APRALO Events 2013 ALS Feedback Workspace

Satish Babu, Computer Society of India

 

The Computer Society of India (CSI), established in 1965 and currently having over 100,000 members, became an At-Large Structure of ICANN from 2012. This was the first meeting that I, as the representative of CSI ALS, was participating in ICANN, although I'd been attending IGF meetings since 2009.

 

The Beijing Meeting, while initially overwhelming in its scope and diversity, gave me important insights into the way ICANN functions, especially of its multi-stakeholder, bottom-up, consensus-based approach. TheBeijing meeting flagged some of the key issues of Internet Governance of contemporary relevance, including DNSSEC, IDNs, and different issues surrounding the introduction of the new gTLDs. 

 

As a new member of three Working Groups (MSWG, Capacity Building WG and ATLAS2), Beijing also helped me understand the way working groups function, and also in meeting the other group members face to face.

 

Another issue that was discussed among the participants from India was the need for a co-ordinating agency at the national level for issues of Internet Governance. This may emerge as a reality once we have a consensus amongst the ALSes from India.

 

Overall, as the first event with the ICANN community, this was certainly a productive meeting. I hope to be able to continue my association with ICANN for the future.

 

Siranush Vardanyan, Pyunic , NomCom member from APRALO region

 

ICANN 46 Beijing meeting was the first one for me as the representative from the officially certified ALS – Armenian Association for the Disabled Pyunic (which means Phoenix). From ALS’s point of view, which is in At-Large APRALO region, the meeting was highlighted by several events, which I had the opportunity to participate: APRALO Multistakeholder Policy Roundtable, APRALO Showcase, APRALO General Assembly 2013, APRALO monthly meeting. Celebrating Diversity, the main motto for the Asia Pacific and Australia region, was well presented, and was a unique chance for certified ALSs from the region to meet, know each other in person, to network and discuss the local opportunities and challenges. To my point of view those events have drawn the synergy between all ALSs, between people. It was also for the first time that all three certified ALSs from Armenia participated in person at the meeting. Even on local level this helped us to join our efforts for future development/discussions in Armenia. 

 

Another highlight for especially new ALS from APRALO region was the opportunity to merge ICANN fellowship morning as a part of Capacity Building program. For the newcomers this was an important step to understand the basics, to learn from those professionals, who set those basics, and this also will help them to find the proper way to be involved in future activities.

 

As a Nomination Committee member nominated from this region I also found very important to have the opportunity to make several public updates from NomCom activities and stress on the importance of having the best candidates from the region for ICANN Leadership positions, available for the Board and ALAC particularly. During the Beijing meeting NomCom had several officially announced public meetings (first time ever), which were open for participation, where the main criteria and outreach efforts had been presented and I am sure that this first hand information also will be helpful for the best candidates to apply (even those who were not physically present, records are available).

 

Overall, I consider Beijing meeting a very important step forward towards capacity building of all ALSs from the region and towards improving the active participation from Internet users’ perspective. From personal point of view, this was the first time that I felt Armenia being so close to Asia Pacific region.

 

Lianna Galstyan, ISOC Armenia

 

Being a certified ALS for already a year representing ISOC Armenia Chapter, I had a great expectation to bring the voice of Armenian internet users to ICANN community.  ICANN 46 Beijing meeting was the first one for me to meet this huge community members in face. In fact, I was really astonished to see the cordial atmosphere of this big family, where every member cares for others, is open for questions and any kind of support. I do appreciate these relations and atmosphere which serves as a unique and trustworthy base to create one world, one internet!

As an ALS from APRALO region, in Beijing I had an opportunity to participate to some APRALO highlighted meetings: series of Joint Fellows/APRALO ALSes meetings, Multi-Stakeholder Policy Roundtable, Showcase, General Assembly 2013, Monthly meeting. Each and every of these meetings were organized so that anyone could benefit from the topics discussed, Q&A sections, networking with representatives of other ALSes, discussing the regional problems. It was a happy chance to see the diversity of Asian, Australasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization and find within this diversity the other ALSes from Armenia, establish a good base for further cooperation and development of Internet in local level. 

As a newcomer, I took the chance to attend the Joint Fellows/APRALO ALSes morning meetings.  It's worth mentioning that these Joint Fellows meetings were perfect for newcomers since program was envisaged so that professionals from various constituencies presented the basics of ICANN, highlighted the key issues such as Internet Governance, Privacy, Security and Stability in Internet, ccNSO activity, etc. Besides, through these meetings the overwhelming set of terms and acronyms were overcome and became more comprehensible. 

Besides, as ISOC Armenia Chapter Board member, I've been invited to ISOC Chapters meeting, where I surprisingly found out that from technical point of view Armenia had managed to launch DNSSEC and IPv6 for already a couple of years unlike some other chapters yet planning to launch them in near future.

Overall, I consider ICANN 46 Beijing meeting as a proficient opportunity for all ALSes from the region to networking and capacity building as well as representing the voice of Internet users in the process of policy making.

Mahmoud Lattouf, Arab Knowledge Management Society (AKMS)

 

This is my second ICANN Meeting representing an At-Large Structure (ALS); my first one was in Mexico back in 2009. There were lots of changes and developments during the past couple of years, specially related to the introduction of new gTLDs and IDNs. Beijing Meetings were a great opportunity for us to follow up regarding these developments and their impact on Internet users in general as well as businesses and other stakeholders. It was also a great opportunity for me to meet new friends from other ALSes and learn about their experience and how they engage in outreach activities in their regions.

 

Dennis Cai, HKIF

 

“The ICANN 46th Meeting in Beijing served as a wonderful communication platform for people with different background to discuss on various issues on shaping a better future of our domain name system.  In particular, I found the APRALO events were very impressive and highly successful. The APRALO Showcase did enable the participants to display the cultural diversity of the region by showcasing the latest developments in their own countries/places under ICANN policies. APRALO roundtable meetings were indeed unrivaled forums for representatives and experts to exchange views on hottest topics on domain name related matters. 

 

I am very thankful to APRALO for its invaluable contribution to the community and look forward to engaging with other APRALO events in future. ”

 

 

Pua Hunter, Cook Islands Internet Action Group

 

 

At my first ICANN meeting as a fellow, in Mexico in 2009, I remember wondering about the At-Large Summit meeting that featured on the meeting programme and was being held at the Melia Reforma Hotel that we were accommodated in. I had no idea what At-Large was, what it composed of and how it fits into the ICANN machinery. My interest at the time was to push for Government representation of my country to ICANN. Anyway, I could not associate At-Large with anything to do with the internet except that it has to do with something big which (for me) is enough to qualify for internet representation. 

 

Four years later, at ICANN Beijing 46, 2013, I could at least comprehend the BIG composition and role of At-Large – the advisory committee, the At-Large organizations pooled under clear demarcation of regions (APRALO, NARALO, EURALO, LACRALO, AFRALO), the various working groups, the diverse representation from advisory and supporting organizations within ICANN and how each have critical roles (policy, legal, technical, etc) in representing the users of the internet. 

 

Some brief comments of the meeting: 

 

1. Excellent idea to have a roundtable discussion with the various arms of ICANN – also helps that related information for example the questions posed to the ICANN board is available before the meeting.

 

2. The WIKI have plenty resources and despite the training and the manual provided, I still have trouble navigating it or finding information for example, I still have not been able to locate the mind map that was presented during the ATLAS 2 discussion. Noticed also that the transcripts are not uploaded immediately to the WIKI for example: 

https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/ALAC+and+Regional+Leadership+Beijing+2013-04-07+Transcript Could there be other holdings in ICANN to access the transcripts?

 

 3. The APRALO showcase was great but for future showcases, it would be great to have a couple of ALSes make a presentation about projects or outstanding achievements in their organization. 

 

4. Love the opening ceremony!! All presentations were excellent, in particular ICANN’s strategic plan.

 

 5. Opportunity to network is a great initiative for example the women’s breakfast featuring successful women in internet developments. 

 

6. I found the ALAC and APRALO meetings very interesting. As a result, I didn’t attended any of the GAC meetings from which I am supposed to for reporting to my Government. However, it was good that the GAC communiqué is available for dissemination to Government. 

 

7. ICANN staff are brilliant!

 

The meetings were all interesting that we didn’t find much time to explore China, in particular, to visit the Great Wall. To conclude, I am still in awe with the level of knowledge and intelligence and the commitment that ICANN participants, volunteers and staff have that are evident during meeting debates, discussions and the overall organizing.

 

Joseph Ng, Vice-Chair, ISOC Hong Kong

 

The ICANN46 held at Beijing is my first ICANN. Being the Vice-Chair of ISOC Hong Kong, I am grateful to ICANN who gave great support and make good arrangement to my trip to Beijing.

 

Briefed by the former Chair of ISOC HK, Charles Mok, and the current Chair, Mr. S.C. Leung, I was told what I had to do and which meetings or sessions to attend. And to be franked, when I received the meeting schedules for APRALO and At-Large, and the morning fellowship sessions, I was stunned. But at the end of the week, I am glad to report that I have attended all the sessions and enjoyed every moment of it. And I look forward to meeting my newly made friends and colleagues in the next ICANN.

 

To put some highlight of the meetings and sessions I had attend at ICANN46, first of all, I was totally amazed by the Multistakeholder Model and the organization of ICANN and its Internet Eco-system. Seldom put thoughts on those hierarchical structures on organization governance, the multistakeholder model amazed me to realize that a user driven, user-oriented decision making process and eventually got carried out by the administrator in the operational level might work. And it is a breath of fresh air to me and I will, and in fact, I have introduced this model to my students under the hat of a full professor in a University in Hong Kong.

 

The morning sessions for the fellowship and newcomers programme is great to guide us through the basic structures of ICANN and on how to get acquainted to the bowl of alphabetical soup – the acronyms used within ICANN.

 

I am extremely glad to have met the many friends and colleagues during the APRALO, and ALAC meetings, and in no time, I feel that I do can contribute to this community and in fact, to the whole Internet Eco-system. It is during the discussion of the nomination and selection of the representatives that let me see the beauty of how different cultures look at democracy, operationally different and yet demanding the same ideology and representation. And being the Vice-Chair of ISOC HK and the Director of HKIRC (taking care of the .HK domain), I am totally attracted to the big concerns raised by Dr. Hong Xue for the new gTLDs Trademark Clearing House policy especially on the variations of characters in different languages. I am interested and definitely will look into contributing to this front in the future.

 

Besides attending the meetings, I had the chance to chair the ISOC Chapter Meeting as well. It is a great opportunity to meet our peers, sharing our experience, the best practices and to meet colleagues working for ISOC global.

 

Last but not least, the public forum is the highlight of ICANN. I stayed almost throughout the whole period and listen to and appreciate different stakeholders’ concerns, observations, and demands on the whole spectrum of problems within the “Internet Eco-system”. And I was most grateful to see youngsters’ participating this event, raising questions and demands of their interests and concerns, a good and fine job for Edmon Chung and colleagues from Dot Asia.

 

All in all, thank ICANN for sponsoring me to attend ICANN46 at Beijing. Beside the main fact of getting to know more about ICANN, I just met too many friends and very much appreciate their efforts to make things happens. Special thanks to Fadi Chehade, Markus Kummer, Naveed Haq, Duangthip Chomprang, Maureen Hilyard, Heidi Ullrich, Rinalia Abdul Rahim and the many friends that I had met and added to my facebook after the ICANN meeting.