Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Good morning, good afternoon or good evening everybody. This is the At Large Advisory Committee or should I say At Large Plus RALO Financial Year 12 Budget call on the 5th of May 2011. The time is 3:06 p.m. UTC.
Today day we have Juan (last name) who is the Controller of ICANN and also I believe David Oliver is with us as well and they will both be able to discuss with us the FY 12 Budget Development and hopefully we will gain some further information from us on some of the projects that the different RALO's have brought forward.
The process started quite a while ago and I personally think it is great to have such an interaction with Juan and I hope he will be able to gain the final vital parts of information that he needs before he says yes to all of our requests.
So the first thing we might do, do we need to do a roll call or is this just…?
Female: Sorry the attendees have been noted.
Mr. Olivier Crépin-Leblond: They have so that’s fine no need for a roll call. I’ll hand the floor directly over to Juan. Juan I guess the Adobe Connect workspace has all the request Juan and I’m not sure how you wish to do this. Do you have any specific format you would like to follow?
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Mr. Olivier. I am just going to go down, would you mind scrolling to the right? I’m trying to see if there are any comments on the PDF being shared?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think you can do that yourself.
Juan Ojeda: Great. I think Olivier and fellow members of the At Large Advisory Committee, I will just go down the requests and some of them will have more questions and really the purpose of this is for us and ICANN’s staff to gain a clear picture of what the details are behind the requests and some ROI questions and what have you and I appreciate the opportunity and I guess we’ll take it from there.
Before I start I wanted to introduce a couple of members of our finance team that are on the call as well, Janice Dumalang who most of you are familiar with as well as Ava Diakite who is responsible for our budgeting and forecasting and financial reporting.
Without further adieu…
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: If I can just jump in before you start, on the At Large site we have most of the, if not all of the RALO leaderships there plus the members of the Finance Committee. So I hope that we’ve got all the answers that you need.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Olivier I appreciate it. On the first request, we’ll go from the top down, requesting support for 36 participants for 6 or 7 days for it looks like for an outreach event that is tied into the Dakar meeting (4:02 – sp??) with the ALS’s. I guess I wanted to get a little more clarity on what the defined plan is, what the expected outcome of this and I guess ultimately what ALAC believes is either the return on investment on this and why this is such a top priority.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Hi Juan how are you?
Juan Ojeda: Good and yourself sir?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: This is Tijani, so the expected results I have in my project because I added the paper with the sheet, with the templates and I explained everything. I explained how the At Large ALS’s are not effective and they don’t participate, they don’t really participate because of a lot of things, especially because of a lack of information, a lack of knowledge about the process of ICANN and the lack of knowledge about the issues in general.
This is, we have done an informal survey and we found that people aren’t participating because they don’t understand what is going on. So it is at the most importance that the ALS’s participate because we have ALS’s that are not At Large, they are not ALAC, there is not ALAC in ICANN. This region and perhaps it is particular to this region but this region needs such a capacity building session.
So what is expected is that after this session we will see more participation from the ALS’s from Africa and we will see them more involved in the policy development process inside ICANN. They will participate more in the working groups, they will give more comments, etc.
Does this answer your question?
Juan Ojeda: Yes thank you Mr. Tijani. So a quick follow up, in terms of this the uniqueness of this region, is this something that you think if we were to do something via remote participation, in your mind, is that something that would be effective or it wouldn’t really get you to where you would want to be?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: There is also another thing, when we tried to make people participate remotely they are less enthusiastic, less participative. There is something which is true that when you are present, when you have presence lecture it is different from having a remote lecture, very different and people are making themselves free when they come to a meeting.
But when you tell them that they will participate in a capacity building session by remote participation they will not make themselves free also.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Tijani if I can jump into this as well, yesterday I was on the AFRALO monthly call and I noticed a real challenge with regards to telecommunications in the region. It is probably harder than in other regions in the world and it is a vast continent and I believe that remote participation on that continent is going to be a extra large challenge with regards to having problems with telecommunications, echoes, bad lines, etc.
I think if there is a capacity building and outreach face to face meeting that region really needs a face to face element to it due to the fact that their telecom systems are pretty tough and challenging.
The other thing I wanted to add before I pass the microphone to Alan was that with regards to the overall politics in ICANN, there has been some noise made with regards to the .XXX hubbub that took place in San Francisco. I have a firm belief in order to expand not only with the At Large but also with the GAC, expand ICANN’s footprint in that region bringing the ALS’s to meet with each other and to speak and to see how they can do further outreach not only with their people but with their own governments will have further reach than just doing it on the remote line.
Juan do you have any feedback on this or do you wish to go straight to Alan?
Juan Ojeda: We can go to Alan at this point.
Alan Greenberg: Thank you and part of what I was going to say has already been said but I’ll try to make this brief. With regard to this being an African situation (10:08 – audio garbles) the problems are worse in Africa for a number of reasons but they are far from unique. Africa does make it as Olivier said telecommunications is problematic, just voice telecommunications is problematic. Assuming people are going to be able to participate remotely with enough communication bandwidth and access to use video conferencing or even Adobe Connect with images I think is a false assumption. Costs are so very high in Africa and access and availability is just not available to the extent that we think or know it is in some other parts of the world.
The other issue with remote participation is remote participation works very well when you have a group of people who are committed, who will take a whole day off from their business and participate remotely. For someone who doesn’t understand why they are doing it, the regular draws and things that take you away from remote participation are just too strong and it’s not going to happen even if technology allowed it.
So it comes down to the statement that has been made many times that if we want At Large to succeed we have to invest money to get, to grow the skills and grow the awareness of ICANN in the regions. If not, it is going to be a hollow organization without any roots that are active.
So I understand why you’re asking the questions but bottom line is I think it is the only way we are going to get At Large to work is on a semi-regular basis make sure that the new people who have appeared in the regions, at least 1 per ALS, have some idea of what ICANN is, why we’re here and what we’re doing and how they can help and what’s more how they can push things forward in their regions and within their countries. Thank you.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Alan, Tijani and Olivier. So a question from a different angle, how scalable is this? Is this for lack of a better word, an all or nothing kind of a request or is this something we could maybe modify if need be? Once we get down to the details and crunching the numbers I mean is this something that would be as effective or effective to the satisfaction of the ALAC if we do it on maybe a smaller scale?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Juan, if the principle is adopted we can discuss everything. We tried to make the capacity building session effective and efficient. It is out of the point to hold a session which is ineffective or insignificant or inefficient. Do you understand?
Juan Ojeda: I completely agree. I think the answer is yes and we can work out the details.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes we can work together on it.
Juan Ojeda: Okay great thank you. Good, so on this any members of the ALAC have any more comments on that? I think we’ll move onto the next request.
In terms of mobilizing local support for new GTLD programs. We’ve had internal discussions with staff and really something like this needs to be included or as part of the overall new GTLD campaign that if and when the program is approved by the Board would be part of the new GTLD communications plan.
I think that is something we need to have a discussion with Barbara Clay and some of her staff and we may reach out in a separate meeting to go over the details on this. But I believe again that this should be part of the new GTLD communication campaign if you will the 4 month plan.
If anyone has any comments on that we will move ahead?
Male: Juan I do note that under that heading it does mention mobilizing of local support in workshops at IGF 2012 and (name 14:59) Africa 2012. Are you saying that the budget or any budget for this might be able to come in from the (15:05 – inaudible)?
Juan Ojeda: What I’m saying is we need to have further discussions because I think this specific request relates…it really should be under consideration as part of the overall new GTLD communications budget and because of that I think we need to have further communications I guess for exchanging of ideas with our communications department so that hopefully it is part of our overall communications plan and that it is satisfactory for what the ALAC is looking at here.
Male: So I have this as an action item. I guess you can continue.
Juan Ojeda: Yes thank you. Next item, ALAC RALO Technology Fest and Annual Virtual meeting, I think we’ve estimated that at $1,000 and so I think if you guys agree we will probably head onto the next item. I definitely see the benefit in this and if we can keep the cost at about…we’re estimating about $1,000 I think we probably don’t need to spend too much time on this.
The next item, (name – 16:27) presence at smaller ICANN meetings. I guess I just wanted to get a little more clarity on what specifically these smaller meetings are that ALAC is referring to.
Evan Leibovitch: Sorry I’m just going through this and I don’t think this is the exact one that I put forward but no, okay sorry. This is in the same way that there are occasional meetings that whether they are IGF or some of the ICANN regional meetings, the Registrar’s meetings and that kind of thing, just something that would ensure for transparency sake and as well for the multi-stakeholder model to be fulfilled.
The idea of having some At Large presence at the Regional ICANN meetings. The one that I put forward I think is further down in the list.
Juan Ojeda: Yes to be clear this one says prepared by Gareth Sherman for Beau Brendler.
Gareth: Sorry about that. That was originally Beau Brendler’s idea and I didn’t pick up that I had tweaked it and put it in. But he, just to speak to what he was wanting to do, he had proposed a number of precise meetings that he was talking about and what I did was lump them together and say that for these purposes we could generalize and have…sorry I’ve lost the thing on my screen. Can you bring it back?
Yes this item is so that some of the members of the At Large and that’s the ALAC group and not the individual members necessarily of the (name – 19:37) can travel ICANN regional community meetings involving the various contracted parties. Now in this there was an issue that Evan raised some time ago about the fact that we were not welcome at some of these special meetings. And so this is an attempt to pin some of that down.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Thank you Cheryl Langdon for the record. Juan and the rest of the team this is all about building trust. When you have things happening behind closed doors people fill in the lack of information with what they think may or may not be happening and 99.999% of the time we go into conspiracy theory and we don’t build any trust.
So the fastest and easiest mechanism for people to go oh is that what is going on and then relax and then build trust is to actually open a window and let people look through. That is what this is all about. Money well spent.
Juan Ojeda: I’m still a little confused in terms of what these regional meetings are. Are there any specifics?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes and can I just say that the fact that you are unsure actually answers the question, everyone is. Registrants pay money and it’s collected by industry and sent to ICANN and then that money is used in part for a whole lot of activities but certainly including closed door meetings in industry to industry discussions.
Juan Ojeda: Okay.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Sorry Alan I jumped in without putting my hand up.
Male: And these are meetings that take place completely outside the 3 annual meetings which ICANN runs around the world. They run these meetings and I wouldn’t say ad hoc but they are scheduled and taking place without really being publicized outside the usual…
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Well they obviously are ICANN meetings of course.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: They’re official. Alan?
Alan Greenberg: Thank you I have a recollection which is a little bit different than what is in the discussion notes or short description. In that I thought part of the request was and let me go back a little bit of history. When we have asked to be able to participate in these meeting before which are typically Registrar or Registry meetings aimed at the Registrar or Registree reseller community, in particular regions we have been told, number one you’re not welcome because the contracted parties don’t want you. The other aspect was but if you came the cost would go up and this is being funded just for those contracted parties.
So my recollection was that part of the rationale for a budget item was to make sure that they couldn’t say oh well we haven’t budgeted for the cost of the coffee you’re going to drink or the lunch you will eat at the meeting. So it wasn’t just the travel expenses necessarily for the participants, which often is zero because it’s in the city they are in but was also covering the ICANN costs. So the answer is budget is the reason you’re not welcome could not be given.
Now that is not in the description given but my recollection is that was part of the rationale.
Juan Ojeda: That’s great input Alan. I guess a final question from my perspective is this something that the information and developing of the trust that (23:41 – name) so simply put, could this not be achieved or is this something that couldn’t be achieved by attending the Registrar and Registry meetings during the 3 ICANN meetings?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: That would be one way of doing it. I was also going to say that alternatively a lot of us could become resellers.
Evan Leibovitch: I’m putting my hand up because I think as has been mentioned I was at the start of some of this in the sense that this came up basically because of meetings at Rome and Toronto where people from At Large showed up and were turned away. So to a certain extent part of this is not really a budgetary issue, it is a transparency issue that needs to be addressed elsewhere.
But I think for this particular budget issue it would be for low cost regional travel in areas where the regional meeting is not located near an ALS or suitable other representatives. I think that was the main issue. For the next one that Sebastian just mentioned in the chat, the next meeting of this type is to be held in Munich. So these are things that are not very far away from At Large representatives. The cost of actually having this participation would be very minimal and all regional. But we’ve always taken the position that this is a significant matter of transparency that if ICANN is serious about showing the world that it has a multi-stakeholder model, then it ought not to be funding closed meetings for which only part of its stakeholders can attend and the rest are shut out.
If the contracted parties want to form their own association and have their owned closed meetings that is fine. But if ICANN is going to be paying for all of this, then those meetings are to be open and transparent.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Darlene do you wish to add something?
Darlene: Yes I wanted to respond to the comment of couldn’t this be done with the Registrar or Registry meetings at the 3 main meetings we have every year. My response to that would be then why are their separate Registry or Registrar meetings? Again, it is a matter of transparency and if cost is involved well then we have a little bit of money there to put towards it.
As I say, if there are more meetings required and they have to be held separately from the 3 ICANN meetings, then again it should be open to everybody and no I don’t think it could just be accomplished during the 3 main meetings that we have.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Darlene. Juan does this answer your questions?
Juan Ojeda: Thank you and I duly note the point that Darlene and Evan have made that besides the trouble of funding this is also a big part of it is a transparency issue. So we will make note of that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay.
Juan Ojeda: The next item, oh the funding for Spanish and Portuguese translation of various documents. We discussed this with our translation team within ICANN staff and this will be covered in the overall budget. So unless ALAC has any comments on this I think we can move on.
The next item regional survey research for ICANN on matters of policy importance to consumers in the North American region, I believe that and Mr. David (last name) can speak to this but I think this is something that the policy team would be running or should be running or we need to discuss with the policy team to run this as part of their normal operations.
David: Thanks and the first question I would have is you do do polls and other mechanisms to get the opinions of the At Large community. Why just the NARALO? Is it all the regions you represent? I need more clarification. How does this differ from what we do now with the policy papers and statements that you do with At Large?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Right well just as a reminder that most of these requests were all brought in by the different RALOs and of course they didn’t come up with projects for the other RALOs, they came up with ones for their own RALO. And I gather that in most cases many of these projects might certainly be suitable for all regions. Gareth maybe you wish to add something?
Gareth: Yes I do. This is another one of the requests from Beau Brendler and he has been working very diligently for several years now to get more involvement for consumers in ALAC issues and concerns. So this is one of the ones he proposed and I think although it was proposed by NARALO and I wrote this up for him it does have a bearing on the rest of the RALO’s absolutely.
There is a real need to get more information and understanding of consumer issues in ALAC and in ICANN itself, so that’s the reason behind this particular request. I do know that yes it was put up by NARALO but it does have farther reaching implications.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Gareth. Juan, is this helpful?
Juan Ojeda: I believe from our perspective yes but I’ll make sure that Mr. David Olive has adequate information. Do you have any further questions, sir?
David: No and thank you for that explanation. We want to look at this more closely because it could be an effective way to gather more input, not specifically on consumers but more broadly. So let’s take a look at that and thank you very much.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you David. Moving onto the next item, the creation and maintenance of a real NARALO website and presence. We’ve recently rolled out the confluence on the Wiki so I guess…I mean is this something that can be used for these purposes? What would be the…I guess I want to get your thoughts on that.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Who in NARALO will speak to this?
Gareth: I think perhaps that was another one of the ideas put forward by Beau. I think that it is open to discussion in how this can be done. Of course, now that the confluence is being used more it could indeed be something that can be rolled into that. I don’t know if any of the rest of you have any more comments for that but I guess what I’m saying here is this is open to discussion because since this idea was put forward things have changed a bit.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think what we need to be very clear about here Juan and the rest of the ICANN staff team is the timing on this request came in at the point which pre-dated, for example, even the trial of the various At Large structures having direct interaction with the confluence Wiki. That is something that wasn’t announced or even looked at in outreach mechanism until the very end of the San Francisco meeting.
I think you might find that a lot of this is…now let’s have a look at what we have and what needs to be done. But you asked for certain things at certain times and that was what was delivered to you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Which is actually great news because it looks as though things are moving in the right direction. Next is Darlene.
Darlene: I just have to really agree with Cheryl. Now I have taken courses in the confluence Wiki and I can see exactly how it works. I think maintaining a separate NARALO website would be totally problematic because we would have nobody to maintain it and update it. So I think having the confluence Wiki is perfect because we can go in and change it and make it look any way we want to and have that there. So yeah I think that is a dated request and probably shouldn’t be there anymore. But that is strictly my opinion.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Darlene. Any other comments? I don’t see anyone else so Juan back to you.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you. So next item is the outreach for program radio, TV and podcasts regarding content on ICANN, At Large and (name 34:01) for public dissemination on media. Again, similar to one of the previous requests this is something that probably should be communicated with the communication team and really vetted and worked on with them.
To be consistent with how we will be following up regarding the new GTLD communication plan, we should probably also treat this more as an input into the communication overall plan and budget if you will.
Also I believe that Scott is doing podcasts as well for the At Large community. So we are at least partially heading in that direction.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: That is correct and we are, at the moment, tomorrow the RALO’s need to provide further information to the ALAC about what they wish to do with regards to podcasts and other such materials. So it is a really good bottom up process taking place as the moment.
I think we can move on to the next one.
Juan Ojeda: The next item production of a YouTube video for outreach purposes. I think there is very minimal cost on doing this, so I think it is just a matter of coordinating with staff. I know we have some internal staff that has experience with making and posting videos on YouTube for other staff support. So let’s take that as an action item and go ahead and build on that.
So Olivier if you want to just jot that down as an action item for us to follow up at a future date.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay let’s do so but I do notice that…did you miss something there? I also saw an outreach to countries without ALS’s?
Juan Ojeda: Oh we did skip 19, my apologies.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: You did and conveniently more expensive than the rest.
Juan Ojeda: Shocker huh?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yeah I thought that you were being very slick but if it was an error, never mind.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay action item on the YouTube video and now back to the expensive one.
Juan Ojeda: All right so outreach to countries without ALS’s, I guess if we could get a little more clarity on what the plan is, who does LACRALO plan to reach out? How would information in the audience be gathered? I guess maybe if someone could provide a quick synopsis on that with a little more detail.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: From LACRALOLO we have Cintra and Dave; I’m not sure who wishes to speak.
Dave: The idea is that 18 of the 50 countries in the Latin American and Caribbean region. We have no ALS’s at all. So the idea is that we would try to work with the ICANN regional rep for the Caribbean region and get (37:45 – inaudible) in those countries that we think can be interested enough to be in ICANN. Then we will try to schedule a conference call that we can do with Adobe Connect and so forth. If necessary with a translation, especially with countries say like Haiti for example and give a presentation about what is ICANN, what is At Large and explain what is At Large and ALAC and then try to get them to participate and then we have more At Large structures possibly.
The ultimate goal is to (38:27 – inaudible) At Large presence for the countries in the Latin America and Caribbean region. Does that answer the question?
Juan Ojeda: Yeah it definitely provides more detail. Olivier should I, I believe someone has their hand up.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes I see Cintra.
Cintra: Thank you Olivier and Juan. I think the idea behind this specific item is that a lot, ICANN does fund fellowships and there are members who do attend; however, there is no follow up with them. There is no continued contact or interaction. So this is a mechanism to allow that and also to encourage those that may not want to commit fully to be an At Large structure. We kind felt that we discussed the kind of meeting we have, what kind of time commitment is required so they are well aware of what is required of them before they join. Thank you.
Juan Ojeda: Okay thank you, we’ll move onto not the next item but the 3rd item down now. Actually the next 3 to 4 items are all specifically with travel funding support, for example, for your RALO, for a face to face general assembly meeting, LACRALOLO general assembly meeting, RALO and so I guess overall all of these are great recommendations and I see the benefit and the practicality of these requests. But as you know, the world we all live in we have limited dollars.
I will need some prioritization from ALAC, as much as Olivier said in the beginning I would love to be able to tell you everything will be funded. But at some point, there will have to be some prioritization and so Olivier I don’t know how we can tackle that need or requirement of overall travel support just so you know. What is the most…to be able to do an internal prioritization process and be able to fit in as much as we can?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I appreciate this Juan and that is something I guess we will have to work out. Ideally, I would try to avoid the prioritization because it would really mean favoring one region over another and I don’t think that’s fair. So that is definitely something we might have to take up and discuss further.
Anyway, I’ll let Ralph say a few words with regards to the first one, the URALYO general assembly. I believe the other regions wish to have the same thing, so Ralph.
Ralph: Thanks Olivier. I think this request is more or less self evident and for more additional information, we are now on the way to organizing our 2nd non-funded general assembly, organized by the end of the month in Belgrade. We are inviting our member ALS’s for general assemblies and indicating with the invitation that there will be again like last year no travel funding. This is creating an enormous frustration among our members.
I think if we show up next year for the 3rd time organizing a general assembly, telling our members that we again have no possibilities to mobilize or organize some funding for all of our members after 3 years, this will create an enormous confusion among our members. I think an amount of $30,000 is not (43:20 – inaudible) to promote the bottom up approach at ICANN that has always been said to be one of the goals of the organization.
Therefore, I think funding of general assemblies is essential. Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you. Does this help Juan? And may I just add that definitely the concept of general assembly is something which has already been agreed to in the past, especially with the At Large review and the general previous budgets but it’s never been brought down to exactly how and when. Alan, you might wish to add to this as you’ve been involved in this process for a while.
Alan Greenberg: No I wasn’t planning to add to that although I will reinforce that. This is not the first time this issue has come up. I will point out that in terms of prioritization, I think we need to at least comment on the fact that the costs for the AFRALO getting people to a meeting is shown as about 6 times what the other regions are asking for. I think we need to either explain that or do something because the discrepancy is very large and I think if we’re to ask for the AFRALO one to be funded, I think we need to define at some level why the difference is so large between that region and the other regions.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Juan, may I ask were these costs, costs that you estimated or were these costs which were put into the requests?
Juan Ojeda: There were some provided in the requests and some that we cost estimated. So specifically to Alan’s point, the AFRALO request we cost estimated that based on 36 participants and using certain assumptions for airfare and hotels and per diems and meeting rooms. That was done with consultation with our travel support team.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay, Cheryl?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think we also need to look at these if we are going to be for with (45:59 – inaudible) down the road, a prioritization and I think that sort of indicates how popular I feel that will be. These are also opportunities; a number of the other activities that have been outlined by the regional At Large organizations could be done. Imagine, if you will, if you have the base cost for the meeting rooms in many of these cases where these proposed general assembly’s are, as they always have been, proposed to go along with already existing meetings either ICANN meetings specifically or other specific meetings.
We already have much critical mass, the buildings are already being utilized by the organization and people are already there for 4 days so they might as well be there for 5 this type of thing. We also need to see in any of these general assembly’s there is also opportunity for outreach, education, in reach and advertising. By advertising I’m thinking about new GTLD’s, I’m thinking about gaining local business, government and decision maker opportunities for ICANN to sell itself and not just the regions and their general assemblies.
We do need to, of course, remind you and you as in the anamorphous mass called ICANN from a staff and budget perspective and not ICANN which is all of us, that the original agreements and memorandums with each of the regions also call for the general assemblies and seeing as it is required of us and we have no other mechanisms for funding others and as Ralph outlined the continual self-funding by the ALS’s which, of course, goes on and you will find things like in Asia Pacific region when 5 or more of us are gathered together at any other meeting we have a meeting but it is not a full general assembly of regions.
So I think we can look at these as not several but jointly opportunities where a number of things can be rolled up and done with the same base costs being covered, if we’re smart about it which I assume we’re going to be.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Cheryl and if I may add to this, there is this thought that ICANN keeps on speaking about which is outreach. But here we are also dealing with in reach and that’s what we define as in reach, keeping those ALS’s still interested is extremely important. It is great having new people come in but if any of the seasoned organizations decide that this is not worth their while we’re in trouble. I believe ICANN is in trouble at that point as well. Anyway we’ll have to work on this.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Olivier. So as a follow up question, I guess consistent with I had previously I mean is this something scalable. For example, is it something where we can have just as an example, one general assembly per fiscal year on a rotating basis, on a regional basis?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Alan can you answer that?
Alan Greenberg: I was going to say something else so I’ll answer it afterwards. Based on the comment that I made that the disparity between the regional costs and you’re saying that ICANN developed $200,000 one for AFRALO, I am presuming the $30,000 one came from somewhere else. I think we have to address that disparity before we’re asked to prioritize things.
Chances are either the (4) $30,000 ones are wrong or the $200,000 one is wrong. I think the answer is very relevant. I suspect the costs are not that higher in Africa and if anything they are probably lower. So I think we need to look at that but that may not be the case moving from East to West Africa sometimes involves an awful lot of flying. But I think we need to address that before we can be asked to prioritize or trade off one thing for another.
In terms of when are these regional assemblies, we have been saying and ICANN has agreed in principle many times that we want to do one regional assembly for each region and there are 5 regions as ICANN is currently structured, every 3 years. So we have said on average of 1 point whatever per year, but due to the reality of how ICANN meetings are scheduled that probably means 2 in some years and 1 in another year. Thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: A resounding yes. The answer to your question Juan is what we’ve been asking for year in and year out and year in and year out and should I go on?
Alan Greenberg: So as much as we would like one per year per region that’s not really what we’re asking for. But given the mechanism we have of submitting things through RALO’s we only have a mechanism of submitting them all. But we don’t expect all 5 to be approved every year. We would like but we’re not expecting but we are expecting something more than zero every year.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Does this help you out Juan?
Juan Ojeda: Immensely.
Alan Greenberg: But please, we need to address the values.
Juan Ojeda: Yes I will, if I can circle back during this meeting I will do so and if not we’ll do it via email.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I realize we only have a couple of minutes left until the end of this call. May we extend a little bit? Is it okay with you?
Juan Ojeda: I’m fine with that as long as the At Large is fine with it.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I think it is important for us, so we’re ready to spend the night or the next 24 hours if you wish.
Juan Ojeda: All right and hopefully it won’t take that long. So we will jump down to Item 26 for EURALO and they are asking for travel funding for 3 EURALO members to attend (name – 53:06) event. I guess I had an overall what is the return on investment for this travel support?
Ralph: I can explain this. The European Dialogue on Internet Government is now having its 4th edition and in autumn 2008 the first 3 (name – 53:40) participated and it became a major event for outreach activities in Europe. So it is absolutely crucial. There is nothing comparable in our region.
Again, for the 3rd year it involved EURALO members who paid their participation by themselves. This is a very important handicap and only very few people can afford to go to Eurotics on their own means and a lot of people are involved and are interested getting more involved. And if we won’t have any financial support for this, this is again something that will weaken our members and the mobilization of our members.
I think this is a very modest demand to be honest.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you and if I can just add the newest ALS applications have come thanks to some initial contacts which were made at Eurotic. It is a great platform for European, well the name of it European Dialogue on Internet Governance, it certainly is a prime event that takes place yearly.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Ralph and Olivier. Let’s move to the next item, Item 28 sorry no 27, travel support for attendance of LACRALOLO leadership to LACNIC and LACTLD meetings. I’m just trying to get an understanding of what is the additional benefit to this funding request above and beyond any benefit that is derived from attending the ICANN meetings?
Dave: LACNIC and LACTLD those communities we don’t seem to have particular…how do I put it, connections to them. So this was an attempt or a need for the NAFRALO leadership to attend these meetings. And especially for the LACTLD meetings because well that NAFRALO and all the ALS’s are very interested in their CCTLD issues. (56:49 – inaudible) this is an attempt to have a bridge and we can maybe start collaborating and networking with those 2 groups. Even at the ICANN meetings when the people (57:22 – inaudible).
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Dave and I believe this really falls under the At Large aim of getting rid of all those silos I guess and more cross constituency where…and definitely bringing a synergy between LACNIC and LACRALOLO.
Dave: Indeed.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Juan is this helpful?
Juan Ojeda: Yes.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Cintra do you wish to add a few words?
Cintra: Yes please and thank you. I think this goes beyond what we said is that it also ensures that the leaders within our region in ALAC do have the knowledge and they themselves it is a form of capacity building for them in order to disseminate to the rest of LACRALOLO. As well, it also serves to have our voice at these meetings. A lot of the issues that are discussed are the things that also touch quite heavily on the end user. Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Cintra. Juan back to you.
Juan Ojeda: As (name – 58:44) put on the group chat, my eyes started deceiving me and (inaudible) Items 24 and 25, so Olivier if I may I would like to invite someone from PRALO to provide some input on that and on what the return on investment is and what goal, what deliverables, what end product can be achieved here that otherwise couldn’t be achieved at an ICANN meeting.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And you are very much welcome to ask that. I gather there will be someone answering.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Charles are you wanting to pick up on this one?
Charles: Yes are we talking about number 25?
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes we are now.
Charles: Wait; wait yes 24 and 25 right?
Juan Ojeda: Correct.
Charles: I think on 25 we’re really talking about ICANN meetings. (59:59 – too low can’t hear)
Juan Ojeda: Charles can you speak louder, I can’t hear a word.
Charles: Okay can you hear me now?
Juan Ojeda: Yes thanks.
Charles: I’m saying for the application for the general assembly, we’re trying to target the Singapore meeting that is actually happening next month. Because it is in our region, we want to be able to get the funding to do this and we think it is something that we haven’t been able to do before and it seems to be a very important part of what we can do to improve our in reach, which is consistently again has been something that has been quite difficult to get more ALS’s involved in a good way.
The other application on the point 25 is actually also similar to many of the other regions; we are requesting for our presence at various regional events like the Regional ITF, actually this year the Regional ITF is actually going to be a week before ICANN in Singapore as well. So we are really talking about the other ATE events like (names 1:01:30) events and so on that are well attended and have a large community presence. That we hope to be doing more outreach and show the different ALS’s in different countries and many countries around Asia to let them know what we are doing at ICANN.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Charles and Juan any other questions on this?
Juan Ojeda: No that’s good thank you.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Olivier if I may just to follow up on what Charles mentioned, return on investment which is something close to many of our hearts. We ought to note here that what we don’t note on any sort of record are things like we are tracking a minimum of one new At Large structure out of every ICANN meeting in a region. That’s a minimum. Some of the times we get together at the ICANN meetings and we actually gain up to 2 or 3 new At Large structures. Now that is when we are only doing our outreach and pressing the flesh and meeting and greeting and generally annoying the living daylights out of people in the corridors and around the rooms and saying, why haven’t you filled out this paper? Certainly some people in APRALO have been dogged for a couple of meetings and they are now becoming ALS’s.
These, of course, are only outcomes that we get access to and therefore get them engaged when we get to meet them at the ICANN meetings. Give us those opportunities at the other regional meetings that are going on and we will be able to give you measurable results and considerably more engagement in ICANN because it is a different group of people that go to things like the Regional IGF or the Regional Internet Registry meetings.
I think you can almost group everything from 25 through 30 with a very, very similar set of opportunities and benefits and measurable.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: And that would be a very high return on investment, thank you. Juan?
Juan Ojeda: Okay next item, number...are we on 28 now? My eyes are deceiving me or maybe it is just my age. I believe and I’m sure Miss Cheryl will correct me if I’m wrong but I believe we’re on number 28. Actually no 27, LACRO leadership and awareness and cohesion, requesting travel support for attendance of LACRO leadership…no, no we did that one.
Okay number 28 travel funding and booth development costs for 3 IT conferences, CES, CBIT and CompuTech. So the same kind of questions for these travel funding support requests. What the end product is in mind? What is the return on investment?
Male: Evan I think this is yours. Do you want to speak to it?
Evan Leibovitch: That’s why I had my hand up.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Evan please go ahead.
Evan Leibovitch: Okay. Juan there is a very specific purpose behind this. Although it came out of NARALO, as you can see it actually encompasses 3 different regions. In fact, it is my awareness that this has the support of Ralph and also people in other regions.
The reason for this is to try and hold true to the intent of At Large which is to represent the individual internet end user. That is not necessarily civil society, not necessarily the usual suspects in terms of internet governance. But to actually go out to technology forums that are not specifically about internet governance.
So if you notice, these 3 are specific conferences that are (1) extremely large, (2) attract huge amounts of international audiences and (3) are not primarily about internet governance. Our goal is to try and attract the technology geek that is already understands what ICANN Is about but not necessarily understanding that ICANN is looking for At Large participation. That ICANN is looking for input from the world at large, literally.
And so this is something that as Ralph has noted has been around has been around for a long time, this has been mentioned, I’ve had casual conversations and, in fact, with Rod and Barbara who both said that they liked the idea. The intention is to have an ICANN presence at non-internet governance conferences, especially major ones. They may only be in 3 locations but like I say between the 3 of them they probably attract participation from just about every country. So this is a way to attract both an international…in terms of ROI the idea being that even if it is only 3 conferences you’ll get widespread international participation and also attracting the kind of non-internet governance expert that At Large has as its mandate a responsibility to get involved and represent.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Evan and this really is the search for the not usual suspects. Juan does this answer your question?
Juan Ojeda: Yes it is very helpful Evan. I’m good and that was very informative. I appreciate that. We can move on to Item 29 AFRALO is requesting travel support funding for 5 participants to attend IGF 2011 in Nairobi for 4 to 5 days.
I know it is the same question that I keep making for travel funding support but just for my education again if we could provide a little more detail on what the return on investment would be for funding of this travel support.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I believe Tijani wishes to speak to this.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes thank you. Juan, we discussed this point for long in San Francisco. I explained to you very well what is the benefit of such activities. You know AFRALO is a microscopic element or a part of ICANN, it’s very small. But if this microscopic part performs an event that can bring visibility and credibility to the whole ICANN I think it is a very, very important event.
What we do in the IGF is proposing or organizing a workshop. The workshop is for very important item and brings in very important speakers. So this event will be very good for (1:09:31 – inaudible) people, the attendance is very good. And people will know about ICANN more and will know that ICANN is participating in the IGF with substantial activities, not with official speech or nice prospectus, etc. This is a communication means, communication tool that gives ICANN more visibility and credibility than any other nice speech or nice paper distributed there.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Tijani.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes thank you and I was just going to add having been to several IGF’s already, the outreach that one manages to get through these meetings by showing some real serious discussions taking place and them being just under the AFRALO umbrella is really great. It is not at all the same thing as having an ICANN meeting taking place or an ICANN session or a session on domain names run by ICANN.
The IGF’s are mostly inhabited by governments and by civil society and by a whole lot of people who never really come to ICANN and who actually some of them not actually liking ICANN at all. However, when presenting a workshop that is through AFRALO this certainly sweetens the notes and this attracts people who normally wouldn’t even want to go into an ICANN related meeting or session.
It does show and I see Cheryl adding on the chat that it shows that ICANN is more than just a US Corporation with a few offices in the rest of the world.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Olivier and Tijani.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Gareth has also put his hand up and Alan. We’ll start with Gareth.
Gareth: I want to speak on #30 when it comes up.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay so you’re already queuing up okay. Juan are you happy with 29? Oh we still have Alan, so Alan please.
Alan Greenberg: Yes very quickly and since no one has mentioned it I will, we know there is typically an ICANN presence at these conferences at the IGF meetings, which if nothing else is embodied by a number of Board members. Without denigrating the benefit and the benefit to ICANN and benefit to the IGF of having ICANN Board members at a meeting, having rank and file people who are actually on the ground in their countries lends a completely different tone to it and one is not equivalent to the other . Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Alan and I think you actually touched on this, the birds of a feather effect. Having people who are actually working in similar circles or similar organizations often brings them to a better level than having people specifically from the Board.
Does this help Juan?
Juan Ojeda: Yeah these are great points and I appreciate that feedback Alan. Without further adieu we’ll go to #30 and give Mr. Gareth an opportunity here to speak on the return on investment for NARALO support of travel funding for Pacific Community Network’s Association Conference.
Gareth: Yes indeed, this is indeed my request and I wish to withdraw it because the future of these conferences are now in doubt. I think the best thing to do with this is simply withdraw at this time.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Well it looks like no further discussion is needed. Thank you Gareth.
Juan Ojeda: Next item, 31, request document translation from LACRALOLO to translate key documents in Spanish, French and Portuguese. Again, we had consultations with our translations team and this is expected to be adequately budgeted for in Fiscal Year 12 budget. Unless you hear differently, this will be included in our Fiscal Year budget.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you Juan. And the last one now, #32.
Juan Ojeda: 32 yes reducing ELT barriers to policy critical data, I know that someone from our finance team reached out to Eric I believe and we haven’t heard back on what the specific details are. I guess specifically what is being requested of ICANN from a budgetary perspective.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I wonder who wishes to answer this specific point. That came from a NARALO request. Gareth was this one of yours?
Gareth: No it wasn’t.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: It was Eric’s.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Oh that was Eric. Evan?
Evan Leibovitch: I just wanted to give a little backing because I remember the original proposal itself. Eric has I guess a way of describing things that may be a little bit oblique for some and to be honest it is good to know Juan that you have had staff conversations with Eric because he is probably in the best position to fully explain what it is he’s trying to do. If you need any help from the rest of us let us know but so far he put it forward the description of what he was looking for specifically.
The small line items in the spreadsheet here don’t really do it justice. If you need some extra back up, I think we need to take that up in either email or chat with Eric involved in this.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Evan and yeah we did reach out to Eric and we haven’t heard back. We can certainly follow that up via email and involve you in the process too, to hopefully fulfill that communication.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you. So we’ve reached the end of this document. Now the big question is what is happening next?
Juan Ojeda: We are still in the final stages of prioritization and seeing what, I’m trying to determine and I guess the first step is trying to determine what the total bucket is going to be in terms of budget dollars for the requests. Along with that, we didn’t get too much input via the public comment specifically on these requests, so these consultations that we’re having with the community members are a critical component of what the prioritization process will be, as well as, communications that we’re having with ICANN staff and different budget owners. For example, with the translations and being able to comfortably say that certain requests are being considered and will be included in the budget.
So we will, I mean we’re getting down to the finish line pretty soon. We need to post the draft operating plan and budget by the 17th of May. The requests that are being considered for inclusion in that draft budget will be included in that draft posting, however, prior to that for purposes of transparency we will be communicating to all SO, AC, and SG leadership on what they should expect to see on the draft budget.
No final decisions have been made with the exception of those that I had previously mentioned that will be included in the draft budget, the translation and what have you and the YouTube video and other items of that nature. But prior to that if any SO and AC communities leadership has any questions, feel free to reach out but we are in the final stages of wrapping it up.
Again, I appreciate all of your time and I know we are, some people are working late at night right now and even Miss Cheryl is typing in and so I appreciate that. So we will be in contact.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Good but before we let you off I can see still a couple more questions, a few more people and specifically Cheryl in the middle of the night.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: Yes I’ll speak after Tijani because I think what I’m going to say is more of a wrapping up type thing, so go ahead Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay thank you. Juan you said we will discuss Item 12 together. When and how will we get in touch?
Juan Ojeda: The process will be that if this item ends up being part of what is being considered for inclusion in the Fiscal Year 12 budget, there will be it would be under that scenario it would be included and there would be a certain dollar amount attached to it. In developing whatever that budget dollar amount may be, before we make that determination we’ll be in contact with either you and/or Olivier and whoever Olivier thinks should be present to determine again what will provide an effective outreach event.
Again, like we said, we don’t want to throw bad money on a good idea if, for example, the budget is $10,000 for something like this, we may very well just be throwing money down the drain because $10,000 won’t be able to make it an effective plan or program. So if this is something that will be included as part of the prioritization process, we will be in touch with you on being able to determine what an adequate funding level may be. It may also be a question where maybe you have more up to date or current information on what travel support costs might be in that region.
So again looking at it just from a strictly project prospective and what the end result is and what the return on investment is, is it something that will be under consideration for inclusion then we will be in touch on what the appropriate budget level should be.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: I see a note in the chat from Evan mentioning it is not fair to punt back to the ALAC the role of pitting regions against each other for worthiness and it is something that I do echo. Anyway I have Cheryl next on the list.
Juan Ojeda: If I may Cheryl, I guess where I’m coming from is as you know and we all saw in the summary there is a significant amount being requested for travel support and as much as we would love to be able to fund each and every request, there is only so much we can do.
So I guess what I was hoping for and I totally can buy into Evan’s point that ALAC is a very unique organization and that it is made up of a plethora of different regions, cultures and economic means if you will. We’ll just have to work through it and see how we can prioritize that in a way that hopefully is fair and equitable to everyone and most of all to be transparent.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: It seems like you might have to purchase an airline soon. ICANN Airways.
Cheryl Langdon-Orr: I think that’s a good idea. We already have a movie studio so we might as well have the airline and yes that will stay on the record.
Now Cheryl for the record and I was responsible for that not actual joke that just went to transcript. Sebastian stop smiling. It is a good news bad news is what I wanted to cover off with you before we finish on this call Juan.
What I’m assuming is the bad news is we do note the dates for Item 24 and the dates when things will be decided so I assume that Charles and I can go back to APRALO and say well team as usual thanks to timing we don’t even get in the lineup let alone get to hold the event but that’s okay. We will persist. We are, if nothing else, very, very patient coming out of Asia Pacific and we don’t pack up our bat and ball and go home. We eventually take over and so that’s one thing and it is the bad news part.
The good news part is the effectiveness of the opportunity here because of the nature of how these requests were collected that we are more than happy to work smarter and not harder and certainly not compete with each other when there is a possibility of, for example, we cannot do this now but if we were to do this in a future budget and then we stick to our guns and plan it properly and we get a better return on investment by throwing smart money and planning at something that will be more effective.
I would think that all of us would be more than happy to work along those lines. It is something that we are very, very keen to do and you will see a lot of similarities from a lot of these regional inputs and of course we do realize there is only so much cake. But the nature of how we are interacting for budget requests even in this new model still has us not knowing what the (1:25:06 – inaudible) will be let alone when the bakery door may be open. So I think if we can continue on this even this discussion process and even if we don’t get funding for everything that we would possibly like to do, we certainly feel we’re having forward and well received interaction. So a huge thank you to you Juan and the rest of the team for taking the time with us. But do be very, very cautious about things that we have discussed year in and year out and year in and out, there is something wrong with the knowledge base, there is something wrong with corporate information that your team has access too. I think what is wrong is it is absent. Thank you.
Juan Ojeda: Thank you Miss Cheryl and duly noted. And I appreciate the good comments as well as the not so good comments. It is all is about open dialogue and I appreciate this opportunity to have it with you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay we’re a half hour over time and we appreciate the time you are spending with us and certainly the process this year being a lot more transparent than in the past with a lot more interaction. So I am not sure if you have any further words to say Juan.
Juan Ojeda: No I just wanted to again thank all the other members of ALAC that are on the call and as well as staff. I know we’re all across the globe and so I appreciate it and I appreciate how important this is to all of you in terms of the input into the budget development process. Again, hopefully we can agree that we are trying to take positive steps and proving this earlier and more active input from community. It is by no means what I say it is a perfect process but hopefully it is a step in that direction and so thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Okay well thank you very much for joining us Juan and thanks to David and Janice and others and hopefully we will be hearing from you very soon. If there are no other comments from anyone, no so it looks as if this meeting is adjourned. Thanks very much.
[End of Recording]
