Internet Society Chapters 

Meetings

OECD Ministerial Meeting - Chapter Consultation meetings

Chapters call, 27th September UTC 10.30

Attendees:

Didier Rukeratabaro Kasole (initially) - ISOC DRC
Rajnesh Singh - PICISOC
Cheryl Hovtek (by phone but on mute) - ISOC AU
Sebastien Bachollet - ISOC FR
Dawit Bekele (initially)
Constance Bommelaer
Anne Lord

Apologies: Gunela Astbrink

Agenda outline:

1. Share feedback received on the draft agenda and discuss any additional input;
2. Discuss the preliminary structure of the Technical Committee Forum meeting and speaking opportunities;
3. Solicit additional input from Chapter delegates on the meeting content/structure;
4. Gather interest in participation opportunities in the Technical Community Forum meeting (speaking slots, etc.)

1. Introduction (Constance)

ISOC has undertaken an outreach exercise to OECD, which has resulted in having the Technical Internet community (TIC) participate directly in the process of the ministerial conference. The TIC should have its voice next to the business constituency (BIAC) and to Civil society (CS). There are 10 technical organisations who wish to participate: ISOC, IETF, IAB, W3C, ETSI, 3GPP, IEC, NRO, ICANN, CEN, Internet2, and TIA. Acting as a liaison, ISOC's role is to facilitate the TIC's participation in the different steps of the process.

The Preparatory process comprises:

1. the ICCP meeting in Ottowa next week
2. 6-8 week period to comment on the ministerial documents: Public Policy Framework which covers the challenges of the Future of the Internet Economy and Draft Recommendations and Guidelines for the Member States, and the Seoul Declaration.
3. the ICCP meeting in Europe (place tbd) in March 2008

OECD documents are recommendations but they are very well respected.
Impact therefore in terms of national policy in Member States and non OECD Member States is a reference for many and very important.

As a direct contribution, stakeholders were asked to ask to participate in a side event - a day prior to the ministerial in June 2008. There will be 3 such events: one for the TIC, one for BIAC and one for CS. This is an important oportunity where the TIC will have the opportunity to stress the key policy messages and provide technical information for high-level policy-makers. A full day forum will be organised and it will be open to all. ISOC is co-ordinating the speakers at this forum.

So in summary participation in this meeting is a very good opportunity for ISOC to have voice in a very important international meeting.

To recap, the draft agenda was circulated on chapter delegates list.
Also an invitation to respond to an online survey closing end of
September. Read on www.oecd.org...

The Draft agenda is not a public document. It is an internal OECD working doc which has 3 main themes:

• creativity
• convergence
• confidence

Chapter feedback is very important and was invited to those on the call.

Sebastien Bachollet commented that in general chapters are identified as members of Civil Society. But this development seems like we are no longer CS. He commented that the technical community is one part of ISOC but not all of ISOC. We need to be active in OECD process also as users as we represent end users.

Constance commented that the OECD supports ISOC's broad mandate and that ISOC is co-ordinating for others. However ISOC's voice is totally independent in the process. ISOC has access to all the debates and this is new and of importance. The difficulty previously was that ISOC was either in BIAC or Civil Society. Within CS there are many voices and it is difficult to have a loud enough voice. However, ISOC's voice is independent of any other voice that ISOC is part of.

Also it was felt that ISOC's voice cannot purely associated to the Business or civil society groups. The technical voice is also important and ISOC are co-ordinators of this.

Furthermore any collaboration effort is possible with any of the other stakeholders so ISOC has been discussing with the other stakeholder groups.

Constance then invited further comments on the agenda or the themes of the Ministerial.

Sebastien raised two areas of concern as how they impact the future of the Internet economy:

1. future around IPv4 and IPv6 business models, given that we are entering a new "world".
2. the new gTLD's - what will happen and business model of domain name system.

Sebastien also commented that he would support the idea of working closely with ISOC Australia who are very active in this. Tony organised the meeting at OECD and they had a good discussion in Paris this summer which was very useful. Tony will be on the 2nd call.

Furthermore ISOC France is very willing to assist in communications with the OECD as they are both in Paris. Eric Bousseau is a professor of Economics and working in IGOV field and he could be a good resource for ISOC - Sebastien will send contact details to Constance.

It was suggested that this topic could be a good topic for a specific meeting for Los Angeles given the challenges of remote connectivity.

Constance thanked everyone for being on the call and for their input.

Actions:

1. Constance will resubmit the agenda to the Chapter delegates list with highlighting to show which paragraphs are considered important by ISOC.
2. Sebastien to send the email address of Dr Bousseau to Constance
3. Anne to investigate the possibility of face to face meeting in LA.