December 2014 - IGF Open Consultations and MAG Meeting - Day 3 - Morning

IGF MAG Meeting

 03 DEC 2014 (MORNING SESSION)

 Geneva, Switzerland

 

 

 

The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the December 2014 IGF Open Consultations and MAG Meetings, in Geneva, Switzerland. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

 

 

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.  Can we please take our seats?  We're about to start.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you for being in the room on time.  Thank you for contributing to homework.  I read most of the contributions, except those who were sent in right before the meeting because of commute from the hotel to U.N. facilities here.  

 And so what are my conclusions?

 That most probably we will not be able to finalize completely work on theme, subthemes, and topics for intersessional work fully, but we certainly need to strive to complete as much as we can, and maybe attempt to adopt kind of working titles, for the moment, which would allow us to proceed, and then work on line trying to reach consensus or rough consensus in the group and finalize the -- these topics by the end of the year.  

 Why it is so important?  Because once we are putting out call for proposals, that should contain information about theme, subthemes, because one of the criteria of evaluation is how the proposed workshop fits in the sort of framework of the meeting and how it corresponds or resonates with subthemes.

 Looking and analyzing all different aspects and using my prerogative of the chair, I would like to suggest a working title for IGF 2015 which, in my view, represents maybe not a complete balance but is closest to possible balance, addressing concerns of many MAG members.

 And that is, "Building Trustworthy Net for Sustainable Development."  

 And then we would need to work on subthemes -- we would need to work for subthemes.

 Again, there are many, many proposals on the table.  My personal preference would be go simple and revive four major subthemes that have been used in the past, but of course that was not widely present in the discussion.  Therefore, I would not attempt at this moment to suggest any further proposals.

 When it comes to a theme for intersessional work and topics for best practices, I felt that ICC/BASIS's proposal, "Bringing" -- no, "Policy Menu for Bringing Next Billion On Line," or along the lines of that, was one which could be supported in principle by many.  And on topics for best practice forums, I think that the leading theme that came out was gender and ICTs or Internet IXPs were mentioned in a number of suggestions.  

 And we need to think further on other possible topics, because out of -- apart from those two, I didn't really feel that any other gathered overwhelming support.

 I also liked very much the suggestion of Juan Alfonso about the -- "Shaping the Evolution of Internet," but I see that that maybe could be introduced as a motto for IGF in general.

 I don't know whether that -- now it's time to add that type of thing, but please think in those terms, putting a motto for IGF "Shaping the Evolution of the Internet."

 So this is sort of my conclusion from our yesterday discussion and evening exchange, as well as you saw I did my part of the homework.  I proposed the draft schedule for preparations, and so that schedule of preparations stems from experience as well as sort of engineering a preparatory process, taking into account all other factors that may influence the process.

 So I did a little write-up -- and as you see, I'm not very good in long writing -- explaining what purpose or what aim of each of the MAG meetings have been so far, and suggesting that we should go for -- this time for three meetings because of the bigger distance between IGF Istanbul and IGF Brazil.

 It is more than 14 -- or it's 14 months, (non-English word or phrase), and so not lose kind of the dynamic in the preparatory process, I think we need to go for three meetings this time.

 The first meeting, I think the tasks are very clear.

 For the next meeting in May, we would need to do a selection of workshops based on results of the call for proposals and preselection which will be done by the secretariat based, again, on methodology and criteria, and after the May meeting we would have more or less sort of architecture of the event.

 And then there would be fine-tuning and negotiations with the promoters of workshops in order to fix completely the schedule.

 And then I think it would be useful to have another meeting in September which would be devoted more to analysis of state of play with intersessional activities and results and maybe shaping those intersessional activities that still need to be -- the modalities of which still need to be defined, and that meeting, in my view, would be very useful to organize in New York on U.N. grounds.

 The reason for that is that potentially we could also have interaction with the negotiation group of WSIS+10 review, so that's the rationale behind proposing it organizing in New York.

 Of course, this is our wish because the group has not been constituted.  We do not know whether a group will be willing to interact with other stakeholders as suggested by the UNGA resolution or what would be modalities of that interaction, what would be the calendar of that interaction.  But I think if we practically reach out president of General Assembly who is in charge of nomination of two co-facilitators as well as in charge of organizing interaction with other stakeholders, I think we could shape that timetable and modalities ourselves.  So, therefore, the proposal is to have the meeting in New York which provides opportunity to interact as well as inviting those negotiators to Brazil in November and organizing not in the meeting of IGF itself but during the meeting of IGF, on the margins of the meeting of the IGF, the consultations on the outcome document of the December WSIS+10 review.  So that is my proposal which I would like you to consider.  That will also focus our conversation further.  If you are in agreement, please let me know.  If you are in violent disagreement, please let me know either because it would be very interesting to hear concerns.

 And I see Izumi Aizu is first who is seeking the floor.  After that Juan Alfonso and Marilyn and Avri and many others.

 [ Laughter ]

 Please, Izumi.

 >>IZUMI AIZU:  Thank you, good morning.  As to your proposal of the main theme, I have some question about the timing.  As you proposed in the timetable -- and it will be ideal to come to the conclusion of theme and subtheme at this moment -- meeting on the one hand, on the other, we are starting very early unlike the previous preparation and now we are still December.  And that relates to the other question that there's some proposal floating that we may have a meeting back-to-back with OECD in March in Paris, which is not written in your proposed timetable.  Do we really have to decide a theme now?  Or as we tried in the last years, for example, to put online with the communities some kind of feedback and then Chair could -- you could decide.  That makes things much easier and widely accepted.

 I also have very strong problem with the word "trustworthy."  Some of you may know, it has been used by one commercial vendor for trustworthy computing for many years.  There is another initiative called Trustworthy Internet Movement by a particular set of organizations of people.  And there is trustworthy.net as a Web site.  If it is generally acceptable, fine.  But, again, I would like to hear the communities' voices before we make the decision and then get some questions.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Answering immediately about March meeting, then it seems to me we would go for four meetings and there are considerable funding implications.  And that is not OECD meeting but that is UNESCO meeting and more precisely, that meeting is in early March.  It is on the 3rd and 4th of March in Paris.

 Juan Alfonso, please.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  I in principle agree with all this process.  But I want to speak a little bit about the intersessional and to view all this toward the Joao Pessoa IGF as a coordinating process.  As I said before and many also echo that, next year is a very important year and the IGF should have really impact, maybe in terms of document.  It doesn't need to be consensus document as it is written, but it has to be real outcomes.  

 So I believe that the best way is to have the intersessional themes to be coherent with the themes of the IGF.  In this way, the intersessional could be sort of preparation of input material in order to advance the work and arrive to Joao Pessoa with a lot of ground covered already, even for the workshops to fine-tune in the end.  

 And not only that, I will even advise that this MAG could recommend a regional IGF or even national IGF as a recommendation, of course, because they can do what they decide, but to recommend to focus on the same themes of the themes that we adopt for Joao Pessoa.  

 And in that case also, it contributes as a flow and then it will have great strength of this output document or output -- whatever it comes out that we want to provide to the General Assembly for the sustainable development goal process and also for the WSIS+10 review.

 In this sense, I understand that the IGF has been categorized by diversity of themes.  And maybe this year we should try to make an exception and concentrate on only two or three themes that are really the concern of the global community, not only users but also the rest of the stakeholders.  I think this is not a step against diversity.  Maybe it is a tactical step for this year in which the sustainability of the IGF itself is at stake.

 And to finish, I would like to reiterate that we need to differentiate ourselves from ICT4 development events because that would signal the uniqueness of this process and it would also help our survival.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Juan Alfonso.

 Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My first comment is going to be in support of the idea that 2015 is indeed a very special year.  And for that reason, I wish to recall that actually traditionally we usually met three times a year and sometimes even for more than three days in trying to do our work.  We're at a very -- a moment of opportunity for the IGF and a moment of opportunity for WSIS follow-up.  And we need to also keep in mind sometimes it is easy to think only within the IGF that this is -- we are MAG members focused on the IGF.  But I think we need to remember that the IGF was created as part of a larger document, the Tunis Agenda which called for the IGF but also is based on -- the call for the entire work of the summit was focused on creating an information society.  

 And 2015 in New York, the IGF will be evaluated along with the WSIS outcomes themselves.

 So in relation to the draft time schedule, I would propose -- I do think we need to meet three times during 2015.  I understand there are financial implications.  And as I am not one of the MAG members who receives funding, I take that into account.  But I think that it would be very helpful for us to meet in conjunction with the meeting in UNESCO.  

 The content of the UNESCO report is directly relevant to the work of the IGF.  And UNESCO, of course, is one of the IGOs that participates actively in the IGF and also will be contributing heavily to the evaluation of the WSIS outcomes.

 A meeting in late May at a time in Geneva when we can get hotel rooms or facilities around the other busy schedule, or early June, is going to be needed, I think.  

 As for a meeting in September in New York, I offer the following thought.  While it might be a really excellent idea, I think I would ask that the secretariat explore the feasibility of sufficient rooms within the United Nations facility versus perhaps needing to meet in a different location and then going into the U.N. grounds for a shorter meeting which might be built around a consultation with the co-facilitators.  

 I'm just experienced in having seen in the past the difficulty of getting meetings for two days -- meeting space for two days within the U.N. facilities, particularly in September when the summit around the MDGs and sustainable development will take place.

 I like the idea that we will take public consultation on our ideas about the themes and other formats.  And I think we saw -- we learned last time that perhaps we lept ahead a little bit too quickly without taking that consultation more broadly from the community.  Putting out a call for consultation now would allow us to come back together in early March and then to start really finalizing themes, workshops, format, et cetera.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So to my count, you are talking about four meetings instead of three.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  May I please, Chair, respond?  You're counting this meeting.  And I'm counting three meetings in 2015.  So, yes.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I always was told that a counting is not a science, it is always an art.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you and good morning.

 I want to, first of all, say a couple things.  In terms of the theme -- the overarching theme as you suggested, I've always had difficulty understanding the Internet as not being trustworthy while some of the users perhaps weren't.  So I hope that we can differentiate those things, but that's not what I put my flag up to speak about.

 I think it's going on one of the same themes that Marilyn spoke of and that we spoke of around the table this morning with our sort of civil society breakfast meeting.  And that's that while we're going to suggest many themes today, that we not be the ones to decide on them until such time as we've had a chance to get a consultation.

 Now, what we've been recommending is that we do more than just our old-fashioned, please send in an email or a text but actually use some of the crowdsourcing tools to basically get a wider polling of the themes that the IGF community people find interesting, and not only what they find interesting but what they might be able to work on and interested in working on leading up to the yearly meeting and, finally, to get them to add any themes that we forgot to the list.  Something that is less than essay writing and more something that many of the IGF community could take part in.

 The suggestion we were making was that this be done by, you know, the end of the year.  It is something that certainly could be done in three, four weeks so it wouldn't slow us down.  We could certainly continue our discussions in the meantime but really requesting that we add themes to the list today of things to be discussed but that we do not eliminate themes, that we basically leave that as a next exercise for ourselves after the community has had a chance to add its voice.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So now I will take the remote participant, sorry, online participant, Subi.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis, for making that distinction and good morning, everybody.  I do support the working title, "Building trustworthy Internet for sustainable development."  There are many reasons for that because while we are discussing these issues -- and I know there are corporations that have this as part of their motto, as part of their tagline, but for a lot of us in developing countries, we would like the Internet to remain free and open and this is a huge part of the conversation, erosion of digital trust, data localization, and data serenity (phonetic).  

 So there are many reasons and I could go on.  But I will stop with that as far as the working title is concerned which could possible be a main theme this year.

 The motto I particularly like, "Shaping the evolution of the Internet," because as the IGF brand stands, this is something that I'm really looking forward to.  It is an excellent proposal to host the MAG meeting in March in conjunction with UNESCO.  Marilyn has already talked about some of the reasons.  This is an important study, which covers all key areas and all of us are engaging with UNESCO in different foras at different levels.  I support that proposal.

 For workshop and evaluation rating, which is the first item on the agenda, I will come back to that when the floor is open.  But I did have a comment about themes for regional and national IGFs.  There was a proposal from the floor to look at working in conjunction with what we're discussing at the main IGF.  I think it is a two-way process where there are things that feed in from regional and national initiatives in the main IGF.  They are not just people who are taking concepts from the main IGF and implementing things around that.  So I think the IGF gets enriched each year.  And paragraph 10(g)(2) of the Tunis Agenda, reflection on capacity-building and documenting where we moved along, is an important priority.

 Just my last point, on intersessional work in the agenda, I see that as being finalized today in terms of working groups.  That is something as I pointed out even yesterday is a bit of a problem for people who are online and participating or some of us who can't make it.  

 So we've been nimble footed and we have been able to respond to new evolving topics throughout the year.  And November seems far away.  

 I request the secretariat and the MAG to be a little flexible as far as constitution of working groups is concerned for intersessional work.  And we do not finalize but we put some suggestions on the table so there is call for engaging a wider community then.

 But a framework and a parameter, some guidelines, that is the discussion that I'm looking forward to today.  Thank you, Janis.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you very much, Subi.

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Good morning, everyone.  Quick points.  One, I think the earlier we decide the theme the better it is.  Last year we really rushed and said we don't have much time.  Now we seem to have a couple of months more and we are saying "Oh, my God, we have lots of time."  I think it would be best to approach the issue of themes as early as possible.

 Now, if we want to go to crowdsourcing, that's not a bad idea but the challenge of open consultation is that certain stakeholder groups can send in 4-, 500 responses and certain others maybe send in 10 or maybe 15 at best.  That's just the nature of how people respond to online consultations and stakeholders do.

 And in the end, it becomes a numbers game, as you yourself sort of accumulated views this morning based on email responses, and that's where it boils down to.  So we have to be careful in not letting this down to be a numbers game alone.

 And, therefore, if we have to go for public consultation, we should ensure that we as the MAG at least agree to a set of parameters or principles that are indicated along with the consultation that must be adhered to when responding to public consultation.  Otherwise, we could be either in the same spot where we have 40 new responses or a lot of responses coming from one stakeholder and the others kind of struggling to match the numbers.  

 So I would strongly recommend that we look at principles and parameters on how to decide -- and convey that as part of the public consultation so that there is an objective way to then select what comes through the consultation process and it should not just be a sort of a voting or a number game.

 Second, I agree with the issue of motto.  I think that's very well presented.  We should certainly consider that.  We haven't done it so far.  This one fits really well.

 I also have a challenge with the word "trust" and "trustworthy."  I think we do a great disservice when we try and add those kind of words as prefaces to "Internet."

 I don't think the Internet has to be trustworthy; I think people who are using it and stakeholders have to be trustworthy.  

 So we should be careful not to add adjectives to "Internet" because the Internet really hasn't done anything wrong to anybody, and we tend to kind of, you know, focus on the Internet and it's like it's -- we should be very careful how that adjective will be perceived if we put it just before "Internet."  

 So I would go back to the working title which was suggested by our British colleagues of "sustainable development."

 On the issue of meetings, I would go along with the comments made by Marilyn regarding three meetings in 2015.

 If we were to get a theme out by the next 15, 20 days, or whatever the process is -- and I'm not sure how long this consultation could take place but, if we had to go that route, then we should try and get some preliminary information in by March.

 We should also use the March meeting, apart from the UNESCO discussions, to get into the meat of the intersessional work that would have begun.

 It would also have been around the time when the calls for the proposals would have gone out.

 So there is a lot of actual substantive work that MAG needs to do, which is, put out the call for workshops, convey the criteria for workshops, convey the subthemes based on which this will come through, and also have some substantive discussions around intersessional work because all we have left today is about five hours.  I'm not sure how much detail we can get into.

 And of course your suggestions for May or June and then September are very welcome.  I think we should think, too, very carefully about September and we would be guided by you, Mr. Chairman, and we are in your hands because we don't quite understand the U.N. processes of how we can get into that and how we can influence that and -- you know, so it will have to be probably a four-day MAG meeting with one day devoted to an outreach program, so we'll have to design that carefully, and I sort of -- you know, we agree with the idea and the principles of -- for what is being suggested.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  

 Just to inform the discussion, in the call that the secretariat puts in preparation for this meeting, there was a request not only to submit evaluation of Istanbul meeting and ideas for Brazil, but equally, proposals for themes, subthemes, and intersessional work, and 18 proposals in total have been submitted in response to that call, and the proposal -- one of the proposals on the theme was "Internet Governance for Sustainable Development and Promotion of Human Rights."  Another input suggested the theme should be related to topics like surveillance, cybersecurity, on-line privacy as a priority or overarching theme for 2015 meeting.

 So you see that we have had already some consultations and not too many people responded, or organizations, but nevertheless we went through the process and we created the opportunity.

 As much as I like crowd funding, I know we will have a Christmas tree and then we will be facing a need to trim that Christmas tree.  Of course I'm ready to go through this trimming process.  It's always engaging and intellectually challenging, and so happy to do if the MAG considers that is the right way of doing things.

 But let me now take the next speaker, and that is Fiona.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis, and thanks for the proposal on the schedule.

 I think I'll restrict my remarks to that, for the time being.

 Just to echo those that suggested on-line consultations, I think that's a great opportunity and something that we could do from now until whatever the schedule is we agree.  So that's always a good exercise to get feedback on themes and things like that.

 I would have some strong reservations about basically doubling the number of meetings we use to prepare for the IGF, which is in effect what we would be doing if we had four meetings.  

 The WSIS called for the MAG to be lightweight and nimble and it seems to be -- doubling the meetings seems to go against that concept and making things more bureaucratic.  I would suggest that we be thoughtful when we have face-to-face meetings.  Those meetings need to be deliberate and purposeful and things we can't do on line.

 We have in the last couple of years adopted this, I think, schedule of every -- a call every two weeks and those have been very effective in getting things done, and I think we should sort of default to that.

 I do think it's challenging to suggest we keep adding more meetings without clear purpose for those meetings.  

 I think the UNESCO activity in March is a very interesting one, and for those MAG members that are interested in doing that, I would encourage them to do so, but I'm not sure what the UNESCO activity, in and of itself, has to do with the MAG and organizing the IGF for November.

 I'd also like to point out, just in the scheduling concept, we need to actually get the proposal out for workshop requests, and we need to give stakeholders two months or so to respond to that request, which means that if we don't do that until March, we will not have sufficient time to actually get proposals in and evaluate them, if we're going to meet in May.  

 So I think the schedule you've outlined is a good one to start with and I think it could be fleshed out with more specifics of these, you know, every-two-week calls and what we hope to accomplish to make sure we do them, but would really have strong reservations about doubling the number of meetings, and how often we get together face to face to prepare for something.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Cheryl?

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 I also agree that coming to a conclusion on a theme earlier rather than later would help us, especially as I'm listening to Fiona's comments, with respect to the work that we need to do on the workshop proposals, and Virat's comments on the work that we still need to do on the intersessional piece.

 We do have a lot of other things that we'll need to decide.

 I also think coming to a conclusion on a theme a bit earlier gives the community time to get excited about it.  It's almost a marketing piece for the IGF, and it gives us more time to build around that.

 I do like the notion of some type of motto in the future by Juan Carlos, I think it was.  I think that's an interesting concept and I would be interested to hear more about that.

 Also, the theme of sustainable development that was raised by our U.K. colleagues, I think it's a great one.  And Ana's contribution yesterday with respect to the inclusion and focus on people I think is really important, and I think one of the other alternatives was sustainable and human development.  I'm very supportive of that as well, as a concept, and I think everything that we are doing, we are benefiting people or we're trying to benefit people, so we should try to keep that close.

 With respect to the best practice forums, to the extent that we are looking to add a new one, I would ask the MAG to consider possibly examining on-line education.  I think on-line education is an area that's seen a lot of growth over the past several years and it has -- there is a lot of research out there on it now with respect to MOOCs, massive open on-line courses.  Many of the major universities now offer on-line programs and these programs are accessible to individuals throughout the globe, and so it would be interesting to see the progress that's been made, how it's been impacting people, et cetera.

 And so I think that's one area that might lend itself towards best practice work.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I have on-line participant Izumi Okutani.  Izumi?

 >>REMOTE PARTICIPANT:  Thank you, Chair.  Izumi, in particular, would like to support Avri and Marilyn's suggestions about consulting the community through some wider consultations.

 We have other observers on line who are not MAG members who have also shown their support for this.  

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE: And I personally then, as I -- you'll see that I do have both cards up -- would also like to show my support for that.

 If I may continue as myself now.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Please.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  So speaking for myself, I do agree with the need to -- or with the proposals by Avri and Marilyn, and while I understand the timing problems and the addition of meetings, I also strongly feel that we need to approach the strategy of panels and the attention we need to give to remote moderation -- I'm sorry, on-line moderation, panel moderation, and panel strategy for proper interaction with on-line participation.

 So that we need a little bit of time there anyway, because when the call for proposals goes out, I think that strategy and information should go out.

 So I don't think that we're losing anything by taking a little bit of time to attend both situations, both consulting the wider community on the proposals and preparing better guidelines for workshop criteria.

 Thank you.

 Oh, I'm sorry.  Excuse me.

 Today is the U.N. Day of Persons with Disabilities, so I think if we wanted to just mention a little support for the dynamic coalition for persons with disabilities and keep that in the back of our minds, at least, that is a priority.

 And I thank the chair for the mention of gender as a possible best practice.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I have Mark, Shita, Constance, Lea, Dominique have asked for the floor.  That is -- Jivan.  And then I will ask our Brazilian hosts, maybe, to say what they think, how they feel, and then we would move on to the other topics.

 I see Kossi also is asking for the floor.

 Please, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Thank you, Chair, and good morning, colleagues, and observers.

 Thank you very much, Chair, for your precision in making proposals on -- with regard to themes and the timetable for preparation for the IGF next year.  That's extremely helpful.  Really appreciate that.

 On themes, on the overarching theme, support that proposal provisionally.  Perhaps we can allow 15 to 20 days, as Virat was suggesting, for finalization of that.  And likewise, with regard to the themes, I think we should act quickly in order to go public early in the new year on the themes, subthemes, as well as the overarching theme.

 I think it's appropriate, really, that the MAG, with its diverse and global membership, to be tasked with finalizing this rather than going to the crowdsourcing route.

 I appreciate Avri's point, obviously, that any opportunity to maximize engagement is good, but I think the MAG is properly empowered to do that task.

 The motto, I think, is an interesting proposal.  We'll give consideration to that and respond quickly.

 With regard to the timetable for preparation, we would prefer to keep it to three meetings, including this one.

 The March UNESCO event I see more as an opportunity for the MAG to report progress at that meeting.  I agree with previous speakers that I don't really see the necessity in terms of practical action for a face-to-face meeting that's going to have resource implications and so on.  On-line action, I think, will cover what we need to do in the period leading up to -- to May.

 So I would stick to your proposal for three meetings, next meeting in May.

 I agree with your September proposal for a meeting in New York.  Outreach there is vital and we should seek that offer to do that in September as early as possible, so that the lead negotiators there will be aware of it and will anticipate it and factor it into the program for whatever the modalities are for preparation for the high-level meeting.

 The second committee yesterday in New York, my colleague there has reported that a major influential member of the committee has resisted mandate renewal at this time on a point of principle.  I won't name that administration but it was a previous IGF host so that narrows it down, if you like, to help you identify who it is.

 So it looks unlikely that mandate renewal will happen in this year's resolution, so it makes it all the more imperative that we report, go public on improvements, innovations, the preparatory process for Brazil, and so on, with the themes readily identified and the processes of multistakeholder engagement fully enacted and so on.

 So that's my point on the -- my main point on the timetable.

 With regard to intersessional work, I -- I have to say I'm a little bit surprised that we're solely focusing on the best practice mechanism, if you like, if that's not -- if that's the right word.  I'm not sure it is.  But I certainly support, of course, the best practice approaches but I wonder if we're losing sight of other valuable intersessional work on net neutrality and supporting maybe two -- one or two dynamic coalitions on rights and child protection, and bring that into the package of intersessional activity so that we don't sort of narrow it too -- too definitely at this stage.

 So I just sort of wanted to come back to that, to the importance of taking forward what was agreed in Istanbul on net neutrality and what is -- what you reported, Chair, in your summary.  That is important with regard to the dynamic coalitions.

 Finally, we should inform, as early as possible, the national and regional IGFs what we're -- what we're planning.

 And one other point with regard to that con- -- potential contribution is that with -- going back to best practices, we should communicate to them a kind of request that they consider nominating experts from their -- within their national and regional communities to contribute to these best practice forums.  That, I think, is a valuable sort of line of global communication for us to develop in terms of ensuring that the active participants are truly global and represent stakeholder communities from all regions:  developing countries, least-developed, and islands and so on.

 So thank you.  I hope those comments are helpful.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Certainly they are.  The question about intersessional activities is -- we have -- there are two strategies.  One, we're proposing a menu of items and sort of spreading thin across the board or we are concentrating on one which fits in the 2015 year philosophy, sustainable development and economic development and access and so on.

 So again, these are two different approaches and I appreciate your thoughts on that.

 Shita, please.

 >>SHITA LAKSMI:  Thank you.  I have two issues I want to table.

 The first one is a subtheme.  I would like to suggest the continuation for discussion on the Internet as an engine for growth and development subtheme, just like we have in Istanbul, but more under the business term, or using what Juan said regarding the Internet for economic development.  Especially on how it should be reflected in the business ecosystem between the global and national business entities.

 And the second is that the timetable for intersessional work, what we discuss on the table with several civil society organization representatives, intersessional work -- and which I'm still digesting what the term is -- it was suggested that this work should be decided in the early 2015, considering that there will be a series of regional, such as Asia-Pacific, or national IGFs throughout the years.

 I would think that starting as early as possible would be good to exercise the intersessional work but I don't know, perhaps you have another explanation on that, why you put it in September, Chair.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No.  I mean, intersessional work would start immediately, as soon as we're ready.  If we're ready after this meeting tomorrow, we will launch it then.

 In September, we would review the progress and contribute maybe to finalization, if possible.

 So that is the idea.

 And certainly the every-two-week phone calls of the MAG is -- so we -- I intend to continue with that practice because that was very useful to progress activities and then make decisions.

 Constance, please.  ISOC.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone.

 On the overarching theme, I think I would echo some of the concerns about the word "trustworthy."  An alternative might be "a trusted Internet."  If we're sticking to the idea of sustainable development, then it would be "a trusted Internet for sustainable development."

 On the schedule, I would echo the points made by Fiona.  I think it's -- it's quite important.

 And then in terms of intersessional work, the idea put forward by ICC/BASIS I think is an interesting proposal.  I like very much this idea of having policy menus building up to 2015.  

 At the same time, I think we need to consolidate what we have already.  

 So my suggestion would be that perhaps we consider that the theme for intersessional work proposed by ICC be the same theme as the overarching theme of the IGF, just to make sure we stay consistent through our intersessional work and as we work towards outcomes for the final IGF event in Brazil.

 In the same spirit, it seems to me that then the policy menus should probably be the same in terms of themes and the subthemes we have for the IGF, and the best practices would be foundational pieces, I think, of those policy menus.

 And then in terms of how do we make this happen, if there is agreement and if we can find volunteers among the MAG group but perhaps also beyond the MAG group, I think it would be good to kick start work through some sort of working group that would be working closely with the secretariat.  And I've mentioned the need to have the secretariat lead the process for neutrality reasons as we develop outcomes, and I still think it's very important.

 So if we could have a working group, I think we would need to have someone from ICC, civil society, technical community, all the sensitivities in that working group to kick start the intersessional work after this meeting.

 And then with regards to the best practices, I hear your concern about limited resources.  If the idea is to work in the framework of five themes maximum, it seems to me that some of the current themes maybe need two or three extra months of work but not 12 months.  So maybe we could consider finalizing some of the themes between now and the next MAG meeting and then instead of adding simply one theme, we could add one, two, three, depending on where we are with the old themes.

 In this regard, in terms of new themes, I think IXPs is a good one.  Gender and ICT, I'm not an expert but if there is support, why not.  And then I think someone also suggested best practices for IPv6 implementation which might be another one to consider.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Constance.

 I'm now calling on Lea.

 >>LEA KASPAR:  Thank you, Chairperson.  Good morning, everyone.  

 I'd like to echo a number of points that were made by colleagues.  First on the timetable, I actually support the idea of having four meetings in total.  I do think that a lot of work has to be done in between, but having face-to-face meetings really adds value.  I do appreciate Fiona's point that we need to make sure that it makes sense and we can justify to our communities the expenses.

 I really like the idea of the New York meeting that you mentioned and having a part of that meeting to be an outreach activity to feed into the conversation about the WSIS+10 review.

 As Mark said, and I think I agree with that, this needs to be clearly communicated in advance in order to make sure that it has maximum impact.

 One thing that you mentioned, Chairman, in your presentation was the possibility of having consultation on the WSIS+10 review during the IGF meeting but on the margins.  Now, I'd like to perhaps caution against that and encourage us to have an open mind of still adding that onto the main program, if that's something that the community wants.

 I'm afraid it will be a big issue next year.  And as we will be coming close to the December meeting in New York, there could be a clash between then the main program and this discussion.  And I wouldn't want to see that happen, that people who are interested in that discussion can't attend if it is on the margins or clashing with the main program of the IGF.

 I'd like to strongly support the suggestion made by Avri and supported by others in the room on public consultation on the themes.  Perhaps to -- as it seems that there is a lot of support for this.  Perhaps a way forward would be to take the themes that were suggested by various members overnight and yesterday and put that together with the suggestions that were made in the submissions prior to the meeting as you suggested and put that out to the community to perhaps give them a draft of proposals that could be considered but also leave room for additional proposals to make sure that the views of the community are reflected.

 On intersessional work, I think Mark made that point that we need -- I don't know how others see it, but I thought that intersessional work is something much broader than the best practice forums.  It is actually everything that happens between sessions.  That's why it is call intersessional work.  It is basically anything that happens between annual meetings.  

 I think Constance made that point.  It contains not just best practice forums but dynamic coalitions as well as any preparations towards workshops that I think we should also encourage to make sure there's a dynamic discussion happening the whole year-round.  

 I think Shita mentioned having that as an August activity was confusing for me when I saw that in the schedule.  But you just clarified that's not what you meant.  So appreciate that.

 I don't know whether it would be worth perhaps -- as we seek views from the community on the themes to also seek input on intersessional work and support Constance's view that there should be consistency between intersessional work and the program of the conference to make sure we maximize input.

 As a last point, this is not something that perhaps we have to discuss at this meeting but just want to make sure it doesn't fall off the radar was something that was picked up overnight.  I think Patrick wrote an email about a document that was circulated yesterday, the MAG terms of reference.  There just seem to be a number of questions there.  Perhaps we can -- I hope we can have a discussion about that online after the meeting.  Just want to make sure that doesn't drop off the radar.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Maybe -- let me talk a little bit from systemic point of view.  Of course, many things have happened since 2006 when we met for the first time in IGF.  And there has been a significant evolution in the whole ecosystem.  Things have changed.  But, in essence, the MAG is charged to prepare one event, a global IGF.  And we do not have any say over neither regional or national IGFs.  We can only invite them to cooperate with us and to take up our suggestions which would then feed in the preparation and substantive work of the IGF meeting in Brazil.

 So that is how I see it.  So, therefore, I would be very cautious in imposing or even attempting to impose something on regional IGFs in a direct sense.

 Inviting them on a voluntary basis and consider and report back and then provide input, that is the phraseology we would need to use.  Our task is to organize the May meeting in the best possible way based on input from others.

 We have still many other issues to discuss and, of course, this is extremely important.  I think we're moving towards kind of general understanding that maybe additional consultations with the community would be needed by Christmas, and then we would attempt to finalize the theme by mid January, that we could issue the call for proposals around -- in January, early February.  So this is how I feel we can proceed.

 But, nevertheless, I have a number of other speakers.  And I will call on Dominique.

 >>DOMINIQUE LAZANSKI:  Thank you, Chair.  As this is my first intervention as a new MAG member, I just want to thank everybody for their interventions so far.  I've learned -- I've learned a lot already over the last two days.

 Just a couple of points.  I just want to support the idea of deciding on a theme earlier rather than later.  This not only provides, as Mark said, as our colleague from the U.K. said, sort of energy and focus going forward but also a structure from which we can do our work and from which everyone else can start thinking about and planning workshop proposals.

 It is important to point out that providing a theme, a general theme for the IGF is probably -- does not limit, in fact, any other subthemes or workshops or anything like that but just provides a general goal and vision.

 And to that end, I think it is, in part, our responsibility as a MAG to decide on that.  And I support the Chair as well, again, as various others in that direction.

 Just a couple of other things in terms of the meetings, three meetings seems appropriate as long as we can continue to have the calls and the discussions online which, again, I think need to be done in a sort of effective and structured way.  And a theme, again, would provide that.

 And, finally, I support obviously the proposal that the ICC put forward on intersessional work as well as Constance's intervention on drawing from that and towards a general theme as well.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Jivan?

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Yeah.  I want to follow up and underline the few who have said that "trustworthy" is not something that we should put as an adjective for the Internet.  And perhaps Constance's suggestion of going into "trusted" could do the job.  But that is something that I don't think would do -- describe the process well.

 I think that crowdsourcing is a good way and I think we should use it more, perhaps not necessarily directly on the main theme.  But we should work toward collecting more from the community, more ideas, more of their thoughts and what is important to them.

 And the regional IGFs I think are a good resource for that as well.  We don't necessarily have to oblige and create a direct link that stays from now on.  But to use them from now on is something that we should use henceforth.

 In terms of the crowdsourcing, I think the idea of panel moderation is a good one.  I think that there's a lot of people here who could contribute to that so that we shape up and especially because we do have these 14 months, we should use them to really in the beginning open the net wide and then slowly have people from here perhaps as panel moderators that direct conversations in a given area.

 And to get back to a conversation that we've had on outcomes, I think as we keep on thinking of outcomes as already polished product, and we don't necessarily have to think of them in that way.  I think that there are those things that come out as already polished products, perhaps the Chair's summary, et cetera.  But the IGF can also be a place where ideas, information, and data come out and that somebody else makes sense out of that afterwards.  It doesn't have to be made sense right away, what exactly it means.

 So increasing the numbers isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Increasing the number of data, increasing the number of ideas, of information that goes through the IGF in some form and thus through the MAG in some form is not necessarily a bad thing.

 Three meetings is more than enough, I think, including this one.  And I think that the proposals of May and September are well thought out.  

 And the motto -- the idea for a motto is a good one, and I like it the way it's shaped.  Cheers.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 Kossi.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chairman.  Good morning.  Good morning, everybody.  

 I'm sorry for going back to elements which have already been dealt with but actually the subject we're talking about on the proposal being made is very relevant.  But the most important thing for me is to see how these proposals fit in to what our communities want.  This is what we're here for.

 And in the private sector, we have the world of research and also we have governments.  And at this level, it could be said that we could adopt a minimum consensus on the themes of our activities and the global themes because I'm saying that as far as national matters are concerned, I'm thinking about Benin, we want to be sure that the activities we carry out at a national level contribute to world level.

 It should not be at the last minute that information is provided on the themes so that everybody gets lost in all the proposals being made.  We've already said in the past that the national should be done before the regional and the world IGF should come after that.  If we want to respect that principle and be sure that the information comes from the base to the summit, then we will have gone a long way to reaching a consensus on the themes.  Thank you, sir.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Kossi, for your contribution.

 I will take three more interventions in this respect from the room, and that is Ana, Maria Victoria, and Cisco Systems.  We need to move on.  We can't stay on this all the time.  I think we're reaching -- and then I would like to ask Brazil to react.

 There will be other topics to talk about, many others.  And we still have at least 4 1/2 hours of working.

 So, Ana, please.

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you very much, and good morning, everybody.  I just would like to say a couple of things.  I think the overarching theme should be global, concise, and inclusive.  And it should sound strong and as a continuum of what has been achieved so far.  But at the same time, it should sound strong to the citizen.  So, again, I'm putting a lot of effort here to pay attention to people, to the citizen, because at the end of the day, what we are doing here is for us, is for the society, is for people.  Business is for people.  Economy is for people.  So I think that the theme, therefore, we should concentrate our energy on the subthemes that can be really broad and we can have a very good discussion on those ones.

 But for the main theme, I think that we should move on and I would like to appeal to have a global, concise -- a global, concise, and inclusive theme that sounds very strong.  So something that anyone can hear and immediately understand what we're talking about.

 And that's it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Maria Victoria.

 >>VICTORIA ROMERO:  Good morning, colleagues.  Chair, I will be brief because many of the issues that I wanted to touch on have already been said by previous colleagues.

 Regarding the overarching theme, I send this morning a couple of proposals but two basics, fundamentals problem of Internet governance and/or ten IGFs, where we are, where we're going.  I'm not completely sure about public consultation, the less it will be important.  It will be important as well as some of the colleagues said to have a consolidated version of all the proposals and to -- not to waste too much time and to start from that.  And I fully agree that it has to be people oriented as well.

 Regarding the subthemes, I could support those proposals of -- oriented to human rights and e-government, as Virat sent this morning this proposal.  I like that very much.  And as well as emerging issues, just to be sure.

 The other point I wanted to touch was on forging synergies.  I agree that you said we cannot impose -- we do not impose anything on regional or national processes, but we can work together and forge these synergies.

 As for the intersessional work, Chair, I agree that three meetings, it's a good number, including this one.  May and September.  And the one -- we have to be very careful of the one in September because we know that there's huge activity when the General Assembly starts and lots of heads of delegations and it will be difficult to get the attention of different people and especially the two facilitators of the WSIS+10 process, so we have to take that in mind.

 And also in the international -- intersessional process, Chair, I would like to stress the need to have in mind the activities for outreaching to other actors, especially governments from developing countries, and for that, activities in Geneva and New York are extremely important.

 Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Indeed, September is a busy time, but the second part of September in New York is busy time.  The first part is still okay.

 Cisco Systems.

 >>CHIP SHARP:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Thank you for recognizing and allowing observers to comment during this period.  It's very appreciated.

 Two quick points.

 I was listening to the discussion on intersessional work and just -- it seems there's a difference, to me, between intersessional work and intersessional activity.

 Intersessional work implies a work product.  

 So I want to just repeat my plea from Monday that the intersessional work needs to be clearly scoped into what work's expected, you know, how is it input to IGF and what is it expected to do with it.

 So that's one point.

 The other one is, taking care on focusing on Internet governance and not slipping into technical work.

 Some of the proposals I've seen are very good, but they could easily slide into discussions of technical aspects and how to implement and I think that would be -- I think we need to focus on the Internet governance aspects, and not -- resist the temptation to get involved in, you know, discussing implementation work.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Lee, 30 seconds, please.

 >>LEE HIBBARD:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  

 Lee Hibbard from the Europe but putting my EuroDIG hat on to say that I think it's a very good idea to engage the regional IGFs, where possible.

 We have a planning meeting for the EuroDIG in Sofia, in Bulgaria, on the 27th of January.  I think it would be very important if you can -- if the IGF MAG can give clear indications or requests of what you actually want us to convey to you.  That's very, very important.

 And the second thing is that we already do a data collection of all proposals and we put them into a very transparent table and we therefore cluster things according to what we receive, so that's something we can share immediately.  

 And I think it's very important that all this data collection is done in a transparent fashion so that the MAG can decide very clearly what comes from where and how things are resolved thereafter.

 And the last thing is just to say that I think it's very important if we can try, at least in the planning meeting we have, to try to encourage legislate- -- to get some budget to send one or two, let's say, ambassadors from the region to contribute to the global level in terms of content substance issues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Lee, for this intervention and proposal.

 Before going to Brazil for kind of maybe summing up and reaction, I will invite on-line participant Subi to say a few words, but please briefly.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Yeah.  So I still support the theme that has been proposed and I very strongly echo support for Avri's initial proposal for crowdsourcing inputs and going back to the public for consultation over the subthemes with a tight deadline, perhaps, as well as proposal for working groups and intersessional work.

 Before we go into the topic of main themes -- and I will reserve my comments for that section -- I would want to put a proposal on the table for commemorating and marking the decade-long journey of the IGF, even though a souvenir, and also augmenting the motto that's been suggested, "Shaping the Evolution of the Internet," by prefacing that with "10 years of Shaping the Use and the Evolution of the Internet."

 If you could consider printing badges or souvenirs and taking that message out, maybe augmenting also with the IGF logo with a sub-tag.  That is an important message that we can take away as we work towards the preparatory process.  That would be all for now.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  That is more for host country to do the -- the -- like these badges for participants.

 Please, Flavio, I understand you will be trying to express opinion and sentiments of the host country.

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  Yeah.  Thank you, Janis.

 So first, regarding the main theme of the IGF 2015, if we remember the final outcome of the NETmundial event, the statement identified many important issues that deserve attention from the community, and we feel that the proposed working title is maybe too narrow by concentrating on a subset of those relevant issues that we should face as a global community.

 And particularly, it may suggest that the IGF wants to concentrate on issues like security and massive monitoring.  And remember, please, that Brazil was strongly involved with promoting a discussion on these issues, even with a speech of the Brazilian president at the United Nations General Assembly last year regarding exactly security and massive monitoring.

 So people could think this theme has been proposed by Brazil to have a focus on these issues during IGF 2015, so this could give a very misleading message to the community.

 So we'd like just to reinforce our suggestion to build a bridge between the NETmundial outcome, which is much broader and inclusive, and IGF.

 So the roadmap established by the NETmundial declaration proposes further discussions on several themes that are extremely relevant for the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem.  And remember the declaration firmly proposes the strengthening of the IGF, suggesting that it is the most adequate forum to address in a multistakeholder setting all those issues that are not covered adequately by existing entities or processes.

 And especially in 2015 when the General Assembly will decide on the continuation of IGF, it would be very relevant to show that the community firmly proposes -- for instance, by means of the NETmundial declaration that has been prepared by the community -- that the IGF is the main forum for the discussion of all things that are relevant for the evolution of the ecosystem, and we think that the main theme of the IGF 2015 could clearly show that IGF accepts this role and is up to the challenge proposed by the community itself.

 And we think that the proposed theme also creates the required bridge between the evolution of the Internet governance ecosystem and the sustainable development goals of the United Nations, so IGF 2015 could explicitly discuss, through its workshops, main sessions, and so on, how advancing the ecosystem and following on the path of the NETmundial recommendations we can help society and government to meet these goals.

 So this is regarding the main theme.

 Regarding the subthemes, we would like to see a small number of subthemes, such that we can organize the three or four main sessions that are focused on them and that bring together the contributions and results from the many workshops and dynamic coalitions and best practice forums and so on.

 So we would like -- we would not like to see too large number of subthemes.

 Finally, regarding the timetable for the preparation process, we would like to have as much opportunities as possible to discuss face to face in the MAG and to have public consultation with the community before we take our final decisions regarding the program.

 So we know that maybe due to budgetary problems it's difficult to have the meeting in March, but let's have this opportunity still open until we can take a final decision on that.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.

 So I have nothing to say.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No, it's very difficult.

 So one thing is clear.  We're very far apart on the main theme and subthemes.  We need further consultations.  And maybe if I -- if I would invite a group of MAG members who are most interested in this topic and who have spoken the most during the lunchtime still come together and try -- trying to work out a possible sort of proposal that we could put on -- sort of for consultations with the larger community, maybe that would be very helpful for doing that.

 Yes, Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Mr. Chairman, I just want to place one time consideration for the -- for the MAG to remember.  

 Just as we talk about two-hour main sessions and, you know, all the workshops reporting in to that and then there's a time issue because it's 120 minutes.

 This is an unusual year.  A typical year is seven months of preparation.  We have one meeting in February and one in May.  If we go with the process of consulting and crowdsourcing for the first time in IGF's history, which is a very good idea on paper, here is the challenge you have:  You'll put out the call for consultation in February every year.  You will get responses for intersessional work and theme in March.  You will finalize that, the earliest, in April.  When you meet in May, you will not have been able to put out the call for workshops and you will not have begun the work on intersessional work.

 So the May meeting would actually become meaningless every year unless the MAG is planning to meet every year three times starting December of 2015 and so on.

 We have -- this 14 months is an unusual exception.  We have seven months to plan.  So when we talk about crowd- -- 

 And that is the reason why MAGs -- many MAGs before us have made this decision and then left it open to the community to contribute workshops based on a range of subthemes.  That's the process of subthemes.  

 But please think again.  By May, you would only have finalized the themes, and intersessional work would have got you, at best, three or four months of work, which is the same as best practice last year.

 So as we -- as we put these proposals out, let's keep in mind we will not have 14 months each year.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Actually, now we have only 11, if my math is right.

 But, no, with the -- I do not want to change the timetable.  Maybe not in -- not in details, but in principle.

 I think the latest we would need to get out a call for proposals is the end of January.  By end of January, we need to have a theme and subthemes identified and agreed upon.

 Today, we're too much far apart, and this is -- there is no convergence in this room at the moment.  Maybe during the lunchtime, the most interested members could come together and to work out kind of a solution or proposal which we then would call a working title and we would put it for the -- for the consultations with the community to see their feedback.

 And then through the on-line meeting, through the conference call, we would take a decision on the theme and subtheme sometime in mid-January that we can propose -- can issue a call for proposals at the end of January.

 So then we would suggest two months for proponents of workshops to give -- sort of to formulate their proposals and submit to the secretariat, and then we would have another two months for MAG members -- for secretariat first to do a prescreening and then for MAG members to do evaluation.  

 And with that, we would come to the May meeting -- May or June meeting -- where we would do a selection process, as we did every year.

 After that, secretariat would contact all proponents, doing necessary adjustments, mergers, fine-tuning, and this nitty-gritty work, to get a schedule agreed and published, more or less, by end of July.

 So -- and then that would be for the -- for the preparation for the meeting itself.

 Then of course comes intersessional.  Intersessional activities and best practices.

 We -- now we know that seven weeks for best practices is not enough.  It would be good to engage and start working on best practice compilations as early as possible.

 So here I -- I hear we have three themes, maybe, which could be suggested:  gender -- Internet and gender, the IXPs, and IPv4/IPv6.  At least that.  And then we need to see what two other themes would be.  Either a continuation of two out of five that we had now, to finalize them completely and present outcomes to the next meeting, or my preference would be to have another two additional themes to make the library of compilations larger than we have.

 Also with the understanding that these are living documents and every time we have something new interesting that has been proven working, we add it to the -- to the mix.

 And so -- but then comes this intersessional.  You all know very well that one of the claims of everybody is that IGF needs to produce more tangible outcomes that should become more relevant, and in the Istanbul meeting, we were talking about engaging on a theme which would make a lot of sort of relevance for member states, particularly for developing countries, and it was suggested in the chair's statement -- or chair's report that this theme might be sort of noncontroversial, with a developmental angle, and ICC/BASIS has produced the proposal which suggests that this theme could be a policy menu for next building on line.

 That is -- that certainly has a developmental aspect, that has an economical aspect, that has an access aspect that is geared towards developing countries, that contributes to the overall sort of strategic theme of 2015, that is sustainable development, and so on.

 I mean, we can justify that particular topic.

 Of course we need to construct these intersessional activities, how that will be done, and again, taking into account the resource constraints, including human resource constraints.  We need to heavily rely on regional and national IGFs, hoping that they would take up that topic and they would provide input after discussing that topic in their events.

 Again, from the previous experience -- and please do not take it as any pejorative comment.  The previous experience shows that there is a hype of activities of the MAG members during the face-to-face meeting and then gradually it goes down because of the routine and daily work and so on, and we need to be very careful in our planning not to take up more commitments than we can deliver.

 I think that that is the danger for us, danger for our credibility, if we overpromise and under-deliver.

 I would rather go for a solution under-promise and over-deliver, in that respect.

 So therefore, again, we need to be very practical and evaluate the size of our stomach against the size of our eyes, because eyes always are bigger than stomach.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  And we want to eat more than we can -- we can really swallow.

 So these are my reflections, and I would like now to see if there is somebody who could volunteer to -- during the lunchtime to animate that discussion.

 Would you like to do that?

 >> BENEDICTO FONSECA FILHO:  Thank you, Janis.  I just was going to comment on that.  

 I think the timetable you have proposed is excellent and will allow us not to waste the time we have, to make good use of the time we have until November.  So by the end of January, we can have the themes and subthemes to kick off the process.  So since we are at the end of morning session, we only have three hours left in the afternoon, what I would like to suggest -- and I haven't even discussed with my delegation -- is if those interested parties could maybe meet outside the room or here by 2:00 p.m., of course, again even meet during the lunchtime, if that is more inviting.  But if those who can make it by 2:00, we'll be more than happy to try to have some more -- some further discussion.  This, of course, I think -- I don't think this will preempt the consultation that will follow online after the meeting but maybe it will help us to get out of the meeting some more clarity and some more understanding on the various options before us.  So we'll be more than happy to try to assist in this if we can rely on colleagues who can come by 2:00 p.m.  

 And, of course, then as you have said, Janis, we'll have to -- our eating necessities will be limited in time for satisfying the stomach.  But I think the discussions will be -- will benefit from this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Mark, very quickly, please.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes, thank you, Chair.  Mark Carvell, U.K. government.  Just very briefly, just to underline that in similar fashion to EuroDIG, the European Dialogue Internet Governance, the European regional IGF which Lee reported on in terms of process for picking up the direction from the MAG, the U.K. IGF committee is meeting next week.  There may be other national/regional IGFs which, likewise, are sort of hanging on for decisions here.  So just to underline that in terms of ensuring effective reaction, commitment, contribution to the intersessional activity.  This work that we are doing has to ensure agility, fleet-footedness, and expediency in securing the contributions to make intersessional activity meaningful, substantial work.

 So you need to ensure that the window for engagement with the wide diversity of national/regional IGFs and their processes of consultation and executive management is there for the MAG to secure effective solutions to intersessional modalities.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Constance?

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much.  I said I think that the policy menus was a good idea to kick start the intersessional work.  It's still unclear to me, however, why we need a separate theme for the intersessional work because it's -- experience shows that the difficulty within the IGF context is really to consolidate the work we have.  And I'm a little concerned that we might create another track that would not consolidate with what we're trying to do with regards to the preparation of the event itself.  Though, I don't have a strong opinion about the overarching theme, whether it is the one we discussed or whether it is the one proposed by ICC for the intersessional work, as long as I think it is the same theme in that we build intersessional work towards the event, the IGF event, where we would collectively acknowledge the outputs of the work done intersessionally.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Online participant.  Who is that?

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  Subi has asked for the floor.  And there is also a concern about the possible online participation during the lunch meeting.  Perhaps we can ask Evian (phonetic) to arrange WebEx at 2:00 here in the room.  Or I will check with you later?  No?

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  These are technical matters -- technical modalities.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  At any rate, that is a concern.  And then the card is for Subi.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Subi, please.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Janis, if we could re-emphasize the point that was made earlier in the day the differentiate between intersessional work and intersessional activity.  One of the concerns has been the IGF and the perception that we are organizing an annual meeting.  And when we look at your proposal from this morning, there is a very clear plan that has been outlined that communicates to the community and to the MAG members that we will be engaging in work throughout the year towards the preparatory process.

 However, there are best practice fora and two or three new working groups that we're suggesting.  I would like to reiterate that we have more such working groups but we also continue to disseminate actively the information that the IGF MAG will be doing while we're on the road to Brazil.  And I just had another suggestion for an intersessional work theme, enhancing youth participation at the global Internet governance dialogue.  If I could just leave it on the floor for reflection and consideration.  Thank you for now.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Subi.

 Christina from Egypt?

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:  Thank you, Chair.  Maybe I'm coming in with the hat of the Arab IGF here, and I would like to welcome the proposal of the policy menu and of engaging with national and regionals intersessionally.  

 But I think we need to take into account that some of the national and regional IGFs only meet later in through the year.  And, likewise, we need to encourage them to work intersessionally probably also through mailing lists and online.  And I would suggest to issue, like, an invitation as early as possible for them with clear ideas of topics that we'd like to see in the policy menu or directions.

 And I also think I would like to echo maybe Lee and Mark's comments, that enough time and a larger window should be given to them; that is, if we want to allow for enough time for them to, you know, channel in their input.

 One last question.  I think it could be also good to have more info on how is the input coming from the nationals and regionals is going to be channeled.  How is that going to happen?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Just clarification, just clarification, for this intersessional work or the proposed topic, the idea is to produce a document which would be submitted or presented to the IGF in Brazil where we would seek maybe buy-in by all participants.  And that would respond to those who request more tangible outputs from the meeting.

 The same applies for compilation of best practices.  That would be also submitted to the IGF maybe without explicit requests for endorsement.  But this is the difference between this one substantive issue that we would try to work through intersessionally and bring some kind of document.  And, again, I do not know what kind of document, and I don't know how we will call the document.  That will be the people working on that, that would suggest whether that will be a principle or whether that will be a recommendation or that will be a take-away.  We don't know yet.  But that's the difference.  We will try to get buy-in by everybody to that document.  And, therefore, the theme proposed I think is very opportune because it is non-controversial, that is develop oriented.  That speaks about access.  And as we know today, the biggest access is in the developing world.  I mean, there are all these elements which are very favorable to speaking in favor of that particular theme.  

 Since we are not talking about policy recommendations but we are talking about policy menu, that means that there is -- there might be a policy that has worked in one type of country.  There is another type of policy work in other type of countries and so on.  So also there will not be controversy in terms of negotiations, which policy is better than others.  Simply, there will be a sampling of policies and so on.

 So from that perspective, I think this is a very good proposal coming out from ICC.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I have one question which is more looking for clarification.  I don't really understand what a policy menu is.  It seems that other people do have a much clearer understanding because they're supporting it, and I was asked by someone off list could I explain it.  And I went, uhhh, no.  So perhaps...

 In terms of the intersessional work, I like the idea of being able to come out with at least one output.  What I kind of am sort of concerned about is the sort of spending a lot of time picking the issue that we'll get at as opposed to starting immediately with several work threads and then at some point seeing how far we've gotten and seeing which ones are worth focusing on to take through all the way to an output.  So perhaps it is a slightly different modality as opposed to deciding which theme, start working on several perhaps and see which are ready at some designated intersessional document date.  And I'd like to put that in there for consideration.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Avri.  I think I answered your question right before you asked it, what is the policy menu.

 I said that this is a menu.  When you go to the restaurant, you get a menu.  You get starters.  You get the main dish.  You get the dessert.  And depending on your situation, meaning how hungry you are, how -- in what mood you are, would you like to have a fish or meat, you pick out your menu.

 The same thing here.  We are talking about preparation of policy menus that has helped different governments, different countries rather than governments to bring Internet at the level as they are.

 And those who are interested in bringing -- I mean, improving the state of their Internet and improving access and improving sort of youth, they go to that menu and they say, okay, my country is very similar to that one and they succeeded in this way or these are very good ideas and so on.

 Since we are not talking about negotiations, if we would say a policy for next million -- for next billion online, so that would imply, okay, there is one policy, let's negotiate which is the best one.  Certainly we would not get anywhere with that.

 But bringing different types of policies on the table and sort of explaining them in the way that everybody understands, I think that this is what I understand is a policy menu.

 Juan Alfonso.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  I think I am being a little bit reiterative here.  But how I see this is that the intersessional has to have the same theme as the main session.  How I see it, if I was the one planning this, like a chess game -- you know, I'm a chess player.  In a chess game, you first have to plan what you want to do.  What are you aiming?  You are aiming for a win.  You are aiming for a draw.  Then you select your opening, then how do you transfer to the middle game, and then to an end game that will hopefully be to your advantage.

 Here we have to plan similarly through this year.  And I will suggest to first select the theme or subthemes of the event.  And then to organize all the work regarding there and to engage in whatever way possible all the process in between and regarding the intersessional is to propose, to produce a paper.  You were asking what kind of paper.  It is an issue paper, an issue paper that could help the discussion on the IGF.  The IGF is a very good place for a wide discussion, but it needs to be organized in order to have tangible results.

 Let me put to you an example, just an example.  I don't want to preempt the theme.  But suppose we select the theme of economy.  Economy has many subthemes or many themes like that.  For instance, this world garden variety now of access that is opening for the Internet, we could put in the issue paper for discussion in the IGF:  How do you feel of this world garden access to the Internet?  Do you consider this is a good evolution of the Internet?  Because we are talking about evolution of the Internet and like that.

 Or how do we finance social interest Web sites in developing countries where we don't have advertising industry to finance free access Web site?  How to finance that?  

 Another thing, should you think that the revenue of selling the words of our languages should we pass around to the rest of the Internet community?  Those are big issues that should be in an issue paper.

 Regarding, for instance, cybersecurity, there are many things also.  Privacy, you could put questions regarding privacy.  I suggest that that's the output of the intersessional, issue paper that is in preparation.  

 That is a coming thing in many events in the world, that experts or somebody prepares the issue paper to frame the discussion.  

 But I think that we need to have coherence with the intersessional and the themes.  If you are very keen on this menu, I don't really like that menu thing, but if everybody likes the menu for the intersessional, then make the menu the theme for the IGF in 2015.  But we need to have the same both places.  We cannot spread ourselves thin and then as you say try to do more things than we can really do.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Jivan?

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Thank you.  I'm personally somebody who prefers to get together with friends and have dinner at home, in somebody else's home.  And before that, we all go perhaps to the market and pick our groceries, each of us, and then make dinner.  One person makes a salad and another person and so on.  I'm usually a person that likes this kind of an approach, not necessarily to go to a restaurant with a fixe -- with a fixed menu.  But I understand the logic behind the menu as well.

 Now, intersessions may be a good way to address calls for better outcomes perhaps but it is not necessary to frame it so much now.  I think we have to allow for other priorities to crop up.  I see a line clearly connecting the intersessional discussion and concept and policy menu.  That's clear by now, the third day.

 But I think that we should keep our minds open in what kinds of outcomes can come up out of the IGF and MAG in particular.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I think we're now getting in rounds already.

 Let me then ask Benedicto to convene informal sort of consultations at 2:00 here in the room but not going beyond 3:00 because then we will start our session.

 For those who are interested, please come and join this discussion.  Ideally, we would have a suggestion for a theme and subthemes.  As a result, please use also one hour from 1:00 to 2:00 in the groups to discuss these things, and I will ask you to report back at the beginning of the meeting but without entering any more in the further discussions.

 So let me also say that please think about the intersessional work in terms of working groups.  We have -- yesterday, we have identified that there would be one working group on sort of self-evaluation, adding information to the report which was done by a similar working group in 2013 preparing input for the CSTD meeting in May.  Then we think about who would be interested in joining working group on intersessional work modality definition because we need to have somebody who is sort of proposing and animating that part of work.  

 Also who would be willing to coordinate the best practice -- best practice tracks.  The question is whether we do one working group for all or a number of working groups depending on the titles, I mean, number of topics we're addressing.

 And now I would like to move to the agenda item related to workshop -- workshop selection criteria and mechanisms.

 You -- yes, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Thank you, Chair.  Sorry to interject at this point.

 I just wanted to know when you're proposing to consider interaction with the NETmundial Initiative.  Is that on the agenda for today?  I thought we were going to do that at some point.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah.  I -- depending how coherently we will proceed and how much time other items will take, but that should be -- we should discuss it at the end of the meeting for sure.

 The on-line participant?

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  No.  I'm sorry, that's not -- I was trying to indicate subtly that we have also offered to deal with improvements in on-line participation during the intersessional.  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  That is -- that is in the program, no?  Yeah.  Let's go now one by one.

 We have three topics to talk through, and that is:  Workshop selection criteria; main sessions, preparation for main sessions guidelines; and best practice forums and dynamic coalitions, open forums.  And then on-line participation would fall in that part.

 So you -- you received the document which was developed last year on selection criteria and mechanisms, and I would like to ask Fiona -- Fiona?  

 I would like to ask Fiona, maybe you could very briefly introduce the work you did last time on the selection criteria and mechanisms and see whether we need to fine-tune this methodology or not.  

 Please, Fiona.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you, Janis.  I'll just do a high-level presentation, the details of which people can read in the document that I think Chengetai distributed but it's also posted on the IGF Web site.

 So last year the group decided that we would try to evaluate the proposals in much more of a systematic way which was useful, given we ended up being so overly subscribed with 208 -- I think it was 208 requests for 80 or 90-some slots.  

 And we identified a couple of clear priorities at the outset.

 First, we were looking to ensure that we had new participation and new participants and that we gave some priority to those that were from the developing world as well.

 So instead of actually developing a flat scoring system, we developed a sort of criteria to consider, and that's available on the Web site and I think was in what Chengetai sent around.  

 And then each MAG member, when they were evaluating each individual proposal, considered that broad range of issues and came up with one cumulative score.  So there wasn't an individual scoring of per-item anymore. 

 But sort of a cumulative score.  And then based on that scoring system, when the MAG met in this sort of May -- May or June time frame, we went through and evaluated and selected the workshops.

 Part of the process, Chengetai I believe it was, actually anonymized the proposals so that when we got them to score, we weren't influenced by any particular proposals.  And we also adopted a couple of clear rules at the beginning, which was, if you were actually a participant in the workshop or a named participant, you wouldn't score that proposal.

 We also established some numbers and limitations about the number of proposals that could be submitted.  I think it was three per institution.  And so I think the question is we need to have a conversation about what worked and what didn't work in that process that Susan and I put together, and I'm not -- I think she's probably not participating at this moment.  I know she's been weighing in later, because of the time difference.  I know she sent a note to the MAG list last week with some suggested questions.  

 So we need to identify what worked and what didn't and if there are any new factors we need to consider.

 I would offer that I do think that we did have a challenge that when we actually scored the proposals and when we actually looked at the proposals, we still had a fair number of proposals that were -- that scored quite highly that were duplicative, and I think, you know, we had left it to Chengetai and others to call applicants and to ask them to merge, and I don't think people were always willing to merge.  

 So I think if we are looking for a more breadth of participation and if we are looking for a broader range of participation, we might need to tackle that, in terms of approach going forward.  But I think as a high-level presentation, that was the basic gist of what we tried to do last year.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  I would now open the floor for any comments specifically, but specifically on the selection criteria and process.

 From my side, what I can say, the criticism that I heard was that the -- there was not sufficient explanation why workshops were rejected, and maybe that -- that should be factored in somehow, though it is -- might be a huge task.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  Yes.  

 Obviously I wasn't on the MAG last year, but I did watch this process quite closely from -- you know, externally, from -- on line, and a couple things, first of all, occurred to me, and we saw.

 First of all, while we may have wanted to devalue panels, basically we ended up with many panels.  So the marking system we had -- 

 And in fact, we saw that many people, in order to sort of raise up their proposal, had lists of panelists proposed -- because there was a requirement for panelists -- who hadn't even been consulted.

 So I think that one thing we need to deal with, in terms of looking at it this time, is to certainly not encourage people to make up panelists, but perhaps not even to include panelists, and in fact, if we want to limit the number of panel-type work sessions we have, we need to do some of that.

 The other thing I noticed is to make the marking system work, it took some -- some very clever ad hoc decisions on how to proceed down the gradations to actually get to something balanced.  That the classification system, in itself, did not really produce a balance.  It took the chair sort of saying, "Okay, let's do it this way and let's take two of these and three of those and proceed down."  

 And so I think while I understand why that had to happen, the classification itself should do a better job of bringing those things out so it doesn't take some ad hoc magic at the end to make it work out.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  

 I think, Avri, you're talking about two different things.  One is the guidelines for submitting proposals, how they should be prepared, and that maybe there should be a clear distinction between panels, workshops, roundtables, and maybe we need to do a little bit of also teaching that organizers will understand what -- what is the difference between a panel or roundtable or workshop or seminar.

 So that -- that would refer to the -- more to the fine-tuning preparation guideline -- sort of guidelines that also exist, right?

 And -- but with the evaluation and scoring, we had an option.  We had an option to take the average mathematical score and say, "Okay, these are above the line and that's it," without any further consideration.  But since, among other principles, we were sort of promoting first-time participants, favoring developing countries and all this, I mean, that makes -- that makes it a bit of a -- sort of a balancing and challenging that we need to do a discrimination and bring up some from the bottom.

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  So first, on the question, Mr. Chairman, that you have spoken about with regards to transparency -- and I explained yesterday in great detail, for those who are new, that almost every single step -- well, every single step, not "almost," was in the public domain.

 But to your point about "We don't know how our proposal was rejected," you know, I -- before I was a MAG member, I had a proposal rejected, and I'm sorry or proud to say -- I'm not sure which one -- it was the highest loser, and so I know the pain of being .03 below the cutoff --

 [ Laughter ]

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: -- and then think about how I would have had a panel of my friends there.

 So here is what we could do.  We already convey the basis of the scores.  We already convey that there are high scores for format, for first-timers, for developing countries.  There are scores for gender balance, regional balance, stakeholder balance.  And to certain themes.  All this is already there.  

 I suppose what we could do is then put out the rankings.  I'm not sure if the secretariat does that.  But we could just put out the ranking of all the 208 proposals, because the average cutoff mark is determined by the total that go in, which is -- last time was 90 and I think the average cutoff was 4.43 or something like that, and that's how the cutoff is determined.

 We could put that score out for every proposal and people could see there is no way you can mess with that score because 55 MAG members score individually.  They don't sit in a room.  By the time they arrive for the May meetings, the scores are already compiled based on individual submissions of MAG members.  So there is no scope of getting together and rejecting or accepting a proposal.

 Then we bring about 110 proposals for discussion, and there are some which are scoring just below the line but are sort of moved up.

 And I just wanted to -- I think if there is a question about why are we rejected, we put out the scores based on the criteria that is already established, and I think Janis made a whole presentation of how that's done, if that helps.

 On the panel issue that Avri has raised in the past about, you know, having it more -- I think we will have to then -- I'm not sure we can ban panels but we'll have to look at a way where we will have to convey that only 20 out of the 80 proposals that will make it will be panels, so if you are looking for panels, you're going to compete with -- there are only 20 that will make it in.  

 So we can probably just put add-on points there and then the MAG will have to decide how to reduce the number of panels.  Because last year as I had mentioned to you, out of the 208 proposals that we received, when I started marking them, I had put zero marks for panel and I had to give zero marks to everyone, because everyone had a panel.  It's the easiest thing to do.  You put in a couple of big names and, you know, that's how it goes in.

 So I suppose we'll have to then limit panels and convey that, that only 20% of all the workshops will be panels.

 Again, I think the host country must let us know whether they can provide eight of the 10 rooms as roundtables because if that's the format that we want, then I hope the rooms can be sort of set up in that order.

 We shouldn't go into a theater style seating with a panel.

 And the last part, which is actually a pain for everybody every year is mergers.  And here is the difficulty with mergers and I'd request the MAG to give ideas, because we have failed to do this.

 When we request a successful proposal to merge with a proposal that was very close to the borderline -- and I was one but I wasn't on the MAG, as I said -- the winning proposal or the proposal that made it (a) doesn't have the incentive and (b) doesn't have the ability to merge because they already have seven confirmed speakers or eight confirmed speakers, so they can't put 14 confirmed speakers now.  And that's the challenge of merger.

 So we should either do away with the process of merger or somebody needs to come up with a better idea because two years in a row, we have not succeeded with -- you know, I mean, it's not -- it's not a big success.  Some people do it.  And then there's a lot of complaints to the secretariat and to the MAG members on why didn't we merge. 

 So I just want to caution us on the panels and the mergers, but I'm happy to express from my point of view that we can put the scores out, so that everybody knows how they scored, and actually finally the MAG only discusses 20 borderline proposals to bring them up or leave them down, because there's 80 which make it clear on the -- based on the score.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  Maybe we need to describe that mechanics that we take sort of 50 or whatever, depending on the number -- number of available slots, and put them automatically based on scoring, and then explain how we do the evaluation of the rest and how we discriminate and why we do so.  

 Fatima.

 >>FATIMA CAMBRONERO:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  This is Fatima, for the record.  

 I have a question and I'm sorry, if I lost this.

 We have the same rules, then, this year that say that MAG members cannot present or submit a proposal of workshop and the organizational members can submit three proposals only?

 And one comment.  

 I think if we decide that we approve, for example, seven workshop proposals, I would like that we respect that limit of workshop approvals because then we see some side meetings, for example, that we didn't approve as MAG members and then appear in the agenda of the IGF.

 And also I agree with the criteria that Fiona explained and that we work with this year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  I think that these limitations are reasonable and they were introduced based on previous -- previous practices which were not overly positive.  And I think personally I would prefer to continue following them.  

 And so I will now -- I have Subi, Cheryl, Flavio, Yulia, Marilyn and Fiona at the end, and then -- please, Subi.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis.  

 Janis, I think the first thing on this agenda, I just was looking and revisiting the workshop evaluation process.  I could speak to the question of panels, but I'll come to that after I'm done with the criteria.

 I think we've made great progress in terms of revisiting what were the parameters, and this conversation has taken place for a variety of reasons.  We wanted new voices.  We wanted to enhance developing country participation.

 At the moment, I see nine criteria.  There was a process of initial screening, as Fiona mentioned, but these nine criteria I think have scope for being coalesced further into about seven, where -- especially the point of speakers -- when we ask people, even in initial screening, to mention whether they have emails or contact details and we're evaluating proposals on the basis of confirmed speakers, I would argue that those people who have -- and we've often been accused of being a club of insiders.  There is a lot of effort that has been made over last year, this year, and the previous years, to do away with that.

 If we continue to put that as an important criteria, it naturally puts first-time proposers at a disadvantage while evaluating all the 200-plus proposals.

 We've seen that there are requests where they're actually asking the secretariat or MAG members to suggest different speakers or give us contact details.

 So that is one strong proposal.  They could mention their intent.  They could mention some names.  But that is not point where they should be done away with at the entry level or threshold, so that is one criteria I'd like to see revisited.

 On the overall scoring process, looking at all these nine criteria that exist from last year and giving a cumulative score of 1 to 5, while as a MAG member I'm reading a proposal and I'm trying to evaluate, this is a very complicated mathematical formula that I have failed to achieve.  How do I balance and evaluate and score a single proposal, remembering how it did on all these nine parameters.

 Before 2013 -- and these are excellent parameters -- we did have a process where each of these criteria was scored individually on a Likert scale from 0 to 2 and then a cumulative score was arrived at.  I prefer that process because I see that as more transparent and reflective of how a workshop proposal did on each of these criteria.

 So that's my first intervention on the criteria process.

 And the second is a form and system on submitting a report at the end of the process on panels.

 I strongly disagree that we as a MAG can limit a 20% tap on panel proposals.  When we consistently talk about going back to the crowd, the community, it is important to respect what workshop proposers want.

 We have done a lot of work, we've even put out session descriptions.  There's even points -- additional points for new and innovative formats.  We're offering advantages and we're offering positive affirmation for innovating in formats, but if there are people who like to propose panels, I do not think we can penalize them on that basis.

 On mergers, I completely agree.  It hasn't worked.  It is very difficult to make it work, because you cannot force someone, in retrospect, to go out and collaborate with somebody else whose identity, ideology also they might not agree with.  

 And my last point is on capacity building and the role of MAG members as mentors while these proposals are being put out.

 I think all of us can volunteer to take up and work with some proposers and I support the idea that we retain the agreement that we reached that MAG members refrain from submitting proposals themselves and help mentor, build capacity for new workshop proposers.  That will be all for now from me.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Subi.  Cheryl.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I actually submitted proposals to IGF Bali and also to IGF Istanbul and so I definitely saw the difference and so just a thank you to everyone who worked on the criteria and worked on improving the process.  There definitely was a noticeable change from both years, at least from my perspective.  I do agree that it was difficult to understand how to merge the workshop, and so I offer two possible suggestions for improving that, if it is decided that the MAG wants to keep this practice of merging.

 I think you might let submitters know upfront that there is -- their workshop could be subject to being merged so that they know right upfront your workshop may be merged as a precondition so that they're put on notice of that.

 And then, secondly, the merger itself is difficult.  We tried.  We were working with the other group that suggested.  But, again, the different panelists, different moderators, how do you pick and choose.  

 What might help the process is to have an actual MAG member or perhaps a small group of MAG members help to facilitate that synergy or help to facilitate the creation of that new workshop then.

 And then I have a question, just a point of clarity with respect to what we're discussing regarding panels.  I'm not clear if we're saying that -- we're telling people we are only accepting a certain number of panels.  So if we get, say, a hundred offers for panels, do we just automatically reject those proposals?  Or do we take those proposals and then communicate back with the proposal writers to say, look, we have too many panels, would you consider forming a roundtable or would you consider forming one of the newer, more innovative, I guess, setups that we might be attempting?

 So I just put that out there as food for thought.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Cheryl.

 No, I think this is a subject of guidelines for preparing.  I personally don't see that we can arbitrarily say no more panels here.  Many people don't understand actually difference between panel and then roundtable.

 There is another question that I would like to put on the table, and that is privileges of the host nation.  Remember, we had a number of proposals last year coming out from host nation that were put in the agenda.  And that raised a number of concerns and questions by the community, and maybe we would need to add clear guidance in this respect that either we accept, let's say, two or three proposals which follow the same sort of methodology and then principles as any other from the host nation, and that is not evaluated in line with any other.  Or we just clearly say host nation should go through the same process submitting proposals and so on and there is not any privilege in that sense.  I think that is also something that we need to consider and add to our guidelines to be very clear upfront.

 Flavio, what do you think about it?  I'm not putting you on the spot, sorry.  I'm just trying to joke.

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  So I would like to talk about the evaluation of the workshops.  So first thing, I support the idea already mentioned by Subi that we should try to give scores for the individual aspects of the evaluation spreadsheet so that we do not give only a global final score because this is really difficult.

 I think that this is very usual in many, for instance, conferences of the scientific community, that we have those spreadsheets for evaluation where we even have weights for the individual aspects.  We may decide which are the things here that are more important than others.  For instance, we want to give a priority for first-time proposers or for diversity, gender or geographic diversity.  So we can put different weights for the individual aspects.

 And then if we give a score for each aspect from 0 to 2 or to 3, the final score will be weighted and not simply adding literally the individual scores.  So I think this would add to the evaluation process.

 And I also think that this -- the aspects are fine, this eight, nine aspects here, but they are of different natures.  There are things that are related to diversity so whether the proposals are first-time proposals, whether they represent diversity, gender, geographic, and so on, if they come from developing countries.  This is one set of evaluation criteria.

 There is a different one that's related to contents.  If the proposal is well thought and true and complete, if the topic is relevant to the Internet governance, if the very specificity in the problem or question or challenge to be addressed and so on.  

 So we can group the criteria, have two or three different groups, and then decide which weight we should give to each of these groups.  We want to put more emphasis on diversity, on contents, or vice versa.  So it is still to be decided.  If we have this working group for taking care of this, maybe this working group should consider these things that try to balance weights of the different aspects to be evaluated here.  And I think we should give -- publicize the complete scores for the individual aspects so that people see why they had a final score of 3 or 4 because they have been evaluated so and so for each individual score.

 Another thing is that we should try to balance the workshops among the subthemes that we will decide.  So if we have three or four or five main subthemes we should try to avoid too many or too few workshops on a given subtheme.  So this is another criterion for evaluation of the workshops.  

 Of course, we should give room for workshops that do not fit directly into the subthemes if they are relevant.  So this is orthogonal to the other evaluation of the individual proposals, how we balance the workshops among the subthemes.  I would like very much to be involved directly with this criteria and maybe volunteer for this working group.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Flavio.

 Yulia?

 >> YULIA MORENETS:  I would like to bring a few points.  First of all, the difficulty of one of the evaluation criteria which was obviously the list of speakers while it was part of the agenda perspective, geography, and et cetera.  I think it was a real difficulty to have -- well, from time to time, I had personal difficulty how to evaluate in terms of -- we had the list of confirmed speakers and for other workshops it was not confirmed.  And I found that a number of workshop proposals were very good actually and we had many confirmed speakers and others it wasn't confirmed speakers.  

 What I'm trying to bring here, I think we really need this as information at least before the May meeting.  To have just agenda, geography, without any names practically or just as an information but not as an evaluation point.  Because the workshop proposal could be good but people, it is very difficult to have confirmed speakers at this time.

 The second point, I would like to support and I support what Virat proposed concerning the clarity purposes actually to have the scoring being published online.  It will be very clear for the rejected workshops why it was rejected, et cetera.

 I also would like to bring something else that I mentioned yesterday.  I think we need to strengthen and to encourage the evaluation process, the assessment of the workshops after Brazil meeting.  What I mean, just encourage participants at the workshop to evaluate and to have a kind of format of framework, how to vary the workshops.  

 The next year, for example, 2016, it will be easier for MAG to make the evaluation process of the workshop proposals.

 Also, on the -- concerning the merging of workshops, personally I don't really agree that we don't need to encourage the merge.  I think this is difficult.  I have a personal experience, and it was a good experience.  We succeeded in merging, and I think it was a great proposal on how many workshops -- sorry, working groups on how to facilitate the merge.  And I think we really need to encourage this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Yulia.

 We have further requests, Soonjoung.  And Fiona, we will keep you for the end because you know I will ask you to continue working together with Suzanne.  I'm giving you a preview.

 [ Laughter ]

 Soonjoung, please.

 >>SOONJOUNG BYUN:  Thank you, Chair.  Actually, I was thinking about the criteria of the scoring.  As far as I remember, I had really difficulties to find panels, various panels, because I was new there and also because I was the only -- how can I say -- proposed -- I mean, in Korea, I was the only one who proposed a workshop.  So I only have to depend on my personal capacity to find panels.  But, you know, having too many panels would not be helpful for discussion and debate.  So I think -- I don't know how to put this in English, but if we can put more score on some workshops with joint founder, joint founder.  I mean, if Korean government makes some workshop with other stakeholders in different regions, it could help to make more subject reach and also facilitate more (indiscernible) and more experienced discussion could be produced during the workshop.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Marilyn, please.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  My comments are going to start out by saying that as some know, last year in my first year as a MAG member, I championed very strongly the idea that MAG members should not be themselves developing and proposing workshop meetings.  We are those who evaluate workshops.  

 And my past experience as a non-MAG member was less than optimistic or -- and perhaps I will stop at that.  But that led me to make that strong recommendation.

 I also think there needs to be a limitation, a ceiling, to the number of workshops that any entity can suggest.  In previous years, one organization proposed 15 and another 17.  That creates a very unlevel playing field, particularly when an organization is very sophisticated and knowledgeable and well-resourced.  So we set some limitations, and I hope we will stick with those.

 On the question of mergers, I did coach and help with mergers in Kenya and Lithuania, in Baku and in Istanbul.  From my corporate life, I will tell you my experience is there's no such thing as a merger.  There's only an acquisition.

 And most of the parties that we ask to merge really felt that way.  And I found when I tried to mediate and moderate, I really shared their experience.  So my two suggestions on merging are this:  Start very early.  Have a neutral, non-involved MAG member to be a facilitator of the merger, and require giving on both sides.  Otherwise, we only have acquisitions.

 We ask for merging because of the similarity in theme or the similarity in speakers or the similarity in perspective.  So I'm not -- I do support the idea that merging will be necessary, but I think we got to start very early.

 On the issue of panels, if you are from a developing country and you are a first-time proposer, dictating the format may be very unfair on our part.  I think what we're looking for is a diversity of formats but really the party who proposes the workshop needs to have the flexibility to design and rationalize that design.

 It helps tremendously -- and many parties who submitted workshop proposals kept asking me for information about what is the space that is available.  So the earlier we provide the room setup, the better and more helpful it will be to those who propose.

 Finally, I will just say I don't think having a hard and fast scale actually is fair.  I think the MAG needs to go through the rating and then we have to apply some judgment in order to come up with the mix of balance of workshops across topics and inclusion of new proposers and, in particular, proposals from developing countries.

 We also need to spend a little time at some point talking about the open forums that are available to governments and to other entities and that may be the way to address special proposals from the host.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Marilyn.  There is also a host that will take over as mentioned.

 Silvia, please.

 >>SILVIA BIDART:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I support the ideas of Cheryl and Marilyn on merging issues.  I think the effort is worth it because we have several examples as facilitators or being participants of different kind of contests and also in projects like AP7 (phonetic) mergers are done and we have to take into consideration that mainly is an acquisition not just a merge.  But it is possible.

 So we have to consider in working on the guidelines, as you say.  So maybe there could be a group that could improve these guidelines on this issue.

 And, also, another question is if the -- I agree also with the ICC-BASIS on the next billion connected.  Shouldn't we include some kind of, I mean, mention in the scoring about this new billion connected?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Not specifically.  I think one of the criteria is how the theme -- how the proposed workshop resonates with the existing or identified themes.

 Kossi, please.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chairman.  I think that the criteria that we defined last year already is a very good start.  All we need to do now is look at the aspects that need to be readjusted.  And a few I think we need to take into account -- well, last year we already said that MAG members shouldn't make proposals.  And then we said they can make proposals but they shouldn't evaluate the proposals they've made.  And that was already a difficult balancing act.

 I propose then that members of MAG not be both a judge and jury, that they be isolated, separated from the decision-making process here from those who are going to make the decisions on that issue.  And those who are going to have a panel, tell us if MAG members are going to be on the podium, are going to be moderators.

 We have -- I think also to deal with problems dealing with the reports on the different workshops, we're going to have perhaps different panelists.  But one of the things that a moderator has to do is to report to the secretariat.  And maybe using two rapporteurs should be authorized for each panel.  And would they have the necessary means to do their job?

 I would propose that members of MAG contribute to helping provide this information.  They act or perhaps as volunteers.  At least one of the rapporteurs be a volunteer coming from MAG.  And I think this would allow us to have a good collection of data.

 Now, talking about merging workshops or not, it's true that they often have similar themes.  For example, the example -- the example of (indiscernible) on a regional basis.  Should we have one for Africa, one for Europe?  

 Maybe we could simplify by having one single room and all of them take that opportunity to present what they've been doing specifically in one single setting, but splitting them up into different workshops -- well, going region by region, maybe the secretariat of IGF could take care of this.

 For those workshops that we've been informed of, we could say, "Here's the focal point for the regional workshops," and in this way international organizations could get their messages across knowing where they had to go.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.

 Before going to on-line participant, Izumi, I will ask Jivan to take the floor briefly, and then Mark, and then Fiona, and then we will move on to the next item.  

 Izumi -- sorry.  Jivan, please.

 >>L.P. GJORGJINSKI:  I just want to have it set in the record in bold that I agree with Marilyn completely.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Izumi?  

 Izumi, are you with us?

 So if you're with us, please indicate that.  In the meantime, Mark.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes.  Thank you, Chair.

 Just -- Mark Carvell, U.K. government.

 A couple of suggestions to throw into this discussion.

 First of all, we should encourage proposers to consider the options for the kind of event in the IGF.

 So instead of talking about workshop proposals, we might change the word "workshop" to embed the idea that they have an option.  You know, it could be a -- could be a workshop with a panel, a discussion with -- or a discussion with facilitators, a roundtable, flash session, and so on.

 So this gives us more maneuverability in terms of ensuring a rich program and so on.

 Secondly, with regard to panelists, perhaps the guidelines could signal to proposers that they should be encouraged to consider running their proposal past their national or regional IGF so that they would more likely secure participation by experts reflecting diversity and gender balance, to help -- especially newcomers to this process, to help them come up with a proposal that has a more developed element in terms of participation, be it in a panel or roundtable and so on.

 So for that, we need to signal to the national and regional IGFs that they should undertake some kind of advisory role for proposers for events at the IGF.

 So those are my two suggestions.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Mark.

 I see that Fiona is taking good note.  

 Izumi, please.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  Thank you, Chair.

 I just want -- the comment about differentiating the content element and the framework about how the workshop is submitted is interesting.

 So considering whether the content of the workshop is good and set certain criteria for that.  

 And then also another element is looking at whether it meets certain criteria, such as geographic diversity, gender balance, et cetera.

 So while I don't want to overcomplicate the criteria, it may be -- it may be worth thinking of categorizing which criteria is relevant to content and which criteria is relevant to meeting actually the framework of the workshop itself.

 That's one observation.

 And regarding the comment made about being new and not being able to reach out to other speakers or panelists to meet the criteria for the proper geographic balance, et cetera, I found one of the suggestions made by Cheryl, I believe, on the mailing list was interesting about have some kind of common resource for suggested speakers.  That might be something that may be worth exploring.  Maybe not necessarily in terms of having individual speakers, but maybe a list of organizations which are willing to introduce speakers for a certain topic, for example.

 And lastly, regarding the point about accommodating sessions from the host country, I think we have to be quite careful in its consideration, but I'm basically open to the idea of accommodating sessions from the host country as long as the criteria is clearly defined, and -- for example, such as the contents are in line with the spirit of the IGF.  I think that's a "must" condition if we accommodate it.  And also the number of slots is also predefined and we don't just keep on increasing the content from the host country.

 So that's my comment for now.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Izumi, for your comments, and also addressing the -- my question about clarity about privileges of the host country in terms of content proposals for the IGF.

 Peter and then Fiona and then we're moving to the next topic.  

 Peter, please.

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning.  

 I'd like to continue this discussion about improving the content of the meetings by starting a conversation which we can carry on on line after this meeting about post-event evaluation of each session.  We don't seem to do anything except to require some people to file a report but there's no evidence that I can see that the report is actually used except as a check.

 What we need to be doing is measuring sessions against the proposer's own goals at the time that they submit the proposal, measuring them against the theme of the IGF itself.  That's a standard -- relatively standard fare for most recurring conferences.  We can prepare evaluation sheets for people to use in the sessions.  And the reason why people do this is because it provides useful input into preparing the next session, identifying popular and useful topics, good presenters, and so on.  

 So I'd like to start that conversation.  It may be that the most appropriate place is to add that to the working group that's prepared the front-end evaluation.  That's the logical conclusion.  

 But just to announce this seemed to be the appropriate time that's a conversation I'd like to start.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Peter, for this proposal.

 Fiona, a lot of things to take into account.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis, and for everyone that provided input.  

 I would just recall that a lot of the conversation we're having today we've had before.

 When I originally proposed criteria for the workshop, I actually tried to do what Flavio suggested, which is this very detailed criteria-per-element and the group rejected that.  That doesn't mean we can't have that conversation again and maybe it's time to consider doing that, but one of the reasons we came up with for these general eight or nine criteria and let the MAG members do a cumulative score is people wanted flexibility.  So I understand that does cause some confusion to those that are actually being scored, so we need to discuss that as we go forward, but just to refresh that for folks.

 We did actually try to do element-by-element evaluation on a scoring system and no one accepted that last time.

 So with all of that said, I'm happy to sort of work with Susan and come back to the group on the list with a proposal for how to move forward.

 My understanding, just so I understand what the assignment is to the group -- and anyone that wants to participate, obviously, please let Susan and I know or just sign up on the list -- we need to look also at the guidelines for submission, because they'll have to be edited to reflect any changes we make, and then Peter's idea of post-event evaluation, we can add as we look at the full life cycle.

 But I think when -- a few things we need to consider is are the goals still the same, are we still looking for new participants, new formats.  And we can talk about that on the list.  Look at the scoring format and the criteria and confirm it.  And then address this issue of how do we actually do the mergers.  

 I do think it's probably a bit unfair last time that we left it to Chengetai and the IGF secretariat to try to make people merge things and I'm not sure that that worked well, so we should look at that.  

 I do think there's three sort of threshold issues we probably need to decide as a group and I don't know if we need to do it here in Geneva before we leave or at least before we get going.

 One is what's the deadline for getting the announcement out so we can work backwards and actually plan.  That would be helpful to know.  It would also be helpful to know now or as we're planning what's the maximum number of workshop slots we're looking at.  I think it's important that those proposing understand there are limits, and if people are being rejected, it's within the confines of those limits, it's not anything else.  And then I think we also need to agree as a group -- and it's better to do this in person and reconfirm or change it -- what will we be the limit on the number of workshop proposals from MAG members or individual institutions.  

 I just think those are some sort of three threshold issues that are important to frame the working group as it goes forward.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Fiona.  Especially thank you for sort of continuing working together with -- or leading the work, together with Susan, on this topic on line.

 I think we should retain the same principle as we agreed and applied last time.  It is no MAG member submits proposals, and no more than three organizations -- sorry, three proposals per organization.  That was also supported during the debate.

 The -- personally, I also see one issue is enforcement of obligation of reporting.  Not necessarily all workshop organizers provide those reports after the sessions, and that, of course, impacts the quality of the compilation of all the reports.

 So these issues, we need to address.  So thank you.

 I think we can now move on to the next agenda item, and that is conversation about main/focus sessions, as yesterday it was proposed that maybe we need to talk about focus sessions.

 We had very mixed evaluation or feedback from Istanbul and actually from every previous meeting as well.

 The difference in Istanbul, because of the size of the room, there were -- there were a number of -- the rooms were relatively full, but we had many speakers -- too many speakers and too little interaction in those -- in those meetings.

 I think it is very difficult to -- to provide a solution, but at least my suggestion would be to work on kind of the guidelines for preparing those focus sessions.  That would help ourselves, actually, to do that.

 These are -- focus sessions are the ones that are organized by the MAG, and basically they should be the ones where every workshop feeds in and provides input.  Kind of collector sessions.

 So the floor is open.

 We have another 12 minutes to go in this session, and then we may continue in the next one.

 Michael, Fiona -- Michael, please.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  This is related both to this issue and the previous discussion.

 Do we have any information on how many people are looking at the Webcasts of the different sessions?  Is there a way to know whether the main sessions have gotten a lot of attention after the fact?

 I really think that as we think about revising the criteria, we might want to look at these numbers and -- because it would be helpful to know if there are certificate topics or certain types of sessions that attract a lot of echo after the fact.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Chengetai, do you have an answer?  Sorry?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I can try and find out.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  We will see if we can get the answer in two hours for the beginning of the afternoon session.

 Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis.  

 I would strongly support the idea of guidelines.  If nothing else, it helps with the institutional memory.  There is a large rotation of MAG members every year, and I think to sort of ensure that we don't sort of start from scratch each time, I think it's a helpful construct.

 I do think the challenges for this particular IGF -- and this has played out on the MAG list over the course of the fall as it was being organized -- was that a couple of people did diligent work to try to organize these events and I feel like they ended up having to do a lot of work by themselves, which is not how this is supposed to work, so I think we need to sort of address that as a concept.  But also it would be helpful to sort of identify what the goals are of each session and the limits of number of speakers.  

 I know we end up with having to have a lot of speakers because we try to make each session meet all the elements of diversity and I think that's probably challenging.  If we keep doing that, we're always going to end up with a lot of speakers.  And maybe we can look at this as sort of the IGF more holistically and make sure that the diversity element is met with -- if we look at the main sessions in total, not as individual elements.  That may help with some of that.  

 Because otherwise, we end up with having to actually, you know, tick the box to make sure you have people from every region and every gender and every group, and then you end up naturally with 20 people on a panel and I don't think that's always the most constructive format.  

 So I would just offer that as a suggestion as we go forward.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Fiona.

 While Subi will be speaking, I would like to invite MAG members to think who would be willing to volunteer to put pen on the paper and work on those -- or coordinate working on those guidelines for organization of focus sessions.

 Subi, and after that, Marilyn.

 >>SUBI CHATURVEDI:  Thank you, Janis.

 I hope (indiscernible) secretariat would be taking note of on-line volunteers, I would like to volunteer to work on formulating guidelines.  I think it is an excellent suggestion that Fiona put on one of the virtual calls for putting together main sessions.

 I'd also like to assist Susan and Fiona on contributing towards workshop evaluations and rating process while we're revisiting it.

 On the main sessions, I happened to co-organize, with Marilyn Cade and 14 other volunteers from the MAG, a main session last year.  I've submitted a detailed report to the secretariat.  There was also some conversation on line about sharing these reports from funded MAG members, it would be helpful, and as an expression of interest from others as well, if they would like to read.

 There are concrete suggestions which also mention challenges and barriers that we experienced as MAG members while organizing these sessions.

 There were several innovations this year.  It also included substantive engagement throughout the year and inputs from the community, volunteers from the community who were non-MAG members as part of the planning process while we were putting these sessions together.

 But main sessions remain one of the core tasks that MAG members perform other than evaluations and ratings.

 I think it's important to realize, as we go forward, that there will be no blanket solution or one-size-fits approach.  It will depend upon the theme or the subtheme that we select for the main session.  While we go forward, there will be a requirement of experts or leadership inputs.  

 Even when you have more speakers striving to achieve gender balance and diversity and meet with all the criteria, there are innovations in formats that we can achieve as organizers.  

 You do not have to absolutely keep interaction and Q&A for the last 20 minutes of a three-hour-long session.  It is important that after initial remarks, you open up the floor and you include the room as participants.  

 So main sessions remain important and key, must relate to workshops and suggestions.  They should be spread out throughout the week.  

 And guidelines are very important because when we're putting out inputs or calls for inputs, there have been a lot of -- we understand that MAG members work on a voluntary basis, but those people who are trying to colead or facilitate also have similar challenges.

 So you cannot wait endlessly for inputs to be provided or given.  Some kind of a guideline with respect to the time calendar that we will maintain will be extremely helpful.

 And I would also like to see more MAG members in the room when these main sessions are taking place, so that there is feedback.

 Assistance in terms of logistics from the host country with volunteers who speak and communicate in English is very, very important, so that we do not need to have MAG members running around while the main session is on.

 This is important feedback.

 And thirdly, the importance of more microphones in the room so that people can queue up.  And these were lessons that we took this year from NETmundial.

 We reversed, we opened up the deeper format.  We had a full room with standing room only, and I agree with you, Janis, the room capacity determined that, but I see this as success when we've had almost empty rooms for main sessions.  We had full rooms with nobody leaving until the end of three hours and we had active engagement from audience participation.

 So if you do have main sessions which is well-structured, I do not think that there will be an issue about audience engagement, participation, from across the floor or the session format.

 And we'll take the rest of the conversation on line.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Subi.  Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  I want to echo much of what Subi said.

 I also want to note that I hear a little bit of disinformation sometimes from time to time with comments that main sessions were organized only by one or two MAG members.  

 In case -- in our case, as Subi already said, there were 14 other collaborators.  

 I think Virat has already noted that he had a very large collaboration as well in planning the session.

 So perhaps the problem is there was not enough cross-communication due to lack of time because we were planning the main session relatively quickly.

 I want to comment now on something I said yesterday.  I said there's a difference between a plenary session where everybody comes together and a main room session, which is designed to meet the interest of a large audience but not the entire audience.

 And I think that is what we did successfully in Turkey.  We had standing room only in almost all of those main sessions.

 Really, I would also note that people did stay.  There are excellent transcripts.  We captured a lot of information.  I will be interested -- I think Mike's comment is very relevant, Mike Nelson's comment.  And that is, you know, to what extent are we seeing the replay of our videoed content and something for us to think about as the MAG.

 I want to say something about the relationship between workshops and main sessions.  If the theme of the main session is being echoed in workshops, then the feeder nature works.  But in a couple of cases such as in the Internet governance -- the evolution of the Internet governance landscape which Subi and I co-organized, I think, in fact, we didn't have a lot of feeder workshops.  So we should probably talk more about as we come up with the main sessions, do we -- how do we relate between workshops and the main sessions.

 And I may have further comments later.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I'm not sure there will be later.  I was kind of hoping to conclude this before lunch because I think what we need to do is just to define who will be willing to coordinate the process and then move this discussion online.

 Fatima and then Flavio and then maybe we can finish.  

 Fatima, please.

 >>FATIMA CAMBRONERO:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Fatima for the record.  

 Everybody's comment, I would like to repeat similar comment I made yesterday regarding the organization of the main session.  I considered that as MAG member, we have to have a role that we can involve in the organization in one or two main sessions only because this year there was a perception of (indiscernible) of the organization of the main session by a few MAG members.  I would like that the next year this is a no repeat event.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Flavio?

 >>FLAVIO WAGNER:  Thank you, Janis.

 So I think the main sessions should be very well aligned with subthemes as far as possible so that we should limit ourselves to three or four main subthemes and so main sessions.

 Also, it has been already said by others, the main sessions should have a very limited number of panelist speakers.  We had in Istanbul an excessive number of speakers in some main sessions.  So we should provide enough time to provide real interaction with participants, both local and remote so that we have real discussion during the session.

 Of course, the linkage with the workshops is very desirable.  We should try to see how we can best feed the main sessions with the contributions that come from the workshops.  We have been discussing this offline.  

 Maybe we have an adequate platform for having online discussion and contributions prior to the event if we have -- when the workshops are defined so we have an online platform where contributions to the theme of each workshop are given and discussion goes on so that we can arrive in Joao Pessoa already with some conclusions or proposals.  I don't know, any kind of contribution that comes from the workshop that is then refined during the workshops and then fed into the main sessions.

 And, finally, I would like also to volunteer for helping define the guidelines for the main sessions.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Then may I suggest that we conclude debate on this item.  We have heard that there are two volunteers, Flavio and Subi, who would be willing to coordinate and put pen on the paper.  And the deadline for -- as a finalization of this work would be March.  More or less the same as for evaluation guidelines, that we can apply them once we start evaluation.

 Fiona, please.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  I think actually we need to actually finalize the evaluation guidelines before we issue the call for workshops.  So if we are going to issue the call for workshops at the end of January, early February, that needs to be done well in advance because otherwise you can't communicate to people what they are going to be judged on.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you for this comment and precision.  I agree.  So then the deadline for your part of the work would be much earlier.

 And, Ginger, you would like to say something.  We're really in last seconds of the meeting.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  Just very quickly.  I agree and would like to join just to add the aspects of remote participation and the criteria.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  And we discussed with Chengetai, then for every workshop we will try to identify here at the meeting the key coordinators, the main coordinators.  Usually we do two.  That's easier.

 And then we will open a Doodle poll where every GAC member -- sorry, MAG member will be able to sign up for any of the workshops -- sorry, for any of the groups individually.  And then we will have a record who is working on which subject.

 So thank you very much.  Thank you, interpreters, for letting us a few minutes over the time.  We are coming back for the session which will be interpreted at 3:00.

 And we will start sharp at 3:00.  So those who are interested in continuing conversation on the themes and subthemes, please come here at 2:00.  At 2:00 will be remote participation facilities available but no transcription.  Transcription also will start at 3:00.

 So please enjoy your lunch.  And I will see you back in the room at 3:00.  Benedicto at 2:00, those who are interested.  Thank you.

 (Lunch break.)