items here. The first one is the call for the At-Large project submission to include in the ICANN Fiscal Year Operational Plan and Budget. There has been a call from ALAC for APRALO to be represented in the Budget and Finance Committee. I said to ALAC that I will be working on that committee to represent APRALO.
Let's see is there any - I think the concern we have was the situation we had last year because of the fact that we didn’t get any allocation for all of the things we have asked for. My feeling is that this year among all the RALOs we need to have something more consolidated. We need to talk among ourselves to put up a strategy that would be more fruitful for all the RALOs rather than just like last year I think we just individually each RALO put up whatever is on the wish list and then ICANN decided on their own.
And in the end everybody got too little and we had to merge our resources together for Africa afterwards as a group decision. I think my feeling is that actually the RALOs should be working more closely to work on a strategy that would be more useful in the end.
Siva Muthusamy: Charles?
Charles Mok: Yes.
Siva Muthusamy: This is Siva.
Charles Mok: Yes Siva?
Siva Muthusamy: Is this call to take part in the budget committee; is it just to represent APRALO matter or just a call for APRALO or a person from APRALO to be a part of the Budget and Finance Committee to put all of the ICANN participant issues?
Charles Mok: I think we are talking about the project submission to be included in the overall plan and budget. It has to do with the plans and projects of the RALOs.
Siva Muthusamy: Okay - so it's not specific - hello?
Charles Mok: Sorry I didn’t get that?
Siva Muthusamy: Yes is it APRALO specific? The role of the person who takes part in the Budget and Finance Committee meeting, will [inaudible 00:13:47] possible [inaudible 00:13:49] other issues, isn’t that?
Charles Mok: Yes, I believe so. Olivier correct me if I am wrong but I believe we are talking about a representative primarily from the APRALO perspective. But of course as I say we might have to work out a strategy among the different RALOs in order for everyone to be more effective.
Siva Muthusamy: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you very much. First thing before I start I know there is something wrong with the Adobe Connect room because when people put their hands up, it doesn’t put them in the order in which they put their hand up. Staff might have something to look at here. Hong put her hand up before I did -
Charles Mok: Oh okay. Oh sorry yes that’s right - there are some hands that are raised yes.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: I defer to Hong first then I will go afterwards.
Charles Mok: Okay Hong please?
Hong Xue: Well thank you I was muted. I wonder whether you can hear me now.
Charles Mok: Yes the - it seems like the hands pop up window didn’t quite come up on my screen so I have to go the attendees list to see you hands, so now I see them.
Hong Xue: Oh well that doesn’t matter as long as you can hear me. I do have several comments on this issue. I can myself - this line, it's really bad. First of all ICANN has never supported APRALO’s IGM request. For so many years we never received any support for our general meeting, even for the one ICANN meeting held in our region. I hope that this one could be addressed in this year’s submission. Secondly I note the ICANN Academy or a large academy issue has been listed as an outreach issue.
I suggest we have a thinking which is back to the budgetary impact. I note a budget draft has been submitted in this category. Of course it's a very good initiative unfortunately there is limitation to the number of members in the working group, so Sala is our only representative in that working group. I hope Sala can relay our message from this region into that working group. And also express our strong interest and - even the passion for this issue especially the academics in this At-Large community in Asia-Pacific.
And some projects have already been done. I hope this academy could take note of these ongoing projects. I do appreciate the initiative done by the European colleges, Cintra and Wolf, they're taking the leadership. Asia-Pacific has its own projects and they have been going on for several years including the Hong Kong colleagues two projects, the youth camp, I guess Charles Mok an update on this and home shares project on the Asia-Pacific internet leadership projects, they’ve been held for several years. And it's going to be held this year.
So I guess whether the project has been taken into account when we make submission to ICANN, is that to budget? And I want to extend support could be offered from the ICANN side. And of course I guess the APRALO is fully supporting these regional initiatives, okay back to you Charles.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. Who is next Sala or Olivier?
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Of course I am not on Adobe Connect, I'm happy to defer to all those who have their hands raised up and I will comment after them please.
Charles Mok: Yes, let me get to Cheryl and then Olivier, is that okay?
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Yes, that’s perfect.
Charles Mok: Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It's Olivier in line next.
Charles Mok: Okay Olivier then Olivier first.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Ladies first Cheryl, please.
Charles Mok: Ladies first.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: You're ahead of me time zone wise, so -
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That’s very sweet of you, thank you. Okay a couple of things I wanted to mention on this and yes I agree wholeheartedly with what Hong has said and we probably need to ensure that the projects that are to the benefit of APRALO and yet are not in any way, shape or form sponsored by or supported by ICANN, could perhaps start to be listed in our Wiki space, so the work we do is at least recognized. I think we are to some extent at fault for not promoting under the APRALO and therefore ALAC and ICANN bags as much as we should have done.
And yet it's unconscionable if we go through another budget cycle and get zero support which is what we've had since 2005 by my reckoning at least. That said, the mechanism for the Budget and Finance Subcommittee is slightly different than it was last year. And whilst each of the regions are going to be requested to put in their projects and requests, the Budget and Finance Subcommittee which is a regionally balanced group, will be prioritizing them for the greater good of the ALAC.
All I can hope is whoever joins me in that work group will fight as hard as I'm planning to to make sure we get at least a small piece of the tiny slice of the infinitesimally small cake. Thank you.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you Cheryl. Olivier please?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you very much Charles. I actually just have to add a few things. First, in regards to prioritizing the requests, the Finance and Budget Subcommittee - I am hearing horrible echo at the moment. I don’t know if everyone else is hearing it. The Budget and Finance Subcommittee has to prioritize the three most important projects in its eyes.
That’s the first thing they will have to do. the other thing is that the ICANN Academy itself - because we are now I would say I guess restricted I guess to having the first three priorities in the At-Large Advisory Committee’s view is that we will be pushing for the ICANN Academy to be something that is outside of At-Large’s budget. In other words, we’re looking at making this a special project that will benefit all of ICANN since this is the kind of feedback that we are currently receiving from staff and have this as something that is not taken from the chunk of At-Large’s budget but rather taking from a special outside special project fund, if you wish.
That's the second thing and I would also would like to add that the ICANN Academy is region nonspecific. In other words, and we've made sure this is particularly important - there are people and representatives from all regions in the ICANN Academy working group and Sala might be able to add a few more things to this. And in fact, I would encourage perhaps more people to take part in that working group. I know that Cheryl also is, but there needs to be a good balance between the regions and I'm not sure whether the Asia-Pacific region has enough people on the working group to provide the regional balance. And it's certainly the first time that I hear Hong having mentioned some of the projects which the APRALO region has brought forward.
And the third thing I wanted to add - not sure whether it was the third thing that I'm talking about here - but the third thing is with regards to the members of the Budget and Finance Subcommittee at the moment, looking at last year’s Budget and Finance Subcommittee APRALO had an ALAC member, Cheryl Langdon-Orr and had a regional lead Charles Mok. This year I gather that both Cheryl and Charles are going to remain in the Budget and Finance Subcommittee.
But Cheryl Langdon-Orr is not an APRALO ALAC member anymore and we need to have someone from ALAC to be on that subcommittee. That means Rinalia, Sala or Edmond and we need to have that member to be chosen by you, I guess, as soon as possible. So that’s the toss that I'm putting on your desk, thanks very much.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. I think we need to discuss with Rinalia, Sala and Edmond to have one of them represent us at the Budget and Finance Subcommittee but before that - first of all Olivier do we have a deadline is it as soon as possible or yesterday or do we have another deadline?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you the deadline was yesterday.
Charles Mok: Oh okay.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Or should I say last year maybe?
Charles Mok: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Although last year isn’t that far away, thank you.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. Sala you had your hand up why don’t you go ahead first and you can express yourself if you want to volunteer or maybe you want to volunteer someone else among you three?
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Yes I am happy to volunteer if no one objects but if the others, Edmond or Rinalia want to volunteer happy to defer to them as well. In relation to your initial comments Charles on the matter, but the need to move into a strategic planning in relation to getting things address for APRALO region which Cheryl has sort of elaborated, I totally concur, totally agree. I also agree with Hong’s comment and if there is - also with you Charles in terms of we need to increase our level of strategy in terms of getting [inaudible 00:25:44].
I was looking into the steps and I noted that there is room for us to increase our outreach especially in relation to policy consultation matters to capacity building. I quite like what Hong mentioned and I think that their existing forms and mechanisms within our region that we can sort of partner with in relation to saving them and [inaudible 00:26:12] for instance I take the Southeast Asia log [inaudible 00:26:16] group for instance, which ICANN is already representing through the ICANN Global Partnerships and of course other forums.
And it will be good in terms of especially in terms of capacity building [inaudible 00:26:30] means and mechanisms in which our region we can build and create awareness in terms of capacity development. And of course I met with Titi that capacity building for our region be one of the priority areas in terms of the three key strategic areas for budget prioritization things and so forth. The other thing I would also like to mention is I would like to thank Olivier - the development, especially the - that the ICANN staff has been getting.
And that was one of my concerns especially when I was sitting on the working group of the ICANN Academy is that I felt that it's sort of something that could benefit the whole of ICANN. It was good - it would not be fair to rob At-Large’s budget especially for those who are trying to get on the projects.
And looking at the staff ALSs number of countries [inaudible 00:27:35] because at the end of the day, when we say APRALO we say with the voice of the Asia-Pacific and Australia region of course but if Rinalia or Edmond would like to volunteer for the finance thing, happy to defer to them as well. And there end my comments, thank you Charles.
Charles Mok: Thank you.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Sorry one more comment.
Charles Mok: Yes please.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: The other thing was Hong I would greatly encourage you and if you could identify other academics or other professionals who would be interested in joining the ICANN Academy and also the [inaudible 00:28:28] development not only for ICANN Academy but also in discussion for the region, I strongly suggest that a group of us get together and sort of chat informally about it.
Charles Mok: Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you I just have a question in the window. I note from the mail list that there is a restriction on members; you want to keep the working group small. There is one member from one region. I don’t whether that is still the policy. But if it's still possible for the others to join, I would be happy to volunteer, if not we will fully rely on you.
Charles Mok: Okay maybe we should come back to the question of who we - maybe we should just decide in this meeting who will be representing us from ALAC among our ALAC members on the Budget and Finance Subcommittee. Rinalia do you want to volunteer or do you want to - between you and Sala because Edmond isn’t here. Let's make the decision here of who will be representing us as the ALAC member on the Budget and Finance Subcommittee. Rinalia are you there?
Rinalia Abdul Rahim: Yes I am open to that Charles. But I'm also happy to defer to Sala.
Charles Mok: So -
Unknown: Can you take down my name as well?
Charles Mok: Okay we are talking about but Olivier correct me if I am wrong, we are talking about we need an ALAC member first, right?
Unknown: Okay, I'm talking about someone from APRALO region looking at names, take down my name.
Charles Mok: Okay.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Yes Charles, you are correct it's primarily now an ALAC member. Of course everyone else others are free to send in their application. But it's really an ALAC member that is needed at the moment. I would just say that either Sala or Rinalia or Edmond are very welcome to join. Just bearing in mind that we have a lot more things to do as well so don’t - just let one person take all of the responsibilities because otherwise they will just be - it is a tough job.
Charles Mok: Right.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Because they have to work very hard this month. And then in future months as well, because we’re going to have to make very tough choices on what projects we’re going to push forward and that’s going to have to be the first filter if you want. Whilst last year we didn’t have a first filter and unfortunately we actually ended up in a situation where ICANN finance made the choices for us and didn’t make such good choices because they said “Well we can't chose between your projects, so we will just take the project and chop it into little bits and give a little bit to everyone” which made everyone unhappy at the end.
Charles Mok: Right I think why don’t I make the suggestion because I do see that Sala has been involved in a lot of work. Why don’t we try to engage Rinalia on this particular task if there is no disagreement between Sala and Rinalia and others?
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: I agree.
Charles Mok: Yes - I don’t want you to have to wake up every morning at 4am again.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: [Inaudible 00:33:02] around the globe you know?
Charles Mok: Okay so let's have Rinalia as the ALAC member from APRALO to join this committee. And Olivier I want to ask another question because as you see there are other members who might be interested in joining the committee. But noting that the committee may not - shouldn’t be too large - what are the options?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Charles, actually it's not that hard. The thing that we’re concerned about is to have any call or any subject, when we do have calls - any call that doesn’t have a representative from the region or good representation from the region. Looking at the current list, I noticed that there are four people from the LACRALO region for example.
Charles Mok: In that case it is actually okay let's say while ALAC member, Rinalia is our representative and Sala can back her up.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Yep.
Charles Mok: And for the other persons that have expressed an interest like [inaudible 00:34:23], Hong, and also myself we can all actually join as well. I think that would be actually useful for our region to have the diversity and to make sure that we can actually also cover each other.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: That’s right, yes Charles. Very good and on top of that I must also emphasize that the work doesn’t only work in the Budget and Finance Subcommittee but it also means that you need to have some leadership in the region when you're going to put together your project requests.
Charles Mok: Exactly, yes.
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: And these have to be brought in pretty quickly. And it always helps of course to have the people who have put together the project requests being present on the Budget and Finance Subcommittee call so as to be able to champion those projects.
Charles Mok: Yes and actually I do recall that Fouad who isn’t on this call but he sent an email some weeks ago expressing that he is also interested in joining. We could have him as well, right? Okay so let's -
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Yes Charles I wasn’t aware you were waiting for my answer, yes.
Charles Mok: Okay good so that’s taken care of then okay for the membership, the things we should’ve decided yesterday or last year, okay. Any other matters that we need to discuss about this call for the At-Large project submission to be included in the Budget and Finance Subcommittee issue? If not we will move on to the next one which is about WHOIS. Yes Olivier please?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Charles I was just going to add that time of the essence the budget requests have to be in within the next couple of weeks. We’re going to have - we've already sent out a call for those projects to be put together by the regions. I hope you have received it and I hope that your region is already working on putting together those projects that you wish to have funded. That’s something which needs to be done in the next week or so.
Charles Mok: Okay I think if possible can we have the staff because I don’t recall that email particularly - if possible can staff have that email sent to all of the names that we've talked about before as joining the committee and sending it to them again, myself, Siva, Fouad and Hong, Sala and Rinalia, is that okay?
Heidi Ulrich: Sorry can you repeat that Charles?
Charles Mok: Yes, can we have the email, the information that Olivier refers to and have that resent to us, actually also Cheryl who sent to us - who will be participating from APRALO to put together our request. I assume that will be the names that we've talked about, those who volunteered to join that committee, yes that would be Rinalia, Sala, Cheryl, Siva, Fouad, and Hong and myself.
Heidi Ulrich: Okay.
Charles Mok: Okay so thank you Olivier for your reminder. Let's move on to the next item 3B, the issues around WHOIS and maybe Holly can give us a report on that?
Holly Raiche: Yes I think I already have. The report is out. I think people - well it's been on the link the website and has been both that and the earlier report are now there. As I said Alan has already drafted something. Happy to, I'm going to circulate that. I think the next step is going to be a PDP. I think Alan has gone into a draft where there was a lot of comment on it. Would be a good start, I think the issue of privacy is a very much an unresolved one but I think Alan's suggestion is we first deal with the ‘thick’, ‘thin’ WHOIS initially.
I will circulate Alan's draft and see what people think. But it's been an interesting discussion and it's really just started. I think it will be - if I circulate - what I will do is circulate Alan's, I will also circulate the report that I did on the WHOIS review group discussion and those two together ought to form a really good basis for the input for us into larger ALAC discussions and perhaps a more wholesome response to when it's a PDP.
Charles Mok: Okay -
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: [Inaudible 00:40:12].
Charles Mok: Olivier your hand is up?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Yes thank you very much Charles. Actually there are a couple of things. The first is the ALAC statement on the preliminary issue report on ‘thick’ WHOIS had a deadline of 30 December. That has been drafted, discussed, etc, that is packed and done with. That has been submitted. It needs to be - if APRALO wanted to have something to say in this, I guess it already has in the past, and I thank the region for having brought its inputs into the process but that is already packed we cannot go back to it.
The only WHOIS issue that remains is the WHOIS Policy Review Team Draft Report. And that comment open period is open until 18 March 2012 which is a very long period but obviously it requires reading of the WHOIS review Team Draft Report and it requires input specifically on that report. So that’s the part on this. I'm not sure because looking at the APRALO listing of projects - sorry of open policy issues I noticed there are only two, the one on WHOIS and the one on fiscal year.
In fact there are more than that and I just wanted to touch briefly on those. Looking at the public comment listing there is one on the new gTLD Applicant Support Program Financial Assistance, that closes 10 January. There is one on the public comment for a preliminary GNSO issue report on the registrar accreditation amendments, that closes on 13 January. There is one on the IDN Variant Issues Project Draft Integrated Issues Report that closes on 30 January.
And these are the ones which APRALO members should be concentrating on right now. And I guess staff can point you to the different Wikis. I understand that the new gTLD Applicant Support Program Financial Assistance is not something that anyone has worked on. It was a very short comment period. There has been a - because we’re looking here at implementation of the Applicant Support Program, there has already been a statement made by the ALAC on this and it has been sent over to Kurt Pritz and to Chris Disspain who is the person leading on Applicant Support on the Board.
I'm not quite sure whether there will be copy sent to the public comment. That’s something which the new gTLD Working Group of the ALAC will be probably discussing I will asking the Chair of that Working Group, Avri Doria, to tell us whether she believes there should be a copy sent to the public comment period. One the second one, the preliminary GNSO Issue Report on the Registrar Accreditation Agreement Amendments, I understand that there has also been a statement drafted put together and I asked staff to put the link on there.
On the third one, the IDN Variant Issues Project, that’s something which we haven’t started addressing yet. And because it refers to the IDN we will be asking the IDN liaison who is Edmond Chung who will be able to advise us whether there should be a statement filed by the ALAC on this. By I expect members of the APRALO region to be contributing to this if Edmond says yes we need to have a statement, thank you.
And if I could just add one more thing, sorry for coming back, there has been one statement that has been recently drafted and that has been filed as well and that’s the statement on the Joint ccNSO/GNSO Working Group on Single Character IDN Top Level Domains. I have to thank both Cheryl Langdon-Orr for as her ccNSO liaison to have brought the matter forward to the ALAC and I also have to thank Sala specifically also for having greatly helped in the drafting of this statement.
And thank of course APRALO since many members from the APRALO region brought their input into the process. Thank you.
Charles Mok: Thank you.
Holly Raiche: Charles I have my hand up.
Charles Mok: Oh yes Holly I'm coming to you.
Holly Raiche: I should have been clear Olivier; yes of course Alan's statement has already been filed. I think we all know this is going to be a next step and I think we have to be prepared for that. I think the RAA is the one that I would personally like to have a look at just having sat on that team two years ago. Charles I'm happy to have a little look at that one and perhaps draft something just for circulation so see if people are happy with it.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you Holly.
Holly Raiche: One more thing.
Charles Mok: Yes.
Holly Raiche: Olivier what is going on about the IANA contract? Where is that up to? I sort of read something on the website. Is that something that is about to be an issue that we should - that ALAC should be involved in?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thank you Holly. I'm not sure at the moment and I will be asking. Actually that’s a good point that you’ve raised. I will be asking the question from those concerned and asking what is going on. I haven’t seen any update on this recently.
Holly Raiche: Thank you.
Charles Mok: Okay so we do look like we have a long list of policy issues that we need to address and try and address and hopefully within the time frame. I think we need to go back and take a closer look at the issues and see who might be able to take care of and split the work among us with the whole list of consultations. Again, you know, every month we face the same issues. There are so many things that we need to follow and try to comment on.
If possible, in our earlier meeting at the beginning, I hope that possibly Holly even though you focus mostly on some of the work such as WHOIS and registrant rights and so on, it would be good if you can help us screen some of these issues and try to allocate or solicit other members who might have an interest in some of these issues to help us follow. As a focal point, not to say you're the one who will be working on all these issues, but you know what I mean, just trying to help us manage this a little bit better.
Holly Raiche: No, I am happy to Charles.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you so much. Let's follow this outline and maybe we should put it up as an action item after every meeting that we should - before every meeting we should come up with a list of things to do and try to confirm in the meeting who might be able to help us, let's say, come up with the preliminary draft on issues that we would want to follow and for the ones that we think there is no need then we also can confirm that at every meeting. Maybe that would be something that we can do for future.
Holly Raiche: That’s fine.
Charles Mok: Okay, so Holly and Pavan please also help us remember that. Maybe we can try to remember before each future meeting we will make sure we have - we go a round of taking a look at the policy issues and then putting that into the agenda and confirming the way forward for the next month.
Holly Raiche: That sounds like a plan.
Charles Mok: Okay, thank you. Any comments, I see two hands up. Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you Charles. First yes I think a little midmonth activity on all of these seems essential but I really believe that APRALO is not making good enough use of the tools, the Wiki tools and the ability for lists or changes or public comments to be pushed out to our list. I think you might Charles want to convene your leadership and a couple of us diehards and see what we can do with Matt because I'm convinced that we can work a lot smarter and not necessarily harder on all of this.
Perhaps we should take that as a long standing action item. It might take a couple of months to sort that out. But could we also perhaps allocate some time for those of us in APRALO to have a face to face meeting even if it's over breakfast, lunch or dinner when we are together in Costa Rica because that tends to, I think, bring people with a little bit more focus.
Charles Mok: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: A huge mess going on between now and then. The other thing was with the IANA contract, I believe that it is expected to have an announcement sometime in February. I also have been led to believe that the Chairman of the ICANN Board is indeed confident that the new application that they have put in will be well received. But that’s all I know, thank you.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. Yes, thanks for the reminder about using the two such especially Wiki and then the suggestion for having a face to face meeting in the next ICANN meeting. We will make sure we will remember to set that up, okay. Let’s see so we can move on to the - for the next agenda item for outreach, and I see an entry here about the ICANN Academy. Who might be able to help us take us through that? Go ahead Sala.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Someone mentioned my name so I guess I will just respond. Very briefly update from the Working Group, currently he ICANN Academy is tasked to comment on a draft budget that was put up by the Working Group Chair and we have to prepare for before [inaudible 00:53:04]. Initially a brief - I raised I suppose what could be called a vigorous comment in relation to concerns of the At-Large budget competing for certain components of the budget which could in my view, go towards reaching capacity building.
I'm very happy to hear ALAC chair is mentioned the ICANN Academy has become - is going to be a global project and it won't be from the At-Large budget and that sort of thing. It will be something that will involve the regional community. That’s something to be encouraged. During our - the ICANN Academy discussions we started commenting on the curriculum and that sort of thing. There was some discussions about distinctions, pros and cons between [inaudible 00:54:09] and the use of what [inaudible 00:54:11].
The majority mostly from NARALO and EURALO they sort of support the face to face mode which is scheduled to before the ICANN meeting or after that hasn’t been confirmed yet. But in terms of issues that I raised for on behalf of APRALO, I noted that there were four - I think I mentioned in my previous things an existing initiative such as the [inaudible 00:54:52] that happened in the Asia-Pacific regional idea, the network operator group.
And so essentially I noted that there are mechanisms [inaudible 00:55:07] and that sort of exists that we could possibly - that we should possibly look into in terms of cost savings and that sort of thing. I think from APRALO perspective what I would advise APRALO to consider would be what areas and what sort of mechanisms do we collect as a RALO here to benefit [inaudible 00:55:38] APRALO region.
And [inaudible 00:55:43] and I would strongly encourage that we consider essentially the capacity for people to actually comment and give feedback on various quality issues and it's a wonderful thing that the ICANN staff and the ICANN of course are going to great lengths to give us translations. But it's quite another matter to solicit a comment and feedback and therein it's enough to deduce it. There is a need for capacity building to increase input particularly policy input on things like WHOIS and IDNs and that sort of thing.
From the Korean, the Japanese and Cambodian, from the [inaudible 00:56:33] and from the Iranians and from Australians, well Australia is always vocal of course. But you know that. That’s my general update anyone have any questions feel free to raise them now. I'm happy to check with [inaudible 00:56:54] on the matters also.
Charles Mok: Olivier you have your hand up?
Olivier Crepin-LeBlond: Thanks very much Charles. I just wanted to add a couple of things. First, that the capacity building in itself is something which I expect the regions to be doing and it is actually somehow a separate project from the ICANN Academy which is a project which that is geared specifically at people who are about to assume a position of responsibility in the ICANN structure. At least this is the way that we have marketed it with ICANN staff and with ICANN so as to make it a project that has a number of things that has gained traction.
The first one is that staff has shown that face to face events before or after an ICANN meeting and we’re probably looking at the ICANN annual general meeting when you have new people coming in to replace people that are leaving, that would be the preferred time for an ICANN Academy. So that’s the first thing. The second thing is I guess if we are having traction about the wider ICANN Academy being something that is not only in the ALAC or At-Large project but something that will benefit the GNSO, ccNSO, the Board, etc, then one has to also keep in mind what the wishes or what the early traction if you want is from the other parts of ICANN.
And it looks as though the face to face is what's going to be - or what has gained traction so far. And then the other thing I wanted to add was there is a program subcommittee that has been put together in the ICANN Academy. And Sala is the member of the APRALO that is in the program subcommittee. There is Tijani Ben Jemaa for AFRALO, Avri Doria for EURALO and NARALO and there is Carlos Aguirre for LACRALO. And I guess that the - I believe they have already started work on the program itself. That’s of course the academic program itself, thank you.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Just one last comment, sorry and I forgot to mention I started drafting a capacity development submission for the APRALO region. That was one of the reasons why I requested the statistics on the number of ALS accredited structures within APRALO. And I went ahead and did three other regions as well. The first draft has been sent. I apologize it's very sketch, crude and not so very cohesive draft but it's just the beginning and hopefully some people can give some comments. I have yet to finish the doctrine. And if there are any volunteers who would like to jump on board and assist me with it, it would be even better and we could also direct it towards the APRALO budget committee that will take the matter further, thank you.
Charles Mok: Yes thank you. Hong you have your hand up.
Hong Xue: Oh well thanks for the briefing Sala. Would you please let us know if it's not a secret the works that have been done by the program committee? Olivier just mentioned that probably you’ve made a draft already. So if it could be disclosed, well would you brief us what kind of program you're drafting and any output that is available for us to have a look, thank you.
Sala Tamanikaiwaimaro: Yes, my apologies what I will do - what actually happened - I apologize for stepping in. What actually happened was there was a country member the name of the web based application that we’re using to draft this curriculum, but I'm happy to copy and paste whatever we've been discussing onto the Wiki since there is an actual Wiki for it, so that it's open for everyone to see.
Charles Mok: Okay thank you. And thanks to Sala for representing us on the Program Committee and please continue to keep us updated on that. And okay we’re past one hour in the meeting time and I think we’re closing into the end. As for the Chair’s report actually I'm trying - I would like to say as followed a report or actually as the AOB is that I believe we seem to have still a lot of work that we need to do and we haven't quite figured out a best way and the leadership and the people who will be able to help us do in that particular category which is outreach.
Because once again time and time again in our meetings we seem to have a lot of issues we need to deal with in terms of our existing work, our logistics, and procedures and also especially the policies that we need to look at. But we know that we have been having a lot of difficulties with trying to improve our outreach and our inreach. But again, we haven’t been able to set up a good plan to move this forward and find enough people who will be able to help us construct a plan or help us work into that direction.
I just want to bring that point up and discuss, maybe try to have all of you brainstorm a little bit, if not in the next few minutes maybe we should put it up as an agenda for the next meeting and try to discuss among ourselves this month to try to see how we can improve and put something really together. We've been talking about - we’re going to have the brochures of course. But I think the brochures can only get us so far. And if we really need to do a lot more than brochures in different languages in order to improve our outreach effort.
I would like to bring that point up and see if anybody has any quick reaction and discussion about this and hopefully I would like to stir up some discussion and some suggestions that we can take forward. Hopefully some plans that we can confirm in the coming month or in the next meeting. Any feedback from what I've said? It's a hot potato. It's a difficult issue. Right, and of course in the Adobe Connect room we’re talking about having a APRALO leadership meeting and thanks to Cheryl for brining that up and trying to work smarter and not harder.
And I think maybe the outreach issue is also one thing that we need to consider in that particular meeting. hopefully we will - the format of that meeting will be a little bit more free flowing and more discussion and ideas and rather than compared to this meeting which a lot of times we will have to deal with procedural issues and so on. Any feedback? No? Any other business? Nope?
Female: It's the year of the dragon.
Charles Mok: Sorry?
Female: It's the year of the dragon.
Charles Mok: Yes, I'm a dragon and you know how old I am now. Well okay Happy New Year to everyone again. And if there is no other business we have a lot of things we need to work on and starting with the budget thing, I see that staff has already sent out that message to us. And we will be following up on that within the next week and try to put something together I hope, with all of your help. If there is no other business I think we can come to close to closing the meeting.
Female: Well thank you dragon.
Charles Mok: Thank you, thanks everyone and yes, we will be in touch offline with the list of things that we need to do, thanks. Happy New Year, bye.
