*** Disclosure: The following is the output resulting from transcribing an audio file into a word/text document. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages and grammatical corrections. It is posted as an aid to the original audio file, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.*** ICANN Summit on Developing Countries Thursday, 27 October 2011 ICANN Meeting - Dakar >>KATIM TOURAY: Good afternoon, everyone. We are just about 30 minutes late, as a matter of fact. But welcome to the ICANN meeting to discuss the way forward on the relationship between ICANN and the developing countries. My name is Katim Touray from the Gambia, just next-door here. You could take a taxi from here to the Gambia. And I'm also an outgoing member of the Board of Directors of ICANN. And without much further ado, I will start off by having my panelists introduce themselves. We will begin from the right with Carlton Samuels. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Katim. My name is Carlton Samuels. I am a member from ALAC, from Latin American-Caribbean region. I am a citizen and live in Jamaica. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: I am Vanda Scartezini. I am the 2012 NomCom chair, and this is also an opportunity to have all the developing countries paying attention and apply for NomCom for the next year. Thank you. >>ANDREW MACK: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Andrew Mack. I am with AMGlobal Consulting in Washington, D.C. We specialize in work in Africa, Latin America and other parts of the developing world. I am also one of the core members of the JAS working group and one of the core members of this subcommittee that has been working on our target document. >>RAY PLZAK: Thank you. I am Ray Plzak. I am a member of the ICANN board; however, I'm more here so in my personal capacity. I am from the United States. And I see the problem maybe from a slightly different perspective. I mean, certainly developing countries have to be, as those in Africa, have been to assimilated to ICANN; however, I think it's probably more important that ICANN get assimilated into places like Africa. >>KATIM TOURAY: Okay. Thank you very much, everyone. It's a great pleasure to have these panelists here, because as you can see from brief introductions they had, each of them come to the issue from different perspectives. I'm really looking forward to the discussion here today. Basically, as we thought about doing this meeting, we thought that it will be a good idea to shift from the original intention of actually discussing the concept paper we originally had discussed in Singapore. The concept paper was to organize an ICANN conference or summit on developing countries. You will recall that after the Singapore meeting, that at the Singapore meeting, the decision was made that we will set up a small drafting committee to work on the concept paper. Unfortunately, we didn't make the progress we had intended to for various reasons. I won't get into those details. Suffice it to say we really just stopped at the zero draft. And the question then became what do we do to move things forward. So the conclusion was rather than just really focusing on the single topic of discussing what to do to organize the ICANN Summit on Developing Countries, we should maybe broaden the discussion a little bit to really have a brainstorming session, as it were, on the relationship within ICANN and developing countries. Not only is the matter of the summit up for discussion, but of course we also know that a good part of the discussions that we have had in this meeting has been the issue of support to needy applicants from developing countries in the new gTLD program that ICANN is going to embark on. That's a very important topic that people have been discussing leading up to this meeting, and even in this meeting. We certainly do not want to open this as a discussion on the JAS working group because that's already been discussed in various fora, but that's the important issue that we should ask people from developing countries, and people interested in strengthening relationships between ICANN and the developing countries should be interested in. So that's one issue. Of course there are other aspects of ICANN's relationships with developing countries. Let's say like the fellowship program, meetings and where we organize them; some of the challenges that we have, travel challenges, the issues of connectivity. All of those things impact our relationships with ICANN and our abilities to participate effectively in the affairs of the organization. So I thought we will start with the introduction, which we have already done, and then the next item on the agenda would be the recap on the Singapore proposal. You will recall that in the discussion we had, the conclusions, the substantive conclusion we arrived at was rather than rush head long into organizing the meeting, what we should do is actually draft that concept paper, that concept note, and then really do our legwork in the community, get the buy-in in the community before we start moving things forward. I want us to basically do a brief recap on that, and based on what I have just said, we have really gone beyond the concept note inside into the discussion on the zero draft. I would like to sound out again opinion of people on what we should do to basically move the idea of having that ICANN summit or that ICANN special meeting on developing countries. The gist of the proposal is we will want to have not really a big thing but set aside a part of a day in the ICANN meetings so that every -- there is no other meeting except that particular ICANN meeting on developing countries. The idea being that if we do not do that, no matter how important the topic is, people are going to be distracted into other activities and other meetings that will be scheduled at the same time as that meeting. So to avoid that, we said it will be better to have an all hands on deck meeting where the whole community comes to go and really starts looking into the issue from all aspects or all perspectives. Having said that, I would like to open the floor first to the panelists. And if any of you members of the panel have a comment. And then after that, we will have maybe one or two comments or three comments from the floor. Vanda, please. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Okay. Thank you, Katim, for this initiative. I do believe that we just finished an IGF meeting, so we have a very good idea about how the participation of developing countries become more and more important in the global situation of Internet. So to participate in ICANN and fully have a hand inside the policy development, all the groups and the new business opportunity, too, it's quite important for our countries. Wherever we are, from other parts of the world, the problems we face are almost the same. So to address those problems in a more collective way is certainly will give opportunity for the ICANN, as an organization, to give back some good answers and make it happen. Just for remember, we start -- I totally agree with Katim. We need a time for that. Because we start, for instance, this DNS women group around the world, in each meeting in ICANN two and a half years now. And what do we get? We found a slot of time that's one breakfast, and we are having in Singapore almost 90, and here almost 50, women's, especially from the local regions. And we could spread the word, and also have a lot of those women, for instance, applying this year for the NomCom and start to participate. So it's the same thing, we kneeled the common addressing space for the developing country. Because the language, the language we use, we understand each other about our problems. And we can have a consensus very easily about what is needed and then how we can do any discussion to solve it. Thank you, Katim. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you, Vanda. Andy, did you have a hand up? >>ANDREW MACK: I would be happy to jump in right now. As you may be able to tell by looking at me, from I'm not from Senegal. [ Laughter ] >>ANDREW MACK: And most of the of the people -- as you may notice, most of the people in the room, or many of the people in the room look like they might be from Senegal. One of the key things that we have talked about in the preparation of the first stages of this concept note and in these discussions more broadly is the fact that whatever we do cannot be seen as a separate entity. It cannot be seen as outside of ICANN. In fact, a big part of our agenda is to sensitize the ICANN community that this is, in fact, the future of the Internet. That people of all different backgrounds, of all different countries, especially people from the emerge being markets world, make up the future and the growth of the Internet. Differences in language, differences in script. And we need very much to focus on what can we do to get those voices out there on the one hand, and on the other hand, how can we connect this to other people -- frankly, other people who look like me -- who aren't in this room. So I very much appreciate with the kind of effort that Vanda has put forward. You want to bring together a group but we also want to make very, very much to make sure that we are reaching out to the people who are not in this room. There are many allies from outside the emerging markets world. There are many people like myself who feel strongly that this initiative is the right thing at the right time. And let's think less in terms of the challenges and more in terms of the opportunities, because I think we can get a much larger number of people involved. Thanks. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thanks, Andy. Ray. >>RAY PLZAK: Thank you, Katim. And I don't think I look like you, but.... [ Laughter ] >>RAY PLZAK: We'll not go down that track. Okay. In my opening remark, I mentioned a word assimilation, and I mentioned it going both ways. The easy statements on assimilation are made in Africa being assimilated, for example, into ICANN because it's very easy for the CEO to get up and say go home and talk to your local governments and get them to participate in the GAC, or find someone to run for the ICANN board or to be on a particular council. I mean, those are easy things to say. In reality, some of those things are very, very hard to do and the people that are receiving the message may not even have the capacity to do that. And so that's one thing we have to be careful about when we start talking in that direction. Going in the other direction, it's actually much, much harder, because here it becomes a matter of how does ICANN get assimilated into Africa? How does ICANN become part of the African conscience? And I am going to continue to make reference to Africa because that's where we are. And I could say similar things about other portions of the world, so please forgive me for being Afro-centric here. One of the things I am advocating for a long time, primarily because it's based on my experience helping to establish the development of AfriNIC, is the fact that when people can access Internet support services locally or regionally, they are more likely to do that. Let me give you an example. So I don't have charts. I am going to use my hands to illustrate it. So I would please like you to look at me when I talk this one through. In the case of both LACNIC and AfriNIC, before they were established as Regional Internet Registries, if you were to look at the curve of the rate of allocation of IP addresses, and then it was primarily -- in fact, exclusively IPv4, you would see a relatively flat line. A little bit up, but relatively flat. And at that time, Latin America was getting all of its address space from ARIN. And depending upon where you were in Africa, you might be getting it from the RIPE NCC or you might be getting it from ARIN. And the possibility even existed that you might even be getting something from APNIC. So the African problem, obviously, was compounded. Now, if you look at that curve after the recognition of the regional registries, LACNIC occurring in 2002 and AfriNIC occurring in 2005, what you would see is not this flat curve anymore, but a turn up. Some would almost say it's an exponential curve because it advances so fast. And part of the reason that that's -- in fact, one of the reasons I attribute to that is the fact that now people were able to a) talk within maybe one or two time zones of themselves instead of talking eight, ten, 12 time zones away or whatever it was. You know, it's very bad when it takes two days just to say hello much less try and apply for IP addresses. And the second thing is that they were more likely to be talking to someone in their own first language or more culturally attuned to them. And if you look at the difference in -- and let's just look at AfriNIC. What AfriNIC has been able to do on a very, very small budget. The operating budget of AfriNIC is probably about 1.7, $1.8 million per year. That's their total operating budget. And with that total operating budget, they do a number of things. They have to pay their staffs. AfriNIC has to pay for operation of its servers and computers and databases. AfriNIC has to take care of all those things that you would think of that a business like that would have to do. It's a not-for-profit organization and in the end people could call it a business. But on top of that, AfriNIC is able to conduct training throughout the region, participate in local forums and do a number of things. And the effectiveness they have in participating in these local forums and so forth really comes from the fact that they are providing service to the region. And people in Africa think of AfriNIC when they think of IP addresses. They don't think of any of the other registries other than the fact that there may be something globally going on or whatever. So I think it's very, very important to remember that. Let me give you an example of the last thing I was talking about. Back in the days of WSIS, back in the days of WSIS in Tunis this was prepcom. In the prepcom that was held in the spring of that year, prior to the recognition of Africa, the persons from Africa that were there speaking to various things regarding the World Summit on the Information Society spoke as being from individual countries. AfriNIC was recognized about a month after that meeting. The second prepcom was held maybe three or four months later. At that prepcom, the persons from Africa did not speak about their individual countries. They spoke of themselves as being from Africa. They became Africans. And it was a much more unified voice. And we can have that same effect by getting ICANN to do the right things in Africa. My good friend Adiel Akplogan and Mouhamet Diop both basically say that, yes, we need money, but we're not coming here begging you for money. We need support. We need for you to help us do things. We know how to do things. We're smart. We know how to do it but we need some assistance. So I think that we really need to think in that direction. So if -- As we go forward, I would hope that we would think about things in that manner as opposed to thinking about grand budgets to do stuff. Let's define what it is that's needed. And then we take a budget process and make it work and then use our voices to make sure it becomes a priority for ICANN. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. I think that was a very good intervention, being laced with a historical perspective. That really is very useful for quite a number of us here. I now yield to Mr. Samuels, Carlton. >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Thank you, Katim. Carlton Samuels, for the record. I want to take up from that very sensible intervention from Ray, because I think Ray has experience and understands that it's not all desert from the developing countries. We do have some skills, and we do have something to offer. He sensibly recognized that in order to accelerate the assimilation, it is ICANN that needs to do some things to assimilate the rest of us from developing country. And I want to zero in, to focus on us having priorities. They are priorities in developing world that we would wish for ICANN to embrace. And so Ray's suggestion that ICANN should be looking to see how it should assimilate itself in the developing world, I would recommend that we look at the priorities that we have. And there are some that are easy wins as would mention, Mouhamet Diop from Africa mentioned. We have ideas. We do have some priorities, and what we need is some help to put them on the road. I fully endorse to looking north-south instead of always thinking it's south to north. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you, Carlton. I think we have had quit a variety of perspectives on this issue but let's recall that the whole idea is to follow up on the idea of having an ICANN Summit on Developing Countries. So I would like some further feedback and perspectives from the group, and then after that, we will just conclude that section, and end the last section of this meeting by discussing what we can do to move things forward. And I believe I had a lady -- I had your hand up. Is there anybody else who wants to speak after her? Anybody else? You go up and go ahead. Maybe somebody will make up their mind as you speak, to intervene. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, can we have a mic for her, please. Where are the mics? Sorry about that delay. Anybody wants to go after her in the meantime? Okay. Yeah, I see a hand in the back there. Mouhamet wants to speak. Is there a mic coming? >> Hi. >>KATIM TOURAY: And if you want to start please by introducing yourself for the purpose of the scribes. >>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Yes. I am Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro, I have to say that slowly, for the record, and I represent the Pacific. We are 22 countries and territories, 14 of which are independent nation states, and we warmly welcome this initiative by the panel in terms of looking into development. Just very quickly, like the rest of the other regions, we have issues in terms access, there are still issues in terms of high retail Internet prices, a lack of proper regulatory mechanisms. And if I could just allude to the WGIG 2005 document, the Working Group on Internet Governance, where they sort of emphasize meaningful participation, and if I could urge the panel to take this up in terms of how do we make that a tangible reality within the ICANN processes and also in terms of the allocation and coordination and prioritization of resources. I also acknowledge that there are people within the ICANN group that are also associated with the NOGs, the Network Operator Groups, and have been doing impressive work along with the RIRs in terms of IPv4 transition, retrainings and processes, but I would also like to see some sort of internal sort of assessment on how to better channel cooperation, how to better channel and allocation and coordinate those resources into empowering the Pacific Island countries, also countries in Asia. I think Asia-Pacific together make 51% of United Nations General Assembly, anyway. And also in terms of increasing -- increasing capacity building so that they can actually properly contribute to a technical policy processes within the IDN, for example. I understand one of the issues that was raised during one of the IDN sessions was in terms of the comparison, system later of the Hindi script, also noting that Nepal and Bhutan, some of them who are not here and not even in our RALO, but we are working to coordinate outreach. So for us to be able to do that within the APRALO, for example, we need some commitment in terms of the outreach components. And there rests my submissions. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. Mouhamet in the back. Could we have somebody pass the mic to him in the back. Mouhamet. He is way in the back there. >>MOUHAMET DIOP: Thank you. My name is Mouhamet and I am from Senegal. I think what Ray was explaining bring me back to more than ten years of history of what we were trying to set up as a heard voice from African country. When I am talking African countries, not only African, but I am talking on a perspective of on developing countries as a whole because we all get the same perspective when we talk about ICANN. I think to be clear, I want to make clear my intervention, I want to describe ICANN as a two-party organization. One party can be seen as a very technical party with the numbers, the names, and also, let's say, some part of the policy process. And you get another part of ICANN that have to be seen as the global partnership and implication and awareness process, as a development process. And this development process is the broader range of the work that, really, when we talk about the ICANN Summit on Developing Country, we really address the second part of that organization, where people are always asking the same question: How can this organization take care of our vision, of our views, of our concern? Are they able to listen to us? Do we have appropriate ways to talk to them? And on the other side, ICANN also see this part of the continent, this part of the world, as true partners that if they don't get them on board, the organization will be really weak. And this is really my message because ICANN need developing countries in order to be more legitimate, stronger, and more concerned regarding the registrant issue because this organization is supposed to serve the global community. And I think that the discussion on do we need, really, an ICANN Summit on Developing Countries? The answer is yes. What is the most appropriate ways to set up this discussion? I think that the first step will be to share with a broader range of expert this draft document that you guys have been setting up and trying to write to down. Because we all are concerned to put views, to add things. We try to go on the Web site to get some information regarding the draft document, but we cannot see it. And I think that the first step is really to share with the community the draft document so people can elaborate and put more input. And at the end of the day, we will have really a guideline on how to move from the desire to get that ICANN summit to the implementation of the concept. And if we get that fast done, I think we will have a very interesting way to discuss all the concern that the developing countries have and all the concerns that ICANN has an organization to better address the issue that they have. That's my point. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Mouhamet. Any other person wants to make an intervention? Olga. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you very much. This is Olga Cavalli from Argentina. I would like to make a comment in relation to the structure of ICANN and the relevance of the participation of developing countries. ICANN itself, it's not the same, supporting organizations are different. I was a NomCom appointee for four years in the GNSO, and it's totally different from the GAC, from the ALAC. I think that there are some supporting organizations of ICANN where developing countries are more in the process and some others that don't. One of the things that I work with, I chaired a working group that we developed an outreach program for the GNSO. Work being in the GNSO, it's extremely challenging for someone that doesn't speak English as a native language. By the way, after four years, my English is fantastic now. Much better than four years before. But my mother tongue is Spanish. Also, for example, in the gTLD process, new gTLDs, many of the things, the participation and the awareness of these important issues in developing countries and especially in Latin America, it's not that much. So I think if the summit goes on, that I really hope that, and I strongly support that. I would stress that some of the supporting organizations should be more focused to have a more involvement of developing economies. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Olga. (Saying name) >> I will be speaking in French. >>KATIM TOURAY: We have translators, interpreters here. Go ahead and speak whatever you are comfortable with. >> (Saying name). I am from Morocco. I represent AFRALO here. I just wanted to add one information. A comment we have at AFRALO at a meeting in Singapore. We had an African AFRALO meeting where all the African community was present during this meeting. We had from the beginning supported the idea of the workshop of this summit. We made a statement that we submitted to the board of ICANN to ask them support. And I'm asking now, Katim and someone else on the panel, do we have an answer? Especially, is it feasible, that summit? If there is no money, there will be no summit. >>KATIM TOURAY: Does anybody have any other comment before we start responding to some of the suggestions that have been raised? Titi, go ahead, please. I have Titi on the floor. Just to mention she is helping with coordinating the remote participation. Titi, go ahead, and introduce yourself again, please. >>TITI AKINSANMI: Yes. Titi Akinsanmi, for the record. Just a quick question here. I hope it's of relevance. It's from Imran, and he says -- the first one. There are two parts to the question. His question refers to the African budget that was referred to. He says what is the annual income generated by ccTLD and if they get into the new gTLD program will they be able to pay the annual fees of $25,000? I think his reference is more to whether or not, once the developing countries, will they be able to support the ability to pay the $25,000 annual growth fee? I think it's very specific, but I have to ask it. Second question from the same gentleman, Imran says there are 130 plus developing countries and 50-plus least developed countries. How can ICANN manage to support for funding to accommodate all of them; that currently the support proposal mentions an estimate of 25 out of 500 applicants will be able to access the support that's been offered. Finally he says he strongly recommends and requests the ICANN working groups, board and panel to simply allow the waiver of all expenses. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. Okay. And, Dave, you have a comment. Go ahead. >>DAVE KISSOONDOYAL: Thank you, Chair. I am Dave Kissoondoyal from Mauritius. Since we have two members of the board on the panel, what is the board's position on the holding of the summit? Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Okay, thanks, Dave. Any other comments? Okay. Go ahead. Yeah. >>SALA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: My sincere apologies. Because I know everything is transcribed, just a quick correction. I said 51%. It should have been 51 votes in the U.N. A.G. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you. Can you kindly pass on the votes? Thanks. And again introduce yourself, sir. >>ISAAC: Thank you. I am Isaac from the Republic of Liberia. We have been here for the past few days, and the only comment we have to make from Liberia is that we are highly impressed with the ICANN sessions that we have been attending for the past few days. My country, Liberia, is first time being represented. And with the insight and the information we have obtained while we are here, we want to assure you that when we get back to Liberia, awareness, attention to outcome will be vigorously carried out and we hope the next session for ICANN, public session for ICANN, Liberia again will be represented. Thank you so much, and we appreciate your activities. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Isaac. You're welcome. I think maybe what we can do is respond very briefly to some of the issues you have raised in the comments we have had and move on for the next 30 minutes we have remaining to 2:00 to the business of trying to brainstorm on what we should do for the way forward. I will take the opportunity to just comment briefly on some of the questions. There's one that was made by Mouhamet that he had problems locating the draft document. That is true, because the document actually was only shared with the drafting committee that was selected, that volunteered in Singapore. And we thought that we -- the idea was that the -- that committee, the editorial committee, will work on the zero draft and then get it to a level that we could take it to, and then share it with the rest of the community. Now, what happened was the draft document actually -- and this leads into the second question that's been raised, what has been the level of the board support for work on this idea. Frankly, it's been a push-back, basically, from the board. It's not been possible -- I'll give an example. It's not been possible, I was unsuccessful in getting ICANN to actually host a mailing list to facilitate discussions around the concept note. So that's an issue, but I think the reason may be for that, in my mind, because we really didn't do a very good job of understanding where we're coming from, and I take full responsibility for that. And that's the precise reason why the idea strongly is felt that maybe we should use this as an opportunity to regroup and really realize the fact that we operate in a multistakeholder process, and we need to really redouble our efforts to push for other people to understand where we're coming from. And do that in a very constructive and engaging manner. So Mouhamet, you are right. And hopefully, from now on out we will be able to have a much better communication with the rest of all of you and not just with the editorial committee. But that's precisely the reason why. Regarding the -- I think also that point alludes to the level of support we have had from the board. So we still need to work on that, and I'm hoping that by the time we're done here, we at least will have a much clearer strategy about what we can do to -- what you call it again? To get the full support that we will need from the board and, indeed, the community. On that note, I will leave it to the rest of the panelists, if any of them have interventions regarding the questions about or that pertain to the interaction of the new gTLD program, and leave it to Mr. Mack who has been participating in the JAS Working Group but have that segue into the next discussion which is the way forward. So Vanda, you want to say something? Go ahead, please. >>VANDA SCARTEZINI: Just to remember that we need to proceed on that. The first time we talk about having for ALAC regional meetings and get all the ALRs from around the world together was not well receptive. But we pursued in the end in Mexico we have those meetings, and in the meeting came out with a really good policy proposals that encouraged even the -- in the budget issues to have more organizations like that. The problem is, we need to start with an idea. So it's important to continue to offer what are you going to get from that? What is the results we expected for that? For the people that is in charge of making decisions about how to spend the money we have is able to decide, this is priority or not. So that's our responsibility, to give that good answers. And so that's the way we should work from, you know, from here to get this good answers because we know that we need this. But we need to convince the others why we need this and what the results we're going to get from that. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you, Vanda. Carlton, do you have something to say? >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Yes, thank you, Katim. I want to say two things. First of all, it is in our interest always to let the others in our community know what our views and our needs are from developing world and part of it is participating in the community constituencies and groups. Olga raised the issue in her intervention about how daunting it is to get started. But I can assure you that you have to bring more voices into the system. You have to be in the room to make an impression on the community. I serve as co-chair of the -- what we call the JAS working group with lots of others. Andrew Mack was a leading voice in that from the business community area. And you can see there were lots of voices involved in that working group and we provided some output. As Vanda says you have to tell the others what it is that you expect and what it is you will do with what you get. It's very important to do that. And the JAS working group is one example of that. So I encourage you to find your space and become involved in the conversations. Because to the extent that you can tell others what you want to do and how you will do it, it helps in getting others on board with you. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you, Calvin. Andy, you wanted to just segue into this and after that Ray and after that we will get to the next section which is the way forward. Andy. >>ANDREW MACK: Thank you very much. A couple of pieces. And Olga, this is partly for you before you take off. There is a tremendous amount of power in this room. And yet I oftentimes don't feel that people in this room see themselves as being powerful, and I'll give you a couple of examples of what I'm talking about and then I'm going to talk a tiny bit about the JAS group. There are language services provided. Many people don't use them. If you want to have more of a conversation that is a bilingual, a trilingual one where you have a greater opportunity to participate, use the translation. There are a tremendous amount of Africans that come to -- and Latin Americans and others. Very few of them go to the open mic. If we wish to have a much more balanced and much more dynamic conversation around the issues that are of importance to the developing world, we have to stand up and talk about those issues. To something that Mouhamet said earlier, he talked about the fact that there were two parts of the ICANN community, a more technical part and if you will a more community part. I would also add to that there may be a third piece which is the business part. There is tremendous economic dynamism in the developing world right now. Europe and the United States are in free fall economically. Let's be honest about it, right? If I'm investing and I want to get good terms I'm interested in the telecom sector and the internet sector in places like Senegal. So one of the things we have to do is change the way the ICANN community views the developing world. This is not about -- to some extent it's not about budget. It's about them having the opportunity to get a chance to play with you, right? I think we really want to turn that on its head. So part of that is just -- my son is two years old and if any of you have small children, you may know, he's deeply into trains. Right? Does this have any resonance for anyone? Deeply into trains. And one of the things that strikes me is that there is a way of presenting this to say effectively to the community, this is a train that is moving. We're not looking for your approval to some extent. We're going to go do this. This group is organizing, in the same way very much that the women, the DNS got going. You know, you started moving and you challenged the community to catch up and to understand what you're working on. Now, let me talk specifically as that regards -- as that connects into the whole JAS process. As Carlton said -- and there are many JAS members in this room. I don't know if everybody -- a lot of people have taken off, but there are a number of them here. This is an initiative that has been worked on for more than 18 months, literally dozens and dozens and dozens of conference calls with people all around the world. People getting up in the middle of the night and the early in morning and participating. These are specific recommendations that are, we hope, very much to the benefit of communities in the developing world. So what do we need? We need people from the developing world to get up and say and to post on blogs and to mention to their -- to their administrators, hey, this is important for us. You know? Don't ignore this. May not get everything that we ask for, but don't ignore this. This is important. And in terms of the new gTLD process, when I was listening at the GAC the other day, I was aghast when they said so, the -- the representative from Uganda said so, what about outreach on the new gTLD program in Africa. And there was really very little. If this -- if these are communities that need more, not less, information to come out to them, why aren't we providing that. So again, there's a saying -- a saying I know called the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? If we become a bit more of a squeaky wheel, if we ask for what the community needs, we are much more likely to get it. And I actually think that we have the resources, we have plenty of smart people. We just need to get organized. JAS is a perfect first thing for this kind of community to say yes, we think that there are good recommendations in here, we want this to move forward. Thanks. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you, Andy. Ray. >>RAY PLZAK: Thank you, Katim. Three things. One thing I was going to address but Olga has left the room but I'll probably get back to it anyway. I think one of the most important things Andrew just said is about the power in this room and speaking up. And it's all too often that people are silent and I realize some of that may be cultural. You do need to change your cultural outlook a little bit when you participate this these forums. However, at the same time as Andrew said, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, just make sure you squeak in the right way so you don't get replaced. [ Laughter ] Okay? You need the grease. You don't need a replacement. And that goes back to what Vanda was saying in terms of the message. What is the message you're saying? When you're -- this summit was brought up last time, the pushback from the Board really was, what is it that you want? You know? The Board is not going to say okay, fine, go have a summit. What's the outcomes you're looking for? I think that was sort of the message that Vanda was saying. And the only people that can figure that out are in this room. And your friends and neighbors and associates and colleagues. You know, I can sit here and have ideas about what I think is best and that may or may not be the best thing. And probably is not going to be the best thing. But by being able to voice it and you being able to voice it, and we work together, we talk through this, say okay, this is what we can do, a way we can work together to do things. Because in the end, remember, we have to work together. We have to walk side by side. We can't have one person out in the front. We can't have one person in the back. It's got to be side by side to work together. So I strongly suggest that figure out what it is you want to have, figure out a -- a timetable of sorts or a list of goals and objectives, not necessarily I want this by the 15th of July or whatever, but look at the things that can be done in an order to accomplish them to get to the final goal. And just remember, because you get turned back by -- excuse me, at one interim step doesn't mean that you're defeated. It just means that you have to come back a little bit more stronger, be a little bit more deliberate. Because progress is only made by moving forward. I want to talk a little bit about the policy process that Olga was mentioning. And the fact that it's very difficult to, for example, be from Africa or from Fiji or from Peru or Chile and participate at a policy process dominated by people from United States and Europe. Because their initial push is going to be what's best for the United States and Europe, for the businesses that Andrew was referring to. And for -- and for other pieces of their outlook. The fact that it's made more difficult by the discussions not being taking place in appropriate languages. You have the voice. Andrew said, you know, if you don't have the translation service available, get it available. You need to work your way through that. There are smart ways to do the things on the Internet. Okay, that's what we're trying to promote. So let's look at the best way to use it. You know, we have to think of ourselves in that direction. And lastly, with regard to the policy process, I will put on my ex- regional registry hat. In the regional registries each of the regions conducts their policy sessions in languages that are appropriate to them. They obviously communicate on a global level in English because that is the global language that's being used on the Internet. But -- and I don't know if you're aware of this but there are very, very few, quote-unquote, global policies that pertain to IP addressing. There are literally hundreds that pertain to regional matters. But when it comes to a global policy, all five regions must agree upon the identical text before it gets forwarded to the ICANN Board to be ratified. Not approved, ratified. And if one registry says no, it doesn't go anywhere. That is the power that each region has in the global policy process. So I just give these -- these thoughts to you as food for thought and maybe that will help shape some of the discussions as we go forward. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Ray. I think you just basically lead us very nicely into our next part of the discussion which is the way forward. Basically based on what I've heard, it's clear to me that I think -- and this is just my own take on the discussion so far and I'll open it shortly for you to comment on it, but my take on this whole discussion has been that we probably need to do three things. One is we need to start engaging with each other. But my take on this whole discussion has been that we probably need to do three things. One is we need to start engaging with each other. We need to start internally to really come together and then continue internal debate about what exactly it is that we want. Secondly, in that process, we would be able to then define what exactly it is that we need and then based on those needs what are we going to do if given resources and what we do then is going to impact the organization, ICANN, and what are going to be the outcomes of those activities that we intend to do. And then we also need to engage the community to get them on board. That is not enough that we are preaching to the choir, that we also have to get the rest of the broader communities to buy into what it is that we need to do and then have to be able to move forward with them. That, in essence, is my take on the discussions we've had so far. We've got about 15 minutes left. And I would be happy to hear from you until we come to the conclusion of this meeting at 2:00. And hopefully we will be able to continue the dialogue offline and online as we move forward. I already see a hand up. Mouhamet, go ahead? >>MOUHAMET DIOP: Thank you, chairman. Well, I think that -- I just want to reconcile some numbers because we need to avoid to present some of the aspect of the discussions we already have as a vacuum. I think that ICANN has three meetings per year. And we got also an IGF meeting with almost every two a year, a regional one at the regional level and at national levels. What I'm saying is there are rooms where people are discussing a lot of issues. But, what we have noticed is regarding the scope of ICANN, we all have noticed that there is room for improvement on the way that ICANN deals with the concern of developing countries. It means -- I recall the scope of this summit because it is something very important. The format of the summit has to be defined. It is up to us, if you don't have the money, if you don't have the budget, to look at very smart ways to set up the discussion, even if you know that we don't have much budget available in order to do conventional format of doing such a summit. I think we have three questions to answer within the draft paper, and I come back on that draft paper because it is the only document we will share that is going to be put on the table as the terms of reference of what you want to do. First is the goal, second the format, and third the scope, I mean, what we want to put inside and nothing else. We have to do the same exercise that ICANN is dealing with when it comes to dealing with issues around the policy development staff or the domain name issues. When people talk about content, they say, "Hey, guys, sorry." We know -- we are interested in understanding what's going on. But if you talk about jurisdiction, if you talk about content responsibility, that's not our responsibility. So we can listen. We can talk. But it's not in the scope of our responsibility. So the format of this summit we want, we really need to have a plan A and plan B in case that the board that is very responsible and individual, they can decide not to move forward the project, is that something the developing countries themselves can build up and come on the table and bring it as a guideline for a better discussion? I mean, what you're doing is the exercise of volunteers who believe in it, who believe that there's room for it. I know that Ray is coming not as somebody that ICANN board of directors asked to come and join that effort. No, it is because he is convinced that there is room to improve this organization by getting a better discussion between ICANN and developing countries and by raising more concern in a more suitable way than the one we already have. I think if we did not deal with this issue, we will come up with another summit that will not really address the issue that is in the scope of ICANN and nothing more. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. You raise a very important point. I forgot to mention, to comment briefly, on the point that was made by one of the contributors about the issue of access problems, the challenges of infrastructure and things like that. Just to remind us as Mouhamet rightly said, that we must be very mindful of the very technically oriented mandate that ICANN as an organization has as defined by its bylaws. Not that there is no concern about those issues, but that it cannot directly address it at least in the context of the mandate that it has. What we can do as people from developing countries who are affected by these issues is to convince the organization and the community to basically leverage its relationships with other organizations that are working directly on these issues and moving forward with that. Mouhamet, briefly, regarding your suggestion about what we can do for a very nimble, for lack of a better word, summit, that's precisely the reason why I remember the first draft that we had of this, talks about having a conference, a summit in which the presenters, basically, would be drawn from the community who will prepare background papers, will form the basis of the discussion of the summit. So there are avenues which we can go about it. Thanks very much again, Mouhamet, for that very useful intervention. Madame? The mic, please. There you go. >> SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Sorry. Yes. First of all, noting that clearly access and retail Internet prices are something that jurisdictions have to solve on their own, not in any way did I mean for ICANN to actually be involved in those discussions. Having said that, however, I should say that this has an impact on the quality of meaningful participation. Let me give you a quick example. If someone from Vanuatu -- By the way, Vanuatu has the world's highest retail Internet prices -- cannot access the Internet to access policies to be able to effectively participate. That's another discussion. Quite aside from that, having the technical capacity and understanding and being able to meaningfully participate and contribute to the discussions and having that, I will say this, that regionally in the Pacific, we've been using Skype to have regional capacity-building working with business communities like Internet and New Zealand and New Zealand Domain Name Commissioner who has been running trainings on ccTLDs, are getting countries like Tuvalu, which has dot TV, they have revenue sharing agreements like VeriSign. Having them understand issues such as that. Basically, what I was trying to allude to is exploring synergistic partnerships. And, also, when I raised in the At-Large meetings in relation to budgets for the IDNs, like brochures, at least things like brochures, to be able to take that back into Asia, Nepal, Bhutan, for them to be able to qualitatively contribute. For example, consultations stop in November this year. How can they contribute if we do not have synergistic mechanisms? Yes, we take responsibility for development in our region. Yes, we know the issues in our region. We are saying we want to step up, and we welcome the move that the panel is making into exploring the synergistic relationships. But what has to happen is we need to properly map as well what needs to happen. And also happy to volunteer and sign up. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. Any other -- do we have a hand up there? Dave, did you want to speak? You have the mike there? Wait for the mic for the benefit of the scribes. >>DAVE KISSOONDOYAL: Dave Kissoondoyal. I was just following chat on the Adobe. There are remote participants who want to ask questions. We have Siva from India. >>KATIM TOURAY: Can we route the remote participants to come in by audio? Can we do that? No, that's not possible. Maybe he just needs to type it, and then Titi will read it out for us. >>DAVE KISSOONDOYAL: I will inform him. >>KATIM TOURAY: Any other comments? Yes, Madame? >> Thank you, Chair. As (saying name) has just said, if a developing country wants to have an influence, we need to participate and sometime we have to change our culture. So I'm now changing the Chinese culture to open up my mouth. You can see Chinese people are normally quiet at public meetings. That's because we are very nice, shy, and modest people. [ Laughter ] Right? Okay, back to the topic. I guess there is a brilliant idea. We should really go ahead. And ICANN is now doing the strategic plan for the next five years, so I wonder whether the summit things could be put into the track of strategic planning, so it will become more sustainable. It could go on in the system. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: That's a great idea. Yeah, I hear somebody, my countryman, Salieu? Not Sally. Salieu. >> SALIEU: Thank you, Katim. I'm Salieu from Gambia. I would like to -- I agree with Mouhamet's argument that the majority of ICANN's future really depends on -- relevance really depends on its acknowledgment that the bigger populations are from China, India and Africa. So for ICANN to remain relevant, it must take note of that fact. I understand there are a lot of initiatives to make ICANN more inclusive but, of course, as somebody highlighted, sometimes we as Africans, for example, are not very good at participating. We do make a lot of noise. But when it comes down to participating, we do not tend to -- for many reasons, sometimes registering is a problem, sometimes resource problems and so on and so forth. I'm a lawyer by profession, and I have always seen ICANN as this esoteric body that talks about I.P. addresses and numbers and DNSSEC, very sort of weird language for me. And I have been trying to find myself in ICANN to find it relevant to real people. And I'm still struggling. But I think one thing I would like to suggest is I was at one of the meetings with the I.P -- I mean, people who deal with I.P. and the noncom sector. An interesting idea came up, which is, for example, when we are looking at how -- if you look at ICANN's charter, it is very, very technical. I think ICANN can perhaps be a bit more imaginative in expanding its mandate without losing its charter. The little kid in Dakar has the same right to access the Internet as the little kid in Bengal or Senegal. If you are talking about integrity of the Internet, you are talking about DNS and all those things, at the end of the day, the challenges we have in Africa are different. We have issues whereby, for example, governments would restrict the Internet by controlling the DNS servers and so on and so forth. And these are areas that ICANN is kind of very -- doesn't like to really get into, but I think it is something they have to look at very, very cautiously and carefully because in the future, I mean, you know, the Internet is the medium that we communicate as Africans. And I think ICANN has to see how best it can within the platform it has to ensure it's looked at very carefully thank you very much. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much. I believe we have a remote participant and then, after that, Ray you can come in. Wait for the mic. >>TITI AKINSAMNI: Titi Akinkamni for the record. There is a comment from Badara Diouf. There is, I believe, more than a comment. He actually asked for five minutes to speak from Siva. I will try to read. There is two things I want to mention. There are three different conversations going on around this. And the first thing is I'm a direct person. ICANN should learn to put money where their mouth is. If there is going to be participation from developing economies across board, then we need to be able to support that participation, not just with funding but with actual capacity-building initiatives. And this leads directly to a suggestion from Badara Diouf that says particularly that he proposes ICANN to have conferences to develop gTLD/ccTLD, in short capacity-building, in universities because a lot of people don't know what ICANN is. So for you to have increased engagement in these regions you need to be able to speak about yourself. You need to be able to speak about yourself in a way and in an area that has a full understanding of it. Okay. Going to change my voice. Now, this is Siva speaking. It says -- Whew, this is long, Siva. ICANN already looks for regional balance in filling in the elected and nominated positions, if not staff position, and has begun looking for agenda balance, though it is not yet defined as such. We may have to work on better developing country participation without complicating the ICANN process with an additional dimension such as balance between developed and developing countries. Introducing newer and newer dimensions would take things very complicated. For example, NomCom will be faced with the situation of finding a woman from a developing country from the European region for a year and a man from a developing country from the an African region for another year. That could make it very complicated for the NomCom. For example, we can talk about programs to facilitate better participation, such as funding program for participation by those developing countries that stay away from ICANN for budgetary reasons. ICANN may not have to allocate its own resources to achieve this but could suggest to the GAC members in particular, to the more affluent of the developing countries among others, India, for example, to fund participation of unrepresented developing country governments in GAC. In many cases, funds may not be a constraint but instead require government level outreach to convince the non-participating governments in the GAC. Developing country participation in other advisory committees and supporting organizations could be improved by better outreach, perhaps with the help of participants in GAC, using local government resources to reach out to business and civil society participants. Third paragraph. About improving participation of developing countries in the domain business, perhaps we could suggest a startup support program for developing countries that could cover guidance for small reseller setups, consultancy support and lower deferred payment structure for registrar accreditations and even more comfortably staggered payments for new gTLD proposals from developing countries/small business. These are not specific rigid suggestions. These are thought through and out for discussion in an imperfect form. The idea is to focus on programs without making it appear complicated on paper. Thank you. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Titi, for those interventions. Ray -- And before Ray, let me remind us that it is almost 2:00, although we started late. I have just asked Vanda to check into if there is any other meeting coming. If there is no meeting coming in after this, maybe we can tack on an extra five minutes to allow time to wrap up and I'm sure you have got a lot of other things to do. So I don't want to take too much of your time. Did you have something to say, sir? There is no meeting after that, so we will add another five minutes because we don't want to back into your time. So there is a participant very briefly, and then Ray can comment. Ray, you go ahead whilst we get the mic to that guy. >>RAY PLZAK: Okay. Couple of things, first of all, regarding availability of technical information that's understood by non- technical people, the group that was sitting here before was talking about the IGF. Just curious, how many people in here were in that session? There should be a lot more, that's number one. But the thing is that in preparation for the IGF, organizations like ISOC and the regional registries and ICANN produce a lot of handout information. And they produce it in more than one language, and it is aimed at people in the civil society that are participating in the IGF to understand what ICANN and ISOC and everybody is all about. So there is a lot of information that's all available. If you don't care so much about the labeling, you probably can get all that stuff for free online by downloading it. So the information is there. That's the one point I wanted to make there. The other point I wanted to make is that we've had a number of ideas floating around here this afternoon. And we're, in a certain sense, broadening the scope of what we want to do. I think we need to at some point in time -- and not going to get it done today, I'm sure -- look at narrowing the scope a little bit and concentrating on a few ideas that everyone can participate in and actually develop it into a sound presentation and argument. So that's my comment. >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Ray. I think that's a very pertinent one. It is two minutes after 2:00. I would like to wrap this up at about seven minutes after. We will give ourselves five extra minutes. (saying name) will talk, and then I will give the panelists opportunity to wrap up and then we'll close it because I don't want to bite into other people's times. >> Okay. I'm going to speak in French. >>KATIM TOURAY: Can you also please say your name and where you are coming from for the people who are scribing it, okay? >> My name is (saying name) and I'm from Senegal. You talk about representativity of African countries to be represented in ICANN, but I think that to be more represented, we need to have an ICANN structure in Africa because many countries do have their own ICANN structure. Why don't we have an ICANN structure in Africa? What do you think about it? Is it scheduled? Is it going to come up? >>KATIM TOURAY: Thank you very much, Mam. Actually, there is an mailing list called Africanese, a discussion. We can take that offline. I can give you the contacts of that list if you want to get involved. Okay. We will start from my right. And, Carlton, do you want to have anything you want to wrap up with before we bring this to a close? >>CARLTON SAMUELS: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Katim. Carlton Samuels for the record. (Scribes lost audio.)