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IGF Workshop
Thursday, 23 June 2011
ICANN - Singapore. 
 

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  I think we'll get started.  I apologize for being a
couple of minutes late.  We've got lots of room in this room for this
session, so I'd appreciate it, as usual, if people would sit closer
to the front so that we can see one another.

 There's almost enough room here on the stage, if we could rearrange
the chairs, for us all to be on stage, which I think would be
appropriate for a session on IGF, but I think rather than take the
half hour it would take for us to figure out how to move the chairs,
we won't do that.

 But please -- I've arranged the session so that we have ample time
for discussion at the end, and so if you can -- if newcomers can sit
closer to the front or if others move forward, I'd appreciate it.

 I think we have a very good panel today.  I'm quite excited to hear
what our various stakeholders have to say, talking about the Internet
Governance Forum.  I've divided the agenda into three parts,
reflecting the current state of play with the Internet Governance
Forum.  

 The first session, we'll talk about preparations for the 2011
session in Nairobi.

 In the second session, we'll talk about the future of the IGF
beyond 2011 and what's going on in the various United Nations and
other processes with regard to the future of the IGF.

 And then we'll have a period left for discussion at the end.  I
don't think we'll have too many speakers in the final session.  We'll
count on you to let us know what you think, because I see many people
here are already involved in the Internet Governance Forum.

 I wonder if we could have a show of hands.  How many people in the
room have attended or been involved with the Internet Governance
Forum till now, just so that we get a good sense?

 Okay.  That's good.  Yes.  So it's about evenly divided.  That will
help our panel, I think, to know that there are a number of veterans,
so to speak, but also a number of people who haven't been involved. 
So that helps us to set the level.

 I'm Bill Graham.  I'm about to become a member of the ICANN board,
and I am a consultant working for the Internet Society.  I'm chairing
this session.

 With us today we have Ana Neves from the government of Portugal,
Sarah Falvey from Google, Ayesha Hassan who is a member of the
Multistakeholder Advisory Group or the MAG which does the planning
for the IGF.  She is from the International Chamber of Commerce/BASIS
initiative.  Wolfgang Kleinwächter from University of Aarhus
representing civil society today.  Chengatai Masango for works for
the IGF Secretariat in Geneva.  And Emily Taylor from dot nxt.  Emily
is also a member of the MAG, as we call it, and she's bringing the
views of the technical community today.

 So I think we'll get started with our first session on IGF 2011 by
talking about the status of preparations and I've asked Chengatai
from the Secretariat to brief us on how things are going and things
that we should expect at IGF, which will be in Nairobi in September. 
Thanks.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much, Bill.

 The IGF in Nairobi is going to be the sixth IGF annual meeting, and
it is the first in the renewed mandate.  The mandate was renewed in
December by the General Assembly.

 The main theme for the Nairobi meeting is "Internet As a Catalyst
for Change, Access, Development, Freedom and Innovation."

 We had a call for workshop proposals.  We had 113 that were
submitted.  77 were selected, and -- by the MAG and their working
groups, and these are -- can be found on the Web site.  If any of you
are workshop proponents, you can just go to the Web site and look at
the workshops.

 We've graded them into three sections:  Accepted, which is self-
explanatory, they are accepted; pending, which means that the MAG had
decided that they were good workshops but some additional information
had to be provided; and rejected, which the MAG thought the workshop
proposal didn't quite fit for this year.

 If any of you are work proponents, you will be receiving -- or you
should have already received e-mails from the IGF Secretariat.

 Also on the schedule there's open forums where Internet
institutions can talk about what they've done the past year.  You
know, like ICANN has an open forum.  ISOC.  The EC.  UNESCO, et
cetera.

 And then there's the IGF village, where organizations who can
showcase their Internet governance efforts but it has to be of a
noncommercial nature.  So if any of you are organizations who have
Internet governance activities and would like a stand at the Nairobi
meeting, please contact the Secretariat.

 We also intend to have poster sessions, interregional dialogues for
the national and regional IGFs, can get together and talk about what
they have done and talk about their issues, because we found out that
different IGFs have got different issues that are of concerns or at
the fore of their concerns and this places -- we give them a place to
discuss those issues.

 We still have to work on integrating properly the input from the
regional and national IGFs, which we'll start doing next year.

 The registration for the IGF is up and running, so if you would
like to register, please do.  It's up on our Web site.

 And those of you who cannot come to the IGF, there is remote
participation available.

 All events will be Webcast.  There's going to be live transcription
for all events.  We're going to be using the Cisco WebEx as our
remote participation platform.

 There is also the remote hubs that we have.  We've -- this is -- I
think this is going to be the fourth year that we have remote hubs,
where people can arrange remote hubs either at universities or other
institutions and they remotely participate in workshops and main
sessions and we've made a great deal of effort to incorporate them
into those sessions.

 As you know, it's in Nairobi, the meeting, and it's going to be
held at UNON.  That's the United Nations office in Nairobi, which is
quite a nice place, and it's set up for meetings, as it is the U.N.
headquarters in Africa.

 I would recommend that if you are interested in going, now is the
time to book your tickets and also the hotels because the hotel rates
seem to be rising.  I've had reports that the hotel rates are rising.

 And apart from that, I think that's it for now.  If you have any
more questions on the activities, please just ask questions later.

 One -- well, one more thing.  There is space for bilateral
meetings, so if you're an organization or you're a government and you
would like to book a room for bilateral meetings, please contact the
IGF Secretariat and we can give you a time slot where you can hold
your meetings.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you very much, Chengatai.  That's really
useful.

 Before I move to ask the stakeholders to comment on their state of
preparations, are there any immediate questions about the logistics
or the preparations on the part of the Secretariat?

 We can hold -- you can, of course, bring those forward later as
well.  So I don't see any.

 Each of the different stakeholder groups participating in the
Internet Governance Forum are represented on the stage today, and in
no particular order, I've asked them each to speak about their
preparations and their perceptions of the 2011 event, and we'll start
with Ayesha Hassan from ICC/BASIS.  Ayesha.

 >>AYESHA HASSAN:  Thank you, Bill.  Many of you do know that the
International Chamber of Commerce has an initiative called "Business
Action to Support the Information Society."  For those of you who
don't, it is a collective action by companies and associations from
around the world and across sectors.  It's an opportunity to bring
business together to provide input to the IGF and other post-WSIS
processes.  And in particular for the IGF, we do participate actively
in the preparations for each IGF, and this year has been no
different.  Business participants in the MAG as well as other
business participants have been actively engaged in helping to
prepare the main sessions, and we'll also have a number of business-
led workshops.

 I wanted to mention two of the workshops, one that ICC/BASIS is
doing with the government of Kenya, which will be on mobile and cloud
services for development.

 As many of you know, the IGF workshops are multistakeholder, and so
we've made an effort to ensure that we've got a good range of views
to come discuss those topics.

 ICC/BASIS is also involved in a workshop which we have merged with
the technical community to organize on IGF improvements.

 So a few highlights.

 Every year at the IGF, ICC also organizes a business briefing each
morning.  These briefings are open to business, regardless of whether
people are part of the BASIS initiative or not.  They always take
place at 8:00.  8:00 to 10 to 9:00.  And it's an opportunity for
business participants at the IGF to come together, discuss what's
happening that day, have an opportunity to meet new people from the
business community, and ask questions and get oriented for the day
and the week.

 So business people who are coming to the IGF are most welcome to
participate in that.

 For information about what we are doing at the IGF from a business
perspective, we will be updating consistently the information on the
ICC/BASIS Web site.  I have a few copies of our brochure, but you can
certainly go to the ICC Web site and click on the BASIS icon and
you'll be able to keep track of the things that we're planning to do
there.

 In addition, business considers that the multistakeholder nature of
the IGF is very important, and so for those of you who may be
organizing workshops, I want to say that we have a really solid range
of expertise from the business community that's planning to
participate in the IGF this year, and if you need business expertise,
I'd be very pleased to have you contact me and I'm happy to
facilitate so that your workshop or other events would have the
business expertise available.

 In addition, ICC/BASIS has a booth in the village every year, and
that's a nice opportunity for participants to get to know more about
what the ICC/BASIS community does to pick up some of our substantive
policy and practice materials and to network with people from the
business community.

 We also like to take advantage of the opportunity that Chengatai
has mentioned to have bilaterals.  We have found that that's just a
really great opportunity to meet with various stakeholders as a group
of members from the BASIS community, with governments, with technical
community or civil society actors, and so we do book those rooms
consistently.

 I think with that, that's -- I'm, you know, happy to take questions
later, but thank you, Bill.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Great.  Thank you very much, Ayesha.

 Our second speaker will be Emily Taylor from dot nxt, and as I
said, a member of the MAG.  She'll be speaking, at least in part,
about the preparations from the technical community.  Emily, please?

 >>EMILY TAYLOR:  Thank you very much, Bill.

 Before going into the detail about this year's preparations, I
think the thing that has been striking this year is the continuing
resilience of the preparatory process, despite the ongoing
uncertainty about the IGF, its future, its present.

 For example, since the beginning of the year, the status of the
chair, the actual identity of the chair has been uncertain, the role
of Executive Coordinator -- Markus Kummer's role -- has not been
filled and even the status of the MAG itself has been uncertain.

 However, despite all of this uncertainty, the preparatory process
seems to be just trucking on unfazed.

 The Kenyan hosts, I think, have a large part to play in this, in
their enthusiasm, their detailed preparations and their sheer
determination that this meeting will be a success, but also I'd like
to pay tribute to Chengatai and his team, who have very ably stepped
into the breach in their interim roles.

 And so -- and the MAG members themselves, current, former,
whatever, have just continued to participate and to get the ball
rolling to make sure that the -- that things do not drop.

 And I think in the context of the CSTD review, the Commission on
Science and Technology for Development, I think it's also relevant to
note at this stage that the IGF itself continues to improve
organically.

 So I think from my perspective, I'm quite involved with others here
in this room in trying to coordinate the preparation for the critical
Internet resources session, which is a session of high relevance to
the ICANN community.

 And we have been trying our best to make sure that we continue to
innovate in the format of this session, to make it exciting, to make
sure -- to experiment with new things, to make sure that we've got a
diversity of views on this -- in this session.

 Another example of these innovations, as Chengatai mentioned, is
poster sessions, so that those who weren't successful in getting
their workshops approved, perhaps this year, or others who might want
to produce a visual display of their work can do so.  But also in
coordinating the sessions and putting them together, we looked very
carefully at the workshop proposals that they were -- that were made
and what they were telling us.

 So in the context of critical Internet resources, it was striking
that the program paper devised by the sort of interim MAG had not
really focused on IDNs.  However, there were five or six
internationalized domain names workshops and so it seemed completely
sensible and appropriate to listen to what the workshops and the
bottom-up process was telling us.

 So I think I'll leave it there from that point of view.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Good.  Thank you very much, Emily.  That's --
that's very helpful.

 Next, I will ask Ana Neves to speak.  Ana will speak from the
government perspective.  Ana.

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you very much, and good morning.

 Well, first of all, let me present a disclaimer because Portugal
has a new government since Tuesday, the 21st of June, and so I'm is
civil servant, but I'm here on my personal capacity today because I
don't know exactly what the new government main lines will be on this
issue.

 Nevertheless, my intervention will be on the same page as the last
one.  Well, Emily's perspective.

 My perception of the 2011 event is a very -- very bizarre, because
we are lacking an institutional framework.  We have neither IGF
Executive Coordinator nor a MAG chair, but yet we had the MAG trying
to work and to do its best in order to -- in order that things would
run business-as-usual.

 The Kenyan government is doing a great job, but MAG elements have
been working on a voluntary basis without knowing their status until
a letter from Mr. Zhao arrived mid-May, so we are in June, so one
month ago.  And this letter arrived after some pressure in New York. 
And what puzzles me is that in this letter, Mr. Zhao -- well, this
letter is addressed to MAG members, and in this letter, Mr. Zhao says
that I would like to extend an invitation to all last year's MAG
members to continue their valuable contribution throughout this year
until the conclusion of the 2011 IGF meeting in Nairobi.

 First, I think that the community thought that this was like a very
good letter and like an extension of the IGF's mandate, but it is
not.  It is an extension until -- of the MAG's mandate until
September 2011.

 Then when I started to discuss this issue with the Internet
community, they told me, No, no, no, no.  Well, there is this
resolution adopted by the U.N. General Assembly saying that there is
an extension of the IGF for the five years' period.

 But the thing is that in that paragraph that says that -- it says
that it is decided to extend the mandate of the Internet Governance
Forum for the five years, while at the same time recognizing the need
to improve the forum with a view to linking it to the broader
dialogue on global Internet governance.  Well, behind these words
there are so many things.  And I think these things will be discussed
in the second section of this panel.

 But -- well, this is what I would like to say regarding the 2011
IGF event.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you very much, Ana.  That's a very useful
perspective, and we will get into those uncertainties and the
circumstances around the United Nations activity more in the second
section.

 Now I will ask Sarah Falvey from Google to talk to us about her
perspective as a company that participates in Internet Governance
Forum in a very significant way.

 Sarah?

 >>SARAH FALVEY:  Thank you.  As many of you know, Google has been a
long supporter of the bottom-up multistakeholder Internet governance
process.  We've been involved in the IGF for several years.  We sent
quite a large contingent to last year's IGF and are planning to
participate quite extensively in the one in Nairobi as well.

 From the business perspective, I think that the IGF is really
important because it allows -- it is a forum that allows for
businesses to communicate with civil society and governments in sort
of an informal setting.  And it is also really an important process
that allows many views to be heard.

 One sort of the main pieces of Google is that we really support
this free and open Internet.  And one of the best ways to do that is
to make sure that these forums where people come together to continue
to talk about pressing issues that are going on globally outside of
an intergovernmental process and continue to evolve and are robust
and the processes are robust and that we get as many participants as
possible.

 And I know that leading up into, you know, even just a few years
ago, the IGF really wasn't necessarily fully embraced by the business
community.  And I think that one of the best things that we can bring
to the table is increasing that business presence within the IGF and
not in a sense to take it over which I think many people are always
concerned about but to make sure that all stakeholders are
participating and that it's given legitimacy through this
participation.

 So one of the -- so I mentioned what we did last year.  We sent a
significant number of people.  We spoke on numerous panels and
workshops on privacy, innovation, critical Internet resources, things
like that.  And then this year this will be the first year that we're
actually sponsoring our own workshop, and we're also planning to
participate on panels and forums.

 The workshop that we're putting together is on cloud computing
trust and the free flow of data or information.  And so that's sort
of how we're stepping up our engagement.

 We're also in the meantime leading up into the Nairobi meeting,
we're also doing outreach with other businesses that typically have
not participated in the IGF for various reasons -- and we've heard a
lot of interesting ones -- and sort of trying to get other business
also to participate in the process so that, you know, you continue to
have lots of different views that are being expressed.

 And I also think that once -- it is an arduous process which I
think business sometimes is not really used to.  And so the more that
we can get people attending and at least experiencing it and
hopefully seeing the value that comes out of it, I think the more
likely it is that you'll have repeat offenders, as I like to say. 
People who will continue to come back and sort of see the value in
the process.  So...

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Good.  Thank you very much, Sarah.

 Finally, I'll turn to Wolfgang Kleinwächter.  Wolfgang is a long
time participant in Internet governance proceedings and has been an
advisor to the chair of the MAG while there was a chair of the MAG. 
So I would appreciate hearing Wolfgang's views of the preparations
for this year.

 Wolfgang in.

 >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER:  Okay, thank you.  I'm here on behalf of
the civil society.  And let me just go a little bit back to the
history and to remember that it was the civil society who already in
2002 in the first Fratcom (phonetic) in Geneva instituted the idea
that it would be good to have a space for discussion, a so-called
forum, function -- it was called the Forum Function at this time.  We
need something like a clearinghouse.  Before you make decisions, you
have to first discussion the issues.

 Interestingly, then it was all of the civil society representatives
and the working group on Internet governance who pushed for the
Internet Governance Forum.  When it was launched in 2006 it was seen
by the civil society as really, you know, not only a success but this
has proof that the involvement of civil society and in policy making,
policy development is very useful and can bring new and fresh ideas.

 So the design of the IGF goes back partly to the civil society. 
And during the WSIS, the platform for the civil society emerged which
was called the Internet Governance Caucus.  And this caucus was
sustainable, so it is still one of the key platforms where civil
society organizations from around the world discuss issues and
contribute to the debate, in particular to the further improvement of
the IGF.  

 There are a lot of other civil society organizations, so this was a
diverse stakeholder group.  APC, the Association for Progressive
Communication, is a key leader in particular in developing countries
and a lot of others.

 So this is a very special perspective, and I think the key issues
from a civil society perspective in the context of the IGF are
certainly access to information, you know, to bridge the digital
divide and to bring more people to the Internet, the underprivileged
people to the Internet.  It is the human rights issue, right to
freedom of expression, privacy, civil liberties and all this which is
priority for civil society.

 And it is all the cultural and linguistic diversity that this is
reflected also in the various workshops.  The civil society is
organizing a number of workshops around these issues and, in
particular, the work of the dynamic coalition on rights and
principles has meanwhile produced an interesting outcome which will
be discussed in Nairobi.  There is meanwhile a text for the human
rights and principles in Internet governance, and probably this could
be one of the highlights in the forthcoming Nairobi conference.

 And I think one of the aims of the civil society is to strengthen
and enhance the cooperation, collaboration and communication with the
other stakeholders.  Though, I heard and I'm very pleased that Ayesha
has offered a closer cooperation with the business sector.  And I
think this is an interesting channel.  If civil society and business
deepen their mutual communication and collaboration, we are looking
forward to strengthen the communication between civil society and
governmental representatives.  I think to join GAC -- ALAC meeting
here in Singapore is probably a good example that you can innovate
things and policy development by opening up new channels and new
forms of communication.  And I think the civil society certainly has
still to fight its own internal struggle to get the legitimacy to
become recognized and become a serious partner in this process.

 Without the civil society, the IGF and ICANN would be much poorer. 
Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks very much, Wolfgang.

 I think we'll move directly into our second session now rather than
breaking for discussion at this point, largely because we've already
had a good introduction to the future of the IGF beyond 2011 from
Emily, Ana and Wolfgang particularly.  They've all mentioned the
uncertainty that surrounds the IGF despite a United Nations General
Assembly resolution that appears to extend the mandate for five years.

 And through -- ever since, I guess, early 2010 there has been a
series of activities and initiatives in the system to discuss the
future IGF at all levels of the U.N. from the Commission on Science
and Technology for Development through one of the major committees of
the U.N., the Economic and Social Committee, right up to the General
Assembly itself.  You almost need a map of the United Nations to
track the discussions as they move up, move down and generally whirl
around in circles in that context.

 So I'm hoping that our panel this morning can shed some light on
that as we talk about the future of the IGF.  And I will ask Wolfgang
to continue speaking with us as our first speaker on this topic on
the Commission on Science and Technology for Development in general.  

 Wolfgang?

 >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER:  I will just to summarize the facts so we
know where we are at this moment before I come to some of the issues.
According to the mandate of the Tunis Summit, there was a limit of
only five years for the IGF.  So there was a need to have a decision.
It took place in the General Assembly of the United Nations.  And the
discussion circled around the question of the continuation of the IGF
and on the improvement of the IGF.

 And while there was a consensus to continue with the IGF for
another five years, there was a disagreement on the improvement
because different people had different ideas what "improvement" means.

 As a result of this disagreement, the General Assembly recommended
to establish a working group under the CSTD which is the Commission
on Science and Technology for Development, responsible for managing
the follow-up of the World Summit on the Information Society.

 The working group was formed in December, parallel -- there was a
meeting in Geneva parallel to the meeting in Cartagena of ICANN.  As
a big surprise, the working group was established by a government
representative only, which triggered a wave of protests by non-
governmental stakeholders.  And they asked questions, why they are
excluded from the discussion on the improvement of the IGF.

 And this was an interesting development that, I think -- I do not
know whether it was for the first time in the history of the United
Nations, but it was a serious fact that the commission revised its
decision and invited after the pressure all the non-governmental
stakeholders to become members of the working group, five from the
civil society, five from the private sector and five from the
technical community plus five from intergovernmental organizations.

 The first meeting of the working group took place end of February
in Montreux, and there was a second meeting end of March in Geneva. 
And while the discussion was equal among all stakeholders, there was
a lot of controversies in the meetings of the two working groups, not
among the stakeholders or between the different groups of
stakeholders but primarily among various governments because some
governments had a different idea what "improvement" is than other
governments.  And the other group could not agree.

 There were a number of proposals.  All are listed on the CSTD Web
site, 30, 40 proposals for how to improve procedurally with regard to
substance, outcome, role and functions and all this.  There were a
lot of good ideas on the table.

 But the group was unable, you know, to agree on a set of
recommendations and so the report was then presented to the CSTD
meeting in May in Geneva.  And after discussion of this report, the
CSTD decided to recommend to the ECOSOC to continue with this working
group in the hope that after another year, the working group will be
able to produce some recommendations for improvement.  So this needs
still the approval by the ECOSOC.  The ECOSOC will have its meeting
mid July.  And then it is up to -- and then the ECOSOC has to
nominate a chair, and then it is up to the chair to draft a work plan
for 2011 and 2012.  So it means the recommendations will be on the
table probably in May 2012 which is obviously too late for an
Internet Governance Forum 2012.  And this brings me back what Emily
has said.  

 The interesting point here is that regardless of all this
complicated bureaucratic procedures within the United Nations the IGF
develops in a life of its own, that means without any blessing from
top-down, the bottom-up process works.  The stakeholders have an
interest to move forward and they do it independently from decisions
of United Nations' body.

 I think this is probably a very interesting observation that
meanwhile the multistakeholder process is strong enough to get its
own dynamics and needs not, you know, a master which says you have to
work in this or that direction.  So the input from the United Nations
working groups is certainly welcomed because there are a lot of good
ideas there.  But as you can see from the preparation of the Nairobi
meeting, the missing final recommendation of the working group is not
a placate of the continuation of the IGF.  So far some lessons can be
learned from this process and it remains to be seen, you know, what
the next year of this working group will bring.  There is certainly
an opportunity that the working group will have its first meeting in
Nairobi, the renewed working group on IGF improvement of the CSTD. 
But it depends certainly from the chair of this new working group how
they will organize will work.

 I expect the controversies among governments will continue.  It
will not be easy to reach an agreement.  Nothing is excluded.  And it
is certainly the hope that in the coming 10, 12 months this working
group will be able to send recommendations -- concrete
recommendations to the CSTD meeting in May 2012.

 There are two categories of improvements which has been discussed
so far.  One is more or less procedural improvements which includes
the questions of output, should there be recommendations, should
there be messages, you know, what kind of results should come out of
the IGF.

 And the other one is a clearer understanding of the role and the
function of the IGF.  The idea is to profile the IGF as a
clearinghouse, as a watchdog, and things like that.  So there are a
number of ideas which under discussion.  And it depends certainly
from this working group and their members, whether they can agree and
come up with very concrete recommendations.

 There is still one element in between because the 66th General
Assembly of the United Nations, the second committee, will discuss
this in October immediately after the Nairobi meeting and the General
Assembly is a government-only body.  So there are no stakeholders --
non-governmental stakeholders do not participate in the second
committee of the General Assembly.  I think this is an interesting
constellation so it is rather political.

 My final point here is that my observation from my involvement in
the last ten years in this process is that all stakeholders are still
in the learning phase to get the real understanding what
multistakeholder dialogue means.

 I think nearly everybody now uses this terminology and says, "oh
multistakeholder dialogue, this is great, this is innovation, we have
to move forward."  But different parties and different stakeholders
have a different idea what it is.

 One source which will help to get a better clarification, certainly
the definition of Internet governance which was elaborated by WGIG
and adopted by the heads of states of 150 governments, which the
definition says it is not only that all stakeholders have to
participate in their respective roles, the second part of the
definition speaks about shared norms, principles and decision-making
procedures.  That means decision-making procedures.  

 This is an innovation in international policy making that means not
that one stakeholder decides and the other can contribute.  It means
all stakeholders have to become involved in decision-making.  And
this is a challenge for the United Nations system.  So it means two
different cultures are clashing here, and we all have to learn.  That
means governments have to learn.  What does it mean, "shared decision-
making procedures"?  And the other stakeholders have to learn how to
work together with governments, with other stakeholders, how to get
the legitimacy.  I think it is a bit of a challenge also for the
civil society so that they are not a group of noisemakers but they
are serious partners in the policy development process.

 And all these are challenges for the future.  And it is interesting
to see that ICANN is confronted with the same challenges.  If you
look back to the discussions between GAC and the board on Monday and
on Sunday, then you see a lot of participants in this dialogue do not
yet really understand what multistakeholder dialogue means. 
Multistakeholder dialogue is not to dictate the other side what they
have to do but to enter into dialogue and to look for joint solutions.

 Communication, communication, communication, this is the keyword. 
And so far the IGF is a perfect place where you can have this
exercise.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks for that excellent introduce to this
discussion, Wolfgang.

 The second speaker will be Ayesha Hassan.

 >>AYESHA HASSAN:  Thank you, Bill.  From a global business
perspective, we have maintained that the IGF has continued to improve
each year.  So now that we're in a discussion about IGF improvements,
it is really important that those discussions happen within a
multistakeholder setting.

 And so I think it is just useful to remind us all that last -- in
December when we were at the Cartagena meeting of ICANN, we were at
risk of having non-governmental stakeholders not being a part of the
CSTD Chair's working group on IGF improvements.  And the opportunity
which those of us were present took being together was to write a
letter that got signed off by hundreds of people on an online
petition making a strong case for why IGF improvements need to be
discussed in a multistakeholder setting and that non-governmental
stakeholders needed to be included.

 At the end of the day, the non-governmental stakeholder groups have
been invited guests in the Chair's working group and have
participated actively.  A few of the business guest participants in
that group are present here.  And so we had five business people
participating in that group as guests.

 Global business starts from certain founding principles when we're
looking at improvements.  Wolfgang very rightfully pointed out that
people look at improvements and define that word differently.  In our
perspective, any improvements to the IGF must continue to be based
upon the premise that this is a multistakeholder on an equal footing
opportunity and space.

 So any improvement that would destroy that principle in our view is
not the right way to go.  In addition, we believe that this unique
space for dialogue is based on the principles of it being not a
negotiating setting, not a decision-making setting.  So, again, any
improvements that would undermine those aspects of the IGF would
basically destroy it.

 We also believe that it's very important to keep in mind that this
is not a space that is trying to replace any other process.  It is a
special place where we come together to exchange and to understand
challenges that are being faced by different stakeholders with
respect to Internet governance issues, to share best practices and
experience.  And part of the value-add from our perspective has been
not only the substantive discussions that go on but also the informal
opportunities for getting to know people from around the world who
are working on these matters.  And we place a lot of value on that. 
It is not a tangible thing, but it does produce tangible outcomes.

 And we have seen opportunities from the informal exchanges that
have happened between business and some governments, for instance,
which have led to some very interesting opportunities to make more
informed policy choices at the national level.

 So when we look at IGF improvements, whether it's looking at the
funding, which is an issue that has come up, how should it be funded,
whether it is the status of the secretariat or it's how you define
outputs, we're coming at it with those principles in mind.

 In our view, the multistakeholder funding has been a good start and
it needs to continue to be built but we believe that it's very
important that the IGF's funding comes from the range of stakeholders
and is, therefore, then supported by an independent secretariat based
in Geneva where many of the experiences of the World Summit and
Internet governance issues is based.

 And then in terms of outputs, again, I've just said one of the
outputs for us is some of the informal intangibles.  But I think that
the way in which substantive dialogue goes on at the IGF, there are a
range of recommendations that come out and we've often talked about
the fact that policy approaches -- there's no one size fits all.  And
so how do you pull out the range of recommendations and options and
substantive guidance that really does emerge in the workshops and the
main sessions and the open forums and concretize that in a way that's
more accessible is, I think, one of the creative challenges that this
CSTD working group will be looking at.

 From our perspective it isn't about, again, turning this into a
negotiating setting but it is about capturing the really substantive
exchange that already happens at the IGF.  Thank you.  I'll end there.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks, Ayesha.  That's very useful.

 Emily Taylor, would you like to comment on this?

 >>EMILY TAYLOR:  Yes.  I think that a lot of very interesting
things have been said by the previous speakers, which I won't repeat.
All I would say is to Wolfgang's remarks, yes, there is a lot of good
news, but I don't think we should kid ourselves here.  I think that
the reaction of the technical community in this community to frankly
being out maneuvered by the U.N. in New York has been remarkable and
remarkably successful.

 But what it highlighted -- the whole situation at Christmas
highlighted that principles that we were just completely complacent
about and thought were totally a done deal have been flipped back to
about 2003.  So even in the constitution of the CSTD working group
itself, as Ayesha very well put it, the non-governmental stakeholders
are allowed in as guests but they are not multistakeholder on an
equal footing on paper.

 Now, I understand there's -- actually in the discussions
themselves, it was a lot more multistakeholder but look at the
wording of the chair's report and the way he frames his remarks.  You
can see all of the materials on the dot nxt site where they are all
together conveniently rather than running around all over the place.

 The Chair's report talks about a significant divergence among the
views of member states.  That is not the technical community.  That
is not the business community.  That is not civil society.  That is
governments.

 So I just wanted to sort of -- it is a bit like a brand or a
reputation.  The resilience of the IGF is remarkable, and it's
probably going on for longer than it should on paper.  But it won't
go on unsustained forever.  And this continuing uncertainty is having
a very real impact particularly on funding.

 The technical community has been very generous in its support of
the secretariat and as Ayesha put it, it is important that the
funding continues to be multistakeholder in order to be really
putting our money where our mouths are.  If we support
multistakeholder dialogue, we have to show that we are willing to pay
for it as well.

 But no one likes to be under review, and nobody likes to fund
something that is under review because they don't know what's going
to happen to their money.  And I think that we should not kid
ourselves despite the incredibly vibrant scene that we see.  It's not
going to go on forever, and we do need to be on our guard.  I think
we all got a shock in December and reacted brilliantly but it should
serve as a warning to us.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks for that, Emily.  I would like to turn now
to Chengetai Masango from the IGF secretariat for a few comments.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you, Bill.  I would just like to
comment and say that the IGF secretariat welcomes all recommendations
from any stakeholder group or individual organization on improvements
for the IGF.  The IGF also has its own internal review processes at
the end of each IGF meeting.  We have a stock-taking session which is
a separate meeting usually held in November where all the
stakeholders are free to give their comments on what happened in the
annual IGF meeting and also throughout the year.  I mean, people can
come in during open consultations or submit papers to give
recommendations on improving because we think that we would always
have to be constantly improving.  Nothing stays still.  It is a
dynamic environment.

 And just a comment on the recommendations.  Also, it's also very
important to tie in recommendations with the resources available. 
Sometimes there's a lot of recommendations but there are just not the
resources to do that.  At the Secretariat, you know, we're very
thinly staffed.  Well, I don't think we can be more thinly staffed
than we are now.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Sorry.  But it is very important to tie the
two in.

 Just to add on Wolfgang's comments about review processes, the
second mandate was -- yes, was renewed in 2010 with the caveat for
the CSTD working group, but also it was renewed for five years so
that it would end in line with the full WSIS review which is going to
take in 2015.

 That's just something to note.

 For -- I'm just going down quickly my list.

 For next year, the IGF is Baku in Azerbaijan.  They have offered to
host next year's IGF and we are already in preliminary discussions
with them for next year's IGF, so at least there is a place there.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  And yeah, that's it.  Thank you, though.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks very much, Chengetai, and let me just
congratulate you on the excellent job you're doing under very trying
circumstances.

 It's really a remarkable achievement.  Thank you, Chengatai.

 And now, I'd like to ask Ana Neves to close this session and then
we'll go to comments.

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you so much.

 Well, I have several comments.  Well, I have like a structured
speech here, but, first of all, I like to comment on what has been
said here.

 It is interesting to see that some stakeholders are not really
helping governments that are believers in the multistakeholder model,
and during the meetings of the working group on improvements to the
Internet Governance Forum it was very interesting to see that, well,
governments are not on the same page, definitely, but it was
interesting to see that the stakeholders that are so defending this
multistakeholder model and this was something that was really
puzzling me, was defending governments that are not defending this
multistakeholder model, so I was a bit confused.  So what am I doing
here?

 So I'm trying to build up a new system of management of Internet
through a multistakeholder model, but the stakeholders, they are not
helping these countries that are defending them.

 So -- well, it was really strange and I'm still puzzled, and I
would like to enhance the dialogue with these stakeholders to get
their -- and understand their reasons, but until now, it was not
really easy to do that.

 After these two meetings of the CSTD working group on improvements
to the IGF, well, we didn't achieve any recommendations or common
ground.  And then a question arose:  Is it possible for the IGF to
reform itself instead of supporting the extension of a much more
intergovernmental process?

 Well, that was the main outcome from Sharm El Sheikh, but very
strangely, the resolution of the United Nations says that generally
the stakeholders were defending an extension of the IGF and -- but it
didn't say anything about the possibility for the IGF to increase
itself and to reform itself, because if you see the first IGF, it's
totally different from the last IGF.

 The way we started the IGF, the way we work -- the MAG worked, the
interaction between the communities was totally different.

 I remember the last meeting of Markus Kummer.  I think it was in
December in Geneva, when he said that after five years, I feel that
the mistrust that I felt in the beginning of the process disappeared.
And fortunately it's here.  It's here.  It's come back and it's
terrible to see that after five years we are back in square one.

 So in the ideal world, it will be great if, in fact, IGF could
reform itself without more intervention from governments, but I'm
afraid that we are not in the ideal world and the resolution that
extends the IGF for five years more, it obliged, even if it is in a
diplomatic wording, that improvements will be made.

 And what is called by several people the U.N. bureaucracy, well, is
very well used to serve political purposes and so we have to be very
careful on the way we move in order not to kill IGF.

 Another point that I'd like to raise is to insist on a division
between the different stakeholders.

 It's not like -- well, it's easy to say that governments are
against civil society, civil society is against business sector,
business sector is against technical community.  It's totally wrong
because we have problems within governments, we have problems within
civil society, we have problems within all the stakeholders.  And
why?  Because this is a long-term process.  I think it will take like
10, 20 years to understand what multistakeholder model means and how
we can work together.  It's not easy.  It's very difficult.  And it's
easy for some governments to understand that of course
multistakeholder makes all the sense, but when you talk to another
country and another government and it doesn't make sense, it's so
difficult, our dialogue.  We are in different worlds.

 On the other hand, when I talk to some civil society, it's so easy
because we are exactly on the same page and we need them and they
need us.

 On the other hand, it's very interesting to see that governments,
they have a different role.

 Why?  Because governments have to do something to have a stronger
civil society, is a stronger technical and academic community, a
stronger business sector.  So we have our public policies that have
to serve all these stakeholders, so we are -- we cannot defend only
one stakeholder.  We have to defend and to make stronger all the
stakeholders.

 So this is something that is different from the government's point
of view, from the other stakeholders.

 And finally, I would like to say something about the way some
governments see how IGF should continue and maybe it triggers some
discussion among us.  I don't know.

 So IGF should continue in its current format as it has been a real
success.

 It has encouraged regional and national IGFs.  And I saw some
contributions from some stakeholders that will kill totally these
regional and national IGFs that were born like mushrooms.  We didn't
wrote that national and regional IGFs, they should be created.  No. 
They just started like that because the movement, the dynamics of the
process was really good.

 And so we should increase remote participation, promote the
dialogue between developing and developed countries.  This is
something that I don't like either, this distinction between
developing and developed countries, because within developed
countries, we have regions that are like developing countries and in
developing countries we have regions that are developed.  They are
like developed countries.

 So even this distinction is wrong.

 And how to clarify issues that seem very complex and confusing at
the outset.  In its annual meetings, in its current format, it allows
discussions in a very forward-looking and innovative way, allowing to
follow and to cover in a very effective way the Internet fast
evolution.  New and future issues have been regularly identified and
discussed from several perspectives.  Political, technical, and
societal.

 It also allows tackling a broad range of issues, including cross-
cutting issues, something that would be impossible to be handled in
any other international organization or any binding international
organization.

 But there is room to increase the relevance of the IGF from the
policy perspective, especially in relation to development.

 IGF meetings should continue to be nonbinding fora, free from
constraints associated with attempts to reach consensus on negotiated
documents, but to make dialogue within different stakeholders easier
and more informed, seeking the development of social, political, and
economic growth, along with more shared knowledge that this setting
allows.

 The MAG composition should be improved in order to be better
understood by the community, bring more clarity to the preparatory
process, and should be provided a system of an annual turnover of at
least one-third of its members.

 This would allow a refresh of the critical mass each year.  The
multistakeholder nature of the MAG should continue with a balance of
representatives on equal footing that will ensure that different
people from different communities, continents, and countries will
have a seat at the MAG.

 The IGF Secretariat should be kept totally independent, and
therefore, should be funded by voluntary contributions, which should
bring more stability to its work.  It would be very useful to have a
transparently administered program of travel funding for participants
from developing and least-developed countries and not make it depend
from voluntary contributions administered through a trust fund.

 And finally, IGF should not become a watchdog requiring other
Internet governance-related bodies to report to the IGF on their
activities and whether they need the WSIS principles or not, as some
are asking for under this umbrella of improvements of IGF.

 It is a pity that it is the way how some people read "improvements
to the Internet Governance Forum."  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you very much.  And thank you to all the
speakers.  I think there's plenty of food for thought and discussion
there, and fortunately we have about 20 minutes for discussion.

 I see many people in the audience who are very knowledgeable about
this and who will want to comment, so I'll throw it open to the floor
and invite the panel also, if you have things you want to speak to or
comment on, just wave your hand and make sure I see you.

 I see Ravi Shanker as a first speaker here, and I think I would ask
people to come to the microphones to speak, so Ravi and then Bertrand
de la Chapelle afterwards.

 >>N. RAVI SHANKER:  Thank you.  Chairman.  Ravi Shanker from India.

 I would just like to harp on a few points.

 The theme of the next IGF is "Internet As the Catalyst of Change." 
While that is a very laudable objective, I would like to think that
why not use the forum of the IGF to expand on a few perspectives. 
Specifically, technology, public policy, and social impact.

 I would like to state from a perspective from where I come from,
India, which is a developing nation, I would like to say from a
technology perspective while we think of the Web, why don't we think
of the voice Web.  The voice Web is something which tries to
integrate the voice into the Web, and I would like to articulate this
coming from a society which over years has been an oral society.

 And this would hold true for many similarly placed societies where
oral traditions have been very strong.

 And IGF could be a platform to actually propel the concept of a
voice Web and see to it that technology measures could be associated
in the dialogue.

 The second aspect is the public policy.  I noted Ayesha mentioning
about the national policy initiatives, et cetera, and the dialogue
between business community and the governments.  I would like to say
that why not look at this as a forum where national governments could
be pitchforked to talk about the Internet as a catalyst of change and
how public policy to incorporate and enshrine Internet could be a
very important useful thing.

 Maybe the start-off point could be the McKenzie report, which
mentioned about the growth of GDP alongside the use of the Internet.

 So these things could be used as pitchforking the dialogue on
public policy.

 The third aspect is with reference to social impact.  I would think
our -- we have to look about capacity building.  One of the aspects
of the CSTD was with regard to cooperation among countries.  I think
capacity building could be a fora for actually seeing that this whole
multistakeholderism which seems to be one of the contentious issues
in the CSTD could perhaps be honored by the prospect of having a
capacity building approach.

 Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you for those suggestions, Ravi.  That's very
helpful.

 I'd also like to thank you for remembering to say your name and I'd
ask future speakers to identify themselves for the scribes.  Bertrand.

 >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:  Hi.  Good morning.  I'm Bertrand de la
Chapelle.  I'm currently on the board of ICANN but I've been
participating in this process for a while.

 What has been presented, one lesson that I take from the last few
months, is that in multistakeholder processes, governments have a
real weight when they unite.  When they are divided, they lose weight
and things go on.

 This is the major difference.  And the fact that things go on means
that as I think Emily has mentioned, the self-organizing nature of
the IGF is the fundamental element in multistakeholder processes. 
Bottom-up is another way of saying self-organizing.

 The capacity and the big challenge will be for the IGF in Nairobi
and in the following years to self-progress, make improvements, but
the consequence of the fact that when governments do not unite,
things continue on their own track, is an encouragement for the
governments who really care about the multistakeholder model, is to
not compromise at any cost in international negotiations when you
draft resolutions.

 If there is no agreement among governments on what the actual
improvements should be, the actual improvements will be discussed
within the process.

 That means that at the same time, because I do believe we need
improvements, it is the responsibility of the stakeholders to find
the improvements in the process, including how to synthesize
documents.  Not draft resolutions, synthesize the work and the
exchanges.

 I don't get into details.  That's for another place.

 What I want to highlight here, in closing, is:  Why do we have this
discussion here?  Of course it's to make people -- give people an
update of what is happening somewhere else.  But what is the
connection between ICANN and the IGF?  Why do we have it here?

 I believe it is because those are the two laboratories where
actually multistakeholder model is being implemented.  One on
decision-shaping, the other one on decision-making.  And both are
demonstrating a fundamental element that I highlighted during the
board -- at the end of the board decision on Monday.

 The fact that this organization here or the IGF can be based on an
open door is just unbelievable.  When you think about it, it is a
leap as big as accepting universal suffrage as a basis for
representative democracy.

 The fact that anybody can vote was mind-boggling.  The fact that
anybody can enter a room and participate in the development of a
global policy is an incredible leap of faith.  And those two
experiments are demonstrated that at least to a certain extent with a
lot of principle perfections, it works.

 Which means that the IGF and ICANN have a sort of joint
responsibility in demonstrating that it works, and if I put it in --
on the ICANN side, ICANN has a responsibility of also helping, as it
has done in the past, to make sure that the organization and IGF can
continue, including in terms of financial support.  I of course don't
speak on behalf of the board here, but on a personal basis I think
it's a very important element.

 And inasmuch as Azerbaijan is on the agenda on 2012, I'd like to
share that I'd be extremely happy if the emerging idea of a
candidature of France for 2013 could emerge would be something I'd
like.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you, Bertrand.  Next it Bill Drake and then --
I'm sorry.  You can go first, and please say your name.

 >>LEONID TODOROV: Well, hi.  I'm Leonid Todorov of the Russian
registry.

 Well, I'm very happy that everyone highlighted on the need for
change or improvement.  I mean, let's put it in such a way with the
IGF.

 Just very -- three very quick observations.

 Number one, I believe that to complement Bertrand, the governments
learn really fast, and one of the grave challenges, from my
perspective, the IGF, the global IGF, is facing now is the danger of
being overshadowed by what is called the EG8 meeting in France.

 Just to cite a very quick example, a friend of mine was there, a
colleague of mine was there, and for a long time we've been trying to
get Russian government involved in the IGF.

 When he was back from Paris, he said, "Hey, that's the place for
them to be.  Who's talking about IGF?"

 This is number one.

 Number two, I believe that what -- another grave challenge we face
now is that I'm sorry to say but the bunch of -- I mean the core of
those IGF supporters are well into their 40s and we don't see so many
young faces, even here.  Well, some are here, definitely, but what
Jovan Kurbalija in Moscow, at our local IGF, called the bunch of
usual suspects is becoming a serious problem because people are
getting tired of the same faces.

 And the third point is that as long as we don't have young people,
probably it may be ascribed to the fact that the format of the IGF is
all the time the same.  I mean, I understand that we stick to the
same problems because they seem to be, well, unresolvable so far, but
at least to make it more appealing to both us and the young people,
to sell it, to market it more efficiently, demand some reformatting,
some reshaping of the IGF to make it really interesting, provocative,
and igniting the dialogue.

 And finally, I believe that everyone saw that very nice welcome
party for Peter Dengate Thrush.  And I just want Markus to somehow
close his ears.  I believe that his commitment -- I believe Markus
commitment, Markus hard work and leadership deserve something, some
very special event, and I wonder if we could do that on our own on
that completely multistakeholder platform.  So if anyone really sees
this opportunity, I believe that Bertrand, myself, and some others
would be happy to contribute or just to lead this.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM: Thank you.  Leonid, and I know that our hosts in
Nairobi are planning to make youth a real focus of the IGF this year,
so I completely agree with you and I'm happy to see the host
recognizing that as well.

 The list I have now is Bill Drake, Sarah Falvey, and I guess
Stefano and -- yes.  So Bill.

 >>WILLIAM DRAKE:  Bill Drake from the University of Zurich, and I
represent NCSG on the council, on the GNSO Council, and have been
involved in this process from the beginning.

 Two observations.  Or actually three.

 First, I'd like to disagree with Ana on one point and then I'm
going to agree with you on another.

 The disagreement would be on your point with regard to the watchdog
function.

 It was actually, going back to the WGIG, one of the key things we
talked about was precisely the notion that the IGF would be a place
with a kind of pan-optic view of the Internet governance terrain that
could indeed foster dialogue about what was going on in other spaces.

 Promoting transparency, promoting dialogue that might not happen
and so on, with different types of constituencies.

 That doesn't mean that the IGF would be positioned to tell other
international organizations or processes what to do.  It simply means
that it opens up a new kind of avenue for transparency and dialogue
around the issues they're confronting.

 Second point, here I'll agree with Ana when she said that we don't -
- the nongovernmental stakeholders in some ways don't make it easy,
don't help the governments that are trying to defend us.

 I think that's true, to some extent.  And in fact, I would
generalize the point further.

 I'd like to blame the victim here a little bit.  We all get up all
the time at these meetings, at the ICANN, and say, "Well, what
governments are doing is horrible" and, you know, the Group of 77 in
China, the coalition of developing country governments, is pushing
for a more intergovernmental top-down approach and we to resist this.
And that's true.  At the same time, I think we have to own the fact
that we may contribute to their perceptions or misperceptions of the
IGF to some extent.

 Living in Geneva, hanging around the U.N., I talk to people a lot. 
There's a strong perception among many developing country governments
that the IGF has basically been taken control of by business and the
technical community, in particular, with the support of certain
industrialized country governments, most notably mine, and, you know,
we have to deal with that reality that we may feed that some way --
in some ways by not appearing to them completely willing to engage on
their issues, their concerns, and so on.

 And so I think we have to resist the natural temptation that, you
know, because we worry that they could try and take things too far
into a dialogue that would be unproductive or lead towards, you know,
a more intergovernmentalist kind of mind-set, that our resistance
then kind of to them looks like we're trying to stifle discussion,
lock things down, control things, et cetera.

 We have to be completely willing and open to engage with them and
persuade them.

 This is about soft power.  This is about taking the time to
actually sit down, as we did in the WGIG and talk through the issues
with governments that have different views and other actors that have
different views, and patiently get to the point of saying, "Well, why
do you think this?  Well, what about this?  What about that?"  That's
a hard process to do and sometimes, you know, we -- we worry and so
we retrench and clench up, but it's the wrong approach.

 We can't look like we're trying to control this thing, and
marginalize their agenda and not allow them to speak, because that
helps to drive the way they respond by going off and holding little
secret meetings in December and things like that.

 So we have to recognize that.

 None of us owns this process.  Everything has to be done
collectively.  Everything has to be done in an open participatory way
and we got to be willing to talk to people about things that -- even
when they're saying things we don't agree with.

 Last point I would make, it's about ICANN and the connection to IGF.

 I think that we should leverage -- and this goes back, actually, to
the first point -- we should leverage the opportunity that IGF
presents more than we do.

 Take, for example, what we just had happen the other day, the new
gTLD program.  Outside of the -- believe it or not there are people
who don't participate in ICANN and don't understand what we do.  It's
really true.

 And, you know, there's a lot of misunderstanding or non- -- what's
the -- what's the opposite of "knowledge"?  I don't want to say
"ignorance."  Lack of information about, you know, the processes that
are involved.

 I think we have to try to figure out how to use the opportunity of
the IGF more effectively to engage with people on what's going on
here and in other spaces, because the ICANN agenda doesn't
necessarily lend itself to that.  You know, it's not like with -- the
agenda is so packed with so many kind of operational types of
meetings, we don't really have open kinds of dialogues on the larger
sort of political, social, other dimensions of what we're doing.

 So I really hope that we will take the opportunity in Nairobi to
open this up, and the critical Internet resources main session is
certainly one of the opportunities, I think, to do this.

 Thanks.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you, Bill.

 We've got, by stretching it, about five minutes left, and I have
five speakers on the list, so I'm going to close this now and really
beg our -- these five speakers to take just a minute each.

 First, Sarah Falvey and she'll be followed by Stefano Trumpy.

 >>SARAH FALVEY:  So I'll be really quick but I just wanted to sort
of go on what Bertrand said earlier about governments needing to come
together.  

 I think the same mandate needs to be given to business and civil
society or nongovernmental sorts of views.  I think that what
happened with the CSTD where, you know, Google posted a blog post, we
did a blog post, we linked to the petition, and I think that -- and,
you know, clearly it wasn't just because of us that that changed, but
I think it was really sort of energizing the base, as they say, and
getting people to be more involved than they usually are.  I think
the challenge is going to be leveraging sort of that moment in time
and sustaining it over the long term, because I think it was great
what happened, but we need to keep going and not have people, you
know, like who participated in that process then not participate
moving forward, thinking that, you know, everything is fine.

 And then I just want to make another point about the G8.  I think
that this year is an interesting year because there are lots of
Internet-related policies and forums going on, and it's not just the
G8, it's the OECD.  I mean we all spend all of our time on these
kinds of things.  I think the challenge is going to be to show how
the IGF both fits into this framework and is completely different and
is not taken -- is not -- we're not okay by saying, "Oh, well, the G8
is doing something so we don't need this forum."  We need to show
that it is an integral part of this Internet process, policy process
that's going on globally, but that it is very different.

 So that's all I have to say.  Thank you.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thanks, Sarah.  Stefano, thanks.

 >>STEFANO TRUMPY:  Stefano Trumpy, representing the Italian
government in the GAC and IGF and head of the Italian chapter of the
Internet Society.  So I can say that here we represent one-third of
the world population that is the users of the Internet, and we face
difficulties with the U.N., and the U.N. is led by governments, and
the leaders in the governments have a high age, let's say, so
sometimes they do not follow the novelties of the society.

 And the IGF has -- have some criticism either in developed
countries because they conclude only with blah, blah is what also
some of my ministers don't understand, okay?  And developing
countries mainly criticisms are connected also to solving the famous
enhanced cooperation.  That is, how to change the leadership of some
of the services of the Internet.

 So I think that this idea of multistakeholderism is very critical.

 And then to let understand -- the people understand that what means
ICANN as being a private sector leadership in a multistakeholder
environment.  U.N. is -- or ITU is the government leadership and they
claim to be multistakeholder also, so I think that our effort should
be not releasing, not insisting, not spending too much energy is
wrong, because we have to convince a lot of policymakers, a lot of
people, and not stop doing that also, if it is very timing.

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  Thank you, Stefano.  I have Zahid Jamil, Laura, and
(inaudible), in that order.

 >>ZAHID JAMIL:  Hi.  Hello.  Zahid Jamil from Pakistan and don't be
fooled by the hair.  I know it's all white and salt and pepper, but
I'm a younger person than most of the other people and I'm sort of
responding to the comment that was made about the fact that the IGF
only attracts the usual suspects and everybody is over 40.  

 I came to ICANN through the IGF.  If it hadn't been for the IGF, if
it hadn't been for them five years ago to take me through the process
as even a younger person than I am today and if the people that I
bring today -- and let's not forget Diplo.  The school -- the summer
school of Internet governance.  I don't know, Wolfgang is not here
right now.  And then what Google did right after Vilnius, that
excellent seminar with bloggers and civil society and business and a
whole bunch of other people.  So I don't see that happening at many
other --

 oop.  Sorry.  Slow.  Speaking too quickly.  Yes, that's been my
biggest problem.  Well, you're going to get younger people, that's
going to happen.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>ZAHID JAMIL:  Anyway, yeah, thank you.  

 So when you look at this entire sort of scope of what IGF has done,
let's not forget all the positive things that have come out of it,
all these various actors who have come around the IGF.  And I think
that's very important to sort of keep in regard.

 So I would disagree that the youth have not been sort of engaged in
IGF.  Let's not forget the youth workshops, which have probably been
the most exciting workshop that the IGF -- that they've had in the
last couple of years, et cetera.

 Now, this moving on to what it is in distinction to others, the --
I don't know about the U.N., I don't know about the EG8 or the ITU,
but I know that it's much easier for us from developing countries to
gain entry without having to go through accreditation to come to
these events.

 I just have to sign up, just like I do at the IGF, and I'm here. 
That makes it much more easier, so that's another benefit.

 And lastly, let's not forget, I'm sure there's room for
improvement, but that improvement will come if we don't let the IGF
be subject to politics.  One of the reasons we haven't been able to
get the funding together to have developed country individuals come
to the IGF has been because it has in the last year or so -- and I'll
be very blunt about it -- been subject and a victim of certain
politics.  Hopefully now that that has given stability, now that
we've ended that and we have stability in the IGF, hopefully that
will then encourage a lot more younger people, a lot more money to
actually be sort of generated and attracted towards it.  So I just
wanted to sort of mention the actors like the, you know,
DiploFoundation, the school of Internet governance, and even Google
and others.  

 Thank you very much.

 >> Ladies and gentlemen, we're terribly sorry that we'll have to
close this session because our next session, people are already
coming in and our speakers are ready.  Thank you very much.

 [ Applause ]

 >>BILL GRAHAM:  There's no arguing with that, so I'd just like to
take one second to thank all of our speakers, all the participants
from the audience, the interpreters for their excellent work and the
scribes as well, and also ICANN for organizing this session.  And
thank you, Baher, especially.