APRALO Outreach Strategic Plan - FY20 Draft Space

FY20 APRALO STRATEGY

Objectives:  To build capacity among existing ALSes as well as create outreach opportunities in conjunction with the ALAC Outreach and Engagement Strategy in order to build connections with regional organizations as well as with current and potential ALSes. This coordination will help APRALO to fulfill its vision of creating a vibrant community that can contribute to ICANN policy as well to Internet Governance as it applies to ICANN’s remit.

The APRALO Leadership Team (ALT) has been carrying out a series of activities aimed at fulfilling the above objective. The resources for these activities have been garnered from a variety of sources. During this period, APRALO was involved in the following activities:

• Continued and enhanced our collaboration with the APAC Hub, as well as with our regional partners such as Internet Society, APNIC, APTLD, and DotAsia through activities such as joint events, capacity building webinars and outreach visits.
• Participated in the following events several global and regional events during FY19:
• Participated in all ICANN meetings in FY18 - Panama, Kobe, Marrakech
• For ICANN64 at Kobe, organized outreach sessions jointly with the APAC Hub. Also arranged an in camera meeting between ISOC-JP, as well as meetings with APAC Hub and APRALO. Attended the Regional Partners meetings.
• Participated in the ME DNS forum
• Participated in IGF 2018 at Paris, with the LT members organizing and speaking at multiple workshops
• Participated in APRICOT 2019 (Daejeong, South Korea), and the APTLD and AP* meetings there. Also, organized informal meetings of APRALO ALSes and members there
• Continued to promote ALS events on the APRALO Outreach calendar
• The GSE-funded trip to Myanmar, planned for late FY19, has been moved to early FY20
• Continued to encourage ALS and individual member participation in ALAC policy development
• Continued to stimulate formation of new ALSes and recruitment of new individual members.
• In 2018, Ali AlMeshal was re-elected as Vice Chair, and Satish Babu as Chair for the term 2019-2020
• During FY19, APRALO Leadership also participated as volunteers on the Dot Asia Board, the Public Interest Registry, AUDA (and various Internet Society Boards) to represent end-user interests in domain-related activities and issues.
• In FY19, APRALO LT members leveraged funding from multiple sources (including from personal sources and from APRALO partners) apart from ICANN funds (CROP and RALO Discretionary Budget)

Throughout FY20, APRALO will continue its community outreach through regional events that offer the greatest opportunity to make contact with regional organisations, ALS members and potential APRALO members, but with current budget constraints and limitation LT are trying to manage as much as possible how to maximize the utilization of such budget . APRALO has access to various funds to assist the Leadership Team and selected active ALS participants, to attend events within the region with the purpose of outreach and engagement. These funding sources proposed for APRALO activities in FY20 include:

Our strategic aims are to:

• Recruit potential members from countries where there are no current members
• Recruit potential new members from current member countries
• Recruit individual members from the entire region
• Encourage members to engage in Policy development
• Regularly communicate with and update APRALO members about APRALO and ICANN activities.
• The engagement teams for Kobe, Vietnam, Myanmar, etc, aim to identify and engage a potential ALS and/or individual members  
• Outreach sessions will explain the work of APRALO, At-Large and the ALAC, as well as to talk about current high interest policy issues
• ICANN Learn, as well as APAC and ALAC capacity building webinars will be introduced and encouraged (by remote  access or archived sessions, as well as in real time)
• Engage with regional partners, particularly for exploring the co-location of the APRALO General Assembly for 2021 or 202
• Engage in a pilot program to encourage ALSes to arrange readouts or other policy support sessions, for which small funding (around USD 200-300) could be provided

Capacity Building initiatives

APRALO has been active in supporting regional and national initiatives such as SIGs and IGFs that bring in new talent to the IG community and enable recruitment to the APRALO community as individual members or ALSes. These include the following initiatives:

Regional initiatives: The Asia-Pacific Academy in Internet Governance (APIGA) is a regional capacity building initiative organized in South Korea by ICANN and KISA and supported by several other organizations such as APNIC, ISOC, APTLD and APRALO. APIGA targets youth and young professionals, and provides a stream of potential recruits for us.

The Asia-Pacific School on Internet Governance (APSIG) is a regional initiative that aims at training national SIG organizers in the region. APSIG tries to take up new and emerging technology and policy matters through global experts who speak at the event.

These regional initiatives as well as the national SIGs in Afghanistan, Armenia, Bangladesh, India, Philippines, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka provide a cadre of new talent. It is proposed that our leadership development efforts such as the mentoring programme includes the alumni of these programmes as well.

APRALO will also ensure that dissemination of ICANN’s technical activities of specific relevance to the region (in particular, IDNs & Universal Acceptance) will be taken up for outreach. For FY20, Workshop proposals have been submitted on IDNs & UA for both the Berlin IGF and APrIGF.

APRALO and Oceania GSE will also support any initiatives in the Pacific sub-region that may arise out of the work by the regional ALS - PICISOC -  to promote the work of ICANN within the region, also supported by any of its members who have participated in ICANN and APRIGF Fellowship programmes.

Enhanced Regional Coordination

APRALO has been enjoying excellent relations with ICANN APAC Hub at Singapore. At Kobe, the Regional Workshop initiated a process of enhanced dialogue with regional partners, including ICANN APAC Hub, APrIGF, APNIC, APTLD and DotAsia. Under this initiative, APRALO will work closely with APrIGF and APNIC to explore holding the APRALO 2020 General Assembly jointly with either of them.

APRALO Social Media and Newsletter

APRALO’s newsletter is a well-established means of informing internal and external communities about activities within the community, and it will continue during the year. APRALO’s Social Media WG will use social media and the APRALO Monthly Newsletter in a co-ordinated manner to (a) disseminate policy information from ICANN to ALSes, individual members and the broad community, as well as to encourage participation by APRALO members in At-Large policy discussions; (b) share information of activities of ALSes, individual members and regional partners and community members; and (c) share administrative matters of APRALO.

The outcome of this involvement will be the production of the 2019 APRALO Yearbook eBook, compiled of each of the monthly newsletters, to follow on from the successful 2018 APRALO Yearbook. It is listed on the APRALO website. There is also a ppt program that introduces the APRALO Leadership Team.

At-Large Summit (ATLAS III)

The third ATLAS will be held in ICANN66 Montreal, Canada. APRALO members have actively participated in the Leadership Development Teams and Programming Working Groups in order to assist with the selection of the travelers who will be sponsored to the event to participate in the ATLAS capacity building and policy leadership training course, as well as assisting with developing the capacity building programme that will help to develop RALO leaders in policy development at the grass roots level of our regional organizations. APRALO leadership will encourage all members to undertake the preparatory webinar and ICANN Learn courses to build knowledge and understanding about how ICANN works, as well as  support members who qualify according to the specified hard criteria to complete the ATLAS application form.

The Leadership Team will also encourage APRALO members to participate in working groups to support the work of the At-Large Review Implementation Program which focuses on enhancing RALO participation in At-Large policy and outreach working groups and activities.