Sandra Hoferichter: Welcome everybody. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, good night. Welcome to this call where I see at least from the Adobe Connect we have a huge number of participants. Thank you very much for taking the time to join this call. I would ask Gisella or Heidi or Silvia to do the roll call of who is on the Adobe Connect and also those who we do not see on Adobe Connect.
Gisella Gruber: Yes, on today’s ICANN Academy Work Group call on the 8th of February we have Sandra Hoferichter, Wolf Ludwig, Sebastien Bachollet, Siranush Vardanyan, Siva Muthusamy, Fatima Cambronero, Glenn McKnight, Holly Raiche, Avri Doria ,Olivier Crépin-Leblond, Jose Arcé, Eduardo Diaz, Bill Drake, Cheryl Langdon-Orr, Wilson Abigaba, Tijani Ben Jemaa, Yaovi Atohoun, Yuliya Morenets, Raquel Gatto, Titi. We have apologies today from Sala, Hong, Dev and Cintra.
On today’s call from staff we have Heidi, Sylvia, Matt, and myself, Gisella. If I could also please remind you all to state your names when speaking for transcript purposes and to mute your line using *6; and to unmute your line, *7. I hope I haven’t left anyone off the list. Oops – Oksana Prykhodko, yes I did.
Sandra Hoferichter: Okay, thank you very much, Gisella. Before we start this call which will mainly focus on the draft curriculum I would come back to Point 1 of the agenda and ask everybody if you agree on the agenda, if you have any addendums to make or do you see a topic which is not covered which you would like to put on the agenda? If so then please raise your hand or raise your voice. No? Okay, I see that there are no addendums however you will have the possibility at the end of this call on our agenda Item 5 to come back with Any Other Business if you have any questions during the call.
First of all I’d like to open the discussion on the draft curriculum. I will first summarize some of the comments from the mailing list, summarize the discussion which was held within the Program Committee and inform you about some latest developments which are not covered by the draft curriculum; and then move into the discussion for everybody to comment on the curriculum, to bring in your ideas, your input, etc.
The main thing which I could take from the first comment on the mailing list, which I think it was very good feedback – quite a large number of people did comment on the draft curriculum and I was very happy to see this. And two main themes were raised, which was multilingualism on one hand and remote participation on the other. I’d just like to summarize those two issues.
I know that multilingualism and remote participation is always a big issue, but some people might have missed this when reading the proposal or it was not apparent during the last Program Committee call – we agreed not to offer translation and we also agreed not to offer remote participation. There are two very important reasons. One of them is that it’s in face-to-face meetings. It’s not designed as an outreach program or as a capacity building program. It is only, and I put this in brackets, it is only face-to-face meetings for incoming ICANN officers. According to the bylaws, to communicate in English is expected from an ICANN officer, so actually to communicate in English should first of all not be a problem for those people attending the course.
On the other hand I’m very convinced that a program which is not designed for online use or which is not designed as an online program, we should not offer remote participation because this causes frustration on the other types of [lines], and I mean the remote participant now. A face-to-face meeting is somewhere where the key proposal or the key element of the proposal is very much focused on the interaction and the socializing aspect. So you won’t have the possibility to get translation everywhere because when you’re in a discussion with somebody you want everything [right] with you and this is a very important key element of this proposal, to force the cross-constituency discussions. And on the other hand it also makes a big difference if you have a lively discussion in the classroom or even if it is not in a classroom it can be out, somewhere else.
And we’re trying to avoid any conference style. It should not be a conference where you take the mic; maybe mics will not even be needed in a small room with fifteen people or twenty people. And if we don’t have all those technical facilities we cannot offer remote participation, Adobe Connect or a telephone line in an efficient manner which is frustrating for the remote participant on the other line. The program is not designed for it, and in my point of view we are also choosing money that could be spent on a program which is designed for remote participation that [would be well used] then in an outreach capacity for the program.
But this in our case it is not, so therefore also for budget reasons but budget should not be on the first place; it should be in the second place only, therefore we decided as a Program Committee not to offer translation and not to offer remote participation, Adobe Connect and things like this. I see these things are generally very important but not for this face-to-face sort of basecamp which we are talking about. Are there any quick, comments, questions? Not to open the big discussion but just some comments that anyone would like to make right now?
If this is not the case then quickly… I see Tijani raised his hand. So as long as (inaudible) I will hand over the floor to Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Hello? Hello?
Sandra Hoferichter: Hello? There is somebody else on the line. We can hear you very far away.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, so can you hear me now?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, we hear you better now.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay. Yes, we decided in the Program Committee not to provide interpretation and not to provide translation, and not to provide remote participation, but we discussed and perhaps we approved that we will translate all the documents of the courses. So yes, there is not interpretation but there is translation of the documents.
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, thank you, Tijani, for this reminder. You are absolutely right and this also guides me to a proposal which I think was made by Raquel Gatto when she mentioned in her email on the mailing list that all documents we are using for the Academy should be offered in different languages to make it easier for the participants, for the Fellows, for the trainees to understand the content when they have the chance to read those documents in their own language. I think we should do this and we are also thinking about offering mp3s and maybe translate them later on.
But I will assume that these things once they are done can also be used for other capacity building programs and this is one of the longer-term proposals to develop all ICANN capacity building programs under one umbrella which could be named ICANN Academy, and then the documents for each course if necessary can be harmonized and synchronized. And anyway, I think this goes in the right direction. I see Raquel raised her hand. Raquel, you have the floor, please. Raquel, you might be muted. We cannot hear you.
Raquel Gatto: Can you hear me now?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, we can hear you now.
Raquel Gatto: Oh great. Thanks Sandra, and hello to you and all the participants, and thank you for mentioning the email. That’s correct – I was mentioning that we cannot make double services of translation because we already do have some documents available. But my point here now is to make sure I’m not missing one point: this idea to not have translation and remote participation is only for the first training, but it might be developed in further ICANN Academies. This is the first point.
And the second point is when we have in the bylaws that English is essential to communicate, it’s not the same as to have the better interpretation or the better expression of a participant. I am also from a non-English native speaking country so at least I can say by myself that it’s much easier to learn in Portuguese than in English. Of course I can communicate, I’m speaking right now but it’s not the same, and it might be the difference between the bylaws and the Academy.
I’m not trying to [bug] the process; I think it’s fine. The first one we need to go through and prove it works, then we go for requesting more translation, remote and so on. So just to make this short point, thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Raquel. Before I comment on this I see that Avri raised her hand. Avri’s also part of the Program Committee.
Avri Doria: This is Avri. I assume I can be heard? I hear some echo in the back. I wanted to give a quick answer to both of those points, and I think that’s entirely correct, the first point, that yes, this is just for the pilot program that is directed purely at those that have been chosen – elected, selected, however that happened for the various leadership roles. And that’s the reason for the absence of remote participation and the absence of translation.
And I think that’s only that, and I think everyone was thinking that future programs – should this be successful, should we get to expand the program to greater number of participants – then yes, putting in an aspect of remote participation and dealing with multiple languages will become important considerations.
In terms of the language use and the bylaws statement, I think that statement is only valid because we’re dealing with those who have been selected/elected for the leadership, for the bylaws. They would not be able to function in English and so there’s sort of this emergence into ICANN culture, ICANN language, ICANN issues is well done in the issues that they have to cope in. But I totally agree that when we start to expand the group that this is aimed at then certainly being able to work in multiple languages and the most appropriate languages – the one or two languages that are always the ultimate language… We speak of Spanish, and we speak of French and then there’s many others.
And so perhaps we also have to think about languages that match the locality that we’re in so that the local… But this isn’t that program. But I definitely see what you’re talking about. Thanks.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Avri, for this addendum. And yes, I’d like to underline we are talking about a pilot program with a very limited budget. We have to look at how this program works and what should be improved. Personally I am not convinced that this sort of program is designed for remote participation and being multilingual because as I already told everybody it is very much about interaction – interaction during breakfast, during lunch, during dinner, after dinner. And we will not, or the essential things will happen in between the classroom sessions.
So this is not only about knowledge transfer, which is an important thing of course, but it’s not only about knowledge transfer – it’s also very much about interaction between people who are supposed to work at least for the next few years with each other; to break down some walls in between those different constituencies to develop good collaborations for the future. And these things cannot be very well transported or covered by remote participation tools and interpretation. So that’s my absolutely personal point of view.
And I agree we need to prove the first pilot and make the next decision after the first pilot started. This could not be an extended ICANN conference in the conference style. So if there are no other comments I’d like to move to the next point, agenda Item #3 which is summarizing the discussion held in the Program Committee. And then I would soon hand it over to Avri. She proposed the very first draft curriculum which was then discussed in the ICANN Program Committee calls, and the [extent] of this discussion was forwarded to you on the mailing list. It is also linked in the Wiki working space – maybe I can ask staff to post this link right here in the chat so that everybody can easily access the draft curriculum?
The plan is to get this curriculum finalized or a draft curriculum finalized until mid-February, because then we are going to prepare our outreach activities to other constituencies. We are thinking about having a webinar prior to the Costa Rica ICANN meeting to introduce the idea to the wider community, to the entire ICANN community – not only to At-Large; and to start with a discussion right away in Costa Rica, but I will talk about this later again. For the moment I would ask the members of the Program Committee, Avri principally but also Carlos and Tijani who commented on this curriculum very actively to explain what the Program Committee has proposed a little bit further. Avri, you have the floor please.
Avri Doria: Okay. Thank you, and I must say upfront that I did not know that I was going to be speaking at this meeting until just before I was called on. So I did not come prepared with anything to discuss the curriculum, but if someone could put it up either in the workspace or at least put up the URL for us so that everybody could see it, I think that would be good.
Anyhow, first Sandra mentioned this is a process, and since we’re already more than halfway through the meeting without having gotten to the content yet, basically the process was something was created on, I believe it was an [ether pad]. There were various comments going back and forth. I tried to integrate as much as I could of the comments within a [path], and always keeping the comments. A lot of the discussions and comments we had were similar to the discussions we’ve just had – why not more people? Why not a greater class? Why not a greater scope? Why not translation? Why not remote?
And we went through all of those discussions and tried to pare the curriculum down to be something that A.) could be done in the short amount of time, B.) would be concise enough but give people something. So we basically looked at the three… And I see that no one has put the URL there. I would ask except I don’t know what it is… So what was sent out to this group was basically my attempt to integrate the comments that people had given. Since then we’ve had a couple discussions online; certainly Glenn and others went through and gave a very detailed set of comments. I’ve tried to respond to them. I haven’t made any changes in the curriculum based upon those comments yet.
And basically I’m not sure what I could say at this point other than perhaps we should open it up to people actually talking about it, and where for example I or someone else in this group responded to the comment that you made on the list and that response was not adequate, that response basically left you so feeling there was a point to be made and understood. This might be a good time to get into it as opposed to me prattling on about what we’ve done. Thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Avri. Tijani, Carlos – do you have any addendums to make just to the summary of Avri’s?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: No, no, nothing to add from my side – Tijani here.
Carlos Aguirre: No comment to do.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you both, thank you all of us. I see Bill Drake raised his hand, so Bill, you have the floor please.
Bill Drake: Hello everybody. Thanks, Sandra. I have not been able to make any of the previous calls so I’m kind of coming in at the twelfth hour. I just wanted to share a couple of quick reactions from the standpoint of somebody who does teach global internet governance in a university and has been involved in the Summer School from the beginning which is part of the model.
I understand that this is sort of a collective process of identifying topics and sort of trying to put things down, and then massage and everybody sort of weighs in, etc. So I understand that, however you arrive at this point. I’m looking at it though from a somewhat different standpoint of if one were to try to kind of deductively rather than inductively devise a structured narrative that walks people through all the different main elements of what would be sort of fundamentals to have under the belt.
I would think that we might want it to be a little bit less, I don’t want to say “generic” but the categories are kind of broad and sometimes not mutually exclusive, and it’s not clear sometimes where certain sorts of topics that one would think are fundamental would fit under here. I’ll just express a couple of real general points. First it’s just a bias – after three and a half years on the GNSO Council I will say that I’m continually surprised by the extent to which colleagues who may be coming from the business community and are very much focused on how to mobilize resources and create a marketing portfolio and etc., etc. often are not very attuned to the larger geopolitical and social context within which ICANN operates.
And I imagine it was intended that this would be taken up under one of those two where internet governance is mentioned, but I would try to find some way to really emphasize more not just the “What is the ecosystem of internet governance within which ICANN operates? What are the different institutions and what do they do?” but also the sort of politics and sensibilities of it. I can give you for example, just an example when the JAS Applicant Support stuff came up – and Avri will remember all this, too – there were I think a lot of people who were just baffled that we were really arguing over whether this was necessary; that just couldn’t take it onboard that there was any need from a political or other standpoint, perceptual standpoint to do something like this.
And so we spent a lot of time going around in circles because we all were just not coming from the same sort of cognitive universe. When you have folks that come out of business environments, they’re not sensitive to what’s going on among governments, the ways in which a lot of governments around the world – and particularly here in Geneva with the United Nations – have very negative attitudes toward ICANN and the way this model works. And I think it’s important that somehow people get sensitized to the concept of which this is (inaudible).
So I think if that’s built into one of these categories then that’s great, but I can’t tell really the extent to which that’s true, number one. Number two, I guess I would say I have a little bit of an issue with conflating and treating human rights and intellectual property issues in the same space. I think “Rights” is probably a problematic category and personally I would try to unpack that and treat that a little bit differently.
And then I guess the last point is the competition/consumer trust stuff, that’s a conversation that just is not going very well or very clearly. And if you’re going to make it a central point I think there’s going to have to be some real effort to spell out exactly what those dimensions mean, particularly on a global scale. And I guess also I would say, I know everybody hates this – I would say there should be something about what is the global public interest.
A lot of people at ICANN find this a very obscure concept; for a lot of us that come out of telecom and other backgrounds, actually the notion of the public interest is not so obscure. And I would think that it was something that ought to be put on the agenda at the frontend as sort of an overarching part of the gestalt, because otherwise people just march into viewing ICANN in a kind of like micro business process-oriented way. So I’ll stop there, thanks.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Bill, for your valuable comments. I see Avri raised her hand, so I think this is in response to Bill and I will hand the floor over to Avri. Avri, please.
Avri Doria: I had forgotten to turn mute off; this is Avri. Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple brief comments. I think that in a lot of what Bill says about sort of the deeper dimensions, the development dimensions, the political dimensions – I think those were meant to be included inside the topic. And I think like we see in some of the things this is modeled off of that various different perspectives come in depending also on who’s lecturing and who’s attending, and who asks what questions. So all those things do come out but I think he’s right.
I think it’s important to make sure that when you are talking about internet governance you’re not just talking about ICANN and the RIR holding pattern; you’re talking about the full dimension of it, the sensitivities, the political nature, the development-driven, etc. So I think that that’s a good point about sort of the next level in terms of topics that are included.
The right juxtaposing property and human rights, and the same thing was actually intentional – and it’s intentional based upon that pretty much being the way it being exposed in ICANN; and it also actually being one of the ways in which it can be approached. But again, it’s a top-level topic that breaks out and so the discussion won’t center around property rights or human rights, though I’m sure that argument could be made, but why there are human rights beyond property rights.
One of the problems, and this goes partially to things Bill talked about – one of the problems that I’ve seen in my [tenure] with ICANN is that people talk about “rights, rights, rights,” and you look at the second recommendation from the GNSO – “People’s rights must be defended.” And then you say “Yes, I agree with that, and that includes human rights,” and we go “Whoa, human rights??”
So I think that letting people know that whenever they say the word “rights” there’s many kinds that are in that and it’s a very important thing to get across to any new ICANN leaders, that “rights” is an expanded notion.
Finally on the last topic about what does it mean to have “What’s the global public interest?” and why isn’t there something – I think that’s a great thing. But I’m not sure that that’s not perhaps a good topic for some other general group discussions, I’m just throwing that out, because I don’t think there’s any of us yet that can say “We’ve got a well-formulated description of what are all of ICANN’s global public interests and how they should be expressed.”
So I think that is a great topic for a full group seminar, an evening session or what have you, so I’m really glad to have this in here; and in some sense that’s a thread that has to run through the whole thing – “Why are you here? Global public interest. Why do we care about shepherding the DNS? Global public interest. Why do we…” So I think it’s not something to be taught but it’s a thread that should run through. Thanks.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Avri. From the discussion here we can even get an imagination or we can get how lively the discussion will be among the Fellows, and that the three-days’ program will not cover all of the topics in detail and there is not the possibility to go into the deep. So therefore we should think or we should consider that the learning process does not stop after those three days, and there are quite a few very good tools proposed or proposals made on how to extend or what else can be used during the ICANN Academy.
I just want to mention a few of them which were also mentioned here in the chat already: to use a [Moodle] to set up a curriculum and to work after the ICANN Academy together. It was also proposed peer-to-peer mentoring; video coverage was proposed which is available online after the Academy. And I think these are all very important tools which will help us to support the learning process not only over those three days but to continue after the Academy as well.
And this is actually a point which brings me to the latest development. Cheryl and Olivier were so kind and introduced be to Eberhard Lise from the ccNSO, and he is the one who is in charge of the so-called Tech Day which takes place every Monday during an ICANN meeting. And Eberhard proposed for instance to use also the Tech Day, which is a very meaningful day to understand the technical background of running a ccTLD, to implement this day into the ICANN Academy. And I think this is also a very valuable element of an Academy to say “Okay, we can give you an introduction here. We cannot go into the deep on every topic because this is just not manageable in three days. But you have the possibility when you attend the ICANN meeting, after the Academy you can go to the Tech Day, you can go to the beginners’ sessions.” And I don’t know how many other possibilities can be used – also the peer-to-peer mentoring could start during that ICANN meeting.
So I think this could be developed even further, which allows the Fellows and the participants of the Academy then to go into the deep on the topic that he has to deal with in the future. And also Hong made a very valuable comment on the mailing list that I’d just like to read out loud; it’s from Hong’s email. “So the lectures may not be merely descriptive but the analytical or even critical so an audience can be aware of the challenges, stress and difficulties confronting ICANN. It’s been raised that introduction of the ICANN components should be dynamically showing the operations, not only the static structure.”
And I think this underlines or describes very much what I was just trying to explain – to use or to get use of additional tools so as to not stop the learning process right after the Academy. I see Siva raised his hand. Siva, you have the floor, please.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy: Hello, can you hear me?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy: (inaudible)
Sandra Hoferichter: Siva, can you move a little bit closer to the mic? We cannot understand you at all.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy: Okay. Any clearer?
Sandra Hoferichter: It’s a little bit better now but please speak very slow and clear, and go close to the mic.
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy: (inaudible) lessons of the Academy and make it available to the community, and [open the community for the landscape. Do the lessons in a local language so ICANN will get the (inaudible) to act.
The second point is we can simultaneously look at (inaudible) Framework. That person could have it as a visual aid.
Sandra Hoferichter: Siva, unfortunately you see from the chat also, your audio is too hard to understand your voice and we are unable to catch up. Maybe you can just type directly in the chat what you were going to suggest and that would be good, thank you.
So yes, I shifted already over to the latest developments regarding the introduction to Eberhard Lise’s engagement, the beginners’ sessions, peer-to-peer and all these things, and I would actually now like to open the overall discussion or as the discussion had already started, to ask others for their input of what has not been said on the mailing list so far. And are there any comments, are there any questions? Please raise your hand or your voice right now.
There is no hand raised except Siva but I think he has not lowered his hand from the last time? Okay. And then I would propose that the Program Committee will take all the comments made on the mailing list so far – of course you are still invited to comment on this; rework the draft curriculum and re-present it to the community on the mailing list until mid-February. And then there is a next draft step which will then be the basis for the further outreach program, and this brings me now to Point 4. I touched this point already – looking ahead to the 43rd ICANN meeting in Costa Rica.
Before I give the floor to Olivier I’d just like quickly to explain what is planned so far. We agreed already, everybody, that outreach to other constituencies should start latest in Costa Rica; that it should even start before the Costa Rica meeting so that we can go into a deeper discussion in Costa Rica. And it is the plan for the moment at least to offer a webinar to the ICANN community which can introduce the first draft, because the first draft curriculum or the first draft proposal – of course we can get input from them as well. And I think the document on the curriculum will be finalized after the Costa Rican meeting only when the other constituencies were engaged.
And we are actually very lucky that we have Bill in our group because he is the liaison to another constituency. We have also Olga as the observer – unfortunately she’s not on the call tonight but she is representative of the GAC, and she can also be a focal point of outreach out into the GAC community. We are also in discussions with Eberhard Lise; he can be our (inaudible) for the ccNSO. So I think we are quite in a good position, and now I would ask Olivier to explain a bit or just to make your comments on the outreach possibilities and the outreach that we will do in Costa Rica. Olivier, you have the floor, please.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thanks very much, Sandra – it’s Olivier for the transcript. There are currently a number of sessions which we are looking at studying. One would be to have a pure ICANN Academy session which would take place during the Costa Rica meeting, and that would basically be a face-to-face. I might have to ask Heidi for help on this one – on which day was this going to be dealt with? Would you know this, Heidi?
Heidi Ullrich: On the Sunday session in the ALAC and Regional Leaders Workshop, in the morning there will be a whole session on outreach and participation engagement including a session on the Academy. I will put the link to the Sunday session in the Adobe Connect in just a moment.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Fantastic, thank you. So that’s something which will basically be internal to the At-Large Advisory Committee. Of course we have an open room at all times so anyone can join us, but of course as it is Sunday that might not bring many people from outside since many people are either not here or busy in GNSO sessions.
Now, later on in the week there is going to be a Public Participation Committee meeting that will take place on… Let me just check quite well. The date is to be decided but it will be a Public Participation Committee and community consultation that will deal with a number of subjects, and one of them is the ICANN Academy, which we’ll have a ten-minute presentation and briefing followed by twenty-minutes of questions and answers and discussion. And this meeting is supposed to take place and to not run in parallel with any other major public meeting activities so it will not happen at the same time as any At-Large meeting, it will not happen at the same time as Board Public Participation Committee member meetings nor ICANN Board Governance Committee meetings.
So the purpose of this segment of the Public Participation meeting will be to explain the ICANN Academy to the rest of the community and to collect feedback, to fine tune the proposal for the ICANN Academy. And Sandra, I’m sorry if you might be just learning this now but you will have to be in attendance for this. I’ve just received this from Sebastien. I gather Sebastien is on the line – are there a few more words to say on this?
Sebastien Bachollet: Thank you, Olivier, it’s Sebastien Bachollet. I have nothing, not too much to add, just to tell you that my goal in pushing for that was to have this I will say [en deux] as a preliminary endorsement by the Public Participation Committee and fully by the Board, and that we can outreach to all the constituencies during the meeting.
One of the problems, I know that it will be very difficult to find slots to talk about any subject. We would like, too, and I was hoping through the PPC that it will be easier to have a slot and a slot with not too much competition on that subject. Of course as the PPC we have to discuss some other topics, but the other topics could also interest you very broadly because it’s around the question of the comment period. And I know that you already have started to think about this subject, and some of you participated with the trial on the next way of doing comments.
But coming back to the Academy, I think it’s a very good project and we need to have a discussion with all the stakeholders. It’s the goal of this meeting and I am sure that Filiz with the staff in charge of the PPC and Heidi will be in touch and that you, Olivier, and myself will be in touch to finalize that. Thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Sebastien, and it’s Olivier for the transcript. So there we are. I think thirty minutes is a good amount of time to be able to present this to the complete ICANN community, and I guess the floor is now open for questions or suggestions whether you think we should ask for more or… I personally think it’s enough; the floor is open for questions and discussion. And back to you, Sandra, thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Olivier, and also thanks to Sebastien. It was indeed new for me to learn about this so thank you for updating us on this. And indeed as I went through all four agenda items I will open the floor now for discussion or for any other business to be made. I see Raquel raised her hand. Raquel, you have the floor please.
Raquel Gatto: Hello, Sandra, thank you – it’s Raquel for the record. I just would like to include an item to be discussed during this outreach… Can you hear me?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, we can hear you.
Raquel Gatto: Okay, it just stopped for a moment. So just a point while we were doing outreach and talking with other constituencies I followed some of the discussions about budget, and I know ALAC always has a problem with budget. So are we going to share this budget with the other constituencies if they join the Academy or just if they apply to be thought about? Thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: We are not going to share the budget. The budget proposal was made in that sense, that this is an overarching ICANN community project and this will not affect the At-Large budget at all. I know we have members from the At-Large Finance Subcommittee group – Olivier is one of them. Maybe Olivier, you want to comment on this, about maybe the latest developments?
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you, Sandra, it’s Olivier for the transcript and you’ve said all that needed to be said. It’s an exceptional item that we’ve pitched outside of the At-Large allocation. We haven’t had any feedback yet from Finance but that’s the way we’ve pitched it. Thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Olivier. Raquel, does this answer your question? Okay, she lowered her hand so I assume that the question was answered. Are there any other questions or any other business which was mentioned in the call under Item #3 which was not very clear to anyone who wants to make an additional comment on this?
Gisella Gruber: Sandra, it’s Gisella here, just to say that Siva would like us to read out his comments for the record. He can hear us very well but unfortunately he is not able to participate.
Sandra Hoferichter: Okay, to read out his comments… Which comments actually?
Gisella Gruber: We have the comments…
Sandra Hoferichter: Because he had many comments so I’m just not sure which ones.
Gisella Gruber: Maybe take from point 3 and point 4.
Avri Doria: …read them out as he would like?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, Avri.
Avri Doria: Okay. “Comment #1: the Academy sessions could be recorded and made available for the community. Comment #2: local communities could translate the content in full or in summary form for the first few Academy programs without the need for a budget for translation. Comment #3: we can examine on the Moodle platform to consider coming up with an online version of the Academy. The platform could be Moodle or anything else but for the sake of discussion I and Glenn would volunteer to build a Moodle framework as a visual aid for discussion.
“Comment #4: I posted a proposal for long-term development on the Academy. While the progress on the first Academy is very good we could take up some of the points for discussion for the Academy’s long-term future.” Was there a five… Was there a five or was it four? I don’t see a five, so unless somebody tells me I missed the five I think I’m done. Thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Avri, and I don’t see a five either though I just discovered where in the chat Siva’s comments are made. And we will consider these comments of course also in the next draft revised version. Olivier, you raised your hand. Olivier, please, you have the floor.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Thank you very much, Sandra, it’s Olivier for the transcript. I might be able to answer some of these comments if I may. The suggestion that the Academy sessions could be recorded and made available to the community, every single meeting that takes place with At-Large and in fact with all of ICANN during ICANN meetings is recorded so I don’t see any barrier to the sessions being recorded and then made available to the community.
Then with regards to the local communities translating the content in full or in summary form, if anyone wishes to translate those later on then they’re very welcome to do so although often the transcripts span 30 to 50 pages and so it’s not a small task especially if the sessions last a full day.
With regards to the Moodle platform, yes, that could be tested. I think in both 4.3 and 4.4, the long-term development of the Academy – what we really have to focus on today is to start it up, to have a Version 1.0 and leave some of the long-term developments of it afterwards. What we’re dealing with at the moment is a prototype and if that flies then at that point I think it will be very welcome to refine it and to make it better with time; but I’m just a little concerned about trying to run before walking. So a Version 1.0 is really what we should be looking at at the moment.
That’s the only things… The only other thing I wanted to talk about, and that was just related to Point #4 in the agenda was whether you as a group wanted to engage the other communities before Costa Rica and how, if that was the case. Did you want to produce a document that would be sent to the other SOs and ACs that they could share with their membership? Was there something that you wanted to do prior to announcing this in Costa Rica?
And my recommendation was, and I think I mentioned it last time, was I think you should in a way because waiting and basically involving people in Costa Rica should be something that… Well, having a face-to-face meeting in Costa Rica, whether it’s the Public Participation Committee or else will be great, but if people discover about the Academy at that time the face-to-face will not be very productive. On the other hand, if you have an advanced documents and notice, and maybe even an advanced discussion with the other SOs and ACs at that point everyone can really be ready and on the ball at that time. So that’s it for me. Thanks very much, Sandra.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Olivier. And I’d just like to move on to Tijani who raised his hand. Tijani, you have the floor please.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you, Sandra. Yes, yes, yes for Olivier. Yes, we need to prepare a document that we need to send to the other constituencies in ICANN. I think this document should be something to introduce the subject, something to give the date and the venue of the Costa Rica face-to-face meeting and of the Costa Rica Public Participation Committee. It will be also to give them the last draft of the curriculum we’ve prepared. So the people will come in Costa Rica what we will speak about and then they will have their ideas to express. Thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Tijani, and may I ask ICANN staff to put this down as an action item – to prepare a document for circulation to other constituencies? And I would propose this should be done once the draft version is agreed by the Working Group, and I think this could be end of February would be more realistic so that they have it at least ten days prior to the ICANN meeting. This would be my suggestion so please put this down as an action item.
Heidi Ullrich: Sandra, this is Heidi. We have that as an action item. Who is to prepare it? Is it the PC?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yeah, I think it will be a topic for the next PC call.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thank you.
Sandra Hoferichter: And circulated later on in the Working Group for approval. Okay, so Tijani, any additional comments please?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Yes, Sandra. May I ask that when we have our next Committee meeting we should have already the text to discuss about, so we will not come to the next call of the [Committee without something on the docket].
Sandra Hoferichter: Okay. That’s a good suggestion, I take note of that. Maybe I’ll come back to you. [laughing] Okay. So are there any other questions which need to be clarified in this call? Please raise your hand or raise your voice. If not… Fatima, Fatima raised her hand. Fatima, you have the floor please.
Fatima Cambronero: Hi, Sandra, can you hear me?
Sandra Hoferichter: Yes, we can hear you very well.
Fatima Cambronero: Thank you, Sandra. I would like to make a little comment on any other business. I participate in LACRALO and from LACRALO we are already organizing the capacity building program for the ALSes of LACRALO in the Costa Rica meeting; and similar to AFRALO capacity building program. So we are going to invite some of you, asking your collaboration and participation as speakers or as our professor of course. Thank you, Sandra.
Sandra Hoferichter: Thank you, Fatima. This is a point that we will definitely come back to because once the program or the Academy, the budget and the program is approved, we have to look out, we have to search out for possible lecturers coming from all over the world. Thank you.
Any other questions? Any other business? Okay, if this is not the case… Olivier? Olivier, you have raised your hand, please.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Actually Sandra, I’ve raised my hand just in case you don’t ask the question yourself, and the question is “When is the next call?”
Sandra Hoferichter: I’m not sure whether we will have a Working Group call before Costa Rica. We will definitely have a Program Committee call, and if we still keep the idea from the webinar we will have the possibility to meet on the phone during that webinar. But to my knowledge and that’s what we agreed on the timeline there is no other Working Group call. The approval of the curriculum will be done online via the mailing lists and then we will have the possibility to meet face-to-face in Costa Rica or during the running of or prior to the Costa Rica meeting.
And a Program Committee call will be arranged through sending out a Doodle by Gisella. This is the way we agreed to have this call – one for the Working Group conference and then another one for the Program Committee call. Okay, so the third time that I start asking is there any other business, any addendums to make?
So okay. I see this is not the case. Now, I thank everybody for taking the time, one hour to discuss the Academy with us, and I encourage you and hope that the discussion on the mailing list will be as intensive and as lively as it was in the past. Until the Costa Rica meeting, and I’m looking forward very much to see you all there and to get into a deeper discussion on this review and also with the entire ICANN community; and ask you to support this idea during the next meeting in whichever format this has to be agreed, and you will be informed on the mailing list.
Thank you, everybody. Have a good day, sleep well, have a good rest of the working day wherever you are based. And thank you for joining us tonight.
[End of Transcript]
