Internet Society Chapters 

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Chapter and Member meeting to discuss ISOC participation in ICANN

Meeting Minutes

Agenda

1. Introduction and welcomed
2. Tour de Table of participants in ICANN
3. Identify potential synergies
4. Where we want to go (as inviduals and group)
5. Conclusions

Attendees

Apologies if anyone has been missed

Chapters

Tricia Drakes, ISOC England
Luc Faubert, ISOC Quebec
Peter Koch, ISOC Germany
Samad Bakurally, ISOC Mauritius
Cheryl Langdon Orr, IOSC Australia
Enrique Carrieta, ISOC Colombia
Aziz Hilali, ISOC Morocco
Sebastian Bachollet, ISOC France
Patrick Vande Valle, ISOC Luxembourg
Eduardo Diaz, ISOC Puerto Rico
Jorge Plano, ISOC Argentina
Ana Sanchez, ISOC Ecuador
Erik Huesca, ISOC Mexico
Didier Kasole, ISOC Democratic Republic Congo
Hawa Diakite, ISOC Mali
Alex Corenthin, ISOC Senegal
Dave Kissoondoyal, ISOC Mauritius
Vitoria Bertolo, ISOC Italy
Veni Markowski, ISOC Bulgaria
Kuo Wei Wu, ISOC Taiwan
Victor Ciza, ISOC Burundi
Didier Kla, ISOC Cote d'Ivoire
Archer Lebron, ISOC Puerto Rico

Others

Daniel Karrenberg, Board of Trustee member
Adiel Aplogan, Afrinic CEO
Sebastian Bellagamba, Regional Bureau Manager, LAC
Dawit Bekele, Regional Bureau Manager, Africa
Anne Lord, ISOC Senior Manager chapters & individual members
Lynn St Amour, ISOC CEO
Pierre Ouedraogo, GAC, ccNSO

1. Introduction and welcome

Lynn gave an introduction on the purpose of the meeting which was to share information and experiences regarding ISOC's participation in the various ICANN constituencies. Patrick elaborated to say that in addition to the need to share information and to co-ordinate better we need to see how we can help ICANN and perhaps find common ground where we can assist.

2. 'Tour de Table' of participants in ICANN

There were 28 attendees at the meeting.

There was a round the table series of introductions as follows, stating name, chapter affiliation and participation in ICANN.

Tricia Drakes, ISOC England - past ICANN board member. Governments committee and DNSO. There are key activties within ICANN that need to be communicated back to constituency back home.

Daniel Karrenberg - Chair of ISOC Board of Trustees. Participates in the Root Server Systems Advisory Committee.
Visiting member of RSSAC.

Adiel Aplogan - CEO Afrinic. Active in the ASO. Here as observer.

Luc Faubert, ISOC Quebec. They are certified in ALS in N. American region. He assisted in setting up the NARALO which will be signed this week.

Dawit Bekele, ISOC Regional Bureau Manager, Africa. Interested to learn more.

Peter Koch, ISOC Germany - Chairman of German Board. Not yet At large structure. Works for DENIC (TLD). Mostly involved in ccTLD and Security topics.

Samad Bakurally, ISOC Mauritius. Fellowship trial and first participation.

Sebastian Bellagamba, ISOC Regional Bureau Manager, LAC - Involved as member of AC for ASO for LACNIC (chair).

Cheryl Langdon Orr, ISOC Australia. Chapter involvement long standing through DNS issues and had a seat on board of ccTLD registry so involvement through CCNSO. Also became At large structure, so now one of two representatives on ALAC AP.

Enrique Carrieta, ISOC Colombia - studying and getting more involved.
Chapter not an at large structure.

Aziz Hilali, ISOC Morocco - [apologies did not catch this - enquiring to complete]

Sebastian Bachollet, ISOC France. Involved in ICANN ALAC - one of two elected European members to ALAC. Used to participate in Business constituency. We can share what we do in ICANN to see if we can find a way to improve not just participation of ISOC but Internet "life"
in general.

Lynn St Amour, ISOC CEO. Happy to see so many participants!

Archer Lebron, Chairman ISOC Puerto Rico. Also participates in ALAC structure. Want to see how he can help to transform ISOC PR into knowledge based society. Understanding structures of ICANN and how it works is important to PR.

Eduardo Diaz, President ISOC Puerto Rico. Involvement is in Ralo's.
Went to Sao Paulo to LAC RALO and joined the LAC RALO.

Jorge Plano, ISOC Argentina. Is in the LAC Ralo and has participated in other activities of ICANN in the past.

Ana Sanchez, ISOC Ecuador. Here to participate in LAC RALO. They are an ALS.

Erik Huesca, ISOC Mexico. Part of LAC RALO. Main concern about the participation of users is to create real relationships between the users, ICANN and ISOC. Want to understand relationships as they relate to the Internet.

Didier Kasole, Chairman of ISOC DRC - participated in formation of African RALO. Member of ICANN nominating commitee in 2003. Board member of Afrinic.

Hawa Diakite, ISOC Mali. Elected in the RALO in Lisbon. ICANN at large member for AFrican.

Alex Corethin, Chair ISOC Senegal. cc TLD Manager of .SL. Part of ccnso meeting. Member of IDN advisory committee. First participation in a full ICANN meeting.

Dave Kissoondoyal, Chair of ISOC Mauritius. Member of Non commercial business users.

Vitoria Bertolo, ISOC Italy. Been in involved in at large since 2000.
Was one of the initial people involved who designed structure. Member of ALAC and was chair for first 3.5 years. Brings experience from these structures.

Veni Markowski, Chairman ISOC Bulgaria. Been involved with ISOC since 1993. Involved in everything going on in and around ISOC and ICANN.
Now is the Regional liaision for Russia and Commonwealth of Independant States (12 of them). Been working with the Armenian chapter and others.

Kuo Wei Wu, ISOC Taiwan. Long history of involvement. Back to 1995 with ISOC and with ICANN in 1998 before it started. Part of the founding member team of ISOC Taiwan. Also APNIC EC and Board member of TWNIC.

Anne Lord - Senior Manager chapters and individual members. Here to understand and learn more.

3. Identify potential synergies

Lots of people appear to participate in ALAC. Email from Jacqueline Morris asking what issues should ALAC address over coming months. Do we (ISOC) have special competancies to work on a list of issues. eg.
IPv6, IDN, redefinition of ICANN geographic regions? Regions are not always obvious - even from participants. Report from CCNSO on this issue which may be of interest to this community. In what time frame should we address this request?

Sebastien Bachollet commented that as an organisation with competancies. We can have a broader view of our participation which will help us. We can bring the fact that we are a group with different skill sets. How we leverage each other skills.

Kuo Wei Wu identified IP addressing as an important issue and he encouraged participants to look at the RIRs statement regarding IP addresses.

The topic of continuity and information sharing was raised. Several ALS's which were present in Lisbon that are not here now. In LA there will be different people so continuity and information sharing is important. The ISOC public policy ML could be used more. Or we could have different mailing list? It was agreed that the continuity goal was important.

4. Where we want to go (as inviduals and group)

Sebastien commented how we leverage our cross competancies is an important issue to discuss. How can we help ICANN to fulfill it's mission? It is important to share and discuss different views. Dave Kissoondoyal commented that if we help ICANN, we will help ISOC.
ICANN is perceived to be strong because they have money. We bring a lot of members and personal resources. We can not be as strong as ICANN but we can be stronger and support ICANN at the same time.

Didier Kasole felt that we need first to define ISOC and ICANN. ICANN is managing the scarce resources. ISOC is much older but it is an association for the promotion of the Internet and not in charge of managing resources. The resources are not the same. Eric Huesca commented that our relationship with ICANN depends on what ISOC is.
So the discussion is a mixture and this is important. There was some discussion as to whether this was a subject for today or tomorrow's meeting with some opinions expressed that it was for the Chapter & Members meeting the following day. There was no further discussion on this topic.

Kuo Wei Wu commented that we should focus on several things: a) watching internet policy by governments b) examining how policies affect society or 'consumers' and how international policy decisions affect Tawian. ISOC and ICANN are two different but complementary structures. ICANN manages the identifiers but not for profit ISOC aims develop access for users. ISOC should help ICANN with its mission.

Alex commented that the kind of policy done by ICANN is very important. For example, with IPv4 exhaustion if it is not well understood by policy workers it can be very disadvantageous to the development of the Internet. This is important for ISOC people. To advocate for issues concerning end users. He suggested that we use our ISOC umbrella to inform others.

Archer asked about the benchmark we use to measure ourselves? He said this is necessary so we can measure progress. There has to be a definition of what a stronger organisation means.

Daniel commented in summary that he heard people saying that there is some general common feeling of what ISOC is. What local chapters of isoc are doing is that they are participating in the ALAC structure of ICANN. It might be interesting to reflect on what ICANN wants from ALAC and what this structure brings to the ALAC process. Chapters say that they represent local internet users. We could definately bring more representativeness to participation in ICANN.

Luc commented that it is difficult to be one thing within ICANN. We are many things ranging from registry operators and other ICANN constituencies. We cant put out one brand because everyone has different elements to answer. ISOC benefits from the work of the registry operator. We are a diverse set of interests. We cannot end up with a unified message that we carry to the ICANN constituency.

It was suggested that ISOC could define least common denominator policy positions that could be articulated in various constituencies.
In one sense however it was commented that if we did this we would be defeating purpose of the 'at large' community. In some communities there is a worry that we are 'taking' over at large.

Veni commented that he hoped we are all in favour of making ISOC a stronger organisation. ISOC has 3 main areas 1. standards 2.
education and 3. public policy. ISOC can help Internet to become stronger. ICANN is not well understood nor its purposes. Education on every level (govts, businesses) is necessary. It is also important to educate them how to become interested in what happens at ISOC. Public policy and education of ccTLD's and network operators are rated highly.

Daniel added that we can contribute communication and that it is a good thing if chapters talk to each other while participating in ICANN. We do have some synergy with the IETF - there are technical people in the chapters who understand the technical constraints. ISOC can influence ICANN and Govts in general to prevent ICANN from doing things that cannot be implemented from a technical point of view and bad for architectural reasons, likewise for politicians.

Lynn commented that each organisation has unique and individual roles. What can ISOC do to help ICANN in certain areas and to help us all understand more clearly. In hearing from ICANN board members, they want ISOC to be much more visible in helping them with their own effectiveness. She commented that there were in fact two different levels for discussion. How do we help ICANN with feet on the ground.
One answer was ALAC. What does ICANN want out of ALAC? And how can ISOC facilitate that in a way that supports the development of the Internet and the Internet model.

Vittoria commented that there was a distinction between ISOC and the At large community realising that it was broader than just ISOC (and the type of users that comprise chapters). ICANN wants diversty and local outreach from ALAC. It was realised that at a global level it is very hard for certain types of voices to be heard and certain groups dominate. ICANN uses it for broader representation and legitimacy. Point of ALAC is diversity. It is important to keep talking and participating.

Sebastien commented that there are many who participate and who are not here. we can name many others who hold 'positions' in ICANN.
Tension in that ISOC chapters participate in ALAC but we are also seen that we might be viewed as 'taking over'. Our goal must be to find other organisations in our countries to be members. We are not repeating ISOC but doing something different. We want to be seen as an organisation that 'opens' the system.

Tricia agreed with Veni and Vittoria that people do not understand what ICANN is, and what its' mission is. It has a clear mission related to unique identifiers. ISOC has an important role to play to complement and give out messages that affect everything. eg. CCNO and IDN sessions - gave clear explanations about factors in IDNs in cc's.
With IPv6 in terms of basics that folk should know - there are key messages that need to come out. And the ISOC community can understand and help to promote and educate some of the things that are outside ICANN's core mission (eg. spam, cyber security etc).

Cheryl said that as far as their chapter in Australia goes, the ICANN activities are one strand of their activities. There are always complementaries to come out of attending an ICANN meeting. IPv6 activities can be fed into 'at large' constituencies in AU. Also looking at ICANN At large - feed back into their own 'consumer consultative' and trade relations activities, education and outreach.
So issues raised here help to build a workplan for ISOC AU. Growth from participation at ICANN really helps chapter.

Enrique commented that If ISOC helps ICANN fulfil its mission, it is going to get stronger. We should try to understand each others
strengths and weaknesses and each one is going to get stronger.
Pierre wanted to support Tricias comments and said that the most important thing ISOC can do is to undertake more simple things vis a vis users. If ISOC can demystify the ICANN process it would be very useful.

5. Conclusions

Patrick commented that there is a need for ISOC to outreach to local commnuity about issues being discussed in ICANN. Chapters could translate the issues in simple language. If some of us have already done the work, please share it.

It was commented that there was a danger, with this meeting, of being perceived as sub group within ALAC. It was clarified that it was not our intention to find common positions for all chapters. All chapters who work within RALO's are not always aware of the issues - esp.
technical. So sharing information is useful. It is especially
important for chapters in ALAC to share with those in the RALO's.
Goal is to share information.

Sebastien said that he was impressed by the number of participants at the meeting. Very useful meeting with output to take back home. He suggested for LA to explicitly invite all of the representatives of the RALO's from chapters to attend.

Tricia remarked on the idea of meeting in LA given the proximity of IGF. We need to be mindful that there will be a diversion of resources into the IGF and perhaps we should be thinking about that aspect as well. Pierre commented that it might be useful to have an evaluation to see how things are moving in the Dynamic Coalitions.
There are some discussions in some of the groups that need to be watched.

Luc commented that it would be useful to have a meeting at the beginning of the ICANN meeting week in LA so that we can share points of(Chapter meetings should be to discuss internal matters not necessarily have to do with ICANN.) Daniel echoed this and commented on the need for a discussion rather than a 'party' line. Experience is that if we want to do some actual work - what is really needed is a meeting 2 weeks in advance via teleconference or a series of meetings. "regional" teleconferences are important. if we do discussion on phone beforehand we would be more focussed.