Meetings
Chapter and Member meeting during the ICANN meeting
Wednesday 31st October 7.30pm-9pm (UTC 02.30-04.00)
Chair: Mike Todd
Room: Newport C, Hilton Los Angeles Airport
Meeting Minutes
Attendees
Cheryl Langdon-Orr - ISOC Australia
Victor Ciza - ISOC Burundi
Sebastien Bachollet - ISOC France
Miguel Fiallos - ISOC Los Angeles
Mike Todd - ISOC Los Angeles
Francely Tamayo Barrera - ISOC Ecuador
Carlos Vera Quintana - ISOC Ecuador
Rajnesh Singh - PICISOC
Ole Jacobson - CISCO
Kenny Huang - ISOC Taiwan
Kuo-Wei Wu - ISOC individual member
Alioune Badara Traore - ISOC Mali
Stefano Trumpy - ISOC Italy
Veni Markowski - ISOC Bulgaria
Aziz Hilali - ISOC Morocco
Mohammed El Bashir - ISOC Sudan
Peter Koch - ISOC Germany
Fred Baker - CISCO/ISOC Board
ISOC staff: Leslie Daigle, Sabrina Wilmot, Anne Lord, Frederic Donck
Joined by Phone: Enrique Arrieta-Noguera - ISOC Colombia
Apologies: Tricia Drakes - ISOC England,
Khaled Khoubaa - ISOC Tunisia,
Lynn St Amour - ISOC
1. Very short individual introductions
Mike opened the meeting by welcoming participants There was a round table of introductions from all those participating.
2. Highlight successful chapter activities in Policy and Education areas - information sharing, potential collaboration?
Rajnesh led by sharing activities regarding PICISOC’s annual conference known as ‘PACINET’. Apart from education, this is also a policy summit. There are some issues in terms of policy makers in the region – they have lots of input but very little from Internet operational world eg. the ITU holds many workshops but they focus on ITU matters. PICISOC wanted a broader focus and now has this annual conference and includes sessions specifically for policy makers.
The Pacific Island Forum Secretariat (PIFS) has now endorsed PACINET to become an important annual regulators meeting. This is as a result of the regulators event they attended at the last PACINET meeting in the Solomons.
There are three concurrent sessions at PACINET: spam, security and IPv6 due to the big interest. The need for more information is large so that a lot needs to be done in education, and policy and sessions were actually repeated this year due to demand.
Stefano commented for ISOC Italy at the IGF in Athens, a dynamic coalition of bill of rights was launched (this was a joint effort IP between the Justice Organization, IT Government, ISOC Italy and Brazilian Government. It was organised by the Government and ISOC Italy was invited as keynote speaker. The idea is to set up a declaration of human rights in cyberspace. How to gain momentum is an issue for them.
Fred asked what the human right statements are? Stefano answered that they were data protection, rights to privacy and others. The idea is to have a general principle and common agreement.
There was a comment as to whether now was the time to resurrect the ISPF the Internet Societal Task Force and some agreement over this.
Mike commented for ISOC LA in that they interface with a lot of different organisations that are focussed on a variety of subject areas, not only the Internet. ISOC LA issues invitations to its membership for technical presentations and information on an informal basis. They are now thinking to formalize this creating a “Speakers Bureau” to get ISOC LA more out into the community.
Cheryl commented for ISOC AU that they have been funded by a Government grant to reach out to organizations and internet users outside of ISOC-AU asking them about their issues. This has been done through an open roadshow in major cities around Australia listed as Telecommunications Consumer Consultations regular ISOC-AU round-table meetings throughout Australia for all Internet users, to discuss views on current Internet issues, needs, technologies and directions.
Carlos from ISOC Colombia said that they have decided to make strategic alliances with organisations like the Chamber of Commerce and the Government itself working together on issues like security, electronic commerce and other issues which they cannot do themselves. The ISOC umbrella is very important for them as a Chapter. Also ISOC gave a grant this year for digital inclusion kits as part of the Project Funding. This project works very well. For example, they can now train the trainers with the money.
Ole commented that ‘strategic alliances’ with those types of organisations is helpful. Anne commented that partnership with organisations to form ‘alliances’ tends to be one of the characteristics of a more ‘active’ and chapter.
Rajnesh commented that there is a need for education and policy making ’training’ Regulators are small units and normally are from a telecom background with little knowledge about the background of Internet people.
Fred commented that The ISOC Board sees value in an increase of this kind of activity. ISOC can help bring in speakers and we need to make sure we have competent people that can be trained. He felt that Chapters could be vital in outreach the right people ie. at ministerial or senior Govt level.
Veni commented that ISOC Bulgaria has helped to change the legal framework in Bulgaria. ISOC Bulgaria offered co-operation and exchange of information. Many countries see “foreign experts” as preferential to domestic experts and ISOC has access to a ‘pool’ of people who are able to help.
Referring to Mike’s one page handout activity, Veni commented that ISOC Bulgaria is ready to participate and would like to partner with many other Chapters as well as supporting ISOC activities in their region.
Carlos commented that chapters need to concentrate on core skills in areas that we know so that we are recognized for what we are good at. ISOC Ecuador runs competitions and give out two awards since the year 2000. The prizes of ISOC Ecuador are well known and recognized in the community. This also helps to build an identity for ISOC Ecquador among users.
3. Chapter funding and sustainability - case study from ISOC AU and information sharing.
Cheryl from ISOC Australia gave a presentation about the 10 years of ISOC AU history from a financial sustainability perspective. ISOC AU was set up in 1996 with 300 start up members. In June 1997 the membership number had doubled and ISOC AU sent half of their money to ISOC which amounted $13k in one year.
A working group was set up at their first meeting to look at corporate membership and sponsorship. Membership fee was then $40 AUD/p.a.
In 2000 the membership number had dropped dramatically and the yearly fee had to be raised to $70 AUD. After only having individual members, corporate members were also accepted soon after and “foundation member” classes were created.
In 2006 two more classes of membership were introduced – “enterprise” and “strategic”. With grants and donation coming in not only ISOC AU’s profile changed but also their income. Many members come from medium sized enterprises.
Ole asked what they provide to their members as benefits?
Cheryl explained that they hold events, e.g. the “Connecting the Future” meetings, IPv6 summit, teleconferences and other regional meetings. They have reciprocal ‘membership’ arrangements with other ITC, Consumer Civil Society, and Trade interest member based organisations to offer discounts to members at one anothers meetings.
Mohammed from ISOC Sudan asked how the advisory council of ISOC AU is sustained and how ‘expertise’ is sustained in the organisation?
Cheryl clarified that they draw on the expertise of the organisational members. The Advisory council allows people to share expertise where commercial competition does not need to be brought in. ISOC AU has also started special interest groups, e.g. IPv6, with a narrow focus on issues that keeps people coming back. ISOC AU also exchanges information and knowledge between our ‘memberships’ with other peak bodies of the same level.
Stefano commented that funding is a problem of the majority of the chapters. As a not for profit organisation in Italy, ISOC IT cannot charge for services. It is always difficult to get funds.
Sebastian from ISOC France commented that chapters need help from ISOC and wanted to highlight the sustainability of Chapters as an issue. He referred to an example of Telecom France who joined ISOC but ISOC FR did not get any of this. In terms of general sustainability, ISOC FR organises “Dinners” for which they charge money, and they do charge around events that they put on.
Sebastian also added that he is trying to set up an independent separate organisation for funding the ICANN event. Since the ISOC Board meeting will be after the ICANN meeting – ISOC France will need organisational assistance from ISOC.
Anne commented that Chapter funding is an area of work that is included in the Chapter development plan. It refers to both the framework of funding for ISOC as a whole but also in terms of providing guidance and support to chapters to help them become sustainable. The item was put on the agenda today to start the process of sharing information.
Mike also emphasised that he comes from a “volunteer” environment and takes the view “how can we do more with less?” and thinks this is also an essential part of ‘sustainability’. In this way he acknowledged there are limitations but we can also provide an example to others.
Stefano commented that we should promote each other more (ISOC Global and ISOC Chapters) to other organizations, and should not compete for members!
Mohammed commented that ISOC Sudan has no membership fees and struggles with sustainability however, ISOC Sudan is funded from ccTLD and also received a grant from ICT. The first weekly newspaper was recently published funded by a Telco for the first thee to four issues. Advertisement fees are hoped to be a source of income in the future.
4. Short discussion and a handout for a possible activity starting within each Chapter, follow-on discussions, and consolidation and further development for a future presentation to ISOC and ICANN regarding the items of greatest concern among members of ISOC Chapters.
Mike presented an idea for chapters to gather information from users about what their problems are in different parts of the world. He felt that the exercise would serve two ends: a) as a tool to re-establish the chapters connection with their members around the world and b) to start collecting information and to be able to bring that together as a group.
Veni (earlier, before he had to leave) gave support to this idea and said that ISOC Bulgaria was willing to help,
Ole mentioned that ISOC used to conduct regular member surveys.
There was general support for the idea from the chapters.
5. AOB
There were no items under AOB.
6. Official close of the Chapter and member meeting.
Mike Todd thanked the participants for their contributions to the meeting.
