ICANN Nairobi  
Welcome Ceremony
Monday, 8 March 2010

>> Ladies and gentlemen, if you would be kind enough to take your
seats.  Our visitors from Kenya will be coming into the room very
shortly, and we would appreciate your being in your seats.  Again, if
you would kindly take your seats, we would appreciate it very, very
much.  Thank you.  Ladies and gentlemen, again, we request that you
still be seated.  It is the order that a Kenyan official cannot come
into the room until everyone is in their seat.  So if you would be
kind enough, we would appreciate it very much.  Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, please, we would appreciate if you take your
seats.  Once again, our visitors cannot come into the room until
everyone is seated.

Thank you.  (inaudible).

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome John Otiko.

[ Applause ]

>> Your excellencies, the vice president, republic of Kenya,
(inaudible) fellow delegates, welcome to the KICC.  My name is
lieutenant John Otiko.  Allow me to take you through a short security
brief.

(inaudible) as exit A.  (inaudible) we are requesting that delegates
ensure (inaudible) of their personal items.  Delegates are advised to
use the shuttle buses at their respective hotels.  And in the case of
(inaudible) in the room, (inaudible).  And in case (inaudible) or you
can call extension 141.  I repeat, call extension 141.  Welcome to
KICC thanks for choosing KICC as your venue.  And enjoy your stay.

[ Applause ]

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kayamba Africa.

(Performance).

>> Found interesting ways to call for attention.  They would use a
single instrument derived from nature this was an animal horn.

Once the horn did its part to bring the attention of the village, we
would introduce the village choir, who would make these intentions
known.

Once the villagers were aware of what was happening, they would
gather in the village grounds.

Using traditional African instruments, they would make the beats
more interesting by involving the local musicians.

Of course, as they waited for the later news, they would engage in a
little bit of entertainment through dancing and merry-making.

At home in their traditional beautiful regalia, the villagers would
show off the best in African dress.

As time went by, the western influence was introduced by the
explorers and the missionaries.

The music and the culture was rather unusual, so they tried and put
a stop to that kind of music.  And made to mute their own music.

Glory, glory hallelujah.  Glory, glory hallelujah.

(Singing).

[ Applause ]

(Singing continues).

>> Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome CEO, president, Internet
corporation for assigned names and numbers, Mr. Rod Beckstrom.

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   Welcome to ICANN Kenya.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   And we will say many thanks to our wonderful
hosts later.  But we already started off with the blessing of some
beautiful music.  And we thought we would join some other activity
around the world today, which is, today is actually a commonwealth
prayer day.  And in England, the queen of England is leading the
largest-ever interfaith prayer in the United Kingdom and around the
world through the commonwealth, which Kenya is no longer a part of
but has historical ties to.  And that prayer is for science and
technology.  So it's very appropriate.  We thought we could be --
we'd like to have the blessing of some local leaders as well for this
event and for the Internet as a whole, that it be watched over.  So
it's with pleasure I want to hand this over now to our very dear
director, Katim TOURAY from Gambia, who is on the board and is an
amazing leader from Africa, who will briefly introduce our guests for
a prayer.

>>KATIM TOURAY:   Good morning, everybody.  Bonjour.  It's really a
pleasure.  I can't overestimate how delightful it is for me to stand
before you and be a part of this opening ceremony of the 37th meeting
of ICANN in Nairobi, Kenya.  I've been here a few times, and it seems
to me each time I come, it's much more exciting than the first time. 
So that's why I'm always looking forward to coming to Kenya.

(No audio to scribes).  

>> -- no matter what we connect to, we're all using the same global,
interoperable Internet.  That's part of why we're here this week. 
Going by the schedule, you'll think we're here to talk about new
generic top-level domains, about the new top-level domains we're
creating which will allow Internet addresses to be done using all of
the scripts of the world, not just English.  We'll be talking about
the role of governments and the Governmental Advisory Committee and
the special relationship that they have in ICANN.  We'll be talking
about our efforts in security, stability, and resiliency.  We'll be
talking about how to tackle DNS abuse, about some of the malicious
conduct that goes on on the Internet, all important topics.  And
these will be the sessions running in our work over the next five
days.  And I encourage you all to take part and make sure that your
voice is heard.

Because ICANN uses bottom-up processes, there is no central command
and control in ICANN, there is no top-down process, because it's
bottom-up, each of you has an equal opportunity to take part and make
sure that your voice is heard.

Not only because the topics are important, but because the work we
do here is so important, it's about strengthening the Internet and
its architecture.  It's about shrinking the distance between
everybody on the global, about helping people connect to their
communities and to the world itself.  One of our exciting projects is
the fast-track program for country code names, the IDN ccTLD project.
Since that was launched at our last meeting, we have now had four
strings of new ccTLD IDNs approved.  This means that those countries
will be using domain names in the scripts of the languages of those
countries, for Egypt, the Russian Federation, the United Arab
Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, another important step in the
globalization of the Internet.  People in these countries will be
connecting with each other using entirely their own native scripts. 
And remember that these are just the first four.  There are many,
many more coming down that process, and some are just around the
corner.  And we want there to be more.  And to help us, we've
arranged a partnership with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization, under an agreement signed in
December, they are working with us on some of the technical aspects
of using these scripts.  This partnership will really help keep IDNs
moving forward.

They'll also look at how they can assist developing countries
participate in a multilingual Internet.  This is a global partnership
that we think will have global results.  Partnerships are why we have
traveled here today from all parts of the globe.  Thank you for being
part of the unique ICANN model.  And thank you for your dedication to
the Internet.  Our efforts here this week are going to make sure that
that distance between us continues to be erased.  So thank you,
again.  Welcome to Nairobi.  And I am pleased to declare ICANN's 37th
meeting open.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   It now gives me pleasure to call Rod
Beckstrom, our president and CEO back to the stage to introduce our
special guests.  Rod.

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   It is now my enormous pleasure to introduce
the honorable vice president of Kenya and minister for home affairs. 
It is Mr. Honorable Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka.  He has a rather
remarkable background.  He's a lawyer by profession and holds a
postgraduate diploma in business management from the Mediterranean
institute of management in Cyprus and a diploma in law from the Kenya
School of Law and a bachelor of law from the University of Nairobi. 
He was first elected to parliament in 1985 and has served in a number
of different portfolios, including works, housing and physical
planning, foreign affairs, international cooperation, education, and
human resource development and tourism, and also the environment.  I
guess the question I have is, what ministries has he not run or been
a part of, his experience is so broad across this great nation.  He
has chaired and spearheaded peace initiatives within the framework of
the intergovernmental authority for development, IGAD, which will
also be meeting here the next two days, with ministers and heads of
state.  And he's helped in the peace processes in both Sudan and
Somalia, and also in the great lakes region, and having worked in
that area, a field for three and a half years of my life, it's a
tremendous honor to introduce the vice president.  Please give him a
hand again.  Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>H.E. HON. KALONZO MUSYOKA:   Mr. Peter Thrush, chairman of ICANN
board; Mr. Rod Beckstrom, president of ICANN, our own Kenya team, led
by members of parliament, I think the minister will also be on his
way; delegates; ladies and gentlemen, I feel tremendously honored
this morning to be able to welcome you to our country.  The chairman,
I think we should give him an honorary citizenship of this country,
because he speaks very good Kiswahili.

[ Applause ]

>>H.E. HON. KALONZO MUSYOKA:   And therefore, I felt, in fact, I
should have come up with a Kiswahili statement, because it looks to
me you can all follow.  Very warm welcome.  You bring with us
tremendous blessings to us.  We are experiencing right now.

(No audio to scribes.)

>>H.E. HON. KALONZO MUSYOKA:   -- what I have seen this morning, you
are set to enjoy every moment of it.  I started complaining when the
entertaining team came onto the stage, because I saw some kind of
ballroom dancing.  And I say, this is not Kenyan.  But at the end of
it, I think we are all in sync with Kayamba Africa, one of our
wonderful entertainment groups in this country.  And I am told
tomorrow you will be able to see a little bit of that Kenyan culture.
Apart from that cultural exhibition, please do find time as well to
visit some of our other attractions.  We do have the Masai Mara Park
that's one of, I think, the wonders of the world.  You cannot truly
claim to be in Kenya if you don't visit the Masai Mara.  If you want
to be more adventurous, you can go to the national park and other
places.  But you will, I'm sure, appreciate, the Kenyans are open-
hearted.  They welcome all visitors.  If you begin to ask them
questions about their country, they tell you everything, including
that which you do not really want to hear.  So you have to find a way
to tell them, "Stop.  I have had enough."  They love, Kenyans.  And I
have heard the chairmen talk about the mothers of the great Rift
Valley, the cradle of mankind.  And I know, Americans amongst you, I
want to confirm that President Barack Obama is not a Kenyan.  He is
an American with deep Kenyan roots.  All of us have Kenyan roots, if
you want to look at the aspect of the cradle of mankind is, indeed,
in the great Rift Valley.  The importance of this meeting, ladies and
gentlemen, cannot be overemphasized, considering that the Internet
has become a key resource in modern-day economics.  It is -- it has
also opened doors of hither-to impossibilities by making
communication and other transactions a lot easier.  The importance of
the Internet is evidenced at this meeting, where I am informed that
participants who were unable to come to Kenya have the opportunity to
follow proceedings through Internet-assisted remote participation. 
Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting also does yet again present a
unique opportunity to reexamine the significance of the Internet. 
Admittedly, the Internet has become an integral part of our lives. 
It plays a pivotal role in almost all our daily activities.  Indeed,
it is one of the most significant inventions of our time and one that
has changed our perspective and the way we do things.  I therefore
congratulate ICANN and the entire global Internet community for the
good work that has been achieved over the years and the positive
transformation the Internet has brought to the lives of people
everywhere.

Kenya has not been left behind in the digital revolution.  The
government, as well as the private sector, and, indeed, the civil
society, have all played their roles to ensure that the country is an
active participant in the Internet arena.  We have been dedicated to
building crucial infrastructure to enabling access to fast,
efficient, and affordable connections by Kenyans and others in our
region.  To this end, the government financed the laying of the East
African marine systems.  We call it teams fiberoptic undersea cable
that landed at the coast of Mombasa last year.  Within the same
period, the laying of the privately owned Seacom cable was also
completed, bringing about world-class cavity across eastern and
southern Africa.

A third submarine cable, which is code-named EASY, is expected to
land at Kenya's coast by June this year.  Additionally, in late 2009,
Orange integrated, the lower Indian Ocean network ran cable and plans
to extend this cable as well to Mombasa.  Ladies and gentlemen, to
access full benefits of the submarine cables, the government has
deployed digital arteries throughout the country, linking, in
particular, rural, underserved and unserved areas.  Implementation of
the digital arteries is almost aimed at stimulating private sector
participation in the provision of rural telecommunications services.

The national optic fiber broadband infrastructure is now in place
throughout the country, with the end users connected to the main
submarine cables.

As more Kenyans get access to the Internet through computers and
mobile phones, government services will reach more citizens.  And
remember, in our discussion with the chairman and -- the chairman of
ICANN and president asking me, what is it that you are trying to do
in Kenya?  What are the objectives?  And I told them that although we
do have a very young country, because 65% of the total Kenyan
population are Kenyans below age 25 years, believe it or not, our
intention is to make it possible for every Kenyan child to be able to
own a laptop computer.  Now, this, I know, is a tall order.  But we
are working around the clock.  And parliament and everybody in
government is committed to ensuring that we bring our kids up to
speed, because without it, they will not properly be citizens of the
21st century.

To this end, government has now automated services through various
digital village services, accessing services such as eProcurement,
eRegistry, integrated land system, and eHealth.  One particular fast-
growing area is eLearning, which allows a low cost.  Indeed, we are
at the threshold of becoming a digital economy, which I believe will
be instrumental in building and broadening the investment base in
Kenya and the neighboring countries that are also benefiting from the
submarine connectivity.

The entry of fiberoptic cable is expected to enhance business
process outsourcing, BPO, as well as software development, and here,
must congratulate our friends from the Indian subcontinent, because I
think they set the trend in terms of business outsourcing.  

We are trying to catch up with our Indian friends in this part of
the world.

So far, we have seen significant success in the two areas.

In recognition of this potential, the government has in the past
year undertaken a series of policy, regulatory and structural reform
initiatives to enhance the ICT sector, and increase its contribution
to the economy.

These measures include a new set of policy guidelines and legal
framework, which now brings on board legislation on electronic
transactions.

In addition, the government has identified ICT as one of the main
drivers to transform Kenya into a middle income economy by the year
2030.

Against this backdrop, we welcome enhanced role of governments in
ICANN and a space given to the discussions on public policy.

And at this juncture, ladies and gentlemen, let me say something
about the global concern of Internet security.

There is no doubt that the Internet has enormous benefits.  On the
flip side of the coin, however, it also offers an inexpensive and
easy weapon of modern warfare.

As the number of Internet users increases, so do cyber attacks.

Further, the deployment of new broadband connections exposes
networks to high-speed exploits.  I therefore wish to request that
issues of Internet security be given emphasis, the emphasis they
deserve.  Capacity building in the area of cybersecurity is not only
necessary but also an urgent measure that should be undertaken with
intensity.

We need to learn from each other how best we can manage Internet
security in a coordinated and responsive manner.

Partnerships will once again play a critical role in curbing this
vice that may quickly erode the gains we have made with the Internet.

And with those comments, ladies and gentlemen, it is now my
pleasure, well the chairman has actually declared this conference
open.  It is, indeed, my pleasure to join him in declaring the 37th
international meeting of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, ICANN, officially open.  And welcome to Kenya once again.

Thank you very much.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:  To our Kenyan hosts and our Kenyan friends,
thank you so much for everything you have done to pull together this
ICANN Kenya 37.

This is ICANN's seventh time in Africa out of 37 meetings, as we
rotate around the world to engage with the globe one out of five
regions at a time, and it's our second time in SubSaharan Africa, and
we're thrilled to be here.

The path here was a bit of a rocky road and a few forks but we all
stayed together, and thanks to the tremendous support of our hosts,
we are now able to enjoy the meeting here in this beautiful
conference center and in this magnificent city.

In honor of them, I need your help.

We heard our chairman speak some very nice Swahili, so I need all of
your help now to talk Swahili as we connect some dots together.

So please join me in saying, (in Swahili.)

Okay, a little bit louder, I couldn't hear that.

One, two, three (in Swahili.)

I am going to say three stanzas, and when I raise my hands, we are
all going to say (in Swahili).

Still, one more time.

(in Swahili)

One more time.

(in Swahili)

That's one world, one Internet, everyone connected.

And that's what brings us here today.

And the last thing I will try to say in Swahili right now is (in
Swahili.)

And what that says is unity is strength, division is weakness, and
the Internet gives us unity.

So with that we are so thrilled that all of you have come here.  I
guess I should make sure my moving mic is going.

We are especially thrilled because another event has landed upon us
in the same venue, which at first we thought of all the
considerations with logistics and coordination, and then we realized
what a blessing, in fact, it was.

There will be five presidents of African countries here in the
building tomorrow.

There are many ministers from Africa here today meeting in the large
amphitheater building at the other end of the conference center.

And their organization, Intergovernmental Authority for Development,
was started in the 1960s to address a drought.  There was not enough
rain, and the crops were harvested, and many people were suffering
intensely.

And IGAD was brought together to handle that crisis and that drought.

And those leaders are coming together today in part to discuss
security and very, very pressing security issues in East Africa,
which is where the group is based.  And as the vice president just
mentioned, cybersecurity is among their issues.

So the Internet is always among us.

But if we look at Africa's challenge, I would like to posit that
Africa is moving from an old model of aid to a new model of the
Internet, because many organizations that were started in the '60s
and 70's had one set of assumptions and a model for top-level
planning and very hierarchical, but the revolution which is taking
place in Kenya and now across Africa is from the bottom up.  And it's
driven by what?  It's driven by the Internet, by connectivity, by the
ability of humans to connect, to communicate, educate, and to do
commerce and to improve their lives.

And it's on this score that Kenya is an outstanding example.

As the vice president mentioned, there's now a fiber connection to
Mombasa, which actually goes all the way to this conference center. 
We have some of the best, if not the best fiberoptic connectivity
that ICANN has ever had in the world is right here, right now in
Nairobi.  Thanks for this important work.  The government and the
private sector together working together has done.

That service is so good, do you know what it cost to get high-speed
broadband access at your home here in Kenya?  $13 a month.

$13 a month!

That's an excellent price.  But I'd say it's also too high, and we
hope it comes down even lower all over Africa where we have one
billion people, many of whom want access to the Internet.  And no one
needs to take my word for it because a survey of 1700 Kenyans was
just completed three days ago, and published by TNS.  And the
research said that 77% of Kenyans want better Internet access, and
63% of Kenyans value better Internet access more than good telephone
service.  More than good telephone service.  Can you imagine what
that means?

So the Internet is becoming an incredibly important platform for
economic development.

Kenya has led in other bottom-up fashions.  Kenya is a leader in
micro-lending practices, and I have had the honor to be involved with
the micro-lending group here called Jamii Bora, which started with 50
very poor women living in one of the toughest communities in Nairobi
only ten years ago.  50 beggar women with nothing.  They probably
didn't have a dollar between them.

Those women started an organization that today has over 250,000
members in the organization.  Started in Kenya, started in Nairobi,
developed in Nairobi, and spreading across Africa.

Those 250,000 represent more than one million people with the family
members touched.

Bottoms up, lifting from the bottom.

So we key Kenya's leadership here as well.

The Internet is probably the most sustainable platform for
development, like micro lending, that builds up small businesses and
gives so many people an opportunity to lift themselves.  The Internet
is an incredible tool.  And because of advances in networking
technology, this $13 price tag will be able to go down because of
improvements to technology and bandwidths.

And in fact, every new country in Africa that spreads new
fiberoptics networks has lower expenses in building their networks
than the last country, because the prices are dropping so quickly and
the technology is advancing.

And I think you will join me in the dream for many Africans to maybe
see broadband at a dollar a month in the future, which would extend
it to almost everyone on this continent.

So Africa is needed for leadership.  15% of the globe lives here,
one billion people, but only 4% of the Internet users at present.

I would now like to invite the leaders that are at the other
conference here, the IGAD event, to come and join us, to link the
traditional work of development and now security, which is important
in East Africa, together with the Internet.  And I would like to
throw down the gauntlet to the presidents who will be here tomorrow
to ask for their help for all the people of Africa and for ICANN in
four specific areas.

Number one, to shatter telecom monopolies and to introduce
competition such as Kenya is doing so well, bringing in private
sector leaders and so many different players, Orange and Cadia and so
many other parties leading to highly effective competitive Internet
rates.  This is what Africa needs.  

If you have a monopoly, what do you have?  The most expensive
Internet access rates in the world.  And where are those?  Largely in
Africa.

And I ask you, how can the poorest people on earth pay the highest
Internet prices?  It's an incredible brake on development.  It's an
incredible wall and impediment.  And we look forward actual the
leaders of Africa following the many positive models that are also
here to continue to shatter the monopolies, deregulate and open up to
effective competitive markets for the citizens and people of Africa
as we heard in the survey, this is what they want and what they need.

Secondly, to dispel the stories.  There are so many stories that are
circulating in Africa that are not true about the Internet, and how
the Internet is being coordinated.

There's a little story that's circulating -- right? -- that IPv6 is
not available to African countries or to developing countries.

That is a story which is being systematically spread around this
continent, which I have heard dozens of times.  Is it true?  No. 
It's completely false.

There are already parties in Africa that have trillions of IPv6
addresses.  AfriNIC is one of the finest Internet registries in the
world that manages address distribution.  It's an amazing
organization founded by Nii Quaynor who is here with us at the event.

AfriNIC is allocating IPv4 addresses to all its 800 members that
need it, and every one of those 800 that fills out an application and
says, "We need addresses," will receive more than one trillion
Internet addresses.

So we need the leaders of Africa to hold their Ministers and other
parties responsible to answer the questions, dispel those stories
because the IPv6 addresses are available.  Please contact AfriNIC. 
And if you are not receiving what you need, contact ICANN.  Call me
personally.  I'll make sure it's taken care of.

So the truth is there's more than enough IPv6 for all of Africa. 
And we need to dispel those stories so we can build on the truth. 
Because none who spreads such dishonest stories cannot be trusted for
making policies.

The next point is, we need ICANN's help to shape the policies of the
Internet, and our part of policy-making which is around the Domain
Name System, Internet domains and addresses, et cetera, which is a
key central coordination capability to unify the Internet.  We need
more African involvement.

We are thrilled to see the positive example of Kenya that has been
so engaged with the Governmental Advisory Committee.  We are thrilled
to see there's 19 other African countries involved in the
Governmental Advisory Committee, we call the GAC.  But over 30
African nations are missing.  And if your nation does not have a seat
at the table for policy-making, how can you help shape the future of
the Internet for your country, and how can you make sure your needs
are addressed.  And so we invite these presidents here tomorrow in
this building to please assign some bright, talented people with
policy experience or technology experience and join the GAC.  Our
next meeting is June 20th in Brussels.  Please send your delegates,
please join our Governmental Advisory Committee.

We need your help.  We need your involvement.

It's a lot of tough work.  It's not easy.  There's tough legal
issues.  There's tough policy issues.  There's tough technology
issues.  But we need your help to move forward.

And we welcome your engagement.  The five presidents tomorrow, two
of their countries have GAC members, three do not.  We ask the other
three, please join the GAC and send your members to Brussels on June
20th.

Finally, the fourth ask is simply please view the Internet not as
just a part of industrial structure that's incredibly critical. 
Please view the Internet.  And many of you already do.  The five
committed in Addis Ababa in just January to focus on ICT as a
platform for development, please spread that across Africa.  The
Internet is the platform for the future.

So leaders, when you come here tomorrow, we are very happy you are
in the building.  You will be in another room.  Please come join us
in our room.

It's a set of small steps for you but it's a huge leap forward for
Africa to moving into the future, the future of the Internet.

So four messages.  We need your help to shatter monopolies, to get
better service for the people.  Secondly, to bring truth to the
issues of Internet address allocations and IPv6, which is readily
available.  Thirdly, please join the GAC.  Fourthly, please see the
Internet as a key development platform.  And we need your help in all
of that.

So we are thrilled to have all of you here.  And now I would like to
introduce one of our other esteemed guests, the man who has really
helped to make this entire event happen.

So it's my great honor to introduce Sammy Buruchara.  Sammy is
chairman of KeNIC, or the Kenyan Network Information Centre, that
manages and operates dot KE, the Kenyan top-level country code for
Kenya which many people register with and all the businesses in
Kenya.  They have done an excellent job.  They have been a leader in
the region and contributed so much globally.

He also serves as a member of the IT-enabled services working group
at the Prime Minister's office.  He also founded Nairobi Net Limited,
one of the pioneer Internet service providers in Kenya, and he is a
founding member and previous chairman of the Telecommunications
Service Providers Association in Kenya, TESPOK.  And he is also a
member of the Board of Directors of the Kenya ICT board, a government
advisory body on ICT development out of the top office here in Kenya.

Sammy, I now hand it over to you.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. SAMMY BURUCHARA:   The Minister for Information and
Communication, Mr. Honorable Samuel Poghisio; the permanent
secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication, Dr. Bitange
Ndemo,  and the Director General for Communication Commission of
Kenya, Mr. Charles Njoroge; the ICANN chairman, Peter Thrush; and
ICANN president Rod Beckstrom, distinguished guests,ladies and
gentlemen.  It's a very exciting moment for us this day that ICANN is
here, especially for Africa.

In 1995, when the first 64 Kbps link was connected from Nairobi to
the U.S., you know the technical engineers at Africa online were very
excited.  It was a very significant moment, that for the first time,
Kenya was able to send a signal to the Internet.

The next five years, we didn't have our own registry, and the
meeting held at the Hilton Hotel by the then CEOs of the various
Internet service providers, myself included, we had lunch and people
were wondering why are competitors having lunch together.  At that
time, we were discussing about redelegation.  And subsequent
discussions that were held between the operators, the CCK and the
Kenyan government and ICANN resulted into the inception of KeNIC,
Kenyan Network Information Center.

And nine years later with over 12,500 domain names, KeNIC is hosting
the first 2010 ICANN meeting.

And so we are very happy, especially people in the Internet
community, that this is a very important moment.

And we want to thank you for choosing to come to Nairobi and write
this history for Kenya to become the East African country to host
ICANN.

For many of you, it was a difficult decision to make.  But I'm sure
you are glad you made it.  Kenya is a warm country.  We are
welcoming.  We have got a fair climate, and I'm sure you will enjoy
many other opportunities for tourists.

In the coming days, there are more important things that are going
to be discussed, and some of them have been said.  And for us, we are
concerned about the stability and reliability of the Internet,
especially in the areas of security, DNS security and cybersecurity,
and we will be very glad as some of the workshops that are ongoing
that we will have measures to ensure that this Internet that we are
increasingly relying on especially here in Kenya will be safe for us
to use.

And with the potential increase of domain names, there are
opportunities.  However, with equal measure, we guard ourselves
against the potential of alienating less developed groups and
countries from identities that rightfully belong to them.

ICANN has grown to be respected because of the bottom-up approach,
the balance between commerce and public interest.

I trust that you will deliberate these issues, you will develop
policies that will ensure a critical growth of the Domain Name System
to ensure that it correctly reflects the global Internet community
and issues of socioeconomic development.

Kenya has big plans, plans to extend the Internet to every corner. 
I'm sure you heard all the various infrastructure projects we have to
ensure that in the farthest corner of northeastern, the local user
will be able to register his domain and have an IP address to connect
his tracking device to monitor the movement of his cows.

I finally would like to thank those people who have worked with us
around the clock to ensure the success of this event.  Members of the
organizing committee, the Kenyan government, the Ministry of
Information and Communication and Communication Commission of Kenya,
telecommunication service providers, Kenya Action Network, the local
and international sponsors, and especially the ICANN staff and the
Board of Directors.  We want to thank you sincerely for all the
efforts that you have put to make sure that this event takes place
here.

Last but not least, you, the consumers, who have kept Internet usage
in Kenya vibrant, without which we would not be here.

I once more thank you for your decision to come to Nairobi and wish
you a very successful ICANN 2010.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   Thank you very much, Sammy, for your
excellent presentation.  And now I would like to introduce Mr.
Charles Njoroge, who is the Director General and CEO of the
Communications Commission of Kenya, CCK.

He spearheaded a number of seminal studies at CCK, including the
universal access study which gave birth to the CCK's universal access
strategy in 2005 resulting in the undersea cable teams and the
national backbone.

So he is the person we can thank for the development of this
incredible fiberoptic network across Kenya and helping the rest of
east Africa.

He has been instrumental in the establishment and the foundation of
KeNIC.  This country code top-level domain, the KeNIC project and
other initiatives such as the digitization of secondary education,
among others.

Sir, we are honored to have you today.  Thank you for joining us at
ICANN.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. CHARLES NJOROGE:   Good morning, everybody, and welcome to
Nairobi.

I want to recognize the vice president, who has just left, for
opening the meeting.  His Excellency the Vice President Honorable
Kalonzo Musyoka; Minister for Information, Communication in Kenya,
Honorable Samuel Poghisio; president of ICANN, Rod Beckstrom;
chairman of ICANN board, Peter Thrush; P.S. Ministry of Information,
Dr. Bitange Ndemo; member of parliament (saying name) India,
Honorable (saying name); board and management of ICT institutions
present here, including CCK; delegates of the 37th ICANN meeting;
members of the media fraternity, invited guests, ladies and gentlemen.

It is with great pleasure for me to address this August house during
the official opening of the 37th ICANN international meeting that my
organization has had the pleasure to co-sponsor.

As an industry regulator, CCK has been at the forefront of Internet
development in the country and within the East African region.

We have not only encouraged more players in this segment through
enabling regulatory regime, but I have also assisted in putting in
place key infrastructure that has enhanced the quality of the
business.  Most recently and notably, we, together with the
government, facilitated the laying of the international undersea
optic fiber cable as well as first year network supported.

This is a development we expect will transform out ICT landscape in
the region for the benefit of the business and governance.

Through public/private partnership, CCK helped set up the Kenya
ccTLD registry, a model that has won world acclaim.

Through this pioneering, we encourage and supported other countries
to set up their registries.

Kenya, through CCK, pioneered the setting up of Internet exchange
point which have since been adopted by other administrations in the
region.  Currently, the East African region is in the process of
setting up regional exchange points to keep Internet traffic local to
the member countries.

We also currently are in the membership of the East African
cybersecurity task force whose mandate is to facilitate the
establishment of CERTs, a cybersecurity framework within the East
African region.  The task force has already conducted successful
benchmarks, and in addition, individual countries are now in the
process of establishing national CERTs.  In this regard, Kenya is
currently in the process of establishing a national Computer
Emergency Response Team, known as the KeCERT, Kenya Computer
Emergency Response Team.

The purpose of KeCERT is to manage cybersecurity issues in the
country through a coordinated response to cybersecurity incidents,
awareness creation and the provision of cybersecurity advisory, among
others.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to ICANN for hosting this
meeting here in Kenya and on behalf of the local Secretariat, I wish
to assure all delegates and participants that we shall do all in our
means to ensure you not only have a memorable meeting but also ensure
you enjoy the social scene of Nairobi and the country at large.

I believe the publicity surrounding this meeting will greatly raise
the awareness of Internet users and providers in the country for the
benefit of the development of the local industry.

Many Kenyans will also have an opportunity for attending the meeting
and enrich their knowledge through sharing of experience with other
delegates.

I thank you for your attention.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Thank you very much, Mr. Njoroge, the
general director of CCK.  And thank you for the contribution that CCK
has played in setting up this meeting.

It's now my pleasure to introduce the Honorable Samuel Poghisio.  He
is an MP, the Minister for Information and Communication, a position
he has held since 2008.  He holds a master of arts in communication
from Wheaton College in the United States.  And interestingly, and in
my experience, this is the first time I have encountered a minister
with this qualification, he also has a master of divinity.  So he's
able to call on all sorts of citizens when he's facing technical
problems.

In philosophy and theology from Lincoln college of the United
States.  His first degree was a Bachelor of Science from a university
here.  He has served in the Kenyan government in various capacities
since 1988, including serving as assistant minister, ministry of
education, science, and technology, and he has been a member of a
number of parliamentary committees, including the public investment
committee, the public accounts committee, he's a member of the AMANI
Forum and chairperson of the ACPEU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. 
He's an elected MP for the Kacheliba constituency.  And, Minister,
it's a sign of the great support that ICANN has received from the
Kenyan government that the minister of ICT is able to join us today. 
We thank you for that.  And I look forward to hearing from you as the
important work going on in the ministry under your leadership.

Ladies and gentlemen, minister POGHISIO.

[ Applause ]

>>HON. SAMUEL POGHISIO:   The vice president of the Republic of
Kenya and Minister for Home Affairs, Honorable Kalonzo Musyoka, who
has since stepped out; the executive officer, the president of
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, Mr. Rod
Beckstrom; Permanent Secretary, Bitange Ndemo; my chairman of the
parliamentary committee in charge of communication matters, Honorable
James Rege; the chairman, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, ICANN, Mr. Peter Thrush; the chairman, Kenya Network
Information Center, Mr. Sammy Buruchara; the director general of CCK,
Mr. Charles J.K. Njoroge; invited guests, ladies and gentlemen, I am
delighted to join you this morning on the occasion of the official
opening of the 37th Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, ICANN, Nairobi annual meeting.  On behalf of the people and
government of Kenya, I wish to acknowledge the presence of all
delegates.  We welcome you all and wish you a memorable stay here in
Kenya.

Ladies and gentlemen, Kenya is, indeed, honored to be the host of
the 37th ICANN forum.  We are grateful to have been accorded the
opportunity, and we wish you all a pleasant and rewarding time in
this country.

The hosting of this forum in Africa provides the information
communications technology industry and government officials from the
developed world with an opportunity to have firsthand experience of
Africa's needs and challenges in regard to ICANN.  It is my hope that
this forum will deliberate on how to overcome existing challenges and
enable African countries to benefit from ICANN.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a country, we have seen the registry grow
from about 7,000 domain names in July 2007, to 9,486 in July 2008,
with the number of registrars growing from 28 -- by 28 from 77 to
105.  Revenue within the same group, 12,604,262, to 15,191,622, an
increase of 21%.  We are currently developing an investment policy
with the aim of ensuring Kenyan Network Information Centre, KeNIC,
maintenance at least a one-year cash reserve within the next three
years.  At the same time, maintain its level of participation in
regional and global discussions on issues relating to Internet
governance and management, in particular, Internet Protocol version
6, the IPv6.  The same period saw it engage in activities creating
awareness in both the .KE domain name space, and developments in the
information, communications technology sector.

I would like to thank the sponsors of this meeting.  I would like
particularly to thank KeNIC, not only for the work they do in
representing Kenya internationally, but also in the operations of the
country code and the organizing of this meeting.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are representatives here of the
technical community, the Internet Engineering Task Force, people
involved in running registries, such as the Regional Internet
Registries, the country code registries and the top-level domain
registry.  Other people from business, both on the supply side, ISPs,
and the registries themselves, and the registrars, who help serve the
registries worldwide.

As a country, we appreciate the role ICT plays in social and
economic development.  It is for this reason that the government is
investing heavily in the computer hard and software, both on
government departments and in schools.  So far, we have embraced e
government across the public service and mounted a program to supply
computers to schools.  In addition to these efforts, investment in
information communication technology infrastructure, particularly the
fiberoptic cable, is one of the major steps that the government is
taking to bridge the digital divide amongst our people and to lower
the cost of doing business.  This will be possible through the
fiberoptic cable that has now ushered in a new era of high-speed
Internet.  In line with the country's vision 2030, the government's
goal is to make Kenya the information communication technology or ICT
hub of the region and join the ranks of international competitive
leaders in business process outsourcing, BPOs.

In this endeavor, the government is working hand in hand with the
private sector for -- to recognize and appreciate the role of the
sector and to -- in the economic development through deployment and --
sorry -- through employment and wealth creation.

As a government, we are committed to the providing of all necessary
incentives that will promote the use of information communication,
ICT, in the country.  We are also ready to consider proposals from
various players in the sector on how to further promote information
communications technologies, and particularly the Internet.

It is in recognition of these efforts that the world mobile Congress
bestowed on the Kenyan government the leadership award at the just-
concluded conference in Barcelona, Spain.  I ask all Kenyans to take
full use of the technological advances the country is making.  

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, the next few years will no doubt
prove equally pivotal.  We are just beginning to understand what
ICANN will do now with the affirmation of commitments are in place. 
We do know that ICANN will continue to support the essential work of
the individual stakeholder constituencies, while working
collaboratively with them to ensure that the Internet of the future
remains a transformative technology that empowers people around the
globe, sparks innovation, facilitates trade and commerce, and enables
the free and unfettered flow of information, and continues to reflect
the public interest.

Ladies and gentlemen, at this juncture, all may wish to note that
Kenya has a wonderful tourist attraction.  I urge you to spend the
time to enjoy the warm hospitality of our people, as well as the
flora and fauna unique to this country, which you may say or many
call the cradle of mankind.

With these few remarks, I would like to say thank you very much, and
wish you enjoyable deliberations, and God bless.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. PETER DENGATE THRUSH:   Minister thank you very much.  Always
exciting to hear the news and developments going on in each of the
countries.  Thank you very much for that speech and your presence
here today.

We now move to some more administrative matters of the meeting.  And
I'm going to call on Doug Brent to introduce Rob Hoggarth and explain
some of the meeting details.

Doug Brent, chief operating officer for ICANN.  Doug, welcome to the
stage.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. DOUG BRENT:   Good morning, everyone.  So we've gotten the big
view of Kenya.  Now we talk about some of the small details of
running this meeting.  And particularly looking at the remote
participation aspects of the meeting here today.

One that may be invisible to all of you is, you may have noticed the
scribing taking place on the right.  To make that -- but there's no
one here in front of the room.  Where is that happening?  The people
who come to a lot of ICANN meetings may have been asking themselves
that question.  So what's happening is, using this great fiberoptic
link we have going back to the United States, the proceedings are
being sent back to California, where we have some scribes who are
doing the scribing live, and it's a great example of this remote
participation.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. DOUG BRENT:   So just --  You know, I think for those of us
who are here in Nairobi, obviously, it's a wonderful opportunity to
be here.  I personally have just really enjoyed my few days here and
thank the hosts.  Everybody just seems -- the buses show up magically
on time.  Everything seems to be working.  But very important for
ICANN is that people don't have to physically be here to participate.
And we've really tried to make Nairobi an example, really use the
technology here to be an example of how great this remote
participation can be.

So let me just quickly cover that and what the objectives are.

Number one is, we'd really like to offer a virtual meeting
experience to everyone.  By the way, that's not only for Americans
who were in North America.  It's for the Kenyans who might not be
able to be here physically present today.  These proceedings are
recorded and will be available on the Internet.

Thank you very much.  And we really want to ensure there's an equal
opportunity for people to participate, again, for longtime ICANN
participants, we're going to try a little experiment this time. 
Which is we do public forums and other kinds of meetings to give
those who are remote equal access to asking questions, getting
answers, and really feeling like we're having a big meeting hall that
goes across the world.

A particular focus has been not on 3D video cubes or telepresence
with super high-bandwidth, but really making this remote access work
for people who have low-bandwidth connections, that is, you know,
wherever people are in the world, being able to get chat access,
voice access, audio access, to have this scribe feed presented,
slides, and then up to live video, which is being broadcast right now.

Can you click forward, please.

Just very basically, the services we're providing are something
called Adobe connect, which is a virtual chat room.  I think the
African music we saw at the beginning is probably the most exciting
thing ever sent through Adobe connect.  Live, streamed, recorded
video, audio, two-way audio bridges, and interpretation.  You know,
you'll see interpretation in many languages throughout this meeting.

Just one point on this.  Even though we officially begin today, many
have been working over the weekend, and just one example, in the GNSO
meeting we had on Saturday, we had a meeting with 50 live
participants and 55 remote participants.  At least those are the
numbers I heard.  And just a perfect example of this remote
participation working.

Click forward, please.  For the people who are here and
participating in this meeting, it can be sort of overwhelming in
terms of the number of sessions, where should I go, how do I remotely
participate.  There are many links now shown on your screen.  I will
advise you to go to one, which is "NBO" that airport code might sound
familiar -- NBO.icann.org.  That will be your opportunity to find out
what all of the elements of the meeting are, how to participate
remotely, what options are available, and access to the recorded
presentations and materials.

So that's just a very brief overview of the remote participation
options today.  It -- we'll probably find during the week that we'll
have some learning to do, some challenges.  We had a power outage
this morning.  But I think with all of our help, we'll make this the
best remote participation meeting ever for ICANN.

Thank you very much.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   We thank all of you very much for being a
part of ICANN history in building this global community and moving
the Internet coordination forward.  We thank our Kenyan hosts again.

So with that, this meeting is adjourned, and we'll now have some
beautiful music and performance by the Safari Cats.

Thank you.

 [ Music ]

>> What is it about the human spirit that produces the courage and
the strength to beat insurmountable odds, to survive and endure
despite unbelievable circumstances?

Our spirit embodies the very essence of our existence.  We believe
that it has been handed down from generation to generation, beginning
in Africa, the mother land, where for eons, we believe that the
creator heard us when we cried, saw us when we faltered, and helped
us along the way.

And now, more than ever, it is time for us to get back in touch with
the spirit that lives inside us all, because without it, we are less
than whole.  But with it, there is nothing we can not overcome.  For
the essence of our existence is spirit.

(Drums).

[ Applause ]

>> Ladies and gentlemen, the Safari Cats.

We thank you.

[ Applause ]

>> This ends....

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   We can have the slides from our -- we will
continue now with the president's report Doug will help me with.  We
can bring that up, please.  Dick, this is on track; correct?  On
track for now.

So I will start off the president's report.  This is a quick summary
of the status at ICANN, to be -- and I'll be assisted with some of my
colleagues in this presentation.

Next slide, please.  Okay.  We just completed our strategic plan for
ICANN.  Based upon the inputs that you, the community gave, in Seoul,
Korea, we started a public consultation process with dialogue and
online surveys and reviews.  This is -- will be included in your
materials.  Next slide, please.

Okay.  Let's see.  There we go.  And the strategic plan this year
has come together with four major thrusts.  And we've reorganized the
efforts to simplify it.  The challenge that you, the community, gave
us and the board gave us was the comment that the strategic plan
previously was hard to follow and a bit too complex.  So the new plan
has a one-page summary of the four strategic initiatives of ICANN
that all of our projects which fall under.  And those four areas are:
DNS stability and security; consumer choice, competition, and
innovation; IANA and core operations; and a healthy Internet
ecosystem.  And those are the four overarching initiatives of ICANN. 
And under that, we have different projects, different strategic
objectives that you have come up with.  So under DNS stability, for
example, 100% DNS uptime, lower DNS abuse, which means the work on
cybersecurity; more secure top-level domain operations, and improved
DNS resiliency to attacks.

Under consumer choice, competition, and innovation, we have a number
of different initiatives, including everyone connected, which is why
the work in Africa here is so important, and others.

The third main stream is what we call IANA and core operations. 
IANA is the Internet assigned names authority, a set of functions
that ICANN manages, with respect to the daily updates of the global
Internet root, as well as Internet address allocation for IPv4 and
IPv6.  So there's a number of strategic projects in that IANA area
and field as well.

And finally, fourthly, a healthy Internet ecosystem.  ICANN is part
of an ecosystem that, of course, includes many other groups, our at-
large communities, the ISOC or Internet Society chapters around the
world, the important work the Internet Society does, the IETF, the
Internet Engineering Task Force, also the Internet Governance Forum,
sponsored by the United Nations, and W3C, or the World Wide Web
consortium, together with the root operators, together with the
Regional Internet Registries that are distributing the addresses
globally, and many of the other infrastructure providers.

So our goal is to foster a healthy Internet ecosystem.

So moving forward, when we look at new initiatives, everything needs
to line up underneath those four programs.  That should bring more
focus and clarity to our efforts.  And it will help us to define both
what we do, and also that which we will not do.

Transparency.  Under the affirmation of commitments, ICANN committed
to enhance transparency and accountability in our operations.  As the
CEO, I have been very focused on this initiative.  And as I told many
parties, as far as I'm concerned, with transparency, the buck starts
here or the buck starts here.  So we've started initiatives in ICANN
both from the top down and from the bottoms up to look at everything
we do and to enhance our -- our initiatives and improve transparency.

Three highlights I simply want to mention at this time.  The first
is, is that we just published all of our current executive salaries
online.  There's very few organizations in the world that do that. 
Many -- some publish some salaries a year, year and a half later, in
the annual report or with some delay.  Now all the current executive
salaries and compensation are online, with the justification for
those positions.  That was accomplished in January.  This is a best
practice that we felt ICANN should model.

Secondly, Denise Michel, who many of you know from the policy
support operation, where she was vice president, has taken on a new
role.  And that role is to be my senior advisor on accountability and
transparency.  She's working on some very exciting plans to develop
systems and processes in ICANN to track our activities and where
we're going.  We'll be reporting on that more in the future.

The last point is, we've enhanced the timeliness of reporting
critical information to you, the community, which has not always been
popular for all parties.  Because, you know, truth and the
information-sharing always has an impact on parties.  But we've done
that swiftly, whether through Twitter, whether through the ICANN Web
site and blogs, and other -- other sites online, we've sought to
share information extremely quickly, an example being the ICM panel
findings, which when John Jeffrey called me and said, we just got a
finding from the panel, not necessarily what ICANN had hoped for, but
we got this result, I said, "Well, we need to tweet that immediately
so the world knows."  And John Jeffrey helped me craft a message that
went out immediately.  So that message went out.  And I asked John, I
said, "Take that document, the panel report.  Let's get it out to the
public as soon as possible."

We needed to review it just to make sure legally we could disclose
all of it.  There were some tiny pieces of confidential information
of another party in the document that we had to address.  And as soon
as we did, we posted it online, within two hours of my learning of
the panel finding.  So that's an example of what we will seek to do
to do our best to run a highly transparent operation.

Next slide, please.

I would also like to introduce three new leaders in the ICANN
organization that we're thrilled to have join us here in Nairobi. 
Mr. Mr. Jamie Hedlund.  Stand up and face the crowd.  Jamie is our
new vice president of government affairs for Washington, D.C., and
for the Americas.  Jamie speaks fluent French and Spanish, as well as
English.  So he's only missing Portuguese for Brazil, but otherwise
covers the languages of the Americas.  Terrific background.  He was a
director of policy development at Yahoo!.  He was most recently vice
president at the Consumer Electronics Association and he has an
outstanding background.  Also worked at the Federal Communications
Commission as an attorney.

Jamie, we're thrilled to have you on board.

Secondly, we have Barbara Clay, who's joining us as our vice
president of marketing and communications.  

Barbara, can you please stand up.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   Barbara was most recently vice president of
marketing and communications at transparency international, an
excellent organization based in Berlin that operates globally,
bringing transparency to the world and reporting on it.  So she has a
very relevant background for some of our initiatives here at ICANN. 
She is also at the European Bank for reconstruction and development.
And prior to that, she was at the U.S. White House for eight years of
her career.  But she has lived about the last 13 in Europe, in the
U.K. and Germany.  

And, Barbara, we're simply thrilled to have you on board.

Finally, thirdly, David Olive.  Some of you know David.  

David, if you're in the room, please stand up. 

There's David back there.  Give David a hand.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   Many of you may know David, because he's been
very involved in ICT issues globally.  David spent the first 15 years
of his career in foreign service around the world, speaks at least
four or five languages, and he spent the last 15 years at Fujitsu,
where he became the first non-Japanese person in Fujitsu history to
become a general manager.  We thought he might have good skills in
collaboration and consensus-building that could be valuable in the
policy support area, where he is taking on Denise Michel's former
role. 

We're really thrilled to have you on board, David. 

Thank you so much.

[ Applause ]

>>MR. ROD BECKSTROM:   And with that, I would like to hand over the
program to Doug Brent, chief operating officer of ICANN.

>>MR. DOUG BRENT:   Thank you.  Everyone is very anxious to get on
with the work of the meeting.  So I'll quickly try to give us a
little road map of what we're covering, what the issues are, and what
some of the community progress has been and try to do that in enough
time that we can get on with the work.  At the same time, get to see
if I can use the technology here.

Just starting with the IDN fast-track work, I think people are well
aware at this point there's been 16 requests come into the IDN fast
track process covering six languages.  Four strings have actually
completed the string evaluation phase and will move into delegation
phase.  There's other important work in the IDN area going on,
including the recent adoption of a new IDNA protocol by IETF, work on
guidelines.  And there will be discussion at the meeting this week on
a relaxation in certain cases of three-character names.

The new gTLD program will again be a major focus of the meeting this
week.  In fact, the first session, as you see on the right, will
start just in minutes after we're done today to talk about the EOI,
expression of interest model, for using new generic top-level
domains, talk about important work to come out of the trademark STI
work from the GNSO.  And many explanatory memoranda and analyses were
published for this meeting for consideration by the community. 
Actually have gotten some very positive feedback from readers that
say this analysis, especially around the expression of interest, is
some of the best that they have seen in terms of ICANN's work.  And
that will feed into anticipation of a new draft applicant guidebook
in the Brussels time frame.  As of yet, still, we're not focusing on
a launch date.  What we're focusing on is getting the issues the
communities raised resolved. 

There will be work discussed today on the affirmation of
commitments, this is the important document that was signed sort of
ending an era for ICANN and starting a new one, operating under this
notion of an affirmation of commitments.  There will be a discussion
later today, as you see, a review session on where we are.  

Just very briefly, work was posted on both a process for handling
the first accountability and transparency review on December 26th. 
That's gone through extensive feedback.  There's been a call for
participants to participate in this accountability and transparency
review.  As of last night, 24 people had responded to that.  And that
will be the basis of the accountability and transparency team.

DNSSEC implementation is one of the key operational initiatives of
ICANN to help fulfill our mission of DNS stability.  That is being
done jointly with VeriSign and the NTIA, Department of Commerce in
the United States.  That program has made great progress, with an
anticipation of launching that signed root in July of this year, with
some major milestones along the way.  I'll say another small
leadership step is, while we're in Nairobi, ICANN will be DNSSEC-
signing the icann.org zone.  Hopefully, by Friday, we'll be able to
put up a demonstration screen of a signed icann.org.

Many of the speakers this morning, the Kenyan and ICANN speakers,
talked about security and stability.  And this will be another major
focus of the meeting, with a significant review on Wednesday.

There's been a strategic initiatives paper published and we welcome
your feedback on that.  One of the things that came out of our
strategic plan was a focus on a DNS CERT and understanding what role
ICANN might have in leading that.  There has recently been an IANA
continuity exercise, seeing what capability ICANN had to ensure that
if there was an earthquake in California or some other disaster, that
ICANN could continue to operate the IANA.  So this is another area of
significant improvement for ICANN, and will be a subject of
discussion this week.

I am going to quickly cover some of the elements of the global
engagement program at ICANN and progress made since the last meeting.

There has been new accountability framework signed with Singapore,
Papua, New Guinea, Georgia.  New members of the ccNSO.  I will let
you read that list.  I think I will note later that the ccNSO passed,
just at the end of last year, 100 members which was a milestone for
our organization.

Also, nine new GAC members.  Our ccNSO board members are applauding
that major achievement for the ccNSO.

We have gotten new GAC membership, and again, I think we heard a
call this morning for that, being incredibly important, especially
with our presence in Africa, to see if we can get more GAC
participation.  The GAC also continues to grow.

I am going to briefly cover ICANN finances, but we will also note
that this is another area of discussion at the meeting this week.

First of all, looking at ICANN's current fiscal year, the one we are
operating in right now, probably more than any other prior period for
ICANN, we have experienced budget pressure.  That is that with
tightly managing expenses and current revenue, you know, it's proven
hard with some unanticipated legal expenses, facility expenses and
others to make that budget.  That remains a focus for ICANN's
management to operate efficiently and within budget, and we are
reporting actively to the board on that topic.

One of the financial reports that has been most embraced by the
community, and of course with always the request for more, is a
report that sort of looks at our finances by the area in which the
finances are incurred.  So in support of generic names in the GNSO,
in support of country codes in the ccNSO -- I just ought to put that
table up for your review, and that's available online as well.

Many people ask, we heard earlier from KeNIC some discussion about
their reserve fund.  That also is a major focus for ICANN.  Where are
we in our reserve fund.  At the end of last year, ICANN's reserve
fund was at about $45 million.  And that actually showed a net
investment gain of about 1 million over all the money that's been
invested.  In a very turbulent economic time, we think that was a
good result.

An important topic of the meeting today will be the fiscal year '11
budget.  And we really encourage you to participate in this
discussion this year more than ever.  There are going to be some hard
tradeoffs.  ICANN's revenue growth that is leveled off and ICANN's,
the desire for community projects only increases.  So I think this
year more than ever we are really looking for the community to
participate.

I think one word in this slide that I would like to emphasize is
framework.  It doesn't say draft budget.  It doesn't say final
budget.  It is a framework for discussion that really begins with the
meeting today, looking for your feedback to finish in June.

I think I will just move on, cover some of the key community work
that's going on, and it's really all the people sitting out there who
are doing this work, but just to highlight a couple.

There was a new GNSO Council structure started in Seoul.  I think
there has been five different working groups with an anticipation of
some of that work possibly finishing by Brussels, with ride ranging
efforts and great intensity in terms of this -- improving the
operations and the policy-making ability of the GNSO.

One of the statistics I find just astonishing is the GNSO now has 21
active working groups.  That is a big volume of work and I think
leads into a further topic for the GNSO, which is is there some way
to prioritize and consider the prioritization of this work,
particularly in considering that the GNSO I think is collaborating
more broadly than ever -- I think Cheryl Langdon-Orr nodding -- with
at-large on issues, with SSAC on issues and with ccNSO on issues.  So
getting those cross-community priorities I think is going to be more
important than ever.

 ccNSO, we could even say it again because it was such a major
milestone for the ccNSO passing 100 members.

Everyone hears about this IDN fast-track work.  That policy has been
completed.  But what's even more important is a long-term policy for
handling IDN ccTLD IDN names, and that's an active program under way
by the ccNSO and will be discussed in this meeting.

I will also say the ccNSO has taken a very active approach in terms
of engaging on budget and strategic plan, and I think that that
really can be a model for how the community as a whole does it.  It's
been very effective.

Just briefly in terms of some addressing issues going on right now. 
I think everyone is aware that the IPv4 address space is becoming
depleted.  We're at about the 10% remaining level.  90% has been
used.  And so there's policies under consideration by the global
Regional Internet Registries around smaller address block
allocations, around ensuring that fairness of allocation of those
last address blocks.  And while this is a technical detail about 32
bit ASNs, autonomous system numbers, it's another important
addressing policy issue that has to do with Internet access and
growth.  And that's something that will be taken up under the next 12
months.

At-large, I think it's one of the exciting parts of ICANN that's
growing rapidly with 120 different user groups.

I think at-large over the last couple of years has proven to be a
robust policy input model and policy influencing model for ICANN,
both growing in terms of the number of those policy advice and at
least I'll personally say in the quality and depth of that advice as
well.  So it's been -- the program going on for at-large in this
meeting will be extensive as well.

And to note that at-large is considering approaches for when a step
is made to put an at-large member on the board, what that process
would look like.  And just like GNSO, all in the context of
improvements within the at-large operations as well.

So with that, and that was a whirlwind tour of everything going on
this week.  All the schedules are online so I encourage to you do
that.

We have tried today, Monday, to have the least conflict ever so that
these important sessions you can attend without missing something
else.  So I encourage you to come today to hear about the important
new gTLD issues, Affirmation of Commitments, and with that I will
close this opening session, say thank you very much, and look forward
to your active participation during the week.

Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>> Ladies and gentlemen, that completes this morning's welcome
ceremony.  We will be going into the other programs that are noted on
your schedule, and there is a coffee break available for all of you.

Thank you so much for attending this morning.

>> Ladies and gentlemen, the new gTLD update and EOI panel
discussion will begin at 11:30 this morning.  So enjoy your coffee
and come back.  The new gTLD update and EOI panel discussion will
begin in 15 minutes at 11:30.

Thank you.