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ALAC FY24 ABR for an End User Campaign Playbook

Google doc of proposal

Google doc of proposal

Purpose

A key objective of the At-Large Community, over the next few years, is the increased fluidity with which the community, as a whole, is mobilized for feedback and message amplification. To that end, a “playbook,” which outlines a framework for mobilization, peculiar to the At-Large organization. Such a playbook would outline the various types of mobilization and the processes for initiating each one. Furthermore, the playbook would outline a  standardized set of ‘key messaging’, communication ‘best practices’ and techniques for engagement that are most suitable or ‘bespoke’ for the ICANN Multistakeholder model.  It will aid in the alignment of activities to a common or agreed upon theme (or set of themes) or ‘agreed upon approaches’ that in turn are clearly both within ICANNs’ remit and tied to any current phase of strategic planning.   

Alignment

The design and development of the proposed At-Large End User Campaign Playbook aligns both specifically with one of the primary purposes of ICANN At-Large and the RALOs as a conduit between ICANN, Domain Name Registrants and Internet end users (including consumers) as well as relating to several of the current ICANN Operating Initiatives  outlined in the FY23-27 Operating and Financial Plan and the FY23 Financial Plan and Budget particularly: 3. Evolve and Strengthen the Multistakeholder Model to Facilitate Diverse and Inclusive Participation in Policymaking; 4. Evolve and Strengthen the ICANN Community’s Decision-making Processes to Ensure Efficient and Effective Policymaking;  7. Promote the Universal Acceptance of Domain Names and Email Addresses; 9. Evaluate, Align, and Facilitate Improved Engagement in the Internet Ecosystem  and 10. Improve Governmental and Intergovernmental Organization (IGO) Engagement and Participation in ICANN Through Targeted Engagement

In its role as an advisory committee, the ALAC is tasked with representing the “interests” of individual end users, within the various ICANN policy development activities. The identification of these interests includes rigorous discussion, interest balancing and, where possible, research. The At-Large community is unique in the depth of its “bench,” given the structure of regional organizations and At-Large structures. Ideally, the identification and balance of interests would involve soliciting feedback, on particular policy topics, from a broad spectrum of At-Large community members. A standardized set of processes and procedures for obtaining this feedback will increase the efficiency and frequency of such outreach.

Furthermore, the At-Large community is tasked with public education on ICANN remit, policies and initiatives. Establishing a framework and set of best practices around message amplification will facilitate increased efficiency and reach of those efforts.

Category

• Outreach
• Research 
• Training

Audience

Audience is ‘General’ but designed for existing and future ALAC/At-Large Membership use across all RALOs and Regions primarily in their outwards facing interactions beyond the ICANN Community, but may indeed have utility for ‘inreach activities’ and  should be 

applicable for use across many demographics, but within the proposed Playbook sectoral specific ‘best practices’ should be identified. 

Outcomes

Such a playbook should provide for both the more effective setting of goals or objectives in a standardized  S.M.A.R.T way and therefore provide more meaningful and useful metrics and measures of outcomes.

In addition the use within ALAC/At-Large of a well designed Campaign Playbook (including templates) and standardized resources and messaging in outreach and engagement activities will both ‘professionalize’ the plans, mechanisms and tools utilized and allow for local language use as required, with fewer risks to messaging outcomes; as well as generally enhance the overall image and reputation/trust of ICANN At-Large. 

Support for O&EWG resource development for community outreach

ALAC 

(OE-SC)

Purpose

At-Large has an important role in disseminating ICANN policy and general information within their regional communities. The information that goes out is mainly general and currently, usually in a formal presentation. The Outreach and Engagement Working Group has been given two tasks:
(1) To focus its capacity building activities on key messages about key ICANN policies that specifically target end-users (for At-Large, key areas include DNS Abuse, IDNs and Universal Access, Applicant Support, et al)
(2) To develop creative and innovative online as well as hard copy resources that ALS and Individual members can use during workshop sessions at local community events. These resources will aim to enhance community understanding about the importance of ICANN
and its work on key end-user policy issues and to physically engage them in the learning process about these topics

The first goal of the working group will be to decide on a particular topic that regional groups can work on together and to return their ideas to the main group by email or at an update at the monthly meeting of the O&EWG.

This would be an ongoing development during the year with one or more differently focused activities being worked on at the same time, ideally under the leadership of one of the regional liaisons.

While the idea may come from a particular region, as the momentum grows during O&EWG meetings, other regional participants may join to contribute to the development of that specific resource (and at the same time, learn more about the content of that resource topic).

While we would encourage creating online assets that people can use to engage community members to learn online in a fun way rather than as a formal learning course, the objective would be to create a learning asset that could be used in a group activity where people could learn content about ICANN from both the activity and in their interaction and discussion with others during the course of the activity.

The purpose of the budget request is to provide an adequate fund which can support the production of prototype samples
of these outreach assets which after the project feedback, could
be assessed by the O&EWG for use during community events for production for trial.

The activities must engage community participants to learn about what ICANN does and ultimately become informed enough to be able to
contribute to discussions on the topics during their events, but also to join RALO and eventually ICANN activities on these topics.

Any completed prototypes could be trialed at the AP and AF General Assemblies at the end of 2023

Alignment

This activity addresses the strategic risk within the area of geopolitics where lack of community understanding about important issues
relating to ICANN’s remit, can potentially create a barrier to inclusive engagement between ICANN and regional communities about common relevant topics. For At-Large, these end-user topics could include: the work of ICANN itself, DNS Abuse, UA and IDNs, and new GTLDs, for starters.

Encouraging greater understanding about these topics and creating resources that our At-Large members can share with local communities will help both the RALO participants and their communities learn more about these important end-user topics and be more informed and willing to offer an opinion or view on it when asked.

Thus, ICANN would be fostering successful and mutually beneficial relationships with local, regional and global stakeholder groups through the At-Large members, to ensure knowledge building about ICANN and its mission continues. (Strategic Plan 2021-2025, p 25)

Category

• Outreach
• Research
• Capacity Building

Audience

This activity aims to be a capacity building activity for the O&EWG within the context of their learning and understanding more about policy issues - to ensure that they research their topics well enough to produce appropriate and accurately presented learning assets. These assets will cater for different learning styles and strategies, as well as targeted demographic groups (adult/youth,  gender, backgrounds in relation to ICANN, knowledge levels, etc.) so that there may be multiple resources based on the same topic. During their development, each developing asset will be critiqued by the O&EWG end-user members themselves to ensure that the asset meets its
aims and can appropriately fulfil its purpose and outcome/s.

These activities could also complement other work that is being done by the Capacity working Group or even ICANN Learn.

Objectives

For each resource asset, a team must provide:
1. The title and the key learning features of the resource (its purpose)?
2. How the resource can add value to the work of At-Large and ICANN – the content of the resources and its relevance to At-Large and ICANN (its formal outcome/s)
3. A plan for how the development of the resource is to be undertaken – how many peopleinvolved and their roles in the development of the asset (its methodology)
4. What specific components will be produced - what policy area is being developed and how is it being expressed within the resource–
within management and development plan (its outputs)
5. How will the resource be used to convey the messages about ICANN and its roles with regards to maintaining its focus as an independent, trusted multi-stakeholder steward of the internet’s DNS (its implementation)?
6. How the asset would be evaluated as a useful resource for further development (monitoring and evaluation)
7. A complete report on this production activity will be provided to the O&E Co-Chairs at the conclusion of the activity (report)

Total Support being requested: $20,000 USD

Purpose

Electronic resource/E-tool, "Welcome Package" is a guide for new and existing members of the At-Large community, which accumulates and gives in a convenient understandable form (texts, infographics, videos, links, names, application forms) complete information on how best to start working in At-Large and take more than 1 role (PDP, organisation, finance & budget, CPWG, reviews, analytics, communications etc).

The amount of work is significant, the next financial year may be devoted to this project, but the result will be used for many years ahead (it will only be necessary to make updates occasionally).

Alignment

The project is fully consistent with the ICANN mission and current strategic plan, because it helps to involve into the At-Large/ICANN activities interested professionals (including technical specialists) from around the world, and this will help:

• strengthening the security of the domain name system and the DNS root server system;
• improving the effectiveness of the ICANN multi-stakeholder management model;
• Addressing geopolitical issues affecting ICANN's mission to provide a single, globally interoperable Internet;

The implementation of the project is clearly related to ongoing political, advisory or technical work: we will help to attract more professional members of the community to work (PDP, organisation, finance & budget, CPWG, reviews, analytics, communications etc), mobilize the existing community, ensuring that people navigate directly first to the knowledge base, then to processes, working groups and mentors who will help get started.

Details of the "Welcome package" multilingual E-tool:

It is a guide book for new community members (Individuals or ALS members), as well as for those who  just have applied for participation. This Guide book will help to get the useful understandable information:

- to understand the place, role and purpose of the At-Large Advisory Committee in the ICANN structure.

- to find the set of required information for learning how to start the interacting and get involved in the work process

- to start to navigate all open web resources of ICANN and At-Large.

- to get to know the key people of the local European ICANN, IG community, to understand the wide spectrum of the community members` expertise  in order to establish the interaction, to ask substantive questions, and to identify the opportunities for mentoring support.

- to follow the ICANN, At-Large, RALOs news on all communication channels

- to find mentors within At-Large/ICANN

- to find exact expertise (At-Large member with needed professional knowlege related ICANN issues, Technical IG or IG)

-  links to forms for applications to all RALOs, Associations of individuals.

- to use as excellent open knowledge base - there are links to Capacity Building webinars, online courses, videos, infographics and other learning resources offered here.

(Apparently it might be an accessible e-tool hosted on additional external resource - landing page). If the question arises - are we duplicating the At-Large website? no. We are creating a separate usability tool that will be easy to use and understand for any beginner.

Audience

All regions without restrictions.

Age - from 25 years.old

Gender - all

Members of organisations and non affiliated  individual members representing the interests of internet users worldwide. (prof areas: IT, IG, diplomacy, academia, research, human rights, legal/regulatory, IoT, Cybersec etc)

Outcomes

Raising knowledge for mobilizing community and a new inflow of professional experienced active members to work in all areas of the At-large, ALAC mandate and their possible moving to all ICANN constituencies.

Total Support being requested: $25,000 USD

Purpose

A dedicated Zoom Room to be managed by each RALO leadership and used to help ALSes and individual mobilisation and preparation calls for RALOs.
It will be used all the year long (and if working well could be a recurant request).

Alignment

(No text)

Audience

RALO ALS and individual members

Outcomes

Help the  ALS and individual members to be more involved in RALO, At-Large and ICANN activities.

Total Support being requested: $1,000 USD

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to begin to use this as a pilot project to build the technical competence on the subject matter of UA first in T&T and then at the university level then materials for this can be used as template for a Roadshow to other regions in the region. to build innovation  and awareness on the area of US among students at universities in Trinidad and Tobago who are studying Computer Engineering, Computer Science or Information Technology.

Alignment

(No text)

Category

• Training

Audience 

In person training would be provided to persons between the ages of 18 to 35, who are enrolled at one of the recognized universities in the country.

Outcomes

Age : 18 – 35

Gender; All

Region: Caribbean

Sector: Education

Skills: Computer science, programming, software engineering

Total Support being requested: 20,000 USD

Purpose

The pandemic has caused many Caribbean governments to seek greater online alternatives to face-to-face interaction. The effect of the pandemic on the Caribbean was for it to activate online schooling from Primary to Secondary Education level utilizing G Suite for Education. Schools, for example in Barbados, have a domain of the form <abbreviation-of-school>.school.edu.bb.

Government departments began to publish contact telephone numbers and email addresses via their websites, as well as those of the Government Information Service. Those email addresses and websites were on the domain gov.XX (gov.ccTLD).  Examples include gov.bb, gov,tt, gov.jm.

Caribbean governments continue to pursue online services more aggressively understanding that this is a component of national digital transformation and critical to their socio-economic development.

However, what of the domain name space foundation on which this all is predicated? Is it reliable, well designed, trouble-free, monitored, incident free? What does live experience teach us about our national domain name space foundation?

The purpose of this project is to review the “health” of these domains in what will be a precursor to the establishment of a Caribbean DNS Observatory and Research Centre to assist regional stakeholders in better management of the DNS and promote best practices and adherence to global standards.

Alignment

The ICANN strategic plan identifies security of the DNS as a priority, aiming to “improve the shared responsibility for upholding the security and stability of the DNS by strengthening DNS coordination in partnership with relevant stakeholders.”  It also aims to Identify and mitigate security threats to the DNS through greater engagement with relevant hardware, software, and service vendors.

DNS abuse is also one of the priority areas for ICANN and this work will go a long way in helping to inform ICANN’s policies and policy development process in this regard.

Category

• Research

Objectives

Provide a report to regional stakeholders on DNS issues relating to the 2^nd level government domains in the Caribbean, given the move towards more online critical government servcies.  At the moment there is not a well established DNS observatory for the Caribbean which can help to provide research and support that is useful to regional governments.

This will allow for information sharing and development of best pracices and ensure complaince with global internet standards.

It will also provide and analytics platform that gives a dashboard view on the DNS, particulalry those systems providing critical public services.

Audience

Governments in the Caribbean. Specifically those that are the top 5 highest ranking on the UN e-Government Global Development Index.  This will include but not be limited to Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Bahamas and others depending on availability of resources.

Outcomes

This project is a stepping stone towards the establishment of a Caribbean DNS observatory and research centre and can be expanded beyond the initial focus on governments.  The initial focus on governments is based on the critical services that  they provide such as education, health care, business licenses, national IDs, etc.   If the DNS is not being effectively managed then it can lead to disruption of these critical services, not necessarily as a result of abuse or attacks but because of misconfigurations, lack of real-time monitoring , poor operations and lack of adherence to global standards.  The effect can be as devastating as a cyber threat. 

In the past for example  there have been outages due to non-payment of fees.  This will help to mitigate  these challenges with better research and monitoring tools, informed by the outcomes of this project.

 It is proposed that the findings be presented within regional forums at the conclusion of the research.  This includes Caribnog (Caribbean Network Operators Group), CTU ICT Week  - ICT Collaboration Forum, Caribbean Peering Internet Forum  (CarPIF), and direct presentations  as needed or requested by regional governments.

Total Support being requested: 47,500 USD