Instructions:

  1. Please use the <Edit Contents> menu option (directly above) to complete this form. Remember to <Save> the page (bottom right) after making updates.
  2. Travelers are asked to collaborate as a team in pulling together the appropriate information.
  3. This Trip/Event Assessment form will be automatically associated with its related Proposal; therefore, no duplicate traveler identification information is required.
  4. The information fields are 'richtext' so that they can accommodate tables, links, images, attachments, and other formatting capabilities that may be useful in explaining/describing the Trip/Event.
  5. This form may be edited/saved as many times as needed. When completed, please notify your Pilot Program Coordinator (PPC) for further processing.
STAFF USE ONLY
Assessment
Status 		Form ID#
APPROVED

NA03

Trip/Event Assessments should be completed within three (3) weeks of the traveler's return date.

Trip/Event Assessment Form

LINK:  NARALO Trip Proposal 3

1) Describe the Trip/Event in sufficient detail
that an interested reader could understand Who,
What, When, Where, and Why concerning this
funded CROPP activity (please be as expansive
as possible):  

 This NARALO CROPP grant sponsored a three day conference engagement at The City Summit. It was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from November 16-19, 2016 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. There were 2,000 attendees, the vast majority of whom were elected city officials.

 The City Summit's organizer was at the National League of Cities (NLC) an entity "dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. Working in partnership with the 49 state municipal leagues, NLC serves as a resource to and an advocate for the more than 19,000 cities, villages and towns it represents."

 Our CROPP proposal set out the following goals for the initiative:

  • "Inform cities about the availability of city-TLDs and approaches for their planning, design, acquisition, and development; this to include the utility of engaging individual Internet users early in the process, with these providing a foundation element of the long term governance process for the city-TLD."

 This CROPP initiative emerged from Connecting.nyc Inc.'s (CnI) experience with city-TLDs, initially during the new TLD development process, and since 2012 with the evolution and development of the .nyc TLD. Through his interactions within the city-TLD environment, CnI's founder, Thomas Lowenhaupt, sensed that the city of New York and other cities with development rights to TLDs, were ill prepared for the arrival of their TLDs. Working through CnI, the New York State nonprofit he founded in 2006, Mr. Lowenhaupt is seeking, with this trip and otherwise, to better inform cities and their individual internet users, about the potential of a TLD, and to better prepare them for their acquisition, development, and oversight.

 Specifically relating this trip with NARALO, the early engagement of individual internet users in planning the scope of their city-TLD should enhance its operation and the establishment of a multistakeholder governance structure to aide in the TLD's planning, acquisition, development, and oversight.

 When City Summit initiative was first proposed in the Spring of 2016, the expectation was that a CnI's representative, Thomas Lowenhaupt, would communicate this message via a City Summit panel presentation. Thomas began exploring the prospect of attending the City Summit in February 2016, but it wasn't until May that he was able to submit a formal proposal to the organizers suggesting the utility of a panel on city-TLDs. In mid-October he learned that the panel proposal was declined. He subsequently sought participation on one of several approved panels that related in some way to the topic, e.g., Smart Cities. In early November he learned that these offers to participate were also declined.

 With the CROPP trip plans made and the need remaining, he attended the conference with the following modified, secondary agenda:

  • to communicate the message during Q&A at several tech panels as an active attendee;

  • to speak with Summit attendees (city officials) at networking events; and

  • to advocate with organizers for a city-TLD focused panel in 2017.

2) Explain the extent to which the Proposed
Goals and Outcomes were accomplished
(see above LINK to review the original Proposal):  

 To the extent that our original goal was to organize a panel focused on city-TLDs, this initiative was unsuccessful. But we had some success with our secondary goals. We were able to communicate with attendees at two panels and several networking events, and set a basis, we hope, for support for a city-TLD panel in 2017.

 Thomas raised questions relating to city-TLDs before a Smart Cities panel and one on The Social City. With the scope and role of a city-TLD somewhat off topic in both instances, the impact of the Q&A interjections remain unknown. One business card was distributed afterward, but without relevant discussion.

 There were significant opportunities to discuss city-TLDs with participants during networking events, with meaningful discussions held with council members from Akron, Ohio and Morgantown, West Virginia.

  Akron was the larger of these cities (historically the “rubber capital of the world”) with a population of about 200,000. It has a strong mayor - council governance system. In a conversation with a council member, identify was seen as the key feature a TLD might deliver. He expressed an interest in a regional TLD that would take in its larger neighbor to the north, Cleveland. It was a bit of a surprise to hear a council member from one city suggest being part of a regional TLD. This was based in part on the pride of association with a city that was home to the world champion NBA team, Cleveland. Questions about the inclusion of individual interne users in Governance were handled with a brief “we can do that.” Costs associated with developing a TLD were not spelled out.

 Costs were the key factor in discussions with two council members from Morgantown, West Virginia, a college town with a council - manage governance system. Our meeting was with two of the six council members who thought of the TLD as an administrative tool for city government. When informed for the cost, they noted that it was 1/5th of their paving budget.

 In summary, while some useful information was gathered, having an impact on the engagement of individual internet users will require a more concerted effort, the subject of the next section of this report.

3) Additional information pertaining
to this outreach Trip/Event (optional):

We’ve comments in two "additional" areas: about the CROPP process and the broader issue of facilitating and stimulating individual internet user participation in city-TLD governance.

The lesser first. Securing a panel-organizing position in a conference where one is an “outsider” (a non-city participant in this instance) can be challenging - as we’ve learned. One might imagine that an applicant for CROPP funds present a plan for seeking support from the event’s sponsoring organization (in this case the National League of Cities) to provide a spot on a panel, a table, or via other communication channel as prerequisite to attending. HOWEVER, as is indicated in this instance, timing issues will likely be a factor, and success in acquiring such commitments should not be a prerequisite for CROPP funding .

While the initial plan for organizing a panel discussion was unsuccessful, we were able to learn about the challenges and potential for communicating an idea such as city-TLDs at a cities conference. And we have concluded that the idea is worth pursuing at NLC and at other city collaboratives.

In the U.S. there are two such entities, the NLC and the Conference of Mayors; and globally there are four others entities that provide the opportunity to reach local elected officials. All should be the target of a broad education campaign surrounding the planning and development of city-TLDs. In all instances ICANN’s efforts should emphasize the role of the individual internet user in all phases of the acquisition and development process. CROPP visits to these six organizations should be considered, perhaps jointly sponsored by other entities within the internet ecology - from ICANN, ISOC...

  • C40 Cities creates a forum for cities to collaborate and take action on climate change. TLDs have been allocated to a number of these cities under a variety of oversight structures, some private, some government. To our knowledge there are no mechanisms for engagement by individual internet users in the governance of these extant city-TLDs.

  • City Mayors Foundation is an international think-tank consisting of professionals from around the world that develop sustainable solutions to urban affairs. The Foundation advises on issues such as governance, education and planning.

  • The Covenant of Mayors is the primary network for local and regional European authorities focused largely on climate issues.

  • The United States Conference of Mayors (UCSM) is “the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more” residents. Today, there are 1,398 such cities, each represented in the Conference by its mayor. The Conference holds two primary gatherings a year, those being the Winter Meeting and the Annual Meeting.

  • United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) headquartered in Barcelona, brings local governments from around the world together to encourage cooperation and bring their influence to a global scale. UCLG’s membership consists of cities and national associations of local governments while the presidency is made up primarily of mayors.

City-TLDs provide the opportunity to preserve, develop, and highlight knowledge embedded in our local cultural history, enabling us to discover and incorporate it into our everyday lives. With it residents can reflect local norms and facilitate ethical behavior, and the development of safety and trust.

Individual internet users provide a central element of the creation of these resources and should be part of the governance processes that will enable a better internet. Facilitating their engagement in city-TLD planning and development should be a focus of NARALO, ALAC, and ICANN, and the broad internet community.

4) Date Completed:11-Dec-2016
Acknowledgements Section

Note: To be completed by a Pilot Program Coordinator (PPC) designated by this organization/structure.

AcknowledgementsConfirmed?NameDateNotes
The Trip/Event Assessment information has been gathered and properly entered into this form.YesGlenn McKnight11-Dec-2016
The ICANN Organization / Structure's leadership has authorized the submission of this Trip/Event Assessment.YesJudith Hellerstein12-Dec-2016
The ICANN Stakeholder Engagement Vice-President has concurred that this Trip/Event Assessment satisfactorily reports the extent to which the goals/outcomes outlined in the original proposal have been achieved.YesChristopher Mondini09-Jan-2017
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CROPP-FY17 Trip/Event Assessment Template (Jul 2016)

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