Welcome Ceremony
 ICANN Meeting - Cairo
 Monday, 3 November 2008
 
 >> Ladies and gentlemen, we would appreciate you finding your seats.  We'll begin our program momentarily.  And if you would be kind enough to please put your cell phones on vibrate in respect to the speakers that will be taking the stage.  It will be a few moments before our guest speaker arrives.  But taking your seats would be appreciated.  Thank you so much.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 >> Ladies and gentlemen, chairman, board of directors, ICANN, Peter Dengate Thrush.
 [ Applause ]
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   (In Arabic).
 Welcome to the ICANN meeting, the 31st meeting here in Cairo.  Apologies to the Arab speakers.
 [ Applause ]
 Thank you.
 Good morning, and welcome to Cairo.  And welcome, everyone.  And welcome especially to our guest, Dr. Tarek Kamel, Egypt's minister for communications and information technology.
 And it's very fitting that we are here today in Cairo.  This country and this city are rich in history, and as we all know, that history reaches back to the dawn of civilization.  And the key to the modern world gaining access to that history was some characters, characters in unreadable scripts, hieroglyphics to be precise.  And we lost touch with the human past, because, for centuries, there was no code, no access to those hieroglyphs that represented the ancient Egyptian language.  But the Rosetta stone cracked the code and opened up our shared human history.
 And the work the ICANN community is going to do over the coming days here in Cairo is going to play a somewhat similar role.  They're going to provide the characters and scripts and languages to help us open up the future.  And, in turn, to increase our openness, make us more innovative, and assist the progress of change.
 And that will allow the rest of the world to share in the opportunity we are all in this room so passionate about, the Internet.
 We at ICANN have just released the draft implementation plan for the fast track of IDN ccTLDs.  And I particularly am looking forward to a lot of discussion about this program.
 I'm looking forward to ideas from around the world on how we keep moving forward as a first step in creating country codes in the languages and scripts of the people from those countries.
 Just imagine what this will do.  Imagine the number of people here in Egypt who, instead of having to type dot EG, will be able to type dot Egypt in their own Arabic script.
 We've also released the Draft Applicant Guidebook for the new top-level domains.  Less than six months ago when we met in Paris, the board took that decision after years of thought by the community that the new gTLD space should be expanded.
 Now we have a hugely detailed book reflecting the thought on how we have to do that.
 And what we have to do beyond this meeting.
 And I particularly want to thank the staff for this effort in this short time.  Of course, we need to have discussions now about different parts of that program.  But I don't think anyone can question the sheer hard work and thought that has gone into this so far.  I also want to highlight the cooperation inside ICANN that this work has engendered.  We've seen special collaboration between the Governmental Advisory Committee and the country code managers in relation to internationalized country code names.
 And we have seen cooperation between the generic name supporting organization, the country code names organization, the Governmental Advisory Committee, and the at large all together working on these new projects.
 The introduction of new gTLDs is quite literally going to change the face of the Internet, not only in terms of new regional and city applications, but also new identities, new ideas, new branding opportunities for global businesses, and, of course, we've mentioned Internationalized Domain Names.  And we're hoping with that introduction to see applications for new gTLDs and characters from all the languages of the world.  Imagine the possibilities, a dot Arabic extension that could become the domain of choice for the close to 200 million Arabic mother tongue speakers.
 No more typing in a Web address with characters from the Roman alphabet.  This global program will help make the Internet more local and more a part of daily life in communities across the globe.
 And this is so important as the Internet community works to introduce the next billion people online, since many of those people come from nations and regions where the Roman alphabet is not used.
 So these two projects which I highlight from a range of many important projects underway in ICANN, will play a key role, especially in developing countries, for social and economic development.
 And I'd like to welcome today Egypt's Minister of Technology and Communication.  As I said earlier, it's, indeed, an honor to be welcomed to this great country by Dr. Tarek Kamel, a man who has done much to advance the Internet and information technology in Egypt and in the region, and a great supporter of the ICANN model.
 Your efforts show us all the incredible potential, sir, the Internet has to transform society, to tap individuals into information and opportunities, to enhance education, health, and government services.
 Egypt's ICT sector is a success story, with sustained double-digit growth reaching 25%, compared with 7% for the national economy.  And I'd like to thank you for bringing this week's meeting to Cairo.  It's fitting for us to be in such a historic place as we're making some history ourselves at ICANN.
 It's been ten years since people from across the world, people from governments, the private sector, the technical community, business, academia, and civil society, came together in the unique ICANN model.  And in that time, we have fostered increased competition that better serves internet users.  Whether that's through the registrar system for domain names or the new top-level domains that have been created.  And as I've already mentioned, we've made great progress in our efforts to create a framework for top-level domains and for making the close to 100,000 characters of the languages of the world a part of that expansion.
 It's hard to predict what the Internet will look like in another decade.  But one thing is certain:  The ICANN model will play a part.
 The model is flexible, it's global, and it's a consensus-driven piece.  It's coordinated, not controlled.
 So we think we'll play an important role over the next ten years as the foundation for the continuing evolution of the Internet.
 So, I officially welcome you to ICANN's 33rd international meeting.  And I wish you all luck as you help chart the next steps for the single global, interoperable Internet.  Now it gives me great pleasure to invite Dr. Tarek Kamel, minister of communications and information technology, to speak to us.  He has a Ph.D. in computer networks, has been secretary of the Egyptian Internet Society, and a keynote speaker at the United Nations Internet governance meetings.  We, indeed, fortunate to be hosted by such an accomplished minister.
 Dr. Kamel.
 [ Applause ]
 >>MINISTER TAREK KAMEL:   Good morning, everyone, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen.
 I am starting by welcoming you all in Egypt on behalf of the government of Egypt, the entire ICT community in Egypt, and on behalf of myself.
 Indeed, it's a pleasure, and an honor to see such a distinguished gathering coming for the second time to convene in Egypt in 2008.
 Before I start, I just want to share with you two statements, I need to be honest and genuine about.  The first one is that the last time I attended an ICANN meeting was eight years ago, when it convened here in Egypt in March 2000.
 The second issue is related to the speech.
 My folks, specifically Christina and Manal, have prepared a long speech for me.  They think ministers need to be serious, formal, and very focused.
 [ Laughter ]
 >>MINISTER TAREK KAMEL:   But I decided that I will tell the official press agency as if I have delivered this speech.  I will put it on, with your permission, on the Web site, and make sure as if I have delivered the speech, and try to talk freely and try to give some remarks about what I think.
 [ Applause ]
 >>MINISTER TAREK KAMEL:   -- about what I think about the Internet achievements, as well as our challenges.
 I have to start by thanking our dear friends, Peter Dengate Thrush, and my dear friend and colleague, Paul Twomey, the president of ICANN.  I know Paul now for more than ten to 15 years, and, indeed, he has been among others, one of our partners to develop the Internet in the emerging countries and the developed world.
 Let me try to share with you some thoughts about the history.
 We need to get back to 1992.  In 1992, I was invited, it was (saying name) from Egypt, to a course in Stanford University about Internet technology and I.P.
 I was hesitant whether to go or not.  It was summer and it would be probably more reasonable in August to spend a vacation with the family.  But I decided then to go and to take the long flight to San Francisco, and to Palo Alto, and to attend the Internet course.
 There, for the first time, I met people like Randy Bush, Scott Bradner, Vint Cerf, George Sadowski, Stefano Trumpy, and many, many others friends.
 It opened for me, as well as for my country, Egypt, a new horizon, which is the I.P. technology.  When I got back, long flight again back to Cairo, with some delays and some overheads, I told everybody about the I.P. technology and how it's going to be really the base for the future of the networking evolution.  At that time, SNA was very dominant.  DECnet was very dominant.  And the vendors' international standards were all all over the place.  Everybody that you will, what are these people talking about, I.P. what should it be helpful for.  But if we look backwards, what you, as an Internet community, and the innovation in the Internet, really has achieved, it's a miracle.  It's a miracle that for the -- for a long time, we have proven, really, to be taking the right approach for the development of ICT, as well as ICT-related policies.
 The achievements that we have done together as an Internet community are not only confined to technology and innovation.  They go, by far, beyond that, to policies and regulatory aspects.  Because, again, the challenge of the I.P. evolution was not only from a technology basis due to the competition with other stacks of networking.  The real challenge was from a regulatory point of view, as well as from a policy point of view.
 Very structured network existed before, and led by the PTTs, not only in Egypt, but all over the world.  And we were coming with new ideas that are just changing the whole model, the whole regulatory model, the whole business model, and the whole service delivery model.
 This was a challenge for a country like Egypt to absorb this change and to work with it.  And I have to say that the Internet Society and the ISOC team in Virginia as well as its chapter in Egypt, led by a number of friends who are -- I really was delighted to work with them, (saying names), and many, many other friends, really, together, this community was a team of excellent technical experts, (saying names), and many others, who were really able to do in the mid- to late '90s, an evolution and breakthrough in Egypt.  And one milestone after the other.  We started at the beginning to open free Internet access to everybody.  And this was strange, completely free, for what?  To do what?  At that time, we started with GOPHER and started with some other very premature application.  Then we had mosaic after some time, and then Netscape.  And then we started really to serve the Worldwide Web.  And here the break through has happened.  By that time, President Mubarak decided in 1996, 1997, to have his own Web site as a presidential Web site, similar to what happened in other places in the world.  And from that date onwards here in Egypt, we really enjoyed excellent political supported to achieve the break through of Internet evolution in the country.
 A couple of years later, we have realized that the Internet is evolving and we have to invest more and more, we have to come up with investments and infrastructure, and we have to deregulate the service.  So we -- and the government will not only be able to cover the cost of the infrastructure and the necessary investments and effort of infrastructure.  So we have developed together this community and many others, deregulated framework for the service provisionary in Egypt with a strong involvement from private sector.  And, again, a couple of very young entrepreneurs came in, (saying names), and many other friends, some of them are with us today, came up, really, with the first ISPs companies and small operation, providing the services in Cairo, and then outside Cairo.
 This really has made a break through in our country.  Egypt, at the end of the day, is a developing country.  We still have many challenges from a socioeconomic development.  But as Peter has said, we are enjoying double-digit growth in the Internet, as well as in the ICT sector.
 The growth has exceeded 30 to 40% annually in number of users, as well as in bandwidth.
 And we were able, after some time, really, to enforce the deregulated program and deregulated framework of the service provisionary in Egypt.
 It was after some time realized that this deregulated framework is not only suitable for the Internet, can be applied in other disciplines as well as in other services.  And then, suddenly, we have seen as well that Dr. Ahmed Nazif, the first minister of ICT adopted by that time a deregulation framework for the mobile services as well as for other types of services in the telecommunications sector.
 And we were able, really, to develop, together, a new framework for socioeconomic development using the Internet.
 The Internet is helping Egypt in education, in health services, in connectivity in schools, in eGovernment services, as well as other services, we deliver as a government for the citizens.  We have seen that the Internet was really a tool for creating jobs.
 Let me share with you a story how, really, the Internet helped us as a government in our endeavor to create jobs for our younger people.
 Outsourcing is a world that is an -- and offshoring is a world that we really got touch in after we have developed strongly the Internet infrastructure and the broadband infrastructure in Egypt.
 And it came out that Egypt has an opportunity to be, really, located on the radar of the international community of offshoring and outsourcing.  Everybody in the past was talking about India and the development of the ICT industry in India.  With Internet connectivity, with the development of the I.P. infrastructure, with a stronger collaboration with the rest of the world, we really have opened a new opportunity and a new horizon for Egyptian talents to export services across the borders using the Internet.  Call center business, online services remotely, remote development services, as well as technical support services remotely, are just some examples that you might see when you visit our technology and business park at the smart village.
 All this was only possible through the evolution of the Internet and the I.P. infrastructure, as well as the evolution of the online services.
 If you wouldn't have really invested in the development of a new generation in I.P. and in ICT, I think we wouldn't have reached adding more than 10- to 15,000 jobs to the Egyptian market in the ICT sector and really booming our exports using ICT services remotely.
 But let me share with you as well some challenges that we have together from my point of view, for the Internet future.
 The Internet has created new opportunities on a peer-to-peer level, definitely.  And the amount of talents that we see and the amount of potential that we see on a peer-to-peer basis is immense.  But we need to make sure that it is really being used in the right direction and it is being used, really, to help our socioeconomic development agenda.
 Peter has mentioned the V6 and V4 dilemma.  I'm not going to talk about its details, because probably most of you understand better than I do.  But I can only say that we have, together, a challenge to make sure that the developing world and the emerging countries are really getting its right share of address space in the future.
 Everybody, all your community, is talking about the Internet of things.  Where is this going to be taking us a couple of years from now?  Probably too scarce resources in I.P. addressing.  And we don't want that the developing world is left behind, the developing world is left behind in address space.
 So please make sure during your deliberations and discussion that the emerging countries and the developing world is really getting its right share.
 Peter has also mentioned the next billion users of the Internet.  It's an issue that is causing a challenge for all of us.  We all think about it in Egypt and the region.  What about the connectivity of the next billion users?  Probably they are in the younger generation.  And we have a lot of challenges to make the Internet and the broadband for them affordable, as well as was the right quality of service.
 This is a challenge that we have, because we wouldn't really think because we have Internet connectivity on mobile, 4 billion mobile users, that we have done our jobs.  No, indeed not.  I can tell you that we have many locations in Egypt and in other places in Africa that are not yet connected with the right broadband facilities that they need and they ought and deserve to have.  And, again, they need to have it in an affordable format as well as with the right quality of services.
 An additional challenge for us here in the region, and for many guests from other countries as well, is content in multilingual format.  I know that you are talking about multilingualism from domain name point of view.  And I am pretty sure that this community and the ICANN community will technically take care of the multilingualism and multilingual domain names in the right format.
 But I'm worried and concerned about multilingual content on the Internet.  I know it's not the job necessarily and the mission of this crowd.  But we are part of the overall evolution, and we need to put it as a priority, through the access, in order to make sure that we provide the cultural and scientific and natural heritage of many places in the world to the younger generations in their own native languages.  This will really make a difference.  This will really help development.  This will really help us to bridge many digital divides that we are facing and talking about in many conferences.
 So I just want to confirm that multilingual content is an utmost priority for us, not only as a government, but as a community and a society and for the future of the Internet.
 On the policy-making point of view, let's confirm that we all need to keep the Internet borderless.  In order to do that, we have some issues of concern that we further all need to share together.
 One issue is related to cybersecurity.  Cybersecurity is becoming, for us specifically in the developing world and the emerging countries, a big challenge.  With the investments that we are doing in infrastructure and outreach programs, and with the evolution of billion of users in mobile as well as online services, we have issues related to privacy, we have issues related to cybersecurity, we have issues related to securing our infrastructure for financial services and telecom services and other online services.
 I believe that the entire Internet community should, again, come in a bottom-up approach as we use to work together and as we use to develop, with the necessary frameworks for cybersecurity nationwide.
 We don't want it to be enforced by security agencies or whatever type of other agencies.  It needs to come bottom-up, from the Internet crowd, how, really, we can keep the right frameworks for cybersecurity.  Needs legal amendments.  It needs policy amendments.  It needs collaborative work all over the world.  But I can really tell you up-front, if we are not going to take this issue seriously as a community, it will threaten the evolution and the outreach program that we all have, because we see now more and more voices coming up, talking about cybersecurity and talking about the lack of cybersecurity frameworks worldwide.
 So we need to invest in training people in cybersecurity issues.  We need to talk about it more and more.  We need to handle the threats together.  We need to invest in the establishment of centers all over the place.  We need to help each other and transfer technology from the developed world to the developing world, similar to what has happened in the '90s.  It is not a side issue, but it is a major issue, and we will face it more and more, not only talking about Egypt, but I am talking, as well, about other neighboring countries.  It's been raised in our ministerial meetings on an Arab level as well as on an African level.  And it's not only the concern of the service providers or operators.  It's a concern of users, concern of businesses, as well as the entire community.  So if we really want to keep our Internet growing, if we want to keep our outreach program, if we want to use it for further development and applications, if we want to really invite additional investments from financial sectors as well as from other types of sectors, if we really want it to be continued to be used as a universal medium, we need to invest as an Internet crowd, an Internet community in cybersecurity, the right investment at the right time.  And we will help, we will definitely help to bridge the dialogue with other agencies, not only in the government, but other agencies all over the place.
 But I think that the initiative should really come from the technical crowd that really understands what needs to be done in order to keep the Internet safe and secure and keep it growing and take away any -- how do you say? -- barriers for its growth.
 On a policy level, I know that in September 2009, there will be the end of the existing Joint Project Agreement between the U.S. Department of Commerce and ICANN.  And I have been witnessing since the last meeting in ICANN in the year 2000 and I met Paul Twomey several times, and several other friends, how ICANN was developing itself more and more towards a stable organization, a transparent organization, an international and global organization.
 But we look forward, really, to a truly independent and global ICANN beyond 2009.
 I know that you will be discussing this partially in the next coming few days, as well as in your next meetings in 2009 before September 2009.  But I can't tell you how we, as governments as well as individuals, put an utmost priority for having a global, independent, and transparent, but stable, ICANN for its operation.  It's not easy, but I am pretty sure that this community, as it proved to be very mature and working in a fast approach, in a bottom-up approach with many people, that we will be able, together, with the Department of Commerce and the United States, with the European Union, with the ITU, with other places all over the world, to develop the right framework to continue supporting the Internet evolution and growth in a truly global and independent manner.
 In that context, Egypt will be hosting the IGF meeting international -- Internet governance meeting next year in November, around this time, in 2009.  I'm going to be traveling to India early December to attend the meeting, current meeting, of this year in 2008, and to invite the entire Internet community to come to Egypt in 2009.
 By that time, I really hope that we will have the right framework for the development of the Internet governance issues in the future.  
 I'm pretty sure that with your support and with the excellent team that is running the ICANN at the time being would be able to bridge this difficult and transitional period that we will be facing.  
 At the end, let me thank everybody, thank Peter for coming, thank my dear friend Paul Twomey, president of ICANN, for convening this time for the second time in Egypt, congratulate the whole ICANN board and the ICANN crowd for the tenth anniversary on the occasion of the 33rd meeting.  Indeed, I also would like to thank the organizing agencies at MCIT TRA, and thank our sponsors, and hope for you to have an enjoyable stay in our beloved country, Egypt, a fruitful meeting, and would love to see you at the reception Wednesday evening.
 Thank you again for your time.  Thank you for coming to Egypt.  And we look forward for your excellent deliberations.
 Thank you very much.
 [ Applause ]
 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce Dr. Paul Twomey, the president and CEO of ICANN, to say a few thanks.
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Well, Dr. Kamel, thank you so much.  As you know, in my life I have worked with many ministers.  It is both humbling and, frankly, a bit scary to work with a Minister who actually knows what's talking about.
 [ Laughter ]
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   And a Minister who is so well versed in the policy, the politics, the regulatory vision and the technology and the history of the technology community is, I think, unique, frankly.  And you have shown today yet again how much you have a grasp of this issue not just from an Egyptian context, not just from an international context, but from a regional and global context.
 We very much appreciate your leadership both in Egypt, we particularly appreciate your leadership in the African Union context, in the Arab League context, in the Middle East, as well as globally.
 We look forward to the IGF meeting here next year and to participate.
 My notes here would have me talking for the next 45 minutes about most of the things you raised, because I think they are incredibly important and they are very active for us.
 I will just make two points.
 Your position about IPv4, IPv6 address allocation for developing countries, very high on our agenda, very high on the agenda of this community.  Some complexities in that question, but without a doubt, a strong commitment to ensure that addressing is available globally for everybody, and there are no perceptions nor impediments or bottlenecks to that process.  But it's a dialogue that needs to keep taking place.  And we look forward to you helping us, frankly, ensuring we can have that dialogue and help present and get people to understand how the processes work. 
 As you well understand, there's much in some of this arena we are talking about, different cultures, not just national cultures, but, frankly, professional cultures, getting to understand each other's particular to different problems.
 The second one I would like to mention also is the importance of cybersecurity.
 No one organization or group is ever going to coordinate or fix cybersecurity.  And we look to our friends from the ITU, from other organizations, Interpol, all sorts of organizations who are playing a key role in the cybersecurity arena.
 But I can tell you this community takes its responsibility for the stability and the resiliency of the DNS and IP addressing very, very seriously.  And one of the things that has merged in the last 12 months amongst this community is sharing much more information and planning from the experiences in the root server community, the generic top-level domains and amongst the country code operators about just how to ensure stability and resiliency.
 And you are probably very well aware, we just ran a two-day session with CC operators from about 50 or so here in Cairo, working with people from ICANN, looking at issues of emergency planning and how to plan and prepare for potential activities, drawing from experiences from the generic top-level domains.
 So I want to reinforce, we see many other players being very important in the cybersecurity agenda process, but this community is moving up to the plate and is taking this issue very seriously.
 Can I just say yet again, thank you for your hospitality.  Thank you for the hospitality of the Egyptian government and for our sponsors.
 It is an indication of your leadership and of that hospitality that this is the only city in which ICANN has met twice, with the exception of some founding meetings in Los Angeles.  And I think yet again, the whole coordination of this week has shown why we have such confidence in our friends in Egypt.
 So thank you very much, and on behalf of our community, I have a small gift.
 [ Applause ].
 >>PAUL TWOMEY:   Again, as an expression of my fear, the Minister has agreed -- has shown interest, even -- to stay for the president's report which we go into now.
 So I am going to have to perform at a higher level even than I usually do, which is pretty mediocre.