Colleagues,
As you may be aware, we had a successful meeting in Hong Kong and due thanks to Nick Ashton-Hart and Michael Evans at ICANN and Edmon Chung from ISOC-HK for their efforts.
A rough guide to the meeting in the form of summary notes by Cheryl (thank you!) was posted to the discussion list earlier and is available at 25 july 2007
A recording of the meeting in MP3 format is also available on the site and a transcript is being arranged as well and will be available in due course at the same site.
I would like to (very briefly) relay to you the major outcomes of the meeting and welcome your comments for further progress.
- APRALO physical meetings: To be held twice a year. One to be during ICANN AP meeting (if scheduled in the region) and second during APRICOT or other appropriate regional gathering. For 2008, APRICOT and ICANN are in the same month, therefore one suggestion is during IGF 2008 which is scheduled for Delhi in November. APTLD also intends to hold a meeting during IGF so it could be an opportune time.
- APRALO teleconferences: To be held on the 4th Tuesday of every month and to be used to provide input/feedback to/from ALAC reps and wider community, and for other issues as appropriate.
- APRALO-APTLD co-operation: I have been in talks with Don Hollander of APTLD in recent weeks on common ground our organisations can collaborate on. As a result a Working Group has been formed comprised of Christopher To and Edmon Chung to liaise with Don/APTLD and explore whats possible.
- APRALO Outreach: Outreach is an important part of our objectives, and to this end a Working Group has been formed, comprised of Cheryl Langdon-Orr and Tommy Matsumoto to consider deliberate on whats needed and whats possible. If you are interested in joining this WG, please let me know.
- APRALO Budget and Projects: It is necessary for us to have a working budget and project plan so our activities are appropriately supported. A 3 to 5 year plan is expected. A Working Group comprised of John Fung has been formed. Nirmol Agarwal had earlier indicated some interest on budgetary matters and is invited to join this WG, and a 3rd volunteer is required. If you are interested, please let me know.
- Issues Working Groups: Various issues are currently under consideration within ICANN and the Internet community at large. It is necessary for APRALO to make meaningful contribution to these discussions and as such each issue of concern must have a Working Group. These can be aligned with the various policy working groups within ICANN/ALAC and as such one person per issue is required to be on the mailing lists of these groups. This person will act as the lead for the APRALO Working Group on the issue and will be assisted by at least one other member from the APRALO community. I invite you to volunteer for issues which you are most concerned with/interested in. Should we not have enough volunteers, we will assign a lead and secondary ALS to an issue as a means of moving this forward.
- Working Group Structure: All Working Groups will have the APRALO Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretariat as Ex-Officio members.
- Development of APRALO Statement(s) on Issue(s): Will be a function of the Working Groups with input from the APRALO community
- APRALO Website: Needs a tidy-up. With the pending release of the new ALAC site, we will not make wholesale changes just yet, but the site needs more information and regular updates. It also needs to be easy to navigate. The current wiki-based site has limitations on how "pretty" one can make it look, but something can be achieved nevertheless. I have made a start to tidying up the site and posting information and you are invite to contribute ideas/suggestions/concepts. However, I do not wish us to engage in a long drawn out discussion on web site design - content is king.
- APRALO Workplan: The above forms the core of the workplan and you are invited to contribute to specifics. I would like to see the workplan in plain language and to the point.
Rajnesh D. Singh
Chair, APRALO
9th August 2007
