IGF MAG meeting.
20 February 2014.
10:00 a.m.
Geneva, Switzerland
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Warmly welcome you to the second day of the MAG meeting. I think with this level of attendance, we could get through very easy because I see only like-minded people in the room.
Do you hear me? May I ask the technicians to help me out. It seems there is some technical problem.
Is it now better? One, two, three. It's better now? Good.
What I was saying, I was saying good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a pleasure to see you here, this group of people in the group, like-minded people, we will get through all the questions very quickly, I believe.
Yesterday, we had some remaining requests for the floor on the subject of IGF place in an evolving Internet governance landscape. And I would like to see if those people who asked for the floor would like to take them now.
Virat was one of them. Would you like to -- after? Who else wanted to intervene on this subject yesterday? Matthew, please.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thanks, Chair. I'm not sure if it makes sense to do that. Are you asking if I would like to do that now or to postpone? I don't mind.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Sorry. I didn't hear. Would you be so kind to repeat?
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Sorry, Chair, I was asking if you would like me to postpone it until later. As you wish.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Yes, please, go ahead.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: So, Chair, just to follow up on our discussions yesterday, I'd like to make a couple of points, one of which is I think we are all aware of the urgency of the task ahead of us the IGF for this year. But I think it is something we do need to spend a particular amount of time on, that we need to dedicate the right resources to, to addressing the impact and the value of the IGF to fully and properly assess what the impact of the IGF has been so that we can ensure its continuity going into the future.
We know that the IGF has had considerable support from UNESCO. We know that the IGF has had considerable support in the UNGA process. And we know that there is considerable support amongst a number governments and many stakeholders.
But I think there is actually more that the IGF can do. And as we'll hear a little bit later on -- we talked about this a little bit this morning in the theme session. Certainly, I would encourage the IGF to contribute more to its role in the Internet governance space.
There are three particular things that I think we should consider. One of which is: How do we encourage, develop, and promote the multistakeholder approach or model as we talk about? This is something I think we've done in workshops and we've done it on an ad hoc basis. But I would like to see and encourage a specific track dedicated to promoting the multistakeholder model of Internet governance.
I would also like to see the IGF promote and enable through whatever mechanisms or approaches possible the increased enhanced cooperation across all stakeholders towards Internet governance. Now, whether again this is something that falls under multistakeholderism or it is something in workshops, we need to address these issues head on.
And, finally, I think it is incredibly important that we not get bypassed by events and discussions. We have the Brazil meeting coming up. I think it's a wonderful idea to have the Brazil meeting, but it has consumed a lot of our attention and focus. And, therefore, I think that we also as the Internet Governance Forum in true multistakeholder fashion also need to talk about the evolution of the Internet ecosystem. And I would like to see those as core areas of our focus going forward for the remainder of this year and into the future. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Matthew.
Now, I'm looking. Are there any other people who would like to speak? Or I would try to draw conclusions and would make a suggestion.
Anybody else? If none, then let me try to very briefly sum up the debate that we had on this subject.
I think that we have, all of us, a shared understanding that the initial intent of the creation of IGF is still very valid and the multistakeholder discussion platform on Internet-related issues, not necessarily governance issues only, is valuable as there's no single place where Internet governance or Internet-related issues could be discussed elsewhere.
The progress or the value of Internet Governance Forum is also underlined or proved by the fact that there has been a proliferation of IGFs at the national and regional level. And I think that this is another proof of usefulness of such a multistakeholder discussion platform.
We also discussed and overwhelmingly thought that IGF needs to change with the changing external environment. And this would be our task to guide this transformation of IGF in the future.
And, finally, I do not -- I didn't hear anybody doubting or questioning the extension or desirability of extension of IGF past 2015. So I think these were the main conclusions that I would like to draw from our discussion.
That said, I also wanted to inform you that on 23rd of February -- and here I'm talking on the control Vyatcheslava -- will be the first meeting -- preparatory meeting of the Brazil conference. And United Nations will be represented at that meeting with Assistant Secretary-General Gass. And we are asked maybe to suggest, if we wish so, what Assistant Secretary-General -- what messages Assistant Secretary-General could convey on behalf of the MAG during this first preparatory meeting.
And if you would be agreeable, we would convey maybe these conclusions that I just outlined to Mr. Gass, that he could pass that message during the first preparatory meeting. In other words, that IGF is a useful platform; the usefulness has been proven by creation of number of national, regional IGF -- multistakeholder IGF platforms; and that in the future, whatever Internet governance ecosystem change is planned, IGF should be part of it -- transformed IGF should be part of it. In other words, not to lose this -- the multistakeholder discussion platform in the future.
If that would be -- if you would agree on that outline, of course, we would fine-tune the wording and we would pass that message.
Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could we get some time to try and discuss this? It is an important issue for the whole MAG to come together for the message that's going to go to the U.N. I agree with the message that you have given out. But could we try and spend, say, five minutes on this after lunch so that we have a chance to sort of come back to you with specific issues?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you.
Marilyn?
>>MARILYN CADE: I support the -- I support the -- a short further discussion, but I will propose that we should strengthen and enhance the positiveness of the message we are sending about the proven success and importance of the IGF. And perhaps we can use -- we can come up with language. But I would like to send, perhaps, a slightly more powerful positive message. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We need to send a positive message to New York before 2:00. We were given the deadline.
If so -- I heard that we are in agreement in principle. What I outlined would be agreeable. If that's the case, if you wish to give a try, those of you, Virat and Marilyn, until 1:00 to put together three bullets along the lines which I outlined, we would pass them on.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: We will attempt that and give it to you by 1:00, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: The question was whether -- there were other people that were asking for the floor yesterday, and I'm looking. And I'm looking for those who wanted the floor to intervene.
Robert, would you like -- you asked for the floor yesterday on the placement of IGF in the landscape. Would you like to say something?
>> ROBERT SHLEGEL: Dear Chairman, dear colleagues, there are many important aspects of IGF that have already been covered by our colleagues. So I would like to touch on some of them.
The IGF is a unique dialogue platform. Of course, we need to save it. But it's necessary to review the mandate to change the structure and format necessary to reconcile the role of the IGF in the world system of Internet governance.
We must adequately respond to the changes facing today the whole world. If this doesn't happen, the Internet will readily -- (audio cutting out) -- international segments. Human rights will continue to be related. The trust of the users to the Internet will fall, and the future of the Internet will be decided in small groups behind closed doors.
In my opinion, the forum should be more actively structured. We need to define the duties of the stakeholders. For example, each stakeholder may discuss specifically and make the decision for the general discussion, the need to determine the format for decision-making, the need to determine how these decisions are made.
Also, MAG needs to have new powers of the new format. And it should be a decision-making body and not just a forum for discussion of the agenda of the IGF. It does not mean that the forum should be less open. On the contrary, it should be open but more structured that our work could lead to concentrate results and have a strong result to the world. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you for your remarks. We take note of them. And that concludes the debate under this agenda item. And I would like now to move on to the next agenda item, the annual meeting 2014. And I would like to invite our host to make a presentation and share with us their remarks.
Please.
>> Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We have prepared a brief presentation. Ms. Kandemir is going to make the presentation on the hotel in Turkey, Istanbul.
>> AYSEL KANDEMIR: Thank you, Chairman. My name is Aysel Kandemir. I'm the chief ICT expert working for ICTA. I am having a great privilege to have presentation for you regarding the IGF to be conducted in 2014 in Istanbul.
This is the agenda of my presentation. Generally, I will give brief information and some highlights on Istanbul, Turkey, ICTA, the conference venue. And I would like to give some information regarding the preparatory works until today.
This is the first page of my presentation and then the remarks.
Regarding the information on Turkey, it is located at the cross-road of Asia, Europe, and Africa. You all know maybe this information, just brief overview about that. Population is about 76 million, 76.7 million as of end of 2013. Official language is in Turkish. Currency is the Turkish Lira.
You may need power plug information. We have 220-volt and 50-hertz. You can see the picture of our power plugs.
For Istanbul, Istanbul is the biggest City of Turkey in terms of population, trade and finance and cultural activities. Population of Istanbul is over 14 million as of December 2013. It is a very crowded city. Average temperature in September usually is 20 Celsius degrees and warm, sometimes with light rain. But it is nice to be in Istanbul in September. (indiscernible). You will have these facilities around the city.
The historical (indiscernible) switching between the (indiscernible). It is like an open museum (indiscernible) Ottoman design and -- Ottoman Empires Roman Empires. Istanbul is the central of International National Airways. There are twin airports. One is the Ataturik airport. The other one is the Sabiha Gokcen Airport. For the public transportation, there is a link where you can search and find better w and convenient ways to travel within Turkey.
Regarding the Information Communications Authority, which I am working for, it is possible for the overall organization of the IGF 2014. It was established in the year 2000. It regulates ICTA and (indiscernible) sector in Turkey. This decision-making body of the ICT is the ICT board. It consists of seven members, including the chairman and the chairman and members of the board are appointed by the Council of Ministers. When we look at the resources, there are total 829 employees. They are very well-educated. Some of them, baccalaureate degrees, master degrees and Ph.D. degrees as you can see from the slides.
Regarding the ICT organization, apart from his -- we work for regulating the sector for (indiscernible) ICT hosts various international conferences and meetings. I would like to draw attention to some of the major events. They are held in the year 2000 from 1st of May until 9 of June. It lasts 40 days. And there were 2500 delegation from 120 countries.
The venue was ICEC which is the venue where IGF 2014 will be held. There was participation at the highest level, from the ministry level.
The other conference conducted in the same venue is the WCUC, telecommunication conference from the ITU. Those are United Nations special agency -- ITU is a special agency of the United Nations.
It is conducted in 2002. 1200 delegation participated in that meeting and also high-level participation from the ministerial level.
The other conference is the ITU plenipotentiary conference which is the highest decision-making body of the ITU. It is conducted in the Port Royal Hotel, Antalya. There were 2100 participants from 166 countries. There were high-level participants from 63 ministries, 18 deputy ministries and 47 ambassadors. And we conduct all these three conferences very successfully under the coordination of ICTA.
Regarding the conference venue, it is located in the heart of Istanbul. And it is very central of the hotel region, walking distance to the Taksim Square.
It's hosted some events such as conferences, fairs, and exhibitions. Some major events conducted (indiscernible) that I mentioned before is U.N. Habitat in 1996, OECE 1999, IMF and World Bank (indiscernible) Board, and also, U.N. conference is conducted in the year 2011 within the same venue.
Regarding the hotels, as you can see from the map, there are various hotels nearby the conference venue. The price ranges from (indiscernible) from the slides. This is real rough figures. This can be given in the host country pages later on.
For the capacity of ICEC, the venue, it's the oldest conference center and has the largest ballroom in Istanbul. It has two buildings, the main building and the Rumeli building with a total of 4,000 meters square.
Main building with a capacity of 2,000 people and plus 90 meeting rooms from 10 to 140 people capacity. I will show you the details on this slide.
The Rumeli and exhibition hall, the other building next to the main building, offers 35 ballrooms, boardrooms, and six VIP suites as well as 45 square meter business center.
ICEC is (indiscernible) for people with limited mobility.
I will show you details of ICEC convention center from this link.
Regarding the venue, you can see the -- where ICEC is located and the places nearby, the main hotels near ICEC, and (indiscernible) you can see. It has a (indiscernible) also. This is the entrance of -- (audio cutting in and out) -- main building. This is the main foyer. There are three main entrances and two VIP entrances. Here is the main foyer from (indiscernible) this picture. This is the registration at the main foyer, and also again a picture from main foyer.
This is the room in the main meeting -- main building. It is a (indiscernible) auditorium. It has a theater style capacity of 2,000 seats and it can be converted to classroom style with 218 seats.
You can see the settings in the classroom style where it is conducted for United Nations Conference on the least developed countries.
And also OECE conducted in auditorium in Istanbul. Same building.
And also, it's a good place for some TV shows and attractions as you can see. Some concerts, et cetera with its auditorium style and (indiscernible) style.
This is the empty place, the auditorium, right now.
The other hall is the Marmara hall in the main building with a theater style capacity of 500 seats with a classroom style with a capacity of 200 seats. It can be used for various attractions, for various events. This is the Marmara Hall again for the World Congress.
This is the classroom style seating in Marmara Hall. This is the dining seating for -- in Marmara Hall again. This is the foyer of Marmara Hall.
The other meeting room is Topkapi A plus B. This is a big hall, can be divided into two, with as a total theater style capacity of -- (audio cutting in and out) -- with a classroom style of 256. This is the general view of the theater style. And also it's a disabled friendly place with elevator for disabled people to the meeting room.
There are Sultan rooms, 1, 2, 3 halls. It's for capacity from 24 to 36 seats. And also again Sultan room with this seating.
There are -- (audio cutting in and out) -- rooms, four Levent halls. It is for capacity of 6 to 26. You can see the Levent hall. And there's a Halic Hall, theater capacity of 336 and classroom style 156.
This is, again, Halic Hall.
And another big is Domabahce, A plus B, plus C. This can be used also for workshops for IGF. It's a theater style capacity of 380 seats and with a classroom capacity style 180 seats. And this is -- also can be divided into three and can be joined as A plus B plus C or A, B, or C separately.
You can see the seatings as a classroom and board style.
Galata Hall with a theater capacity of 120 seats, classroom style of 54 seats. Again, Galata Hall. Galata Hall foyer. This is the main building diagram. You can see the -- this is the lower level, where Topkapi A and B and Barbaros rooms can be seen.
Topkapi A can be used for workshops also. Topkapi B can be used for the meetings. Barbaros 1 and 2 and -- (audio cutting in and out) -- can be used for the board meetings, bilateral meetings, et cetera. This is the main building ground level -- (audio cutting in and out) -- auditorium, 2,000 people in theater style as I mentioned earlier. This is the main building, first level.
There are three rooms can be used for workshops, Domabahce A, B, and C, and (indiscernible) rooms can be used for offices or bilateral negotiations or small group meetings.
And also, a second level, there's a Marmara room which can be used for the workshop as well.
And good foyer near Marmara and also (indiscernible) auditorium. And also Levent rooms for having meetings for up to 24 people. This is the Rumeli building. This is just next to Anadolu Building. I mean this is -- they are adjacent and there's just a small crossing in between, close crossing in between.
This is the next building and there are two entrances from this Rumeli building. (indiscernible) combined building. I mean you can see as a single building in these with Anadolu and Rumeli.
This is a room on the upper level with a theater style capacity of 3,500 seats, classroom style -- (audio cutting in and out) -- seats. You can see the Rumeli upper level hall. It can be designed for various events and it can be divided into four parts.
This is the least developed countries settings in the Rumeli upper level. You can see the classroom style seating. And also this is the big hall settings without separation in the same Rumeli hall.
This is the dining seating in the same place, upper level. You can see the podium and facilities, technical facilities.
This is the foyer where the exhibition and IGF village can be set. This is just adjacent to the main meeting room in the same foyer. This is the Rumeli lower level. There are 13 breakout rooms. They have the capacity of 50 to 300 seats, with a classroom style 24 to 150 seats.
You can see the settings in theater style in the lower level of Rumeli. It can be used for workshops as well. This is the classroom style seating. Again, theater style seating.
This is (indiscernible).
This is Hisar Hall, with a theater style capacity of 336 with a classroom style 165 seats. You can see the theater style seating here. And also this is the foyer of Hisar Hall. Again, Hisar hall for some meeting.
This is the Rumeli Terrace with a (indiscernible) view. It has a capacity of round tables -- (audio cutting in and out) -- 1,500 people and (indiscernible) style about 2,000 people.
This is the Rumeli Terrace for sitting dining and you can see the (indiscernible) view.
And also in the nighttime, you can see the view.
When the weather condition is not available, we can use such kind of construction in the Rumeli Terrace inside the Rumeli Terrace.
And also, this is the Rumeli building upper level schedule. You can see the approximate -- I mean exact dimensions of the Rumeli Building upper level. It can be divided into four meeting rooms as you can see.
Here is the Rumeli building lower level. It is a big area for exhibition and for meetings also. And you can see the overall capacity chart in here. I know I mean you can see easily the capacity chart of the ICEC capacity.
Here is the conference function and facilities for the -- (audio cutting in and out) -- main building. In this slide you can see style of seatings. I mean for the left side you can see the name of the rooms, meeting rooms, and on the upper side you can see the style. Theater style, classroom, board -- boardrooms, U-shaped (indiscernible) shaped -- (audio cutting in and out) -- round table (indiscernible) style and then you can see the actual size (indiscernible) meter square spaces.
And yellow dotted points are the -- shows where the sunlight came in.
This is the conference and function activities capability of Rumeli building. The same seating. I mean, in the upper row of the table you can see the style of seatings, and then on the left column you can see the room names itself and also the capacity, with the dimensions.
I mentioned earlier that ICEC is a disabled access -- has a disabled access meeting rooms I'll show some examples. This is the meeting room with the board style and there's an elevator for disabled and limited mobility. And this is also the same for the meeting room.
Regarding the transportation, there are major rail lines and Turkish airlines, as you may know. There are 215 international destinations which fly from Istanbul. There are other airlines. They also have flights to international destinations.
From (indiscernible) airport to taxi in, or to the venue place. By taxi it takes about 15 euro and you can use shuttle buses from airport. It's called (saying name). It's about 5 euro from the airport to the Taksim Square and also you can use --
[ Scribes have lost audio.]
Regarding the visa applications foreign affairs Web pages and links I show here, for the use of information how to apply for visa and facility information and guidance on the Web site and also it's possible for (indiscernible) conditions. In additional to that, there are 139 Turkish representation around the world. You can check the link whether your country have Turkish representation where the Turkish representation is. You can see from the given link.
And also, we plan to provide you information for visa for the IGF delegation well in advance from the conference.
Regarding the organizational works, ICT Board decision is taken in November 2013 for conducting the overall organization. The ICT establish a test call with relevant people from the relevant departments of ICTA, from purchasing department to technical departments and international relations department where I am working on. And host country agreement and annex negotiated with U.N. and expected to be finalized very soon because we are -- come to the final point. We are very well advanced in it.
Assessment meeting and first planning meeting have been conducted and there may be second planning meeting after the MAG meeting in the near future.
For the host country Web site, we have registered a domain name as www.igf2014.org.tr.
It is reachable from the given link.
It's very limited information is in the host country Web site. When you click there, there are tourist information, visa information, and the link to IGF official Web site.
Yeah, you can see just roughly the -- how it looks like. It just -- yeah.
Tender documentation for organization of IGF will be finalized very soon. We are working on the tender documents for choosing the organization firm for IGF.
And also, we have all the prepared tender documentation for IGF logo and it is being prepared indeed.
For high-level event, preparations for team, scope and schedule are initiated already, and also for sure there will be welcome desk for IGF at the Istanbul airport and baggage at airport for information of IGF delegations.
Thank you very much and we look forward to welcoming you all in Istanbul.
With a nice video, I would like to finalize my presentation. Thank you very much.
Just a quick short promotional video.
I can show you again.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: No, that's okay.
>>AYSEL KANDEMIR: Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That's all.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you very much for this presentation.
[ Applause ]
>>AYSEL KANDEMIR: Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We will share this presentation on the MAG list that remains in your files and you can relook at it.
At this moment, it will be appropriate to give opportunity to ask questions to the -- our host.
Are there any questions in relation to the presentation or organizational aspects from the host country perspective? Please, the floor is open. United States?
>>UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chair, and thank you to Turkey for the detailed and beautiful presentation. I look very much forward to going there for my first time in September.
Just perhaps a quick substantive question.
I wondered if there was any more information you could share about the planning for the high-level meeting scope and -- I know your discussions are just beginning, but I'm wondering if there's anything you can share with us at this point. Thank you.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: Thank you very much for this question. Actually, we have -- now we are planning the zero day, the ministerial level, and now our studies are still ongoing, and be sure that we're going to make a very good zero day. The topic is some -- going to be (indiscernible) and we'll make all the organization for ministerial level and we want a very high participation and we are expecting a very high participation for the zero day, the ministerial level, the high-level meeting. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Izumi?
>>IZUMI AIZU: Yes. Thank you very much for the presentation.
I might be just wrong to ask this question about visa issues. There have been several cases in the past that certain countries' folks, colleagues, couldn't really get a visa at the last -- even at the last minute, or some people have to travel to other countries because they don't have their embassy or consulate in their own country.
I saw your eVisa thing but it's written that it's only for the tourism and the commerce but not the business or conferences, if I'm not -- I hope I'm wrong, but if you could clarify. Having organized an international meeting with 168 countries for ITU plenipotentiary, I'm sure you have a good smooth process, but we'd like to hear some kind of guarantee. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So maybe we will take more questions and then I will ask Dr. Ahmet to answer.
The next on the list is Subi.
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you so much, Turkey, for an excellent presentation.
Having experience in Istanbul, I'm only looking forward to being there in your wonderful city again.
Just two quick questions. That's a lot of interest in the high-level so if you could tell us or give us a sense of the number of participants and is it going to be open just as the Bali instance? And by when could we have some clarity on the topic?
And my second question is, I really hope that the organizational committee is also taking local civil society on board. What is the level of interest and participation that you see in deciding agendas and topics and flows?
Of course it's going to come from the MAG and from these discussions, but we hope that we can amplify participation from local civil society as well. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Anriette?
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Janis, and thank you very much for the presentation.
Istanbul is, for me, one of the best cities I've ever traveled to, and I've actually been in that venue and it's a really excellent venue.
And I'm not sure if this applies to everyone, but as a South African, we are able to use the on-line visa on arrival procedure and it's probably the most efficient visa application procedure I've ever experienced. I'm not sure we'll be able to use that.
And the main concern that I wanted to raise is -- is with regard to the bill that President Gul signed into effect, I think yesterday or the day before, that extends Internet censorship and I think it's something that we need to factor and plan for. It's bound to come up as an issue. It's bound to be raised as a concern, and as a MAG we are very likely to be challenged around the selection of a host country that is just, in this time, extending Internet censorship. So I think we need to anticipate that.
I think Subi's point about inclusion of civil society and allowing some of the debate around this inside the event is very important, but I think we should also consider whether there are security implications, and I think how we -- how we deal with that and how we present ourselves as being aware of this concern could also be very valuable in preventing undue protest or protest that runs out of control.
So I just wanted to flag that. I really value that we are hosting the event in Turkey and I'm not proposing that we look for an alternative host country at all, but I think we should take this into account and anticipate consequences and come up with creative and open ways of -- of dealing with the possible tension and conflict that could arise from that.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Anriette, for the question and comment.
And now I am turning to UNECA.
>>UNECA: Thank you very much for your nice and very explicit presentation. We are looking forward.
The issue raised by Izumi is the one I am putting emphasis on because we know that in past years we have been having problems with visas, even though countries -- host country governments tell us visa will be ready, will be made available to everyone. We know that in Africa we are having a lot of problems in getting these visas. Please, we really beg the Turkish government to facilitate and make sure that anyone who wants to participate from Africa will have the possibility to participate without visa problems. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Makane, for the encouragement. Indeed, this is -- this is a recurrent issue which has been -- we have confronted in a number of IGFs.
So I see Peter is asking for the floor. The question is: Are there any -- anybody else who would like to ask questions?
If not, then Peter is the last one and then I will ask Dr. Ahmet to answer.
Peter, please.
>>PETER MAJOR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the excellent presentation. I was pleased to record that this venue is for disabled people and you have many facilities for disabled people inside.
Now, my question is: What about outside? How do you get there? Are there taxis for disabled people? Is there transportation for disabled people? And probably you are aware also of the guidelines which have been given to the secretariat concerning the disabled people and their needs, how they can be satisfied. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Peter, for the question, and now I am turning to Dr. Ahmet.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Peter, for your question. And now I'm turning to Dr. Ahmet.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Now I have taken the notes of all those questions. Now, I'm going to begin with the recite. Turkey has the standard diplomatic and consular sections all over the world at the moment. And it has almost 136 consular missions all over the world.
And, nowadays, for Africa, for especially Africa, for example, Turkey has opened embassies in almost all African countries. So there will not be a problem with visa issues through those consular missions.
And for visas, Mr. (saying name) has implemented a visa issue. So it has, of course, some conditions. That's been set forth in Minister of Foreign Affairs Web page. And we are going to give a link to that Web page in our IGF Web page, the IGF '14's Web page. It has some conditions, but it is an easy way to get a visa through the Internet if the conditions are satisfied, of course.
But for the visa issue, we have consulted with Minister of Foreign Affairs so much. And they're going to enable all the countries to have easy visas for that conference, and they have already concluded and consulted the issue with Minister of Foreign Affairs.
So I think the visa issue will not be a problem for that conference. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs is going to show all the activity, and it will show all capacity to deal with visas in an easy way.
The other issue, highly relevant, highly relevant is going to be, as I told in the first question, will be the first -- probably it's going to be the first day as traditional because in all such big events, high-level events are organized in the first day of those events. So we plan to organize the high-level events in the first day of the conference. And we expect a big participation, a great participation for that event. We're going to send the invitation letters to all ministries and to the head of parliaments, to all countries all over the world. I think there are 163 countries that is registered if U.N.
And we're going to --
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: 195.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: 195, yes, 195 countries. We will send the invitations to all those countries, to all the ministers of all those countries so we're expecting a high-level participation for day zero.
For the topic, at the moment, there an ongoing consultation with NGOs and with the relevant government agencies in Turkey. And I think it's too soon to be concluded to determine the topic of day zero. So it will not be a problem.
For NGOs and local participation, in Turkey, we have so many NGOs related to Internet issues, of course, we're going to invite all of them to that event and they will, of course, participate to that event so local participation will be no problem. All NGOs and all governments and non-government agencies will have the opportunity to participate in this event.
For disabled person, yes, the conference venue is going to submit a friendly environment for disabled people. How about outside? From Peter. For the outside, Istanbul municipality has been made implementations for disabled people in the metro, in the trains, if the buses and everywhere. So I think there will be no problem for disabled people in Istanbul.
Furthermore, our authority, ICTA, our (indiscernible) authority in Turkey has implemented many regulations nowadays, a very good regulation, regarding disabled people.
Now, in Turkey, GSM operators and (indiscernible) operators have some services for disabled people. At the moment, I do not have that video with me, but we also have a video regarding the implementations and regulations that we have implemented up to the moment and all of the operators, GSM operators and (indiscernible) operators are serving for disabled people, for blind people, or for the other people with Braille alphabet or something else. We have reached a lot of acquisitions on disabled people regarding ICTA issues in Turkey.
In another room, I think I'm going to give brief -- more information on those issues.
And the last question, from South Africa, actually in Turkey, there is a freedom of Internet as all democratic countries. Turkey is a democratic country, as you know. And we have a freedom of Internet and free flow Internet. But we have some regulations protecting the children. Of course, for the adult people, we have no restrictions. But to protect the children, we have some profiles and child online protection issues. The child online protection issue is a hot issue, you know, through ITU and through European Commission.
So there are some discussions that are going on regarding child online protection issues. And all the countries are trying to protect the kids from danger coming from the Internet.
Actually recently, (saying name), a vice chairman of the European Council, made an announcement and called all the sector to join the coalition to submit better Internet for kids.
And in Turkey, at the moment, we have implemented that issue so there is no problem with the free flow of Internet but as all -- in all other democratic countries, we have some regulations to protect the kids. And that doesn't harm the free flow of Internet, of course, for adult people. We only have some regulations to protect the kids. We call it safer Internet. And at the moment, it has been discussed and negotiated in various fora to provide to European Commission and so on. So there will not be a problem in the conference, during the conference, on these issues.
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Dr. Ahmet, for your responses. I see there is a request from remote participant.
>>REMOTE INVERVENTION: Yes, thank you. This is a question from Adam Peake to you, Mr. Chairman. He would like to clarify which meeting on February 23rd are you referring to. Do you mean the Net Mundial meeting which will start on April 23rd in Sao Paulo? Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So, thank you, Adam. Thank you, Adam, for your question. I will answer a bit later.
I will now give the floor to Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I think just with all due respect -- and I don't want to initiate a debate, but I also think it would be naive to not acknowledge that this new legislation does not relate specifically to child online protection. It gives the TIB the authority, the Turkish regulator, the authority to censor Web sites without a court order. And it also compels service providers to store data for an extended period and make that data available, again, with our due process.
So I don't want to debate the issue. I really, really don't. I just do think we need to be aware that this new bill is already the subject of protest and debate within Turkey and globally.
And so it would be naive of the organizers of the IGF, both ourselves as the MAG and yourself as the host institution, to not anticipate that this will be a topic of contention that we need to address.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Anriette. Thank you for your question.
I would like to add to what Dr. Ahmet said. The IGF meetings have been conducted and will be conducted according to the United Nation rules. Hence, no taboos on substantive issues. And the discussions will be organized according to U.N. rules and regulations within the -- (audio cut out) -- participants and all countries. And so as a result, there no doubt will be discussions about human rights, about freedom of Internet and free flow of information in all countries of the world including in the host country. So I think from that point of view, you need to be reassured that there will not be any limitations in the right to express opinions in a respectful way.
Now, in answering question from Adam, I would like to say I was mistakenly saying this was a meeting. It is a meeting but it is a telephone meeting scheduled on February 24th. It is a meeting which will take place on Barcelona on the margins of GMSA conference. And this is high-level multistakeholder committee of Net Mundial, is organizing level between high-level MC, member countries. The representatives have appointed United Nations Secretary-General Anunga Romento (phonetic) HLM and C members. So that is in response to Adam's question.
Thank you for helping me out.
Izumi and then I think we can move on, please.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, again. And thank you for the assurance of the issues. I would also like to take note that Turkish Airlines are saying they are flying more countries than any other airlines of the world. So you have a very good outreach to all the corners of the world in addition to embassies and consulars.
I would like to make one additional request, if that applies. So far, some of the host, generous countries, governments have exempted visa fees, sometimes after we pay that. In the case of Indonesia, those who notice that get back the payment, reimbursed. Those who didn't couldn't get it. I see that some of the visa applications, they have to pay $15 or 10 euros on the Web site. So I don't know if it's pragmatically workable inside your government. But if -- by all means, if you could do that, that would be very much appreciated.
And I, also, would like to echo what Anriette said. I came to Geneva but before coming to Geneva, I was in Istanbul enjoying your food and all the gorgeous culture and had some conversation with my friends. And they are quite concerned about the new bill, which is not only -- say, necessarily tricky. In my country, we have a bit similar situation. In any case, I was assured by the UNGA Chairman that there is no taboo at least with IGF to any issue about (audio cutting out) mutual concern. Thank you.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: Thank you very much, Mr. Izumi. Actually, we are going to make all the necessary issues to implement an easy visa for the conference. But for the fee issue, at the moment, I cannot answer that question because I have to consult with Mr. (saying name). But I have taken the note, and I am going to consult the issue with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. By the way, also thank you very much for your compliments of Turkish Airlines and Istanbul. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Chengetai is advising me that the framework agreement between United Nations and host country, it is suggested that the visa fee is waived for all participants of the conference, provided that they are taking a conference visa.
So you mentioned exchange rate. I would like to have that exchange rate. In euros, it is $50. That should be -- -- probably you were mistaken.
So I think that we had the very good discussion, and I want to thank once again our host for this presentation.
Do we have another remote question or comment?
Okay. Let us move on then to our next agenda item. And that is maybe actually brief reports from the breakout informal groups that we established last night and who met this morning for first sort of consultations.
May I call upon coordinators who would like to start.
Lee, please, that was the working group on themes, subthemes. Please, you have the floor.
>> LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm going to pass over very quickly to Constance and Subi to give the short report. But just to say, to frame the discussion this morning, we were about 20 people and had a very active discussion on the 49 bullets on the paragraph 28 of the synthesis paper. The timing was a very short time, so we would also like to have some time -- not during the lunch break, many meetings are happening, half an hour to sort of synthesize further all of that information because it was very short timing for us.
But it was a very constructive discussion. We have narrowed it down somewhat. And thanks to Izumi for the reporting. Thanks to Constance and Subi to report now. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Go ahead.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you, Chair. Subi will start with a brief overview of the main themes we have identified. And then I will say a few words about subthemes, more narrow themes, that could allow us to organize best practice full forums.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Subi.
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Chair. And thank you, Lee and Matthew, for running an excellent meeting. We worked through all the 49 suggestions that we'd received on themes and topics.
A brief readout, there are roughly broad suggestions for mains. And we tried working at collapsing and encapsulating most of these suggestions.
So the first suggestion for a main is access and local public policy. We saw great relevance in linking relevant local public policy to the questions of access, broadband, and diversity.
Matthew gave us an excellent suggestion that you relooked into local policies that enable access. And this would cover affordability, excessive technology for Internet governance and how we can influence service providers as well as explore legal and regulatory frameworks and contribute to (indiscernible) that privileges access.
There was also a suggestion from the chair, Lee suggested that this would also work really, really for a high-level plenary along with a basic document on best practices. But I would leave Constance to elaborate more on that. This will also link up really well with the regional and national IGF.
The second suggestion for a main theme was a content, development, and management open plenary main which would also focus on human capacity-building and lends it well to the track that Vlada and some of the others have been leading from Diplo and other similar organizations. So local content creation, distribution management hosting, multilingualism, questions of diversity.
The third main one was Internet as a engine for growth. This would facilitate the creation of a high competitive service sector that would fuel innovation, (indiscernible) innovation, entrepreneurship, and could also lend itself to an innovative format to a debate or a discussion where we could have success stories from local innovators, entrepreneurs who have used the Internet.
Also, ICT deployment by domain -- applications that are connecting more constituencies and best practices for shareholders, stakeholders, the ICT industry, and innovation and free flow of information online.
We also explored the same -- there was an excellent suggestion again from the floor by Marilyn Cade. We should explore build blocks of the Internet and they could blend themselves to good workshops on connectivity interconnection and peering, electricity and its challenges to developing how that can enable efficient and effective service in Internet governance. Also, equipment and standards and internet exchange points and how they can talk with each other better.
The fourth main is examining overall Internet governance landscape ecosystem, and this relates really well to the concerns that we hope to address this year. IGF going forward, how is it that the IGF can give us best practices for Internet governance, budgeting, amplifying more national and regional initiatives, managing changes in the Internet governance landscape, and finding new ways for developing countries, civil society, marginalized groups to participate better in the IG discussion, Internet governance for openness and also strengthening multistakeholderism.
There was a strong suggestion from the floor also to look at evaluation or an impact document that looks at the (indiscernible) of the IGF meetings. What is it that they're looking at post-2015? A sustainable idea of an Internet.
Fourth main is a concept in deepening multistakeholderism and how is it that the IGF is being instrumental in taking this forward? How do we operationalize principles of multistakeholderism?
There is also a strong suggestion to create this as a separate track so that proposals could be invited, and this could be one of the main subthemes as well.
When we are looking at consideration for subs, the next there was a suggestion on emerging issues, looking at replicating and taking the success of the last IGF forward, surveillance, online privacy, cybersecurity, both in the domestic as well as the national context, freedom of speech and expression, human rights. So this could be a key plenary or main that would look at a debate, positing a provocative proposition. And then we could -- (audio cut out) -- as well as the format that each of these would lend itself better.
There were excellent inputs from the table. And there was a second suggestion on emerging issues: How do we explore promotion of social and cultural interaction, integration in society through the use of ICT and the role that governments can play? ICT for social -- societal development and inclusion of (indiscernible), research development and innovation, again, best practices.
There was a third suggestion which calls for enhancing digital trust. So cybersecurity, personal data protection in case of ISPs, state security agencies and international cooperation, how do we protect human rights in an era of big data, ethics, law and technology. We thought that was an interesting proposition.
Services for empowerment of displaced people, how do we empower displaced people through online education? How is it that we can offer the lowest price for Internet access in developing countries?
Other interesting suggestions but we thought they would lend themselves better to workshops instead of mains, were fostering a healthy and stable resilient Internet, a workshop on net neutrality. Some suggestions from the synthesis paper -- and we were happy to take themes from the synthesis paper so these discussions came out from either positing these topics and suggestions better or rephrasing them into more workable general topics.
So what must be the agenda for the cyberspace 2015 or an Internet ecosystem (indiscernible) post-2015. Also sustainable best practices, what is it that the IGF gives to the world?
The last bit was the suggestion that came from the synthesis paper that looked at identifying gaps in implementing (indiscernible) and knowledge, the evolution of IG principles and the possible roadmap that the IGF can look at.
We also noted that there were nothing on either specific topics of spam or rights of children or cybersecurity. These were the gaps we found missing.
I would invite Constance now to speak more about the practices forum and how it can integrate the discussions of the IGF better. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Constance, please.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Subi. So very quickly, within the main themes that Subi just described, it seemed useful, in line with the discussion we had yesterday about best practices and the need to give participants some sort of tangible outcomes, outputs of the global IGF.
We identified within these different main themes subthemes that could be good themes for best practice forums.
So we identified at this stage at least three, and I think we'll have to continue the discussion to narrow down specific topics for each of these main sessions, but for the main session on access, for instance, there could be a best practice forum on IXPs.
For the main session on Internet governance framework, the future of the IGF, the broader Internet governance landscape, there could be a best practice forum on Internet governance principles.
One possible idea, in addition, regarding the main theme on building digital trust, would be I think to have a best practice forum specifically on spam, since it seems to be an important topic that's mature enough to lend itself to that exercise.
In terms of structure, we were thinking that these best practice forums could feed into a main session on best practice forums and each chair of each forum would have the responsibility of synthesizing into maybe a one-pager what could be reported back to that specific main session. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. I see ICANN is asking for the floor. Chris?
>>ICANN: Thank you, Janis. Just a question for clarification. I may be slightly confused or have misunderstood, but I -- Subi's presentation of -- I didn't -- I'm unclear what the suggested themes are. I heard a lot of suggestions of very detailed possible -- possible sort of things that were under-themes but I'm unclear what the themes -- I thought themes were meant to be sort of like a single word or a couple of words so I just wonder if we could get clear what the suggested themes are.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Chris, for the question.
Matthew?
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Yes. Thank you, Chair.
Just to extend my thanks to the group that met this morning. Just to echo what Lee said, we do -- we have put in considerable work into trying to group and cluster the theme -- the thematic areas and the issue areas as well in the synthesis paper but there's still more work to do to focus. And I think that will get to addressing some of Chris' question. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chair, I just wanted to say what has just been stated. We ran through this very long list in a very short period of time and we've put these under broad heads and I think in the half hour that we seek, because this is work that many people have done, we want to be respectful of the inputs and not just, you know, convert this into our thoughts and, therefore, we will need the half hour at some stage to try and build this into crisp, short themes as has been requested from the floor. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. ICC/BASIS.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, Chair. And I was just going to clarify that I'm speaking now as an observer from Cisco.
The -- I'd like to thank the excellent work this morning trying to consolidate this long list of Items and I'd like to thank Constance for summarizing the best practices fora that were proposed.
One thing that is missing that we did not get to discuss this morning was what best practices actually are and how they would be developed and what they mean.
So I think maybe on the item here to work on for the MAG is to actually get more clarity as to what is meant by best practices. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Thank you very much. I want to commend the working group for doing a great deal of work, pulling pieces together and weaving things into a coherent framework.
I just wanted to make three quick points.
As a futurist and somebody who spends most of my time living in the year 2020 I was a little bit concerned that we didn't hear much about emerging technologies, and this is a problem I've seen at previous IGFs as well.
One of the things that many of the attendees really are eager to hear is about, you know, what's coming next, and so I would ask that maybe we think about emerging issues and emerging technologies.
Another issue that I didn't hear mentioned and did not see in the synthesis paper was identity -- not identity theft, but identity technologies, and this is one of the things that is obviously of concern. It fits very well with the spam issue where people are sending e-mails pretending to be somebody they aren't.
And then the last issue, given all the discussion we had yesterday about how the IGF can weave into the rest of the discussion on Internet governance, I think we can do more to reflect in our themes that we're really going to talk about how to maximize the impact of the IGF, just not in other international discussions but also at the national policymaking level and in business decisions. What goes on at IGF is very important and there's a lot of great ideas and little germs of consensus that could grow into something very important, and I really think this idea of maximizing the impact of what we're doing here and in Istanbul and in Mexico and in Brazil is very important.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Coming from -- from Ankhi.
>>DAS ANKHI: Thank you. I think those were very useful comments. When the group considered and examined the themes, we were reacting to a document which was there. We -- that -- it was not an opportunity to include or generate new material. But now we have some time -- I think that half an hour, as Virat talked about -- where we could include these additional ideas and have a discussion. But I just wanted to clarify that it was not an opportunity to sort of introduce new elements. It was just sort of reacting to a set of themes which were sort of articulated in this document. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Thank you very much.
I think that maybe, Subi, I will not give you the floor at this moment.
I would be willing to provide that half an hour -- half-hour meeting time with one condition, and that condition would be that you would come up with a very clearly structured proposal. A main theme in one word, two words, certainly not more than four words in the line, and then maybe sub- -- other subthemes or issues that could be addressed in that one broad theme, okay?
And associated forums, as you suggested, to each of the themes or some of the themes.
So that would be the expected outcome from my side, which then we could discuss -- we could display it on the screen and we could discuss it at the beginning of the afternoon session.
So are we in agreement?
Good. So then we will -- we will break at 12:30 today. You will have your half an hour here in this room, and you will be able to continue your work.
So now I'm turning to Susan. Where -- ah. Fiona will be reporting? Fiona, please.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes. Thank you, Janis. So after the group's discussion this morning, Susan and I took a document that the group had started with and made a few edits to capture the consensus that was appearing in the room.
So I went ahead and circulated that document to the MAG list this morning, so I'm not sure if everybody's had a chance to look at it, but just a few things to highlight.
There were several things that have come up in the exercise last year and the conversations over the on-line discussions and this morning. There were a couple things I wanted to specifically address, which was to make sure that there were opportunities for MAG members to go back and work with people that were submitting proposals that needed to be revised or give them a second or third chance.
So this proposal has two opportunities for MAG members to specifically deal with that.
It also proposes that there be limits on proposals from institutions, individuals, and MAG members. There needs to be discussion in the group here, if we're going to go down that path, what those limits are and what the numbers need to be.
In terms of the actual criteria, what we've proposed is a scoring system of 1 to 5 for the proposal, with the factors for MAG members to consider when they're giving the scoring, and then also to deal with the -- the criticism that potentially there was favoritism in reviewing proposals. We're suggesting that when the MAG member review proposals, the proposers' names be not displayed, so maybe they be numbered and anonymized to us. And the last new proposal deals with the idea of an appeals mechanism, and this got introduced at the last part of our conversation as something that the group here needs to decide if it wants to do, and then we would need to figure out where it would fit into the process.
But the document describes this in some detail and it's a three-stage review process where the secretariat does an initial screening of proposals based on criteria that's been established; then MAG members actually evaluate the proposals; and then there's a discussion in the third stage to make sure that we have a representation of proposals across the themes.
But you guys -- you have the document to take a look at.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Are there any immediate reactions to the proposal? Please?
>> It's clear that we have a problem with the e-mail list because we did not receive this and other things as well, so if possible, could someone update the meeting list, please?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you for this remark.
May I ask MAG members who haven't received Fiona's e-mail, which was sent out at 10:19.
So would it be possible to -- to bring -- Chengatai, could you collect the cards or --
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: You got it. Okay. We got the names. You will be put on the e-mail list immediately and, Chengatai, if you could forward those -- Fiona's e-mail to all three.
So are there any immediate reactions and then questions to suggested technology? Sorry. Methodology.
Please, Vlad.
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: I'm just thinking it would be wise also to focus a little bit on steps before that, which is the application process or what we require from the applicants to be sure that they can meet what we are going to evaluate later on.
And there are some -- there was previous work by Mary and the others on that, so I think we should also try to have it in mind, whether now or in the group, this first step to make sure that the applications that come are really good and well done. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Our friends from Moscow.
>>RUSSIA: Thank you, Chair. Our delegation supports that it should be kind of a transparent process of selection of the workshops and we hope that all criteria will be clear and they will be stated how and in way these workshop proposals would be evaluated. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Please rest assured that the criteria will be published and the evaluation will be done following that criteria.
So any -- any other reaction to the methodology proposal? Anriette, please.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Janis.
It was an excellent group, so thanks to the conveners and everyone who participated, and I think we made a few quite fundamental steps in increasing the transparency and the fairness of the process, but you'll have to read through the document.
And I think as Vlad just pointed out, there are other steps, such as looking at the application form, looking at how we announce and put out the invitation for sessions, because we're making the recommendations that we don't invite people to apply for workshops, we invite them to apply for a session, and then they can select what type of event they want.
So what I'd like to propose is that we have a voluntary working group of MAG members who work with the secretariat, because at this point we really need to work with the secretariat in implementing these -- these changes.
So I'm not sure if that group can meet face-to-face here, but it would be good if they can volunteer and then set up a process, I think quite soon, possibly an on-line meeting with the secretariat next week or the week after, just to -- to address all the related details, not just the principles and the steps.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Janis.
Subi, India.
Just two suggestions. On the second stage of the evaluation process, I see scoring which has identified speakers and their confirmations.
We've learned from previous experience that our speakers at this stage, their identification and confirmation is subject to change, and we are using this criteria to vote out certain proposals.
I also find the fact that Vlad indicated a capacity building measure to facilitate more new participants missing. Unless we have an institutionalized process or a group of MAG members as volunteers, maybe, to mentor these proposals, filtering them in the second stage on the basis of confirmed speakers and panelists, to my mind is a difficult task.
On the third stage, the idea of consultation, according to the themes, the six or five subthemes that we select, if we can have breakout groups that can mentor, because we're looking at reviewing our decisions, that might help facilitate this conversation. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Jivan?
>>L.P. GJORGJINSKI: I'm not sure I heard -- there was a proposal yesterday that a few people mentioned that we should have time limits, or at least time proposals within the proposals. If they need an hour or two hours or half an hour or whatever it is. And then if we could also go that step forward that once we decide on what the workshops are, that they -- one of the steps and one of the things that they -- they will be giving in the workshop proposals is a time limit so that we can work -- because there are two things that we need to think about. There are space constraints and time constraints and those are two things that we can also play with in how we create the workshops.
So I just propose that we put that -- so that the proposers have that within their proposals, but we also have that as a second evaluation later on when we decide how much time we allot them.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you for this suggestion and question.
Let me just maybe explain to you -- and this is pure technology of United Nations meetings.
We have so-called implementation slots, which is three years -- that is, three hours -- and we need to pay for three hours whether we use them or not. Hence, we -- because of the limited resources at our disposal, we always are bound to this three-hour time cluster. We may split three hours in two. We may split three hours in three parts. But experience shows that it is very dangerous to make breaks between those parts. We need to ensure that there is a sort of continuity of sessions, if sessions are less than three hours, because once you break, you cannot convene let's say next 30 minutes for sure. Sometimes it's even longer. So therefore, whatever we are planning, we always need to keep in mind this three-hour sort of limitation that we have.
>>L.P. GJORGJINSKI: I think we can still work on it within that. Just make that very important that people stick to the time line. I understand that that's difficult at U.N. meetings, but at the same time if that is stressed enough, I don't think that we should try to fit something within -- just so it fits within a three-hour -- if something can fit -- you know, two meetings can fit into the three-hour segment, I don't think we should shy away from that.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Yeah. This was exactly my point, that we need always to keep that in mind when we're -- we do our planning.
Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Chairman, I wanted to thank the group for this outstanding work in simplifying it as they have. There have been some comments posted by William Drake. I'm not sure if he's in the room. I would hope that he could explain what he's suggesting because we weren't -- all of us were not there in the last meeting, and so if there are some issues, either the group or he could explain what that is and how we need to take care of that because obviously he's been somebody who has been there for a while.
I just wanted to make a couple of quick comments, one on the consideration for evaluation. The word "well-written," I just want to be careful how we score this, given the fact that English may not be the first language for the vast majority of those who hope to get their proposals through. So I hope it's not going to judge them on that, so we need to be clear about that, because when the room gets into hectic activity, then this gets defined there and then.
And the second, I think it might help for the MAG to discuss whether, if we have about 70-odd session workshops as we had last time -- I think about 70 -- and then about 10 open forums, whether it would make sense to find a way to qualify 20, at least, or 21 -- say 30% -- between developing countries and gender, geographic responsibility, in which case even if they score slightly slow, we need to at least give space for 20 or 21 out of 70, so we could arrive at a number or find a way to facilitate those and that would be genuine mentorship over and above sessions and, you know, the discussions we're having to bring these up to speed at the level and time after they have been submitted, rather than scoring them, they become disqualified, and then there is no way to actually mentor the existing pieces.
So those are my suggestions if we could consider those. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Matthew?
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen a copy of the work of the -- the other working group, but I'd like to reiterate a point I made yesterday and I don't know if this has been incorporated into the work of this morning. I'm not sure it's a criteria. Perhaps it is.
But I would really urge that we require that the workshops address a specific challenge or issue that we be solutions-oriented. I think that would assist immensely in terms of ensuring the relevance of the discussion and the focus of the workshops as well.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Fiona is taking all notes and she will answer afterwards.
Susan? You were asking for the floor?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Hi. Yes. I was just -- I was just going to respond to our colleague's comment about time limits. And while this is -- this is slightly -- this is not addressing directly the three-hour -- that discussion, but actually, I think it's important that before the workshop evaluation process happens -- and the group discussed this this morning -- is that the number of workshops or sessions -- and these should be defined -- or the number of fora, if they're open forum or best practices, all of those be determined with their times in advance of the evaluation process because that would really be able to facilitate the process.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Paul?
>>PAUL WILSON: Thank you, Janis.
I just wanted to make a couple of comments, having been in the session about the actual evaluation process here, and it's probably worth sharing this with the MAG for -- for information.
This is both my -- my own personal view and I think it's where we -- where we came to in the discussion about the evaluation process.
That is, that we -- in evaluating proposals, the MAG will have quite a few considerations to look at. We've got -- we've got diversity criteria. We've got issues of whether proposals are well-written and cogent, coherent. We've got other considerations which have been mentioned here. Quite a few of them. New issues, new technologies, newcomers.
What is quite, I think, a nontrivial exercise is to balance all of these different -- different criteria when you actually have a -- a particular proposal in front of you, and in order to do that, there are a couple of different approaches, and one is to try and -- try and use a scoring system which is multidimensional where a MAG member is asked to give their view in terms of a score on each of -- of what could be many, many criteria. And that's one -- one approach.
Another is to -- which personally I support -- is to rely on the judgment of the MAG member to consider all of the criteria that are con- -- that are agreed to be relevant.
These are criteria which should be public. They're criteria which should be expressed in -- and should be available to people who are making proposals for sessions, which state that in evaluating sessions, the -- the MAG will be -- will be looking at the following features, the following criteria.
And so we should be able to understand and to bear those criteria in mind, but simply to make our own balanced -- our own judgment on the balance of those criteria, and probably just provide a -- each of the proposals that we're evaluating, provide the proposal with a rating, which is our judgment of the -- of their own subjective view of the quality of a proposal, considering all of those criteria.
So I'm not sure we had a final view on that. There was certainly some support for the idea that MAG members are here to make that kind of judgment, and that's what we would do. And it doesn't represent any lack of transparency to rely on MAG judgment. It is just simply a question of how we feel is the best, most straightforward way to carry out our responsibility.
I thought I would share that view on that particular issue with the MAG here because I think it is one of the questions that has been raised before, I think, numerous times in looking at how this evaluation process is carried out. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Paul. I wholly agree at the end of the day, that would be a balancing act and we will need to apply our collective wisdom to make sure that all the necessary components are represented at the meeting. It is not easy. It is sometimes painful, but this is what we need to do.
Izumi.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Yeah, thank you, Chair. I was going to address almost the same issue as Paul just mentioned. I don't know exactly how we can do that. But we need to put more -- all of our considerations after the individual evaluation processes. Am I right?
That means sometimes even those these proposals are seemingly not quite high in the first place because the proposals are new or don't have the balance requirement. There question is that there is a certain condition that the MAG members will help coach these new proposals. It's interesting that if, say, I'm involved in coaching certain proposals and then later to evaluate, it might be a bit challenging to be accountable. The same goes true for those who are really proposing, even you are coaching, but you cannot avoid that. I don't know any answer to that. There is some challenge ahead I see there. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: What you just described, in other words, called conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest.
I will now call on Vlada, and that will be the last intervention before Fiona tries to address the questions that have been raised.
Vlada.
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Janis.
Interesting challenges, Izumi. Never thought about it.
I went to the document. It is a really good summary and very well-done.
Couple of points. Firstly on criteria, relation criteria, I stand again very strongly against requiring and evaluating the list of speakers, as Subi said, because I think our experience is really bad about it. We don't know who will be at the IGF. And more than that, principally we want to encourage interactive discussions. So the point of the workshops and sessions should not be speakers. It should be interactivity. That's the first thing.
The second thing is we might try to evaluate and also encourage in the application form the innovative formats. That's what we search for. So we should maybe also take into consideration while evaluating whether some new session innovative format is possible.
Thirdly, the time limits that my colleague mentioned -- bearing in mind the three-hour slots, of course, might work sometimes because different formats of sessions might not allow the translation. Simply group work or these kind of things, roundtables, sometimes cannot stand translation/interpretation and we don't need that.
For shorter sessions, flash sessions, unfortunately, it is not always possible to have it. So we should also take this opportunity to maybe introduce different time slots, half an hour, hour, hour and a half and so on.
Now, the second point is on a MAG role -- and I think this coaching part is very important. Bearing in mind Izumi's very good point, how I see MAG's role possibly, firstly, it is facilitation during the application process so the newcomers might have some kind of assistance from volunteer MAG members to help them how to form the proposal, not to make mistakes at least in this formal way, so not to be denied in the first round by the secretariat because they are incomplete or whatever.
Secondly, improving some proposals that are discarded after the first IGF secretariat round, as I have seen in the proposal which is good.
Thirdly, improving the proposals up to the final evaluation because we might have some proposals which are denied only because -- they could have been merged with some similar ones. They are not fully enough, well enough done. So in the last stage, we might also help provide provisional workshops, if you manage to organize with this -- among a couple of groups, we may also allow the session.
And, thirdly, we can also suggest for those sessions that are not approved, evaluated, or do not go through the threshold, we can suggest a change in a format, a change in the time slot or even a change in track. As I mentioned, some of the sessions will easily fit, will be very beneficial for the capacity-building track instead of a commerce session, discussion sessions, or for regional track and so on. So we just classify them differently if they can fit in a different context.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. On the question of the coaching, I think it is very appropriate and could be helpful in order to improve the quality of preparation for the sessions, for different type of sessions.
I think that, first and foremost, we need to ensure the kind of guidelines are given to all those who want to prepare these proposals.
And I was told that last year there were guidelines available, and I see no reason why we should not propose the slightly modest guidelines taking into account, let's say, modifications that we are planning to introduce. Would be, again, published. And the applicants would be encouraged to follow those guidelines during the -- their applications.
Now, I will call on Fiona maybe to answer those questions and comment on remarks that have been made so far.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Thank you. I think maybe perhaps to respond to a couple of questions and maybe propose a couple of different ways forward. I think it's important to keep in mind that on the first page of this -- I should have highlighted it in yellow -- one of the things that has to be determined is how many slots we have for workshops or sessions. That wasn't a decision of this particular subgroup. It needs to come back to space availability.
Keep in mind, the criteria or ranking system is really just to rank order of workshops based on availability. It is not to say people are good or bad. It is (audio cutting out) constrained by space. So the purpose of this really is ultimately spacing issues.
On the considerations for evaluation, I think we can make some modifications on the speakers and use the phrase "likely speakers." But we do need to understand early on if we are seeing the same speaker pop up repeatedly on panels, which I think has been a problem in the past as well, or workshops, we can make some modifications there.
Also, these considerations for evaluation, we are not scoring each particular criteria. (Audio cutting out.) You are given an overall score between 1 and 5. And these are things to keep in mind. If you could send his additional thing to put in, we can do that. If others have things they would like to see in the template, which is to help people who are evaluating do that, they should send them and we can include them.
And then I think the second-to-last thing is to figure out as a group what would be a limitation on numbers that we would want to set for institutions, individuals, or MAG members. Everyone has commented on the need to do that, but no one has actually proposed a particular number.
And then the last issue, I think, which has been raised by Izumi and others is perhaps maybe what we do is divide the MAG into three groups: Those that willing to coach, those that will be evaluators, and those that will do the appeals process (audio cutting out) third stage.
Maybe that's something we can talk about. I don't know how else to deal with this particular conflict interest if we don't actually discretely divide people. I will throw that out to the group for further discussion.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Fiona, for your comments.
I think there will be -- after 55 minutes, we will have an additional half an hour for your group to convene and maybe continue discussing those things that have been raised here and then fine-tune the proposal.
I expect that after this half an hour, something around 1:30ish, both groups will be in a position to send out a document to the mailing list that other MAG members can read before we convene the session at 3:00.
And then at 3:00, we will continue discussing, hoping to arrive at the rough consensus on both issues, themes, and evaluation methodology.
And now, as I promised yesterday, I will add to confusion by showing a preliminary timetable of our work. But I see that there is a remote comment. Please.
>>REMOTE INVERVENTION: Yes, thank you. Bill Drake would like to share with the group the following comment. It seems that some members are (indiscernible) converging around the idea of a multi-stage vetting process. I would just like to recall for those who weren't on MAG last year that our experiment with that did not go well at all and was enormously labor intensive.
Many of us who were here last year swore never again living inside the pressures it put on MAG members to do two separate review processes in a very tight time frame, which is even tighter this year.
The first (indiscernible) vetting to yield a lot more community satisfaction than the second, more systematic and fair review of full proposals. We had hundreds of initial applications, and many were rejected based on just a couple of sentences of loose description. People rushed together to meet the deadline with no listing of panelists, et cetera, so the MAG could get a real feel for what the session might look like.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Bill, for your comments.
Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Bill also posted that to the MAG list and I replied because we had talked about this in our session this morning, and I will just read the paragraph I wrote in response, which is: Bill, I think we developed some excellent ways to avoid the problems that we saw last year. The first screen that we proposed was just to catch obviously inappropriate proposals like companies trying to pitch a product.
And at that point, any single MAG member could object and say that a proposal shouldn't have been rejected. This is really just to get the 5 or 10% of the proposals (indiscernible) that don't belong. And also, it would allow people a chance if their proposal was rejected for some technicality, they could come and perhaps propose a different type of session or something if that was the problem.
The second screen that we talked about is the important one. That's what we're talking about today. We did think there was a need for some kind of chance for the people who almost made it to come back and get some feedback from the MAG and perhaps reapply. We would do that only for handful of proposals and only where there was a clear opportunity to fill a need in the agenda.
I don't think there's an inherent problem of doing a two-stage review. I think there's a better way to design it.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Thank you, Mike, for this -- for this input.
So now on the screen, you see very preliminary and rough calculation of the time we need to prepare the meeting. And, indeed, that puts only maybe the main target dates. If we reach agreement, rough agreement, today on themes, subthemes, and items in each of those themes/subthemes and if we reach today rough agreement on evaluation criteria and methodology which needs to be posted together with the invitation or call for proposals, then we could post the call for proposals end of next week, which is 28th of February.
Fully formulated, agreed by MAG members and also if there are any other specific approval process -- does it exist or not?
>> (Speaker off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. So agreed by MAG members.
Then the courtesy would call for at least 30/45 days for potential session organizers to formulate their proposals. So that would lead us to mid April. And 14th of April is a Monday.
If there would be a two-stage proposal making, as was the case last year, then the first deadline would be something in 15th of March, just indication or expression of interest, and then full proposal 14th of April.
But since I haven't heard so far that there should be two-stage proposal, that we could go just for one full-fledged proposal so then the deadline would 14 April. That would leave to the MAG one month and a few days to do necessary preparation and go through evaluation procedure. And proposal is to meet for three days in May, the week of 19th of May, to do final evaluation and decision-making on the submissions.
Why this week? Because the week before there are two events, CSTD meeting -- annual meeting where a number of MAG members might be involved and on top also ITU Council meeting is takes place in the week of 12th of May.
So first three days -- week of 19th of May seem to me the most appropriate proposal. That said, we, of course, are dependent on the room availability. And I was told that there are no rooms available in Palais des Nations. We need to look at other opportunities in other agencies which are situated here in Geneva, either ITU, either WHO, either ILO. And we will be -- we will be able to provide information on room availability as soon as possible.
But if there won't be any specific reaction or violent objection to those proposed dates, so then we would pencil that in the calendar.
So after that -- after that, we would continue fine-tuning the agenda of the meeting and schedule of the meeting aiming at publication -- final publication on 30 of June which would then give us two-month time prior to the meeting full knowledge of the meeting schedule. So that, of course, is in theory on the paper.
And now I would like to seek comments on the proposals. Fiona.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Thank you, Janis. No problem with the proposed. But just a question on the meeting in May and given the room availability. Does the meeting have to be in Geneva, or is there a possibility of it being somewhere else, or are we bound to meet here given the space constraints?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Baher?
>>BAHER ESMAT: Thank you, Chairman. Just -- it doesn't appear on the screen, but I thought you said that if we are to go with a two-stage process on the (audio cutting out) which I think is very difficult, especially for new applicants to meet. If you want to encourage new people to submit proposals, 15 days is definitely prohibitive. So I would think we have to reconsider that. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: You know, I was just mentioning that because last year there were two stages, sort of, of proposal submission. First, expression of interest; and then final application. Until now, I haven't heard any comments whether we would go for two-stage or not.
Taking into account that we have very limited time, maybe it would be a useful goal for a one-stage, just a proposal by a certain deadline. So that is on the table.
Now I see many flags up, and I will take one by one.
Mr. Chen, we'll start with you.
>>HONGBING CHEN: Thank you, Janis.
As to the program or the schedule, I have two comments.
First is about the deadline for calling for workshop proposals. Last year, we have two stages set up, but it seems that the first stage is a little bit longer because for the first stage, the proposer -- the party only needs to develop some general idea, and then they will have another -- more than one month's time to develop and elaborate that.
So I think maybe the first stage can be shorter, just to forward the idea. Then we get a sense about the numbers, the total number. That's all.
And then the proposer would have time to elaborate. As soon as the elaborated or complete proposal arrived, I think members can work on -- start to work on it.
Of course before that, we need to -- how to say -- to divide the MAG members into groups and we find leaders for different themes or different categories.
Last year, the experience -- the bad experience is in May we have a very short time and a lot of evaluation have -- or work have not been done, so all the evaluation work has been done -- has been carried out after May meeting. So that makes the time -- makes the task very heavy for MAG members. So I hope that everything can come a little bit earlier.
So maybe in May we can have the meeting, the second meeting of the -- of MAG, so then leave a longer time -- longer time span for the finalization stage. This is my proposal. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you.
Remote participant?
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Yes. Thank you.
This is -- this is a comment from Bill Drake. It's a response to a comment made prior to the conversation about time frames, and Bill thinks it would be an enormous mistake not to give full consideration and weight to the actual list of speakers proposed, and this is one way to really know what a workshop might look like in terms of diversity balances and character of the dialogue.
The fact that we can interactivity -- that we want interactivity in with the audience in no way reduces the importance of being able to ascertain whether a proposer -- (audio cutting in and out) -- time frames is solid and appropriate group of speakers. Many applicants send long lists of names of impressive-sounding people that they have not contacted and will not even be in the meeting, in the hopes that this gets their workshop approved. This is inappropriate. Speakers should be confirmed and listed correctly.
Sorry this is a bit delayed. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you.
Thomas?
>>THOMAS SPILLER: Thank you, Janis.
Two questions. Well, one question and one comment.
I would like to second Fiona's point about does the meeting have to be in Geneva, especially if there are many other events around the same week. I just want to have an idea about this.
And two, does this schedule take into account the possible idea of, you know, an appeal panel that was discussed this morning, because that would also put some pressure on the -- on the whole timing.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: The answer to the second question is no because I was not aware of the idea of an appeal panel. It is purely sort of a theoretical calculation backwards from September 2.
On the first question, I would be very happy to see all of you in Riga, but I'm not sure whether the rules and regulations would allow me such a proposal, but I will -- that's why I'm not answering to this question, hoping that Chengatai will put some thoughts together and will comment on that.
We have Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Just a quick one.
I think I value the comments made about the time frame by Mr. Chen and others, and I think it is excellent that our new workshop process is not having the two-stage, because I think the two-stage expression of interest followed by proposal -- but I just want to comment primarily on the Geneva issue.
You know, like Fiona, I also have to travel far, but I think we need to recognize that the collocation of the MAG meeting with the CSTD meeting and also the meetings at the ITU, the Information Society WSIS forum meeting, is very strategic for the IGF. It's an important opportunity for us to interact with the U.N. system. Actually Human Rights Council is also sitting at that time. Excuse me.
And I think for those of us that try and participate and promote the IGF in those spaces, it's a good opportunity, even if it is -- even if it does involve travel.
And I think particularly relevant this year, because of the review process, because if CSTD is going to make in its resolution to ECOSOC any reference to the renewal of the IGF, it would be valuable for those of us involved in the MAG to participate in the CSTD session this year.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Susan?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair. Just a few points.
With regards to the two-stage process, what we had proposed was not first an expression of interest and then an application, but simply an application.
The applications, they would be received -- by the screen I'm looking at -- on April 14th. A first stage of evaluation just on objectively -- on very objective criteria would occur within that week.
And then the second stage where MAG members do engage in that second-stage evaluation process, that would occur in April and May, but decidedly before May in time to produce a synthesis paper so that when we arrive at the MAG meeting, we could enter Stage 3 and have that discussion about the overall balance of the program and adjust for the program accordingly.
So I just wanted to offer that point.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Vlad?
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you.
Just a bit of a clarification on the two-stage process. When we started this idea last year, we basically wanted to copy or to use the experience, the very good experience, of EuroDIG, which has as a first stage the interest on topics, not on -- on sessions, and then following the summary of most favorable topics, the interest or the application for sessions.
We did it clumsy last year. We didn't do it exactly.
This year, we did it, so we already had the first phase, which was summarized by the secretariat well. So we have the topics, we have the interest in the topics.
Now we have just the application following these topics and I think that that should be quite clear. We have only one stage.
We have more stages of the MAG work, however, if we want to do the coaching, so that's something we may add internally within the agenda, what should be the -- the milestones or the MAG work in these couple of steps. But when it comes to the applications, it should be just one. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you for confirming. I think that I have beginner's luck, because without knowing it, I sort of put more or less the right -- right timetable on the -- for your consideration.
We have five minutes for this part of the session. Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Just very quick, the one change I think we might need is to move the first conference call after the deadline for proposals back a couple days because we are proposing this in a very -- this initial screening just to catch the 5% or 10% of the topics that are completely off, but we do want to have a chance to look at those and say, "Okay, these don't belong."
The other thing we'll need to add is probably some conference calls for the people who would be involved in the appeals process after the in-person MAG meeting. And again, that's probably 5 or 10 proposals at most.
My last question is more important, though. I understand last year we changed the deadlines after we had published them. Can I understand why that happened? Because I was not part of that process.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Again, Chengatai will answer that question.
Subi, very quickly.
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Janis.
I want to start out by congratulating Fiona and Susan for the excellent work they've done this morning. I also second Fiona's idea and Thomas' idea. The costs in May in Geneva are absolutely prohibitive, so if you're struggling for a venue, that is a good enough reason to also look at another option for the meeting.
I don't know if Istanbul is at all a possibility. It gives us an option to visit and -- and -- or any other city, for that matter.
Our friends from the EBU were also extremely gracious hosts for an alternative venue, so I don't know if that -- that is something that -- if we're wedded to Geneva for this meeting. That is also another option that we can explore.
I also want to take Vlad's point on board. We have started out with a good process this time. We have community inputs. I think if we can look at doing this as a two-stage process, we should give it a shot. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you.
Giacomo?
>>GIACOMO MAZZONE: Despite the fact that my people are still under shock of your visit of last year, I can offer again the hospitality.
There is a problem for the dates that -- I've already checked on the calendar of the rooms. There is a problem for 19 and 20, but the rest of the week is fine, but we need to book quite early if -- really we need that. But this doesn't solve the problem of the hotel that Subi mentioned. Unfortunately, we cannot host you for lodging on the night.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: In the sleeping bags on the floor.
Paul?
>>PAUL WILSON: I just wanted to second Subi's very interesting proposal to -- to go to Istanbul. I think it would be really useful for the MAG to have that -- that exposure to the site and the ability to understand better what we're in for.
I think in the past it's been that the lack of connection or the lack of that opportunity has possibly been an issue that would be great to improve.
So I second Subi's suggestion. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Well, you have a vested interest. That would be a shorter flight for you.
Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Just to note that Microsoft has a very large facility there and I could check into availability. We've hosted other outside conferences there quite commonly.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Marilyn?
>>MARILYN CADE: I approach -- I approach the calendaring with such a detailed list of meetings I am staggered by. I'm look- -- I've been looking forward to the discussion about the dates but I -- and I know we have mentioned already the fact that CSTD is a full week.
It is very possible, because of the challenges that we face, that there may be additional work related to the CSTD working group a day or two before, which might affect some of us, but my -- my primary reason for taking the microphone is to note that if we are suggesting and it would -- were to be possible to be accommodated by our gracious hosts from Turkey, we would be asking them to take on additional fast-track responsibilities on visa clearance as well.
So I just wanted to -- I'm not saying anything in support or against, but noting that that would be an additional request.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So the last intervention from Peter.
>>PETER MAJOR: Just to -- want to follow up what Anriette said, that we should be aware of the importance of the meetings we are having here in Geneva as for the future of the IGF.
So probably -- I fully understand the concerns of hotel prices and all the difficulties we may face. On my part, I can offer some lodging accommodations in my home here in Geneva. Probably it wouldn't help very much. I have to talk to my wife about it as well.
[ Laughter ]
>>PETER MAJOR: But on a more serious tone, yes, we should be very much aware of the importance of the CSTD meeting and the council meeting and the ITU. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Paul Rendek, you --
Okay. I promised 12:30, a half an hour for the working groups. I keep my promise. It's 12:30.
As I mentioned, we expect one-slide themes, subthemes, and the same fine-tuning of the proposal, and please be back in the room at 3:00 and we will continue our discussion.
And at 3:00, we will also answer the question of the possibility of moving the meeting outside Geneva.
So thank you. And thank you, interpreters, for helping us.
[ Lunch break ]
[ Gavel ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I feel terribly sorry to interrupt your lively discussions, but we need to start the structured dialogue. And I would like to start the session by asking Chengetai to explain to all of us the reasons why meetings in Geneva are maybe favored against meets outside Geneva.
Chengetai, please.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Janis.
For the meetings outside Geneva, they are possible but they are very difficult. Last year I know we had a meeting in UNESCO, which is fine because in UNESCO they do follow U.N. rules and it is a U.N. headquarters as such, as the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris.
The reasons are as follows, is that we have to make sure that the correct immunities and privileges are valid at the meeting location that we because it is an U.N. meeting. And it may go all the way up to, you know, even preparing a host country agreement for the meeting. I mean, we have to check that. But those are the stipulations, is that we have to have the same conditions that we have at U.N. headquarters are other U.N. sites around the world.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Chengetai. So that brings me to conclusion that if the meeting rooms will be available in Geneva on the indicated dates, we would prefer to organize next MAG meeting here in Geneva. If the meeting rooms will not be available in that case, we will bring this question up at one of the future MAG online meetings during the conference calls.
So let me now move to the questions where we need to strive to make a decision at the end of this meeting. I will start with results of informal working group on themes and subthemes. Who will be reporting on the outcome of this half-hour session? Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Janis. Subi Chaturvedi, India.
So we had a discussion and unanimous consensus from across the floor and happy to report it. On the main theme, we believe that it should come from the floor and MAG and the wider community can suggest. On local themes, they're right up there. We thought that the first one could look at local policies that enable access. That addresses a lot of concerns and how the IGF can be more relevant for national and regional initiatives as well.
The second one looks at content creation and dissemination. There are several bullet points under each of these. We would be happy to share them at a later stage.
The third one is Internet as an engine for growth and development.
The fourth is IGF and the future of the Internet ecosystem.
The fifth is enhancing digital trust. And that addresses questions of online surveillance of government, national, domestic, privacy, freedom of speech and expression, and trust, the core value of the Internet.
The sixth is looking at emerging issues. We also thought this could be an interesting placeholder for a lot of issues that might emerge from now until September when we look at Istanbul.
There were also conversations about what are currencies and technologies and Internet of things. And the group also felt there is a consensus on best practice sessions on each of the key themes that can address key policy questions. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you very much. This is exactly what I was asking for. Let us see if we can agree on a proposed set of themes or tracks for 2014 meeting.
Any comments and observations? Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, one of the -- given the discussions over the last two days on finding ways to involve and make IGF impactful and a place for knowledge gender as well as best practices in addition to its mandate of policy dialogue, we thought we should pick a theme or an issue that will engage a large number of governments including the developing countries, involve businesses who are deploying infrastructure and writing content on top of that, concerns of growth and development which are linked in the first place to having access to the net. And in view of the fact that nearly over 4 billion people are yet to be connected, we thought themes should -- the general themes should reflect upon the issue of access and ensuring that citizens around the world are online as fast as possible.
I don't have a specific sort of wording there, but this is one of the things that sort of helps us bring together the concerns and the discussions over the last couple of sessions.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So I understand you are referring to the overarching theme. So for the moment, we haven't gotten to the overarching theme yet. Maybe we will get to one. And in anticipation, maybe I would like to ask MAG members to think what would be this one sentence, six words, seven, to the overarching theme. If two, even better.
But for the moment, keep that for yourself. We're on the list of six proposed themes for the conference, and I will see if there is any violent opposition to the proposal.
Izumi.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you. This is not my comment or opinion, but I just picked up the one sent to the MAG list about half an hour ago from DZ, or Desiree, asking if it is possible to add sustainable eGovernment initiatives. I just throw it to the floor.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I have a feeling these eGovernment initiatives are fully covered with the content creation, so that is content creation.
Mr. Chen.
>>HONGBING CHEN: Thanks, Chairman. Just a question of linguistic nature about, number one, local policies that enable access, could we find better language? Just use one word, make it more easy to comprehend? Like "policies promoting access" or something like that, just for the reference. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chen. I actually had more or less similar sentiment. When I was looking at the first line, "local policies that enable access," it seems to me that it is slightly narrowing the question because there may be also regional policies or even global policies favoring access or enabling access. Of course, we can specifically focus on local policies. But if we would omit "local" and just leave "policies that enable access," maybe that would be slight improvement. Just a question.
Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was not part of the first drafting group this morning, and I was delighted to see the groundwork they have done. I was even more delighted to see the final product.
I was particularly delighted to see the word "local" because in the U.S. we have a very famous political saying from Tip O'Neill who was the Speaker of the House of Representatives for many years. And he said, "All politics are local," and that's where the final decisions are made on so many of these things. By "local," I think we mean city, state, and not global.
I think my biggest concern about the previous IGFs is we haven't paid enough attention to the end result of the decisions that are made at the global level. And so that's why that was such an important word.
And there was a lot of discussion about that, and that's why it was put there.
I guess there is some ambiguity as to whether it is just city or city and national. But the focus was to look at the global decisions that impact the local policies. And so I would strongly agree -- I want to vehemently agree with what we've got.
I think also the future of the Internet provides lots of room for people to bring in the global decisions, whether it's the IGF, the IETF standards making, the U.N. process and the like.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Baher?
>>BAHER ESMAT: Thank you, Chairman. I also agree with Mike. I was part of the same group and we have this discussion about the term "local." And, also, I recall that there was consensus to include the word "Internet" so say "Internet access" rather than "access." As in some developing countries, "access" also refers to mobile access. And we also agreed to omit the word "that."
So I recall that the finer thing was "local policies enabling Internet access," and maybe Subi can confirm that.
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: I agree with that, Baher.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Chengetai is already moving to make suggested change.
So I have Andrey Shcherbovich.
>> ANDREY SHCHERBOVICH: Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I would like to submit an amendment or correction. So there is no actually human rights-related topic on the list. Of course, all of them not directly related to the human rights, especially kind of through the access, but I think it should be a special track, a human rights track, on the IGF. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Anju.
>> ANJU MANGAL: Sorry, it is regarding the "local policies enabling Internet access," While I agree with "local policies to enable Internet access," we also have a lot of small island states that are not able to sort of formulate their own policies so they depend a lot on the regional organizations.
I work for the secretariat of the Pacific community, and we sort of provide this backbone and also a way to sort of help them implement some of the strategies. And so I really feel that we should not include just local but because it should also have, like, regional and also the global.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Turkey.
>>TURKEY: Yes. I'm also concerned about -- I have some concerns about the word "local," you know. If you are just localizing some of the policies, we need some uniformity. We need some international awareness and "change of best practices" probably would be the subject there.
So if we are just focusing on "local," it may not serve the purpose, I would say.
And, also, if it's -- you're talking about policies, why not about projects? Because a lot of interesting best practices, interesting projects are being done all over the world. I know a lot of them initiated in Turkey that really did have a lot of impact on Internet access within the country. I think if we just talk about the policies, we may not serve the purpose.
One other theme track I would suggest, the social media, its impact is incredible. Social media is one of the hottest topics of the recent years. It can change the politics. It can have such a big impact on a lot of things. Why not put the social media as a separate item? Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you.
Let me maybe frame this discussion. We had a working group specifically dedicated to that, with the participation of about 20 people, and the aim of that exercise was to come up with proposals which are already pre-discussed in a sample of the MAG, and a fairly big sample. It's more than one-third of the MAG members who are part of it. But that's the one point.
The second point is we cannot come up with a list of 25 themes or tracks. It's simply unfeasible. And until now, to my knowledge, there has been attempts in the previous years to formulate those themes or tracks in a very generic manner, almost like with one word, maybe with two, which would allow them to speak about many different things, and therefore, no wonder that in previous years we had one theme, "access," which included local, regional, international, which included access to infrastructure, access to Internet, but equally, access to information, which is a completely different concept, and all that theme was formulated basically with one word.
So then we added "diversity."
Diversity included human rights, expression in different languages, and so on.
So in that respect, we need to strive here also to try to formulate these topics in a generic way, taking into account the maybe specificity of this moment.
And we have specificity of the moment because trust, surveillance issues, are higher on the agenda than it used to be or maybe will be in the future, and so on.
So therefore, I just want to appeal to you, when you make your interventions and make your comments, keep those in mind.
Of course we can put many other things in it and -- but I would appeal to restrain from adding sort of these decorations on the Christmas tree. We have already six of them, so -- Patrick.
>>PATRICK RYAN: Thank you. I recently just wrote a paper on this topic and so I'm also very -- I have a very strong opinion about this idea that Anju raised about local policies and I think you can really fix it just by deleting the word "local" because then you're going to be able to discuss all of the international contexts, if it's important. The landing rights for satellites that are relevant. The trade issues that are involved in connecting the next 5 billion. The island -- the island complexities. "local" deals with local spectrum policy and -- but, you know, not the broader scope that we see in the Internet Telecommunication Union or the -- you know, and it may deal with right-of-way issues that are very local, but not any of the other, you know, much broader things that can happen on a broader scale. It's an easy fix, I think.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. I was -- I was told that there is a practice of humming. Would that be applicable here? So shall we try to hum, with those who --
We have two options. One option is humming for the "local" and another option is humming without "local."
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: No. Michael.
>>MICHAEL NELSON: I think I have an even easier fix than Patrick has proposed, which is to change "policies" to "actions."
So "local actions enabling Internet access."
Because what we're -- what the intent was is to focus on what needs to be done in-country, whether it's about local policies, national policies, or global policies.
But what I don't want is a title that leaves people with the impression that we're going to focus on Geneva.
And I think "local actions" also gets to the point that our friend from Turkey made, which is it's not just about policies, it's about practices, it's about projects.
So I think this might open up to a better, more clear title.
I also would say to our friend from Turkey that I care a lot about social media and the impacts it's having and I think it's a perfect fit underneath emerging issues.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Anriette, please.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Janis.
I want to thank the group. I like the themes. I think -- I mean, I'm -- I don't have much to add to the proposals around modifying, you know, the local/global issues. Maybe next year we can have a session on local taxation of global Internet companies and, you know, Mike Nelson can lead that for us, but that's a proposition for next year.
What I'd like to -- to suggest that we do is Andrey mentioned the issue of human rights and we -- you know, it might be useful to have this freshness with themes, but then to use the mechanism of roundtables which we've used at the past two IGFs to bring together and to stocktake on some of the -- of the themes.
So human rights would be one. Internet governance principles might -- might be another, so I think -- in general.
My only question, but I think we can address that also through a MAG organized session, would be to ensure that we create space for the outcomes of the Brazil and WSIS+10, CSTD working group on enhanced cooperation, and other relevant meetings; that we do create quite a high-profile space within the IGF for that to be discussed.
And then just on the social media issue, I also think that's really important, and maybe we can -- again, looking -- you know, we don't have to have a theme, necessarily, but we can use emerging issues, but there might be other ways, more creative ways, of also creating space for that to be discussed. It is certainly a really important issue. Even under content creation and dissemination.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Towela?
>>TOWELA JERE: Thank you very much, Chair.
Not very much to add except maybe to ask in the first theme whether we can have an element of affordable access, because I think that's really what the -- one of the key issues for us in the developing world. It's not that the access is not there, in most cases, but it is the affordability of access that's quite an important issue.
I would also want to point out that capacity building is missing, and I'm not sure whether it's a cross-cutting theme across all those or whether it's going to be treated under one of the themes. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you.
I think that affordability is part of "enabling," so you -- if that's not affordable, so it means that enabling policy is not -- not right.
And the best practices and capacity building is considered as overarching and should be a component of every of those tracks.
Bill?
>>BILL DRAKE: Thank you. I wasn't part of the group so I'm somewhat loathe to be too orthogonal, but I did send a message to the e-mail list and I'll just repeat the main points here.
Again, I would go back to what you said, Janis. For those who have been around for a while, the -- the original practice of having fairly generic and short themes was something that was arrived at by -- through a lot of discussion and thinking, and it was because, precisely, once you start to get into more elaborate formulations, everybody wants to add on their different modifiers. So should access be local? Global? Affordable? Enabling?
You know, we start to -- you know, once we start to do this, we end up with -- we risk ending up with formulations that when people are submitting proposals, they look at it and they go, "I can't really see how my proposal relates to this. Where do I submit it?" And then there's confusion and all of that.
So I think having them as generic as possible and as expansive as possible is useful.
And in that regard, I certainly would not in any way restrict questions of access to local policies. That's -- that's a discussion we had around -- back when we were doing the Greece program in 2006, and there were folks saying, "All the problems are local regulatory problems involving telecommunications monopolies," and so on. And, you know, I think we've evolved since then.
Similarly, I expressed the concern I -- last year, we used to do Internet governance for development and that was -- that took years to get that on the agenda. I know I organized workshops for four years on that, and finally we got IG4D as a main theme. And last year it turned into Internet as an engine for growth and development and we had a lot of workshop proposals that weren't about Internet governance. They were about applying the Internet in healthcare and things like this.
So the -- the themes signal, to a certain extent, and we've lost critical Internet resources. So when somebody wants to do a work- -- propose a workshop on problems in ccTLD management or issues with the new gTLD program or technical standards or something like that, where do they think -- where are they supposed to fit it? Are they -- are we supposed to try to think about how that becomes an issue of the future of the ecosystem? It doesn't pertain to the IGF. So I feel like -- you know, I understand the thinking behind these, but there is something to be said for some of the original categories which were expansive and which signaled people appropriately and didn't make them think that they had to twist their proposals in order to get accepted, and I'm -- I would be concerned about that now.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Bill.
Lorenzo.
>>LORENZO PUPILLO: Lorenzo Pupillo. I want to add on to what Anriette just said before. We should be sure that the outcome of the Brazil meeting is captured somewhere, and of course probably a doc session would be good, but also my question is: What about the evolution of the Internet governance model? Are those encompassed in Item 4, IGF and the future Internet ecosystem? Just a question. Yeah. Okay.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Yeah. That is exactly that track is, and I think it goes without saying that there will be a plenary meeting on the issues related to all the evolutionary processes, Brazil, WSIS, a review of the CSTD, and all this. This will be on the agenda, of course, and will be discussed. This is inevitable, so that is clear.
Igor.
>>IGOR MILASHEVSKY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. In order to enhance the effectiveness of IGF, I don't think we should avoid the precise (indiscernible) like "local." In this case, I think we can supplement it with the word "global." If we -- we say "local policies on global access," it reflects the reality, and so I think we should keep "local." Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you.
Fatima?
>>FATIMA CAMBRONERO: Hello. Thank you. This is Fatima Cambronero.
I have a comment about the -- something in Number 5, and I am not sure what it exactly means and I think we should address. Personally, I prefer the focus in the Internet end users because -- who lose the trust in the Internet governance ecosystem, who are the Internet end users. And my suggestion could be something like restoring the trust of Internet users in the Internet governance ecosystem or something like that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. I fully understand your preoccupation and share your point.
At the same time, we need to try to make the formulations as short as possible, as sharp as possible, and as you know, it was Mark Twain who said "Sorry, I did not have time to write a short letter because in order to write short, you need to put a lot of thinking in it," and the working group did this thinking and came up with a short formulation that encompasses or intended to encompass all those things you just referred to, the trust of Internet users to the system and the --
So let me see what ICC/BASIS wants to say.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you. I'm not advocating for or against the term "local," but just a few comments that might add to the discussion around that.
When I think of local, and when I see that, I just think in the past few years there have been so many amazing different national broadband proposals, and also so many amazing things that different groups have just taken up on their own to do in this space.
And so I guess I would be hopeful that some of these proposals would come in under those auspices, and perhaps be compared and contrasted.
And as I'm looking at this list of the six and thinking about the main theme, I'd just throw out one possible suggestion that's coming to my mind right now.
Perhaps something along the lines of "connecting everyone." Because I think we're at a time where not only do we want to promote access, we want to promote uptake, we want to really expand usage, but also in the multistakeholder model, we really want to connect all of the different groups and really be working together.
And so maybe that's an overarching theme that can kind of sew this together, or something very similar. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. I think you stepped one step ahead of the train on -- but I think your proposal is worth considering, speaking about overarching theme, all and everybody connected, or something like that.
So let me see who hasn't spoken yet.
Okay. We will start the second round then.
Mr. Chen.
>>HONGBING CHEN: Thank you, Janis. I'm quite comfortable with these six themes. It's not only because they are broad enough to encapsulate any topics which may emerge. They also are a fruit, a very important fruit, of our two sessions, our small working groups' work. It's kind of an embodiment of our efforts, so I'm quite happy with it.
Second point is about the "local," the word "local." I -- if my memory is correct, that in the early morning session, when we talk about "local," actually we mean national and regional, because we have used this expression in our first version.
Maybe my -- may I make the last attempt, or try, that we -- can we replace "local" with "national/regional"? I think then it can reflect the consensus in the room or within the working groups. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I don't -- I don't hear humming.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Where is humming?
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Jivan?
>>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI: We need to somehow incorporate cross-cutting issues and some have been mentioned and we said that human rights should be somehow be incorporated. It is a cross-cutting issue. Regional is perhaps another one. Capacity building is perhaps another one. And I think we need to have practical ways of infusing those and having some kind of an output come out of them.
So I propose that we have, for instance, rapporteurs on those cross-cutting issues, and so for example we have a cross-cutting issue on regional and perhaps for each region one. Another one on human rights. And then even at the time of the proposals, for people to think of those things and to report to the rapporteurs that human rights might be taken in some form. And then we can even have perhaps some volunteers or others who will be present during the workshops as they're being discussed, or whatever, the panels, and report back to the rapporteur and then the rapporteur could put all together some kind of a report for the end that is for that specific cross-cutting issue.
And as I said, I think I've already proposed three of such cross-cutting issues. Perhaps there's more that could be discussed.
And second, because we've already gone through -- to the main theme, I actually discussed the same theme with some colleagues about connecting and connecting everyone is really something that could be the one worth discussing with colleagues, with our hosts, our Turkish hosts. Istanbul is really a city that connects both continents, it connects past and present. There's so many different metaphors for Istanbul that can be used, and if ever there is a time of enhancing trust, of connecting -- again, of connecting new people, it is now. So connecting everyone is something that I could second for a main theme. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thanks, Jivan. We are now on the second round.
Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Mr. Chairman, in favor of having short and general headers such as the one William Drake spoke about, to make it simpler, I think the group that helped put this together based on the inputs that were provided can look at sacrificing "local." But I want to say that the vast majority of the initiatives, policies that go into enabling access -- and we can say this from firsthand experience -- are national, even to the extent of USO funds, rule connectivity, type of technology, many of those decisions with the exception of standards that are set out by ITU to help coordinate these issues. Nor do countries even neighboring each other use something as openly defined USO funders in a similar way.
We collected $6 billion in India in USO fund hoping to put it for phones in rural India, and we didn't need a penny from that. And now it is being used to build out a national fiberoptic backbone. We changed the law and moved the money over. All of these things are done, or at least the vast majority of them are local.
But I think to sort of address the point that has been made here in general terms, I think what was said -- (audio cutting out) -- was right.
I think we have come to the point where we can work with "policies enabling Internet access" because many people will then know what they want to say under that.
One of the things that's not happened right now is Subi has not read out the subthemes that come under these themes. Once those bullet points are read out, people will feel a lot more comfortable because something they're not being able to see in these six broad themes is already mentioned there. (audio cutting out) option to either put it on the screen or read it out so it can help people understand what's not missing.
I do have three points to be made about Brazil and WSIS and the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation in at least three meetings before then (indiscernible) after. I think space must be provided for that. A very obvious visual space in the theme must be provided. So if emerging issues can accommodate it or if "future of Internet ecosystem" can be used to put that up there, I think that dialogue needs to occur. And it should be fairly obvious what space is available for that. So I completely accept that point, and I think it would be unwise for us to leave this room without providing that space given the fact that the meeting will occur in September.
My last point about a "connected world, connected people," "connected world," four words or some such theme would certainly be an overall theme that helps. "Connected world, connected people" or the other way around would be one of the suggestions for the overarching themes. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I can only reiterate that there will be enough space to discuss Brazil, Enhanced Cooperation, WSIS review and that is under point 4. Actually, what I hear is in reality we're turning -- we're not talking about two, three, four, five, six. It seems there is a sufficient level of comfort with those formulations, and the only sort of debate we have is around one. There was a proposal about the human rights which, in a sense, might fall under point Number 2 if we're talking about human rights as a notion, human rights access to information. Then, of course, that falls under access provided that there is no "Internet" specifically mentioned because Internet -- access to Internet, is more (audio cutting out) access to infrastructure. And this is just access to -- policies enabling access, that be interpreted wider and access to information, including human rights, freedom of expression and so on.
So maybe since we need to finalize this debate about these proposed themes, let me give a try. And if we would (audio cutting out) -- I'm expecting humming. If we would say "national policies enabling access," that would cover many grounds in my view of what we discussed before and would enlarge the scope, would include human rights notion, access to information, freedom of expression and so on. So I hear very noisy humming as a sign of approval, right?
[ Laughter ]
Lee, you are an expert in human rights. Your body language says you are in agreement? No? Please explain why.
>> COUNCIL OF EUROPE: I was very happy to lead and to work with the colleagues today and yesterday on this grouping. We did a great job. But then we have to find ourselves in these titles, we have to propose things. That's the next step. So if you -- do we find ourselves -- when I look at local policies, I don't see human rights. I don't see the issue of freedom of expression. I don't see the issue of privacy, surveillance. And if the words are not there in the titles, then I think we have to be quite careful about these particular words. If you want to be cross-cutting, put a seventh one and make it cross-cutting. But, otherwise, if we don't find ourselves in that work, we should not propose things thereafter. That's my concern.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Janis.
I think this came as a response from the inputs and the synthesis paper we received. And after the first meeting in the morning, we hoped to respond to the essential values, access, diversity, openness, (indiscernible) innovation, universality, and freedom of human rights.
I think as a point of clarification, the way we framed the six themes, there were subbullet points under each of this: Affordability, national, local, regional initiatives. And our -- the second we were looking at human capacity-building, local content creation, distribution, hosting, multilingualism, other -- Internet as an engine for growth and development.
We wanted to respond to innovation, stable economic policies using Internet for development and ICT, infrastructure for broadband access, and the future that we wanted to respond to IGF, way forward.
One of the proposals also is to look for amplification of the impact of IGF and also response to parallel processes.
And the fifth one when we look at enhancing digital trust, we felt that the core issues were online privacy, surveillance, cybersecurity, freedom of speech and expression, and how they can be amplified.
And also the second interesting variation of Internet as a response to social and cultural interaction and engagement.
The last one was to look at emerging issues. And as an offer and a commitment, we proposed to write a short paragraph explaining each of these themes which small bullet points so people know where to park their proposals and how they can reach out and connect with these themes.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So, Lee, please.
>> COUNCIL OF EUROPE: I think knowing the landscape and knowing all the events coming through this year, I'm involved in many of them. It is a lot about the governance of the Internet rather than the governance on the Internet. It is about the access, the ecosystem, et cetera. And that's why about the "of" rather than the "on."
We talked to different actors from different stakeholder groups mentioning when you talk about human rights or expectations or reliance on people and the questions of surveillance, when I look at the issues coming through at the European level, for example, it is data sovereignty now. It is also cryptology and anonymity. These things don't resonate necessarily with those words.
I'm not trying to move away from this. I think it captures many things, but one has to find one self. Otherwise there is a risk. If you don't see yourself in it, you will not propose something. So there is a need to think to think about the governance on the Internet, the societal transformations. The question of culture, the social application layer. It is not always there. This is a lot about the governance "of" rather than the governance "on." And it is not looked by local policies and access necessarily. "Digital trust" rings of things, but it doesn't tell the whole story.
There is a great assumption in this room that we understand what each of those words mean and we have different ideas. Depending on how much we understand the landscape, if we're evolved or not. (audio dropped out).
Right words right now rather than later. Just to finish by saying this doesn't preclude anybody sending a proposal that don't necessarily fit into these categories. But by creating this, how do we fit those together?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I agree with you on the point. By increasing we will be talking about government on the Internet; in other words, how we use the Internet, the time when we are talking about governance "of" the Internet and critical resources. So I see that we barely find in these six points because it is important. But it is overwhelmed by the issues related to actual use of the Internet. (indiscernible).
When I think about those six points, I would say for me most of them, if not all of them, relate to governance "on the Internet," not "of the Internet." Especially if we take away "Internet" from the first point in talking about access in general, that relates very much of issues of use or availability for services (audio cutting out) and dissemination.
Internet as an engine of growth, it is obvious how you use Internet rather than how you dig the cable from (audio cutting out).
The same trust (indiscernible). Again, I do not want to impose my views. I'm totally in your hands and that is your collective decision and wisdom. I'm just trying to find the middle ground from some competing ideas.
Marilyn, please.
>>MARILYN CADE: My question is just one question I would like us to consider. We have not talked about the open forum categories. But each of the IGOs and even governments can schedule open forums, and it may be that some reports from activities such as the CSTD itself, the working group, or other groups like that might also be an accommodating place to put some of the more detailed reporting out on activities.
I'm thinking in particular about Number 4 and mention Virat made to the CSTD working group.
So I just wanted to sort of park that issue of one opportunity the open forum might also provide for more detailed discussions and some of these -- or more informative to discussions on these areas. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Matthew.
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. Perhaps I don't want to confuse the situation anymore, perhaps hopefully helping a little bit. The original text was where local access meets local policy, and I think to your point, I think it's entirely reasonable to think that we might want to think about access in its broadest sense and we could remove the word "Internet."
I think what's most important is here is retaining the word "local policies" for many of the reasons that have already been mentioned but also because it will very nicely dovetail into what I hope is going to be a renewed focus on best practices and it would be very nice to see a best practices session on specific local policies for enabling access, whatever form of access that might be. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Vlada?
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you, Janis. I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who is not in this room. (Audio difficulty) -- encouraged focus on local policies and then focus on other subthemes because we, basically, came to this phase on the inputs in the first round of suggestions by people. So we need to provide more details for more people to make a space and find where they are and even space for those that cannot recognize. And this should be short and sweet.
And one more comment in the second one, I think initially there were ideas to be content creation and management, and I would keep it "content policy" or something like that so to allow this aspect not only of creation dissemination but also content -- policy content management aspect which was also raised thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. We need also to keep in mind that there will be subthemes, and those will be published. All those subthemes will be listed in the document that we will put online and that will inform those who will file the application for the workshops for the event.
Robert?
>>ROBERT SHLEGEL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to support my colleagues. I believe that protection of human rights should be one of the main tracks because human rights relation is happening around the world. And this, in my opinion, remains to the integrity of the Internet.
And one more point. Naturally we need to talk about local or regional access policy because we need to explore -- to explore the best -- we need to learn from the best practice. Thank you. Practices.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you.
Peter?
>>PETER MAJOR: Thank you. Very shortly I tried to -- I agree with -- about the statements about the details and the subthemes, and I hope that we are going to find those subthemes.
My question: Is it going to be a finalized list or is it going to be a moving target which we'll expand or which we are going to restrict?
One other thought about issues of disabilities. I'm not really sure that we have disabilities included in any of the main themes or in the subthemes. And the final point about the overarching theme with my respect to Nokia and to Microsoft, probably those of you who are old enough can remember the slogan of Nokia "connecting people."
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. I think that the disability question is fully covered with access. So if we remove "Internet" in front of "access," then it is fully covered.
We have something from remote participant?
>>REMOTE INVERVENTION: Yes, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Adam Peake would like to share a recommendation that he didn't have the opportunity to make prior to the break so this is a little bit out of the topic. I don't know if -- this is about workshop evaluation. May I?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We will have next part of the session about workshop evaluation. I think that would be then appropriate.
Michael?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Just a few very quick comments. Since we have had a few proposals for the overarching title, I would like to put forward "Connecting east and west, south and north," particularly given the place that we're at in Istanbul.
With regard to how specific our titles should be, I think we've hit a very nice balance. If we just have single-word titles as we have had in the past, "content," "access," you can submit anything and quite frankly several proposals would fit underneath two or three different topics.
I think we have got very good effective titles that people can match their concerns to. My favorite two words are "innovation" and "technology." Neither of which are in either of these titles.
But I'm sneaky. I can fit them in several different places, and I would argue that human rights is a topic that certainly fits under 2 and Number 5. Let me finish by saying I would like to propose a new title for the first one and see if anybody hums.
We've heard people say they want to see best practices focused on -- and I would propose the title "The practical actions enabling Internet access" because we've heard discussion of how we need to go beyond policies. I hear about the confusion between local and national and regional. If we say "practical," I think we will by inference focus on where things are actually happening which is at the national and local level.
I don't hear any humming.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: You are not alone. I didn't hear either.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: But we -- it seems that there is no humming culture in this group. At least not yet.
Constance.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you very much, Chair. Just very quickly to address Peter's comment, in the written description of each of those six main sessions that Subi just talked about, we will add explicitly the best practices forum, so you will see them. We have not forgotten them. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Susan?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair. I'm concerned that the second theme reflects an imbalance which could be corrected by adding one comma and one word, and that word would be "use." I think that "content creation, dissemination, and use" would reflect a more balanced approach to that topic and also allow for a power counterpart to that discussion, which is limitations and exceptions to the consumption of content.
[ Humming ]
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Sorry. I think that that would help us a lot if we would get used to humming.
Ana.
>>ANA NEVES: Thank you. Well, I'm a bit confused. I don't know if I'm right, but on the first one I'm not sure if I understood the title.
Are we going to keep Internet access or not? Because I totally agree with what you just said, that Internet, it's too infrastructure-oriented and that's not the point.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We have Bill, Anriette, and then the remote participant.
>>BILL DRAKE: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Something Lee said, I think, really resonated with me. Lee Hibbard. Which was, first, people have to find themselves in the titles.
I've been on dozens and dozens of program committees for conferences over the years. I'm actually sitting here planning a conference in Singapore while we're doing this, so I'm -- I have my head in it, and it's one thing if you are doing a top-down exercise where you -- the program committee, the organization that's hosting has a defined agenda that they're trying to get people to come together around and discuss, but the whole point of the IGF, in my understanding, is that it's bottom-up and that people from around the world can bring any kind of topic that they think is relevant to Internet governance and submit a proposal.
I'm looking at the list of workshops that we received last year, and I'm telling you that at least 50% of them would not fit in any of these categories, and so I'm just concerned about that. I'm concerned about if we start to get into a thing where we're going to overengineer this. Because we think issues about local ISP costs are important, we'll define the main themes for what everybody else should submit in a way that signals that and we'll limit people who are doing something else.
What about all these people who submitted proposals last year about how multistakeholderism works or should work? Where would they submit -- where would they put their proposal now?
I could go through example after example --
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>BILL DRAKE: Huh? Then Number 4, that is an incredibly broad catch-all that means almost nothing.
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>BILL DRAKE: They should not have to get a user's manual and read through a detailed list of subpoints to be able to figure this out.
I think we are making this overly restrictive and overly complicated, and people will struggle to figure out how they shoehorn what they want to do into what the MAG thinks they should talk about, and I don't think that's the function of the MAG.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Bill, with all respect, I think at the beginning you were talking about broad representation, broad topics, and then when it comes to 4, you said it's too broad. But -- or have I misunderstood you?
>>BILL DRAKE: (off microphone) -- completely amorphous. That's different from broad.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Anriette?
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Janis.
I think that, you know, we -- we probably are beginning to go around in circles a little bit. I think once we see those themes in context with -- with the descriptive sections beneath them, it would be easier to -- to strike the right balance between the headings, the overall subject descriptions of the themes, and then the elaboration on what they -- they mean.
So -- so I don't disagree with you, Bill, but I think there's a way of -- of dealing with that, keeping it open enough but also fresh and specific enough.
And, for example, I have not seen the description or the sub-bullets, but I would say that looking at digital migration and spectrum management is a really important issue at the moment under access, because there's a process going on in many countries which is being dominated by the broadcasting industry and Internet access is just not featured sufficiently. So that's an example of what I'd like to see in the access theme.
I like Susan's addition.
But my real intervention here is to pick up on what Council of Europe, what Lee Hibbard said, and which several other speakers have echoed, and that is human rights. And I like Jivan's idea of using roundtables. I'd also proposed it. But I think we need to be very careful about sending a strong message that human rights and the discussion of human rights in the Internet has a very high profile in the IGF.
So I think while you can see it definitely and it will cut across those issues, when we do the program paper, it needs to be there, because it took a long time for us to reach consensus within the MAG that we can have a main session on human rights, as we did last year, or a roundtable as we did in the previous year.
So it needs to be there, and I think it sends a message and there was a period in the IGF's life about three years ago where the Human Rights Council was more progressive in dealing with the Internet and human rights than the IGF was. We then rectified that. So we shouldn't backtrack. It is about messaging.
I'm happy with using a cross-cut as that device, but it needs to be -- it needs to be very prominent.
And then we could similarly also have a cross-cut on evolving landscape or Internet governance or, you know, Jivan had other proposals which I liked. Even development.
But then just to flag that if we are going to use the device of cross-cutting themes -- capacity development was another one -- we need to make sure that we have a mechanism for them to report into the IGF process and I'm not sure that emerging issues might be enough, so does that mean we need a taking stock? We just need to keep that into account. If we are profiling some of these cross-cutting issues as cross-cuts, we need to create a space for them to -- to report in.
And then just finally a comment to Marilyn. On the open forums, I think it's a good idea to have those open forums, but I think what the IGF should also --
[ Scribes lost audio ]
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: -- is not just CSTD or Net Mundial presenting their take on their events. We want to create a high-profile space where the Internet community can have critical debate and discussions on those events and their outcomes.
So we need both.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Anriette. Indeed, you are right, we are getting a little bit in circles with this.
I felt that it would be important to have this exchange of views, that some kind of rough consensus would crystallize about it, and what I -- what I see is that in reality we're turning around the formulation of the first point, and the second one which has been mentioned a number of times, explicit reference to human rights. And I wonder whether, since time is running and that it would be very important for us to get this rough consensus and agreement on these themes and also the main theme, maybe I can ask right -- right now those who are very much interested in this topic join Lee and try to formulate -- or based on what you heard, give it an attempt in formulating Point Number 1, and -- maybe something about human rights and then come back and in the meantime we would go to the -- we will go to the next item is evaluation and -- and methodology of selection.
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Yeah, Number 1? I think that I did not hear disagreement on 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Could you take a microphone?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: It would seem more logical to somehow incorporate human rights within Number 2, on content, or within enhancing digital trust and rights. I mean digital rights, digital trust, something like that. Rather than saying -- because access issues and human rights issues are different.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Maybe you're right. I'm just saying that I -- I hear recurrent reference to human rights as explicit reference in -- in those themes, and I would like, again, to reiterate. Lee, would you be ready to take up that task right now here in -- with a smaller group here and try to agree those who want to go to help them? Fiona, you cannot go because you will be reporting on the next point.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes, thank you. On that point, if it helps, I think what some of the feedback you're getting from people is, if these are the themes or variation of themes we're going to go with, and it links to the workshop proposals and people might not be able to see their workshop proposal on that topic, maybe an easy way to do that is just when we do the proposal application we include an "other" box for people to check that we can then evaluate and see where it fits, to deal with the issue that I think Bill was raising, but I would have no concerns with themes that are up there or your proposal to finish fleshing them out.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. We will -- we will see what the group will come up with.
The remote participant's comment on this specific issue? Remote participant comment on this issue, please.
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you. It's a comment from Veronica Cretu. She would like to say that she agrees with the proposed main themes and tracks. However, she would like to echo Lee's concerns and she proposes that there is a clear list of issues/subthemes identified that are formulated for each proposed theme in order to be also able to provide more clarity on what is expected from the potential workshop proposal applicants.
Otherwise, all the overarching themes must come under separate points with a clear description detail.
And she also -- she also would like to propose an overarching theme that would be IGF at the crossroads, which according to her resonates well with the place for the meeting and the whole spectrum of issues it is addressing today. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Veronica, for those proposals. The last one fits perfectly in Point Number 4.
That is, about crossroads.
While the group is trying to get consensus on Point Number 1 and human rights issue, let us move to the next item. That is evaluation and selection process.
If you could change -- put it on the screen. So Fiona, if you would be so kind to introduce the final version, and you -- all of you should have an e-mail that Fiona sent out that describes the proposal. Please, Fiona.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes. Thank you. So the e-mail went around right before the lunch break, so hopefully everyone's had a chance to take a look, which I think reflects the consensus proposal of the group.
There's just a couple of points to explain in terms of the stylistic presentation.
So the text in yellow are things that the whole MAG needs to do, that the workshop proposal group wasn't working on but needs reflected in this exercise. And I went ahead and tried to put in, based on the time line that Janis provided, in red what the deadlines or dates would be to fit in with the timetable you provided.
So basically we're dealing with three stages.
The -- yeah, the first stage is an initial screening. So once the proposal or the request for workshop proposals goes out, it will go out with a deadline, it will go out with a criteria, all the description of what's going to happen to people's proposals, so they know what to look for, when -- when the deadlines will be.
The secretariat will do an initial screening of the proposals when they first come in and then evaluate them based on the four sub-bullets there below.
These first three were from the IGF last year. The fourth one is a new one, and there was a significant discussion around limiting the number of proposals that could come from any particular institution or an individual.
You'll see that the -- so the fourth one -- fifth one. Sorry. You'll see that Number 3 is still in brackets. There was no agreement on whether it should be three or two in terms of which should be proposed, what the limits should be, so I bring that back to the group for consideration. There was no suggestion that it would be more than three. It would be three or less. There was also an agreement that MAG members themselves shouldn't be able to submit proposals but obviously institutions associated with MAG members would not be prohibited. So that's the first step in this process.
So the secretariat would do sort of a quick vetting to make sure that all this was addressed and then send something to the MAG list by the week of April 1st for MAG members to consider.
The discussion also was about whether or not we should be able to help people fix proposals, so in this effort, if the secretariat's recommending a proposal is insufficient, they would identify those and MAG members could take a look and figure out if there was a way to mentor someone or help them revisit their proposal to address this issue.
Then the next stage is the actual evaluation process. So this would -- this would get back to the consideration -- the criteria for evaluation or for consideration.
So MAG members would be asked to score proposals based on 1 through 5, with 5 being the highest. The checklist of factors are just things to think about. We would not be evaluating per line element but these are just things to think through.
We've addressed the issues raised by Subi and others in terms of identifying people, and we've also identified the addition from Matthew about having a workshop proposal specifically identify the problem or question that was going to be addressed.
In this part of the exercise, the secretariat would distribute the proposals to MAG members in an anonymized fashion so MAG members wouldn't know who the proposer was but it would be indicated if the proposal was from a developing country, so people were sensitive to that. That was a request that was made.
And again, the reason for doing this evaluation in this way is to rank-order to scale to the space availability of the venue and practicality of multiple sessions.
You will notice there's also a line that if someone gives a proposal a 3 or less, they actually take the time to identify the deficiencies in the proposal. This is important for the next step in terms of going back and helping people learn what was done incorrectly or how to grow and advance their proposal next time.
So the next stages would happen at the May 19th-21st meeting. The MAG members would be given, a week before, a compilation of the scores and the proposals. At the meeting itself, we would talk through those things. We would look at the categories or themes, make sure each theme was equally represented, if that was appropriate, and then take a look at the 5 or 10 proposals that were sort of below this threshold and see if there was a way to fix them based on the deficiencies.
Those proposers would then be contacted by the secretariat with an explanation as to what the deficiencies were, asking them to resubmit some additional text, and again, MAG members can be available for coaching if needed.
And then if the proposer actually responds, the expectation is they would get a slot in the -- in the schedule, and then this would allow the final schedule to be published on June 30th.
In the discussion we actually went through, we eliminated the concept of an appeals process, as such, but the May 19th through 21st meeting actually allows that appeals process concept to happen in the full MAG. So this was the proposal from the group.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you very much and if we can go maybe one -- one by one, that proposal, there are three steps proposed and if we can examine one by one in -- in detail.
So the first is initial screening based on -- no. Sorry. Let's start -- start from higher up.
There are evaluation sort of criteria, selection criteria, which are fairness, transparency, inclusiveness, practicality and efficiency.
So any objections to those criteria? Izumi?
>>IZUMI AIZU: Where about the relevance to the Internet governance we used to use?
>> FIONA ALEXANDER: Hi. I'm sorry. I just wanted to point out that those five fairness, those are the principles for developing the evaluation procedure. When you're discussing the selection criteria, they're under the stage one.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: May I take that this is roughly agreeable? So thank you. We can move on now to the first step as described, initial screening. Are there any objection the secretariat does initial screening, seeing whether proposals are relevant based on, again, the criteria which are described? Body language says fine.
Unresolved issue is how many proposals one organization can submit. For the moment, there is three, meaning not more than three.
Marilyn, do you have an opinion about that?
>>MARILYN CADE: I do and I was probably one of the people that was most concerned about this. I had originally thought that it should be two, three to four. I do think it has to stay under -- it has to stay really very much in the vicinity.
But I really wanted to comment on this idea that MAG members shouldn't submit proposals but the institutions that they're affiliated with could.
I hope that means that that total number is also applying to the institutions so that anyone who is submitting a proposal, whether they are an individual, which I hope -- or group or association or blah, blah, blah -- I would ask the room but I think it has to be under four. Some of you are more experienced than I have, although I have read every workshop proposal ever submitted but not had to evaluate them.
Three to four sounds right to me, and I know from the small group that three was the ceiling that you had recommended.
Since I had taken it up, I wanted to comment.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. My understanding also is if we are talking about a number, that applies to everybody across the board being organization or small or big or individual.
Paul, please.
>>PAUL RENDEK: Thank you very much, Janis. I agree and that was, indeed, the discussion that we had this morning. I was one of the people that asked for the number three to be put into brackets because I, myself, after having done this a few times here in the MAG believe that three is quite a large number. I was pushing more along the lines of two because I believe that any one organization could probably focus on one or two main things they can contribute to this forum. I believe we need to give a chance to some of these organizations that haven't had a chance to submit here. And I think that lowering this number will possibly get us to spread out a little bit more instead of concentrating on what we've seen with the possibility of repeat offenders. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Paul. I understand you favored two, but you can live also with three, right? I see you agree with me.
Izumi?
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, Chair. For the number, yes, I also like to see two instead of three. I can live.
The next one, the MAG members will not submit proposals, I have some reservation about this. Of course, depending on what is the basis of this, that should be well shared. There is different class or title of MAG members. We are very diverse. Some of them are usual suspects. Others are not necessarily. They're new. So limiting -- there are ways to circumvent anyway. Write the proposal and put the name and email address of your friend or whoever. That's about it.
But to me if we restrict the numbers of proposals anyway, then that can be applied to the MAG members. Maybe only one proposal per MAG member. I don't see it is as a problem combined with the suggestion by Fiona, the evaluation team will be separate from the appeal team and stuff like that. One way is that a member who submits the proposal would refrain from becoming an evaluation. That's one way to put it.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Fiona, If you would clarify a little bit. From my side, I would like to say that there was discussion yesterday about potential conflict of interest. In looking in retrospect -- (audio dropped.)
>> FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes, thank you, Janis. So in this discussion this afternoon and afternoon, eliminated the appeals process per se but it evolved to be a full MAG discussion at the meeting on May 19th.
I think there are others that spoke to this very strongly. They felt it was really important that MAG members themselves on the basis of neutrality and clarity not be submitting proposals. This was a very strong sentiment by many people in the group. Others in the group should speak to it. There was actually no disagreement about this statement but very strong support for this limitation on MAG members.
(Gavel).
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: If I may ask you, a few decibels lower, your emotions, please, in that corner. Thank you.
Vlada, please.
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Thank you. And for warning them as well.
Just wanted to say that the fact that, for instance, it will be two will not prevent organizations to co-organize with someone else. Someone else will propose and the organization will be a co-organizer, whatever. People will always find ways. We can't really stop it. The point is that we send a clear signal that you can't go beyond a certain level. I will keep two. I think two is fair enough, and they will find a way to be somewhere if they want but two is fine.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. Maybe we need to look for humming again.
Hossam?
>>HOSSAM ELGAMAL: It is just an idea. We may accept four for consideration but only two would be -- or three would be accepted in the final stage because it doesn't mean that they submitted three. The three would be accepted at the end. Am I right?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So I think -- Fiona, please.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: This idea was also discussed in the small group. The challenge is because the MAG is reviewing the proposals in an anonymous fashion, we don't know who submitted what. There would be no way to actually go back and do that exercise. That's why there was a decision to actually put a limit upfront, but we did discuss that option as well.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. Paul.
>> PAUL RENDEK: Thank you very much, Janis. I'm supportive of the statement made by Fiona that the group was very much, indeed, supporting that MAG members do not submit proposals. I myself was one of them that did support that.
I don't think it sends the right message outside. I think it may send a message that looks like this group has some kind of privilege for being here and can submit proposals and people can perceive that as proposals being accepted because we are here as a group and some of us know each other fairly well.
So for the sake of transparency and fairness and letting people not have to talk about this, I think that this is a very good conclusion. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Wendy?
>>WENDY SELTZER: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since I don't think my hum was recorded, I just want to express my strong support for limiting the number upfront and I think encouraging people to prioritize their own selection of submissions down to two is a valuable way of helping the MAG ensure that it's looking at a diverse set of participants.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. I think that in every country in the world, the proverb "good things come in three" resonates. And maybe based on this longstanding collective wisdom, we could agree on three and the MAG members, individual members, would be encouraged to abstain from submitting proposals. At the same time, organizations MAG members work in would be encouraged or would not have any specific limitations in this respect.
So can we go with that type of formulation and understanding? I see humming. And there is -- at the end of the room, there is a request for the floor. Unfortunately, I cannot see. If you would please go ahead but please tell me your name. Sorry. It's too far.
>> KOSSI AMESSINOU: Thank you, Chairman. May I speak in French? Okay.
Kossi Amessinou. I come from Benin. I'm in favor of having the members of MAG not submitting any proposals. I'm also in favor that the non-submission of members by MAG would not be imposed on the institutions.
And I would like to suggest the following. The three proposals that are accepted do not focus on the same issue. For each institution, we have different issues so that these institutions or structures do not appropriate a single issue. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you very much for this proposal. I think there's difficulty with the last proposal that you made because if an organization is a technical organization and would like to look at two issues that are close but actually different, then it would be imposing a restriction that, in fact, not really justified. If an organization or a body that is a big organization with a diversified mandate like UNESCO, for example, it would be quite appropriate to ask the organization to look at that issues that fall under different agenda items. Thank you.
So the second stage, since we have agreement on the first one with the limitation of three proposals and the MAG members would not be encouraged to submit but the organizations they represent certainly would be.
Now, the second stage is the evaluation process. Evaluation process, if you could scroll down. Chengetai, if you would come back to the meeting.
We have evaluation process based on a clearly defined considerations, scoring 1 to 5 and that would be completed by May 2.
Any comments, objections on that proposal, on that part? Could you scroll down a little bit? Slowly so people can go through again, if needed. Slower, slower.
(saying name).
>> Thank you very much, Chairman. I just wanted to emphasize that it is (audio cutting out) (incomprehensible audio) the format of workshop they will organize (indiscernible).
>> REMOTE INTERVENTION: (indiscernible audio). And she agrees with your idea, Mr. Chairman off having three as a maximum number. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Any comments on the second stage? Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: One clarification, Chairman. You said the MAG members would be discouraged. I think it is disallowed, right? We decided that.
And the second one is relevance of topic to the Internet governance or to the themes of IGF 2014? Because Internet governance, it would be difficult to judge because everybody can believe that we are submitting something which is important, but we have themes that's relevant to that exercise which would be public well in advance of this. So we should just think of that?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Fiona, would you like to comment?
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: I think that's a worthwhile edit to consider. I don't think the group meant to limit it in any way whatsoever. So I think to edit it to say relevance to the topic of the 2014 IGF themes, that's fine. And I have added in about the remote participation.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: (saying name).
>> (saying name). At the end, we end up with a ranking (audio cutting out). The project itself was (indiscernible) too short. So how can we prevent -- arbitrary lines set to prevent the good proposals not being selected?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: (Audio difficulty).
In this stage, we would conclude during the onsite 19th of May, tentatively in May. We would discuss all those issues. We would address three questions. Probably that will not be majority. In any case, there will be a limitation and the limitation will be number of rooms we could do parallel session. Number of sessions per day we know this is two times three hours, mean four times one and a half hours or six times one hour or 12 times half-hour. That is the limitation. We will deal with those issues afterwards.
I see no request for the floor.
So we will be juggling with those issues afterwards.
So I see no requests for the floor. I take it that this is acceptable.
And then you see that after the face-to-face meeting and all decisions which also may be in a form, this proposal looks kind of good but there are shortfalls and then those shortfalls will be addressed after a decision is taken and the quality of proposal or concept would be improved, and then we would aim at finalizing final schedule by end of June, which would then give two months to prepare the meeting.
Vlad, you are in agreement, right?
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Absolutely. It's just a matter of a practical suggestion because the first next step is not the evaluation but the application process, right?
So as we have, I would basically call on Mary to send the final document that we had -- or Tero or whoever was in the group -- the final document from the last year, maybe to Fiona and Susan and their group and then they could just fit all these things into the application form.
And another thing is that basically not on evaluation, but again on the application form, maybe we can also ask people on their priority of the duration, because some people might say that half an hour or an hour is enough, so we can just give them an option, 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes. Probably all of them will mark 90 but let's give it a try. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you for that proposal.
Susan?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to echo Vlad's comment about practicalities and how we need to move quickly.
We didn't discuss the application form or all of the elements that should be included within the application form, so that's -- that's something that we'll have to have a discussion about rather soon, but I just wanted to -- to agree with- -- -- (off microphone) --
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. I take, then, that we have finalized a proposal for evaluation and selection process. We will include that description of the evaluation and selection in the document, the call for proposal, so that everybody knows up front how these proposals will be evaluated.
And now we may want to return to the first item on themes, and I -- I call on Lee to see if we have a proposal on the first point on the issue of human rights.
Lee, please.
>>LEE HIBBARD: Thank you. I don't know if I can answer the question about the "local" in the first point but I defer to somebody else in that respect. But with regard to human rights, we discussed it quite with -- quite a lot over there. You heard us.
It evokes a lot of discussion. There's a lot of demand for this -- this field of work, this issue, and I don't think -- we tried to look at it in the context of the existing group of six bullets there, particularly 2 and 5, but it doesn't seem to fit. It doesn't fly, really. It's compromised output somewhat, and the need for it to have its own space, at least at this time, at this particular time in the process of the IGF.
So there's a demand for a separate -- an additional bullet on Internet and human rights, in addition to the six we have there.
It should be before emerging issues in terms of the order, too.
And I guess next time we -- well, in the next steps, we can see exactly what demand there is for these issues and then we can readjust accordingly.
But the demand for human rights is very much present and I think people were very happy to see that be the case. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I hear humming? Do I?
I hear it.
Thank you. Jivan?
>>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI: I think there was also agreement that there should be some kind of a reporting process throughout, so we can touch upon this, perhaps, over the next month or so, but there was also agreement on that, but -- yeah.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: And we will get to the reporting in every session. For the moment, we're just on themes.
Who can tell me about the formulation of the first point?
Virat, please.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: We decided to leave it as-is till May and then see, based on what kind of response we receive, to alter it and keep that option open. That was the sense of the house that met.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. I am a bit now uncomfortable because I think we should not change the rules of the game during the game, and if we -- I think we should strive to formulate the theme right now, today.
It would be -- I think we may be misunderstood if suddenly in May we start changing themes and then evaluate changing one and not changing others.
I think we need to try, if we can, to arrive at a rough consensus on all themes that we have here and to put them in writing, send them to all potential participants, saying, "This is the framework. Please feel free to propose your ideas."
I have reactions. Let me start with Ana first. Then Marilyn.
>>ANA NEVES: Thank you, Janis.
Well, on the first theme, I think that after our -- our discussion, "national policies enabling access" is the best one. At least it is for me. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Marilyn?
>>MARILYN CADE: I would welcome humming in support of the chair's proposal and support it myself with the following rationale.
I think last year one of the reasons we got into so much trouble was not making it clear what the boundaries were, and then people had workshops that didn't easily fit.
If we can provide this kind of frame within which proposals are submitted, I think we will be doing the community and the success of the IGF a great favor.
So I would urge that we try to do this and --
Otherwise, people, we have such a short deadline, we are going to have to accelerate outreach to a broad community to let people know that they can submit workshops. We're already going to get lots of questions about, "Wait a minute, there's only three," blah, blah, blah.
If they send in a lot of workshop proposals that then have to be rejiggered, everybody is in trouble in terms of meeting the program dates.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Tero?
>>TERO MUSTALA: Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I -- I'm more than unhappy now with this kind of conclusion because I was already unhappy, actually, with the previous decision to change the early one to Internet governance, to limit that to the area of this list for the coming meeting because I think it should be open-ended somehow. And now if we have -- we are making a loop if we take the freedom to change this list after the deadline for the submissions is over. So it will be even more strange.
And I'm happy to leave this kind of open, but -- but I would like that we make this bottom-up, not top-down.
If we, in the submission form, state that everything has to be relevant to this list of seven issues or areas, it's a kind of top-down approach. And if after that, we say that, "Okay, we may even change this list afterwards," then I'm more than unhappy.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. No, this is why we're trying to finalize the list.
I would not agree with your saying that this is a top-down. Actually, we -- we made an attempt of compiling or clustering themes which were submitted by the community. We cannot go with 55 themes to the meeting saying that this is -- this is how it is and this is very good.
There should be some kind of prioritization and structure, because we have limitations, and that is -- that is what we do. And that does not prevent people from submitting their proposals based also on subthemes which are not listed here on the screen but which you have in your -- in your computer in this file which was sent.
There are many other subthemes which fit in those main themes.
Michael and then -- and then Mr. Chen.
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Just a facetious comment. I personally am very glad to see that Internet and human rights is in a larger font size.
In my continued effort to find a way to resolve the concerns about Number 1, could we perhaps just shorten it to just "actions enabling access"?
Because that would, I think, again, get us to the practical -- I would prefer "practical actions enabling access," but shorter is better, so "actions enabling access."
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Mr. Chen?
>>HONGBING CHEN: Thank you, Janis.
Just one observation about inserting Number 6 into these themes. It's always my idea that human rights is a big notion which is encompassing and it touches upon many elements in our social life, and here if we consider the previous six themes, we can see that human rights is a cross-cutting -- is of a cross-cutting nature, it touches upon different topics. So it seems to me that now, the setup is not so logic, if we inserted Number 6 here, but I can also see the majority of the -- or many colleagues want to keep it, but it's --
I can live with it, but I'm not happy with it. This is the -- my observation.
And plus that -- besides that, I think there are also other issues which deserves our special attention which has been neglected, such as the managing critical Internet resources, which has always been a very good topic. Especially under such -- the current circumstances. And this issue need -- deserves our further attention at IGF.
If possible, I would like propose that -- to insert another item titled as "managing critical Internet resources." Thank you, Chairman.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chen.
I appreciate your flexibility and I think that what we're trying to do here is to find the balance that everybody feels equally unhappy, or equally happy. Since we cannot make everybody happy, so that means equally unhappy.
The -- maybe we could come back and talk a little bit more about human rights, specifically those colleagues who have suggested that human rights should be prominently mentioned as a specific theme.
There were a number of -- both from governments, from civil society, from intergovernmental organizations on --
Can we try to close the first one, the first point? "Actions enabling access"? Would that be something which would -- which would be acceptable? Igor?
>>IGOR MILASHEVSKY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm not sure that I understand correctly what does it mean, "actions." I can find another word like "movement" or -- or "speaking" or what does it mean, "actions"?
"Policies" is okay. "Local policy" is okay. "Public policies" could reflect the idea. That's first.
And the second -- where did we lose this point about critical Internet resources? Thank you. My position is to keep as it is, the first.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Yeah. Okay. May I now suggest that we suspend this discussion for a few minutes?
Our honorary chair has an obligation outside the Palais and I would like to ask him to address the MAG with -- for his closing remarks.
>>AHMET ERDING CAVUSOGLU: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, dear colleagues, dear friends, it's been -- it's my first time in a MAG meeting and I have had really much pleasure to be here with you in the MAG meeting and I'm going to follow the forthcoming ones, of course, since I'm going to probably -- most probably I'm going to chair the IGF on September on behalf of Turkey.
For the time being, I have to leave early because I have an appointment out of Palais, so I want to thank you very much for everything and I have seen very fruitful discussions here. I hope we're going to see the fruitful outcomes of all those discussions very soon, and I wish a safe trip back home to everyone.
So I'm going now and I have an appointment out of Palais and tomorrow I'm going to go home and hope to see you in the next meeting.
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Dr. Ahmet, for all your support and we certainly will do our best to fulfill all your expectations.
Now, coming back to the -- to the -- our discussion about our point. .
We had really many thoughts and at one point we came to a conclusion that maybe "national policies enabling access" at that point seemed appropriate.
Then we tried -- not everybody was overly happy, but then we tried again and we are back to the point that we do not have really consensus. Even a rough one.
And let me try again now, for the -- also for the sake of time, to propose to review that proposal on "national policies enabling access," and the body language of some of you tells me that that might fly.
And Virat, will you confirm that?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: I think -- Mr. Chairman, I think I would -- I will just spend 30 seconds on this. The words -- the word "policy" was used because we wanted the governments to come and discuss this stuff with our participants on what's working.
We said "local policies" because several of us believed, and the list that was thrown up showed that national and local policies were the most important in getting this going. But there are comments about regional policies.
If this is going to be a main theme and will translate itself into a main session or a series of workshops, then people should have a broad subject, as has been suggested from the floor, to submit proposals for regional, national, and global dialogue. People will come and say what they have to. We should not make it top-down.
So we can try a hum for just "policies enabling Internet access" and one for "national policies" and depending on the hum, we should then close this.
We can try first with "policies enabling Internet access."
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. And what's another point?
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So the culture is not still present here. We need -- we need to exercise maybe over lunchtime.
Michael, please.
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Let me try another hum. The word I keep hearing is "best practices," so perhaps we need policies and practices enabling access? I don't know if I hear any hums for that.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Peter, you asked for the floor a while ago.
>>PETER MAJOR: Well, very shortly, "national policies enabling access," that's what I chose, and your assessment about setting strict rules, I fully agree with that. We don't change the rules during the game.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. We're still on the first one. We're trying -- desperately trying to -- to conclude.
Robert, do you want to speak on the first one?
>>ROBERT SHLEGEL: I believe that we need to keep local, regional, and national access policy, because it's a lot to consider the best practice. In this regard, I think we should be more (indiscernible). We need to address specific issues rather than very common topics. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Hossam?
>>HOSSAM ELGAMAL: I heard the word and I think it's commonly used, "public policies," and "public policies" would be acceptable for any, whether on a global or on a local level.
So "public policies enabling Internet access."
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: I very strongly echo and support "local policies." The main idea also was to ensure that we amplify government participation and they would have a lot to share and tell if we're talking about policies, either about broadband plans or access or any other related efforts.
This also encapsulates national and regional initiatives. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Coming from the governmental side, I clearly know that all government representatives would be delighted to speak about public policies.
So that's -- that maybe is -- and public policies by the way certainly are local, national, but equally, public policies might be regional and international, if there is a possibility of agreement in the room.
So "public policies"? Would that fly? "Public policies enabling access"? "Public policies enabling access"?
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
I think that has agreement. Good. So we have agreement on the point 1.
Now let's address two outstanding issues. One is human rights which was proposed as a separate topic and one which was raised that there are no explicit mentioning of the critical resources.
And on the last one, I would say there is clearly home for that. And we know where this issue will be discussed in depth, at the very high level in the plenary meeting, and that is under theme point Number 4. So that will be the one where we will be talking about IANA function evolution, where we will be talking about ICANN evolution, where we will be talking about enhanced cooperation, where we will be talking about WSIS review and also future of IGF. So that is the home. And there is no ambiguity about it.
So the question is whether that is satisfactory as a point.
Mr. Lee.
>> XIAODONG LEE: Mr. Chairman, I believe you are right. I'm a new MAG member, and also I believe that so many newcomers for the IGF meeting could be confused how to discuss the critical infrastructure and the critical resources in the future of the ecosystem. So I think it is not very clear.
But I believe this year and after this year, it is very, very important to discuss the IANA function and some Internet innovation. So Number 4 is too generic. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Mr. Chen.
>>HONGBING CHEN: Thank you, Janis. As you have repeatedly mentioned, that managing critical Internet resources is actually one of the most important topics in previous IGF. Now because there is some new situation developing, I think this issue should not be sidelined and it deserves our special attention. And I do not see that colleagues -- any colleague would -- how to say -- opposed to that, opposed to discussion on this topic, on this issue. So because it's already in the previous IGF as the subthemes. So maybe it is preferable that we insert a new theme as managing critical Internet resources. That makes it very clear and giving us -- sending out the information that we need to pay attention to this issue. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Any reaction? There were very strong proposals about human rights. I would like to hear arguments. Again, I would not like to be in a position of arguing with all of you, rather listening to your discussion.
Hossam, please.
>>HOSSAM ELGAMAL: Basically, I think one of the major confusion we have for the group that was not with the themes group is that when we did themes and facts, we had subthemes. And in the subthemes, it was clear where we find the human rights, where we find the critical infrastructure, et cetera. So maybe, once again, maybe Subi or someone help us remembering the subthemes that we talked about. And so this maybe brings together the situation to a clear position. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Chair.
I actually wanted to (dropped out). We were trying very hard back here not just to hum, not to hum but we tried to say no. I won't belabor the point.
But public policies limits the discussion to what governments do. And I think in the IGF, we have a multistakeholder approach. So I'm a little bit cautious about that.
I don't understand why we can't just have "policies enabling Internet access: Local, regional and global."
And on the human rights issue, I think that human rights is definitely going to feature into all the other themes, so not disputing that at all.
But what we felt in our subgroup is that it was important, the IGF has adopted human rights. It links the IGF to other U.N. agencies and to the universal declaration. It sent an important message and now many different aspects of human rights. So having that main session or that main theme, sorry -- it is not a session -- sends that message.
I don't think that that contradicts the fact that human rights will feature into the other themes. And, in fact, having a focus on human rights means we can really synthesize and gather all the discussions around human rights in content creation, for example.
So I don't think there is a contradiction there. And I think it is a sufficiently important theme for us to give it that prominence.
And also not to backtrack, I know there's not -- I know there are different perspectives on this. But I think it's a message that we've been sending as the IGF in the last two years, that we really care about human rights. And it would be a pity to lose that. So I strongly emphasize that we keep it.
And then just with regard to other comments, I think we should remember, unless things have changed, that the themes that we develop as MAG do not preclude proponents of sessions to submit proposals on other topics. So I think -- Tero, I'm not sure if you were concerned about that. But I think that's very important.
That's been an ethic and a principle in the IGF that the MAG provides guidance but we also allow the IGF community to propose sessions on any other or new or emerging topic.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Anriette.
Paul?
>> PAUL RENDEK: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to sympathize actually with your concerns about wanting to change the game on the fly. I think that would send out a horrible message coming from this group. I also believe that this is not being put in any kind of a top-down effort. In fact, all the discussions we have here from all the fantastic people from all the different places around the world and in different areas shows that we are very much in keeping with a bottom-up and open way of forming these kinds of topics.
I would like to echo Anriette -- our colleague Anriette's concerns about the first theme. I believe that -- I think -- I believe there are other issues besides just public policy that can be talked about in "enabling access." I could very much live with the idea of "policies enabling access" and the colon and the rest of the words she put behind that. I think that would be quite fitting.
The word "policy" is there, and I hope that governments would see that that would obviously include them as part of this.
I'm actually also very happy to see point Number 6 put on to this list. These two seemingly simple words "human rights" which are so huge, and there has been so much discussion on this over the years, and it is there, and I'm pleased personally to see that it is there.
I think that other issues that would come up can be put in any other one of these topics but there is an overarching message here that human rights is taken seriously within this forum and should be able to be discussed inside this forum.
The last point I wanted to make was on point Number 4 because, Mr. Chair, when you actually gave me the sub pieces of what that included which very much relates to my own -- the business I do daily outside of this room, I realized where it fit. And, perhaps, I'm supporting our colleague's message here that this may be a little bit too broad because I wouldn't have seen what you had mentioned as being the subpieces of this.
Perhaps what's not meshing with me is the word "IGF" and then the "future of the Internet ecosystem" because what you have listed as the subthemes there underneath that, I'm finding it hard to believe how you would relate IGF to those because they are very much components of Internet administration what you've listed there.
So I'm sorry at this time, I don't have a suggestion. But I think that we can work a little bit more on Item 4. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. The explanation is very simple. That is, IGF is a platform where all those issues are discussed and that is a direct link.
We have 40 minutes remaining, and I really want to get to kind of a conclusion.
Jivan, please.
>>JIVAN GJORGINSKI: Actually, I thought that we had concluded most of the issues. I was surprised that even we were bringing some of these back up, "public policies "-- perhaps just "enabling access." But, fine, whatever for that one.
You know, I don't see these things as folders into which you put files. I see them as tags and then, you know, they all go -- they can all intermingle their -- it is going to go into different paths and then we can mesh them together. So just a way to look at things, perhaps a change into how we look at this.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Paul. Paul Wilson?
>>PAUL WILSON: I was actually going to make a similar comment. It's late after a long discussion, but I really find that this is a heavy-weight process. We're getting bogged down in wording. It's frustrating. It's happened before, I know. I mean, I just wonder how important it is to have this discussion, whether really we're just following a well-worn path with the idea that somehow the IGF needs to have these themes and tracks put forward as some sort of marketing message, I suppose, to tell people what the meeting is about.
And, hopefully, the IGF is well-known enough to know for people to know that the IGF is about Internet governance. And if you want to have a sort of presentation of what it's about, then a long list of topics, I think, is very appropriate. At the coming IGF, we will be talking about public policies. We'll be talking about enabling access. We will be talking about all of these things, and we can break them up into shorter topic tags. And I was going to make exactly the point that if someone who is wanting to submit a session proposal simply has a list of topics and they can tick the topics that apply, then those topics will be populated with many, many proposals and they can be accessed through the Web site in a way that actually shows that under any one of these topics, there will be plenty of things to be discussed.
I just find that, frankly, I think we're kind of wasting time and we're overemphasizing and creating a very heavy-weight top-down process where it's actually not needed. Thanks.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Paul.
Again, I'm in your hands. And, as I said, what we need to do, this is a balancing act. Again, it is not a top-down -- I do not accept that this is a top-down process. This is an attempt to cluster and put a tag or label on the cluster from the 50-plus proposals which were given by the community in the answering of our call for proposals, what should be addressed.
I think it is unfeasible to go with the list of 50-plus themes and subthemes like in the one list. People may get confused, and so we should put some kind of structure. And this is what we're trying to do.
So I hear what you say. And my experience also shows that we may spend hours and hours discussing whether that is a legal text or conceptual question. But people will do things they want to do anyway.
But, again, you see, if we go out of this room, 95% are happy and 5% are unhappy. So we are setting up ourselves for failure.
So what we need to find is a formulation which makes everybody equally unhappy because it is impossible to get every equally happy. Again, this is from my experience. And this is what we're trying to do.
And I want to hear those who spoke in favor of human rights at the beginning of this discussion to come and try to convince those who say we don't need a specific mentioning of human rights because it is not up to me to argue with those who say no. I want to hear those who proposed that why this is so important and try to convince those who are not convinced.
The same applies for critical resources. It was not on the table -- never been on the table. Nobody asked for it. It was asked after human rights notion was introduced. Again, it is very legitimate to raise this concern because that is an issue which has been on the agenda and will remain on the agenda. It was not explicitly mentioned.
I explained where that would be mentioned. It seems that this is not sufficient, so that is where we're spending this time in discussing whether that will change something in intentions to submit proposals on any of those issues. I would bet my own money saying no, it will not change anything. Nevertheless, we need to go out, all of us, convinced that this is the best outcome that we could get today.
Fiona?
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes, thank you, Janis. I think my preference on the first bullet would be to actually go with what Anriette proposed. But I think to move things forward, I would be willing to accept the list as is on the table currently right now.
I do think for those that don't see themselves in these criteria or would look for somewhere else to submit proposals, again, I offer the idea that when we do the workshop proposal request form, we include these seven items and then we also include a Number 8 "other." and when we are evaluating the proposals we could then naturally put them into the ones that were relevant. If for some reason we have a proposal that doesn't cover that, we can deal with that when we meet in May.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Susan?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to also express support for what Jivan and Paul had mentioned.
>> We can't hear you.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Is this on? Is this thing on? Okay. Also had a very difficult time trying to place things into files. I think that tagging methodology is something that we should consider for next year. Maybe we can have a discussion about that next year. But for the time being, acknowledging all the work that's been done. Just would like to reserve that option.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you.
Mr. Chen?
>>HONGBING CHEN: Janis, nothing more. Just talk about my proposal about inserting one more theme, managing critical Internet resources since no colleague has raised any opposition. So I can see that there is a general agreement because this is a topic that has been discussed and will remain on the table in any sense.
So, as a Chairman, would you please just exercise your power to insert this new item? Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chen. I see a number of flags up, and I know what is coming.
Let me -- since really we have half an hour to go and still a few issues to discuss. Let me give a try to a compromise proposal which, again, I think would address those concerns which have been raised here and maybe would help us move on.
And that is to delete Number 6 and add point in point Number 1, "enhancing digital rights and trust" and do not change anything else in the text.
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Number -- I would suggest as a compromise, and taking into account everything which was said here, that we would formulate Point Number 5, "enhancing digital rights and trust," and delete Point Number 6 and remain -- and that would be seven points -- sorry, six points on the agenda. Six tags on the agenda.
So Robert, please.
>>ROBERT SHLEGEL: The question of human rights on the Internet is key because there is violations occurring worldwide and we must respond to it. Otherwise, it threatens the integrity of the Internet. I would -- I think that it would be a mistake to remove it, to delete it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: I take back my proposal. I take back my proposal.
Now then, let us try another -- another way.
Would we agree to add, as Mr. Chen proposed, "critical Internet resources"? Maybe not as a specific point but add it into Point 4? "Future of Internet ecosystem including critical Internet resources"?
Igor?
>>IGOR MILASHEVSKY: I think it is very important to focus on -- on infrastructure, on administration, regulation, on this level, to be able to talk about resilience and transparency.
I would rather support the suggestion to add a new topic than to put it into Number 4 since Number 4 is too wide. Critical resources was too focused.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Matthew, you were raising your hand?
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair.
I'm a little lost in where we are at the moment but let me just kind of say what I was going to say.
I like the list as it stands at the moment on the screen. Not the -- not what we've just been discussing but as it stands. And if there's any way that we can move forward with that and addressing the issue of public policies by just removing the word "public" and going with "policies enabling access." Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. We cannot because there is opposition to that. We need to find a compromise.
Izumi, you were asking for the floor a while ago.
>>IZUMI AIZU: Thank you, Chair.
First, I would like to support what Fiona suggested to have, "other," which may -- because I have seen several proposals last year that doesn't really fit to the given theme but still they are relevant to the Internet governance.
For the first item, I -- I have a problem with the "public," but I can't really put some alternative yet. I'd like to see something.
On the human rights issue, I thank you, Janis, for you taking it back because I think it's -- starting out, it's kind an important issue, and last year we had human rights, freedom of expression and the free flow of information as one track, so I think still to keep this human rights is a continuation from last year's and I'd like to support that.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Okay. The question, then, is whether -- Mr. Chen, whether you would support -- if there would be a separate item which would just say "Internet critical" -- or "critical Internet resources," would you be ready to accept everything else?
So Mr. Chen would be ready to accept everybody else if we have a specific point on critical Internet resources and the rest stays as-is.
Would that fly as a proposal? Fiona?
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: I guess my only question, then, would be what would be the difference between that and Number 4?
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: The Number 4 is broader than just critical Internet resources. Number -- Number 4 is also about organizational arrangements. It is not just about managing of, for instance, domain name systems or numbers, parameters, so it is -- it is much, much broader political notion. And as a compromise, as you heard, there would be readiness to accept specific Point Number 6 as it is now, "Internet and human rights," if there would be a point on critical Internet resources.
That is not new. We have been -- we have had that every year in a row.
Please.
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: So I think -- I don't have a problem with seeing the words "critical Internet resources." I just think it can be captured in the Number 4. So if it's the need to see the words why can't it be "IGF and the future of the Internet ecosystem including critical Internet resources"?
I just don't see the need to do two topics of the same thing when in even the explanation, the new addition is quite clearly a subtheme of the broader theme.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We have really 20 minutes and ticking.
Xiaodong?
>>XIAODONG LEE: I think -- Mr. Chairman, I think it's okay to add "critical Internet structure" into Number 4 but I have another comment about Number 6.
So, you know, as a -- as a professor, you know, I from the (indiscernible) point of view. I don't think it is necessary to add Number 6 because, you know, human rights means many things. So accessing the Internet is a human right. And I also use my localized domain name to access the Internet as a human right. So it's not parallel issues. It's vertical issues. I suggest maybe you can just (indiscernible) to (indiscernible) to Number 5 (indiscernible) trust. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Please -- I'm sorry. I'm still learning the names. Anju?
>>ANJU MANGAL: Thanks. In terms of the first one, "public policy enabling access," "public" to me is very government-oriented.
And again, like I said, we need to emphasize on the need of small island developing states that need a lot of help in terms of developing policies.
Some of these developing island states, they do not have ICT policies. They simply don't. So who is going to help them? So these are the regional organizations that sort of help them. So if you're just saying "public," it's just focusing on governmental but not focusing on just sort of the regional aspect.
In relation to Internet and -- sorry. In relation to Internet and human rights, in the era of climate change, I mean most of the developing countries would probably be underwater, like for example (saying name) Tuvalu. So we need to look at the human rights aspect because I think one of my colleagues mentioned the displacement of some of these people. I mean, where are they going to go? What's going to happen to their infrastructure, Internet infrastructure in the world?
So I think that this is something very important, so I -- I suggest that we keep Number 6 and we delete "public" and we just put -- just have "policies enabling access."
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Did you ask for the floor, Kossi? I give you the floor.
>>KOSSI AMESSINOU: Thank you very much, Chairman.
Well, what we're saying now creates a lot of confusion because to have the idea of Internet governance accepted in our country, we have to demystify the situation and to speak specifically about what the population can benefit from when it uses the Internet.
And what Kim just talked about, namely the use of critical resources, we have to integrate this with the global integration of future ecosystems.
I'm also not really happy with the fact that we are somehow stratifying human rights and the Internet as if they're separate issues, and when I look at the courses given in universities in our countries, I think that we will be much more effective if we include all of this under Agenda Item 5. I think everyone will benefit from that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So maybe the African continent speaks on behalf of all of us, and what Kossi just said was to attach a notion of human rights to Point Number 5 and critical Internet resources to Point Number 4.
Would that -- would that be acceptable?
No. No.
Look, I -- I think we have reached today the limit. I think we are stuck in the formulations where no one wants to show flexibility, and I really regret that, and what -- what are the consequences of our inability today to agree on these formulations is that we need to bring that on line, and on line means a number of circles of exchange of views, formulations, and attempts to reach agreement by sovereign procedure. And since we are planning to -- or we are attempting to send out a call for proposals by end of next week, I'm afraid that we may not be able to do that if we do not have an agreement.
And so I really want to -- want to appeal and see if we can show proper flexibility, and as I see, we have only two options here.
Either we agree mentioning explicitly two -- two lines separately, Internet and human rights and as a separate line the critical Internet resources -- the remaining text stays as-is -- or we formulate Point Number 4, "IGF future Internet ecosystem, including critical Internet resources," and Point Number 5, reformulate "enhancing digital trust and human rights."
So I see that these are two viable sort of solutions that we need to look at.
Jivan?
>>JIVAN GJORGINSKI: I think that the rigidity might come from our viewing these things as very fixed things that we need to kind of fill.
You know, perhaps 2 is going to have, you know, 200 proposals and 3 is going to have 20 proposals. They're going to fill each other naturally and organically as needed.
If these are the two choices, Mr. Chair, then I would vote for the first one.
As you have said, critical Internet resources has been a topic that has been on the agenda every year in a row. It has been the reason why the Internet governance issue was -- became the issue it became during the WSIS process.
So perhaps it should be as a -- as a separate point there, but I wouldn't move human rights from where it is right now. I think that it is something that we need to keep and build on. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Mr. Chairman, there was a third option that was proposed during the discussion when the group met.
It was suggested that Point Number 5 be rephrased as "enhancing human rights and digital trust."
I think that is a viable option. And "critical Internet resources" get reflected really well in 3 and 4. I think that is something we can explore and work with.
There was also another suggestion already said that we could have human rights and place right on top and say that this is a cross-cutting theme, just like the capacity building track and regional and national IGF track. It does not need to be mentioned as Point Number 6 separately, if that is something that is causing so much agony.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Peter?
>>PETER MAJOR: Thank you, Janis.
I have a feeling that we are in the mode of treaty discussion.
I would like to remind you that we are the MAG. We are discussing Internet Governance Forum for 2014, so I would like to ask you to be flexible and be in the spirit of the Internet Governance Forum.
So whatever you suggest, chair, should it be Option 1, Option 2, it comes to the same thing.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Bill?
>>BILL DRAKE: Thank you. I -- time has passed, so let me try to return to -- I'll just say where I --
I would say that the critical -- I would say for 4, it should just be "critical Internet resources and the Internet ecosystem" and leave Internet human rights as 6.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Bill. You don't need to say if -- sorry that I didn't give you the floor before. Your flag was up and --
Robert?
>>ROBERT SHLEGEL: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that the topic on Internet and human rights can be combined with the first point, and we can formulate this point as "the Internet and human rights, enhancing digital trust." Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Mike?
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Just a quick couple points. We don't hum very well, but after the initial proposal on "critical Internet resources," I heard a lot of grumbling, so I think there is a lot of opposition to inserting that in that level. We did not have it as a theme last year.
If you look at the subthemes under Number 4, we have much more specific language that deals with the various critical resources, and I think that will certainly bring people to the meeting if they were looking for some reason to come.
We've already reached that community.
Paul Wilson said something very important, which is that these are really part of marketing, and we want to have a few crisp themes so that people can convince their organization to fund them to come to this meeting. We don't want a laundry list. We don't want confusing terms. We want things that they can point to and say, "Look, I have to be there because they're talking about access" or "they're talking about human rights."
So I would also comment that I was -- I was involved in the INET meetings which were held in the '90s and the early 2000s, and one thing we did is we ended up with too many things as our themes, and in the end, nobody thought they had to be there.
So I would again focus on shortening these and I would -- and definitely I would second what Subi said.
In our little breakout group, the second choice -- and a very strong second choice -- was turning 5 into "enhancing human rights and digital trust."
My concern about the present formulation that's on the screen is that right now, if you look at the subthemes under digital trust, they deal with privacy and security and many issues that would fall under human rights.
So right now, we've got overlapping topics. Combining them as "enhancing rights and digital trust" I think should meet the need and -- in making sure that it's clear in the subthemes, in the details under 4, that we are talking about critical Internet resources should be just sufficient.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you. Fatima?
>>FATIMA CAMBRONERO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question. Are there (indiscernible) limit of the subthemes? Because there is no -- I prefer a new separate point to "Internet critical resources and its evolution," for example, and -- or something like that, and maintain the point of Internet and human rights as a separated -- separated point.
I don't know if we have a limit of subthemes. Thank you.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: The limit is self-imposed, and the whole exercise was to cluster the themes proposed by the community in a set which this group would feel comfortable with and would recommend to the rest of the community as a guidance for the selection of -- yeah, for the selection of the workshops or events during the meeting.
So it used to be four. It may be five. Of course it may be 10. But then we're losing completely focus, and there is more than five already. It is a bit unfocused.
Nevertheless, I'm in your hands.
I want to hear your agreement on whatever you can agree.
Patrick?
>>PATRICK RYAN: Janis, a minor point. On Number 4, "IGF and the future of Internet ecosystem," it is grammatically incorrect. It should be "the Internet ecosystem." I get the impression that that term "Internet ecosystem" read together refers to the technologies of the Internet. Whereas, a lot of the writing and reading we are seeing about this is really in the context of the Internet governance Internet ecosystem. Just a question as to what the intent is, and I think we could probably make a case either way.
Finally, I would suggest on these things, Janis, I think -- I get the sense anyhow we are reaching a point where you could probably take some of this under advisement and use your discretion in deciding this. We can stay and reach consensus. I'm happy to stay all night. But, potentially, some of these things could fall within the Chair's discretion, I think.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: We're talking about bottom-up, not top-down process. And Chair's discretion may be interpreted especially at the first meeting on the first occasion as imposing of authority and I'm very careful about it. I think.
I will use my discretion of the Chair to stop debate here. We will not reach consensus today. It is obvious.
What we can try to do is just appeal and invite those who are interested after this meeting, maybe stay another 15, 20 minutes in the room, somewhere in that corner because that was not a very lucky corner -- [ laughter ] -- and try to reach consensus that we could put online already tonight and see whether we can agree. As I said, we need to get agreement before we send out the call for proposals. We cannot send out call for proposals without agreement on these clusters that we will be addressing. We need to find that formulation. This is point Number 1.
And what we need also to reach agreement is on the formats, what we could propose here. And I alluded already to potential formats. And this was discussed yesterday, that there may be -- the main session remains, right? I think that this is inevitable. We need to go for a main session.
But then in the workshops, we may have workshops which would be one and a half hours, one option, and one hour. We can have roundtables with one-and-a-half hour option and one-hour option. And we can have this speedy sessions with half an hour or even five minutes, the slam sessions, which will then be clustered in one longer session.
And that is what I recall from the previous discussions that we had yesterday.
Anriette?
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Janis. I'm sorry. This flag has been up a long time so I'm a little concerned about it. Maybe I need to sit near the front.
I think we are actually very close to consensus. I think you've done an excellent job, and I think we've done an excellent job so I think we should recognize that.
I agree with the points made by Jivan and by Peter. I recognize that we can't up and change, but we also need to allow for some gelling of these proposals and some flexibility around that.
I think we should also remember that these themes are not necessarily all going to be represented by a main theme -- sorry, a main session at the IGF. They just are themes to guide the IGF community.
The point I wanted to make is that the compromise proposed to include critical Internet resources as well as human rights is a very good one. And I think after the Brazil meeting, we might have really quite interesting content to discuss under critical Internet resources. So I actually support the idea to add it. Keep in mind that "emerging issues" is not really a theme, so we still would only have seven themes.
Just with regard to the proposal to link human rights to digital trust, I mean, I can understand the rationale for that. But one of the aspects of human rights and the Internet that's being increasingly discussed particularly by developing country governments is the Internet and human rights in the sphere of economic, social and cultural rights. And those are somewhat outside of digital trust. Digital trust is very closely linked to freedom of expression and privacy and security. So I think there are different aspects.
So I would -- my compromise that I would be very comfortable with would be adding critical Internet resources and keeping human rights.
And then I think having some flexibility to not change anything substantially but to make sure that we express the messages and the themes we are trying to get across as clearly as possible.
And then just, finally, I think something that is important as that the evaluation process, if we are going to invite the community to submit, as Fiona reminded us, sessions that would be ticked under "other," we should then also not discriminate against those unduly in the session evaluation process. But I think those people that work on the evaluation process in more detail can possibly accommodate that.
And on the policy one, I think we are also so close to a compromise. I heard so many people propose just removing the "public." Anju made a very strong argument for that a small state perspective. Fiona had a concrete proposal. So I actually feel unless there is anyone who feels very strongly it should be "public" specifically. It is quite simple to delete the public, keep it very short as Matthew has proposed, or just add, "local, global and regional."
I think we are very close, Janis. I think we should actually feel quite pleased with our progress.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you, Anriette. I will be pleased when everyone will hum loudly about one set of sort of sentence displayed on the screen. We're not yet there.
I would like to ask -- just a second. I need consultation with the secretariat.
We have reached 6:00, a threshold where our interpreters will need to be recognized and thanked for their help. Thank you very much.
And if you wish, we can continue without interpretation for another maybe half an hour, hoping to reach agreement on the text, but this will be without interpretation. Would that be okay? 15 minutes? Okay. Let's try in 15 minutes.
Anriette made the proposal to add a point on critical resources to the list and delete "public" in Number 1. All the rest remains unchanged.
Now if I may ask you to put flags down. All flags down.
[ Applause ]
The proposal is point Number 1, policies enabling access.
Point Number 2 as is.
Point Number 3 as is.
Point Number 4 as is.
Point Number 5 as is.
Point Number 6 as is.
Point Number 7: Critical Internet resources.
Point -- new point Number 8 as is.
[ Applause ]
So thank you, we have agreement. Thank you.
Anriette, nice try. So you see, this was the reason why I didn't call on you.
[ Laughter ]
But you speak wisdom of the crowd. Thank you.
Izumi, no changes anymore.
And then there was a grammatical correction that it should be "the Internet ecosystem." That is already corrected.
So thank you for that. Let's go quickly back then to those proposed formats of the events.
Fiona?
>>FIONA ALEXANDER: Yes, thank you. So I didn't necessarily have an objection to the formats as you described them in terms of the blocks of hours. But I did want to have a discussion about whether or not we needed to continue to have a main session every day of the week. I know we discussed this at a couple different times, whether it was more instructive to have the opening ceremony and then the (indiscernible) on the first day and maybe one midweek and one at the end or if there was some variation of that. I was wondering if we could have that conversation in terms of the numbers.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you for raising this issue. Any reaction to the proposal, not to have systematically main sessions every day throughout the day but having them the first day, maybe then the third day and the fourth day or fifth day, whatever we have? Opening and then one day no and then other days as well?
>> (Speaker is off microphone.)
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So Tero, please.
>>TERO MUSTALA: Yes. About these main sessions, linked to that is the question related to the rooms or the space, and I think there was quite wide consensus --
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Please go ahead.
>>TERO MUSTALA: There was quite wide consensus after the Bali meeting that actually we don't need a huge room for all the days, and that way also we kind of create competition between the so-called main sessions and the workshops, and I think this might be good to discuss together about the issue of main sessions and what the name be used for, that maybe the plenary would be the alternative.
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: Thank you. Any other comments? Any reaction? No?
Okay. I think we have -- we have arrived to the closure of our meeting of today. I think the steam is out.
There is one request for the floor, but Patrick, if I can ask you no more than two minutes. Maybe even one?
>>PATRICK RYAN: Thank you. I'll be quick. It -- I wanted to talk a little bit about my favorite topic, funding. And I promise not to talk too much but I do have some really good news.
As many of you know, this has been one of the areas of my interest and involvement in the MAG, and for some of the new MAG members that may not realize it, the IGF raises approximately $900,000 per year. It's a very small pool of about 15 or so contributors. And from that, about 25% of that money comes from Finland every year, and that money is going to stop.
There's a broad need to increase the funding base.
The good news that I have is that we have, for quite a while, been talking about using a third party, the Tides Foundation, to set up the fund. The fund is actually set up. It's called the Friends of the IGF Fund. It was done in collaborate with Anriette and with Ayesha and it's been unclear for a while as to whether or not we would be able to use that money for the secretariat, although we have established and tested the fund for use, for example, last year in the case of Indonesia.
And there will be more opportunities to discuss this tomorrow during the open session that's available during -- for donors.
But the good news that I want to share with everybody is a telephone conversation I had with Jay Pozenel, who is the principal legal officer at the United Nations, and he told me that he has spoken yesterday with the legal director at the Tides Foundation and has -- and they've reached an understanding that there is not a need at this point in time to actually conclude a formal agreement in order to be able to deploy the funds for the benefit of the secretariat and this can be done instead by an exchange of letters.
There's apparently precedence within the U.N. system for this kind of activity, and they'll continue to work on formalizing it, but the really good news here is that we're going to be able to use this as a way to -- to continue to raise money and now to bring some money into the secretariat. There's currently a hundred thousand dollars in the fund and there's new funders the last -- last year. Facebook and Intel have -- have shown that this is -- that this is something that can work for them. They're new contributors. And hopefully there will be many more.
So there will be more opportunities to discuss this tomorrow and I won't take up any more time, then, but I wanted to share that good news.
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So thank you, Patrick. If you want to know more, please come tomorrow morning to the open session. This subject will be discussed in length.
So I would like to conclude the session by thanking all of you for your hard work and engagement and for the flexibility you showed during the last minutes of the meeting. I think we did 90% what I was planning to achieve. We have now the list of clusters or themes for the meeting and that represents 40% of what I wanted to achieve.
We have the methodology of evaluation and selection of workshops and that represents 50% of the outcome I wanted to achieve, and the missing 10% is the overarching theme.
So that is the -- there was some proposals sort of connecting everyone, connecting people. There was also reaction that that sounds very much like Nokia.
Nevertheless, what I would like to suggest, maybe, if we would flood IGF mailing lists with the proposals, how you would see this theme in next, let's say, three days, and then I will use my discretion as the chair to propose one out of those you will propose to the mailing list, and then we will apply a sovereign procedure for that.
If that's agreeable, then we can proceed in that manner.
So thank you, and we will have the first conference call in about two weeks' time from now. Then we will have regular conference calls, and if we can agree that that would be on Wednesdays, Chengatai told me that this is a -- maybe the best day we can think of, and that that would be at 1:00 Geneva time every time, which is the -- maybe not the best one but the most optimal to reach out to all time zones, because 1:00 Geneva time is early in the morning in the Americas and it is evening in Asia.
The only people who suffers will be from Australia and New Zealand. I apologize already in advance, but this is -- you are used to that already.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR KARKLINS: So -- and we certainly will stay in touch, and once again, thank you for the confidence you've placed in me. It was a great pleasure to see all of you here. I'm looking forward to the successful outcome. Thank you.
[ Applause ]