Cartagena ICANN Welcome Ceremony Cartagena, Colombia 6 December 2010 >> Ladies and gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to take your seats, we're about to begin our welcome ceremonies at the ICANN meeting. Once again, if you could be kind enough to take your seats, we are going to be beginning our welcome ceremony very shortly. Please put all electronic, battery-run equipment on vibrate so that we don't hear the ringing. Thank you! This is just a reminder for those of you who have headsets, we would truly appreciate when the meeting is over if you leave the headsets back on the table so that we have them for the next few meetings. Thank you very much. >> Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We are proud and happy to be able to provide you Afro Colombia, a cultural dance and song group that will show you some of the growth of Colombia in dance. - - - - - - [ Performing ] - - - - - - [ Applause ] >> Thank you very much, Afro Colombia. Thank you, indeed. Now it gives me great pleasure to introduce chair, Board of Directors ICANN, Peter Dengate Thrush. [ Applause ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Welcome to Cartagena De Indias, Colombia. (In Spanish): Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. As a representative of ICANN's board, I want to welcome you to Cartagena de Indias, Colombia. And I want to welcome you to ICANN's 39th meetings, public meeting. (In English:) >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Welcome. And let's have another round of applause for that fantastic dance troupe. [ Applause ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: And I was commenting to the Minister who we will be welcoming and introducing shortly on the beauty of Colombia and on the beauty of the women of Colombia and the Minister explained that such is the beauty of the women of Colombia that they annually have to have 1200 beauty contests in order to arrive at Ms. Colombia, and then what an important role she plays in the community. So it's nice to be in a place where beauty is so welcomed and recognized. Let's come back to ICANN. What do we do at ICANN? Why are we here? Why have we all come together this week to talk about the Internet? And so I thought I might look back a little bit in time to find some of the roots of the answer. And coincidentally on this very day in 1768, the Encyclopedia Britannica was first published, it was three volumes, 2,760 pages, 160 pictures. So 240 years ago today that encyclopedia was one of the earliest attempts to collect and codify all of human knowledge and to share this information with the world, or at least those who could afford it because it cost 12 pounds sterling, the equivalent of 2- or $3,000 today. And not everybody was happy with its publication. Just like some aspects of the Internet today. Some of that knowledge bothered some of the people. So King George III of England ordered three pages highlighting human anatomy ripped out of every book, which struck mean as perhaps being the first XXX'ing of information. [ Laughter ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: But despite the concerns, the vivid prose and the easy navigation of that first edition led to a strong demand for a second. And so what started with 2,760 pages grew to 32 volumes, more than 65,000 articles and 44 million words. And the latest edition, the 15th, even has a full page, one whole page, about the Internet. It's got a little cheaper. You can get it now for about $200, or you can go online and you can get all of that information and so much more for free, instantly accessible, wherever you go, without having to carry all 32 volumes. And so ICANN's work this week is a step in the kind of improvement that that represents, and so much more. And we are going to move forward this week on a lot of the important work that ICANN does. And we're going to find as we go things that we never imagined. We're building a platform for a future that some of us could only imagine would happen in fiction. And I thought knowing that I and many of the people I have met over the years at ICANN are science fiction fans, I would then look, perhaps, to science fiction for some more authority. The idea of an Encyclopedia Galactica first shows up in Isaac Asimov's short story "Foundation" published in 1942. And for those of you who are not science fiction fans, there was another encyclopedia, a compendium of all the information then available across the galaxy. But of course in those years, just like the Encyclopedia Britannica, it was conceived and published as a physical book. And as it evolved, as society evolved, it was eventually computerized, quite an important word in those years. And then the Encyclopedia Galactica concept was picked up by an American philosopher/scientist Carl Sagan. And in his ground-breaking work in 1980, "Cosmos," he imagined the Encyclopedia Galactica as a place for a hypothetical extraterrestrial organization to store its knowledge. But I am tempted to think in the works of fiction we are familiar with the best capturing of the full genius of the Internet is in that very much more serious work, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." And so I quote from the British author of that, Douglas Adams, and he described The Hitchhiker's Guide and said that it already supplanted the Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it's slightly cheaper, and, second, it has the words "Don't Panic" inscribed in large and friendly letters on the cover. So I thought, well, yes, "cheaper and sometimes inaccurate" perfectly describes the information you can get over the Internet. But more seriously, we do have now a global library of all of the works at our fingertips. If you have an iPod or an Android or a Blackberry or any device, you are getting close to the kind of concepts imagined by Asimov or Adams. You could even make "Don't Panic" your front screen, which, the way some of the things go at ICANN, is good advice. Don't panic. See we are living in a world that no one could have imagined when the first TCP/IP experiments started over a decade ago. And our job at ICANN, which we'll be really pushing in the next week to come and which we have been building on 13 years of similar work, is to build the foundations for even newer connections, newer ideas and more innovations of that kind. And just let me explain that in partial tribute to the workers of ICANN, some time ago we launched a badge to recognize those people who have attended more than 30 meetings of ICANN or more, and we'll be making presentations again this week to those of how have achieved that milestone. And congratulations to you for all the work that's gone into and making ICANN one of those. And because of that work, we have seen some incredible successes. For example, our Internationalized Domain Name program in the ccTLD space. And this week you will hear much more about the new Cyrillic extension for the Russian Foundation, which since its launch has become one of the largest registries. They expected 100,000 registrations in the first year. They got more than 600,000 in less than a month. [ Cheers ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: Exactly! [ Applause ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: I know there are people who said, "Do we really need some IDNs? Do we really need any more top-level domains?" So that's an amazing and incredible testament to people's desire to have domain names that are in the characters of their own languages, of their own scripts from beginning to end. We are also going to have a lot of opportunity to discuss further refinement to our long-running new gTLD program. For those of you who are not familiar, this is a program that effectually started ten years ago, and we are looking now at the third phase of a new gTLD launch program. We started in 2000, we did a small release, we learned from that and we did another release, and now we are looking at a third release of a longstanding commitment built into the DNA of ICANN to expand the top-level domain namespace. So we will be hashing over what we hope to be the proposed final Applicant Guidebook, which is the rules, effectively, for the launch of another round, the third round of the new gTLD program. That program will open up limitless opportunity for new extensions and will help move the global Internet, we think, slightly closer to the concept behind the Encyclopedia Galactica, at least for this planet. Now, security never really made it into any of those discussions but it's a required foundation for the system to work for us, and that's why ICANN, along with our partners, has put such a lot of work and time recently into DNSSEC, and the root is now signed, and DNSSEC deployment is accelerating the world over. There will be some major announcements in the coming months about some of the major registries. So it's become an operational reality for everyone. There's going to be a day long session here in Cartagena for those who want to get up to speed on what's happening with DNSSEC and how they can help to make it happen. And so a lot of the work that we do is essentially technical, much of it legalistic, and some of it philosophical. We're all part of something much bigger. This enormous experiment, this enormous project to bring the knowledge of the world to everybody in the world. So now on behalf of the Board of Directors, I officially welcome you to ICANN's 39th public meeting and wish you all the luck as you chart the future for the Internet. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH: We are honored to have accepted our invitation from the President, Mr. Santos, who at the last minute was unable to join us last night for dinner and has gone overseas on other business, but is able to join us now by telecommunication. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome President Santos. [ Applause ] >>PRESIDENT SANTOS: Dear ICANN friends. It is an honor, a real honor to have you gathered here on the occasion of the most significant meeting that largely defines the future of the Internet. We are, indeed, pleased to host this very, very important event that gets together the main stakeholders in Internet governance. There is no doubt of the importance, the significance of that superhighway, information superhighway, and that's why we work for the maintenance of that global network, and we are all concerned about this. I am truly, truly sorry to be unable to be there with you today because of our international agenda, but what a timely occasion to use this new media to be there with you, if only virtually. First of all, let me congratulate you on your mission that reaches the entire world, that reaches humankind. Your work enables the protection of Internet stability, and most importantly, fear, competition. And you are also guaranteeing order in the Internet so that different world communities, by means of regulations, consensus- based regulations, can also do this. Our government's priority is also the implementation and development of information technologies and communications technologies. This will be a fundamental tool for improved competitiveness and for us to walk along the path of democratic development and prosperity. For us, Internet is fundamental in the materialization, the achievement of new core purposes. First of all, the abatement of poverty, and secondly, employment or job creation. Hence, we will maximize all Internet-derived advantages to create more opportunities for all Colombian citizens, and especially or even more for those of us that do not have access to the Internet. With that objective in mind, we have designed our new plan called Viva Digital in Spanish, or live or live digital, and we are going to invest $2.8 billion in this plan that will enable us to make this huge technological leap in terms of Internet use especially focusing on the lower strata of our social strata and focusing on SMEs. We are also focusing on cybersecurity. In this regard, our Ministry of Defense is designing a special cybersecurity command force with the aim of helping users and for the sake of their peace of mind, especially when they do business transactions online. Internet security is not only reflected in our Viva Digital plan. This year we have kicked off a new era for the dot CO domain, or dot com. We have implemented a new policy in this regard. We have increased the number of dot CO, .CO domains. We have jumped from 28,000 in February to more than 600,000 nowadays, and we rank third in the region after Argentina and Brazil. We also focused on digital democracy, digital democracy and governance, and today we focus on this endeavor in what we call the crystal container or crystal chest. This means that all Colombians are 24/7 and all year-round can focus on innovative solutions that will lead to democratic prosperity, and will contribute to principles of good governance, sound governance. All our expectations are focused on your debate and on the applications or conclusions of your debate, so that we can engage in that huge technological leap I recently told you about. Let me now extend my gratitude. Let me thank you for your presence in Colombia, and please be assured that our government is open and willing to learn from you and your experience. Thank you very much for your attention. [ Applause ] >> The President and CEO, ICANN, Rod Beckstrom. >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Thank you very, very much, President Santos, for joining us and sharing your video presentation. It honors our ceremony. I now have the honor of introducing the minister of ICT here in Colombia. The minister of Information and Communication Technologies is an electronic engineer with a master's degree in economics from Universidad Javeriana and a Master of Business Administration from the Lausanne, Switzerland. He has got more than 20 years experience in the telecommunications and information technology both in the public and private sectors and he has served on multinational senior management positions for Ascom in Brazil, Bellsouth in the United States of America and Telefónica in Spain with responsibilities in 18 countries in the fields of corporate relations, wholesale businesses and regulations. Minister, we thank you for being here. Thank you very much. [Applause] >> (No translation) -- our aim is to close the digital gap by increasing broadband Internet bandwidth fourfold, and we will increase demand of telecommunications by market demand. We will use Colombia's international connection by expanding global fiber optic network coverage, and we will focus on the reduction of taxation costs, and we will eliminate a regulation barrier. Viva Digital will enable training centers and shared access centers and will support a mass access program, enable a lower strata of our social structure to have their own computers. With mass access to computers, we intend to supply terminals that all Colombians require. All Colombians need access that will effectively become part of this digital life. Through the Internet, my project -- the project of my language seeks to strengthen our cultural identity. We have fun. We learn. We want to learn about this technology in a constructive way. Viva Digital will encourage -- through the public sector organizations will encourage people to become aware of the usefulness of technology and to see how easier their life will be thanks to technology and we will all be part of Colombia Viva Digital. [Applause] >>MINISTER MOLANO: Thank you, Peter, for being here. It is really a pleasure to have you guys here in Colombia in Cartagena. We have three goals this week, three goals. The first one is we want you guys to be successful with all your meetings and deliberations, of course. The second one, we want all you guys to go home dancing like the group this morning. [Applause] And the third one, we want you to go home speaking Spanish. [Applause] Congratulations, Rod and Peter, for your Spanish. You know, I met Peter a few months ago in an event with President Obama and I see you have improved your Spanish a lot. Congratulations. [Laughter] So to achieve that goal, I'm going to speak in Spanish so you can get used to it. Thank you so much, and please wear your audio. I want to speak -- this is a beautiful country with 44 million people. Sorry. I should speak in Spanish, yeah. [Laughter] So this is a beautiful country with plenty of diversity. We have 44 million people with different ethnicities. Our geography is wonderful, fantastic. We are a Caribbean country, but we have a beautiful Pacific coast, and we have beautiful mountain landscapes. Our country has the same area as Spain, as Portugal and France together, the three of them together. We are, indeed, a large country. We face many challenges. We have a new administration, incumbent President Juan Manuel Santos has been in office for about three months. And in these next four years, in this administration, we want to overhaul, deeply transform our country; and the leveraging will come from information technology. And I want to briefly speak about this topic to all of you. When we deal with technology and the Internet, I would like to remind you of the fact that every time you wake up and you start working, because ICANN's work focuses on massive Internet access, there is a very important aspect of what you do and very important aspect of what we do here in the public sector and the private sector in Colombia. And we can see this in this graph taken from a U.N. study showing a significant correlation between poverty reduction and Internet access. The higher Internet access, the lower the poverty levels. So I want to remind you that every morning when you wake up and start working on ICANN's project, you are helping reduce poverty worldwide. The second element that is very significant, as mentioned by President Santos, is that Internet access creates jobs and job creation is our administration's priority. Professor Cazaron (phonetic) in the University of Colombia wrote a report speaking and mentioning that an increase in broadband Internet access reduced unemployment in Chile by 12%. And you are very well aware of the fact of the technology leap in countries such as the Philippines or India and the connection with job creation. Finally, higher Internet access is very, very clear in terms of competitiveness. Here we have information comparing competitiveness and Internet access, and we see that that is the case. In Colombia, we need a quantum leap. We need to improve our peaks in order to improve our competitiveness. We need to reduce poverty. We need to create employment and improve the country's competitiveness and productivity by Internet access. Let me tell you about the history of Colombian technology. We have moved forward, especially in terms of cellular phone technology. Today more than 93 Colombians out of 100 own a cell phone. Cell phone technology is a success story. In every small town or municipality in far away locations our Colombian citizens have the opportunity to access communication thanks to cellular technology. We also have grown in terms of the Internet. Our industry has been active and we have been growing. Nonetheless, if we compare ourselves with our neighboring countries in the region and in the world, we see that Internet access in Colombia is still a huge growth opportunity. Internet access in Colombia is not higher than 6%. You have six broadband connections in every 100 inhabitants. And you can see our distance -- or the difference between our country between Chile, Spain, let alone Germany or the United States. When we see where these Colombian users are located nowadays -- these are users with Internet access -- we see that they are in the higher social and economic strata of society. In Colombia, the population is divided into six socioeconomic strata: One being the poorest, six the richest. This is different from the international jargon, if you will, richest people worldwide are class A and B, C and so on. In Colombia, the highest social classes, the richest population has Internet access in 83% of their homes or households and 92% have a personal computer at home. Next level, 56% of those countries in the second level have Internet access and 70% own a P.C. But the richest inhabitants of our country account for less than 2% of our overall population. Nonetheless, when we see our nation's reality and we see that 88% of Colombians are at the bottom of this social pyramid, we see that it is there that we find our growth opportunity, the second stratum. Let me tell you what that means. Tier or stratum Number 2 represents a family with five to seven members and monthly incomes amounting to approximately 250 U.S. dollars on a monthly basis. 250 U.S. dollars for a household with five to seven members means that 17 million Colombians are in that situation and only 8% of households in this social strata or tier have Internet access. Internet access is very low within this social sector. So our opportunity is there. We need to serve the bottom of the pyramid. The business opportunity for you is there in this sector of society. The dot CO growth opportunity is in this sector of society. They will be demanding Internet access in the future. And we asked these potential users, the poorest users, we asked them, How come you do not have Internet access at home or an Internet connection at home? Well, the answer is obvious. They said, "I just don't have enough money." However, out of all the answers, 20% of the people in the survey said, "We do not see the use of the Internet. We do not see the purpose of the Internet." And we ran the same survey in the corporate sector, and we can see here the corporate distribution in our country which resembles the same corporate distribution worldwide, less than 4% of all our companies have more than 10 employees. Less than 4% of all companies but the corporate basis, SMEs, that is 94 -- 96.4% in our country employ less than ten people. And as you can see, they have no Internet access. Whereas, medium-size and large corporations have solved their Internet problems. Only 7% of our SMEs have Internet access, and they account for more than 1.5 million companies. And we asked them, "How come you do not have Internet?" And their reply was, "We just don't need it for our business." They don't see the use of the Internet. I have worked in many countries, in all countries of Latin America. And this situation in Colombia is the same in the whole region. There is a very significant barrier and that is, we do not have enough applications for our people. Existing applications are global applications for us. We do not have domestic applications. We do not have applications that will enable the SMEs to increase their sales or reduce their costs. That's why we want massive Internet access. And we find this initial barrier, lack of enough applications. The second barrier is that services are still expensive for our people, given our purchasing power. The third barrier is that we live in a beautiful country. We live in a country with a beautiful landscape, mountains, beaches. We have wonderful diversity. But having telecommunications networks that will work nationwide is quite a challenge. Today less than 20% of our city -- town halls and our cities in the country are connected to a fiber optic network. We need to see how to work out this hurdle, this issue. And in addition, we live in this country. We lack public budgets for investment in infrastructure. So we need to spend or to use our resources smartly. So in order to overcome these barriers, President Santos and all his cabinet ministers about seven weeks ago here in Cartagena launched this plan, Colombia Viva Digital. We aim at massive Internet access so that we can reach or make this quantum leap and have democratic governance. This plan, Viva Digital, was launched on the basis of founding principles or tenets. The first principle was set forth by our President in a book he entitled "The Third Way." And that principle says that market, in as smart as possible, will act and the state will act as much as necessary. This means that when we want to make the quantum Internet leap, we need a strong alliance between the private and public sectors. This is not something that the state or the public sector and the private sector can do on a separate basis. We need to work together. The second principle states that we need to encourage both services, supply and demand. Traditionally our public technology policy focused on supply. And we also want to achieve something which is very significant, and you are Internet experts and you know this very well. In this TIC industry, we have scale economies that are wonderful. If you want to set up a technology tower for cellular phone coverage, you will face the same cost for a reduced area or for a large area. We need to build upon these scale economies. The third principle, which is a very significant principle, is the elimination of tariff and tax and regulation barriers so we have a fast deployment of infrastructure and services. Fourthly, government incentives for this industry have to be focused. They have to focus on capital expenditure because we are spending significantly on opex, or operating expenditure, and we cannot enlarge our projects as desired. Last, but not least, the government needs to be a role model. The government needs to set an example of how we are going to make these technological quantum leaps in the next four-year period. Our objective is the following: Today in Colombia, we have 2.2 million broadband Internet connections. In the year 2014, we will reach 8.8 million Internet connections. What that means is in the next four years, we will take all we've done along Internet history so far and we'll multiply it by four. That's an aggressive goal, but we know we can make it because we have in Colombia the talented people to make it real. And in addition, we have an administration that is united to make it true. This is not a program of the Ministry of Technology. It is a program -- a comprehensive program of the whole Colombian government. And where will that growth lie? As I said before, it is going in those pyramids today in the household sector. The rich sector are the ones with Internet access. 27% of Colombian households have Internet access. And will we will move from 27% to 50%, and that growth will be precisely in that baseline of the pyramid of the country. And we will also move from 7% of the small companies connected to 50% of connected companies. So this is the greatest challenge that we have, is to connect the machinery that creates jobs in the country, the economic development, and that is small companies. And as far as infrastructure is related, we will move from 200 municipalities to 700 connected municipalities to a fiber-optic network. And how are we going to make it, to accomplish these objectives? Well, it will be a very hard job. But it is based in a very simple idea. We will incentive the growth of the country's digital ecosystem? We have our own ecosystem with four interactive elements and we would like to make it grow. The first one is infrastructure. Without infrastructure, we cannot make anything. We need infrastructure to provide connectivity. That is the first element. The second one of the ecosystem are services on infrastructures because we provide services on infrastructures on the telephone. Mobile telephone towers is where text services are provided over fiber-optic infrastructures. We provide TV or Internet or telephony services. And the third element of that ecosystem has to do with applications. They are key because they create demand. Those applications are many kinds, and it depends on the infrastructure service. For example, a fiber -- fiber-optic network services the Internet and the application may be Facebook. Or in the mobile tower, the service may be text messaging and the application could be mobile banking that we are developing, or home banking, we are developing through the mobile telephony. And the fourth element are users, end users. And as you know, users in this digital world are very active. 15 years ago, please remember what a telecommunications user did. It was completely passive that telecom would just pick it up and speak. And today you witness that Internet growth because of the contents and applications that users develop. So what do we want to accomplish? We want to incentive those four boxes to create a higher interaction and make the system grow. For example, we will create more applications. And if we make it, we will have more users because people will be interested in using those applications. And if we had more users, there will be a demand for telecommunication service to grow. And if we make this, infrastructure will be more used. And if so, well, what I said before will happen, scale economies will take place. And the infrastructure costs are fixed. Therefore, prices will decrease because we will have more people using the same infrastructure. And if prices come down, we will have more users purchasing the services. If we have more users, application developers will have incentives to create more applications because the potential number of customers will grow. And those users create more services, and we create a growth circle. That is what we want to do, to incentive the growth of this digital ecosystem. And to that end, we had to sign policies and programs to incentive the offer of services. That is to say, we are going to make infrastructure and services get to our consumers -- at bay level to our consumers and we have to encourage demand, that is to encourage consumers through applications, through training for the consumers, to make them get on the information society bus. We need to make a double approach both for offer and demand. So let's take a brief look to some of the projects that are currently being developed. We are concerned about international connectivity when it comes to infrastructure, and developing countries are concerned about this as well. We depend very much on international traffic because our content, or the content that we use in Colombia, in large part is stored on U.S. servers. And today we are also connected in the Caribbean region, but the traffic is growing very much fortunately. And unless we connect with new cables to Colombia, we will have a bottleneck in two years and half. The good thing is that since we presented Viva Digital up to now, three companies have presented projects to improve that connectivity, not only through the Caribbean but through the Pacific Ocean as well. And we are encouraging the development of further infrastructure of ccIDNs in Colombia as well. When it comes to domestic infrastructure, as I said, less than 20% of the municipalities are connected to a real information highway through fiber-optic networks. We will move from 200 municipalities to 700 where the 90% of the population lies. But getting into that information highway is not enough. We need to make sure the information highway will be able to reach each country -- each home, each company, each citizen. And to that end, we will encourage the wireless infrastructure development. Today we have done very well with mobile telephone services, but we would like to transform those voice services into Internet services. To have those users that today enjoy a mobile telephony will make them become Internet -- wireless Internet users. And to that end, we will give -- we will provide new licenses of third and fourth generation, and the digital dividend to encourage development of those infrastructures. We are also going to make sure that the companies fix the infrastructure development countries -- companies to be successful. We have many regulation barriers, and we have to eliminate those barriers. In addition, we will have a very huge leap in TV matters in the country. Today based on this issue of the country's geography, more than 8% of Colombians do not have a TV signal. But we are sure that with a project that we will implement from this week, or, say, August of the next year, all the Colombians will have TV -- satellite-free TV signal. And in addition, we will also make this huge leap for digital TV. Colombia has elected the European standard for digital TV. Just like Uruguay and Panama, Colombia chose the European standard. And that opens many opportunities, not only opportunities to decrease cost for digital TV and to deploy infrastructure but also opportunities to make Colombia develop content for the whole European marketplace with the standard of that region. This is it when it comes to infrastructure. Now we are going to move to the second part of this ecosystem. So we want to make it massive, the Internet terminal. The Internet terminal, traditionally computers have a low penetration like we saw at the beginning. And we want to make them massive. And to that end, we have detected that prices had decreased over this last month. But we had found the problem does not lie in the cost of the equipment but in the funding for the Internet terminal. Because they are still very expensive for the Colombian marketplace. Interest rates are ordinary. Consumer's interest rates. But we need to work to make these interest rates lower. And we are also eliminating taxes and fees to make more people -- to provide access to more people for broadband terminal. We also have, in Colombia, VAT, a very high VAT for the Internet. It comes to 16%. We are going to eliminate that tax. In Colombia, we have already deleted or eliminated the terminal tax. That is the PC tax. And the effect was great. The state created even more income, more revenue because of the elimination of the VAT on personal computers. It was a positive effect and we believe that the same thing will take place if we eliminate the VAT for the Internet. We are working on a project for a bill on the Congress to eliminate that tax. Likewise, we are going to amend the grand schemes on the bachelor of science of the pyramid. Today, we have like $85 million on a yearly basis for grants for fixed telephony and we will make them into Internet grants or subsidies. That is, when it comes to services. And I would like to briefly mention the third key element of this ecosystem, and that is applications. And this is -- we start with a very significant -- because it is here where the bottleneck lies. We don't have enough applications and we apply the principle that I mentioned before. The government needs to walk the talk. The services of the e-government are key. We have made great progress here. Colombia today is the country -- is the most advanced country when e-government services -- when it comes to e-government services in Latin America. But we need to expedite, to accelerate this. Not only in Latin America, but worldwide. And we have made great progress in the administration, in the central admission entities, but our decentralized entities, our departments, cities, municipalities, are still behind and we need to help them make this big leap. And we have many initiatives and applications ongoing. Not only of our own in the central administration, but of the -- all the government entities. Each ministry is involved and engaged. Each one of the ministers has a technology plan set that will help generate demand for the Internet. The ministry of justice will just put an end to the papers and the accords. The ministry of health will provide all Colombians the access to requires for appointments through the Internet. The ministry of finance will provide most Colombians the opportunity to use their cell phones as a bank terminal. The ministry of education will make the idea of quality of education in this country improve because of technology. The ministry for the environment and household will make each one of the 1 million households that this government will subsidize for that baseline of the pyramid have a computer, an Internet-connected computer. The ministry of foreign affairs will make the almost 3 million Colombians living abroad be closer to Colombia because of technology as well. All the ministries are involved in this program, and this is something that makes this program very unique, very robust, and will help us achieve this great goal. Still, when we wonder who makes those applications, we find that the I.T. industry, the software industry, needs to be strengthened because today they are still weak. So in the short-term, we will strengthen them, helping them in four market niches, very significant ones, that will have fabulous growth in the next four years. The first ones are mobile telephone applications. Today, we have more than 5 billion mobile users worldwide. Less than 3% have smartphones or -- well, smartphones, precisely. The great mass has very simple telephones or devices. We are creating a great public and private fund of risk capital to have Colombian companies develop software for that mobile applications, and we are looking to start with that fund in the first quarter of the next year, with at least $100 million. It's almost the same investment of Apple for the creation of Apple store, so we believe that we can make a difference here in the development of this mobile applications niche for the Colombian marketplace as well as for the Latin American marketplace and worldwide marketplace, and we will do the same for applications for small companies and digital TV and, very important as well, for a fourth niche with significant growth, and that is the industry of digital content. We are very satisfied because in Colombia the streets of Cartagena, Bogota, Medellín, Calle will see people creating contents and movies and films. We see the Colombian talent involved in films like "Avatar" or we have that great opportunity and we will make this digital content industry become worldwide industry. And finally, the last element has to do with users. We will make a great training massive program with the installation of 800 technical centers countrywide in a great training program, hand by hand with the ministry of education and other educational entities. And finally, it is also vital to protect our consumers, and we have many policies to protect them, but to that we need today to speak on a first-name basis between users and telecommunications operators, and to that end we are working in a new region for consumer protection and quality of service provision, and we are also working together with many entities to make the network used -- to be used in a responsible way. We are also having a very significant growth in non-responsible use of the network like cyber bullying or -- and -- that is the parents' concern in Colombia, largely concern about the use of the four screens of their kids: Cellular video games, video consoles, Internet, and TV. So we need to keep on struggling on this topic. This is, in general terms, what we are going to do. About 60 different initiatives that have been submitted to debate on the network. And by the first time in Latin America, a government proposes a plan and debates that plan worldwide in the network. In the next seven weeks, we have debate fora for each one of these projects. This is a great tool for the -- for building up a plan of democratic participation. Dozens of Colombians participated and helped us improve this plan. And the final version will be published, launched, in the upcoming weeks. I would like to thank you all for the visit to Colombia. I would like to thank you all as well for your job, and please know that the Colombian administration is highly engaged with ICANN and will be part of all the meetings from now on, and please, I would also like to add that we need to keep on working to accomplish those three objectives: Reducing poverty, creating jobs, and improving competitiveness and protectiveness. Thank you very much and welcome to Colombia. [Applause] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Thank you very much, Minister Molano, for your excellent presentation. We really wish you plenty of success for your project, digital project., Viva Digital. Now, Juan Diego Calle has an experience -- a 10-year experience in business administration of Internet companies. In 2000, he was the cofounder and manager of TeRespondo.com. This company was then purchased by Yahoo! in 2005. He studied industrial engineering and finance in University of Miami and he graduated from the Harvard school. Juan. >>MR. JUAN DIEGO CALLE: Ladies and gentlemen, Colombian colleagues, thank you so much for being here in this historic moment in Colombia, and making honor into our international colleagues. I will make my speech -- my presentation in English. Vice Minister Carolina Hoyos, Mr. Beckstrom, members of the board, Peter Dengate Thrush, our friend from LACTLD and our friends from the ICANN community. Thank you for joining us here in Colombia. Ladies and gentlemen, believe it or not this ICANN meeting has been 10 years in the making. This morning, I'm going to talk to you about how Colombia's domain extension is adapting to the new realities of the Internet, anticipating the expansion of domain names in the next decade. Let's go back 10 years ago. At the time the BBC reported with a grand headline "Dot CO Challenges Dot Com." The BBC had uncovered a proposal by the University of the Andes in Colombia, who was then the administrator of the dot CO domain to make dot CO Web addresses available to the world and not just Colombians. At the time, that proposal was shocking. Yet if you fast-forward 10 years to today, it becomes clear that it was simply an idea ahead of its time. Strikingly similar in purpose and consequence to the revolutionary movement we are expecting ICANN to fully unleash this week. To make a long story short, after 10 years of vigorous debate and recognizing the new direction in which domain name systems -- the domain name system is going, the government and the Internet community in Colombia decided to make dot CO available globally in a responsible and secure manner. It was a bold move. This year, our company, dot CO Internet SAS, punto CO Internet SAS, was entrusted with the great responsibility of maximizing the full potential of this precious digital resource. Only four months after our launch, over 600,000 dot CO domains have been registered by people in more than 200 countries. Today -- [Applause] >>MR. JUAN DIEGO CALLE: Thank you. Today, the price of a dot CO domain is 60% less than it was one year ago. Our domain extension is powered by world class technology. At the same time, dot CO is now a new source of revenue for our country, much needed revenues as you saw from the initiative of Viva Digital. But more importantly, we are building a global brand that has enormous, tangible value for the country of Colombia. So considering the new role that Colombia is now playing on the Internet, the idea to bring ICANN to our country is no coincidence. We want you to leave this meeting knowing that as we expand our globally footprint, we are fully committed to the long-term security and stability of the Internet. But now let's look at what's probably the most important topic to be discussed this week, the long-awaited introduction of new extensions. Talk about bold moves! The Internet has been described as a wild frontier. facebook.com, Google, Twitter, all familiar success stories. But all that innovation occurred to the left of the "dot." Now, with the new domain extensions that you, as ICANN leaders, have championed, this time, creativity can live to the right of the "dot." What does it all mean? Long gone are the days of treating a top-level domain like a utility. Registries become marketing companies. What matters in the next decade are things like positioning, target markets, branding, value-added services. Registries will have to innovate, if they want to survive. So today, we discuss how Colombia is adapting to this new reality, anticipating the movement that you are about to unleash this week. But as threatening as these changes may be to companies like ours, we like to think of this movement, this unprecedented expansion of domain names, as a whole new era of opportunity, where anything is possible, even a flying pig. So in closing, I'm going to leave you with a quote by Joseph Gavin. He died not long ago. And it summarizes the sentiment that many of us have. Mr. Gavin was the engineer, the leader of the team that built the landing device that took Neil Armstrong to the move for the first time in history. He said, "There's a certain exuberance that comes from being out there, out there in the edge of technology, where things are not certain, where there is some risk, and where you make something work." I'm sure you'd agree with me that we are out there on the edge of technology. So as we move along through this frenetic week of meetings here in Cartagena, Colombia, let's give ourselves time to enjoy the exuberance of making Internet history together. Thank you. [Applause] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Bienvenidos a la Reunión Pública número 39 (treinta y nueve) de la Corporación para la Asignación de Números y Nombres en Internet (ICANN) en la encantadora ciudad de Cartagena, Colombia. En 1984 (mil novecientos ochenta y cuatro), esta ciudad fue declara Patrimonio de la Humanidad por la Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Educación la Ciencia y la Cultura (UNESCO) y es fácil ver porque. En las calles y los mercados se puede sentir la pasión por la vida que Gabriel García Márquez describió de manera tan rica. Su glorioso pasado se refleja en cada uno de sus edificios, en la arquitectura, los colores y sonidos de la ciudad, en el ruido de los cascos de los caballos que tiran de los carruajes y en la cálida y afectuosa bienvenida que parece saludarte a cada paso. Esa cálida bienvenida ha sido evidente en la colaboración de nuestro trabajo en conjunto con nuestro anfitrión, a quien le ofrezco mi más sincero agradecimiento por su dedicación para el éxito de esta reunión. Estamos profundamente honrados por la participación por video del Presidente Santos en el día de hoy, y también estamos muy agradecidos por la asistencia que nos ha prestado su gobierno para la preparación de esta reunión mundial. Ministro Diego Ernesto Molano y Vice Ministro María Carolina Hoyos Turbay, gracias por el apoyo y dedicación que nos prestaron para ayudarnos a hacer que esta reunión sea un éxito. También queremos agradecer a Juan Diego Calle, Presidente de punto CO Internet y a Eduardo Santoyo, Vice Presidente de Asuntos Corporativos de (punto) CO Internet y coordinador de enlace de la ICANN para la planificación de esta reunión, quien con su enérgico entusiasmo y dedicación ha contribuido muchísimo para traernos hoy aquí. También quiero hacer mención y reconocer el liderazgo de aquellos que han hecho tanto para aumentar la accesibilidad de internet para usuarios en Latinoamérica - personas como el actual y ex miembro de la Junta Directiva de la ICANN, Gonzalo Navarro y Raimundo Beca de Chile; Demi Getchko, Vanda Scartezini y Hartmut Glaser de Brasil; Alejandro Pisanty de México; Raúl Echeberria, Director Ejecutivo del Registrador Regional de Internet para Latinoamérica - LACNIC, quien también es Presidente de la Sociedad de Internet; y Oscar Robles, Presidente de la Organización de ccTLDs Latinoamericanos y del Caribe - LACTLD. Gracias a su empeño, el internet ha continuado con su exitosa expansión en Latinoamérica. Gracias. [ Not translated ] -- organization, UNESCO, and it's easy to see why, in the streets, in markets, you can feel the passion people have for life that Gabriel García Márquez described so greatly. Its glorious past is reflected in each of your buildings and your architecture. The colors and sounds of this city in the noise of horses hooves pulling carriages and in the warm and caring welcome that seems to have people greeting you at every step. This warm welcome has evidently helped our work together with our host, to whom I extend my most sincere thankfulness for their dedication focused on the success of this meeting. We are deeply honored, indeed honored, because of the remote participation, because of President Santos' remote participation today, and we are indeed thankful, grateful, for the -- his government's assistance in the preparation of this world meeting. Minister Diego Ernesto Molano and Vice-Minister Maria Carolina Hoyos Turbay, thank you for your support and dedication to help us make this meeting a success. President Santos, Minister Molano, our hearts and sympathy are with the people of Colombia and with the 2 million people that lost their homes because of the rainfalls and floods. Our sympathies are with you. We also want to thank Juan Diego Calle, president of dot CO Internet, and Eduardo Santoyo, vice president of corporate affairs of dot CO Internet and ICANN's liaison coordinator, for their work in planning this meeting. With their powerful enthusiasm and dedication, it has largely contributed to make this possible, to bring us all here today. I would also like to mention and recognize the leadership of those that have done so much to increase Internet access for Latin American users. Persons such as the current and former ICANN board member, Gonzalo Navarro, Raimundo Beca from Chile, Demi Getschko, Vanda Scartezini, and Hartmut Glaser from Brazil, Alejandro Pisanty from Mexico, Raúl Echeberria, CEO of the regional registrar for Latin America, LACNIC, who is also chair of the Internet Society, ISOC, and Oscar Robles, chair of the ccTLDs organization for Latin America and the Caribbean, LACTLD. Thank you for your endeavors. Thanks for your -- because of your effort, Internet has continued expansion successfully in Latin America. Thank you. [Applause] ICANN is an international community with a consensus-driven approach and a solid commitment to a set of ideals. Whatever our differences or issues on policies, we are united behind one common goal: A secure, stable and unified global Internet. It must keep running. In support of that goal, we believe in inclusiveness, because everyone using the Internet has a right to be heard in her governance. Interested in the Internet? You are welcome here. New fellows included. There is no other requirement. Inclusiveness brings diversity to our community and fortifies the domain name system and addressing systems, which are the very cornerstones of the Internet. It's that important. Expansion of our community should be a strategic priority for all of us. ICANN is only as global as its stakeholders. From Brazil, China, and the Arab countries to the smallest island nations, from those who speak for millions to those who feel are not heard, you are all important to ICANN and we encourage you to join us. The success of our multistakeholder model depends entirely on the passion, dedication, and intellectual contributions of this community. So many of you give so much. But the importance to the world of our work demands even more. More smart minds. More technical experts. More government and international involvement in our bottom-up policymaking. More participation in policy development working groups. More people engaged who are directly affected by the policies our community helps to shape. A new board member, Sébastien Bachollet, selected by the at-large community, will be seated at the end of this meeting on Friday, bringing an additional -- [Applause] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Sébastien will bring an additional and welcome global perspective to the board of directors after years of efforts by many of you to make this possible. All these contributions will add to the richness of the debate and inject new ideas and creative thought. We already see the benefit of this to Internet users. For example, diverse interests have come together to address domain name registration abuse and to manage the depletion of IPv4 addresses, to name just two policy improvement efforts being tackled by the ICANN community. We also see the global ecosystem of Internet and multilateral organizations making progress together. I warmly congratulate my colleague Hamadoun Touré on his reelection as the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union and on his leadership, successful leadership of the ITU plenipotentiary that recently concluded in Guadalajara, Mexico. His commitment to building stronger bridges between our communities is particularly welcome. The ITU is on the Governmental Advisory Committee and the Nominating Committee and serves as a technical liaison to the Board of Directors. They have a long history of constructive engagement with ICANN. Just this week, a new ITU liaison, Reinhard Scholl, will join the board. The agreement of the ITU to recognize ICANN and other multistakeholder partners is an important and valuable step forward. Hamadoun, we appreciate your efforts to build constructive relationships and look forward to further cooperation and collaboration with the ITU. We have always sought to build our relationships based on mutual respect and integrity, taking into account the unique and distinct mandates entrusted to our organizations. The strengthening of communications between us is a personal priority for me. Thank you again, Hamadoun. [ Applause ] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: I would also like to acknowledge our partners, the Internet Society, ISOC, and the Regional Internet Registries that participated in the plenipotentiary. They not only carried the multistakeholder spirit and flame; they supported the governmental delegations with vital information necessary to ensure the conference's success. We sincerely thank you all. Today we stand at an important crossroads. The online world is in perpetual and rapid transition. Technology is moving fast, slipping into aspects of life that long were immune to its encroachment, and merely keeping up as become a considerable challenge. With the potential for many more parts of our lives moving online, ensuring the stability and resilience of the domain name system and sufficient expansion of Internet capacity have become defining requirements of modern life. We must ensure a stable, resilient, and unified platform for global society to build upon, and to generate opportunities to build bridges across borders and cultures. The Internet is global, and ICANN is, too -- in our thinking, our vision, our practices, and our decisions. We are accountable to the world, not to any one country, and everything we do must reflect that. We exist for the benefit of billions of individuals around the world who depend on the Internet in their daily lives. ICANN's international relations continue to improve. We are actively engaged around the world in dialogue with governments, businesses, and civil society. Membership in the Governmental Advisory Committee is growing, a sign that governments are increasingly interested in what we do and want to be a part of it. There are many recent examples of this constructive international engagement. The WHOIS review team includes members from Austria, Brazil, Canada, Pakistan, Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. We are particularly pleased that law enforcement is now engaged in this effort as well. We are participating at national and regional conferences all over the world. The central and east European ccTLD conference in Russia; the APTLD meeting in Jordan; the network operator group meetings in Turkey and Palau; and ministerial meetings from Azerbaijan to Tunis, to name just a few. A key expression of ICANN's commitment to global Internet is the Internationalized Domain Names. Their introduction required a tremendous effort by many parts of the ICANN community. That strong collaboration produced one of the biggest changes in the Internet in its history. The fast-track process was launched just over a year ago in Seoul, and ICANN has received 35 requests for consideration of IDN Country Code Top Level Domains. 22 countries and territories with a total of 32 strings have already successfully completed evaluation processing and are either at or near the last step: Delegation. Today, 12 countries and territories, 15 strings, are now in the root zone. We continue to be impressed by the uptake of IDNs. An astonishing surge of interest was reported among the Russian Cyrillic registrants when the new Cyrillic IDN was first made available, as Peter mentioned this morning. Just before the program launched, Andrei Kolesnikov, who is here with us today, the CEO of the coordination center for the dot RU ccTLD and the Cyrillic ccTLD dot RF, said that they expected about 100,000 domain names to be registered by the end of this year. Within three hours they had the first 100,000 registrations. Within six hours, 200,000! Over half a million within just the first week! And now, this week, well over 600,000 registered. 97% are domestic registrations. Giving us the indication of the demand for the opening of appropriate TLDs to groups and audiences around the world. That enthusiasm reflects the need and desire to communicate online entirely in one's primary language. It goes beyond usefulness and touches a country's and a people's sense of national and cultural identity. Our discussions near Cartagena will include issues of delegating additional IDNs in the root and ways to develop -- help developing nations enhance their capabilities to create a multilingual Internet. And ICANN is continuing to improve the very successful implementation of IDN TLDs. For example, we're considering whether, if so, and how to broaden the eligibility beyond those on the ISO 3166 list. And to ensure IDNs provide a good user experience we look at practical implementation, focusing on the Internet Engineering Task Force recent revision of theIDNA protocol. Unity and connectivity are among ICANN's core values, as enshrined in our bylaws, because the ability to connect anyone anywhere depends on keeping the root whole. ICANN now coordinates DNS operations with 240 countries and territories around the world in a seamless, interconnected Internet root, and each of and every one of those countries and territories has contributed in some fashion to the expansion of the Internet. Today, about 3% of the IPv4 address space is left in the free pool. That means there are seven /8 IPv4 address blocks remaining. The ICANN approved global policy provides that only when five blocks remain in the pool, each Regional Internet Registry will simultaneously receive one, and at that point the IPv4 address pool administered by the ICANN IANA group will be exhausted. Of the 4.3 billion unique IPv4 addresses, only about 100 million are available or unassigned. Fortunately, in 2006 the ICANN board ratified a global policy drafted by IANA, the Number Resource Organization, and the Regional Internet Registries for the allocation of IPv6 addresses. So IPv6 is waiting in the wings to provide incredible amounts of unique IP addresses. Each Regional Internet Registry received an initial IPv6 allocation per the global policy and their general policy is to assign a /48 to the end sites. Let's put this in perspective. A single /48 is 1.2 septillion addresses, also known as a quadrillion. Quadrillion in many other languages. A septillion has 24 zeros or a trillion trillion. That's the end-use allocation. With the depletion of IPv4 address space, IPv6 offers a path well into the future. We would like to acknowledge the government of Colombia which a few days ago announced its national plan for the formal adoption of the IPv6 as part of the Viva Digital initiative that Minister Molano has introduced. This support from the government lays the very foundation for continued Internet penetration in Colombia and is a welcome move. We applaud Colombia for its foresight and for its leadership. [ Applause ] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Security, stability and reliability are among ICANN's core values, because the Internet must keep running. Too much is at stake for it to fail. And there are threats. The security of the Internet's unique identifier system remains a primary mission, and in partnership with the community we will continue to do our best to help coordinate community supported security efforts. DNSSEC, or DNS security extensions, is a main component of the security effort and the biggest structural improvement in the Internet in over 20 years. When fully deployed, it will make substitution, redirection, or man-in-the-middle attacks more difficult by cryptographically protecting DNS data with digital signatures and keys. This ensures that information has not been modified in transit from its authoritative source to the user. Since we met in Brussels in late June, the root was signed on July 15th, 2010 with the involvement of the global Internet technical community. 21 distinguished community members from 19 different countries participated in managing the root key, making it a truly global responsibility. Thanks to community efforts, DNSSEC is being deployed aggressively around the world. 50 TLDs have already been signed and are in the root, and at least 15 more are in the works. A number of new registry operators are implementing DNSSEC in the top-level domain zones. Dot net will be ready for DNSSEC validation later this week, a major milestone, and dot com is on track for validation by March of 2011 when we meet in San Francisco for the 40th ICANN public meeting. The signed zones here in Latin America and the Caribbean include Belize's .bz, Brazil's .br, Honduras' .hr, Puerto Rico's .pr and Saint Lucia's .lc. We appreciate their leadership in implementing DNSSEC. If you are a registry operator in the region, we hope you will reach out to those countries and leaders for their help and advice on how you can best implement DNSSEC. In recognition of the importance of the DNSSEC effort, there will be a special DNSSEC beginner's session here in Cartagena in addition to the regular DNSSEC session. This is a joint effort between the SSAC and the ccNSO's Tech Day, and thus represents a new community effort. I encourage you to attend. In all its work, ICANN has one singular goal: Protecting the public interest of the global Internet. So let's ask the obvious question: What is the public interest in the security of the global Internet? What do governments and law enforcement expect of our community? How about the financial services institutions that experience cyber attacks that leverage the Domain Name System? What do they expect? Or small registries experiencing a cyber attack? What happens if a small registrar is attacked or threatened? Who will come to their assistance and through what mechanism? It's understandable there would be debate on such a complex topic as DNS security, and it is challenging to develop synthesized policies on matters where many opposing views are held, sometimes vehemently. In a multistakeholder environment, different parties have different views on important issues and differing stakes in their outcome. That's what makes our community such a rich policy development environment. We are committed to our bottom-up policy development process. We always have been. The staff under my leadership is willing to go as far on security as the community is willing. And whatever security effort this community decides, we will do our utmost to implement and support given adequate resources. Because when it comes to security, how can we ever say we've done enough? We're listening to you. Let's work together and act on our number one core value as enshrined in our bylaws, and I quote, "Preserving and enhancing the operational stability, reliability, security, and global interoperability of the Internet." And now you need to tell us where you would like us to go, and what you would like to do. Of course, I am sure we can agree that when it comes to security, the question is not what do we want to do or what is popular or what is easy. It's what do we owe to the world? Because all of us care about the global public interest. Good security measures cannot be developed in an information vacuum. We need to have more data. Data on trends of DDOS and other attacks and gaps in the current security responses to those threats. We need to document known risks to the DNS as well as potential and hypothetical risks that we have not yet encountered. Many in the community are willing to discuss risks, threats, and security incidents in private. We believe that our community's longstanding commitment to transparency requires responsible disclosure of information which is essential for a full understanding of the situation and to establish a baseline of previous attacks and their impacts on DNS operations. Governments, too have a role. We have asked the GAC members to provide information about security activities in their countries. We very much appreciate the information some have shared, but there have been few responses. As governments urge us to remain committed to security efforts, we in turn request their assistance. Please help us by responding and working with the ICANN community on this vital issue. We also need objective risk models of the overall DNS system. Without them, how can we quantify and understand the risks? It may not be easy, but working together we can make progress if we are willing to dedicate the time and resources as a community. We also continue to address security concerns across a wide range of issues. Led by the community, we're supporting work on the high security TLDs, centralized zone file access to reduce potential malicious conduct and other programs. I'm sorry, that was a separate -- the malicious efforts are separate from the centralized zone file access. Under the Affirmation of Commitments we are supporting the efforts of the security, stability, and resiliency review team which will conduct its first face-to-face meetings in Cartagena. Dr. Paul Mockapetris, one of, if not the, original architects of the DNS is a member of that new review team and is a part of the outreach efforts to expand participation in the community. We are honored to have him involved. We've published an FY11 security, stability, and resiliency plan. It's available in six languages and we have conducted a series of briefings with the community to ensure we have your input as we proceed. We are also continuing to support DNS capacity-building efforts with successful training sessions held recently in Guatemala, Jordan, and Mali. Innovation, as well presented by Juan Diego earlier and as demonstrated by the actions of punto.co, innovation is a key value for ICANN because the Internet is changing rapidly and the Domain Name System must evolve with it. Opening up the namespace to new generic top-level domains is intended to promote competition, innovation, and consumer choice in a safe and stable manner with sufficient and appropriate safeguards to mitigate costs and risks. Guided by community input, the board has considered the public interest in its recent discussions on the implementation of trademark protections, the new registry agreement terms, measures to mitigate malicious conduct, and ensure root zone stability, and by resolution of the cross-ownership issue. An extraordinary amount of constructive attention and collaboration by many parties has been devoted to resolving the very difficult issues of this program. The community has been involved through working groups and detailed public comments. We have received exceptional input from the Implementation Recommendation Team, or IRT, the Special Trademark Issues working team, or STI, the Internationalized Domain Name working group, or IDNWG, the Zone File Access Advisory Group, or ZFAAG, the High Security Top-Level Domain Advisory Group, or HSTLD- AG, and other working groups. This has been an amazing display of broad community cooperation and expertise, and a major contribution to the already extensive library of ICANN acronyms. It demonstrates clearly that our multistakeholder model is working. As is often the case with policy decisions in that multistakeholder model, not everyone is pleased, and this diversity of opinion contributes to the policy process. For example, last week we received a critical letter from the U.S. Department of Commerce. As with all contributions, ICANN will give these comments very careful consideration as part of the implementation of the GNSO policy. We welcome the transparent way that Commerce provided their comments through the public comment process. ICANN is profoundly committed to the principles and practice of transparency in all of our activities. You can't have real accountability without it. And ICANN is accountable to its constituencies and the world. ICANN's staff, board, and community have an impressive record of accountability and transparency, and we are building on this foundation every day. The Affirmation of Commitments requires a review of how well we are maintaining and advancing accountability and transparency by continually assessing and improving elements that support this objective. We thank you the Accountability and Transparency Review Team for their draft report, which was posted last month for public comment, and look forward to community and board discussion here in Cartagena. Public input will help ensure ICANN's continually improving accountability and transparency. We've noted many constructive elements in the report that could be implemented and that validate and build upon ICANN's achievements. Again, we encourage the community to comment on the draft. Community input is particularly relevant for the potential implementation and for changes it would imply for several ICANN structures and processes, including the policy development process. Ultimately, the board will decide which recommendations should be incorporated into ICANN's annual plans and budget, taking into account the increase in time, cost, and resources that implementation of various pieces May require. A core part of ensuring the fullest possible transparency in our work is our flagship Web site icann.org. It is a great expression of our commitment to transparency, admirable in its completeness, but not so admirable in its dense presentation of a lot of challenging material and the navigation can be quite difficult. As a result, and as further evidence of our commitment to full transparency and public participation, the Web site is undergoing renovation and upgrade. The goals are ease of use and to make the site more engaging in order to welcome more people into the community. We will keep you updated on this important project. [ In Spanish ] Por último, quisiera, nuevamente darle la bienvenida y extender mi agradecimiento al Ministro Diego Ernesto Molano, Vice Ministro María Carolina Hoyos Turbay y Eduardo Santoyo. Muchas gracias por su apoyo. El poder que posee el internet para cambiar nuestras vidas es conmovedor. Esta rediseñando nuestras comunicaciones, nuestra infraestructura, nuestra economía y nuestro futuro de manera radical. El trabajo y dedicación de la comunidad de ICANN es esencial para garantizar un internet seguro, estable y unificado. Acoger con entusiasmo nuevas voces y nuevos puntos de vista e ideas en nuestra comunidad fortalecerá nuestra habilidad colectiva para alcanzar ese desafío para beneficio del mundo entero. Gracias. [ English translation ] Finally, I would like to welcome you here, and I would like to thank Minister Diego Ernesto Molano Vego, Vice-Minister María Carolina Hoyos Turbay, Juan Diego Calle, and Eduardo Santoyo. Thank you, thank you for your support. [ Applause ] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: Internet's power to change our life is moving. It is redesigning our communications, our infrastructure and our economy and our future radically. The work and dedication of ICANN's community is essential to ensure a secure, stable, and unified Internet. We welcome new voices and new viewpoints, new ideas for our community. And that will strengthen our collective capacity to achieve, to accomplish this challenge for the benefit of the world. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >>MR. ROD BECKSTROM: (In Spanish, not translated) This session.... [ In English ] Enjoy your weekend. Thank you. [ Applause ] ***Live Scribing by Brewer & Darrenougue - www.quicktext.com***