BC Trip/Event Assessment 1

WHAT/WHO

As part of its FY17 Outreach Strategy realization, the Business Constituency (BC) chose to use CROPP to support four BC in-region travelers to conduct Outreach on the side-lines of the 2016 AfICTA Summit, which took place in Windhoek, Namibia on October 12-13, 2016. The travelers were Jimson Olufuye, Waudo Siganga, Arinola Akinyemi, and Lawrence Olawale-Roberts.

WHERE

The BC Outreach took place on October 13, 2016 at the Safari Hotel and Conference with the theme: Sustaining Critical Infrastructure for IoTs & Keeping Internet safe, Secure and Resilient. Chaired by Jimson Olufuye, speakers at the BC-ICANN session included Marilyn Cade, Patrick Jones on behalf of Pierre Dandjonou, Andrew Mack (remote participation), and Lawrence Olawale-Roberts.

WHY

As per the BC’s original proposal submitted to ICANN’s CROPP Support Staff, the purpose of this trip was to promote the work and membership of the BC and simultaneously, “provide important enlightenment on the crucial role of business users of the Internet in the overall stability, reliability and resiliency of the Internet especially post IANA transition.” Further, the BC sought to address volunteer burnout by recruiting new members in under served areas within AfICTA’s participant base.

The BC delegates and speakers created awareness about the working ICANN has been engaged in regarding the responsibilities of the Post Transition IANA & the imperative for one Internet from the perspective of business users. Also, they talked about requirements to move from business users to registries and registrars and how to ensure Internet remains a safe place to do business. The speakers enlightened the audience on various ways to engage and actively participate within the business Constituency in ICANN and highlighted the gains of the fellowship program.

The BC achieved many of its stated objectives outlined in the initial proposal, in addition to fulfilling components of the BC’s FY17 Outreach Strategy.The BC representatives and speakers in attendance to the AfICTA summit were able to engaged with participants from African nation members of AfICTA with the purpose of increasing an awareness of the BC/ICANN mission and objectives.

Over seventy business leaders participated in the outreach and the Namibian Minister of ICT, Hon TjekeroTweyawas in attendance at the Summit Opening Ceremony.  About 100 BC Newsletters, 100 BC pens and fliers were distributed at the event. The BC would like to thank ICANN Staff for their support in these efforts, including the fact that ICANN paid for the printing and shipping of the newsletters. Furthermore, special rollup banners, wall banners and social media platforms were used to project BC and ICANN brands during the summit.

In all the discussions facilitated by BC members, the speakers underscored the importance of the bottom-up multi-stakeholder model practiced by ICANN which has served it well over the years and has delivered on the requirements of the by the United States’ Government, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)for its IANA stewardship to be transitioned to the global multi-stakeholder community and outside of the control of the US Government. Thus, the need for more business people to be part of the ICANN community was reaffirmed on numerous occasions.  A specific breakdown of what was achieved by each of the four (4) funded travelers is as follows:

Arinola Akinyemi, a member of the BC, chaired the Youth Development Seminar and presented to 100 people on the topic of Building career in ICT and How to become an ICT entrepreneur during the second day of the Summit. Thanks to ICANN’s support via CROPP, one hundred more individuals are now aware of the BC’s role within ICANN and that SME's are also actively represented in the  community, asides informing them on how they can directly contribute.

Lawrence Olawale-Roberts, also a member of the BC, was a panelist at the Youth Development Seminar on day 2 and presented to over 100 individuals asides joining other BC Members  during the session on Sustaining Critical Infrastructure for IoTs & Keeping Internet safe, secure and resilient to talk about what ICANN was doing and how new volunteers could engage within the community. He also  enlightened many participants on the ICANN fellowship program, what the requirements entail, and how they can apply or encourage someone from their organization/company to apply.

Waudo Singanga, BC member, chaired a session on The role of ICT in job creation on the first day of the meeting, engaging a lively audience of over 100 people to focus discussions on IoT for Job Creation and Regional Partnership for Job creation where a plan to create 1000's of jobs across the continent of Africa was unfolded. This would not have been possible without CROPP funding.

Jimson Olufuye, Chair of AfICTA and Vice Chair of Finance and Operations for the BC, oversaw the coordination of the BC’s work during the AfICTA summit. Jimson was able to promote the BC and ICANN’s multistakeholder model through his presentation as a keynote speaker at the event. Over 300 participants attended Jimson’s presentation, which was made possible thanks to the CROPP program.

Many participants who attended the AfICTA summit have since showed interest in joining the BC and ICANN community. At this time, two participants have submitted their applications to join the BC and are undergoing review by the BC’s Credentials Committee.