IGF 2021 - MAG - Virtual Meeting - XIII

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during an IGF virtual call. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

***

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay.  I think we should start, so as you all know, meeting is being recorded.  There is a transcript.  We will issue some report afterwards, by the end of the week.  If you want to speak, can you please use the speaking queue and wait for the Chair to call your name, and then you can speak.  I think that's all, and I will now hand it over to our Chair, Anriette Esterhuysen to start the meeting.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Chengetai.  Greetings, everyone.  Welcome to this meeting.  This is the 18th, is that correct, no, 13th virtual meeting.  Can we please note some apologies, Chengetai, I know there were quite a few that were sent to the list, Carol and Rita.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: And Rita, yes.  Let me see if I have any (indecipherable) could not make it.  An I want to review the agenda, I think we don't have a representative from Poland to make any opening remarks, welcoming remarks.  I'll review the agenda but I do want to express a concern that we have very few MAG members present in this call tonight.  So I think we should go ahead, there are important agenda items, I'm not sure we can make the decisions I would have liked us to make tonight.  So unless we are joined by more MAG members.  But it still would be valuable to get the input of those MAG members and observers.  So welcome, everyone and welcome to our captioner, MAG members set up service and the agenda tonight is to get a update from the Secretariat, there are a few things that they want to share with us but I also have asked them to update us on the problems of mailing list, because several MAG members have had problems with E‑mail and with the mailing list.

We will then have a update on the workshop process which in fact is more or less finalized.  Then after that, and this is really the key two items for tonight, is to look at the agenda for the preparatory phase, the goal is to make this public by Friday or Monday at the latest, and to the broader community to publish and invite people to start planning participation.  The Secretariat has a draft schedule for you to look at, and I'd like provisional approval from the MAG on that.

  (coughing).

Excuse me.

After that, if we can look at the issue teams and the terms of reference, thanks to those MAG members who have commented, we have a document that contains the steps, the guidelines, the framework for the issue teams and the main session guidelines.  After that, we will have updates from any working groups or intersessional activities, if they have anything to share.  So we will take it from the top, and if we are not enough of a MAG, we don't have formal quorum figures, so I just ask Chengetai, he said to me the MAG never established a formal procedure to establish what number would constitute a quorum.  But we are a very small group.  I don't think we can make decisions, but we can have substantive discussion.

If there are no questions on the agenda, I'm checking the chat, nothing yet.  Chengetai, can I hand back to you for the update from the Secretariat?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, thank you, Anriette.  First of all, I'd like to introduce you all to our new staff member who started yesterday, and that is Pascal, if you can show your face if you are there.  I did see you.  I guess he dropped off.  But yes, we do have a new staff member, his name is Pascal Guarda, he's been mainly dealing with basically financial stuff, administrative stuff, you know, all the travel things, all the merger stuff so mostly not front office but back office stuff, but he is there, and if there is anything to do with travels as well as MAG will interact with him if there is anything to do with travel or the Internet cost support, etcetera, that will go through Pascal.  So we are one more.  And to let you know, is that also Eleonora is going to come back on the 2nd of August, so Eleonora will be back in the office 2nd of August.

With that, the other news that we do have is that at the moment, we have 50 requests for booths received and I think that is good.  I don't think we need any more booths requests.  This is for the IGF village.  And the application for networking sessions is still open, and we are going to have a soft deadline that is going to be on the 26th of July.  So far we have only had six requests, but I think that is fine, people are still deciding whether or not they will be coming to Katowice, but I want to remind people that these are not just face‑to‑face networking.  You can also have virtual networking session, since this is a hybrid meeting.  The draft schedule is close to being finalized.  We will be able to share with you, if not by the end of this week, early next week.  And we will also take the new newsletter we are going to publish the first month's edition of the newsletter on Monday.

The other thing is that we are going to be opening registration for IGF 2021 this week as well.  So it's not just for people who are going to attend on site, but also for the virtual participants, both can register and it is also very good if we can register early, so at least we know what numbers we are talking about, and it will also be very helpful for the Host Country to know the numbers as well, especially in advance, just to see the trend.  I think that is all that is on my list.  But I will give a call out to anybody else in the Secretariat, Luis, Anja, if you have anything else to add, please.

>> Hello, Chengetai and everyone.  A reminder from the Dynamic Coalition side, if you remember we told you about the open survey we launched for MAG members in the broader IGF community, that asked more about how you see Dynamic Coalitions, the survey is open until 25 July.  We would very much welcome if you could spend five, ten minutes and help us with some input for that paper when developing, I will share the link again in chat.  Thank you.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Serena.  Anybody else?  Luis, Serena and I think Luis, Anriette mentioned something about the mailing list, if you can give a update.

>> LUIS BOBO: Certainly, thanks, Chengetai, thanks Anriette.  The mailing lists are currently working well, they have been challenged, tested internally and they are working well.  I know some of you had issues, myself I notice I did receive some issues.  We made a research, and there have been some last minute changing in the server and we have to add some technical configuration, to assure some of the DNS servers that the mails come from, so technical thing, that this created some of the servers, some important entities are missing, sometimes they were lost.  Sorry for that, for this passage of time.  But all this is technical so everything should be on track now.  Then second, we are inviting people to join mailing list, this is because apart from the synchronization and the speed which you can schedule a list because it's easy to learn, go to the link and put your name and E‑mail address and you can subscribe, you don't even need to put any password or something.  But if you have a issue joining the mailing list to discuss the issues, you can drop me a E‑mail and will subscribe you in the list.  Thank you.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai and Luis.  There are questions in the chat.  Adam is asking about the traffic on the list since April.  No, but the list have been recreated, there are new lists, where they have been cleaned out, and Luis unsubscribed everyone because that was the MAG's decision.  I don't know if you recall, Adam.  But we discussed how to constitute these issues teams, and the MAG decided to start from scratch.  Adam is asking does he have the right lists, they were E‑mailed to the MAG, private list, and to the MAG public list and they are on the MAG member dashboard.  So you go to the IGF Web site, you log in, you go to the About menu and go to MAG, and you will find MAG dashboard there, and all the lists are there.

Some people have subscribed, thanks a lot.  Special thanks to the past MAG members who have come forward to join the issue teams.

I have one question and I think Adam asked a question about registration.  Chengetai and Luis, my question is, I assume this registration will also cover the preparatory phase, is that the plan, and Adam also asked a question about the registration.  But Adam, why don't you take the floor to ask your question.

>> Good evening, yes, I can do that, hello, everybody.  It's Adam.  The question was is this formal invitation to the IGF 2021 from the Secretary‑General or UNDESA under Secretary‑General, and if that is the case, will there also be formal tweets, because we can, organizationally we can retweet this kind of thing, some things I can get ICANN to do, sometimes I can't but it would be good if all the MAG members were aware of any tweets so we can start sending it out and of course any other social media, other social media does exist.  So thanks.  (overlapping speakers).

>> Go ahead, Chengetai.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: We will be sending those things out once we are ready.  We haven't received it yet.  But once we do, we will do it.  We do plan to do, just the same thing we have done in previous years, as for the registration for the pre‑event phase, I will put that to Luis.

>> LUIS BOBO: Yes, thank you.  Registration list consider registration for IGF for full IGF, you can register for now.  Actually if there are sessions to attend in the pre or preparatory phase, consider IGF and people need to register in IGF for those sessions so it's considered just a register.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Luis.  If we can add a action item here for the Secretariat to take into account all the comments that have been made on registration, because we received during the open consultation but also during the debrief some requests, I think some MAG members also posted on the list, I think there was a message from Russia Darla as well just to ask if we can simplify the registration process and how sessions are accessed.  So just if the Secretariat can revisit those recommendations and try and respond to as many of them as you can.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes.  Just a quick answer to that.  Yes, we have looked at the registration and I think most of the comments were also in the schedule, right, and yeah, we are doing something where we are revamping everything because we are going to have the new Web site, which will hopefully, we are planning for a review or parallel testing basically end of August, and we have got, and the scheduling application is not the same as we used last year or previous, well, last year, basically which did cause some consternation that, some reviews, we had mixed views, some people loved it and some people really didn't like it.  It's going to be something new this year, and it's going to be much easier and user friendly and we have counted the number of clicks, to minimize the number of clicks you will have to do to register for a session, etcetera, or to do the hand up system, we are revamping everything.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: That's good.  Thanks a lot, Chengetai and Luis.  I think you are right.  The questions were not really about registering for the IGF, it was about registering for the online access and accessing the schedule.  (overlapping speakers).

>> LUIS BOBO: If I can add, the new mobile app, I expect it is going to help very much in this process as well, because there was limitations that we had for example, we cannot for example publish direct link until two days before the meeting, but the point is that the navigation has been very much improved as Chengetai said, listening to this report from the community, and also it is also the mobile app is going to help.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes.  There is the update on, in fact, Luis, can you say a little more about that?  Because some MAG members actually asked me about that, the IGF app and what that will provide access to.

>> LUIS BOBO: Sure, I can, unless Chengetai wants to tell you himself.  Otherwise I continue.  There is a app being developed in parallel with the new Web site, this link to it somehow, and the focus of the mobile app is to put in one place all the things related to the Web site that are for operation for the user, for example, if the user wants to check into one of the sessions in the schedule, wants to book a room for the IGF, wants to quickly search for a report of a session or wants to see who is in attendance at the session, so it a active participation not only for IGF itself but also during the year.  You can also access the Web site normally and the site is going to be responsive to the mobile screen so it will be another (indecipherable) the mobile app is going to help in all these operations for accessing the IGF.  It is expected to launch more or less in parallel with the Web site, maybe a bit later, but for sure before the IGF.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks a lot for that, Luis.  Any questions before we move on to the next agenda item, which is workshops?  Nothing at this point.

Now we are moving on to agenda item 4, which is workshop process.  I think that we have more or less done our work and thanks again to Roberto and workshop process working group and to everyone who participated.  Chengetai or Anja, can you share with us what the status is at the moment, in terms of the number of workshops, and any follow‑up actions that you are currently busy with, and at what point will we go public with the outcome of the process.

>> Sorry, Chengetai, please.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I was about to say your name.  Saves me a step.

>> Thank you.  Good evening to everyone.  As the MAG advised we did reach out to one workshop to 14 the one that is related, its title is related to gaming.  We asked them as the MAG advised to fulfill the condition no later than Monday next week, but we really urged them to communicate to us their final response, and if they will go ahead with improvements as soon as possible in this week.  There is also another workshop that you recommended to be a lightning talk, so we are now speaking with the organizers to ensure their views, but we did take action on both of those workshops.  All the other workshops that is now 83, I believe, they are listed on the IGF Web site and they are already placed in the draft schedule.  We, depending if the MAG, on the MAG's final decision this evening, if there will be anything else to advise the Secretariat is fully ready to conclude on the workshops, and the draft schedule is really almost finalized.  The last step that we have to finalize tomorrow in cooperation with the Host Country will be the allocation of rooms.  We are looking at the room setup of course and the capacity to fit them each session, but aside of that the schedule is really already put together as of last week, and it's just pending the final decision on the workshops tool to be published.  I believe that Chengetai is aiming to have the schedule published as soon as possible, first share with the MAG so I assume that may happen in this week, and that we could even publish everything as of next week.  If the MAG is comfortable with all this pending the decision on this workshop 214 that we ask for the improvements, we are fully ready to publish the list of workshops that we share with the community.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Anja.  Am I correct we are still at 83 workshops, is that still the total number?

>> That is total number, yes, with this workshop pending improvement.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: The only other decision which might affect that number is if some of these workshops are included in the preparatory phase, but that is not, that's not been decided yet.  That might still be decided but at this point you are scheduling them into the Katowice Forum.  Any questions for the Secretariat on next steps or on where we are with regard to the workshops?  Okay, nothing more on that.  It's a big milestone, again, congratulations, everyone, for achieving that.

Now let's move on to, which really is the primary decisions and considerations that we have to make tonight, I see we have got more MAG members on the call now although we are still a small group, but that is to finalize the outline of the preparatory phase.  I'll do a recap before Anja presents the draft schedule to us.  The feedback that we got from MAG members and from others during the open consultation, was very much that we need to keep the preparatory phase simple, not too intense, not too heavy, not too comprehensive in terms of time that it would absorb, and that we want to use it for this purpose of integration of intersessional work, and beginning to move towards more outcome oriented IGF by having this preparatory phase.  It will in fact be very similar in some senses but much less grand in scale than the preparatory phase during IGF 2020 which was very big in terms of, or large in terms of number of sessions.  We are looking for something much simpler this year.  What Anja has done, you will see the document, outlines what the MAG responsibility is.  When I say MAG that includes the issue teams, which we will discuss later, issue teams are led by MAG members but they are open to others in the community, to past MAG members and to Dynamic Coalitions, best practice forums, policy networks and NRIs.  That is where we are.

We had feedback from MAG members at the last call that some of the dates in the previous draft schedule clashed with NRI events, and ICANN events.  That's also been addressed by the Secretariat.  Anja, why don't you take us through what you have prepared, and then MAG members, I expect you to look at this and ask questions and comment.  And hopefully we can get a inference or in principle approval because as you have heard, once registration opens, we do need to be able to include this in the registration process.  Over to you, Anja.

>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Anriette.  Yes, there is the document that Anriette shared that includes the list of tasks for the MAG issue groups, and in a follow‑up to that, you will ‑‑

  (audio breaking up)

Preparatory phase during the consultation MAG meeting and building on that document that you endorsed, we have basically translated it to our concrete schedule to present it to you this evening for your final hopefully endorsement.  All the activities that were listed in the document are basically clustered in several let's say types of activities, such as the MAG convenes discussions and I'll come to those when we go through the schedule.  There will be a huge track, a series of online events leading all the way to the Katowice IGF youth summit.  There will be activities related to the intersessional work, activities which will be organized in collaboration with the community.  You will see that that is mostly with the NRIs.  There will be MAG Chair convened discussions in cooperation with the MAG, I'll come to that shortly.  Then a couple of activities which are part of the IGF's broader capacity development plan, and you will see, if you see the CD acronym somewhere, next to the sessions, that means capacity development.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Sorry to interrupt.  Can you make your display a little bigger?  It's a little hard to read.

>> ANJA GENGO: I hope this is now better for you.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Much better.  Thanks.

>> ANJA GENGO: Perfect.  Building on what I said on these clusters, the first activity that is coming in is a quick flash capacity development session with a host back‑to‑back with the national IGF (indecipherable) the first goal is to build capacity and foster engagement of the community there into the IGF's various activities, but also to explore the views on the issue areas following the meeting guide on issues and policy questions.  That will be happening on 15th of July at 10:00 p.m. UTC.  I will inform through the list tomorrow by the concrete link for this.

The next similar to this one activity will be the IGF capacity development session at the West African IGF.  We have a one hour session, and in speaking with the coordinators there our decision is to focus that session on raising engagement into the IGF role briefly but mostly to have the issue areas related to access environment, to dominate that discussion, to understand the perspectives from that region, and we plan to engage their policy networks on environment and meaningful access as expert speakers there.  If the MAG members, members of the issue area themes are interested to also join, please do let me know, and I can get with the very nice collaboration for this West African IGF but also understand that there may be short notice for you.

There will be a youth track, the youth track is mostly facilitated by the Host Country, mainly the policy youth IGF which has strong support by the host, but we will be working with members of the community, we had experience in past, for example with the German youth IGF we had good cooperation in 2019, they were the first organizers of the youth summit.  There will be a series of online events for young people focused on substantive issues, but the first one in August will start from a very basic introduction to the overall concept of Internet Governance and the Secretariat, given the MAG members if you will be interested will participate and cover the domain of the placement of Internet Governance Forum in the Internet Governance ecosystem.  In September, still to be decided the idea is host one capacity development webinar on the IGF where we are now and where we aim to be in the future, so what is the idea for its strengthening and hopefully that can be hosted as a collaboration between the Secretariat and the MAG.  We already mentioned as part of the capacity development plan we will be hosting two, three online workshops related to transformation in Cybersecurity.  That track is called our digital future.  We have a collaboration there with Microsoft, but the idea for the IGF side is to put together in a cooperative framework the intersessional workstreams which are related to this topic, so that would mean Best Practice Forum on Cybersecurity and relevant Dynamic Coalitions and host a session that will aim to build capacity across developing countries.

Likewise, as with previous cooperation with NRI hopefully in September still to be confirmed, we will be speaking to the colleagues from the LAC IGF, maybe Caribbean IGF to host capacity development session focused on the engagement into IGF 2021 for that particular region, and also to understand if the issue areas will be of interest for those regions to discuss and which one, and then to gather outcomes of those and incorporate it into the meeting's guide and issues and policy questions.

Around early September, we are coming to the proposed first activity which needs to be led by the MAG issue area teams.  That is the introductory session 1, the idea is to introduce the first two main focus areas in one session, so the one on access and on economic and social inclusion and human rights.  The MAG members would advise on the agenda.  We advise that the goal is to refine the scope of the issues which are nested under these issue areas and to understand the different perspectives of different stakeholder groups and regional groups as well.

I will come later to quick proposal, well, real quick, idea for your consideration that we had with the MAG members on these introductory sessions when I go to the schedule, then through September we are continuing with youth engagement at IGF 2021, there will be a session focusing on environment of building on the issue areas but it is relevant for the youth summit that will be happening in Katowice.  The proposal is in mid‑September activities, probably two hours interactive session where we will have interactive discussion with the community on all the intersessional workstreams, so best practice forums, policy networks and Dynamic Coalitions.  The goal is to discuss the substantive matters that these intersessional workstreams are covering, to foster the engagement of community into these, but also through the exchanges with the community especially through hopefully the questions that the presentation of these policy streams, of these intersessional workstreams can trigger, to understand where is the gap in the guide that we have now on issues and policy questions, and how can we update the MAG so that they are more comprehensive.

The MAG issue area teams will organize second introductory session this time covering two emerging issue areas on environment.  After that, a day after there will be a third introductory session focused on the last two issue areas which are inclusive Internet Governance ecosystem and one on trust.  Moving to throughout September there will be capacity development session with the Asia Pacific IGF, maybe even with the Pacific IGF.  This is still to be confirmed, and we will let you know as soon as we have a final agreement hopefully with NRIs.  The idea is the same, discuss ways of engagement in IGF 2021 from these communities and especially discuss the issue areas which they find of priority.  That is something that we will be mapping and discussing together with the organizing teams before we put together the agenda.  The Dynamic Coalitions, there is a proposal for the DCs to host online consultations on the paper they are doing.  I reminded them of that.  That is supposed to be sometime in October.  Colleagues will confirm the concrete date as soon as their paper is known when to be finalized.

I mentioned at the beginning the MAG Chair will convene as well at least two dialogues, the first one proposed to be in early October on lessons learned from online Internet Governance events in the past year and a half.  As I said at the beginning the MAG Chair will cooperate with the MAG working group on hybrid meetings in this case, and I'm sure with all the MAG members.

Throughout October we are having a youth engagement webinar, the question is still the topic on which it will focus, but I think we will know that very soon.  The next activity that you can see here in October, we need to understand the concrete date, but it's capacity development training basically for, on how to effectively host and participate in a hybrid IGF 2021, it's something that our colleague Luis was doing traditionally for the session organizers and participants on how to manage the session.  But I think we will have a broader scope of this in this year.  There will be two of those, one in October, one in November.  That is the proposal pending the final agreement, depending on the logistics that will be agreed with the Secretariat's management.

In October there will be a second digital future workshop, capacity development workshop for developing countries, and the concrete agenda will be communicated very soon for this one.  The MAG Chair will also host a second dialogue related to state and multistakeholder Internet Governance in the IGF cooperating with the MAG working group on strategy.  We will cooperate hopefully with the African IGF, I believe it is going to be hosted in November, again on understanding the priority issue areas of the IGF for the African community, and also building capacity on how the community there can effectively engage in IGF 2021.

I did say that training for session organizers will be hosted twice, as traditionally to us, so the plan is to have one in November.  Then as we are getting closer to the Katowice IGF probably mid‑November we host capacity development session on what to expect from the IGF 2021, with a special dedicated section to the newcomers.

Youth engagement webinar, the last one is planned for November.  It is going to focus on all the possibilities for young people to benefit from their online or on‑site participation in the 16th IGF in Katowice and finally in later November we are wrapping up on the issue areas, actually the MAG is.  The MAG will host the final session to look at the consolidated outputs from the previous introductory sessions and to launch the updated meeting guide which will be a final version before we start with the 16th IGF in Katowice and hopefully help to session organizers.  In addition to these activities, as you know there will be continuous online exchanges between the MAG issue areas, the MAG group issue areas, sorry, and the community on the IGF 2021 issue areas, to gather relevant resources on how these issues can be addressed within the context of the wider community.

Finally before I conclude, what I said for your consideration these introductory sessions, this is a proposal to host three sessions, each session covering two issue areas.  It could be and the MAG will know better, that perhaps is not effective.  One of the ideas that we spoke with the Chair could be that you host all these introductory sessions in one day, so technically maybe in two 3‑hour slot or to cover with one session one issue area and that can be hosted in different days, whatever you feel that it's more effective and it will be excellent to understand that even seeming because we aim to publish this schedule as soon as endorsed by you in the coming days.  Anriette, I will stop here unless I missed something, please let me know.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Anja.  I'll re‑emphasize Anja's color coding.  Anja put it back on the screen quickly, please.  From the MAG's perspective I don't want you to be intimidated by this.  I know that was a concern, because we have a small MAG this year, but it's only the Orange or whatever we call that color that is convened specifically by the MAG.  Scroll down, Anja.  It would be those issue area overview or launch sessions, I think we can give them more dynamic name than introductory sessions.  In fact, Anja, I suggested something earlier today but I can't remember what it was.  So that would be at the moment it's scheduled for 9 September.  And those would be looking at the main focus areas, the two main focus areas, and then sessions on the cross‑cutting and emerging issue areas.  We could actually have them on one day.  Then also the wrap up session.  And that is all that we are asking the MAG led issue teams to organize.

There are also ways in which the MAG can collaborate with others.  For example, the discussion on the emerging and cross‑cutting area of environment, could be organized in collaboration with the policy network on environment and similarly, the discussion on universal and meaningful access could also be organized in partnership with NRIs who are also thinking of that topic and the policy network.

So I don't think at this point that this is a impossible workload for the MAG, and this work will also serve as a entry point for MAG members as you organize the main sessions.  The main sessions, which also have to address the same issue areas.  So in fact, I think it could be helpful to you as you organize these introductory sessions, it can help you refine your thinking about how to approach the main sessions.  But and let me open the floor to questions.  Thanks very much, Anja.  Let's see, are there any hands or are there any people in the speaking queue?  Looking at the list of participants, no hands.  Any questions on the schedule?

>> I think we are all very impressed, Anriette.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Adam.  Can we consider this schedule as approved by the MAG?  In principle, no objections to this, can we take this as our working schedule for the preparatory phase?

>> Yes, yes.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Good, let me hear your voice, Carlos Alfonso.  There is so much information.  As some MAG members in the chat are asking what you need to do and by when, and I think really it is to organize those issue area sessions, and in more detail, we will be looking at the role and responsibility of the MAG led issue teams in the next document.

Let's consider this document approved as a provisional draft program.  And thanks very much, Anja, and I think it's coming together very nicely.  I think we have also managed to achieve a goal which is to involve the intersessional activities.  I want to thank everyone, and from the NRIs and the DCs and BPFs and for being so responsive to contributing to this intersessional, this preparatory phase.

Let's move on to the next agenda item.  I hope that will address the question that MAG members are asking in the chat about exactly what you need to do next.

In fact, I'm going to try and share my screen here.

Then I can talk you through this document.  Can you all see it?

>> Yes, we can see it.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Good, thanks, Anja.  Thanks very much to MAG members and others who contributed to this document.  It's a updated version of a document that Wanda presented to us in different drafts at earlier meetings.  The context is that we have having a issue driven IGF, and, I'm trying to scroll here, and we have these six issue areas.  That is what will form the focus of the content of the program of IGF 2021.  For each of the issue areas, so this is jumping around, for each of the issue areas we have these policy questions, but the policy questions are actually linked to subheadings.  I'll click on one as an example, trust security and stability, where we have specific policy question, what are the good Cybersecurity practices, international mechanisms that already exist, where do these mechanisms fall short, etcetera.  But we also have a sub heading here, Cybersecurity practices and mechanisms.  As you will recall, during the last MAG meeting on 13 June there were MAG members who felt that you might not want to use the policy questions as basis for organizing sessions on the program.  You might want to use these subheadings or develop different ones.  That is something that the MAG still need to decide.

And the goal of this is integrated IGF, so let's look at the issue teams specifically.  What are they, they are teams or groups that are led and facilitated by MAG members, but they are open to past MAG members and others in the IGF community.  In particular we want to encourage people who work in the intersessional context, in the intersessional activities to join in.

The primary responsibility of these teams, and this comes to what your work will be for the rest of this year, is to organize those introductory scoping sessions during the preparatory phase, which will be virtual, and then to organize the main sessions during the annual Forum in December, which will be hybrid.

And then the document has more detail on this, what are they expected to do, so they expected to explore the IGF community at large, and from there issue, from their issue area look at synergies and linkages and what the Secretariat will do is create wiki space.  In fact they have already started doing that, where those linkages can be documented.  So this is not saying that MAG members or members of the issue teams need to do this on their own.  There will be a online platform where everyone is in the IGF community who is working on security or who is working on environment, for example, can map their work to these issue areas.

The deliverables is really to enhance this kind of issue based cooperation across the IGF community and in the other deliverable, and Courtney, I've noted your question that we weren't clear enough, would be to organize the main sessions, and the sessions during the preparatory phase, the issue area sections.

The rest of the document makes concrete suggestions, they are not finite.  They are not, I'm sure that the teams can come up with different ideas, but primarily these issue teams need to reach out to decisional activities, start bolding these wiki pages for issue areas but in a concrete way, organize preparatory sessions and review approved workshops to check if there aren't any that you think might fit well in preparatory phase.

That really is primarily what you will do at this point, facilitation, what we need is for MAG members to come forward to Chair and Co‑Chair the issue teams, and what else, yes, I mean here in 2.4, the document refers to the work of the issue teams in the preparation of main sessions at the IGF annual Forum.  In the past these groups were called main session organizing teams.  But this year these issue teams will play the role for each of the issue areas that they are focusing on, to organize those main sessions.  I'll leave it at that and open for questions.  This document, annex 1, for all the MAG members this will look familiar, this was developed by you a few years ago.  I think this version was developed in 2019.  It provides background on how to go about organizing main sessions, and so it becomes very clear outline of what the issue teams need to do, because this year the issue teams will be these main session organizing teams.  The document provides a purpose and some guidelines, and it also looks at the process.  We have updated this document, so that it's consistent with this year's issue driven approach.  So I'm not going to go into more detail.  Many of you have read it already.  There was some discussion about how to look at the content of the main sessions, and I think issue teams can still discuss that.  For example, do you really want a main session for every issue area?  There are six issue areas.  Or do you want to do some of those emerging and cross‑cutting areas together, for example.  So these are all considerations that you have to look at.

This document is just a guide for the issue teams, once you start your work.  It also outlines the process which is that proposals need to be developed for a main session, so that's the general approach has been that the main, the MAG members, in this case the issue teams which are open to others, the groups that organize the session will develop a proposal and present it to the MAG.

I will leave it at that.  Are there any questions at this point, on this document, or what the next steps will be?  The document outlines the format of sessions as well.  I'll go back to the top.  This is really what you need to do, the scoping sessions and main sessions.  I'm not sure who has asked for the floor.

>> This is Courtney, MAG member, I raised my hand in the chat but I don't know if you can see everything.  I wanted to get clarity, earlier about the session proposals, we will be communicating with them, so is everyone being communicated that they are part of the main IGF session, and not intersessional work?  Because you said something about inviting them to intersessional work.  Another question is, I know there was discussion on the listserv about proposals that aren't accepted but wanting to give yellow as an additional opportunity, so is there a way and vision to either open up intersessional work to those types of proposals and people who did not get their proposals accepted for the main IGF, and then also to use this year as a real opportunity to move away from the idea that the IGF is only about getting accepted into the main IGF days, and that there is a whole slew of intersessional work that is fundamental to the IGF that they could be part of.  I'm thinking about how we might communicate that and send that messaging in the communication that we do around the workshop proposal, acceptance or rejection, and yeah, so if you could, if anyone has thoughts on that, could elaborate, that would be great.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Courtney.  That also touches on discussion that we had in the last MAG call.  The preparatory phase at the moment, as you saw in the schedule, does include a space for workshops that were proposed and that our community organized.  What I recall is that the decision that we made was that we wouldn't invite, we would work with the approved workshops, and where there are approved workshops and where they have agreed to when they submitted their proposal that they would be willing to have their session be part of the preparatory phase, and we would consider based on the content of the workshop, if they would be suited for inclusion in the preparatory phase.  Now that hasn't happened yet.  The issue areas are going to have to go back and look at those proposals, and assess whether they want to suggest some of them take place during the preparatory phase.

There was a second proposal which I think came from you, Courtney, that we reach out to everyone who proposed a session, in the particular issue area, whether they were accepted or not, to invite them to participate in the preparatory phase.  My understanding from the Secretariat at the time was that it would be very possible to do that, that they have the contact details, and that they can send the schedule and point people who organized let's say a workshop on the emerging regulation, and they weren't accepted, but they can still be related to the fact that there is the session during the preparatory phase and they can join and participate, it doesn't mean they can organize the sessions.  I think the area where we have to be very clear so that we don't create false expectations or expectations we can't deliver on, and is that if your workshop was not approved, that you can somehow end up presenting it during the preparatory phase.  I think that would be very confusing for the community.  But that doesn't mean that we can't reach out to those organizers of, proposers of sessions to participate in the preparatory phase.  I'm not sure I answered you fully, but was that clear enough in response to your question?

>> Yes, I think that was really helpful.  Yeah, a suggestion that in all of the communication, we center the idea that, the idea is not only, IGF is not only about you get to be on a Zoom stage for five minutes presenting your work, but the IGF is a entire process, I'm excited there are all these opportunities to contribute, and your work and your ideas, etcetera.  But again so that we can diminish this kind of focus on, oh, I didn't get my session approved and therefore hands up or whatever.  So that was the point, that was helpful, the reminder about what we discussed on previous meeting.  Thank you, Anriette.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Courtney.  What I forgot to say is that the wiki is intended to be a very concrete expression of that, because the idea is that anyone can map the issue areas in their work on the wiki, and maybe if [inaudible] so people can still share what they do and contribute to the discussion and to the content through that wiki even if they are not hosting a session.  I know we are not ready to demonstrate yet, but can you say more about how we see the wiki as mapping interest and issues.

>> Hi, all, not much more because I was listening to what you, Anriette and Courtney were saying, this really clearly says the aim of the work and also the wikis this year is really trying to get the idea or changing the mind‑set, helping to change the mind‑set that IGF is not just about the week in December where you have that overview, that agenda that is a overview of everything that happens between the 6th and the 10th, but instead, get the message, we focus on these six issue areas, and on the wiki you can learn or you can see that actually IGF is much more than just that one week.  There are different events, different intersessional meetings, activities.  But also, different opportunities for you as an individual organization having a workshop to reach out and work together with others, and I think it's a tool, it's a interesting tool for the community and for the MAG issue teams, but on the other hand, I made a remark or Courtney made the remark on the deliverables, it shouldn't be seen, the wiki shouldn't be seen as a deliverable.  It should be seen as rather a tool, and where, actually, Anriette, you said members on the community can look and find opportunities themselves, because that is the main idea.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Wim.  The other thing that we are doing this year that is very different, and this addresses Courtney's emphasis on including people in the community in the intersessional work, is that during the preparatory phase, we will have this day, maybe Anja said two hours, it might have to be longer, four hours maybe, but a day where the Dynamic Coalitions and the BPFs and policy networks can present content and explain what they are doing, asking for input from the community, and invite people to participate.  So it's a public platform, that exposes the work and gives profile to the work of the intersessional activities, which is very different from the normal which is where the intersessional, where the BPFs for example and DCs have their sessions during the IGF only, so we are giving them more space, and trying to maximize participation from people in the community.

I think that covers that.  I think we do however, and maybe we should capture this in the action items from this call, is to emphasize Courtney's point that our messaging has to be very clear, that the goal of this engagement phase, in fact, is not just a preparatory phase, I think our previous document, our concept document had as a title the preparatory and engagement phase, but that really is the purpose of this phase.  Any other questions or comment?  I know the document is quite long, and I think when you read it, you will see it's not really that complex.  And in very brief terms, the next steps are, join an issue team.  Identify a Chair or Co‑Chair for those issue teams.  Then start the work.  Start the work of reviewing workshop proposals in that issue area, and start thinking about how you want to approach that session during the preparatory phase, and start planning your main sessions.  So really that's, it's not ‑‑ it's a lot of work and will take a lot of thinking but it's not that complex.  The priority is to start the work, and to get those teams set up, the lists are set up but we still need more people to sign up and we need facilitators.

Questions?  Go ahead.

>> Hi, this is Susan Chalmers, can you hear me?

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, please, we can hear you clearly.  Go ahead.

>> I apologize, my apologies, I'm joining by phone.  I have a question on the issue teams, I saw that Carlos Alfonso was giving his updates in the chat, and thank you very much, Carlos, for doing that.  I was wondering if we could get a check in on if there has been any activity yet determining, if any issue teams have taken steps yet.  (overlapping speakers).

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Susan, can you repeat that, sorry, I didn't hear that very clearly.  Can you repeat the question?

>> My apologies, yes, my question is whether there has been any action in the issue teams as yet.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: The question, the people have started signing up.  I've been checking with Luis, he can give you a detailed breakdown, and we have had people sign up from the MAG and from past MAG members.  Thus far, the invitation to join the issue teams has only gone to the MAG public list, which includes past MAG members and the MAG private list.  But there has been no action yet, there has been no work started yet.  The key here is for people to step forward, to volunteer to take on the role of the facilitators, and so that they can start the work.

I would say the next step would be to organize calls.  If MAG members would find it helpful for us to do doodles, to set up calls for you for those issue teams, we can do that.  But the other way of doing this would be for individual MAG members to step forward and volunteer to organize that step of getting together to start the work.  (overlapping speakers).

>> Go ahead, Susan.  And then Paul, you are next.

>> Just to ask, if the MAG members who are able to step forward and volunteer, can the Secretariat provide doodle polls and help support organizing those calls.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, that's for you to respond to.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we can look and see where we can help, where needed.

>> I guess the question is, in other words, and I'm sorry, it's a pretty basic question, if folks want to participate, should they anticipate having to send out doodles themselves and organize the calls and provide a Zoom channel?  Or is the Secretariat available to support the issue teams?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: As far as a Zoom is concerned, of course they can use our Zoom, we will provide the Zoom channel.  But as far as organizing the calls are concerned, I mean as I said, we would step in where necessary.  If it is not, if it's difficult for the group to organize their own doodle poll etcetera then of course we will step in.  But we do foresee that people have been working online for the past two years, and they know how to throw up a doodle poll, etcetera.  I'm just trying to be a little bit careful in committing resources when we basically got three people who are dealing with this (overlapping speakers) we will step in when it's needed.

>> Thanks, I was just trying to determine what the resources were.  Thank you, that is very clear.  I appreciate that.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for asking that, Susan.  I understand Chengetai's concern.  But I also understand that the MAG would benefit from at least in the early stages some assistance.  We will see what we can do and particularly as Chengetai says, where it's needed we can step in and help.  Paul, you have the floor, and I think someone else had their hand up as well.  But Paul, you go next.

>> Thank you, Anriette and hello to colleagues.  Can you hear me?

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: We can, Paul.  Please go ahead.

>> Great.  The question I wanted to ask, I think it was just asked by Ben in the chat, it was for the issue teams, for the work they have to do, if there is a sort of deadlines or critical paths that the Secretariat could set out in terms of when the issue teams should complete various stages of their work both relating to the preparatory phase as well as the organization of main sessions for the annual meeting.  I apologize if that's been covered already and I missed it.  But I think it would be useful.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I agree, Paul.  I think that, and I see that, I hope I didn't miss some of what you were saying, Paul, I was reading Ben Wallis's point in the chat, and that would be introductory sessions we have confirmed dates for all of those at the moment, I think we do have confirmed dates.  And we will have a confirmed or will have a provisional guideline for main session.  I'd like to ask the Secretariat, if we were to set a deadline for proposals for the introductory sessions during the preparatory phase, plus the main sessions, what would be realistic deadlines, considering that our preparatory phase sessions will be in September, and the main sessions in December.  What would be deadlines for the MAG to work towards?  What would you propose?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: It had to be before September, right, or, if the preparatory stage is starting in September, then I would propose that it has to be either the 1st of September or before, I don't see it (overlapping speakers).

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Late August, by end of the third week in August, so we would need those session proposals to be final by the third week of August, maybe even earlier, and the main session proposals by when, would that be by October?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, October, November, yes, I would also be careful because for the main sessions we have to send out the invitations in good time.  So yes, I would say latest beginning of October because once you schedule panelists you have to send them out in good time, even if it's coming virtually we still have to send those off in good time.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks Chengetai.  We can add those to the MAG dashboard.  Paul, I don't think I covered everything you asked.  So if you can come back and point out where I did not get a response to all your points.

>> Certainly that was part of it.  I guess the question was if there are various milestones along the way, like breaking down the organization of the preparatory sessions and the main sessions into particular tasks, if there are dates which you or the Secretariat had in mind when certain tasks will have to be completed leading up to finalization of the sessions.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: We can certainly do that.  That is why I asked Chengetai for those deadlines, and based on that, I will do a time line which I can put for you on the MAG dashboard, to help with getting the next steps done.

>> That would be good.  I certainly (overlapping speakers) sorry, I wasn't suggesting that you would have to answer right away, but something to think about in the near future.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think we will do that and do that soon, because we also had agreed last week or last time that we would have a break in August.  I think if we are having those preparatory sessions in mid‑September, then I don't think a break in August is realistic.  Maybe a break from calls, but not a break from work.

I want to note for the Secretariat that there is a strong call from MAG members in the chat asking for assistance to at least get these doodle polls out for each of these issue teams to have its first meeting, just so that they can get to the point where facilitators have been appointed, and from then onwards, I think we can trust that MAG members will organize their own sessions.  But if we can just assist them for those first meetings, that would be very helpful.

Anyone else with any questions or comments?  Importantly on MAG members, particularly new MAG members, are you clear now on what the next steps are?  It's really coming together, talking about what you feel the content of the session should be, organizing speakers, inviting speakers, developing an approach to a methodology of the session, how to ensure participation, and who will moderate the session, how to moderate it.  So in many respects when MAG members organize sessions, it's an opportunity for you to apply those criteria which you yourself used when you evaluated workshops.  It is actually quite exciting in that way, because you can put into practice what you would like others to put into practice when they organize workshops at the IGF.

I see no questions, no comments (overlapping speakers).

>> Sorry, Anriette (overlapping speakers) I was wondering how complicated we should make this, I mean we are talking about ‑‑ I don't mean to discount what has been said before, because I do understand the importance of all the continuity across the intersessional nature of the IGF and so on.  But at the end of the day, we are looking at a 90 minute session, with a certain number of speakers and accounting for online participation and people in the room.  But it's still down to an issue which is in 90 minutes is not overly complex because there is only so much you can deliver.  I'm wondering, as it's the first year I've done this, where to begin, begin with the very direct issue what it's going to be about, or reexamining all issue papers and reexamining all the workshops on the topic, so my approach would be to start simple and build up there, but I'm wondering what might members from previous years have done and what you yourself have done, Anriette, recently and how to approach this, thanks.  I don't have (overlapping speakers) we could talk about the process a bit for a long time, and it might be better just to jump in and think what we want in those 90 minutes.  (overlapping speakers).

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: That is a sensible approach.  The guidelines that the MAG have developed which is the document which I showed earlier, the guidelines are there, that different approaches and different teams might approach it differently.  But are there any, I heard someone's voice, are there any MAG members who want to share how they have approached organizing these main sessions?

>> Hello, this is June Parris, previous MAG member.  The first thing I think you should do is get your group together and meet, and discuss the next move.  I think that will be the way to go.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Absolutely.  That is not very complicated.  That is really just coming forward, organizing the team meeting and taking it from there.  But I think Adam (overlapping speakers) not too complicated.  Go ahead, who was that, that wanted to speak?

>> Thank you, Anriette.  Hi, this is Susan joining by phone.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead, Susan, we can hear you.

>> I'd like to echo Adam's sentiments.  I think the thinking that has gone behind the organization of the prep sessions is wonderful.  I think that a requirement of challenging participation, a requirement that seems to be challenging participation might be useful to think about what could be the minimum viable product or the minimum for the prep sessions.  In other words, just maybe abstracting the steps to a few general aims, that the issue teams could work towards.  I think that might have an effective facilitating engagement and participation.  I could be wrong.  But I wanted to share my two cents.  Thanks so much.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Susan.  Yeah, I don't think we have to make it very complicated and I don't think it is complicated.  If you look at the preparatory phase as a whole, it might seem complicated but if you look at what the MAG's component is, it's not.  Anything else?  I don't see any other hands.

>> Anriette.

  (background noise)

[inaudible] I know it's not burdensome to create a meeting but within time zones [inaudible]

  (background noise)

As quickly as possible and we spent a lot of time reading the proposals, putting together the program.  But [inaudible]

  (sorry, audio quality is very poor, I can't understand).

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Courtney, I'm afraid we really struggled to hear you there.  Please could you also type that in the chat, so that we can capture it.  Yes, thanks.  I see June, you told her, good.  Are there any other MAG members, I see we have Jutta with us, June has already contributed.  I think we have Wim with us as well, who can share with the newer MAG members any key points that you learned from having organized both introductory sessions in the past as well as main sessions.

>> Hi, it's Ben here.

>> Hi there.

>> BEN WALLIS: I can't find the handout, to my embarrassment, I don't know, the right hand, maybe I'm not being at MAG meetings enough recently.  I see Karim has his hand raised.  You should come to him after me.  But I want to share about the introductory session that I helped to organize in 2019 which was the first year we had introductory sessions.  We were starting from a blank page.  We had a couple of aims.  One was to introduce people to the issue, so what did the MAG have in mind when it selected this topic of trust or data that I was in charge of, what did the MAG have in mind, what did we consider to be the main issues here and to give a sense of how that was going to play out during the meeting, the five days meeting that was about to follow.  One aim was introducing the issues.  Another was to try and do some networking.  We had people break out and get into small groups to discuss issues, and they did come back with kind of group views which were not very usable.  We didn't find a way to take those small group discussions in their summaries and integrate them anywhere.  But it was a great way for people to get to know each other, get to know other people who were working on issues that they were also interested in, hear about sessions that were happening during the week that they might want to attend, and for people who would not normally want to stick their, take a microphone and stand in front of 150 people, but were less shy to speak in a breakout group.  This was a useful function, networking function.  The last thing we had was a keynote speaker that introduced the issue, which I think worked in terms of attracting people to the session, but did not add much to the session itself.  I'm not sure I would recommend that.

Those are things we did for an in‑person introductory session in 2019.  It's slightly different context because you are doing a virtual session, three months, two months before the annual meeting.  But just to share how we approached it two years ago.  Thanks.  Good to see you all.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Ben.  Very nice to have you with us.  Karim, please go ahead.

>> Thank you, Anriette.  Good evening to all of you.  I'd like to share some impression of a new MAG member, in the fact that sometimes or usually we have to jump up on the speedy train of IGF organization, and that we don't guidelines, presentation of activities in a big panorama, it is quite difficult to really be involved, because work are very speedy and last year, I and Roberto, we organized a main session, but it started early on the beginning of the process, because it started with a best practice proposal that we had to challenge it to justify it, to do a lot of work and finally we would come up with a main session.  This is why I'd like to share that because without involved in any kind of activities, we can't achieve something at the end of the year.  So we need as a former MAG member be inclusive and try to give hands to the newcomer and try to introduce them in something because it helps them at the end to be on one activities.  I think at this time, if we would like to start a main session proposal, yes, we can achieve it, but I think that's starting it a little earlier in the process, will be also helpful to organizer.  Thank you.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks a lot, Karim, that process of mentoring and support is very important.  Jutta, thanks for joining us, another past MAG member with us, you have the floor.

>> JUTTA CROLL: Thank you, Anriette, for giving me the floor.  I wanted to underline what Ben said before, in regard of the interlinkage between the introductory or issue sessions and the main sessions afterwards in the meeting.  I really do like this issue driven approach, and I do think it will help people to get more orientation and be guided through the whole program, if these things are linked to each other.

With regard to the organizing, I don't think really it's such a huge task, Mike, some of the colleagues have written in the chat, Mike wrote teamwork and that would also mean once we see what has subscribed to a certain issue team, the facilitator that should lead the issue team can have a look around that, the team is filled of people that bring in different views, but also different experience and Karim underlined that (indecipherable) who are new to the scene.  But really if you have a team that is also diverse in this regard with some have more experience in one area and some have experience in other areas, then it will come together, and I don't think it's a huge organizational task.  It is more like you need to be focused on the issues that the team will be dealing with, and have [inaudible] from the preparatory phase to the main sessions afterwards.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Jutta.  In fact, I think it also feels very encouraging and supportive to know that the MAG teams will be complemented and strengthened by past MAG members that are joining.  I don't see any further hands.  I think we should close on this agenda item.  We have a very clear action here, we have a request for MAG members to the Secretariat to support them in just convening those first calls, and for each issue team, and from then onwards the team are going to motion and go through the process and there are lots of creative ideas already as you have seen in the chat about how to organize the work, how to approach it as teamwork, and how to not make it overly complicated.

Let's move on to the final agenda item or second to final which are updates from working group.  We haven't received any written reports.  But if there is any MAG working group or intersessional activity that has a announcement or short update to share, now is the time.  I'm checking the participant list for hands.  I don't see any hands.  I see nothing in the chat.  No comments, I know there is a regular schedule.  One thing I can announce is that we have an intern who is working with the Secretariat to keep the IGF calendar up dated.  I think we are getting better at documenting all the intersessional activity and MAG working group meetings, planning meetings and other events on the IGF calendar.  So do visit the calendar.

Are there any other matters, any other announcements?  I see, do we have any updates from the Host Country or any remarks from you, chemic.

>> Thank you very much, thank you for giving me the floor.  I want to sincerely apologize for not joining in earlier, because I had unfortunately connectivity issues, my Internet was not working.  But luckily my provider stepped in and luckily this problem has been solved.  I can give you, joining our meeting so thank you to my provider for that.  Regarding the updates from the Host Country, we are still improving the vaccination process, so the number of people vaccinated is increasing, that's good news.  Not so good news is that this number is not increasing rapidly, as we might expect.  But we do expect that more and more people will be vaccinated.  We are counting on that, because we are hearing from other European countries that the situation with the Delta virus, the Delta virus in other countries is getting worse.  So but hopefully, we will all be able to manage that.

We are finalizing the procedure for the logistics operator so you should hear from us in the next couple of weeks, and entity that has been chosen because the tender is nearly close to a end, so we have had good way and good based on that as well.  We are also working with our good colleagues from the IGF Secretariat on other issues, and we are of course preparing ourselves for the Katowice IGF, and my constant request to you all is that if you could please share with us your insight on the situation, pandemic situation in your countries and regions, that would be helpful.  We are waiting for your suggestions, comments and any updates on this issue as well.  Thank you very much from my side.  If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.  Thank you very much for giving me the floor.  Back to you, Madam Chair.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, I wish I could share good news from South Africa, but I'm afraid not just from South Africa, all of the African continent is experiencing the highest growth in infection at the moment.  We are in a difficult period, not to mention other troubles in my country which you might have seen on the news.

I don't see any other hands.  I think we can end our meeting, I think we would, the Secretariat will post the draft schedule for you to look at, and will assist you with convening meetings for the issue teams, and then we really need, I would actually propose and I'll put this in the dashboard as requested by Paul Charleton, I would propose by the time we have our next call which is in two weeks, that each issue team has their initial proposal for how to go about their introductory session during the preparatory phase.  You have two weeks to get that together, and the sooner you have that, the easier it will be for the MAG to take a break for the northern summer for those of you that will be on holiday.

But we will send all the instructions and post everything on the dashboard.  A reminder, there were some MAG members who struggled to find the dashboard, the MAG dashboard is only visible to you if you are logged in using your personal user name and password for the IGF Web site.  If you are not logged in, and you won't even see, if you scroll through the menu bars, the MAG dashboard.  Chengetai, do you have anything to share, any questions or other announcements?  Luis has a good suggestion, to put it in favorites.  To put it in your bookmark, yes, if you are not logged in, it will take you back to the main IGF Web site but then you can go to the link.  Chengetai, back to you and can you tell us when our next call will be.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Anriette.  I think our next call is on the 27th, if I'm not mistaken, and let me tell you the time, at 11:00 a.m. UTC.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks a lot, Chengetai.  So look forward to talking to you all again on the 27th.  That's a easier time for most, difficult time for some.  By then, look forward to listening to the initial proposals on the issue sessions in the prep phase.  Thanks, everyone.  Thanks to all the observers, the captioner, and thanks to the Secretariat, MAG members and past MAG members for joining us and supporting the work.  Good‑bye, everyone.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Chair, Anriette.

>> Thank you very much to everybody.  All the best.  Bye.

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Bye, everyone.  Take care.