The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Let's come to order. There are remote participants dangling online. So let's try sitting down and getting started.
I invite everybody to please take a seat. We need to get started. There are probably remote participants waiting to hear some voices. Do we have everybody around the table who we're supposed to have? Steve Crocker is not here. Who else are we missing? This is Workshop 163, Multi‑Stakeholder Internet Governance‑IANA‑stewardship. My name is William Drake. I teach at the University of Zurich in Switzerland. I'm the chair of the Noncommercial User's Constituency, which is a society within ICANN.
Beginning with the WSIS process 2002 to 2005, many governments expressed a concern about residual U.S. Governmental stewardship roll, vis‑à‑vis, the IANA functions. This was something of a controversy back then. ICANN has been performing these functions under contract with the U.S. Government. Some people perceive this to be a form of U.S. Government control over the Internet, even though it was really a quite light‑touch stewardship administrative function. These concerns led to a lot of highly political calls for controls.
Finally, in March of 2014 the Obama Administration announced its intention to step back from the stewardship role from IANA and hand it over to the global community by a more independent ICANN and asked ICANN to facilitate an open and inclusive process to allow the transition of authority to go forward, hopefully by next autumn. NTI communicated to ICANN that the transition proposal must have broad support: Support and enhance the multi‑stakeholder model, maintain the security, resilient of the Internet Domain Name System; maintain the needs of the global partners of the IANA services, and maintain the openness of the Internet. NTI added it would not accept a proposal that replaced the NTIA's role with a government led or interest governmental solution. This proposal was widely welcomed by governments and nongovernment stakeholders including the NETmundial that was agreed last year.
This commenced a community‑wide push within the ICANN and extended technical community to design a proposal for a post‑transition IANA, in parallel was launched an accountability process to ensure that a newly independent ICANN would act in accordance with the broad will of the global community.
So the purpose of this workshop is to explain to people who perhaps have not been closely involved in this process or even following it at all, how the global multi‑stakeholder process for the transition has been organized and why it worked.
The session will include personal insights from community members who started out with very diverse and often conflicting views that are reflected the priorities of their communities, but finally move towards a consensus for the best solution for the operational stability of the Internet.
I think the session will demonstrate the dynamics and maturity of multi‑stakeholder process used to handle this and determine how that bottom‑up model has made difficult decisions and perhaps even could serve as a basis for thinking about how other processes could be handled.
Let me just say that we will not delve into the IANA transition process product, that is to say the actual proposal itself in any detail. There is an entirely separate work, Workshop 72, IANA functions that will be held from 9:00 to 10:30 in Room 5. Anyone who wants a complete picture of the story, the process and the product, I would suggest they might consider that workshop as well.
Normally we dive into the ongoing process of building up a new accountable framework for ICANN, which is a huge undertaking in itself that is involved many, many hours of work on the part of many people around the world. It's simply too big to try to get into in this context. So we're gonna keep a narrow focus on the IANA transition process itself. We did one prior session like this of an informational nature in May at the World Summit on the Information Society Forum, the WSIS that was held in the ITU in Geneva. We thought it would be good to do this as well in the IGF context. I should note that this is organized this event by the cross‑community working group on Internet Governance, which is a grouping within ICANN of various stakeholders from across the community that are interested in ICANN's interface with a larger government environment. The session was facilitated by Olivier Crepin‑Leblond.
We will proceed in a roundtable format and try to limit ourself in our comments. Nigel will be a very strict clock master and begin to wave furiously and cough when panelists go over time, should they do so, so that we can preserve 30 to 40 minutes of participation, open dialogue with both the people here in the room and online around the world.
We have very interesting participants in this group. Can I see ‑‑ where are the slides? So ‑‑ right in front of me. So joining us here today we have ‑‑ why don't you raise your hands when I mention your name so people know. Jari Arkko, Olivier Crepin‑Leblond, who could raise his hand if he wanted to, who is the chair of the European organization, Stephen Crocker, chair of the ICANN board, Rafik Dammak, who is the incoming chair after me of the noncommercial user's constituency. Alan Greenberg, the chair of the at‑large community. We have many chairs here.
Elise Lindeberg, Izumi Okutani, Thomas Schneider, a very boring shirt today, Thomas. He's the chair of the Government Advisory Committee. Lynn St. Amour, former head of the Internet Society, and finally Arun Sukumar -- there you are -- from the Observer Research Foundation in India and a member of the Noncommercial User's Constituency.
We'll lay out the slides and go through the process. We'll talk through the slides. Is that light too bright in your face there? Can we do anything about that? People in the front row are feeling like they're being blasted? I see them all covering their eyes as they try to look at us.
So thank you very much. I appreciate that. So let's begin. I turned first to Lynn St. Amour, who will give us the background of the fundamentals of the entire process.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Good morning. I also want to take a minute or two and just explain a little bit about what the IANA functions and what the transition is about as well. I recognize many, many faces in the room. So I'm sure some of this will be redundant.
The functioning of the Internet relies on databases of unique names and numbers, which are known as register industries in the it will community. All computers use these unique names and numbers to connect to each other. There are three main categories of these register industries, domain names, IP addresses, or often called numbers, and protocol parameters. So when your computer connects to the Internet or you surf the Web or send an e‑mail, the software on your computer is using these to communicate with other computers.
Setting the policy for the values that go into each of these register industries is the responsibility of three communities of interest, or as they were called in this process, operating communities or OCs. In fact, on the slide that's in front of you, no, are the three small colored boxes at the very top of the slide. These slides were pulled from the ICG Webinar and quickly got to the heart of the IANA registries, which is what you see featured so prominently there in the center. But I don't want to underestimate the importance of those operating communities and the responsibilities they have. The next paragraph or two lays that out pretty clearly.
Setting the policy for the values that go into those register industries is the responsibility of those OCs. For IP addresses and numbers, that OC comes together for the group of five regional Internet register industries or RIRs. For protocol parameters, they come together around the IEF community, and for names, the ICANN community. The policy and work for each registry is the responsibility of its community. Policy and oversight is not part of the IANA functions and is outside the scope of the IANA functions operator, which is housed within ICANN.
We talk about performing the IANA functions. We're talking about what is largely an administrative task. It's really important, as I said a moment ago, to understand this. There has been far too much confusion over these roles and I believe that's resulted in over politicization of the IANA function. If we could move to the next slide.
This slide talks about the role of NTIA, ICANN, and IANA. To understand the context of the transition, it's helpful to understand what the current oversight model looks like. So the register industries for these three independent sets of IANA functions find themselves together under one roof through a set of historical events. IANA started as a service to the community and was provided by one individual. Dr. Jonathan Pastel. Later it was housed at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute, or ISI, where John had been working in 1977.
In 1995, the IANA functions still housed at ISI with John Pastel were included as part of a research contact between ISI and the U.S. Government. In 1996, a process was started with the global community which eventually resulted in the research contract being replaced by an explicit contractual agreement between the U.S. Department of Commerce national. ICANN. That's the blue box on the lower corner of the slide. And the people that work in that department maintain the registries for the operating communities I mentioned above.
NTI maintains oversight of that department through that contract. In addition to the NTIA contact, the IANA functions are performed under a number of independent operational agreements, SLAs, MOUs, and such, between the operating communities and ICANN, who, again, is the current IANA functions operator.
I think it's also appropriate at this time to recognize that all the OCs are very happy with the performance of the IANA department. They do a very, very good, solid job.
NTIA's role includes the procedural role in the root file in the steward of the DNS, a role that has provided confidence overall. As the organizations have matured, NTIA's role has become largely symbolic. NTIA has no operational role, does not initiate changes to the root file, nor the allocation of Internet numbering resources.
If we could move to the next slide. So what is the IANA stewardship transition? As Bill referenced earlier, the NTI announced the transition of the stewardship role to the multi‑stakeholder community. In making that announcement, they established a number of criteria and expectations regarding the transition. The criteria were that the transition proposal must support and even enhance the multi‑stakeholder model. It must maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet Domain Name System, must meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services, and must maintain the openness of the Internet.
Furthermore, NTIA made it clear that the transition proposal must have broad community support and must not replace NTIA's role with the government led or intergovernmental organization solution.
At the time of the announcement, NTIA asked ICANN to convene a process to develop a transition proposal. ICANN held a public comment period and the process was ultimately adopted by the global multi‑stakeholder community was based on a submission from the Internet architecture board or IAB. That recognized the clear roles of the three operating communities and mag go their respective IANA functions.
It also recognized the service nature of the IANA functions; therefore, requiring the engagement of a broad set of stakeholders. The resulting structure was called the IANA Stewardship Coordination Group or ICG.
If you could move to the next slide. It's comprised of 30 members representing two liaison, one from the ICANN board and one from the IANA department. These include stakeholders from the operational communities as well as stakeholders from businesses, communities, user communities and others. One small footnote on that slide, there were five representatives from government, not two. So it's not depicted properly on the slide, although the number is in fact 30 on the ICG.
Slide ‑‑ next slide, please. So this one attempts to outline in one slide the transition proposal process. In September of last year the ICG issued a request for proposals to the three operational communities. The ICG sought complete formal responses to the RFP through processes that were to be determined by according to their own well established processes. They had to respond to the criteria from NTIA as well as include appropriate and properly supported independent accountability mechanisms for run you go the IANA functions.
They had to address workability individually and then again when evaluated as one combined proposal. The proposals were to be supported by the broad range of stakeholders operating in the proposal development process and were expected to be developed through a transparent process open to and inclusive of all stakeholders interested in participating.
In order to help the ICG maintain its light coordination role, again, expecting all the work to be done within the operating communities, all interested and affected parties were strongly encouraged to participate directly in those community processes.
Each of the community proposals was subjected to extensive public input and scrutiny as part their own community processes and then again through the ICG reviews. The ICG reviewed all three proposals individually and combined for completeness, workability, and for robust accountability mechanisms. Any questions or suggestions for substantive modifications were always referred back to the operational communities for their assessment and action.
Next slide, please. So this slide, my last slide here, I think. The slide graphically represents the relationship and some dependencies between the parties. Representatives of these communities will talk in more detail about the processes they each manage in just a moment. The slide also covers a few other important points. The ICANN cost community working group on accountability or CCWG, which is depicted long the bottom part of the slide there, has been proceeding in parallel to the work of the ICG. It's important to note that the CWG stewardship or names proposal and hence the ICG's combined proposal is dependent upon the successful conclusion of that work.
Ones the CCWG completes its work and the CWG a firms its accountability requirements have been met, the combined ICG proposal will then be ready to proposal to NTIA via the ICANN board. NTIA have requested that the accountability proposal and the IANA transition proposal be submitted at the time so there is another dependency and the ultimate submission of the ICG proposal will wait for the CCWG proposal.
The ICANN board have agreed to submit the proposal untouched. They may send comments in separately. Throughout this process ICANN participated as a part of the community and any comments they may send in are not expected to challenge the proposal. To disagree would mean the processes failed to reach community consensus and hence failed one of NTIA's basic criteria and, therefore, frankly, be a nonstarter.
I hope this introduction has been helpful. With that I will turn it over to Izumi, who will talk about the numbers proposal: Thank you.
>> IZUMI OKUTANI: Basically, the ICG process that Lynn has introduced, on the number resources component part, the team was set up as a team to submit a proposal to the ICG as a single global proposal on the number resources component. And I think rather than going through here, can we go to the next slide, which shows the actual diagram on the community process. So what's unique about us is that compared to other two functions, we actually have five regional Internet communities that each individually will discuss policies within that region.
So we may choose this existing platform community so that each of these regions are able to first come up with the proposals they think would best fit in terms of the IANA stewardship. To consolidate this proposal into single global proposal and that's where the CRISP team was set up in November 2014, equal representatives from each region. 15 members each. What we have done is that. What you can see from the name. CRISP, the C stands for consolidated. So we haven't actually developed the proposal itself, but our role was rather to consolidate the proposal that has been developed by each of these regions. So we've actually worked on it starting from December and then we submitted the proposal to the ICG by the deadline and 15th of January, so we worked on it in about a month. So that was basically the process that we went through.
Of course, it was open for anybody to participate, so you don't have to be an expert in this topic on the number. We have the platform for discussions, both face‑to‑face meeting in each of these regional meetings, as well as we had a dedicated mailing list, both regional and global. So we had good coordination between the regional and global process.
That's it for me.
>> JARI ARKKO: I'm going to continue with the IETF parts and the underlying principles and anything we do at the IETF is the same as the previous speakers have spoken about community opinion and building consensus is what matters and the coordination groups or leaders, while important, is still secondary.
The other important thing is for us that the topics need to be discussed at the community that is actually affected by this matter, which is the reason why these different issues around RIRs and IGF are pushed in this organization instead of being discussed somewhere else.
Before we go into what we did at the ITG, I wanted to previously explain what the protocol parameters are. They are, of course, the far most uninteresting part of this whole thing. Everyone is extremely bored when we talk about it. If you go to the next slide, please. So these are the parameters we need for computers to actually understand each other. They're not usually looked up run time, values within Internet protocols and taken into account by people who write software. A couple of examples, port 80, port numbers are used to distinguish protocols from each other. And port 80 means HTTP.
Another example, perhaps more widely known, is error codes that your browser gets when it talks to Web servers, 404, as an example, is an indication that a page doesn't exist. These are all numbers in the protocol parameters industry. Besides being uninteresting, it's also the biggest one. We have thousands, and I guess tens of thousands of registrations of parameters every month, hundreds of activities in the registry. But they are, indeed, details in the overall pictures and the users don't usually see this, except indirectly.
Policy decisions about these parameters are taken up by the ITG, even though in a lot of places they are first come first served basis. Quite simple policy. Next slide, please.
But back to the process: When we started the transition work, we did exactly the same thing as we do at the IETF whenever we develop anything else. We created a working group to develop a proposal and then this working group, the IANA working group did this work after a series of revisions and community reviews, we had our steering group conclude that there is rough consensus in the IETF community behind this proposal. That was the end. During the process we did see quite a lot of interesting things on the topic. It wasn't just a few people. A lot of the section of the IETF was interested in this as well as some new participants in our process.
And have anything else with the IETF, everyone else participates as individual, so it's not that anybody represented any particular organizations. We went through the process quite rapidly, compared to the technical works we do. It only took about five months. The primary reason for that not that we're superefficient, but we had very little to do. So we basically have an arrangement that already is working quite well. There is some fine tuning that we did there, a couple of things. But the main thing is that we had on existing oversight party, already looking over the IANA functions.
We have a very simple case. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. I think next we go to Olivier.
>> OLIVIER CREPIN‑LEBLOND: I'll take you through the process of the names community in putting together their proposal. We have a partial timeline here of the ‑‑ from the inception, the start of the work, all the way up to June. It just went on afterwards and produced a proposal a couple months later. The essential part of this is that the ICANN community came together and produced across community working group on stewardship transition known as CWG stewardship. You will note there are a lot of acronyms. I take this opportunity to remind you we do have a glossary document that has been distributed, but I note that a lot people have actually come in since. There are some spare copies at the end of the desk here.
So the first proposal was initially put out for public comment in December 2014. I have a laser pointer which shows you here. That was when the first feedback from the overall community, not only the ICANN community, but pretty much anybody out there who had some views about the first proposal could comment. And these comments were taken into account. There were a lot of comments received and it was quite clear that number of changes were needed.
The size of the work was so large that, in fact, several working groups, internal working groups, were put together to as to be able to work in parallel rather than having anyone on every call. I do remind you that the number of calls and the volume of e‑mails on the mailing list is the number of thousands of e‑mails and hours and hours of calls rotated throughout the day so as to not always penalize the same people, which means that there are calls at 3:00 in the morning. That's just part of the work when you work in a global organization.
Now, looking at the work, it all came down finally to one model being the one that gained consensus. The design teams that you can see underneath here then worked with legal advisors that came in, independent legal advisors that basically looked at the proposal and said is this working, is this not working? Is this something that will actually work with the laws that are currently in place?
There was a second comment public that took place in April. Each comment period is 28 days. It feels like a very short amount of time, but as you are well aware, the overall timeline that we had was very, very tight. So it had to move quite quickly. After that, some more work was done in order to take into account the public comments that were received and a proposal was finally presented over to the ICG for the ICG to put it with the other proposals.
Next slide, please. So overall, when you look at the actual proposals made, you will see they all fit together around ICANN as being the actual organization that runs the functions that then has a contract with post‑transition IANA. I'll go into this in a very short moment, that is then able to perform the functions on behalf of the names community, which you see on this side, with the different component parts, which are going to be created. And then the regional Internet registries on this side with the service level agreement, and the protocol community that has an MOU with ICANN.
Next slide, please. The current contracts, there is a little bit of complexity with regards to the names proposal in that ICANN is the IANA function's operator. The policy is also done within ICANN. There needed to be some kind of separation and some independent committees to be put together to make sure that the functions were being run correctly and so on, reminding you all, these are just tech functions. So service level agreements, etc. A certain escalation model to be able to make sure that if something goes wrong, it's going to be addressed. So pre-transition, the current contract is just a contract between NTIA and ICANN, and post‑transition there would be a post‑trans IANA, IANA functions review team, customer standing committee, and the customers being able to interact directly.
All of this is actually, as you can see with this big square, is actually conditional on a number of points with regards to enhancement of ICANN accountability and some certain number of accountability mechanisms have to come into this. If you want to know more about this tomorrow, as Bill said, there is a workshop that will be dealing specifically with that.
Now, next slide, please. So the work of the CWG is pretty much complete, but the transition hasn't completed yet. So what's the problem? Well, there is no problem. It's just a case that, as I said, the CWG accountability, another working group, another cross‑community working group has done its work and still having some work that is yet left to do. Rather than just making it and doing it too fast and leaving some aspects of the proposal to be sort of rough and ready, they are taking their time. They're making sure they're addressing everything that needs to be addressed. This is a one‑shot opportunity to make sure that the transition takes place correctly, because it's very significant.
So at the moment, the work of the cross‑community WORKING GROUP on accountability has to link up with the work of the cross‑community working group on stewardship. We're pretty much around this part where the CCWG proposal will come up, will go to the ICANN board. Once that goes through, then we'll go over to NTIA along with all the other proposals by the ICG.
Next slide, please. The CCG accountability is currently working. There is a public comment coming up. Another public comment. I know (CCWG) I know they have a call at 3:00 in the morning tonight and another one later tonight. It keeps on going. But the plan is to have the public comment period lasting 35 days ‑‑ not years. It feels like 35 years. 35 days, starting on November 15. These dates are flexible. A detailed report will be done. December is when the staff summary will be distributed. The deadline for the actual analysis is end of December.
Hopefully by mid‑January we should have the final report delivered to the ICANN board ‑‑ there is a chance that the chartering organizations, because the cross‑community working groups has to be charted by the chartering organizations ‑‑ there is a chance these might have to meet face to face. I think it's probably the face of the government advisory committee that needs to meet to ratify documents. They might have to meet sometime? Mid‑January. By the 22nd of January, the report will be given and passed on to NTIA.
Next slide, please.
Where do we go from here? Once the multi‑stakeholder community delivers the report, that goes over to NTIA, as we said. This then goes into the NTIA review. It is expected that this would take 60 to 90 days, and after that, this will have to be signed off with a Congressional review. The expectation here is for about 30 L days to be used. Of course this is always subject to the discussions that will take place in the U.S. Congress. As you know, some of it might take a bit more time, but we're hoping that this is all going to be satisfactory enough of a proposal that there won't be any last minute blocking or sending back to the charter ‑‑ the organizations that prepared this.
Beyond that, we have to finalize the implementation and proceed with the transition itself. So that will be the transition itself. That's likely to be sometime during 2016.
I think that's it. Back to you, Bill.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. So as you see, it has been a very complex and process‑laden effort here that involved a lot of different people from across different communities doing a lot of really difficult and technical work over an extended period of time. But they managed to pull together something that actually at the end of the day worked and had broad support of the multi‑stakeholder community. So I think that's really something.
We are really on time here, which is also very nice. So we're now going to turn to some brief comments from other colleagues in the community who have followed the process closely, been involved in various ways for their perspectives. Why don't we start with you, Alan Greenberg.
>> ALAN GREENBERG: Thank you very much. I guess I'd like to share some observations. None of them are particularly new, but a lot of things came together during this process. First of all, we have multi‑stakeholder instead of a single one, because people have different views, different people. On the ICANN CWG on transition, there were a lot of different opinions, very different opinions. It was certainly a challenge. One of the problems multi‑stakeholder shares with any other decision‑making process is those who speak first speak loudest, speak with a position ‑‑ from a position of authority tend to guide the discussion. And group think matters. People buy in on things if enough people say it loudly enough. And that can be a real issue.
Facilitation and chairing is really key to make sure that certain people don't dominate the discussion. Ultimately it worked out very well in the CWG.
There has to be a relatively level playing field. Issues like availability of time, financial backing, and language can be really crucial make‑or‑break issues to see if people can participate. You can't fix time. Some people will be paid to participate. Others respect volunteer basis. You can address some of the other issues. ICANN did a reasonably good job on and can find criticism with it, but ultimately there was good participation from all groups.
The net result was pretty much all the players did participate. The end results were very different from the direction that the group was going to begin with. That was clearly because some of the players in other types of models would be really marginalized had an impact. One can criticize the final results as being, perhaps, overly complex, but any multi‑stakeholder‑type process is going to be a compromise. We ended up with something that would be workable and will serve the community well over the next decade or two. That speaks very well to the process.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Alan. Those are very insightful remarks. It opens the discussion later for how the dynamics of the process led people to alter their positions, move towards consensus, and deal with the realities that in this field players have different resources and capacities and so on. So this is very helpful.
Rafik Dammak, perhaps you have some thoughts about how this process played out from a Civil Society's perspective.
>> RAFIK DAMMAK: Thanks, Bill. I guess for Civil Society we can maybe talk for those who are involved in ICANN and those maybe can qualify them that's outside ICANN. And having the IANA transition created some interest for all the parties. However, I don't think we get many from those outside to get involved within the process, the working group, while many them may be submitted, statement during the public comment. For those inside and talking about the noncommercial stakeholders group and the noncommercial user constituency, we get several members active. They're spending a lot of time to participate in the shaping of the proposal. We could see the kind of dynamics between the different stakeholders there and how we have to work within the consensus. It's not necessarily that we have all the aspect of the proposal itself. That's the outcome of any consensus basis, I mean, sitting.
I guess there still may be for some organizations some ‑‑ they are not satisfied with now ‑‑ what we get from the proposal. There was also some question go from them about if the process ensured some representation from the different part, maybe from Civil Society and in particular those from the globe.
I'm not sure how we could do better. In the end it was a lot of resources and some expertise; because there was some risk that people or some organization that have that's kind of small abstract. It doesn't go really in more details and specifics in how it can be implemented. So we have this kind of issue here. Also, maybe even if we set up such process in trying to get more people, it's questioning how we do better outreach. It's not just talking about, you know, this is quite important, but how to provide, maybe, the platform for them to participate. Because at the end, even if those organizations that are involved in the Internet Governance, anything created at ICANN sounds narrow for them, even if the IANA stewardship is quite important, gets some momentum, not one of the main focus for them. The question here in how to work to maybe more resources, because we are come both for attention, for those organizations.
Talking about the constituency, we are involved within the process and we know why it matters, but we need to get more from those outside.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Rafik. While the processes were formally open and anybody could engage, there's definitely always a challenge with outreach and really getting people involved. That's, perhaps, something we'll talk about.
Let's get some views from the government side. Elise, would you be interesting in adding something?
>> ELISE LINDEBERG: Thank you. I could. Talking about process, of course. GAC have our operating principles that we operate according to, and being part of this process has been challenging, but it also helped us to shake this up a bit. So we worked in the fast speed and we've worked much online, of course, much discussions online, and a lot of ‑‑ I have to speak louder. And we had our challenges in the past process of the work. I think the end result as very good for the GAC. We give a clear statement that we supported the final draft. In the process we were two members from the GAC side and a lot of participants. We all helped each other. The process was good, but it was, of course, since we are not speaking on behalf of other countries as a GAC member, we have serious work briefing the GAC through the whole process. We had Webinar, especially for the GAC. We had briefing papers sent from the GAC members to the whole of the GAC. We had frequent conference calls. I was talking to the chair, who had to make a statement on behalf of the GAC to have to input from the whole of the GAC. That needs to come from the chair. Maybe it sounds like we are very driven only by process, but that is how we have to operate, because we have national processes at home to clarify what we can say as members in the GAC.
So overall, it's been a lot of hours. It's been very interesting. I think the GAC has been very ‑‑ well, all the participants in the GAC or members in the GAC has participated in very active way. So I think the presence has been good. We are still waiting. We have the CCWG dependencies. We made that clear in our statement. Overall we are happy with the process in this CCG and are happy to be participating.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. For example, you can't speak for all the other governments and so on, it raises special issues. Thomas, perhaps you could add something to that as the chair of the GAC.
>> THOMAS: I think, actually, we have two very good members from the GAC in that group and I think there's not that much to add to what Elise said. Since I've spoken enough in other fora, I think I'll give the time to others to speak.
>> MODERATOR: Wow. Okay. That's something I've not heard so far at this IGF. But that's wonderful.
Arun, perhaps you have a different view on some things.
>> ARUN SUKUMAR: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. My name is Arun. I'm a lawyer with the observatory research foundation, which is a think danger in New Delhi. I'll previously talk about the role that Developing Countries and economies have had in this process. I don't have a particularly optimistic view on the participation or the involvement, perhaps I can break it down to what is happening during the transition process and what is happening after the transition from the perspective of participation from developing economies. All stakeholders, not just Civil Society or the noncommercial users generally. To start off with, I think most of the work that has been done on it is IANA transition has been conducted through mailing lists, through online interactions. Of course, when there has been an opportunity to discuss issues substantively, there has been a push to move the discussion further.
An organization working in the center for Internet Society had made ‑‑ had calculated the participation of people from Developing Countries and developing economies in the mailing list. Now, they found ‑‑ I'm just going to take maybe a few seconds on what their findings are. They analyzed five mailing lists, the CCWG accountable mailing lists, they analyzed IETF and the IANA transfer list and CRISP transfer lists. What you see from the participation from Developing Countries in the IANA stewardship process is that it's quite poor. They found that a total of 239 individuals participated cumulatively in all these discussions. They made the cutoff of people who contributed more than 20 times to a mailing list would be classified as substantive contributors. Ought of those 98 people, if you look at the break down of developing and Developing Countries, 40% are from the United States. 77 of 98 of these substantive contributors were from the WUNG, Western Europe, Canada, Israel, New Zealand. Only 5 were from the Latin American and Caribbean Group. This is staggering fact. Four in five of these contributors were male. Out of the 98 contributors, 77 people are male and only 21 were female. So clearly ‑‑ of course, these are not conclusive statistics. They merely analyze who contributed in a mailing list discussion and who didn't. Of course there might have been people who participated in face to face discussions over a number or perhaps who are silent or not active on the mailing list. But this gives a broad picture of what the proportion of the rate of participation from developed ‑‑ Developing Countries has been in the IANA stewardship process. I don't want to say this is necessarily a bad thing or a good thing or what it is, as many of the panelists have mentioned, there are things to be engaged in the complex discussions part of the infrastructure stewardship process. Presumably, several participants from Developing Countries may not have the required expertise to contribute substantially. But I still feel that, not just the supporting organization, but the counsel to enhance participation from Developing Countries, including Civil Society, including the chaps who do the bread and butter work. And I think enhancing ‑‑ to echo what Rafik said, I think ICANN needs to do a better job in outreach and communication, not just with regard to what they do on a daily or monthly or annual basis, but specifically with the IANA transition. The IANA transition is supposed to shepherd US to a multi‑stakeholder stakeholders body. We need to see inputs from Developing Countries. These may not be the most informed at in late stage, at this advanced stage in the IANA process may not be the most insightful, but I think it's important to enhance the legitimacy of this process through participation from Developing Countries.
So and I think once you have ‑‑ you've seen some participation from people across the stakeholders speculate presume in the process. Once you have a core community from developing economies and Developing Countries, I think the cloud will stick around even after the IANA transition is over. And I think this is an opportunity ‑‑ continues to be an opportunity for pike to cultivate that community because this is a rare opening in that sense. So that's all.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. That is an ongoing challenge that has been faced. There is a lot of work being put into trying to broaden that participation and clearly in this case maybe more could have been done.
Okay. I thought maybe we could ask Dr. Crocker, as chairman of the board, as a closing benediction, how you see the process of having come together with the community mobilization and then we'll go to open discussion.
>> STEVE CROCKER: Thank you. The announcement was that it would conclude by the end of December this year, 18‑month process. We have tacked on one whole year to that process, and everybody has the fingers crossed that it will, in fact, come together this year, this U.S. Government fiscal year is what we're talking about threw the end of September 2016.
But even that is not yet a hundred percent certainty.
I want to speak very briefly on just two points. The ‑‑ everyone is focused on the reaching consensus on a proposal, which is critically important thing. These proposals will get sent to the NTIA, as said, but there is a small but important step that has to come from ICANN, NTIA says they'll accept the proposal from us. And "us" means effectively from the board. So the technical steps through here are that these proposals come to ICANN and the board will forward them.
One or two small points is that we have said that we will not add any comments that are that are new compared to what we said before. We didn't actually say we wouldn't disagree, but it is the case that it would be kind of awkward if we have a very substantial disagreement, because NTIA said that would be ‑‑ would mean there is no consensus. Our fond hope and everything that the board is doing and the staff working with us is, in fact, toward reaching consensus of and agreements at various levels so that we're not caught in the position of having to disagree in any fundamental way.
More important and something that has not been mentioned much in this session, is that things don't come to an absolute halt on the day that the proposal is put forth to NTIA. A couple of ‑‑ just to give a broad brush view of what goes on, there will be a period of time after NTIA receives the proposal before ‑‑ until they say, yes, if you do all the things that are in this proposal, that will meet the conditions of the U.S. Government. That is not an instantaneous, overnight response. That is ‑‑ we'll take some number of weeks or a couple of months. There is a major milestone in the proposal to NTIA and a separate and essentially coequal milestone some distance down the road, April‑ish I presume is the estimated time in which the U.S. Government says yes, this is fine. If this proposal is executed, then we're in good shape.
Now, that signal back from the U.S. Government will have in essence two parts to it. One is here are the things in this proposal that have to be done before the transition is complete and here are the things that don't fall within that group, but still have to be done as part of the transition.
So a third milestone in this picture that I'm painting is the completion of the things that have to be done before the government says not only did we say the proposal is okay, but you now have done the things that have to be done before we can set in motion the final steps for the transition.
So what are those things that have to be done in that period? And just to set the calendar, we're talking roughly April to June is the nominal guess at this point. But all these dates are dependent upon what happens up until then. So take these as estimates rather than cast in concrete.
Implementation of the bylaw changes that are outlined in the proposal is one of the most important and maybe the bulk of what have to be done in order to say the transition can now go ahead. What are the things that are not there? Isn't that everything? Well, there is an awful lot of operationalization that has to take place. The day‑to‑day operation in terms of updating entries in the root zone involves NTIA participating in each and every change to the root change. It's somewhat odd situation, but that's the way it has been. Now, their participation has been essentially pro forma, but nonetheless, procedurally they're in the middle of that loop. Just taking them out of the loop so that the same sort of transactions move forward just as smoothly, require a certain amount of adjustment in the procedures, changes in paperwork between the various parties. I think, as everyone knows, the ICANN role is that we act as in effect the single registrar for the root zone and Verisign acts as effectively the registry for the root zone. ICANN over to Verisign, and in that process NTIA has to sign off on each and every one of these changes, as I said, making but nonetheless very important procedural changes is a piece of the implementation that has to take place. One doesn't like to make changes abruptly, even if you think that they're simple and you want to run in parallel and make sure all the kinks are worked out. The last thing we want in dealing with those large philosophical and democratical issues, is that that gets affected.
Assuming that the first group is implemented, the bylaw changes and so forth by, say, June, then we have a period until the natural expiration of the contract and the current rules at the end of September, and then an important but almost invisible event ought to be that the contract expires and nothing happens. That it's ‑‑ the day before and the day after look just the same. Not a great big hoorah. The flipping of the switch would be months before and parallel operations and things continue quickly. The other thing I want to squeeze in here is there has been an undercurrent from the beginning of the accountability process. There is an inherent tension between the role of the board and the role of the community. Let me say quite explicitly on behalf of the board, that that is not our view. The board is constructed out of members of the community, serves the community. We have a multifaceted function. We have some obligations to oversee the staff and make sure the processes are carried out, but we also have to ‑‑ it's deeply embedded in our structure and purpose, reflect what the community is. And then on occasion exercise some leadership, but mostly to be, as I say, in a supporting role and aligned with what the community wants.
The community is often not aligned within itself, and so there are some cross currents and various forces. We strive not to be a primary decision‑maker. We try to broker the various forces and try to look at how to make the system work as smoothly as possible without a very talented and energetic set of people sitting somewhere trying to figure all this out themselves. That's not the job we hanker for. With that, I'll turn things back to you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Steve. That was very helpful. Particularly, the links to the accountable process that you cited and the timeline, I think that was very helpful information.
Okay. So we have a half hour for open discussion with any and all participants remote and here in the room.
>> Here.
>> MODERATOR: Hiding in the back? Any remote questions?
>> Not yet.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Let's go face‑to‑face questions in the room. Anybody who would like to add something? If you're seated in the back in the dark place, come to the place and come to a mic and say who you are and be as concise as possible. Of course, others sitting at this table here, feel free to jump in as well. We'll start with Derrick.
>> DERRICK COGBURN: Thank you very much, Bill. Derrick Cogburn from American University. Thank you so much from the panel and all of the wonderful presentations and really the nice scene setting from the beginning. So going back to the beginning, one key piece of this is going to be the discussion in the Congress. And I think we know how contentious the U.S. Congress is at the moment. Everybody seems to be fairly sanguine about how that will go, but I'm sort of less optimistic, given what's happened in the past. I just wondering if that would be appropriate for what may happen.
>> MODERATOR: You're starting on Ted Cruz to win the Republican nomination? The Congressional issue is an important one, and managing it has been something that I think is probably taking a lot of time and effort out of ICANN's part and the part of others as well. Who would like to speak to the lay of the land? Keith, could I look to you as a Washington person? Do you have a little bit of sense of where we are these days with this stuff?
>> KEITH DRAZEK: Thank you, Bill. My name is Keith Drazek. I work for Verisign. I've been part of the ICG and involved in the CCW accountability as well. I think it's important to note, maybe just I can say some preliminary marks and talk more specifically about Congress. I think NTIA in March of 2014, with its announce indicated there was a belief that ICANN was sufficiently mature to inherent the IANA functions and challenged the community and challenged all of us to conduct a process and processes in a bottom‑up consensus multi‑stakeholder fashion to deliver a proposal that met certain criteria. NTIA laid out those criteria. I think they're fairly well‑known by now. I won't recite them. But I think one of the things that Congress will be looking to is a demonstration that ICANN and its community have demonstrated its maturity and have shown that the proposal it has delivered meets those criteria. And I think that we are well on the way to doing that. I think there are some challenges left. There are some sticky issues that we still have to deal with over the coming weeks. But I feel like we are very much on track to delivering a proposal that meets the criteria laid out by NTIA, shows that the bottom‑up multi‑stakeholder process is mature, and it can deliver something that would be acceptable.
I am confident that we will deliver an acceptable proposal. Yes, there are political challenges, as there always are in instances like this. Nothing is guaranteed. But I feel very confident that we are on the right track.
So just another couple of comments. Looking back with the NTIA announcement in March of 2014, between July and October 2014, and forgive me for using all the acronyms, but the ICG, the CWG transition, the CRISP team, the IANA plan working group and the CCWG were all formed. Then from fall 2014 until today, the IANA community, the ICANN community, have demonstrated our maturity and our capacity to work in a bottom‑up consensus‑based manner under very difficult and challenging circumstances and difficult time frames.
And I think the last months have shown that not only is ICANN sufficiently mature, but so are the community and our processes.
In a sense, we have proven that the bottom‑up consensus‑based multi‑stakeholder process and model works. And I think that in and of itself is a proof, a testament, to the expected or predicted maturity of all of us. And the fact we are ready for this transition. If we show that, and I believe we will, I believe that we will receive the support of Congress.
Thanks. Bill, back to you.
>> MODERATOR: So you're count being on the rationality of the U.S. Congress. All right.
It would be great to hear some questions from people who are not involved in the ICANN and extended community and might have a question about how this all worked. In the meanwhile we go to Olivier.
>> OLIVIER CREPIN‑LEBLOND: Thank you very much, Bill. I was going to comment briefly on the points that Arun made earlier about the lack of participation from some parts of the world. I was share for four years. One of the main problems we had was telecommunications, the ability to have some very reliable telecommunications for extend the calls, extended amounts of time on the Internet. There are some parts of the world that still do not have the level of access that is required to be able to participate in a significant way remotely, especially when you are dealing with very regular calls and extensive amount of information being shared on the Internet.
I'm not sure how that can be fixed by this committee or this community itself. It really is a wider issue that has been recognized throughout the IGF, but it's an issue that has hindered the work and certainly hindered the participation and the balance in participation from the whole world. That's one thing I want to mention. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Lynn.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I wanted to comment on Arun, Rafik, the IGF were all ‑‑ owe the ICG were all translated, all transcribed, all archived. The e‑mails and the chats are all archived as well. So while I totally agree that it's not always possible to participate currently with the sessions, we really worked with that as a very clear focus to make sure there was a record, that the information was available, and obviously people can look at them offline or outside of the cycle of the meetings and come in and comment.
There's certainly always more we can do, and any suggestions apart from ensuring that every person in the world actually has the Internet access they want and need. It would be appreciated.
Maybe just one final comment on the ICG proposal. We had 157 comments received, which I think was probably almost double of what the CWG stewardship public comment period gave.
While a great majority did come from North America, 28 percent, Asia pass historic 18, Europe 14, there were 6% from Africa, 3% from Latin America, 9% that were global, tended to be some of the large international organizations, and 22% were unspecified. We just couldn't tell. It's not the sort of distribution we would like to have, but we really did do everything we could possibly think of to ensure that the materials were there, they were accessible, and we still encourage comments within the communities that is appropriate in how we can improve that.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Was it on this point specifically, Alan?
>> ALAN GREENBERG: One of the issues I mentioned was time, the amount of time one has to read, understand, and then participate in the calls that we were talking about, certainly on the CWG, was enormous. Not many people can really make that commitment on a regular basis.
>> MODERATOR: Understood. It was a very labor intensive thing. Since I asked for a view from outside the ICANN community.
>> Thank you, George. And I'm speaking in my individual capacity. This is sort of a tangible. It's not, because it really reflects and inclusive enough and inclusiveness of participation. I'm very much in sympathy with the study you made regarding the participation. San dusky a pattern we see in a number of areas of ICANN, and in other parts of the world. Now, if you look at the literature on group dynamics, you find often that one person occupies 25% of the conversation and the people in the room, if there are more, contribute less and less. There is some special characteristics here that contribute to that. One is that we have a culture, and I think a culture that's growing, certainly in ICANN and perhaps in the IGF and the community of a convergence towards English as a common language. I don't think the world's ready for that yet. I'm very impressed by the fact that we have six interpreters, seven interpreters in the room, and yet I know that at least one person who made comments is speaking in his third language. Are we making this formal commitment to speak only in English or are we letting people speak in the language in which they can express themselves most fully? I think that's really important.
Another example is the lists, which have been very comprehensive lists that have been commented to by many, many people over the course of the transition and the accountability process. I started ‑‑ I joined the list in late July ‑‑ late June. And I now have, as of this morning, 4,000 messages. I spent the morning catching up on the last 100. Some of these are very long. They are all in English. And if you are not a native English speaker, you don't have a chance of getting through and understanding the majority of these issues. I mean even I as presumably an English speaker, have trouble doing it. It's long. Itself detailed, and I think that there is something in the culture that we need to recognize exists and we need to do something about it to get the greater participation both from the non‑English speaking folks and the Developing Countries, which are reluctant to join in, maybe because of the language, maybe because of lack of familiarity. I think it's inclusiveness in these processes.
(Applause)
>> MODERATOR: Absolutely, George. I don't think anybody would suggest tangential. I think everybody recognizes it's important. Was there a remote participant comment?
>> Thank you, chair. There is a comment for Mrs. Mono from Egypt.
>> MODERATOR: Please read loudly.
>> REMOTE MODERATOR: I would like to share the following observations: I think the overall process is very positive and educational. It has so far demonstrated that the multi‑stakeholder model work can deliver. I would particularly applaud the transparence, the decentralization among the different groups and operational communities for their chairs, members and participations. More generally, I believe the cross‑community working groups serves an efficient mechanism in exchanging and converging views of the various stakeholders and by multi‑stakeholder nature of the organizations. Finally, in the terms of researching out beyond ICANN communities, I believe extensive efforts have been observed, yet the process may be gathering more faces to engage and participate actively. But overall, I believe it has been quite a positive exercise.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Could you say again who was that from?
>> From Egypt.
>> MODERATOR: Yes, please.
>> GRACE MATU: My name is Grace Matu from Kenya. I'm here as part of the ISOC Ambassadorship Program. I have two comments. First of all, thank you very much for providing glossary of acronyms, it's very hard to catch up.
Secondly, I wanted to say I agree that it has been difficult for people from Developing Countries to participate in any ICANN discussions, but I wanted to point out what is the best practice that could be considered. When the CRISP team from our region was conducting participation, they organized face to face meetings with locals, and they brought the issues, cascaded them down in our local languages, and tried to make us understand how the whole transition affects us and what it means for us as Developing Countries, even in the future. I think this is something that will be so useful in all the other constituency in ICANN to work with organizations that have already there in Developing Countries so that they can organize face to face meetings or whatever method is used in Developing Countries, because we cannot always assume that the method used of online interaction works everywhere.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I assume I.
>> IZUMI OKUTANI: That works nicely. We have this within the numbers community that allows even if there is a single global platform; you can actually have discussions within your regional communities where you can actually fit into the global community. So that might be one of the things that can be done in a realistic perspective. When I actually looked into the number of public comments, actually, the contribution from the Asia‑Pacific region was relatively high, which was a little bit surprising in a positive way.
And I've actually observes a lot of comments from the numbers community in the Asia‑Pacific region. It's partly because of some of the promotion activities that they have done and actually encouraged the community and exact apply help on what the proposal was about just before the submission of the comments to the ICG. So I think that was something that has actually demonstrated that it has actually helped.
Another thing that I also do within Japan is that it's not realistic to expect the translation in non‑UN languages. So we actually have regular updates about what's happening in the discussions. So community's actually very well informed of what's happening and I think it actually resulted in the contribution from Japan having 92 individuals supporting the ICG proposal.
I understand it's not easy to split the forum of discussion. So you might have a single forum and it might be hard to accommodate all languages. But having these subgroups that is able to feed into to the global discussion actually would have help in having more diversity, both in terms of regions, as well as from Developing Countries.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Arun, would you like?
>> ARUN SUKUMAR: I wanted to add to the excellent point that grace made on how methods of engagement that have worked in parts where there is inadequate Internet access may not be the most appropriate ones in the developing world. If I may take an example. Sometimes in the middle of the process I can open an office in India. There was a public comment period for the first IANA transition proposal, the CWG's proposal in December 2014. There was one public comment from India: From me.
And not only the government, which is the biggest stakeholder in India, even bothered to comment on what is crucial for at least the government, I would imagine, on certain aspects. Sometime later there was an India office, literally one individual who ICANN has appointed as the person who is engaging with multi‑stakeholder in India. The kind of work that he has been able to do and the kind of interest that has been in an economy like India was really reflected in the dramatic increase in public comments in both the CWG proposal, as well as CCWG in the accountability proposal. The second one we had about 10 or 11 comments from India. In the ICG, consolidated proposal, I think the only country that has ‑‑ after the United States, which has offered a similar number of comments in terms of quantity, is India.
There is very human interaction element involved which may not, perhaps, be compatible to translation from an online platform and putting out a public comment and putting out the word online. And I think ICANN has enough resources to pull that kind of humor real time engagement with local stakeholders who may not traditionally be part of it, but very much would like to be engaged.
Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Rafik, you have a final thought on this inclusion aspect, and then maybe we could come back to the IANA transition process itself.
>> RAFIK DAMMAK: I think we talked about the language. English is the third language for me. Third language for me. Sometimes I didn't understand some words from George. But so it's an issue. I am not sure if it's just interpretation and translation can solve that. Another thing we may tend to forget is about the time and how much we can ‑‑ depending the stakeholder, they can spend on this process. So there are some groups that have strong interest, spend the resources to participate. When we have frequent phone call, not everyone can make it. We tend to forget that. The time zone has an effect. I'm a server on the mailing list. When I find out, I'm in Japan, I find a whole discussion happening and I am lost. How can you jump in and participate. This is some element. I'm not sure how we can fix that. Maybe some kind of rules in how to participate to ensure it's not everything is done in the call and how to manage these discussions. Maybe there is some step to do. We can learn from that experience.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Do you want to add something to this? Just go ahead.
>> ELISE LINDEBERG: To say the IANA ‑‑ well, in the proposal was put forward for 28 days and we had a very good debate in the GAC afterwards and before we delivered our review as the GAC. Many governments said they wanted this debate in the GAC before they made the comments. So I would like to say in all fairness, there were so many more than governments participating in the debate than what shows on the list for public comment.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Derrick, would you like to add something?
>> DERRICK COGBURN: Thank you very much, thank you, Bill. I'm glad just to reiterate that the GSG was in ICANN have been ‑‑
>> MODERATOR: Could you say who you are.
>> Derrick Campbell, ICANN. I'm responsible for government engagement and I'm located in Geneva.
I just wanted to reiterate the outreach programs that have been conducted together with the team of Theresa and the GSE and the community within the last 12 months in cooperation with members of the ICG, but as well member of the CCWG.
Quite a good effort has been done to reach out to the country missions in New York, as well as in Geneva, and people who are not necessarily involved in the process and were very eager to learn about the process, specifically the accountability track, but not only in Geneva and New York, but also in the capitals. The regional team has been working very hard together with the community to provide Webinar on a large scale in Latin America and Africa, in the Middle East, and in other parts of the world in multiple languages. We would be very happy to share as a GSEG team how many people have attended, how frequent it was, the feedback, and we have accumulated. We can do that easily with the attendance of the workshop. So just wanted to reiterate that. Maybe there was room for more. But there has been really very concentrated efforts from the GSEG team with the community together with the GET.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> LEI ZHANG: I'm from the ICANN community.
>> MODERATOR: You identify.
>> LEI ZHANG: Lei Xhang from ICG member. I speak just on behalf of my community. I have researched Google to check the terminology of multi‑stakeholder. I displayed a lot of 1994, just before ICANN establish. But ICANN is very good example to prove that multi‑stakeholder model is good.
ICANN in the past 17 years improve a lot. So in last year the U.S. Government announced they have intention to transition the IANA function to the global multi‑stakeholder community. In the past 20 years the community worked very hard to prove that multi‑stakeholder is very good and successful. I think the mission they need to prove that ICANN is major to the U.S. Government, but I think was not built in one day. We don't need to prove, even a young child, 70 years, 20 it's okay for the parent to send to the community, send to the society, to grow up. ICANN improve in the future. It's okay. Just to make ICANN independent, separate from U.S. Government is okay. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I think this is the first time I ever heard someone from China say Rome wasn't built in a day. That's globalization for you.
>> JARI ARKKO: I wanted to comment on this inclusiveness issue and broaden that just a little bit, because it is obviously larger than ‑‑ the transition is larger than ICANN. We, of course, also care about this issue quite a lot in trying to do more about it and reach out to bigger parts of the world. We are quite happy where we are for our sides of the organization. But we want to be better in the future. We are fairly international organization. The U.S. in the previous meetings, for instance, the participants were about 30% U.S., maybe similar amounts Europe. It depends actually where we are meeting. But it is not just U.S. or even half U.S. It's a lot of other areas of the world as well. And the thing is, even if you draw a lot of from around the world, they still have to be interested in the particular topics that we're talking about here, and that can be a challenge, given the time constraints. It's not just an issue in terms of the developing world. All of us have that issue. We have businesses to run. We have other interests. We have schools to attend to and so forth. So it is ‑‑ it has been a big effort. I think the fact that people have ability to put so much time on this, it puts testament to people actually caring about this. It is a very good result from my perspective in terms of getting people involved still.
>> MODERATOR: Let's hear from a new board member.
>> Thank you. My name is (?) ‑‑ Milan, and I live in ‑‑ I've only been involved for three weeks, so all I wanted to say is that I think something really exceptional is happening here. I've done a lot of global and European politics, human rights and other things. I have never seen a process like this which is so inclusive. Not saying there's not problems, of course, but it could really be an example for how ‑‑ how we could run the world in the future. And maybe people who are deeply involved and stuck in the details don't always see that, but just coming in fresh, I think it's incredible that people have done this. For a lot of people it's not their day job. They're doing it as volunteers. They're not getting any money for it, all because they care about making this work. So I think I want to say that I'm very impressed and to everyone who has been involved, I really ‑‑ no matter what happens, I think the process has been very impressive.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We have, according to the clock, 33 seconds. And I see folks from APC who have an event in here just after are already amassing. Peter, I'll ask you to make a very concise.
>> PETER THRUSH: I'll take less than half an hour, I can assure you. Peter Thrush, long time board member, speaking in a personal capacity. I want to start by echoing what Jari said and add this one, this one I'm using now. There is a huge fear in many people of public speaking. And it cuts out a lot of people that in the way of contributing is to come forward and speak even in their own language. I found I had a great deal more interaction with council members and board members when I was chairing the Asia‑Pacific Association to have mechanisms other than the western ones where shouting, jumping, and speaking over each other, which was common in the way some of us interact. Completely different from the way the Asia‑Pacific people wish to communicate.
So I explored other methods, including contributes by chat, etc. I recommend we look at that and look particularly at this one. I want to segue from that to the question that Derrick raised almost to the trivial, and how this is presented. And I want to suggest to the description that Lynn gave of the process, has a bias. It's a constant reference and people have used it here today, to the suggestion that there is NTIA oversight of ICANN and we should cut that language and you should cut it from the diagram which looks as if there's oversight of all of ICANN. You should talk instead about oversight of the IANA contract. Because what's the impression that's created out there is there is currently oversight of ICANN. That's about to go. That helps drive the fear. The answer is there isn't an oversight by the NTIA of ICANN. There is the oversight of the IANA contract.
Okay. That's occasionally used in an oblique sort of way every time the contracts comes up for renewal. But there isn't NTIA oversight of ICANN. We need to make it clear that doesn't exist and that's not something that's going away.
The second point in the fantastic list of activities, etc., that Keith mentioned as a result of the March 2014 announcement, I suggest we get back to the 1997 announcement. That should be our starting point. The Clinton Administration announced it was going to transition control of these functions to the private sector. We should be saying this is what's been going on since then. The maturity point is now being reached. This is the end of a long and complex process rather than just the short term stuff. So I think we can focus on those points. We'll create a lot more reassurance that this is long and very carefully thought through. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Peter. That's telling me we've got to stop. I know you want to say really concise and then we'll get up. No, sorry, cutting you off. We have a line of people waiting to take the podium.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I wanted to come back to the accessibility issue and tie it to what we're trying to do here. Not to diminish accessibility issues at all, but if we come back to the policy and the oversight roles taking place in operating communities, that's what I think accessibility ‑‑ you want to have an impact and an influence. If you want to impact and influence IP address policy, you participate in the RIR, in regions, in communities, in national processes, in your local languages. So don't ‑‑ all these conversations so quickly come back to ICANN and the IANA functions. It just misses the opportunity to participate at a place where, frankly, I can it matters most. That's in the policy and the oversight roles that take place in the three communities I mentioned earlier. So I'll stop there because we're out of time.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I appreciate your attendance. Thank you for the participants. My apologies to people from APC. Please come on over.
(Applause)
(Adjourned)