Hong Xue: -- is working on that, let's start the meeting. The first item is a role call and apologies. Pavan, have we received any apologies from anyone?
Pavan Budhrani: No, none so far.
Hong Xue: Okay. I have a quick role call. We have Charles Mok from ISOC Hong Kong with ISOC Australia, there is Cheryl Landon-Orr, we have guest Dev from Latin America, Fouad from Pakistan, (inaudible 0:00:32) from China; Olivier, our guest, the Chair of ALAC of Europe with Pavan, also from ISOC Hong Kong and we have Wil from Pan Pacific ISOC. Have I missed anyone?
[Seranushe]: You missed me. You have --
Hong Xue: Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm very sorry. And if possible please enter into our room, so I can see you. [Seranushe], thank you very much for joining us from Armenia.
[Seranushe]: Just for the first time, that's why probably I don't know where to enter. Can you send me the link via email if possible, via Skype?
Pavan Budhrani: [Seranushe], I emailed you on hotmail, it should be there.
[Seranushe]: Hotmail, okay. I just -- I will check right now.
Hong Xue: Right so you don't have to enter into password. Agenda item one, we are quorumed - that's very good; thank you very much for everyone who took your precious time to attend the conference call.
Agenda item two -- hello anybody?
[Seranushe]: Enter as a guest --
Hong Xue: Alright, very good.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Enter your name or initials.
Hong Xue: Yes, indeed. Okay, item two. We will offer a draft of the meeting, some of the minutes of the last call, the last call was deferred by the standby with Fouad on the 4th of January. Anyone have any comments on that? The draft minutes of last call.
[Seranushe]: I probably will not be able right now to be connected because my connection here it requests flash player and I need to download it yet, okay.
Hong Xue: Okay.
[Seranushe]: My computer doesn't support all that stuff that's probably the issue.
Hong Xue: Okay, we hear your concern, don't worry.
[Seranushe]: Yes, thank you.
Hong Xue: Cheryl -- okay sign on the room, so I assume there's no additional comments on the last time minutes. So go to Agenda three. Agenda three is about APRALO announcements. Actually these are not really announcements that something for discussion, the first issue is quite important; I hope you pay attention to this issue. It's an update on 2011, APRALO leadership election cycle. For this issue, Matthias - are you available?
Matthias Langenegger: Yes.
Hong Xue: If it's possible, would you please post the very specific days as kindly discovered by Cheryl of all of the officers on the Adobe Room, so everybody can see that. Actually has posted the days, you could see we have actually two categories, the first category is about APRALO officers, so there about Chair, Vice-Chairs, Secretariat.
Another category is about APRALO representatives on ALAC, and this year about our election cycle, the second category only involves the positions and that is currently occupied by Cheryl, but her election -- well, her term will not expire until the AGM of 2011. So it's really too early to think about that position right now. So I suggest we separate this position from discussion at its core.
What we're going to discuss is the first category, that is election cycle for APRALO Officer, involve three positions, that is Chair, which is currently -- temporarily occupied by me, Vice-Chair, is currently occupied by Charles Mok and Secretariat is currently taken by ISOC Hong Kong, the contact person is Pavan. And so these three positions, their terms according to the correct information is currently figured out by the staff and other members of APRALO. They should expire by June 2011.
Well, I have truthfully to leave my term in March 2011 and have prepared for that. But as Cheryl correctly pointed out, this is wrong information and we should not propagate wrong information any more and the same thing the formation of APRALO, no Chair has managed to finish their term -- their full team, everybody resigns, this is has become a very bad tradition. So we shouldn't continue this wrong position. So I try my best to finish the term by June 2011.
Having notwithstanding of that, I believe the election should be prepared and held well in advance. I mention this that is because ICANN is going to have a meeting in April -- in June 2011. So what I'm suggesting is that we have the election but Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretariat well before that, so the new leaders will have sufficient time to prepare for Jordan meeting, which is held by ICANN in Asia in 18 months. The same with the Seoul meeting in October 2008, so -- oh, Cheryl has a comment. Cheryl you're welcome.
Cheryl Landon-Orr: I in fact was simply trying to agree that I think what we should be doing is running these elections between the -- well as soon as practical after the San Francisco meetings. So that there is a good hand over.
Hong Xue: Oh, okay. So that's very good. What I'm thinking is that we were stopped, the consultations here -- immediately after San Francisco and election -- nomination election period would take around several weeks. So normally we have around the third week of May, the election will be completed. So I can sort of help the Chair elected to organize the events in Jordan, and it will be the new Chair who is going to Jordan to organize the APRALO showcase to the whole ICANN community, I assume that's very healthy and stable transition.
So anybody have comments or questions. Nope. Hello, just to be polite so two Vice-Chairs Fouad and Charles, what do you think?
Fouad Bajwa: Fouad here. I think that your suggestion is very valid and we should go ahead of that so that we have the team ready in time for putting together the showcase in Jordan. And I agree with you. And I'm open to whichever way you would like to go on there, to help get staff and APRALO to conduct the elections, since I’ll be involved in doing the elections as well.
Charles Mok: Yes, I support Hong's suggestion.
Fouad Bajwa: Yes.
Hong Xue: Oh, thank you; thank you very much two Vice-Chairs. Well it seems as the first issue we want to discuss in agenda item three, how about the second issue, that's an update on APRALO face-to-face meetings in San Francisco in March. That's another important thing. I ask the staff, Heidi and Matthias to arrange a face-to-face meeting plus conference call at San Francisco. Matthias, is there any update on this, the timing, the date?
Matthias Langenegger: Hong, we currently have the meeting scheduled on Tuesday at 17:00 local time. However, at this point it's difficult to have a definite time, because the meeting schedule is still changing, and there might be some times that are blocked out for other meetings. So it's still a risk that we might have to change the time, but it's currently scheduled on Tuesday.
Hong Xue: Okay, thank you very much. 17:00 UTC that will be a little late for Asia-Pacific, but it's manageable, oh well, I know it will be difficult for people in Australia and Pacific Islands, for people in Hong Kong, it will be around 10 p.m. and okay, there will be face-to-face meetings and conference calls, so we try to be time friendly to our own region, and hopefully we have more colleagues at this face-to-face meeting in San Francisco.
Well, all of you present here, please mobilize the people you know who are going to San Francisco to join our APRALO meeting. Normally, our meeting was held at ICANN, and it was very early time. So we -- the other people hardly notice us, and this time it will be 5 p.m. local time. It's actually afternoon, so hopefully this time people will see APRALO is really meeting. Alright, okay, any comments on supplements on the face-to-face meeting?
The agenda will be circulated around next week, when our meeting time dates will be more fixed. Any comments on that? Nope. Okay. Then we move on.
We have very full agenda. Agenda item four, there is an update on regional policy work plan and Charles and Edmon have worked out a very interesting, very thoughtful and insightful work plan for the policy development in Asia-Pacific. And today we're fortunate to have a guest from Latin America, our dear friend Dev, who is going to join us to talk about policy development, especially with (inaudible 0:12:05).
Charles, well the work plan -- the flow chart has been presented last time, we were all impressed and hopefully we're going to implement the process on the policy issues, such as IDN, geographic regions and other policy topics. So Charles I hand it over to you, for you to chair the session along with Dev. I thought Dev was going to give us a presentation. Okay.
Charles Mok: Okay. May I suggest that we let Dev do the presentation first, and I will give you an update about implementing the plan that we worked out, that we presented last time, and some of the updates and with the -- with a few of the consultations that I (inaudible 0:12:59). So are you okay to get started?
Dev Kissoondoyal: This is Dev. Yes I am, thanks Charles.
Charles Mok: Yes.
Dev Kissoondoyal: And good day to everyone, and thanks for inviting me to this call. With Team D, one of the recommendations that it's looking at is strengthening At-Large policy advice mechanisms. And one of the ways we are trying to document this is to -- by the use of flow charts.
I posted two links of the flow charts in the chart there, and the first one describes what should happen before policies are published. Our current thinking is that they will be like a policy publish schedule which has like a -- which has like all of the policies that are worked on by all the supporting organizations and all the ACs, and that is -- and they keep it up to date as to when they think their policy will be finished.
Now, what we were thinking of was having like a permanent committee comprising of the Secretariat but we should also probably expend that to include persons from the regions to be on this committee that actually views this schedule.
And any -- also any policy issues raised by the various ALS’s and if there's a policy -- so that committee then reviews their policy on the upcoming schedule that the ALAC should review, and if it is yes, then you know then that committee discusses on how to sponsor the policy issue concern, and then the ALAC and the RALOs can reach a consensus on possible ways to approach this policy issue of concern, be it you know whether the draft statement to request a briefing call with ICANN staff, submit a -- request a GNSO or to of course constituency Working Group to address that issue.
And also the idea is also that ALS’s can bring up issues to the attention of ALAC, so it's more of the bottom up process, you know the bottom up process by which policies are looking at At-Large.
So the second flow chart and it is the -- it is a large -- it is a long flow chart, but what it attempts to do is to document how ALAC and At-Large looks at a policy that is released for public comment. As you know the typical comment period is 30 days. So when the comment is -- policy is available for comment, there is a phase of steps that have to take place, at most 10 days after the policy is available for comment.
If you scroll down the flow chart, you can see the various steps. The announcement is made to the At-Large, At-Large and RALO then submits comments to the ALAC, and then ALAC formally decides whether it needs to submits comments on the policy.
And if it does, it then has to then make several decisions. Does it request a 15-day extension, for example, should an ad hoc Working Group be created, or an existing Working Group be used to draft comments on this policy and also should then ALAC request a committee briefing call on the policy.
But ultimately, even if it answers no, ALAC then notifies At-Large and well -- on its decision regarding the policy out for comment. So that's at most 10 days after the policy is available for public comment. So the flow chart then continues on well -- on whether if a Working Group has been selected to actually work on the comments, that Working Group holds its meetings discussions and then the decision is whether if should that Working Group should request the 15 day extension to increase the public comments for 45 days, then it could do so.
That At-Large Working Group then produces draft ALAC comments, that is then posted to At-Large for -- to the At-Large for comments, and then based on that feedback from everyone, that Working Group then produces final comments on the public policy. And that's at most 21 days or 36 days, that's if the 15-day extension is granted after the policy is available for comment.
The next step after that is essentially the ALAC chair starts the vote to accept the final ALAC comments on the public policy, the notice of the results of the votes is then posted, that's typically 5 days, so after the voting period ends, the results of the votes is posted to At-Large onto the RALOs and that's at most 29 days or 44 days if that -- you know if the 15-day extension is granted, and that so -- so that's really the flow chart there in a nutshell and as brief as I can make it. Hopefully it's clear and I will be willing to answer any questions or comments on it, and that's it.
Charles Mok: Thank you, Dev. Any questions? I think it's a very good way to start to coordinate better the ALAC responses to the -- to the consultations made out by ICANN. I think the issue is obviously how the individual -- each of the RALOs can be organized so that they would be really able to reflect the views of their members. That obviously would still be a challenge for each of the regions.
Dev Kissoondoyal: Yes, this is Dev. Yes, that is going to be a challenge, because and one of the recommendations -- well, one of the recommendations that Work Team D is leaning towards is to recommend to ICANN that the -- with establishing a policy public schedule so that we know beforehand, before the policy is available for public comment, what the policy you know -- what policies are coming down the road so to speak.
So that the At-Large could then at least better prepare -- can better organize its thoughts regarding this policy, at least as it is right now, because as it is right now, it's -- you know the policy just comes out and it's like seeing it for the first time, unless you've been actively involved in that Working Group that as has been working on this policy. So it is a challenge.
Charles Mok: And again I think ICANN can really help us by making the reviews more easily understandable and maybe even prepare sort of a brief example pointing out how will be particularly relevant or not to particular regions or for RALOs, what organizations, because I believe that sometimes some organizations will not be that aware as others about the importance of certain issues and so on. So sometimes it's not very easy to understand what this is all about.
Dev Kissoondoyal: Yes, this is Dev. And well, that's the idea behind this Cross-Regional Working Group that looks at the policies as they are coming out, because for example, well you know different regions have different priorities. I imagine for the Asia-Pacific region international domain names are very important policy issue.
But for Latin America and the Caribbean it really not as -- it is not as important, because it's not being introduced in our region and there's not enough interest in it. So I think that Cross-Regional Working Group that looks at -- that has like two or three persons from the region looking at it, can then really help ALAC as well to help and the Working Group responsible for these policy is used to better -- to better be able to bring the regional interest forward.
Edmon Chung: Yes, this is Edmon. I want to suggest -- sort of raise a point. Looking at the flow chart and listening to the process, and you know I think generally you know it seems like a pretty good structure however I have a pretty fundamental question.
In the past ALAC or you know the RALOs or the ALS’s, typically all three levels of these organizations would participate in the public comment period in terms of you know various issues. My sort of question is sometimes as ALAC at the -- you know, at the level of ALAC, I wonder if this process works for post comment period things. Because you know as ALAC we might want to you know sort of wearing my ALAC hat now, we might want to take a look at what the public comments essentially received are, and formulate our views on how we -- you know how we think we want to provide advice in terms of the policy for a particular -- for a particular policy. So I wonder you know how that -- you know how that works with what is being discussed now and what was presented.
Dev Kissoondoyal: This is Dev. That's an interesting question. I would guess that the proposed Cross-Regional Working Group would also look at the questions -- at the comments received other stakeholder groups and posted as public comments. I suppose if after review of those comments there's a need to submit -- there's something that ALAC should submit a comment on then that Working Group can then submit to ALAC, you know hey we think that this requires a further comment from ALAC, and ALAC, well Cheryl and probably Olivier can clarify this, can write directly to the Board on any issue, any policy issue as it is the body that is -- that gives advice to the ICANN Board. So perhaps that's one way of -- one approach I should say.
Edmon Chung: Yes, obviously I think that's a possible channel. What I'm sort of thinking about is that since we are talking about the whole process at this point, I wonder whether it would merit to actually have it incorporated, because public comments is a little bit different. I think you know you look at the two AC -- well, there are a few other ACs, but the two ACs, GAC and ALAC, and you see that when policies are created from ccNSO or GNSO, you know and then put out through the Board, sort of public comments, sort of the last call for everyone, and the question really is whether the advisory council -- the advisory committees should provide input through that public comment channel, or we should really you know eventually wait for that to close, and then there is sort of a last call among the ACs that as a particular potential process. That's sort of what I'm -- you know, I'm just thinking out loud here, I may be completely off.
Dev Kissoondoyal: This is Dev. I think -- well I think all the policy issues that come out from not just ICANN but from all the supporting organizations, I mean -- I think that's what ultimately we have to -- like keep our eye on, and again if it is of importance enough to certain At-Large structures, because that policy issue directly affects them as an internet end user, I would think that -- there would have to some I don't know, but there would have to be -- the ALS’s themselves would have to make some effort to bring it to the attention of the ALAC and/or the At-Large Working Group that's currently I guess closely -- is working on that particular policy issue, be it you know the security or you know whatever it is.
Edmon Chung: Agreed.
Charles Mok: If there is not any other further discussion, I want to just close this part of our meeting and thank Dev for your presentation, and also make a very brief report on the work -- on the policy work within our APRALO at the moment, because I am actually currently working on a brief document to prioritize the policy issues in front of us, and we will try to consult our members through the mailing list, and also try to see if we can have volunteers to help our with certain issues.
But right now if you look at the agenda, there are three more imminent issues at hand, and -- that are actually the -- two of them actually the closing date of the consultation will be by the end of January. So and in particular I want to see if we can, based on what we discussed previously sort of use the expedited process for the third issue, which is the review of IDN ccTLD fast track process, the extended consultation deadline is the 31st of January.
And I am going to be hoping that we will be able to get a draft within the next day or two and then give a few days of feedback, three days of feedback with response on the mailing list and then finalize it by the 29th. And I understand that maybe we can have someone that might be able to volunteer to help out with this, right? Edmon?
Edmon Chung: Thank you for calling me out. I was sort of saying that I could volunteer. I thought if somebody would like to volunteer, I would let them speak up first. But I guess you know on the particular issue IDN ccTLD fast track review, I think a lot of the IDN ccTLD fast track applications are coming from the Swedens, so it feels you know it feels appropriate for us to try to draft something. So I'm happy to put together at least a first draft by the end of tomorrow, so that we have a few days to circulate and try to finalize, so that we can input into this process.
Charles Mok: Right, yes, because we really are pressing to the -- toward the deadline. So I guess this is probably the best thing that we can do at the moment, and thank you Edmon for helping out, and hopefully you know we will have a little bit more time to work with in the future by setting out the schedule and our time table a little bit better. So that's basically my very brief report. And I think we have taken more than 15 minutes. Any questions from any members or if not, we can move on.
Hong Xue: Well, it's not a question, it's a comment. Thank you very much for this very impressive session, we learn a lot and Dev and thank you very much for the volunteering from Edmon.
My suggestion is that Charles I remember we used Working Group model, we've split the certain important strategically important subjects and form a couple Working Groups. I remember we have an IDN Working Group. So next time probably don't need to call Edmon, which is mobilized as specific Working Groups to the specific policy topic, and we start that policy development process automatically, so that would tremendously expedite the process.
Charles Mok: Yes, good, good. Thanks for reminding.
Hong Xue: Okay, any other questions or comment for agenda item four? No, then we move on, we go to agenda item five, that's APRALO's input to Work Team C, SWOT analysis. We have the privilege to have the Chair of ALAC, Olivier; you have the floor and welcome to give us presentation. Hello? You are there? Olivier?
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: And of course as per usual I cannot find the unmute button, sorry.
Hong Xue: Okay, go ahead.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: Sorry, Hong. It's sort of these things when you have all these windows open and you think okay, where is the unmute now. Anyway, so the UTC, I understand -- I'm trying to find the right -- okay, so basically I'm here to speak to you about the APRALO input into Work Team C's SWOT analogies, which effectively has sponsored the At-Large review which took place quite a while ago already, with the whole review process that took place with an external consultant, that looked at the At-Large and at the ALAC, and stated a process of a number of recommendations that were published and Work Team C deals specifically with recommendations 5 and 6, which are the following:
Recommendation 5 is that the ALAC should develop strategic and operational plans as part of ICANN's planning process. And Recommendation 6 is the one that says At-Large should develop accurate cost models.
So we're going to speak specifically today about recommendation 5, which is the development of strategic and operational plans as part of ICANN's planning process. And one of the things that the Working Group did was to, as a first step if you want, in order to be able to look at the specific points developed in the -- in the review plan, was to do a set of SWOT analysis, SWOT meaning Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunity and Threats, and it's a standard strategic analysis tool which effectively was applied should we say through the three types of planning that one has in our -- in ICANN which is the strategic planning, operational planning and the budgetary planning. So are you all on the -- on the link which has been given in the agenda?
All: Yes.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: I gather there is one -- what we basically have done was to perform a SWOT and all of the members of the group wrote their contribution and then we went through them, and we managed to make them a little bit more concise.
And one of the -- well, the thing we're looking for now is region specific input, or even input that we might have not considered in the Working Group. And so we've gone to all of the RALOs and asked them for them to add the information on the page which has been given to them. So APRALO has this page at the moment, and what we wish is basically for the ALS’s to start writing their input in there.
What we have usually done for the other regions was to try and find if we could have someone in the region who would be driving the process, and maybe holding the pen so as to be able to do the edits themselves, and we've allowed for the comments to come in three languages, English, French and in Spanish as well. I'm not sure whether anyone in your region is going to contribute in those languages, but these are the ones that at the moment we can have.
And the input because there is so much time that we wish that we're ready to spend on this is to really study this correctly. The time we've given is about a month. So you would have the time until about three business days after the February APRALO meeting, which I believe is the 25th of February. So it really is time that can be spent on this.
One thing I need to also mention, specifically, is that we're looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats relating specifically to strategic planning itself, and specifically to operational planning, and specifically to budgetary planning. We're not looking at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of At-Large as a whole or ALAC or your RALO. It's the planning process itself that we're looking for.
Anyway I hope that the lists that you've already got in the tables will give you an idea of the type of input and I'm now open to questions. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you very much, Olivier. That's very interesting presentation. We're very interested in the SWOT analysis. What is even more interesting is that we can see from the page and located to APRALO that At-Large structure ALS can actually contribute directly, am I right?
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: The idea was that we want the ALS’s to bring their contributions in, but that you would have someone that you design as holding the pen. So then it really is up to you whether you want the ALS’s to have direct input into the page and just read it into the working team, or whether you want to filter the -- or select what you wish from all of the input that is in there.
Obviously, we'd like to have as many -- as wide an input possible. So it really is up to you to choose at that point whether the ALS’s will have direct access or whether you wish to have someone collate the information from all the ALS’s and then write it in the document.
Hong Xue: Oh, thank you, thank you very much for the response. We absolutely do not want to falter anyone, and I guess the comments should be posted as comment at the bottom of the page, and then someone who is holding the pen can summarize these main ideas, concerns, analysis and write into the relevant boxes.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: Yes, that's how the other RALOs are doing it if I may say.
Hong Xue: Okay, thanks. And I want to know which Vice-Chair can help me. Who is now representing APRALO in work TC. Fouad, are you at work TC or work TB? Hello, Fouad, unmute yourself.
Fouad Bajwa: Sorry, can you hear me?
Hong Xue: Yes. Are you on work TC?
Fouad Bajwa: I'm a (inaudible 0:39:45) on work TC, I follow what they're doing. I'm a bit of time issues in the meetings, so otherwise I am following up on them, and I can utilize and represent the region with the region's work.
Hong Xue: Okay, very good. We have two representatives from APRALO in work TC. One is Fouad, another is Cheryl. Thanks for Olivier's kind reminding. So Cheryl is too busy, I guess she's on all the work teams.
So may we ask Fouad to be the chief writer of this SWOT analysis on behalf of APRALO, so you can collect the comments from At-Large structures, post it on page, write it into the boxes allocate to us. Will you agree?
Fouad Bajwa: (Inaudible 0:40:43).
Hong Xue: Is this agreement?
Fouad Bajwa: This is agreed.
Hong Xue: Oh, okay, very good, thank you very much. Olivier, do you have a comment here?
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: I was just going to say that I really hope -- I look forward -- I really look forward to seeing all of the inputs coming in from the region, and you know I think that -- well, that the next step that will be done afterwards is for us to be able to draw the -- and us as meaning the team, the working team, WCT, as being able then to respond to the different points that we deliver in the At-Large improvements.
So it's really valuable to work on this, because it will certainly help the group in improving you know the points then, the recommendations that you need to improve. And I'm sorry I stuttered a little bit on it, it is a bit early here and I haven't had much sleep over the weekend.
Hong Xue: Thank you very much for this early morning call. It’s an early morning, it’s testing of course.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: And I'm mentioning this because one of the issues that we had with the Working Team C was that the time zone was a bit tough. We often had our meetings suiting people in Europe and in the United States, and very antisocial times for Asia-Pacific. So you know that's why we do want APRALO input as positively important in this. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Oh, thank you so much, we're so glad to hear the Chair of ALAC have noticed our difficulty on timing, and hopefully we don't have so many antisocial meetings at the time that's difficult for us to join and think about Cheryl and Fouad that have to join either very early morning or the very late night, right.
And of course Cheryl and Fouad, you are strongly encouraged to mobilize the At-Large structures in our region to write comments on that page, so you have the freedom to select from. I see Cheryl is agreeing with that. That's very good. Any other comments or questions or suggestions to this very important issue for SWOT analysis, Work TC presented by Olivier, Chair of ALAC?
[Seranushe]: One quick question. Does this mean that we need to send all our suggestions to Fouad and he will collect all in one paper and then he will take a pen and add those comments in this page?
Hong Xue: Go ahead, Fouad.
Fouad Bajwa: Yes, I'd like to answer that. I think it will -- the approach would be -- would be they will post a message on the list requiring feedback and then everyone can respond to that right on the list, so that we have a complete record of all the comments going in. And then in the end after given specific time, we'll combine those and forward them to the committee C. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thanks. Any other questions? If no questions, we're going to agenda item six as APRALO budget request for financial year 2011-2012. This is very important issue. Before going to discussion, I want to give you an announcement. We've been asked by ALAC to appoint a budget liaison to be responsible for this budget request. Previously, we sent the name of Cheryl to ALAC, but Cheryl is really too busy, she is liaison for ALAC already, and so she cannot be our representative at the same time.
Now I urgently consult Mr. Charles Mok, he kindly agreed to be our budget liaison and so if there's no objection, we've officially endorsed Charles as our budget liaison. And Matthias, please put it into record. Any comments on that? Oh, okay, I see Fouad is agreeing and Cheryl is applauding. Okay so we unanimously agree to appoint Charles as our budget liaison. Then Charles you got a new talk.
Charles Mok: I was hoping someone would object.
Hong Xue: No, unfortunately no, absolutely. We all applaud. Okay, your new talk is to collect the budget requests from our region for the new ICANN physical year. I feel the first thing that jumped into my mind is the ICANN meeting in Asia in June 2011, but I'm not sure whether that one can still be put into the physical year we are talking about right now.
We have some very experienced member who's handling the budget issue, this is Cheryl. And Cheryl maybe you can guide us how to submit the request.
Cheryl Landon-Orr: Certainly. Of course the June meeting and the travel budget for the June meeting actually comes in the ED current FY 11 budget, the one's that's already done and adopted. What we're seeking of course in this round of interchange is with community and internet end users, is what APRALO might wish to do in the FY 12 budget.
One of the great differences in the FY 12 budget in other words, money that will be spent from July 2011 through to June 2012 is the particular form which allows us to be make specific project requests and it appears to me Charles that some of what we tried in the past- Sorry, excuse me. I am extremely ill, I've been in my bed all day, and I'm still in my bed, you actually woke me up to get me on the call. Anyway, and more bad things happen, but don't worry about it.
What struck me was the previous requests that we've made, which I remember you penning, which included things like being able to be present to AT staff, and I would now suggest that we have additions to that where we have the AT IGF opportunities. It would make sense from my totally biased view, that we ask for specific funding for At-Large structure members to attend these, to exceed all (inaudible 0:48:36) amounts of money. The AT staff when we first discussed that Charles, we were talking about actually making a contribution to help other people attend. I'm not sure that that's going to get the same sort of support as having an outreach or inreach activity that has direct policy development consequences.
So we might need to sort of rethink those older systems a little bit more carefully, but I would certainly suggest to have funding and facilitation of people attending any regional IGF that go on. And of course too, perhaps prevent anything at the major IGF would be on my short list of suggestions.
The other things that strike me from things that were discussed in the past was when we talked about our local languages, we have our excellent PDF and (inaudible 0:49:45) based form in a number of Asian languages that are certainly no where as comprehensive as we possibly need to, we could put that in as a project where under something like local languages, whether or not it’s hard copy printing or whether or not it's material with live updated links on some drive, I think that can be sorted out.
But the sorts of things that talked about SWOT that would need some funding, and I would put into the list. And that's about as much publicly as I (inaudible 0:50:15).
Charles Mok: Yes, I think Cheryl, I'll be talking with you following up with you later on about the details and getting and picking your brains and everything that you have already said and others.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Not a problem.
Charles Mok: Yes, thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you, Cheryl, and thanks, Charles, for the conversation on budget requests. Another thing I can think of is that RALOs, not only APRALO have asked for ICANN to fund at least one AGM one year, that one has not been officially approved by ICANN.
So we wonder of the next physical year that request could be taken into account and especially for Asia-Pacific, because you're so wide, diverse and different in time zones, it would really be helpful to have a face-to-face meeting to bring all At-Large structures in one meeting. But that will be very costly and to understand their budget concern. But Charles I guess it didn't harm if we raise this, oh, Cheryl you're welcome, go ahead.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It has of course been noted, I think all the RALOs certainly APRALO as well is very -- but what I would ask is -- ask Olivier does he not feel that this would be a generic request put in a repeat of our previous request put into the FY 12 budget on behalf of all of the regions rather any one in particular.
I'm just wondering whether Charles needs to spend time filling out a formatted form for something that is going to be generically requested as we have in the past for regional annual general meetings to be facilitated at least when a meeting is being held in the region?
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: Can I?
Hong Xue: Oh sure.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: Thank you, Hong. Yes, I think it would -- looking at the input from the regions, many of the regions have now also requested this same thing, and I think it will be just a standard request that everyone is going to go for it and see if the At-Large, the ALAC will push for this.
With regards to the request, I think you should concentrate more maybe on things that you want to be specific to your region, maybe additional funding one way or other for specific projects. But I think that looking at all the requests from all the RALOs, everyone wants to have a GA, everyone is proposing that it would take place in the region when there is an ICANN meeting taking place in the region. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you, thank you Cheryl and Olivier, for your clarification. That's very valuable information for us. And Charles, I assume you take notice of what Cheryl mentioned about those regional and global meetings, APRALO would like to send delegates to and transition services we badly need, yes, these are strategic areas where we do need the budget support from ICANN.
Charles Mok: Yes.
Hong Xue: Anybody else you can think of? This is a critical time.
Charles Mok: I think I will also, besides getting the input from those who have spoken; I will also try to circulate on the mailing list for people to come up with other ideas.
Hong Xue: Oh good, thank you very much, Charles. Any other comments or questions, follow up? Now we're going to agenda item seven. And is APRALO reveal on geographical region an interim report and well Cheryl is the ALAC delegate on that Working Group. And she has been very active in that developing the -- the documents. Well, she has the expertise on this issue, but she's not feeling very well. I strongly concerned about her health, and so we save her voice. You just take rest.
Any other comments on this. I see the comments from Fouad and the comments from new friend [Seranushe], so would you like to give a very short introduction if you will on this issue.
[Seranushe]: Yes, the issue -- yes, I'm on line. The issue is that Armenia is territorially is between Asia and Europe and according to ICANN structure it is in Asia-Pacific. But according to many other structures like UN, ITU, it is in Europe.
And sometimes there are a lot of difficulties related to that. Just me as -- I just posted about my own case, because being a full-time ICANN fellow, this challenge raise back in 2008 when I tried to show my interest and to become -- to apply for ALAC position, I thought that I should apply from Europe and it turns out that Europe has no vacancy at that time. I should apply on behalf of Asia-Pacific, and two years there was confusion where I should be on.
And just -- difficulty and I also talk with Olivier about this, your Chair who is also now with us that I was confused reading your RALO meeting notes that there was one organization from Azerbaijan which also in the same territory, they applied for becoming ALS for EURALO and I didn't understand whether they should be in EURALO or someone from Armenia or someone from Azerbaijan should be in EURALO or in APRALO like as an ALS or as an individual person. That was my confusion and my suggestion to count Armenia or this territory within Europe probably will be appropriate as in all other cases Armenia is there.
Hong Xue: Thank you very much; this is a very insightful and thoughtful comment. Right the center Asia geographically -- well incorporated into the Asia-Pacific region, but sometime we really feel that a (inaudible 0:57:51) of ICANN’s field division.
It seems they are culturally, linguistically and well by all linked to Europe rather than to Asia-Pacific, and it's really too difficult and too far away for them to join Asia-Pacific. I raise this issue; I guess Fouad the Vice-Chair also raised this issue when our comment from Azerbaijan have file At-Large structure application to APRALO. We worry that maybe it's really far away not convenient for them to join APRALO's activity well. I see the comment from the Chair of ALAC. Olivier, do you have a comment on this?
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: Thank you, Hong. Yes, it's particularly difficult to be able to chop the world up into five regions with a pair of scissors because some countries are sometimes on one side of the cut, and some on the other side of the cut. And obviously, the world is not exactly built like this.
The issue of Asia-Pacific and Europe with regards to this part of the world, there are several countries included, including Armenia is rather complex. And so we're actually also having a conference call at EURALO this evening, evening being 19:00 UTC, I think for you it might be very late or very early in the morning for any possible attendees in your region. But I would hope that some members of APRALO or perhaps you Hong or one of your Vice-Chairs could attend because I know that [Seranushe] will be speaking as well --
[Seranushe]: Yes, I will try to join.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: So we hope to be able to find some kind of proposal based on this. But I wanted to say one thing though. The comments to be received at this stage are really comments specifically on the intermediate reports that has been written so far. So yes, we can come up with some inputs with regards to that, to the regions themselves. But at the same time one has to remember that the Working Group has been doing extensive work in the area looking at every -- well many different parts of the world where some countries might be more suited to one area rather than another, depending really on -- on the list that this came from.
The current list that is being used by ICANN is one which was defined by the United Nations, does it want to make its own list or does it want to use another list of countries and geographical definitions, that's really what the working team was working on. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you, Olivier. That's very, very insightful. The conference call by EURALO would be very interesting, but 9:00 UTC will be 3:00 a.m. in Beijing, it is difficult for me.
Olivier Crepin-Lebond: That's (crosstalk). As you say the earth is round unfortunately and that's why it's always very hard.
Hong Xue: Oh the earth is round, unfortunately we have [Seranushe] and she is with us, and she is with you. I feel at the time it's impossible for her to join here and bring our message, well our comment is that I've always been proposing this, that is the geographical regions should be sort of mapping to the cultural, ethnic line to make the people willing to work together and get together be one region.
For example, I want to forward to Fouad our Vice-Chair; he made another very insightful comment on the Middle East. Well Middle East is the wrong term now, it's the Arabic world. Fouad, do you have a comment on that?
Fouad Bajwa: Can you hear me?
Hong Xue: Yes go ahead.
Fouad Bajwa: Among the Middle East part I was considering the fact that the Middle East or the Arab world is all a single language we could collect, sort of a single language entity. It is multiple countries, but they speak all the same language. And the language also derives most of the stuff they do in that part of the world, because if you look at the Arab region or the Middle Eastern region, I think more than like 85% of their internet content is all in Arabic, and most of the activities are also -- unless you're in the Emirates right, most of the activities are all in Arabic.
And keeping that in view, the way that they socialize or the network, even professionals of the internet (inaudible 1:03:20) and the people who maybe can sign with ICANN, and I've also observed them in ICANN meetings, right - the language plays an important part. They're very strongly linked with that. So I think that really creates the need for the Arab region or the Middle Eastern part of the world to actually list as an independent region and that is something that the United Nations development program did realize the UNDP, and they have -- the Arab region listed as a separate region, and why was that, because from the development perspective, because of the language aspect of the Arabic region was very important to get things moving in that part of the world. So that's why I was thinking that maybe this -- we have -- we don't really have a large participation from the Middle Eastern region, there may be possibility that there will be a suggestion that if feasible, if found feasible, the Middle Eastern region would exist as separate geographical region all the Arab world and so forth. Thank you.
Hong Xue: Thank you very much. And we have Cheryl and Will that raise their hands, that's very good. Cheryl, are you feeling okay now? You go ahead.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: No, but I just wanted to point out that the only suggestion that the work group has had to date, and it was actually as a response to the first report we put out, was from the -- a single entity in the Arab region that suggested that a distinctly Arab geographical region within ICANN would make sense along the lines of what Fouad was just asking -- or suggesting if APRALO wishes to support that, then that does need to go in writing, because it would be the sort of thing that we will be looking at next, but we should, and I think it's essential that we do make direct inquiries to the At-Large structures that would be affected by this.
We have At-Large structures that would be affected by such a change. Hong and Fouad and Charles, I believe I copied you, I met a director of the Arab knowledge group that was one the very affiliates At-Large structures in ICANN is clearly a member of APRALO, I would suggest that you make use of that introduction that I made on email and that you seek from the Board of Directors, because the individual At-Large structure context do not seem to be particularly interactive at the moment, that this proposal which if APRALO wants to support is fine, and fair, and reasonable.
But to not specifically seek out the input from those At-Large structures that will be affected, I think would be fraught with danger. The other thing is what you need to realize is that it will have a significant effect on a number of things, not the least of which is the At-Large advisory committee. It will mean three more people, specifically two from the Arab regional At-Large organization, (inaudible 1:07:05) so that will take the total size of the At-Large advisory meeting and refute available budget to all regions.
The other thing I would suggest you need to do is reach out to AFRALO because talking about an independent region for Arabic speaking community will also affect Africa, and I think we need to look at what AFRALO is discussing and doing at the same time. That's it for me.
Hong Xue: Thank you, thank you Cheryl. And Arab Knowledge Management group is the very first At-Large structure for APRALO, and that is actually a proud father, Arabic At-Large structure itself, specifically based in Jordan. It's also covered other Arabic countries. So that's very interesting. I hope we can link up. Yeah, please. Oh, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I said we have to talk to them.
Hong Xue: Oh okay, right. Yes of course. And [Seranushe], I hope you could remember our input on this issue and bring the idea to all the European colleagues. We have another speaker, that's Will who is from Pacific Islands. So I found his input would be very interesting and insightful. Wil, you have the floor and thank you very much for waiting patiently. Wil, go ahead.
Wil Tan: Oh, you're welcome.
[Seranushe]: I will raise that issue also in EURALO today. At least we'll bring your opinion there, will try to do that.
Hong Xue: Thank you, thank you. Will, you have the floor. Hi Will, unmute yourself please.
Wil Tan: Okay, I thought I was unmuted but can you hear me now.
Hong Xue: Oh yes, perfectly.
Wil Tan: Okay. I've just become aware of a report written by Moore and Hilliard from Cooke Islands suggesting that -- or just to develop an idea in relation to the Pacific Islands. And that's something that possibly might work in conjunction with the Caribbean Islands based on perhaps similar reasoning to the earlier discussion about an Arabic-based group in that all the geographical regions don't necessarily work that well for the smaller Pacific countries because you know they tend to lumped in, particularly in the Pacific, they tend to get lumped in with the concerns of Asia and as a consequence get swamped by different issues.
So I suppose -- this document is -- it's about three pages long, is it possible to actually upload it. Maureen said she's quite happy for you to consider it and read it. I'm just wondering whether you would want to include it as part of APRALO's contribution to the debate or would you just prefer them to push it along themselves as such?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think it would be greatly appreciated to look at it, Will.
Wil Tan: Yes?
Hong Xue: Right, please send to our mailing list. It would be really useful information for us to know and I guess it would be very important input to the -- to the Geo Region Review. I feel you should on one hand post it on the Wiki page which is now asking for comments; on the other hand send it to mailing list of APRALO, would you like to do that?
Wil Tan: Yes, okay then, I'll attempt to do that because I haven't -- I had a look at the Wiki page but it doesn't look like -- it looks like it's just requesting comments and this is a -- quite a -- it's about ten page, or maybe five page document, it goes into quite a big of detail. Is the Wiki page open for --
Hong Xue: Oh, if you have a (cross talk)-
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes, it is.
Wil Tan: It is, is it? Alright, well I'll just keep on hunting around a bit more and I'll find out how to do that then. Otherwise, I can send it to the list; is that right? The ALAC list?
Hong Xue: Yes, the APAC list, that's the RALO list.
Wil Tan: Alright, then, okay.
Hong Xue: If you have an online version, you can just send the link to the Wiki page, if it's really ten-page document, I guess post it on Wiki --
Wil Tan: Exactly right, I'll see, I'll have to find it, because I'm really an unknown.
Hong Xue: That doesn't matter. If you send it to staff, I feel Matthias can load it to the Wiki page, not on the page, but as attachment to the page, so that it will pop up.
Wil Tan: Okay.
Hong Xue: We're very happy to have such a long document, a very thoughtful contribution.
Wil Tan: Well, that's okay, alright, I'll do that.
Hong Xue: Thank you. And okay this is on the geographic reveal issue, agenda item seven. We have been going around for 19 minutes, but we still have two more agenda items to go. We try to go as quickly as possible.
The next one is actually on outreach and inreach. So Fouad and Pavan, hand it over to you.
Fouad Bajwa: Thank you, Hong. On agenda item number 8, we as far as the 8.1 review of recent outreach and inreach activities, the next step is concerned. I think we are at the standpoint about whether we should involve -- we should explore the opportunity to involve individual membership and we have to work out you know possible advice on that. But if we do go that way, what is the possible way to talk? And one of my suggestions was to use the ALS intervention idea. They really haven't laid that out much at the moment, because we're, the Improvements Work Team B which is the one experienced in such issues and is also in its process of developing its proposals.
So I think we can start a discussion on the list regarding this and sort of the voting format whether we would like to go for individual based membership. Once we do have a green signal on the APRALO membership that invested in an individual membership program, then we can work out the details and propose those again to be a possible way forward for APRALO to approve; and if that so happens, then we -- I would see something like in three months we'd be going on the -- three to four months, we'd be going on about to involving individual membership and incubating aliases. That is so-called 8.1. Unless Pavan has something to share on that -- Pavan, do you have something to share on that?
Pavan Budhrani: No, I'm okay, I'm good here.
Fouad Bajwa: Okay, and I'll move onto item agenda number 8.2 of this Improvements Work Team B. As I mentioned -- I just mentioned that the Improvements Work Team B is now on it's way forward with proposing proposals, as far as the team is concerned just to bring everyone back on (inaudible 1:15:13) and with the work, what does the Work Team B do? We are -- we are looking at the ALAC At-Large participation in ICANN, and ALAC's participation in At-Large and we're looking at four recommendations called Recommendation 3, which is remove any obstacles in ALAC's RALO ALAC structure; Recommendation 4 ALAC's education and engagement; Recommendation 7 ALAC should choose its own communication, collaboration tools; and Recommendation 9 that ICANN should (inaudible 1:1537) and interpretation tools.
We had our last meeting on the 12th, earlier this month and we wanted to -- at the phase of independently sharing some proposals, and we're jotting them down at the moment, and we have a meeting tomorrow, and we'll be reviewing these proposals. So where do we stand at the moment? We've gone into the phase where I would say that we want to see something back to coming out, we want to look at things beyond the Work Team B, that is for example the -- the regional representatives who have been participating with Work Team B, but would do beyond their Work Team B.
We're looking at the cross relational policy issues with like I just mentioned and whether the individual memberships and so forth. And then we're looking at the issues about communication and collaboration tools, we've got a list of things together, confluence has already been ruled out at the ALAC level, we now want to give it some sort of support so that members that come, they continue to stay comfortable and continue to keep on working with confluence.
Then we have our suggestions for social network tools, the case with social network tools is that you have just so much of them out there. So this would be sort of a challenge of the review committee or task force or group, whatever the name comes out to be to look at what possible tools can be used. I think they had something which is usable and easy, and which can be used by almost everyone.
And we're still -- the proposal for having a confluence page, or have a page presence with all the aliases, having it Adobe Connect rooms for meetings for beyond (inaudible 1:17:56) APRALO meetings. And then we had proposals regarding the education and engagement activity. The problem with that which we encountered was we would go ahead with presentations, but we don't have a budget allocation within this financial year.
So we would move this proposal to next year, while at the same time still propose it to ALAC and then -- and furthermore we're going to get more involved, we want to propose, we're going to put forward (inaudible 1:18:27) which is a periodic review of all the technologies every 10, 12 and 18 months, and get involved -- ICANN more into these IT related issues. And then finally we are also making a recommendation, the proposal is to RALOs to develop their own classification and language service policies.
But that's where we currently stand, and we are going to be soon proposing -- forwarding our proposals to ALAC, at the same time Olivier, the Chairman of ALAC has been kind enough to be participating amongst the meetings and show his interest in getting these proposals to the table in ALAC. So this is where the Work Team B stands. Thank you. Well, do you want any questions.
Hong Xue: Thank you. Any questions or comments on the operation inreach? It is now, we're already late, result of very last agenda item, there's updates from ALAC members and liaisons, updates from APRALO members and any update from another ALAC representative?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hong, very, very briefly. Of course we have already had an APRALO meeting during January, and we have not in fact had an ALAC meeting until later in today's time cycle, so there is very little update that has changed from the last update that we did, which was on the 4th of January.
That said, a number of items have come out in public comment, in the course of public comment have come out, and a couple of them we've had on today's agenda, but one that I believe we'll probably get a go ahead to be a piece of policy or comment developed will be that involved with the new GNSO draft guidelines to work groups and work teams. To that end, I would expect that under what Charles and others are running here in the region, we might be looking at some interaction and some requirements for input, at least on that topic.
And the other matter will be as we work through the JAS work group, they'll be some charter discussions on the ALAC this evening. As a result of those discussions and deliberations, work I believe will continue on with the JAS (inaudible 1:21:16) to look at feasibility and effective tools to assist people who are deemed in a financial hardship or difficult situations and who has a viable conflict for the gTLD, but not the logistical or financial support that ICANN is requiring. The board resolution has the JAS work group to look at these things and it would be extremely useful for us to prepare at the regions any views from the ALS’s on that matter.
Other than that, I'll just try and draw a breath between now and then and see if James or Edmon have anything to say.
Hong Xue: Thank you, thank you Cheryl, especially grateful for you to give us a very formative information when you're not feeling so well. We wish you were feeling better very soon. I feel Edmon and Pavan are leaving for another meeting and James is not here. So that's the report from our ALAC members and liaisons. And then for the other members, any updates?
Well, for me, I've -- not really an update, but the information I received from internet that APRICOT, a very large internet meeting with operational technologies will be held the third week of February. So I feel it well may be some of our APRALO members will be there. If you are going there, I feel you can bring our message to that important forum and do some outreach. Any other updates? Any other activities?
Wil Tan: Well I think ISOC is about to have its first board meeting in two days of time, so there's much to report from the ISOC.
Hong Xue: Oh, ISOC okay, very good. I feel Will can be our ambassador in that meeting and encourage more ISOC to join APRALO to become At-Large structures, an important outreach for us. Any other comments?
And the very last -- Fouad, I hope you are still there.
Fouad Bajwa: Yes.
Hong Xue: I just got an email to our Arabic Knowledge Management group, that's an At-Large structure, who is interested in geographical regions review and also interested in IDN. I suggest you do an outreach to them, encourage them to comment on the geographical region issue and on IDN issue. Could you do that?
Fouad Bajwa: Will do, will do.
Hong Xue: Okay, any other comments, other issues, anything?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Hong, if I may, I'm away from the computer, so I haven't put my hand up. Just to follow up on what you said, please also approach Fouad, if you could please, approach that board member, because it appeared to me that the board of knowledge -- Arab Knowledge Management Center were not aware of their lack of ongoing involvement and I think the board is disappointed with that.
And I did neglect to mention on behalf of our At-Large structure, I thought that we had a very lovely evening last week. We've been visiting Australia, and I wondered perhaps if in terms of getting the ALS’s involved, Hong, if we could meet in a month, perhaps call for any information, any little updates, any little pieces of news of interest or links or whatever that any of our At-Large structures might have so we can attach them as information pieces to the minutes of the next meeting, but also it's a good reason why these confluence Wiki pages for each of the ALS’s would be so useful, because the type of material that can go up and we can share amongst our At-Large structures within the region but also be on into other regions as well.
Hong Xue: Well sure, absolutely, that's very important. It just remind me for those ISOC meetings either in Australia or Pacific Islands, you're very welcome to bring our one page flyers as your RALO introduction to the meeting, so do a little outreach, and also the links and the Wiki page may be informative for the others to know, that's very, very valuable for outreach and inreach.
Any other comments? Other meetings you're going to attend? Nope, okay, it seems we don't have other issues to talk about. We will continue discussion on the Wiki page and the mailing list, and okay, I wish everybody a good afternoon. And Cheryl you specifically take care of yourself.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I'm not very happy with myself, Hong, thank you, I'll do my best. Bye-bye.
Hong Xue: Bye-bye to all of you and thank you.
All: Bye-bye.
Hong Xue: Bye-bye, Olivier and Dev. Thanks for letting me --
[End of Transcript]
