Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well, and if everyone’s ready we are going to start. It’s a shame but our president is not here. So we will be following the agenda but we’ll do the roll call once again just to confirm. So, today at the AFRALO teleconference we have Didier, we have Budois Giambe, we have Tijiani Ben Jemaa, Arnold Mulenda Yamukandu, Yaovi Atohoun, Abis Mulabe and apologies from Kalid Kulah, Michele and Gabrielle Bumbabos, Victor Cize and Ehma Alvozier and Vito Favi. And for staff we have Gisella and we have Mohammed. Thank you Gisella and of course we have Seth in English. And now we have Aziz on the line as well, very well. And how are you Didier?
So, we’ll now officially start. We will then start the meeting. So we have done a roll call. So let’s go to Item 2. And this is the review of the action items for our last meeting and it’s two of these. First of all, Didier will be giving the approval from our region and a second via fellow ALAC representatives will give us the short report on the ALAC activities.
Last time there were no AFRALO representatives with ALAC so we were not able to cover those items. And that would have been Howard’s or Mohammed’s job, but they were not here. Unfortunately, neither of them is here today once again. So I will go then to Item 3 and this is the open public consultations.
So there’s the at-large policy advice development schedule. We are still reviewing this and then the second is the ALAC statements that are being prepared and that are still in a consultation period at this time. And there’s the new GNSO Counsel Work Prioritization Process for Commendations. That is one of them. And then the second one is communications and coordination work team final consolidated recommendations.
And so those are the two statements that are still under public consultation. And then the third, of course, statement still under consultation is the recommendation on reconsideration request, 10-1, and for the moment I don’t know what that is. I personally would not be able to give you details about that, very well.
So now I will go to the next item. This is item four. And this is the report for the Selection Committee, in this case Yaovi and (Budois]. So if they could give us a bit on their working group or what is happening on this time that would be great. Yaovi or (Budois], very well, go ahead Yaovi.
Yaovi Atohoun: So we’ve had three meetings in this working group. The last meeting was two days ago. And we have some documents that we are discussing at this time, for example, the SIC. And so, we have reviewed all of these documents. We are still trying to reach a consensus. So we are going to have another meeting at the beginning of next week. And we will be working, therefore, on a lot of these documents.
And that is the status in regards to our working group. And so we will continue working on these documents. The first session was about the candoret and the second on how to deal with these documents. So at this point we want to just finalize our work on the documents. And that’s really the status at this moment. I don’t know if Budois would like to add something. Okay and Didier has now posted online the work that we’ve done on these meetings that we have had in the last weeks.
Very well thank you and I do have a question, if you don’t mind. Is your selection committee going to review all of the documents that were prepared by the other working group, which is the design team, who was in charge of preparing the documents and to doing a follow-up on the whole process?
So is the BCBZ reviewing the documents that the ABSC group prepared? I was not too clear on what happened because BC already presented to ICANN for their approval so we’ve made corrections based on that. So have they actually done something in regards to that keeping in mind the recommendations from the ICANN legal department?
So at this moment, a lot of these final issues and if there are any modifications that we need to make we will deal with them at the next meeting. We will then decide if we change anything on the documents or if that is going to be the final version, but for the moment we can’t give you a final answer with - that that is good because, you know, there are two working groups that are willing to work with you Cheryl and Huong.
Because, like I said, all of the modifications need to be made based on the legal advice from ICANN. So are we still working on that? And, you know, in the final modification of the documents will you be taking in mind the legal advice from ICANN? But, we will be doing that. And Huong has been part of the meetings. So this is something that we will be considering of course.
Do you have any dates in order to present to us what the final count for that are going to be? No, for the moment we do not have that. We really have not set a specific schedule for that. We are first going to announce the call outs at the regional level. And we will also launch the call outs at the ICANN site but there isn’t really a schedule that has been set in regards to this. And this is once again talking about the count that is chosen.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well, thank you Yaovi. Okay are there any other questions in regards to that point? If there are no other questions I will then move on to Item 5. And this is of course the ALS Nurses Without Borders. And from what I’ve been told, ALAC yesterday decided to then endorse this ALS after receiving the approval from our region and so now Nurses Without Borders is now a member of AFRALO and we have already sent our congratulations to them.
And so now recent and upcoming activities of ALAC, that’s Item 7 that would be for Mohammed, Dave, and Hawa. Unfortunately they are not here so we will have to jump that point. So Hawa should be joining us at some moment so hopefully we’ll be able to cover that once again. And I do have a question. Did the new ALS, when will they start participating in our activities, Yaovi? Can they start participating now?
Well, the approval from ALAC was issued today. So it’s a matter of getting in contact now with the right people. I don’t know what Gisella knows about this if they already made contact with them or not. Gisella do you know? Very well, now Item 8, upcoming up activities of AFRALO.
So I’m going to talk about, as many of you know, at the last meeting we decided to organize a joint meeting with everybody in the African community that will be going to Brussels. And this is to talk about that very important subject which deals with. I’m sorry, so as I was saying, that very important issue which is the support for the new applications for the new GTLDs that come from Africa because the issue is in Nairobi the board had decided that we should establish a joint working group between ALAC and GN.
So, in order to know how we can provide backup support and aid to the new GTLDs that have the need for it, and so this working group has already been established we have already started working and I am part of this working group. We had our first meeting last week and we had - and so we will continue working up until Brussels.
And the goal, since there aren’t that many Africans in that working group, the goal is to see if the needs of that working group also are in line with the needs of the new GTLDs from Africa. The decision for the Board was merely geared at assistance for developing countries. And this is really what they said in their introduction so mainly for developing countries, so they really - and the countries in Africa are very much in that situation.
And so this is, we thought, during the last meeting, that it would be a good idea to have this meeting in Brussels because we need to really see if that working group goes in line the needs of AFRALO. And if these do not go in line with the needs of AFRALO what changes we can do in order to streamline in order to be in agreement with the needs for our region. So this is something where we also requested a room in Brussels.
So - and so we will be then discussing these issues officially not only with ICANN, but also, because it represents many of the African members. We have been decided then it would be a good idea to have a meeting for ICANN, in that case, in order to be able to deal with a lot of these issues. So I already sent on the list of this group this proposal to have an AFRA ICANN meeting in order to deal with a lot of these issues.
There’s somebody that, for example, stated that it would be important to allow for many subjects to be brought to the table and I do agree with that. So this will be an AFRA ICANN meeting more official. And this will make things easier for everyone. This will be work that we will be doing together but of course keeping AFRALO in mind. And so hopefully we will be able to have this meeting in order to carry out all the work that we need to do in regards to this issue.
Does anybody have any questions? Now is everybody on the AFRA ICANN list? A-F-R-A-I-C-A-N-N? Yes I am on that list. Budois is also on that list as well. Very well. So you did get my mail then? Yes we did.
Yaovi Atohoun: Very well, and I have a question. And this is Yaovi speaking of course. I do think, I mean, this is a very important issue but - and we definitely don’t want to waste too much time talking about things and not really accomplish anything. So we really need to give priority to holding this meeting especially for this issue of the new GTLDs.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Yaovi. And we did get very good feedback from that list. I think that somebody said, for example, that, I mean, it’s good that we have this working group. But it’s good to leave the door open for many suggestions. And yes, we are leaving the door open for any other suggestions on how to deal with a lot of issues. But of course the main goal is, of course, the new GTLDs. Africa’s point of view, of course, in regards to giving assistance to those who need it for the new GTLDs.
And I have another question and that is from Budois. I know that we have had problems here with our new GTLDs and these are issues that we have not resolved. Are these issues that we can start working on at this moment? Of course Budois, and people from your region can also participate. And nothing precludes you for asking for assistance from whatever country you are in.
The issue with the new GTLDs are always financial challenge. And the reason why the Board made this decision in Nairobi, especially during all this ICANN meetings, there was a consensus in the fact that the fees are extremely high and also there are demands that many people do not have a way of meeting, especially when it comes to a lot of the fees.
So the Vice President Aterasa, and this is actually the question that I asked, and so this whole issue is something that is geared toward us so ICANN, with the staff, with everyone, really had a firm position on this, in regards to the aspect of cost and requirement. And this time they made a decision where they decided that this new GTLD operation will be inclusive, meaning everyone will be able to participate.
And they also stated that they are aware of many of the concerns from the committee in regards to this issue, and that they really, in a way, encourage all the GNSOs and ALAC in order to establish a working group, how to help the new GTLD applications. And this is what they said, excuse me. And so this is good. In Africa, especially, we are the most effected by this issue. These GTLDs have nothing to do with the GTLDs. If we don’t have any CCTLDs, whatever person in whatever country does not have CCTLDs, they can then file an application for a GTLD.
Thank you very much and that is good to know. And as I stated previously, the new GTLDs is an economic challenge. As you know at the beginning point dot com and dot org had taken all the domain names dot com, dot org and all that, they took over all the domain names, for example. The point is they took dot organization, dot com, especially these. So now with the new languages that it has, that is has been introduced as domain languages the economic outlook is different.
So now developing countries have the opportunity to have access to the new GTLDS. The problem is, of course, just filing an application is $125,000. And that was the difficulty. It was too expensive. But now we have new opportunities. We now have this working group. And so there was a consensus from the members of all that group so that the applications from developing countries or, for example, many of the cultural associations for example, and organizations that really help the community, the Board finally approved that we can give them some sort of support.
We don’t know how, yet, we are going to do this. But this is how we’re working. But the point is, we need more feedback from the African community in order to be able to tackle this issue. But in Brussels all of the African presidents will be able to give their feedback. And I’m hoping that his special working group will keep all of these opinions in mind. Very well, and of course confirming, it is Tijani presiding the meeting, just so you know Seth.
Seth Greene: Thanks.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Again we do have Seth, of course, in the English channel who is ready to give us his presentation on the large improvement process. And Seth, I do apologize to you. I was working on an old agenda.
Seth Greene: Yes, yes.
((Crosstalk))
Tijani Ben Jemaa: So Seth, we can give you the floor if you need to go.
Seth Greene: No. Whenever it’s convenient, really for you Tijani, I’m fine. If this is a good time great. If not I can certainly wait until later in the meeting
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well. So, Matthias will give a quick introduction of who you are.
Matthias Langenegger: So, Seth Green is now a new member with a large staff and he’s working on improvements on at-large. And this is a process that was implemented about a year ago during the Paris meeting where the Board found the document in order to improve the at-large community, especially ALAC. And then in Seoul, we found another document that went into more detail on how to setup a wider plan on the next step to take. So, Seth is now with us and he is going to give us a little update on the process of improvements for ALAC and what the next steps are to follow.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Matthias. And please, Seth, go ahead.
Seth Greene: Thank you Tijani and Matthias, I appreciate that. Let me just start by pointing out what we would really like to get out of this brief overview of the improvements that I’m about to give. And what that is, is we would like to end with the members of AFRALO knowing, to a greater degree, not just about the improvement project, but specifically, about how they can get involved in it if they would like.
We certainly are very much welcoming the members of AFRALO’s participation. And that can range, everything from actually doing work on the individual aspects of the improvements to giving us input, giving us comments on the work that’s being done. With that said, let me just give two minutes or one minute of background that Matthias already has begun, I believe, on the improvement.
In July of 2008, an external review by an independent consulting firm was completed of the ALAC and presented to the ICANN board. That was in July 2008. For approximately the next year, ending in June 2009, an ALAC review working group on the improvements was set up and reviewed the recommendations that had been made by this external consulting firm regarding how the ALAC could work better.
The working group’s review ended with their issuing a report in June 2009. That report, very importantly, incorporates the input from two public comment periods. Let me just ask you, Maya, am I going too slow or too fast? Is everything fine?
Maya: Speed is very good, thank you.
Seth Greene: Sure, you’re welcome. That report, as I was saying, in the final report of the ALAC Review Working Group on ALAC improvements, incorporates the input from two public comment periods. The report is organized along the lines of thirteen separate recommendations. These thirteen recommendations identify areas of needed improvement to the ALAC’s functioning within ICANN.
And these thirteen recommendations focus on a few different areas – at-large’s organization, its effectiveness, its participation both within ICANN and reaching out to the regions and the ALSs, and the relationship that at-large and ALAC has to the other entities within ICANN. So those were the areas that the final report focused on. That’s all the history I ask you to indulge me in right now. And with that as the background, let me skip ahead to what those thirteen recommendations actually are and how we’re going about implementing them.
At this point, let me point out a document - Matthias, this is, I guess, where it would be very useful if whoever is in the Adobe room could see the final, I’m sorry, the simplified At-large Improvements Implementation Outline. This is a document that you can see; you can link to, that is, on the agenda for this meeting. And also, if I myself look at the Adobe Connect room, Matthias is trying to help - is trying to get it up on the, on your screen.
Matthias, I know that, I don’t know if I’m alone on this but I know my screen, as you had warned me, does in fact just have a grey area. But as I said - oh, here it is, actually. I see it now on my - for a second I saw it on the Adobe connect room. Here it is. But for those of you who cannot see it, it’s on the - it can be linked to on the agenda for this meeting and I would very greatly appreciate anyone who’s interested, perhaps after the meeting taking a look at this and the other documents that I point out and possibly looking over them for ways in which you’d be interested to participate.
I’m going to go to my own so that I can just give you a description of it. I’m going to go to my own copy of the Simplified At- large Improvement Implementation Outline and I will try to just talk you through it a bit. What this document does, and I believe as Matthias has explained it to me the difficulty in seeing it in the Adobe room is that it is a Google document on Google Documents. It lists the thirteen recommendations that I’m referring to. Let me very quickly just tell you, summarize what each one is. Hopefully that will be useful.
The first one is simply the statement that at-large does have a very important and continuing place and purpose within ICANN. The second recommendation is the call for an at-large, as you all know, for an at-large selected Board Member on the ICANN Board. The third recommendation, and if I may just say, first, I believe the third and fourth recommendations might be ones that are particularly of interest to AFRALO and perhaps to its members as they think about ways of getting - ways of joining and participating in these improvements.
That’s recommendations three and four I’m calling your attention to. Recommendation three specifically says the ALS-RALO-ALAC structure of at-large will remain in place for now. Recommendation four has to do with improving our education engagement and outreach to end-users in all the regions, obviously including Africa, and to ALSs.
As another aspect of recommendation four, there’s a call for us to improve our, what I’ve often heard people call, our inreach to the ALSs and end-users who already are members of AFRALO and the other RALOs. Recommendation five suggests that, or orders ALAC to have more of a role in helping form ICANN planning processes, both strategic and operational. Recommendation six specifically talks about our more accurately judging our costs on an annualized basis.
Recommendation seven, another very important one for most of the RALOs, says that the ALAC should be allowed to make its own choices of communication and other collaborative tools to best meet its needs. So needless to say, translation issues come under this recommendation number seven. And that’s certainly one in which we greatly would appreciate, and frankly greatly need the input and comments of the members of the various RALOs.
Number eight talks about the public comment period on policy and other advisories being as it is now thirty days, but the ALACs being allowed to ask for extensions to forty-five days. Again, I’ve heard this talked to it in sync, in line with translation issues and other needs of various RALOs. Number nine specifically talks about, again, of great interest to most of the RALOs strengthening our ICANN-wide translation and interpretation processes.
Recommendations ten and eleven, basically they work hand-in-hand with recommendation one, which is an emphasis and a restatement of the important role that at-large and the ALAC has within ICANN and specifically the implementation of this will go - will take the form of Board statements, ICANN Board statements along these lines, as well as actual modifications to the ICANN bylaws that will now emphasize this.
Recommendation twelve says ICANN should develop a mechanism that allows the voice of those recognized as representing consumer interest to become a stronger part of the policy of the, of input, I’m sorry, that is of input into policy. So in other words, the policy advisories coming out of at-large.
And then, finally, recommendation thirteen, the last one simply states that, of course, the purpose of ALAC ultimately is to incorporate the end internet user’s voice into the policy advisories that it offers. And that the ALAC should, of course, strive to offer these policy advisories as often as possible.
Now, for those of you who can see the, this document, or will look at it later, and again it’s the Simplified At-large Improvements Implementation Outline, and I will tell you where it can be found. One place, as I’ve mentioned is on the agenda for this meeting. I’ll also tell you where the most current version of it can be found. What you’ll see in this document is that the ALAC decided the best way to go about implementing these recommendations was to break them up into a list of subtasks. That’s number one.
So on this Simplified At-large Outline, you’ll see that for each recommendation, it is divided into a rather dense list of subtasks. You’ll also see that many of these work - that work on many of these subtasks has begun and is in progress. The next thing that the ALAC decided should be done is that each recommendation should be assigned a work team. I will show you where to find the actual current members of those work teams.
They certainly are all still, for the most part, open and very, very much welcoming of any new, new members who would like to help implement the recommendation. For anyone who would like to join these work teams. You’ll see, actually, that a number of the work teams include the entire ALAC plus all regional leaders plus any other interested members of the at-large community.
Let me now point out the center on the web for all of our improvement activities, the at-large improvement activity. What that is, is the At-large Improvement Workspace, it’s a Wiki page among all of ICANN’s Wiki pages, again its name is The At-large Improvement Workspace. And that can be also linked to from the agenda for this meeting. The only thing I want to point out - well a few quick things about these, this workspace and about the improvement project as it currently stands.
First, one of the sections on this workspace, if one scrolls down, is called the At-large Improvement Recommendations. This section lists each recommendation individually. Someone looking at the workspace can link, in other words, to each - to a page dedicated to each recommendation individually. On that page, the recommendation itself is summarized. The current members of the work team are listed. And these tasks, into which each recommendation has been divided, that I mentioned, are summarized. Again, these are just on these recommendation pages, these are just summaries you’ll see. And each page ends with the overall target completion date for that recommendation. Maya, am I going alright? Am I going at a correct speed?
Maya: Speed is very, very good. Thank you so much. Please continue.
Seth Greene: No problem. Now very importantly to the members of AFRALO and the other RALOs, you’ll see on the bottom of each of these recommend - individual recommendation pages, that there is a comment area. Certainly that’s one way, no doubt the easiest way, of course, to participate in the improvement project. We welcome your comments on each and every one of the recommendations, on any ones that interest you, or with which you’re concerned. As I say, that’s probably - adding your comment is probably the easiest of participating in the improvement.
The next thing on the - and the final thing, the final area on the At-large Improvements Workspace Wiki page that I would like to point out is underneath the At-large Improvement Recommendation is an area called the At-large Improvement Implementation Status Log. You’ll see in the brief text to that section, my email is there. I welcome any comments anyone has on the improvements, any questions. This is certainly another way of gaining, of getting information or getting your questions answers. I’ll be happy to answer any questions, needless to say.
What we’re going to do in this section is, and it’s still under construction, it is not completed, but here we’re going to include a status log, or an update page on which anyone interested can find the most up to date detailed information regarding the progress of the implementation of any one of the thirteen recommendations that he or she is interested in. Again, these status reports that you’ll find on this page will be very detailed and aimed at the individual recommendation.
I believe that’s all I need to tell you in this briefing. I will point out that on the main page of the At-large Improvements Workspace, there’s also an area for comments at the bottom. If you would like to leave more general comments there, they’re of course welcome. And at this point, I thank you very much for letting me present on the improvements project. Again I emphasize that we welcome the participation of members of AFRALO. And at this - and I open it up to anyone who might have any questions or anything that Tijani or Matthias you would like me to add that I’ve missed.
Maya: No questions for the moment. One second. One second Seth, we’re seeing if there are any questions from Tijani
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Can everybody hear me? And thank you Seth for this presentation.
Seth Greene: You’re very welcome.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: So, thank you Seth for this presentation. And it’s not the person that we’ve spoken about. This project here in AFRALO, I know that we’ve spoken about it many times before, but it’s always good to come back to this improvement plan. I think that each of us can give us a lot of input on the different thirteen recommendations. Because we are concerned - we are concern - we all have specific concerns, excuse me, here in AFRALO.
So I definitely encourage everyone to go and read these documents. I know that there are members working on recommendation number six, but I definitely think that many of you can give us the input on many of these recommendations because this is about everybody participating. And so thank you so much Seth.
And I’m so sorry that we took your time this evening, but thank you for giving us this presentation. Does anybody have any questions? If there are no questions then I will now go. No, excuse me, Hawa is now here. And we can now have the ALAC update because Hawa is here I think. Can Hawa hear me?
Hawa Diakite: Hi Tijani, hi everyone.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: How are you Hawa?
Hawa Diakite: Good thank you.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Alright, so you can you give us a bit of a brief update on the ALAC activities please? What has happened in the last two months? Because I know that last month we did not have much information, nothing the month before, so.
Hawa Diakite: Well, what I can tell you now, and I’m driving home so. The main activity is about the organization of traveling at this point. And so I know that everybody I know got an email in order to give the information for the traveling and for everything that needs to be done and that is all that I can tell you at this moment. I don’t have my screen on me. Unfortunately since I'm on my phone, I cannot give you any more information on that.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Or if you’re going to get home soon, we can.
Hawa Diakite: Yeah, it’s about thirty, forty minutes, unfortunately.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: So then we’re not going to wait for you, then.
Hawa Diakite: Well my family is going to be a bit concerned.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: If I can ask you for a favor, then, Hawa. If you can send on the list an update then on the ALAC activities and what’s happened in the last two months, please.
Hawa Diakite: Yeah, I promise.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Great. Thank you so much, very well, I will then give you and update, send you an update then.
Yaovi Atohoun: And I do have a question, and this is Yaovi speaking. And this is a question I always ask and this is in regards to what you just said. Because you just said you’ll send it on the list, which list you’re talking about.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I’m talking about the AFRALO list. And I will answer immediately. And it’s, Yaovi discussed this. I know that it’s not just private to the members of AFRALO. We did ask last time if we could create a closed list just for AFRALO members. And so far I have not had any response.
Hawa Diakite: That list actually does exist and it is called AFRI-Internal, something like that. And I can send you the link.
Yaovi Atohoun: If you could please, then, Hawa, that would be good.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes if you could send those to us on the list, then.
Hawa Diakite: Yes, I will then also send you the update in that case.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you so much, then. And if you could also send us the link for that list, that would be very good. In this way, we’ll also be able to have access to that private list for the AFRALO members.
Hawa Diakite: Right, and so this is specifically a list just for AFRALO members.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well. Yaovi, are you happy with what I just told you?
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Great, alright. So now I’m going to go to the next item. And I believe it’s the Webinar you know that I’ll access the Webinar program. And this is geared for the at-large community. And this is something that already started. I know that I went to - I know that I already went to two Webinars. One of them I was kind of aware of what was going to be said so I just went to see what was happening. The other one was yesterday morning, and I can assure you this is very, very important because it’s a way of really doing capacity building.
And if ICANN is putting this at our disposal I think that it is something that we really need to follow and do. So I’m not going to give you a lot more detail on this. I’m going to let, maybe Matthias give you more detail on this. So he can tell us what ALAC expects from us so this Webinar program is more beneficial to the members of our community.
But I can tell you that the experience that I’ve had with that Webinar, with the two meetings that I went to, one of them was the fellowship public participation. The other was BGNSL. But it was a very good experience. It’s really a good way to get a lot of information, also education, especially on subjects that maybe you weren’t very familiar with before. And it’s attractive. You can ask questions. You can get answers to these questions and all that. So I’m going to have Matthias explain a bit more to you. Matthias if you could please explain, then, for us.
Matthias Langenegger: So, the three questions here. One the important questions are - is excuse me - is what is it that we expect from the people that are in the teleconference. Meaning the members that already at-large members. So, know that this is not only for members but also for people that are interested in participating. So this is something that we really made sure that we would work on before even continuing with the preparations in order to really have this Webinar rather organized online.
So I really would like to get your ideas, so whatever suggestions you have, either for people that never have participated in teleconference or whatever other suggestions that you have on how to work on this better. So well let me continue with the questions then and if you guys have any more questions we can continue with that.
The second question was - and so now the second question really deals with people that are already members of RALOs. And so this is one of the key issues. And then the third question really deals with how to measure the effectiveness of this Webinar online. And also, you know, is there going to be because of the - through the amount of members that are going to attend or the amount of downloads how are we going to measure the success really of the Webinar? And I think that’s really, that’s really it.
Participant: And I’m sorry Matthias I didn’t understand the difference between the first and the third question.
Matthias Langenegger: So, the first one is really the reaction of people. Are they going to get in contact with ALSs? Are they’re going to establish their own ALSs? What is this going to do to the people that participate in these things? And who are the people that are participating? Are the people that are participating that people that already have RALOs that are already members of at-large? So that whole thing.
Very well, okay so the forum is open. Would you think, personally I can tell you something at least in regards to the second question. I think that the audience is mainly going to be made up of ALSs. But also internet actors within the region that are interested in maybe eventually becoming ALSs. The way it has been done is rather good because there’s always a presentation and then there are questions.
And the good thing about this is sometimes people ask certain questions, questions that we could not have thought of and then we get an answer to that question. And so, in regards to the target audience, that is something that is going to accomplish a lot with that.
Now how to measure the success of this Webinar, I think that the best way to measure the success of this Webinar is by the degree of participation of people. Meaning, are people going to get more involved in the ICANN conferences or in the public comment areas?
So these Webinars will really contribute a lot in this. So if people don’t continue participating, even if they understood the system, then, you know, that won’t be good. So this really also geared at long term participation. Right, but this can also be immediate because, during this participation period, you know, if we already see that there are more people that are participating, that will tell us that there is success. But if we see from the beginning of the program to the end of the program that it’s the same amount of people participating then that will tell us a lot.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well. Thank you. But I’d like the point of view of everybody here involved. Does anybody have, have anything to say about this? Gisella is everybody. Yes, Budois?
Budois Giambe: Okay, so, let’s let Yaovi tell us then. Yaovi what is your point of view in regards to this?
Yaovi Atohoun: I think that it’s a very useful program, Webinar. I definitely think it’s very early in order to really measure what’s happening. So I think that we definitely need to wait a bit of time to see really, not only the reaction of participants but to see the amount of people that participate in this.
Now, do you think that the target audience should be made up of only AFRALO members or should we open the participation to other internet organizations that could potentially bring other AFRALO members into the organization? You know, since I’ve not attended any of these Webinars, I really could not give you an answer. But I don’t see a problem that other people participate in this.
Participant: There’s a problem with the line here, yes there is a problem with the line.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Good, please continue.
Yaovi Atohoun: But I think that, you know, in the way we measure the participation, I think that it’ll be a good way to not only get organizations that are part of AFRALO, but other organizations. But this will be good in order to deal with many subjects. And I didn’t really understand what you said. I’m trying to decipher what you said; I’m not understanding too much, I’m so sorry, because of the line. So, I said this Webinar initiative is very interesting. So I think that it’s a good idea to start with the members that we have present and then try to recruit other participants into this.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes. Thank you. So first have that AFRALO inreach and then the outreach later. That’s what you’re talking about, right? That is what you’re saying. Great, any other opinions?
Yaovi Atohoun: Yes Tijani, Hawa?
Hawa Diakite: So what I wanted to say, and this in regards to the - I think that for the moment its good to just limit this to the ALSs to really see what results this can give and to correct any imperfections, especially because if there’s a problem it might discourage any potential new members. So for now limit it to just the ALSs for a while to see how the system works and also, for us to be able to master it and be more familiar with it.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well. And how do you think we are going to measure the success of these Webinars?
Hawa Diakite: Well I think that we can do polls, for example. And, through these polls we can maybe make whatever necessary improvements.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Anybody else have anything else to say about this? Thank you Hawa, Didier, did you have to say something?
Didier Kasole: Did Tijani tell us what you think about the question?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No I agree with what everybody’s saying, especially Hawa. For the moment it’s good that we just leave it open to our ALSs because these ALSs represent their community within their country. So, automatically these ALSs are already members. We can also do a call out to experts from other African organizations that can also help us through the system, of course.
Because, you know, I can tell you that, for example, AFRALO is an organization that has a lot of technical problems. I know that I’ve not been able to, let’s say, hear half of the conversation. So I think that at this moment it’s something that we need to tackle. Deal with the current ALSs, and then have other experts that we think will bring something good to the table for AFRALO. Okay, any other comments? Okay. We’ve already gone over the time for the teleconference. So, we really need to - I’m so sorry, Matthias, you didn’t get that many reactions, I’m so sorry for that.
Very well, so you do have a link on the agenda in order to see this final program. And this is at the end of item eight. So this is item nine. Update on the ALSs surveys. So as you know there’s a survey that was prepared for the ALSs. So we’ve asked, they’ve asked us for a point of view, if there are any issues to raise. There were no reactions, at least from the African region. But I’m going to let Matthias give you a bit more information about that.
Matthias Langenegger: So, this survey will be launched tomorrow. So we are then waiting for the different responses. So we are definitely hoping that we are able to officially start tomorrow. And this is a three part survey. There are many questions not only to the ALSs but also there are questions that deal with the interest and a lot of the policy that have concerned the ALSs when it comes to ICANN.
And also, if a lot of the ALS leaders want to be included in a lot of the decision making processes. And then a final part on the GNSO at-large relationship and how the ALSs communicate with the operators in the countries. And this survey was developed by Ibonci. We know that the first section of the survey will take at least fifteen minutes to answer the questions. And this survey is definitely a lot bigger than the two previous surveys that circled because it will be sent to all the ICANN participants.
So like I told you it will take at least fifteen minutes to answer the first section. And Monday, May 17 will be the final date to get your filled surveys. So now what we are asking is volunteers who are going to help us to follow up on the survey. Who are going to help us get in contact with all the ALS representatives? And who are going to help us evaluate the results of this survey because we will be comparing the results from the three surveys.
So we really need volunteers to really help us and write reports on many of the issues. So if you like statistics please get in contact with us so we can definitely work with this.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you so much Matthias. Now, personally, at least from the African region I think that Didier could be a very good contributor for these evaluations. Didier, would you be willing to help? As the African region representative? Very well, I think that that will be good then because Didier does have a lot of experience. But whatever other people that feel that they can contribute to this, they will be welcome.
Matthias, I have two comments, one comment. And again, talking about the Webinar and this survey, I think that, for the Webinars, for example, if I, if we want these to be efficient definitely we need to have them, hold them in other languages. Because I know that I assisted two Webinars and they were in English. And you know, that, language is a barrier, especially for African colleagues. So Webinars need to be in both languages, at least here for Africa.
Matthias Langenegger: Right, I know that. I know that, for example, the survey will definitely be in French and English as well the presentation will also be in that, in French as well.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Very well. Let me continue. Finally, we have something called the Acronym Helper. Since we keep getting more and more ICANN acronyms day-to-day, there’s a little online application that can help you with the acronym definitions. I’ve tried it. For example, I entered ‘who is?’ and I didn’t get any results, but.
So I think that this is mainly for the abbreviation acronyms. So anything in abbreviation then it gives you the whole words and the explanation. Especially if it’s something that is not common that nobody understands. Then that is something good that you can - that you can use and you have here the link for that.
A final - or the other point if you want to go on Webinars 03 at ICANN and this is, how can we help ICANN to shape the future of the internet? And so this Webinar is on May 20 at 12:00 UTC and at 1900 hours UTC. So, it’s two Webinars. And it’s basically two versions of the Webinar, so one at 12 and the other one at 19 UTC. So this is the information that I’m giving you. Okay, finally, any other business?
Okay. Do we have any other business? If we have no other business then I will put a close to this session. And thank you everybody for your participation. And have a great evening. Take care. Bye-bye.
Hawa Diakite: Thank you Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you Hawa, I got that information. And Fatimah I sent an email as well for your replacement. And I know that there were two seats available. I know that there was yours and Fatimah’s but, I know that Fatimah though will not be able to attend. So then there was for two people. And then in this case it’s Michele and Aziz. And I’ve second that motion.
Hawa Diakite: Okay.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Right and I don’t even know. I didn’t even get that I know that the mail that I got from Fatimah, I answered that one. But I’ll check if you were on that one. Otherwise I will forward to you, okay? Thank you so much.
Hawa Diakite: Right. And so you just need to make sure that this motion needs to be sent to the people, let’s see. I know that Carol received a copy.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Right well I know that I sent the message, so. And, you know, we have ten ALSs in Brussels, but we will not have our presidents. So these ten people are, of course, Didier, myself, Hawa and Mohammed. And there will also be Budois, who’s got miles with his airline company. And Ailach was very nice too, to give us the difference and when it comes to accommodations and the per diem for Odibie, who’s also a member of ALAC and also the members of NOMCOM.
And to the NOMCOM members will be coming. I know that their per diem and their accommodations then will be given to Budois since they will not be attending anymore. And we also have Cherowi. And then there’s Mohammed as well. Is that ten? Yes? And we have Yaovi who’s on com. And it’s great that we’re going to have all these African members present in Brussels. So we’ll really have to schedule meetings together. There will be Aziz and Michele.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Of course. Right, listen, you know, of course. I want to, you know, emphasize that everybody who’s present, you know, you need to go to every meeting in at-large. No exceptions. And if you do not attend, I personally, in the future will not recommend and will not accept that AFRALO community endorses people who do not participate in the at-large activities.
So all of them that will be sponsored are compelled to follow all the at-large activities, especially, I know that there’s a special program. And also, except with the person that’s going to be following the, the, the fellowship, excuse me. And Yaovi of course needs to sometimes follow the NOMCOM activities at some points. But besides that, everybody needs to follow them. Okay? So I think that we’ve said everything on this question.
Hawa Diakite: Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you everyone. And have a great night and take care. Bye-bye.
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