IGF 2019 Third Open Consultations and MAG Meeting Day 2

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2019 Third Open Consultations and MAG Meeting in Berlin, Germany, from 5 to 7 June 2019. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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 IGF Third Open Consultations and MAG Meeting -  Day 2

 6 June 2019


 

 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We'll get started in just a moment.  And for those of you that are participating online, we're just waiting for everybody to make their final way into the room here and to get setup.

 Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to the second day of meetings, the first day of the MAG meeting.

 If we could all take our seats.

 Okay.  Thank you very much.

 Just a reminder, we're using the speaking queue, and you can get the link to the speaking queue on our front page.  And also, it's going to be put into the Webex room.

 There's a transcript, and the meeting is being recorded, and it's going to be archived in YouTube.

 With that, I'll hands the meeting over to Lynn to start.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you.  And welcome back, everybody, to those that are participating online and that are here in the room.  I think we had a good day yesterday, although we're still trying to find ways to improve the Open Consultation.  So we will take on board a lot of the comments that were made yesterday and work that up into a recommendation for future Open Consultations.  I think it's important that we kind of document that and leave it as a record as this is our last physical face-to-face MAG meeting and our last physical Open Consultation this year.  But we'll make sure that those comments and other suggestions for improvement are taken forward.

 I'm actually going to keep my remarks really short today.  We'll hit -- The next two days are really fairly serious working sessions, both in terms of finalizing the program and specifically one of the larger pieces of work is focused on the main sessions.

 I think Deniz from UNDESA has some opening remarks as does Daniela Bronstrup, so we'll turn to those and then we'll come back and move into the agenda.

 Before I do that, though, we should approve the agenda.  So the agenda, again, is posted for some time.  The only change from the agenda that is posted is we are moving the Best Practice Forum session that we didn't get to yesterday to the slot that starts at 10:30 this morning.  So we will do that and then we will move into the larger set of discussions.

 Are there any comments, suggestions, or any requests for AOB?

 Veni.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:   It's in the AOB section.  It's June 6 today, and it's a special day for one of the people, members of the MAG.  So I think we need to give her credit and wish her a happy birthday.  It's Susan.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Happy birthday, Susan.

 Any other suggestions, edits, AOB?

 If not, I'll move that the agenda is approved and wait a short time to see if there are any objections.

 Not seeing any, I'll call the agenda approved, and we'll immediately move to Dr. Bronstrup for some opening comments.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:   Thank you very much, Lynn, and good morning, everybody.  I hope you took advantage of the summer night in Berlin yesterday because this night the weather will be quite stormy and rainy so you get the full range of the continental climate in Berlin these days.

 Maybe just one reflection from my side.  When I thought again a little bit what we have heard yesterday during the Open Consultations, I reflected a little bit on the question of how could we strengthen the IGF, because that's what we would like to do.  And some mentioned yesterday that -- well, the (indiscernible) point of the IGF is that it's an open multistakeholder discussion forum, and, indeed, that's true in my view, and equally true is that there are a lot of other bodies who are dealing with Internet governance issues.  We heard about that yesterday in the evening.  And there are also a lot of, and maybe increasing, decision-making bodies on Internet governance issues.  I'm personally involved in the G7 and G20 discussions.  There is a G20 meeting upcoming up this weekend which is also dealing with Internet governance issues.  And the question that was raised yesterday and that I have also in mind is how can make sure that we bring the discussions and solutions we have inside the Internet Governance Forum to these other bodies, and especially to the decision-making bodies.  So when we discuss today the program of the IGF, maybe it's good to have that in mind, how we can bridge this gap that I also see, and how can we transfer our discussion, our outputs, in a way, to these other bodies.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Daniela, and I agree very much with your observations.  And hopefully we'll keep that in mind as we actually progress through the next two days' work.

 Deniz.

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:   Good morning, everyone.  Deniz Susar from UNDESA.

 I just want to make a short statement as well, because most of the things were said yesterday during the Open Consultation.

 So maybe two things to highlight.  We have made official announcement yesterday, the formal announcement, about the next host country.  So our Undersecretary-General accepted the offer from Poland, and we will be working with colleagues from Polish government in the next months to start planning the next meeting in 2020.

 And the second thing is I think most of you know about the report of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation which will be launched on Monday.  And when the report is handed over the Secretary-General, the mandate of the task team will be over, but there will be a small team in the SG's office to do the consultations and follow-up with the recommendations.  And also on Monday, in New York, there will be a briefing to member states in the afternoon.

 So I think those are the updates from me, Lynn, so I can hand it over to you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Deniz.

 What we've tried to do is make sure that there was little redundancy between the introductions that were made yesterday and here today with the position that it's more important that we actually make a lot of the formal announcements in the Open Consultation where the community is actually participating fully.  So there were more fulsome announcements and more fulsome introductions yesterday, and the Polish government was thanked very much for their interest and application in hosting the IGF.  And just go briefly on record here with the thanks as well, but that was covered quite thoroughly yesterday, as was, of course, continued appreciation for the German government for all of their support for the IGF this year, for the MAG, and certainly for some of the extra activities as well with respect to supporting, in particular, participation from the Global South.

 So with that, I think we'd like to get right to work.  The first item is a briefing on the state of preparations for the annual meeting by the host country where they have, particularly, responsibility for items such as the high-level leaders meeting, the parliamentary meeting, and the opening sessions.

 So we'll turn the floor to Rudolf.  Rudolf Gridl.  Rudolf, you have the floor.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:   Yes, thank you very much, Lynn.

 Concerning the high-level leaders meeting, we are on a very good track.  The invitations to the ministers from our minister have gone out two weeks ago through the permanent representation at the United Nations in New York.  So all countries should have received the invitation by now.

 The business leaders have been contacted worldwide also by letter from our minister a little bit later, perhaps one week ago, ten days ago.  So concerning on where these leaders are located, they might have just received the invitations.

 One thing that is important, in the letter that was -- letters that were sent out, there were some very challenging dates for reply.  The 31st of May.  This is due to the whole process of drafting a letter, getting it signed by the minister, getting it then to the perm rep, and so forth.  So these are no-exclusion deadlines.  You can, of course, still confirm or your ministers or leaders can still confirm also at a later stage, and we would be glad and happy to receive as many as the leaders here as possible.

 On the track technical community and civil society, the invitations will go out very soon.

 We are planning to have the session during the whole morning and a little bit into the afternoon of day zero.  So that will be from the morning until after lunch.  And after having heard many of you and having a lot of input from the stakeholders, we are now heading towards some plenary segment, and afterwards having discussions, not stakeholder group by stakeholder group, but issue by issue, the three themes -- data, inclusion, and security, I'm shortening the titles -- but in a multistakeholder format.  So that the state high-level stakeholders could discuss amongst themselves and then come back to the plenary and take stock.

 Of course there will also be the possibility to have bilateral talks in the margins for all of them.  There are enough spaces available.  We have, I think, in total 11 rooms for bilateral talks throughout the whole IGF.  So whenever people feel the need to have a bilateral talk with anybody else, they will most probably find a time and space to have a quiet and thorough discussion.

 This is perhaps for the high-level segment.  The parliamentary meeting, which is the second issue on the agenda here, you heard a lot of it already yesterday from Mr.  Jarzombeck.  The parliament is in the process of drafting the invitations.  I hope that they will go out quite soon.  And we are assisting the parliament, but of course it is in the domain of our legislatures to decide on who to invite and how to invite.  We are very eager to have a broad representation of parliamentarians, and that's why, together with UNDESA, we have set aside a certain amount of the -- of the funds that we -- that we have put to the availability of the DESA for the Global South for -- dedicated to parliamentarians.  So there will be a parliamentarian travel expenses fund and so that we will have a broad representation from all over -- from all over the world.

 It will take place on day four in the morning.  It will be in the form of a -- we hope that it will be in the form of a main session because we would need to have the full translation for this session, supposedly.  And of course -- and this is through for the parliamentarians and high-level representatives, they are all being invited to the whole IGF.  They are being invited for the dedicated sessions but also to assist other segments, other parts of the IGF so that they are -- so that they feel welcome and that they can spend as much time in interesting sessions as possible.

 That brings me to the opening sessions.  That will take place in the afternoon of day one because of the availability of the chancellor.  There will be an opening segment with the chancellor, and we do not know yet which high-ranking -- other high-ranking representatives from stakeholder groups.  We are still hoping for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to assist and come to Berlin as he did to -- as he did in Paris, and we are counting on the support of our colleagues in the U.N. system to make this possible.

 After this first opening segment, there will be time and space to have two or three, we do not yet know exactly, two or three high-level panels that should perhaps be centered around the three themes, but also around other issues and should be, in our view, diverse and give a good representation of the whole IGF community, geographically, gender-wise and also all the other diversity aspects.  That is very important to us.

 That sums up for the moment state of the plannings.  Happy to answer your questions, to receive any comments from you.

 Lynn, over to you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you very much, Rudolf.  The floor is open for questions or comments.

 Maybe we'll wait to see if anybody has any comments.  I have just sort of a couple of questions, maybe, on the high-level leaders meeting in terms of making it really beneficial and feel that there's an intent from us to them.  I'm wondering if it would be possible to do even just a high-level presentation of the three thematic working groups, maybe following something like maybe the flowcharts and maybe something that quickly identifies the major policy questions that are coming up through each one of those flowcharts so there's something sort of substantive that could then feed into those three separate working groups that you have, and maybe there's even a package of materials that could be prepared from the various workshop sessions and any of the background papers that could be provided to them as well.  So again, that they really understand that -- we hear often the IGF is a talking shop.  It's not a talking shop.  There's a great deal of substance in it.

 So maybe there's a way to expose a little more deeply the discussions that are taking place in those thematic working groups over the two days.  And I don't know if there's even an opportunity to maybe have this as a suggestion or a request.  These are some of the topics that would be really helpful if they were discussed in those three separate groups and that that then could feedback into the IGF itself.  Just something to make a substantive link between those three breakout sessions, for lack of a better word, that you've scheduled and the work of the IGF that's taking place over the next four days.  I don't know what you had sort of envisioned for how they would be structured or moderated, but I think there's a lot of information we could actually provide and really with a focus on trying to tie those together.

 Let me just leave that there and go to the queue.

 We have Nebojsa.  Nebojsa, you have the floor.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   Thank you, Chair.  Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government group.

 Obviously, hosts are doing very well, and I congratulate you for all these efforts.  I have one really practical question when it comes to the invitation that Rudolf mentioned that have been sent.  If they are sent to a specific ministry, if they are sent to the executive body or if they are sent to just on the name, perhaps.  How was -- So that I can actually track it, where is it and to see if it reached really a person who will be interested.

 Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:   As in many countries, there are many ministers claiming the responsibility for, let's say, digital issues.  We could not, as a host country, decide which of those ministers we wanted to invite.  So what we did was really to have an invitation, a generic invitation to the countries with a verbal note from our mission specifying this was for the minister in your country responsible for digital issues.  So no name.  And then upon the mission in New York and the foreign office in your countries to distribute it to the relevant ministry.

 So the way would go through the mission in New York, to the foreign office, and from there to the responsible ministry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Christina, or Christine you have the floor.

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:   Thank you, chair.  This is Christine Arida, speaking on behalf of the Egyptian government, former host of the IGF.

 I have a couple of questions.  First off, I appreciate all the information that was provided on the high-level leaders meeting and the parliamentarian session and the opening.  I wanted to know whether the high-level leaders meeting is going to feed in a way into the IGF in a sense.  So are we expecting like some points to be taken up to maybe the high-level panel after the opening on the first -- on the day one?  

 Also, I think it is important that we keep the format of the discussion so that we do not have statements read, because I think we've passed that and I think this will be most important.  If we have really a dynamic discussion in the room, we might get more out of it.

 One other thing about the parliamentarian session.  So in order for people from the Global South to be able to go for the funding deadline, I think the invitations need to come out in due time, if possible, for it to be able for us to mobilize in our countries the parliamentarian to actually go for this and go for maybe for applying for the funding.

 Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yeah, of course.  Thank you very much.  We definitely want a dynamic discussion and some vivid, lively format, not a readout of 100 statements in a row.  We definitely don't want to go down this road.  

 And that's why we thought this breakout session in a multistakeholder format would be a good idea because then you have -- automatically you get a little bit out of this, let's say, classical United Nations reading-out-statements-after-statement format.  You have a more diverse panel with people from the civil society who are used to spark discussions.  Ministers can come in, business representatives as well.  

 So we will also try to make sure by giving specific, let's say, roles to specific persons in these settings, let's say antagonist positions, for instance, like two positions starting and then a discussion can come from that.  

 We can at the moment not yet specify much more because we do not yet know who exactly will be the persons in the room, but that's definitely the idea.  Of course, the idea is also to bring the discussion or to feed into the IGF.  That's why we thought at the end of these breakout sessions there will be one or two persons, even more -- we will have to see -- kind of wrapping up the sessions and being rapporteurs to, first, the plenary of the high-level meeting.  But then again, once this is done, we could easily and should easily feed these results into the IGF discussions.

 And the parliamentarians, yes, I see the point.  We will have to talk to DESA to adjust -- to adjust to the invitations.  That's an important point, yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, both Christine and Rudolf.

 Natasa, you have the floor.

 >>NATASA GLAVOR:  Hello, everyone.  My name is Natasa Glover.  I come from government stakeholder group from Croatia.  I have one question.

 You mentioned that there will be two or three high-level panels organized, probably focused on three themes.  So I wonder whether those themes are the conference themes like digital inclusion and safety, security, stability, resilience.  And what was the third one?  Yeah, data management, data governance.  Or those are some other themes that will be decided yet?

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Thanks for asking.  There will be some kind of overarching theme for the plenary that is where is the Internet going, so looking back 30 years of World Wide Web and 20 years of Internet governance structures, and looking to the future what is it about the open, free, inclusive human rights Internet.  So that's an overarching question that will be discussed.

 But the breakout questions will be along the lines of the three themes that we have identified here.  I was just shortening them by saying data inclusion and security; but in reality, it's data governance, inclusion, security, safety, resilience, and something else.  Stability, yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Natasa, Rudolf.

 Miguel, you have the floor.

 >>MIGUEL CANDIA:  Thank you very much, Chair, and good morning, everybody.  Again, thank you to the government of Germany for having us here in such style.  I feel very comfy here.  Thank you very much for that.

 It's a small question regarding the high-level segments of the panels.  How do we envisage the participations of the ministers that might -- may come?  We're inviting ministers from all over the world?  And in my experience -- I'm sorry, I'm Miguel Candia, government MAG member.  I should have started by that, sorry, for the record.

 In my experience, the ministers normally ask you what are they going to do when they travel.  And it's -- it's better to have a proper answer such as, "You will be a part of something."  And then the question is easy:  How do we envisage that in the sense of giving some participation to as many people as possible in the high-level rank?  Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yeah, thank you for this question.  That's not only a question of ministers.  It's also a question of CEOs and high-ranking representatives from other organizations.  

 We will try to organize this meeting in a way that every high-ranking person gets a role.  I can't tell you more at the moment because we have to adjust.  But, of course, people of this stature, they need an active role and they will get it.  I can't tell you what exactly, but they will get it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So this is where the German government gets extremely busy over the next few months after we've gone through the workshop submissions.

 As people consider whether or not there are any more questions, if I could just come back again to the high-level leaders meeting because this is a really significant opportunity.  We have not had the high-level leaders meeting the last two years because of the timing.  They both would have been on a Sunday.  One of them was not really possible in Geneva, and last year there were competing gets for the Paris Peace Forum and the centennial observation and that sort of thing.  This is really an opportunity to set a new bar and a new process.

 And there's two kind of threads I'd like to pick.  One is I think it would be a really good opportunity for the IGF community to do some marketing materials that make it clear what all the component pieces of the IGF ecosystem are.  So we could obviously put things in about the NRIs.  We could put things in about the BPFs.  We could talk about the CENB, connecting and enabling the next billion, four-year major intersessional policy project that we had.

 But with a view to -- I'm not looking at a huge compendium, but with a view to talking about the significant activities we've done.  And I think we could also maybe start up a crowdsource database of all the anecdotal evidence where something happened at an IGF event or process actually fed into another substantive part of a discussion we had yesterday.

 But I think that would rely on the IGF community to pull that set of materials together.  Of course, the question always then is we need resources to pull it together and sort of funding to present it.  But maybe there's even an opportunity to do something, if I understand part of the proposal yesterday which there was maybe some funding that supported kind of a Wikimedia/Wikipedia awareness thing around the IGF.  Maybe there's a way to pull some of these together and take some of those kind of resources and funds and support multiple efforts with them.  They're both trying to collect the same information, the same sort of profile of what we're doing and also focus on impact.

 So I'd like any other comments or thoughts on whether or not that's of interest as a possible, better ideas.  

 And then, secondly, really would like to come back -- we didn't have time to discuss this beforehand.  But I think we're really well-aligned in terms of really wanting to make the discussions in those three breakout groups of the high-level meetings really substantive.

 What we hear all the time from senior-level policymakers is:  What difference is the IGF making?  What am I taking away from it?  How substantive has this discussion been I just participated in?  What's it going to impact?  What it's doing?  What it's helping?  If we could find some way to understand what some of the key topics were, focus in on a couple of key policy areas with again some supporting papers beforehand, that kind of informs the discussion, provides enough leadership that hopefully we have a concrete discussion but not one that restricts whatever might come up in the meeting or there.  That also is going to require some preparation, and clearly it would require support from the German government.  It would also require support from MAG members, particularly those that were engaged deeply in the thematic working group preparations because we would be looking for you to say it would be really helpful or would really help tie together the discussion if we'd had a discussion on this particular topic ahead of the week.

 Again, I just throw that out.  I mean, I'm really trying to -- to some of your comments earlier, Daniela, which is how do we actually improve the IGF?  How do we respond to some of the suggestions we're getting for improvements?  

 And we all think there's a lot of really good knowledge and value that comes out of the IGF, so how do we actually make that known to them?  And how do we actually have that group of people feel that they are participating deeply and contributing to the work of the IGF?  Because I think that will engage them for the future, and it can't just be another discussion and another set of panel discussions because I don't think that's going to move it to the next step.

 Daniela.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Yes, thank you, Lynn.

 In fact, that's a little bit what we thought as well and that was also one of the reasons why we changed a little bit the idea that we had before because we thought that would make sense to show and let feel the high-ranking politicians how important it is to have that multistakeholder approach.  And that's why we tried to bring together to the breakout sessions the different stakeholder groups and then discuss in-depth policy questions around the three themes that we have circled around now.

 And what we are trying to do is, indeed, to have papers in advance with policy questions.  So let people know what we are still working on that, and we are getting help already fortunately.  So that's the idea.

 When we know better who is really coming, that will make things easier as well.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I just want to underline, too, it's a high-level leaders meeting with leaders from all the stakeholder groups.  So this isn't focused just on governments.  It's also if we get high-level private sector in, high-level civil society, high-level technical community, they also, I think, have the same considerations.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  We even call it in our internal papers the high-level multistakeholder meeting.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Right.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  So you could replace "leaders" by "multistakeholder."

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Either one is fine.  I think they're both excellent.

 Miguel, was that an old hand up or were you looking for the floor again?

 Any comments, reflections?  Good idea?  Bad idea?  Too much work?  You all have a lot of coffee in front of you, so there's no excuse for silence.

 Okay.  So let's leave that discussion there then.  And I think there's probably a request also for within DESA to really understand what kind of resources we might be able to marshal to support in particular what I would call some of the outreach activities.  I think it would be great if we had a really sort of sleek, concise document that talked about the various pieces of the IGF ecosystem, that talked about it not just from a here's what all the pieces are and what their charter and mission is but really some concrete examples of some of the impact and things.

 So if we could get the resources from -- within the community, maybe even with some potential contributions from some organizations to support that effort, we'd really be looking possibly for some additional support from DESA as well.  And I don't know what's there in terms of maybe printing or materials.  Not meaning to put you on the hook now, but maybe if you can just keep that in mind.

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:  Sure.  We are ready to support.  An outreach, as you know, is also one of the things that we discuss with IGF secretariat in our regular meetings every week.  So we are ready to support.  And we had a great collaboration with the German mission and Rudolf's team for the side event.

 We have printed these brochures, and I think we reached out to some diplomats in New York, and we should continue.  So we are ready to support.

 And one idea was maybe in the coming -- in the coming months to get some intern to help us only with this task until the meeting.  So, yeah.

 And, also, based on our discussions, if needed, maybe we could also bring like an individual, a supportive consultant, for that.  That was on paper.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I'm sure there are a few community members that would be helpful -- be very interested in helping to review any of those materials as well and ensure we're picking up all the key points, too.  So if we can help and help provide some additional support, if you do bring in an intern, I'm sure you will find support for that.

 Well, let's move to the next item then, which is the best practice forum discussion from the previous day.  And there what we wanted to do is to have brief updates on the best practice forums and their current status.  And then, of course, with every discussion, are there things we should consider that could further strengthen them or further extend their impact.

 We might also keep in mind the fact we have a number of main session slots to fill.  If there is anything that's triggered out of these discussions that might be worthy of a further outing, this might be the right territory for that.

 Who wants to go first?  Otherwise, we will go in the order of the agenda.

 Ben is putting his hand up to go first.  Ben Wallis, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.  So they're not in alphabetical order but in hand order.  I'm the MAG co-convener for the best practice forum on cybersecurity.  So I'll just give an update on how far we've got with the work this year and the direction we're headed as we work towards the annual meeting in November.

 So just to recap, the aim for this year is for the BPF to identify best practices related to the implementation of different elements that are contained within various international agreements and initiatives on cybersecurity.  So that could be picking out particular principles or policy approaches that we see within a number of different international agreements.

 The BPF is following an approach it took last year of developing a background paper which will be provided as a reference document alongside the call for contributions and then also included as part of the final report.

 And there's a volunteer group working on this paper that's working to identify and analyze relevant initiatives and agreements and then seeking to find horizontal overlapping elements, those that appear in more than one agreement that could be the focus of our work this year.

 Got background papers splitting the agreements into three buckets.  So there are agreements that are made within individual stakeholder groups such as the Cyber Tech Accord, which is an industry initiative or the various directives and declarations that are made by regional groupings of governments.

 There are agreements struck across multiple stakeholder groups, so obviously the Paris call is one of those.  And we heard from Wolfgang yesterday that the GCSC, the Global Commission on Security and Cyberspace which has its own package of norms.

 And the third bucket are those U.N. initiatives that we've also been hearing about, the EWG and the GGE.  And that was something that the MAG -- when I put the proposal for the work this year, MAG members asked that the BPF look in particular at those and make sure those are included.

 And we're conscious that the work in those two areas is just beginning, but we're definitely finding a way to include those in the work being done this year.

 We've also established a separate volunteer group to understand how legal frameworks support or underpin agreements and initiatives and also the extent to which national and regional cybersecurity strategies mention the applicability of international law to cyberspace.

 The call for contributions will be put out later this month as well as being targeted broadly to the Internet governance community as normal.  There are a few specific groups that we will target directly.

 We will try to reach out to the organizations behind the agreements and initiatives that we've identified in our background paper as well as the signatories to those agreements and initiatives, because we are interested in whether they've identified best practices for fulfilling the commitments in those agreements, and also whether there are any mechanisms in place for keeping track of the extent to which their signatories have acted in response to their commitments.

 Another group we are interested in getting input is from the NRIs, and we have just started exploring with the secretariat the best way that we might do this.

 The drafting of the BPF report will take place over the summer once the call for contributions has concluded.  And then we will reconvene the BPF in September to discuss the draft report as well as planning the session that we're going to be holding at IGF 2019.

 The aim is to publish the draft report in early October, about six weeks before the IGF meeting, to give the community time to reflect and consult internally on the draft report before coming to Berlin and providing any final views on it there during our discussion.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.

 Are there any comments or questions?

 Carlos.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Good morning.  Carlos Afonso.  Maybe I can speak a bit about the BPF from the local content.  We are trying, as you probably know, not only to emphasize creation and the formative aspects of producing content but also preserving content.  And this understood, in the most general sense of preserving material when -- material historical assets of all kinds, medias of all kinds, et cetera, archives, et cetera.  And we have very little activity so far in the list, but we are having, outside of the list, some activities, and I can say that the Latin American IGF, which will happen in August, will probably open a session to discuss the local content creation and preservation.  And we are in dialogue with them to organize this.

 The Brazilian IGF in October will also use the information from this BPF to discuss the theme as well.

 We have now about 26 or 30 members in the mailing list, but there is very little activity.  I hope that it picks up in the next few weeks, because already accumulated some experiences which can be posted in the list and stimulate the people to bring their experiences as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Carlos.

 I think it's a really important area.  I know when Carlos first triggered this, it was based on the very sad state of a fire in Brazil which had destroyed much of the, actually, museum, so there's a really real imperative to doing this work.  So....

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  May I?  The incredible thing is that one of the richest persons in Brazil, among those guys with billions of dollars, donated about $50 million to reconstruct Notre-Dame and donated zero cents to reconstruct the national museum.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Carlos, you may want to -- maybe we can just go back with the secretariat and make sure they correct the transcript here because there were a couple of -- couple of "indiscernibles."

 Are there comments or questions on the local content?  Carlos, is there anything you or the other leaders need from this MAG in terms of perhaps increasing the activity in the working group -- in the BPF?

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Yes, is the case is of a very rich family in Brazil, I can nominate because of Chatham House Rules, and the church in question is Notre-Dame in France.  Okay?

 Let's see if it appears.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We'll do it offline.  I think you're saying it's a sad state because, in fact, the donation wasn't made to reconstruct the national museum which was damaged through a fire in Brazil.  But again, that was part of the imperative of triggering this BPF in the first instance.

 Carlos, is there anything you're looking for from the MAG in terms of helping this BPF be a little more active or advance the topics?

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Probably it would be very helpful to have yet another facilitator because I know that Giacomo of the EDU is very busy and it's not easy for him and even for many, given the work we have in our countries and organizations, to pay more attention to that.  Another facilitator would be very, very helpful.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And of course the BPFs are not restricted to MAG members.  They are a community, and, in fact, are meant to be a great vehicle for actually reaching out to other organizations and get them engaged in specific issues that matter to them, whereas maybe they might not have been immediately attracted to Internet governance as a topic.

 So I would ask MAG members to please spend a few minutes and think about whether or not there are any other organizations that you think would be deeply interested in this BPF and would actively participate and support it and/or whether or not you would recommend any other potential leaders or participants in the BPF.

 And we closed out of the security BPF by (indiscernible).  I think the same thing goes there.  If people are aware of organizations that you think would be interested in the work that would be interested in participating or supporting the work, then please let the leaders in the BPF know.  Again, these BPFs have several objectives.  One was certainly to allow very substantive ongoing work to happen on a small number of important consequential topics, and then second, it was a great opportunity to pull in other people that maybe had more narrow interests than, again, perhaps might initially be attracted to the subject of Internet governance.

 So it's a great opportunity for people and governments that are engaged in these issues to really engage in an effort that's really concrete, really tangible, specific deliverables and has a really valuable, useful deliverable at the end.  So please, spend a few minutes and think through your own networks and contacts, and let's do what we can to further strengthen the BPFs.

 We have the BPF on gender and access.  Would you be willing to go next?  And then Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence is coming, so just make sure everybody is ready.

 Chenai, you're going to speak on gender and access?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Excellent.  Thank you.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Good morning, everyone.  I will be my on behalf of the third BPF for gender and access, with my co-chairs being Raquel and Maria.  And so far we have had to think about two, three calls with the community working on the BPF on gender.  And our main focus for this year is going to be specifically looking at gender and access, what happens after access specifically for the women -- for the inclusion of women into the digital economy.

 Thus far, we've worked on picking out what the different topics of the main session would be at the end of the day for the BPF.  Looking -- For example, we've looked at trust in terms of access to the Internet and the risks of it as well as the participation in the digital economy and the future of work, and the skills that are needed to ensure that, from a gender perspective, people would be able to optimally participate in the Internet ecosystem.  Our main aim is to come out with policy recommendations that will be taken on board going forward.

 We -- in terms of engagement, we've looked at specific outreach working with the HLPDC and other U.N. agencies, and also looking into the women's groups that have worked on economic growth and output, as well as trying to map the stakeholders that would be going forward.  And one of the questions that had been raised from the constituency which, if it's not already been communicated to us, would have been the consultant for the BPF who would be working on the project.  Just an update -- there was a requested update from their side.  But I think all is well from our side, and we will probably be putting out a call for volunteers as well to be part of -- from the IGF community and potentially working out with the -- working with the working group on outreach and engagement as well to get more people to participate in the BPF on gender and access.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.

 Are there any comments, questions, suggestions?

 Chenai, is there anything you would like to ask the MAG or the community for in terms of for their support?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yeah.  I think -- So the first question have been around the consultants, just to get an update on that.  But I think in terms of the MAG, across the different working groups and the dynamic coalitions to actually see if there is an opportunity, in particular I think maybe with the BPF that's working on AI, because we will be looking at the future of work and what it means for women, from a gender perspective, to participate in a vastly automated economic growth situation.  And also if there's anyone who would be interested to contributing from the different stakeholder perspective.  The gender issue does affect everyone across the board so I think it would be great to get different input.  And I think our main focus is looking at it from an after-access perspective, which I think impacts on everyone, what happens when you're actually connected and how does that enable you to participate and what are the risks -- what are the risks that one is likely to face that would impact negatively on participating, which I think works well very much into the theme that has been proposed -- not proposed -- the theme that the meeting will be running on, One Net, One Vision, One World.  What does it really mean from a gender perspective to be participating in that one net, one world, one vision.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.

 Let me ask Chengetai if he does have an update on the consultants, which is what was requested.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   One has been -- the contract is signed so one is working already.  The other consultant -- sorry, that's with a...

 Yeah, security.  And for local content access and gender, we are still going through the paperwork.  We had a little bit of difficulty because the consultant we wanted was already in the U.N. system doing another project so we had to wait for that to finish and to close out.  So that's done now and so she should be on board before the end of this month.  Yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Let's hope so.  That would be halfway through the year.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Having got an early start on the MAG last year, to be appointing consultants six, seven months later, we need to find a way to move that process along.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   This one is because you can't have two contracts, in, the U.N. system, and the contractors even travel.  So if you are traveling to a conference, you can't be hired for anything else, you know.  So it's a bit -- it's a quirk of the U.N. system.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Can I just push back and say there are always reasons.  It still doesn't -- it still doesn't resolve the fact that it's many, many months later and we're still without a consultant for three of the BPFs, which are some of the most significant output that we do.  So if we can just think through the process a little bit and see what we can do to move it forward next year, I think that won helpful.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   We can't change the rules.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We can't change the rules but then we can change the consultants.  If the difference is we get a consultant six months earlier because we get somebody else in, that's a different solution to the same process.  I'm not suggesting we change the U.N. rules.  I'm suggesting we actually pay attention to the timing of our own processes here, and we launch appropriate kind of consultant and engagement processes to get people in in time.

 We're now in the process of maybe they'll be here by the end of the month for three out of our four BPFs, just at the start of the summer period in the northern hemisphere with an IGF coming up soon. 

 So we need to find a way to get ahead of these processes.  Every year it's a late appointment.

 So again, I'm not suggesting we change U.N. rules.  I'm suggesting we change our process for engaging consultants and try to find a way to get them early in the year.  

 Maricela, you have the floor.

 >>MARCIELA MUNOZ:   Thank you, Lynn, and good morning, colleagues.  I just wanted to congratulate Chenai and the group for the fantastic group they are doing.  And since we have been talking about building bridges, I was just curious about whether you have been able to establish contact with this special group that works within ITU on gender issues and closing the gender digital gap.  They also work with the trade coalition and U.N. Women and others.  So it will be fantastic to establish also links with their work and the work they have been able to advance and see if we can make it more visible and also see if those outcomes can also help us strengthen and enhance our work.

 And as a MAG member, I just would like to humbly concur with your comments, Lynn, regarding the need to speed up certain processes so we have the adequate support for substantive discussions on time and in a manner that we are able to basically gain, you know, the advice and the important support that we, you know, thought we will have in a timely manner for our work as well.  I think that's super important.  So I just wanted to add my voice to that recommendation and feedback.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maricela.  I think you're talking about the ITU Equals group, which I don't know if anybody from the BPF wants to talk to that, but I know we have worked with them in the past.

 Raquel, did you want to come in?  Or Chenai?

 I can't see back that far.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  I think with the equals group, some of us in our individual capacity have actually engaged with them.  And I think they could be part of BPF, but Raquel could confirm.  Definitely there's context there as well with -- I think it's called "She Trades" from the World Bank, especially looking at the future.  We've also been -- I think individuals have engaged with them.  They definitely would like to come on board and cross the bridges.  

 I think one group that's specific also is the WIEGO that has done a lot of work, women in the informal sector and in trade and economic growth.  They haven't exactly participated in these spaces.  That's, of course, once again, crossing over a bridge that I think in the beginning it was about bringing in other people, other people not necessarily participating in the Internet space but actually dealing with the issues that are cross-cutting.  So I think that's definitely something that the group is thinking about.

 We're also going to be working with the Feminist Internet Research Network that was set up by APC and IGRC so we also have the different perspective within the groups.  So it's got a lot of diverse people engaging with it, and hopefully other MAG members from other groups will also join who might not have been working on gender before.  So it's kind of like a call to other people to actually also come in on this one.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chenai.

 Any further comments or questions on that BPF before we go to the last one?  

 Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Just to compliment -- thank you, Lynn.  To also concur with your comments regarding the importance of having the consultant as soon as we can.  Being in the work of the BPF for the past three years now, it's really important to have the support in an early stage now that we are almost finished with the part of the workshop selection and so on.

 This is the next big sprint within the MAG work.  And we've done already the work we could with the meetings and shaping this document collaboratively.

 Luckily, we have support from the community and from members that are really willing -- nonMAG members and MAG members willing to put this forward.  But to have the consultant to streamline and really push the work forward, it's going to be important.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Raquel.  

 Maria, Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Only as a final complimenting.  I'm Maria Paz representing civil society, also co-facilitating the gender BPF.

 In order to give you more logistic approach of where we are in the process of the work of the BPF, we have had so far two meetings.  We're in the process of feeding this collaborative document my colleagues were mentioning.  We aim to identify subtopics of work in this broad topic that Chenai described so well at the beginning.  

 The idea is also to recruit more people interested in each one of these specific subtopics in order, like, to organize, like, task force for each one of these topics.  So we will provide an update on that, and maybe it would be good if we can share that broadly with the community in order to find the right people to feed this work.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maria.

 Not seeing any other hands up in the speaking queue.  Let's move to the last BPF, artificial intelligence -- I think it's Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence.

 >>CONCETTINA CASSA:  Thanks, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  My name is Titi Cassa, government stakeholder group.  So I give you a short update about the BPF on IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence.  Similar to last year, the BPF's focus is on where the three technologies are used together in an Internet context.  As an example, when IoT devices turn on data, which then they are analyzed with use of artificial intelligence, machine learning technologies.  All is considered in cases when data collected by social platforms are analyzed by machine learning technologies.

 So while last year the BPF discussed more on best practice to facilitate the stakeholder dialogue on issues pertaining to the three technologies, IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence.  This year the BPF intends to focus on making use of the technologies to address societal challenges.

 So starting from the charter that has been agreed by the MAG, the BPF has discussed the overarching narrative for the work on 2019 that is entitled "Announcing justified trust in IoT, big data and AI to stimulate the use to address societal challenges that otherwise will be difficult to address."

 The work platform for 2019 has been structured in five phases.  The first phase that is the most finished was identifying the number of priority policy challenges and also to launch the survey to collect inputs from the community.  The survey has just been launched, and it will be active until the 30th of June.  And the submission will be included in the first draft of the output paper.

 Then the second phase that has just started will be about discussing policy challenges, also on best practice to address these policy challenges.  

 Then we will have to prepare the report.  That is the third phase.  We will have the workshop in Berlin at the IGF 2019.  And then the publication of the final output.

 So the work actually is coordinated by four volunteers that are me.  That is also Alex Comninos, Michael Nelson, Maarten Botterman, and that's it.  And there is also Wim that is helping us as a stakeholder.

 We had six virtual meetings so far.  The next one will be on the 17th of June.

 I think we all think that participation -- stakeholder participation is the key for the success of the BPF.  So we need further outreach, so we invite you to participate to the BPF.  And we also invite the NRIs to be involved in this one -- in this BPF.

 As a last thing, I want to just mention the policy question that I've been pointing out so far that have been divided into three clusters.  They are trust in IoT, big data, and AI application to address societal challenges and best practice to enhance trust.

 The second cluster is referring to using the three technologies, IoT, big data, and AI, to achieve positive policy outcomes and also best practices to stimulate the uses of these three technologies to address challenges.

 And then the third cluster is about the policy question pertaining to the collection, the use of data generated over the Internet and also the availability of the best practice to address them.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you very much.

 Are there any comments or questions for that -- I like the fact you concluded with sort of three policy areas or policy questions you're actually addressing and certainly with anything that we might be bringing forward to the high-level multistakeholder leaders meeting.

 [ Laughter ]

 It would be obviously critical that we pull in work from any of the intersessional activities, and that obviously includes anything that the NRIs might be doing as well in some of their sessions.

 Maria, is that a old hand?  Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  It's a new one.  Regarding this topic, I just want to share with the BPF in AI and IoT that there is a recent initiative from the World Economic Forum to create an advisory council and they are touching on this topic.  There is one specifically in artificial intelligence, another one in IoT.  

 And I think it would be very good to find a way to connect with them.  I am in touch with some of them.  I am part of the IoT council.  So I would be happy to facilitate that communication in the case of there is not an existing link because I think they are very interested and they should take advantage of all the good work that is being done by this BPF.  And I am not sure that at this state they are totally aware of how much these BPFs have been working in the last time.  So I think that would be very good to find ways to collaborate.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think that would be helpful.  Thank you, Maria.

 Any other comments, reflections, on any of the four individual BPFs or on BPFs in general?

 I think one of the things we need to do with the BPF process is maybe as we advance through the year start to get a sense of what work the BPF think they might do or continue doing going forward and have that documented so that it was there and ready for the incoming MAG.  We actually did that last year, I think.  But I think a lot of these practices we need to institute as kind of standard operating practice so there's almost a seamless transition from one MAG to the other.  

 So we should probably look at the BPF processes and make sure that somewhere in those processes there is kind of a requirement that in the final stages that there is a recommendation for future work.

 The future work, by the way, doesn't need to be that the BPF continues.  It could be that the work is ready to move to other places, or some pieces of the work should move into another activity or another entity or another organization.  But something which says, you know, we've done this piece of work and here's some substantive next steps.

 Okay.  Let's move to the next agenda item then which is the overview of the workshop proposal evaluations and thematic track formation.

 Yesterday I covered, again, in the open consultation, I think the process we were working towards this year with respect to preparation of the core of the annual meeting.  

 I think what we'd like to do today is invite the three thematic working groups to talk about their proposal for the workshops within their tracks.  If you have recommendations or thoughts on flows, if you have any other kind of important scheduling advice you think is important for the secretariat to understand as they go forward, that would be a critical time to lay it out as well.

 It would also be helpful if as you went through your work -- I know we were all looking for kind of cross-cutting issues or horizontal issues.  If you identified some of those in your work, it would be good to call those out and we can either spend a few minutes on them now or set them aside because I think there's some perhaps natural candidates for some main sessions if, in fact, it's a substantive cross-cutting issue.

 We really do want to hear from the MAG members that were not part of those thematic working groups in terms of, you know, how all this sounds and feels to you.  Again, I think we have been quite clear we are not expecting a sort of rerun of the process because as a MAG member, if you weren't part of that thematic working group, you are very unlikely to have reviewed yet another 100-odd proposals.  But, I mean, again, there's a lot of value in being close to but maybe just even slightly outside of the process.

 So I do want people to think critically through this and see if there's anything that you think is missing from the perspective of kind of our daily global views as well.

 So, again, with that, is there anybody who really wants to go first or shall we go in the -- Paul.  Digital inclusion.  Oh, Ben has put his hand up.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Just as I prepare, is it helpful for me to basically repeat the intervention I gave yesterday which summarized the process we took and the recommendations we had to the secretariat and for a cross-cutting workshop?  Or are you looking for me to talk through each of the 20 workshops?  Or -- I'm happy to go over and repeat what I did yesterday as a way to kick off discussion.  But I didn't know if that would be repetitive or if you wanted more or something different. 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yeah.  So I think -- I mean, I don't think we're expecting people to go through every one of the workshops but something which says this -- and maybe you can do a little bit of the process again.  I think we've gone through the process on our MAG call of two weeks ago plus yesterday, so I wouldn't do a lot of the process.  If you have a question or you need input or feedback from the MAG, then certainly that.

 If there's specific kind of scheduling advice for the secretariat, I guess we could do it in meeting here or you could easily send an email or talk to them.

 I think the more substantive thing is the content and the topics, the policy questions, and sort of flow.  So I would, I think, suggest we spend a little more time in terms of the -- I think there were kind of natural groupings for a lot of the workshops that were in that track.  So if you talk about what those natural groupings were, what were the key topics that were within them or key policy questions, and then any -- if you were able to get to any metalevel policy questions or, again, any cross-cutting issues, those would be the ones that really -- but if people could put their remarks more towards the content and the substance of the proposals, I think that would be more appropriate.

 And really appreciate Paul going first.  Actually, digital inclusion working group has led us through much of this process and specifically with, you know, Paul's support and co-facilitation here as well.

 So, Paul, you have the floor.  Maria, was that an old hand up now?  Okay, Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.  I'm speaking on behalf of our working group, and I'm hoping they're going to chip in as we go along.

 This has been a very collective effort, and we had a late-night meeting last night.  I think we closed the building around 8:00.  And I think we set off the alarm on the way out.

 [ Laughter ]

 We have something.  I don't know if we can display it.  I don't know if we can get it up there.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think there's some slides that --

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  We have a Word document we sent through, I don't know shared with --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm sure Eleonora is on top of getting it up.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  There we go.  Okay.  So we don't want to repeat what was discussed at the face-to-face.  We went through a process of short listing.  We looked at the advice of the secretariat, looking at the top-rated workshops and filling any gaps.

 We've basically got five main thematical areas that we've ordered the workshops on which are access, affordability, infrastructure; local content and multilingualism; skills, education and jobs; social inclusion; and governance and policy.  So you'll see the workshops are ranked in those orders, started with access, affordability and infrastructure.  And this will feed into a flow diagram, which is at the end.  

 So we just also want to note that there were 106 workshop proposals, and we can't accommodate everybody.  So we apologize.  We would have wanted to have accommodated everybody; but, of course, it's not practical.

 So in the document here, you'll see we have 20 workshops in the first table plus one tutorial.  We will explain that in a little bit.

 We have two workshops that are in so-called waiting list that we feel are strong in our right that could be accommodated or not.  But we can explore that later.

 One key thing we want to mention is we did relook at the merger suggestions of the top 16 ranked workshops.  And on further investigation, we've determined that those workshops are strong in their own right and they are different enough that we don't feel we should be merging top 16 with top 16 workshops.

 So there is a proposed merger between workshop 200 which was ranked 13 and workshop 204 that was ranked 30.

 They're very similar.  Only one is in the top 16.  And there's a possibility that it is actually the same organizer of the two workshops, but it brings a gender aspect to the discussion.  That's basically the rationale of that merger.

 So we can glance through this.  We didn't circulate it to the general MAG yet because it still is provisional.  But depending on the thought process this year, we can share it -- the MAG to dig into it deeper.  But we didn't want to set any unnecessary expectations prior to firming this up.

 So you see as we go through, we have five workshops on access, affordability, and infrastructure.  We have three on local content and multilingualism.  Three on skills, education, and jobs.  We have four on social inclusion, and each of those focus on a different specific of social inclusion:  Disability, gender, and youth.

 And then the remaining five workshops are governance overarching policy and -- the one I spoke about which is a 30-minute tutorial, this is a cross-cutting workshop.  It's only 30 minutes.  And our thought is this could be tacked onto the end of lunch or something so it wouldn't necessarily affect the program.  It is quite short.  It's tutorial.  We have a strong feeling we can fit it in the program without taking one of the 90-minute slots.

 And the next table chose the  two in the parking lot, so to speak.  They bring different aspects, particularly around geographic, stakeholder, and issue balancing.  But they were not ranked so high, and there were other workshops in the top 20 that are stronger from the evaluation.  But we still feel if they could be fitted in somewhere, we should try and accommodate those.

 There's some other workshops that have been brought to our attention that we're looking into.  One is workshop 256, which is a workshop from Poland.  It seems to be a government workshop.  Taking into account they're our hosts next year, we feel it quite important to bring the host country into the IGF as much as possible.  So we want to find a way to see how we could accommodate that workshop.

 There's a thought that it could be accommodated as an open forum.  Just something we're putting out there for thought.

 There's a workshop 301 which is on IoT that we're looking for possible mergers.  IoT is not covered so deeply in the other workshops, so we're seeing if that can be accommodated as a possible merger or somewhere else in the program.  So there's a couple of tags at the end basically of the list.

 But right now what we have and what we're presenting to the MAG is our top 20 recommended workshops plus the tutorial, 30-minute tutorial, and the two in the waiting list.

 So I'm going to allow others in the working group to add anything, if they want to, and then open the floor to comments.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  First, are there additional members of the thematic working group that would like to comment?

 Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  Susan Chalmers, NTIA.  I just wanted to thank Paul for all the work that he's done to undertake the organization of this list.  And in terms of the thematic flow, one of the ideas was that this would be host in the OSI model, so starting with access and then building up the stack.  That's one idea.  So just wanted to mention that for context.  

 But, otherwise, it's been a pleasure to work with the group through this process, which was not easy but...

 I think we have a good result at the end of the day.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's the richness of these global groups.

 Was there just a question -- wait.  Was there sort of an expectation that all the access, affordability and infrastructure workshops there would come first in the program and then there really was a full physical (indiscernible).  I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  First, I would also like to thank Paul and the group for this concise and precise selection of workshop proposals.  I would like also to refer to the issue of Internet of Things that was mentioned, like, it was not as well represented as you thought it would be we had the same experience in the security and safety group, and I do think that as we see from the best practice form on the Internet of Things, big data and AI, this is an issue that is also related to the data governance, I would say.  So probably we could see Internet of Things as a cross-cutting issue and try to address it not only in the three main theme tracks but in an additional session.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta.

 If there aren't any other comments, I think we turn it back to Paul to see whether or not there's any additional feedback or input.  And of course it's open to MAG members as well for comments or clarity or question.

 Carlos, you have the floor.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:   On Jutta's comment, there is a dynamic coalition on Internet of Things.  Maybe that would be the way to cover it in the IGF.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's a very good point, too.  I think it depends on whether or not we think about it as a main session with a whole separate slot and focus.  I'm just going to start a list here of kind of the possible cross-cutting issues that are suggested.  But that's a good thing.  That's actually quite an active dynamic coalition.

 Any other comments from MAG members?  Paul, anything?

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Nothing, really, to add.  So we just wait to hear back on how we move forward and at the relevant time week circulate this document.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I do have one more question.  I know on one of our earlier MAG calls you said there was some discussion within the group whether you started with this sort of flow or whether it was reversed and you started with the governance and policy in the end.  And is this a final recommendation or is that still an open question?

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Okay.  To respond to that what we see on the display is a proposed way forward and basically the thought on that is by starting with access, affordability, infrastructure, we're actually raising policy issues that can then carry on later into the flow.  So our proposed way of the structure of the flow would be as displayed there.  And that gives some sense of the ordering of the program and when the workshops -- how the workshops would fit into the program.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Timea.

 >>Timea Suto:  Good morning, everyone.  Timea Suto from ICC-Basis.  

 Regarding this flow, what I wanted to underline, although we are starting with access and building up on content and skills and inclusion to arrive to governance and policy discussions, I just want to make it clear that we don't think any of these baskets are more important or -- or need to be the first one or the last one.  So there is an arrow there just to indicate how we're ordering this because in our mind there is a logic to it, but that doesn't mean that any of these components are more important than the other.  So I just wanted to make that clear.

 And the other thing that I wanted to also recognize that we are conscious that there is speakers that might have conflicts and there might be other issues.  So just to know and note for the secretariat that we don't expect that it's going to be hundred percent this way.  We're proposing a way forward, but we are conscious of the limitations.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  I actually like a lot the flow and I don't think anyone would think one was more.  I suspect any position one might have on what you think is more important is probably what you do in your day job than anything else and not the graphic on it.  But I think for me it really crystallizes the fact -- and again, I always keep in mind that the number one criticism we hear about the IGF is that it's a talking shop.  And obviously it's not that.  It's much more than that.  But I think this shows how all the different pieces -- Or the other on is there's always -- it's too broad.  There's always so many different things in the IGF, and it's hard to get a sense of what you're trying to do.  And I think these graphics show the kind of linkage and the relationship and that they build and that they can all and do ultimately support really critical questions.  So I personally like that a lot.

 Final call for any other questions from MAG members.  I keep checking for those MAG members that are online as well to see if there's a hand up there, although they would be using the speaking queue as well.  But if you are participating online and have any questions or thoughts, then please do come in.

 Otherwise we will move to the next one and thank very much -- I mean, this goes for all of the thematic working groups.  I mean, I know from personal past experience how much work it is.  There were days we were all reviewing 200 and 250 and 300 proposals.  But I think the proposals are actually getting -- the reviews and the process is getting even more in depth as we actually really look to ensure that we're building a cohesive program, a focused program, and really trying to focus on policy questions.  So I want to thank all the working groups for all of the very thorough effort.

 And I'm not sure which working group is going next.

 So I guess Jutta, you --

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I do think Eleonora has already put up the slides, so probably I can start.

 Ben, will that be fine with you if security goes on?

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Yes, security.  Sorry, I was trying to point.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Okay.  Thank you.  Yes, also the security group had a meeting yesterday in the evening.  And to be honest, it was the security group who set off the alarm, so funnily enough.

 [ Laughter ]

 As you may be aware from the communication on the list, security group decided to discuss potential mergers only face to face yesterday.  And so we started with the preliminary selection we already had and approved the 20 proposals that were first selected but with some condition.  And if you could put up the -- maybe we start with the flowchart because that would be the easiest thing to follow.

 Just a second.

 So I can explain a bit.  So we -- okay.  We can start on the second page, Eleonora.  I can click?  Okay.  That's fine.

 So you will see the list of proposals, and we became aware that in security and safety group, we had the first two places of the overall rank of all the workshop proposals; if you look at the list, place one and place two that were the highest ranking out of all workshop proposals.  And then it goes further down the list.

 And you can see that we had identified workshop 85, which is the last on this page.  It's misinformation, trust, and platform responsibility.  And then the next one ranking directly after that was coping in an era -- era of misinformation, who is responsible.  And the group decided that we would only look into mergers if the merger would not lead to broaden the focus of a session but to bring a closer look into a certain issue.  So these two were really overlapping.  They also were overlapping in the policy questions they had phrased.  And, therefore, the group suggested to merge these two sessions.  And also having in mind that 85 applied for a 90-minute session slot and 268 applied for 60 minutes.  So we thought it would be feasible to merge these without losing the focus of the session.

 For the other workshops on the list of the first 20, we thought that there was no room for merger because the approaches of the workshops, also they address somehow similar issues, it was just too broad to bring in two or three of them together.

 And going further down the list -- so that leaves us with 19 that are now approved, in consideration of one -- of two of them being merged.  So that would be 19 out of 20 that we first selected.

 Then for filling the gaps, we had identified, on suggestions from members of the group, of four additional workshops.  And given the fact that -- we got the feeling among -- around, I think it was, 86 workshops that we had to assess, that the Internet of Things was a little bit underrepresented under the first 20.  So we decided to accept workshop 307, transparency and control for the Internet of Things, so that we end up with a list of 20.  And that left us with the three additional workshops that we considered might be accepted if there is space because among these first 20, we still have four that applied only for 60-minute slots.  So there might be space.

 And then we took a deeper look into 150 and proposal 22, which are both dealing with hacking hate speech.  It was hate speech online, so one was called "Hacking Hate Speech Online, a Multistakeholder Approach," and the 22 was named "Tackling Hate Speech, Future Regulation of Intermediaries."  And we thought that both of them did not address diversity as well as it should be in such a -- in such an issue.  So the suggestion was to merge the two of them and then also advise the proposers that they would definitely need to add the perspective from the technical community.  And that should be done with respect to also geographical diversity because proposal 22 only had organizers and speakers from the Western European and others group.  150 was a bit more diverse but not as diverse as the group would like to see.  And because we understand that it would be give to merge these two sessions and to give the additional advice of improving diversity, especially in regard of the technical community perspective, two members of the group volunteered to guide through this merging process, which is, thankfully, Maria Paz Canales and Sylvia Cadena.  With the technical community background, they could help to improve this.  

 Then we had discussions about workshop 413, human values and Internet protocols, because some other group thought this would be an additional issue that was not covered exactly, although it's related to the Internet of Things somehow also.

 In the end, we decided to dismiss this proposal for the time being, and the group went home with some homework because we still thought that if there might be room for one additional workshop, each of the members should have a look at those that ranked high but still are not among these provisionally accepted workshop proposals.  And then if we get a signal from the secretariat that there would be space for one more workshop, we would decide among these favorites of the members of the group which one could then be accepted.

 One thing that just came in when I was speaking.  We also gave to the group a chance to look for cross-cutting issues, and a suggestion was that jurisdiction, that is among these workshops, could probably be a cross-cutting issue.  And I wanted just to click once more to give you a view on the flowchart that was produced based on the first model that Paul Rowney had produced.  We tried to also sort the workshops that were selected.  And you can see now that the two that we -- in two groups or two subthemes that we identified for merger are marked with this orange space around them.  And you will also see from the -- from the flowchart that difficulty that I had been speaking about yesterday that security, safety, stability, and resilience is really a very broad theme and it was difficult to group the workshop proposals under this broad, main theme.  But still, we do think -- like it was said by Timea, we don't think that the one on the left side are the highest and the more important than on the left side.  It's just that this would provide for a good flow within the whole program going from security, over the stability and resilience issues, and then ending up with the safety issues.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta, and the working group.

 It would be helpful if, in this slide, the little blue boxes that are under the workshop groupings are larger because I think that really helps to see where the topics and issues are.  Just a real nit, but I would find them useful.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I could read them out to give you an impression.  So we would start on the left side with the cyber attacks, somehow related also to the term "Internet kill switch."  Then going over to international norms and jurisdiction.  And the second would be -- or the third would be Internet protocols and Internet resources, then coming to the Internet of Things, trust and accountability together with democratic values.  Then we have kind of a block with misinformation, fake news, and the next one, freedom of expression and hate speech, coming to child safety and online sexism on the right side.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta.  So it actually goes like this in terms of reading it.  Thank you, that's very helpful.

 Are there -- first, any other comments from other working group members?

 I know this was a big lift in particular because, you know, there really are four very significant areas in the -- in the track.

 Are there any comments, thoughts, questions from MAG members to the members of this working group?

 I think the titles are quite good for a lot of the workshops, too.  In both of the last two presentations, it was pretty easy to quickly get a sense of the flow and the perspective just from the title.  I think the community is doing a good job at finding something which is really interesting, really clear, and, you know, concise as well.  So...

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I know I've said that before, but I really do think that asking the community to phrase the policy questions was very helpful for the community as well, because you can see the relationship between the title of the workshop and the policy questions they phrased.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And the hope is that with those policy questions, of course, that it actually gives guidance to the people that participate in the workshops.  Clearly the other organizers are paying attention to them, but that it also kind of drives the discussion in the room as well, so the people that participate feel there's a purpose and a focus and have actually participated in a meaningful way to move something forward.

 So anybody else who wants to make a comment?  Yes, Nebojsa.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   As a member -- Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government stakeholders group.

 As a member of this group, I want to thank to Jutta for her leadership and for all that she put in this exercise.

 I have one more general remark about the proposals we received yesterday, which I shared with the group last night.  I think that compared to last year, diversity was on a much lower level overall than previous year.  It's too bad that some of the proposals -- actually one of the proposals that we suggested to get improvement and to be conditionally accepted scored well on the policy issue but it was very low on diversity which lowered the total score.

 What are the reasons for overall lower level of diversity I really don't know.  But it really -- at least in this group of workshop proposals, it was both lacking diversity -- I mean, in all aspects of diversity, regional diversity, when it comes to the stakeholders group, gender balance.  I would say in all aspects of diversity.  That's just a general remark which would maybe, let's say, be of interest for the next year when defining the call for proposals to emphasize that really the diversity is an important issue that is paid attention for it when evaluating the proposals.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Nebojsa.  Very important comments and certainly very important consideration in everything we do.  So I think trying to understand why or what triggered that would be helpful.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Just to underline what Nebojsa just said, I would be interested to learn from the other two groups whether they had the same experience with regard to diversity.

 I do think we made an effort to ask for more diversity, and it was very elaborate, the whole system how we asked for diversity.  And then when we end up -- see that, of course, many people only ticked "yes, I addressed diversity in regard to gender, geographic region, stakeholder group," and so on and they really did not address diversity.  So kind of like we had overdrawn it with asking for more diversity, and now we end up with the opposite.  

 At least we can say that for the security and safety group.  I was wondering whether it was the same experience for the other groups.  

 And then I do think the working group on workshop proposal process should take that in consideration and then try to find a solution for next year's process.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.

 Maria.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Just to add an additional point of what Jutta just was mentioning, I think it is not really only important to clarify more, like, internally the process but also to be able to better communicate to the community in general this consideration in the workshop evaluation.  Because I have the feeling -- maybe it's not very founded in concrete evidence.  But I have the feeling that this is the result of, like, people not being clear how the workshops are being evaluated and thinking at the end if the topic is interesting, if the speakers are appealing, the workshop will be conditionally accepted anyway.  So they're not, like, putting the same effort in addressing the diversity from the very beginning, thinking that there will be time for fixing this later.  

 And I think that, like, to have more concrete guidelines in what is the internal procedure for evaluation and being able to openly communicate this to the community will necessarily impact the quality of the future proposals.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Maria.

 Sylvia.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Hello?  Okay.  Sorry.

 Sylvia Cadena, technical community.  I just wanted to add the point that the exercise of thinking about what the proposals don't have necessarily in common was also interesting when concerning mergers or how to address any mentoring that can be provided to workshop proposers, right?

 So one of the things we discussed was how instead of trying to look at the similarities between proposals, that we could discuss what is actually different between them, even if they are kind of covered in similar focus, similar areas, and then approach the organizers and request them to focus on that particular difference and give more depth to the conversation around that particularity that they were discussing.

 But that will require, I guess -- Maria Paz and I will be experimenting a little bit with that when we support the merger that came out of the group.  But I guess it is worth it -- would be worth it for the working groups to look at the different proposals and see what specific feedback can be given to the ones that are finally approved, to tell them if what we're looking at is more concise, in-depth discussion on a particular issue, look at the other proposals that are in your flow, right, in your little bucket where you were placed, and see if any of them are touching on things that you already think you are covering in your workshop so that you don't repeat things that the others are doing without thinking about mergers or anything like that.  They're probably trying to make the organizers aware of the rest of the program so that this intention of being more focused, actually everybody is on the same page.

 I just don't know exactly how we could do that, but I guess it's part of the communication that the secretariat would have to send to the approved proposals when that step happens.  

 I think it's worth the time to just pick and figure out, okay, you are -- you have six speakers talking about, I don't know, cyber norms and human rights and in the other workshop there is one that is touching on that issue.

 Why don't you just kind of drop that issue because the other workshop is going to cover it and then use your 60 minutes or 90 minutes to go deeper into the one policy question just to try to help them bring focus.

 Because a lot of the sessions -- well, not a lot.  Some of the sessions are very generic and it's like if they are trying to solve the problem all by themselves.  And it could be -- it's just a cube, right?  It's sides of the discussion.  

 So if we could encourage them to look at the rest of the sessions approved, even across other themes, maybe that will help us to prepare people to participate also in the topping and tailing sessions and how that flow actually guides the process.

 And I have -- I have been taking notes about how, for example, the way we collected the data on the application form about diversity actually shows on the evaluation process.  So if they have a different understanding of what diversity means and I tick, "yes, I am addressing diversity on gender" just because they have one woman on the panel, right, then -- or in the session, then that does not necessarily fit with what we described.  So maybe there are issues on the form of how you capture the information so it's kind of verified.  And then it's not -- it doesn't give us that "Yes, I did, yes, I did, yes, I did" and you go back and look and no, they didn't, no, they didn't, no, they didn't.  That happened in a few workshops.  But that's for the post-mortem of the process and the form and all that for later.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I have a follow-up question.  Thank you for that.  

 To Sylvia and others, would it be helpful to share the policy questions that are part of the approved workshops with all of the workshop organizers so that very quickly they could see if there was -- I know it's easy enough to extract the policy questions because the secretariat has done that.  But maybe there's an opportunity to take those policy questions, share them with the other workshop organizers just so that they're kind of generally aware.  And maybe that's a lightweight way to do what you're suggesting as well.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Yes, I think that the policy questions are an excellent way to get started and see what topics are discussed.  And maybe in some of the sessions, especially the ones that have a panel format where specific panelists are clearly saying I'm going to talk about X, then those two fields could help.  

 But the thing is, it would be very difficult to send, like, a generic email saying, please take a look at this, right?

 So, I guess, maybe a good thing to do, for example, to use that generic email with the flows and say, "Look for your workshop number in that little bucket" and then look for the proposals on that bucket and check their policy questions.  Something really concrete to help them initiate those conversations.

 And I think it's also a -- probably would be very important if we could try, although we mentioned this in the meeting in Geneva, I think in the first one in January, if we could try to do a little bit of a promotional campaign to ask speakers and organizers to go in the IGF website and update their profiles, their community profiles, so the information that's there is the one -- the actual one.  

 And if there are profiles that are duplicated, to try to identify the secretariat which one is the valid one.  Some organizations -- some speakers were listed under the wrong one, but it's because they have different old profiles in the system.  So maybe there is something also.

 If we run, I don't know, like, a clean -- let's clean our database of contacts thing before the IGF, we might end up in a better position to actually run the stats on diversity and to have better information for the speakers, the right work titles, the right organizations where they work, and not things from five years ago.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me try and quickly -- I think between the conversation we had, it sounds like there's a suggestion that we prepare a package that would go to the organizers of those workshops that are approved which might actually give a little intro to the track overall.  I think the flowchart is the two flowcharts we've seen.  We're still waiting for the third presentation.  But include the flowcharts and maybe a separate addendum of the policy questions.  

 I mean, it would make them feel they were actually part of an ongoing discussion and a full flow and understand what was coming before and what was coming afterwards, which I would think would actually be a good feeling and a good process for them as well.  And maybe as part of that, we ask them to ensure that the profiles are up to date and clean or something like that.

 But the real benefit is in saying this is the thematic track, this is where your workshop fits in, these are the other workshop organizers and these are the policy questions.  And if there's something else specifically we wanted to ask them to do, we should think about that.  I guess the question is whether or not that is something the secretariat will support and pull together or whether or not it starts from the thematic working groups and secretariat provides, I guess, as you know, kind of subsets of policy questions and things.  Maybe just think about that for a moment, and we'll come back to that afterwards because I think it's important to figure out what those next steps are while we're all here in the room fresh.

 But in the -- I'll go to Jutta, Jennifer, and then I think Timea wants to come in as well.

 So, Jutta, you have the floor.  It's an old hand?  

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn.  Jennifer Chung, private sector.  I was also in the security group as well, and so I really want to thank Jutta for preparing all this and updating what we were discussing throughout the whole process.

 I wanted to pick up on three points.  First, the question and also the issue that was raised by Nebojsa and Jutta about looking at why perhaps maybe it's just our group that had a lowering of diversity.  But maybe it is across all three themes, and this is -- and then looking at the reason why.  

 Jutta did bring up a really good point about, you know, if we understand it might be we're asking too much of the proposers, what can we improve on in the following process for next year.

 And related to this point is the point that Sylvia mentioned about the profiles.  Yesterday, Jim also brought up some things related as well about speaker profiles.  

 So if we're asking workshop proposers we have to check all these points in geographic diversity, in stakeholder diversity, in gender diversity, all of this, they may not have the resources to know this.  And we already have kind of a platform, the resource persons platform, for them to go to do that.  But in order for them to be able to use this well, we would need to actually have a platform that is, A, updated and, B, if you are listed as a speaker you get an email notification that, oh, somebody listed me as a speaker instead of finding it later.  

 So I guess all these issues are really interconnected.  If we're really trying to help workshop proposers increase the quality of their workshop proposals, increase all the diversity aspects that we're asking of them, we need to also give them the tools if they don't have it, give them the mentoring if they don't really know where to find it.  And I guess for us, I guess it might be a post-mortem thing as well to improve on this resource that we've already started, I think, for a few years ago.

 The second point I wanted to -- actually that was the first two points.  The second point I want to talk about is I think our group did a really interesting analysis where we were not really considering merging of two workshops per se.  In some areas, we were looking at the policy questions where one that we've provisionally accepted may be missing a few policy questions.  And that kind of merging is an interesting way of making a workshop proposal more full.

 I think Sylvia's suggestion just now was quite interesting.  I was trying to digest it as she was suggesting it, that we could possibly send a pack of policy questions either to the provisionally accepted workshop proposers for them to actually think about, hey, you know, if we already have a workshop on this theme, we can include this aspect.  We can include another aspect.

 Another thing that we are -- as a group yesterday we discussed was if a certain provisionally accepted workshop was missing one element, we could possibly pull a policy question from a different one that wasn't accepted and possibly pull another resource person, a technical person into it, too, to make the diversity more in line with what we're asking for.  So I guess these are the three points I really wanted to highlight.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think those are very useful comments, Jennifer.  I was taking some more notes as well.  Thank you.

 Timea.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  Thank you.  I also have two points I wanted to make really quickly, not necessarily on the security track but on our process in general, if it's the right time to do it now.  Or should I wait until we all finish?

 So on one hand about the flow and socializing the policy questions and the issues in between the workshops of the specific track, I think it's a really good idea.  We need to perhaps think it through of how we're going to do that.

 But I think it's really important for the workshops in a certain track to be aware of the context that their workshop is going to be happening in so they can link, you know, ahead with the other sessions.

 And I'm wondering -- I know we haven't discussed yet the topping and tailing sessions, but I'm wondering if that might also be the job of the topping session because we don't know what workshop proposers are going to do between now and the IGF.  But they are going to be there at the time.  And maybe they can devote half an hour of their time or an hour and a half of their time to really look into how the flow is going to look like, how the next three days are going to look like, and how are they also planning the reporting out of their session to make sure that their information gets picked up in the right way once the three, four days are over.

 So I'm wondering if this socializing of the flows can actually be done on the spot as well with the topping session, feeding into the tailing session.

 And then the second point I wanted to make about the speaker profiles, I think that's a very pertinent comment.  As Jennifer said, it came up yesterday in the open consultations.  I've seen it as well when I was marking sessions.  

 I'm guessing that for this year, we haven't -- unfortunately or not this has happened already.  But before we start the process next year, I would recommend we go through an update your profile campaign for all of those people who are already there, a quick automatic email "You are in our database, these are our information about you.  Is that correct.  Could you please update."  Perhaps that would be a solution to improve things for next year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  And we'll come to the last thematic track in a moment but I'm just wanting not to lose track of some of these discussions.  And we'll come to the topping and tailing.

 Maybe we could ask the secretariat to work across the three thematic working groups and understand what the experience was specifically as it relates to profiles and the resource section of the website so we can ask -- I mean, if that makes sense to go out with an email, as Timea just said, or if there's different advice we need to put within the workshop submission process, that sort of thing.  But if we can ask the secretariat maybe to take that lead.  Maybe we could ask the thematic working groups to take the lead on preparing the package which says this is the track we've put to the.  Here's a high-level intro, here are the other workshops that are engaged in it, here are the policy questions so that we're managing that communication out to the accepted workshop proposal organizers.

 And I think what we need for the secretariat in support there is the policy questions that are associated with those workshops, and then I'm sure Luis can do a quick extract, and then an easy mailing list or facility to email all those workshop organizers, I'm assuming is the right -- but I'm just trying to make sure that before we all leave the room and get on with other things, that we actually have some kind of clear next steps for this process because it's new.  I think it's coming together really, really well, so, again, thanks to all the working groups for all the work.

 Ben.  I think we're ready now to go to the final thematic track.  And again, we'll come back to the topping and tailing later.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you, Lynn.  So I'll briefly recap what I went into more detail yesterday.

 We provided to the MAG and to the secretariat the list of 20 workshops we propose take up the 20 slots that were provisionally allocated to our theme.

 We also provided specific comments for each of those 20 workshops that should be provided to the organizers for how they might improve their workshops.  That could include ways in which they could bring in -- diversify their policy questions or bring in different stakeholder groups or where they might be weak on diversity.  We didn't place any conditions on the approval of any of these workshops.  We didn't make any proposals for merging workshops, but we did suggest in these written comments to 6 of the 20 workshop organizers that they look at some specific other workshops and consider whether they could incorporate ideas, concepts or even speakers from those workshop proposals which we felt were in a similar area but might -- but by looking at them, might help them broaden out their workshop and bring in other perspectives.

 In terms of a flow, I may be at risk of disappointing you here, Lynn, but we've grouped the 20 workshop proposals into subthemes, which is what you can see in the table in front of you, which was in the document that I've sent a couple of times to the MAG as well.

 There's no particular order or flow.  To my mind, these are different elements of data governance, but one does not necessarily feed into the other.  So in this theme, I don't think it's necessarily relevant to have a flow.

 We did make a recommendation which is the first bullet underneath the table that the secretariat, when scheduling these 20 workshops, avoid scheduling any workshops within the same subtheme against each other.  So that anyone who is particularly interested in jurisdictional or sovereignty issues can attend all three of those workshops and not risk -- and there not be a clash, as an example.

 And in other words, there's no particular thought on how this grouping could be used after the schedule is drawn up, but maybe that will become clear when we do go to the topping and tailing.  And also you just talked about an action that the working group could take up as to packaging information that goes back to the successful workshop organizers.  So maybe it's used there as well.

 We did provide an additional three workshops that could be taken forward if time was found in the schedule.  Those are the ones at the bottom of the page.  They are ranked in order, so if there's any one slot available, then it would be the top, and so on.  And this, as we discussed earlier, was on the basis that we were provisionally allotted 20 slots of 90 minutes and we've come up with 15 minutes at 90 minutes and six slots at 60 minutes, I think.

 And finally, as I mentioned yesterday, we were asked by the security working group to look at a particular workshop which had some data governance elements, and our proposal after reflecting on it is it has both data governance and safety elements to it and would be worth taking forward as a cross-cutting workshop, using up some of that additional time that's been created by some of the approved workshops not being a full 90-minutes long.

 So that's what I wanted to present.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.  Let me see if there are any other comments from the working group members first.

 Maria?

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Thank you.  I just want to point it out that from this presentation of the last group it's pretty clear that the IoT thing emerge as a cross-cutting because each one of the groups are considering additional workshop or one of the workshops in the flow that takes on the IoT topic, so probably it's a really a good candidate.

 And to the last suggestion about the workshop 170, that it was referred from security to data governance group, I think that there are another workshop in the security track that already covers some of that, but it's true that it's also a cross-cutting issue that could be considered for another category of session.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Maria.

 Timea, is that an old hand?

 And Jutta, it's a new hand.

 You have the floor, Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Yes, that's a new hand.  I just became aware that the data governance group also had, like, a subtheme, human rights and Internet ethics, which is somehow related to what we have in the data -- in the security and safety group.

 So I don't think this should be merged in any way, but I suggest that the secretariat has a look into the flow of the workshops and then try to have these grouped somehow, one after another, but not overlapping like it was suggested by data governance already that workshop proposals that address similar or close to each other issues, that they are not going to the program in parallel but as subsequent order.

 Thank you.

 >>DANKO JEVTOVIC:   Thank you, Lynn.  Danko here, Jevtovic.  I just wanted to say thank you, Ben.  On behalf of our group, he present very well, but he also led the discussion in preparation of this.

 Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Danko.  We used to say in the technical community we never thought Vint Cerf slept because he was always on email all the time and I'm also pretty convinced that both Ben, Jutta and -- I'm drawing a complete blank -- Paul.  Oh, my God.  I'm sorry.  Not enough caffeine, not enough food.  Paul also don't sleep.  They have been leading these efforts through the -- you know, the actual MAG meeting some time ago and then through this entire process, too.  So thank you.

 I would actually like to still challenge the last group, the data governance groups, to see if they can find a graphic that actually groups.  And maybe it's just a simple graphic that doesn't have a flow and a linkage, but looks somewhat similar to the other ones so that when you're looking across the program, there's some kind of similarity and you can see they're grouped by this topic or something.  And maybe there's a creative person within the MAG that can help facilitate that or maybe it's within the secretariat, but something that kind of gave some consistency against them so as you move back and forth between them.  You know, it's confusing enough.  We're all pretty -- but when you come and look at all 150 possible workshops you can go to, it's kind of nice to have some overall structure that helps you figure out where the key kind of buckets or focuses are.  And you have the six kind of buckets there already.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Maybe, Anja, as a first step but the way Jutta's group represented it, maybe without arrows, but I could just use that format and it would look the same with the information that's on the screen, which would give a graphic.  I don't know.  And then we'll find out later where these graphics end up being used and how.  But I'm sure I could transform the table that way to help provide a more uniform kind of presentation of how the workshops are grouped.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   If we do think of it as sort of a stack of issues, you know, just scanning the titles it seems that some of them are more kind of an operational or factual or framework context or that kind of thing, and then others are really getting to different sort of questions.

 Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Yeah.  Only, like, a pragmatic approach to this.  If the data governance group, they don't think, necessarily, that there is a structured flow like in the case of the other two tracks, something that can be useful, it's like look the topics, the session that are going on in light of the other ones.  So maybe there are some of them that not necessarily, like, have a specific flow, like regarding the data track specifically, but maybe some of them could have a specific flow, like contributing to the other sessions in the other tracks.  So in that sense, precisely will fulfill this idea that people that want to benefit of participating in the different track will have that opportunity.

 So maybe like to have one of the track that doesn't require a more, like, fixed flow, it provide the flexibility to fill the gap and provide the opportunity of the participant to follow, like, equally or in a more distributed way the different tracks, as, like, a practical suggestion.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's another -- another thought as well.

 Any other comments or questions on... 

 Are there any -- We'll come to topping and tailing in a moment, but are there any kind of general observations or questions from the MAG?  And then I'm going to ask the same thing from the secretariat and from yourself, Daniela, as well.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  First I want to commend the track leaders.  Ben did good work for us in data governance, and Jutta has done very good work, plus Paul.  But on a general note, I want to -- since Jutta's group, I think you said did not consider the diversity.  Are we going to look at diversity again in total (indiscernible) for the three tracks or three thematic sessions -- aspects of the workshops?  So that we would look at it with have the opportunity of bringing up some other workshops that --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, I'm sorry.  Jutta's group didn't say they didn't consider diversity.  I think they just said they would have appreciated even greater diversity in the workshop.  So maybe we can just ask at this point Jutta to kind of restate what she said and then come back in.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Jutta -- yeah, she can clarify.  Maybe I am wrongly.

 Please, Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   So what we identified in the security group was that we would have expected more diversity, especially after providing this elaborate system of declaring how diversity was addressed by the proposers.  And what we found among the 86 proposals was that some were addressing diversity quite well but we also had other workshop proposals that did not address diversity as much as we had expected them to do.

 And of course this was taken in consideration with -- when we did the selection of proposals.  You remember that diversity had a weight of 20% for the overall score.  So of course we had a look at all these proposal, whether they had enough diversity.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you.  So when you were selecting your -- the extra five or six -- the extra five?  There were 16 already that the secretariat had approved, and you were to select additional four to make it 40 -- I mean to make it 20, did you find -- to make it 20.  Did you find any gaps to fill in with those workshops for any of them that had any of the diversity gaps you experience in your own workshops?

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   So the workshops we identified to fill the gaps also were high-scoring proposals.  And the two that I had mentioned before, the 150 and the 22 proposal, they did not address diversity as a single workshop proposals but merged together they would address diversity quite well.  Given the condition that was set that they also should include the technical community perspective and probably combine that with more regional diversity.  And that shall be guided by Sylvia and Maria, and I do think they know pretty well the job they have overtaken.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary, for looking for clarification if it hadn't been understood clearly before.

 Any other general comments?

 So as I said, next I'd really like to go to Daniela, if there are any kind of observations or -- and then we'll come to the secretariat to make sure you have everything you need for next steps, too.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:   Thank you, Lynn.  And, first of all, thank to all of those who worked in the three working groups and especially to the three speakers of them.  I hadn't seen the selection before, and I have to say I'm quite impressed.  I think it was really worth doing that selection process, also grouping the workshops around the three themes, and then giving a structure for people who are coming to the IGF and helping them to go through the week following their special interests, several special interests.  I very much like the diagrams with the flows.  That was very convincing to me.  And as Lynn said, it will be very helpful to have the six subthemes also in slightly similar way, because I think that's very helpful.  If you come and then you're especially interested in data governance and then you see the structure, that's much easier than just looking to the whole program.  So I think you all made very, very much progress.  Thanks for that.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I would concur as well.  And I said it's really amazing the sense you can get just from the titles.

 Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  The only thing we have to say is we do echo the same sentiments you have expressed and Daniela has expressed.  And it's the first time we did this, and it's really great work.  And it has come out a very organized flow, and I think it's easy to get the sense of it.  

 We'll work with the groups.  We'll collate the questions and the comments and help with the contact of the workshop proposers and also with the mergers, et cetera.  That's what we're going to do from here.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  And I think each one of the groups had a couple of if there was time or if there were additional slots --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Exactly.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  As we go through that, if you can just make sure we're communicating back to the thematic working groups in terms of what's happening with those so that they can continue to build the full flow.  I'm sure you would do that anyway, but just to be sure we understood who was going to take the responsibility because I think now the next step is with the secretariat to determine if there are sort of room and slots.  And depending how much room and how many slots, then I think we need to figure out what's the right way to do that across the three thematic working groups.  I think the next step is yours, is the secretariat's.

 In this session, we're doing fairly well on time.  Actually, we're doing quite well on time.  We wanted a quick discussion on the top and tail thematic planning sessions.

 I think we're at -- and the expectation with the secretariat is that the topping and the tailing would be normal workshop session slots.  Let me start with the tailing end first because I think the top kind of leads us into the main session later as well.  But I think the notion following discussions of the secretariat and the various working groups is that we would build from the individual reporting processes that each one of the workshops is building and we can talk about that later as well.  But there's a buildout based on the policy questions, what you expect to achieve, what are the key messages.  There's a series of submissions that are sent to the secretariat ahead of the IGF so that they can support other marketing and outreach and even press packages and things in the past.

 And then, of course, immediately after there's some high-level messages that have come out of the group and then the messages that ultimately make their way into both the fuller report of the working group and then of the chair's report.

 But I think the idea was that in each one of these individual tailing sessions there would be a review of kind of the messages that have come through.  If there was some way to make it not just a list or list of the messages but really almost try and build the same sort of flow we saw in these charts here which said either by main topic these were stop of the main messages.  You know, we -- if we take the digital inclusion flow, for those sort of buckets over there, in this particular issue, these were some of the things that had a lot of residencies or some of the key messages that the workshop participants took away.  We fed that in.  

 We could actually then use that to support the initial discussions next year, if people were wanting to understand what happened in that particular track, how successful was it, were there any hanging issues, was there anything we should be building on just to try and support a transition, if and as appropriate.

 And then the expectation is that on Friday, on the last day, we would actually have an hour which would be part this three-hour closing ceremony at the end.  But one hour would be based on kind of recapping what's happened in each one of these thematic tracks and what some of the key messages and take-aways were.  So let me just stop there, and we'll come to the tailing in a moment.

 But I see -- we're all feeling our way through here.  So none of this is cast in stone.  I mean, I tried to just summarize discussions I've kind of had and heard from around the room.  So if anybody thinks anything different, they should say so, including the secretariat, too, if there's a different comment.

 Right now we have -- and we'll come to the topping in a moment.  But, Timea, you are in the queue.  You have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  So I have a comment/proposal for that tailing session.  

 But before I get to that, I just wanted to clarify the process regarding the workshop selections.  Are we then now saying these 60 that were selected by the working groups, are these the final ones?  We are going to contact the organizers and draw the line here?  Or is there any more work we need to be doing just from my peace of mind?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think it's a good question I think the assumption we were taking away is the 20 that came in from each of the working groups are approved.  The ones that were below the line that said pending space, the secretariat is going to go away.  Once they have that first pass of the schedule, look and come back to the three working groups with an indication of what space is available.  And then they would oversee a process that would allocate if there is additional space, additional space according to -- again, I think we need to look at what space is available and which ones are below the line.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  We'll do it -- (audio dropped) -- space in one of those two rooms per theme, right?  Each room has got -- each theme has got two rooms.  If there's space in that room, then we'll allocate according from that theme.  That's how we'll do it.  And the rest is quite easy because we know the first one goes and then the second and then the third.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  Thank you very much for clarifying.

 So I'm going to my second point which regards the tailing sessions.  I think in order for us to have quite an impactful wrapup of the week, we need to reflect a little bit on how we are reporting out from each session and how are we collecting those reports and how would those feed into the conversation at the end.

 I think that -- you know, as has been said before and even yesterday -- I think Wolfgang put it pretty well.  And we were reading through the leaflet that EuroDIG has here.  I'm going to quote from here.  Sorry, Ben, for stealing your idea.

 So colleagues at EuroDIG say that EuroDIG is a decision shaping, not a decision-making body and, therefore, a place to start and facilitate discussion but not to finalize it.  I think that captures very, very well.  So chapeau, Sandra, for putting it that well.  

 That really summarizes what we are supposed to do at IGF.

 I was wondering how are we thinking about the messages that would inform discussions and decisions elsewhere but not put us in a position where we actually need to draw out a message on a particular issue or solution or recommendation, call it whatever?

 So as I was reading the workshop proposals also, I keep seeing certain workshops, certain sessions approach the issue of inclusion or the issue of data governance or the issue of security or safety from a particular policy angle that the proposers deemed important for them.  

 Those can be ranked, in my mind, into various bigger policy buckets.  And I see that either addressing social cultural issues, either addressing economic issues, either addressing technical -- substantive technical issues or broader governance considerations, consideration of cooperation of multistakeholderism.

 And that leads me, in my mind, because I like to think about matrices, into a 3-by-4 table and the 3 being the three tracks we have and the 4 being the four policy buckets I just mentioned.  

 I'm wondering if we can think about asking the rapporteurs of all these sessions to come back somehow at the end of these -- in the tailing sessions and say, okay, we considered inclusion from my workshops from an economic perspective and this is what we thought.  These are some case studies we found.  These are some issues that we couldn't find an answer to.  These are messages that we think actually should be picked up and promoted widely.

 Somebody else could come -- and we actually considered this from a governance point of view or we have a technical issue that I think should be included there.  So we wouldn't make every workshop come up with one single message but say, okay, I'm considering this policy, I'm considering that policy.  

 Taking all the sessions together at the end, we would come up with some sort of a menu from IGF 2019 Berlin on the issues that we were discussing.  We would avoid somehow negotiating these messages but we still would have a really comprehensive overview of what has happened.

 So if we could facilitate the reporting out, I think the two-step approach we had last year, with a short report and a long report, would already have us looking to this pretty easily.

 And then we can perhaps later on see if we can also pull in messages from open forums or day zero sessions, the dynamic coalitions, or the main sessions as well as into that and then weave these things through.

 Sorry for the long explanation.  I hope this makes sense.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think it's a very interesting idea.  I think what we need to do -- there was a series of both documents and meetings last year that produced some documents that were given throughout the process.  I think we need to pull that process back out, those documents back out, and get a small ad hoc working group, I think, to actually look through that because of these topping and tailing sessions, because of what we said we're going to do with providing kind of this thematic overview to the work party organizers, and really try and kick our whole kind of reporting-out process up to the next level.  

 So I think that's a pretty substantive piece of work.  And I think it's probably best served with an ad hoc working group.

 But I like that idea.  What I like about it is because it starts to kind of beg the question of:  Where does this information go?  Who should get it?  If you can identify kind of the question, then you can figure out what you are trying to solve and direct it differently as well.  I think it's a really interesting suggestion, and I think I would like to work with the secretariat to get a request out to the MAG for who wants to participate in this ad hoc working group.  And it's one I think probably has about a six-weeks life cycle or something because I think we had to get it done quite early so we can inform the workshop organizers so everybody starts getting prepared as we go forward.

 And I think that would support the tailing sessions, and it would support the closing session on the Friday as well.  So I think that was a really good suggestion.

 Rudolf had asked to be in the queue, so I will go to Rudolf and then we will go to Maria.  Rudolf.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Thank you very much.  I have one question.  Is there every day a tailing session or just at the end of the IGF?  That's one question.

 Then one remark.  We are intending to cooperate again with the DiploFoundation on not -- not on a, let's say, political or negotiation level but in order to capture what has been -- what has been discussed during the day.  

 And third point, we also were planning to have this kind of exercise at the beginning of the parliamentarian session, to have rapporteurs.  We will already be towards the end of the IGF, not exactly, but towards the end to have rapporteurs, perhaps high-ranking rapporteurs, to inform the parliamentarians about the discussions during the IGF in the three tracks.  So that would also then -- this work would also feed into this parliamentarian session.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  To answer your first question, I think the notion was that there was sort of one at the end of the track.  I don't think there's any difficulty with doing one at the end of each day if we wanted a shorter one given there seems to be some additional time in each track.  But if we do that, then we're taking away from potentially adding another workshop.  I think we can maybe leave that.

 With respect to the reporting that's done, the Diplo reporting is fun and it's interesting.  I think actually a number of people here would actually like something more substantive and more concrete along some other examples we've seen in the community as well.  So we're trying to figure out what that might look like and how we might actually get it funded and supported.  So I would like to sort of hold that open a little bit as well for this other ad hoc working group.  But to take nothing away from Diplo and what they're doing but put a marker down that we're trying to figure out if there's some way we can get similar some of the things that Timea said, a more substantive set of reports and something maybe more useful and maybe even something that we could ensure was appropriate to reach out to other bodies, either for further engagement or potential action.

 I think that was all your questions.

 Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Maria Paz Canales, civil society for the record.  I never say it.

 [ Laughter ]

 Just to add to the point that was raised by Timea, I totally agree that there's a need to provide a kind of flow to these tail sessions of each one of the tracks.  I think the idea of, like, clustering according to this criteria she was mentioning, it's a very good idea.

 Another option is to precisely use this flow that we are doing in each one of the tracks as a way to identify these clusters and maybe honor the bottom-up spirit of the IGF and have a tail session of each one of the tracks that is more like a breakout session in which we could, like, ask to the different organizer of the workshops in each one of the tracks to fulfill a role as a kind of part of the commitment of being selected in which they will have, like, a task of not provide an extensive summary but at least a short -- I don't know -- answer to the same policy question that they presented as part of the workshop.  So they show up in each one of these breakout groups inside the track.  They provide this input, and they spark a last chance for having more open-up community discussion about these ideas that were raised in the specific topics in these clusters according to the flow of the track.

 I think that will be, like, an easy way to, like, fulfill the spirit that Timea was pointing out, that precisely the Euro IGF has in the sense of the decision shaping and not decision-making.

 And it will provide this criteria that is not only what is reported by the organizers of the workshop but also more opportunity to the community to rethink about what they have heard in all those days and recap.  

 And that, finally, could feed to a closing session in some way with some kind of rapporteur or something like that.  I think that could be a complementary proposal for handling this.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think there's good ideas there as well.  We'll keep working through the queue.  

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.  

 Firstly, I want to echo what has been said before me.  I don't want to repeat that.

 It's also difficult to separate the topping from the tailing because they feed into each other and it's important to talk about both.  I don't see these things as main sessions or workshops per se.  I see them as sessions that introduce the theme, give the context, set expectations.  

 I like the idea of encouraging the rapporteurs and possibly even the moderators to participate so we can also set what our expectations are of them to bring in some consistency.

 And the opening workshop or session, we're really introducing what the stream is about, setting the expectations.  I think it could be useful to have at least one representative from each of the stakeholder groups as well just to give an input or thought of what they expect to get out of that particular stream and, of course, get participation from the audience.

 As Timea was talking about, through the whole process of the stream is to find a way to capture the issues that are arising out of the different workshops and the messages.  So that can get fed into the tailing or the closing.

 And the closing is, in my mind, where we bring up these key issues or the key messages that have come out of the workshops, discuss how people can continue to participate, where they can go to access the reports and the information and get the feedback, et cetera.  

 And then have the same representatives, stakeholder representatives, give their views on how the workshop went, what they got out of it, and, of course, a view from the audience whether they felt the whole experience useful and if they actually got anything positive out of it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Paul.  Those are some really good ideas and good comments coming out of the discussion here.

 Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you, Lynn.  I will be short.  I know we are almost in the luncheon break.

 I just want to support the ad hoc group to work further those questions.  And I would like to be part of it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Raquel.  We will put out a request on the mailing list so that people can indicate that there.  No need to do it here.

 Ben Wallis, Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.

 I think what I particularly like about Timea's proposal is that it can provide a consistent way of having these sessions.  

 I think we need to be able to have the same approach for each of the topping and tailing sessions across the three working groups.  

 But I think it's very helpful to also incorporate a consistent and useful, helpful way of getting the rapporteurs to report.  And that can feed in not only to a productive tailing session but also helping with the way the final report and the Chair's messages and the reporting out is organized in a way that's easily searchable and groupable.

 So, yeah, I think it's great to take this forward into the work group, and I think Timea's ideas provide a really good starting point.

 What I'm -- and this isn't to do with Timea's suggestion particularly but I remember a session at my first IGF in message where there were 20 people positioned in chairs across the stage, and I'm just conscious that these are tailing sessions looking to somehow gather insights from 20 different sessions.  So we need some kind of creative thinking to make sure it doesn't become a parade of 20 rapporteurs taking two or three minutes each.

 And I'm sure there are ways around that, but...

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Clearly that wasn't the intent.  And I'm sure with all the creativity in this room, we can find a way to make it interesting.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.

 I just would like to underline the importance of the policy question that we already have.  I do think it was a very good suggestion that you made before that probably the proposers of workshops that were accepted should be informed about the policy question that the other workshop proposers in the same -- under the same main theme are addressing.  So that would help them to complement each other in a way, and then also the policy questions will give us guidance, I do think, for the tailing session as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I think that's a good point, Jutta.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.

 During the Geneva meeting, I think we agreed that messages that would come out from the workshops would be put into what exactly -- what exactly we'll be communicating to the stakeholder groups; right?  And what will be useful to each stakeholder group.  And so if -- if I get to know right, first that the messages should not be too many so that they can get it.  Second is that when a workshop would have been concluded and a message drawn out of it, a workshop, wouldn't it be flooding and, you know, getting people, you know, not overburdened by the term -- I need to get it right.  Maybe I'm not getting it right.  Maybe I need clarification.  The tailing, do we have (indiscernible) at the workshop rooms or it will be a different room?  That's one.  Second, the messages, are we targeting stakeholder groups or are we targeting economics, social and other cultural messages?  Because I think the output of the -- of the IGF should -- we should be able to send messages to all the stakeholder groups that are attending the IGF and not necessarily whether it is a cultural or economic or social messages.  I need to reconcile that, and maybe you can clarify that for me, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  Good questions.  I actually think there are two things we are trying to serve.  If you're a workshop organizer and you spent the time to submit a proposal and think about policy questions and get people to participate and run the workshop, (indiscernible), you probably want, you know, a fairly substantive report out from that meeting for your own purposes and your own use.  And I think that's one stream of reporting we need to do.  And I think there's a pretty good process for that already documented.  I think we're talking about maybe shaping it a little bit differently so it fits a higher aggregation of messages as well.

 So I think we still have the individual workshops reports that come out.  I think what Timea was suggesting I think actually aligns well with the stakeholder groups but it gives us a pretty nice way to take a small number of high-level messages to the group if we said in the digital inclusion track, you know, we can go quickly through the flowchart here, the topics that were covered here, some of the main policy questions, and then maybe there's a way to turn it and say so rather than not a report out of this happened in this workshop and this one and this one, but here's some of the things we actually hear that would be appropriate for the private sector of an economic sense or -- I'm not even sure we would target the categories that Timea labeled to specific stakeholders but I think in many cases, there's maybe a primary stakeholder but I think there are other stakeholders that are interested in them as well.  Even if it's an economic issue, it's not just going to be the private sector that will interested.  It would be governments and policymakers as well.

 But I think splitting it out to technical, political, social, et cetera is an interesting way to aggregate them to a number of high-level messages and also I think start to have -- so much with the information I think is what is your road in to understanding the information that's there.  What is the right way to do that.  And I think it's kind of a gentle framing, if you will, that would still get a lot of those high-level messages and then they could drill down, if they want to, by workshop or topic.

 So I don't think we've left the stakeholder notion behind, and I think it's a way of trying to provide a high-level aggregation of input while still having all the detail behind at the workshop level.

 But again, I think this is something the ad hoc working group will work through, and I think it will be really helpful if you were a part of that as well because you can help make sure we're being clear with it.

 And I think, actually, there was a pretty good document from the secretariat last year that laid out the reporting process that we expected from the workshop organizer standpoint.  Maybe we can just dust that off, make it clear it was last year's processes and send it out to the MAG so they are aware of it.  And obviously there are some MAG members that will be less aware of it because they weren't MAG members last year, and that could be just a good starting point.

 And I think we're thinking that the topping and the tailing sessions are 90 minutes long, so they're substantive meetings and we should expect engagement from the community, just as we do in all the other workshops as well.

 Let me go back to the list.

 Kenta.  Kenta, you have the floor.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   Thank you.  My name is Kenta Mochizuki, Japanese MAG member from business sector community.  So first of all, thank you etch have for giving me the floor.

 So my comment is just regarding Timea's sessions, I support what Timea and the previous speakers said, and we also have to think about (indiscernible) reporters or organizers, if we request quickly for some report (indiscernible) organizers.  Especially now ten sessions are scheduled on day four at 11:10, but there are several workshops just before the ten sessions.  So we have to think about how we can get the report from room those workshops.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I'm not sure I understand the point about the several workshops before the ten sessions.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   I miss your question.  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   If you could just repeat your last point.  Maybe speak just a little more slowly.  I'm not sure I understood the question about the workshops that were before the ten sessions.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   Ah, yes, yes.  So far our tailing sessions are scheduled day 4 at 11:10, but according to the current schedule there are several workshops just before the tailing sessions.  So my question is how we will be able to gather quick reports from those sessions.  You know, if we, you know, request them to submit a quick report as soon as possible after finishing, sessions, you know, it might be a huge burden for them because they might want to, you know, make some network -- networking, you know, just after sessions or, you know, maybe they have to receive some questions from the participants.  So, you know, it might be very difficult for the organizers or reporters to issue some kind of quick reports, you know, just after a session.

 So that's my question.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Okay.  Thank you.  Now I understand it.  And it was basically that in the tentative schedule that we had, it had the tailing sessions before some of the sessions had completed, so we need to find a way, I think, to look at that and figure out how to pull them in.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yeah, I mean --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Chengetai says yes, we need to look at it.  And probably be creative with respect to how we actually do that.

 Paul.  Paul Charlton, you have the floor.

 I'm sorry; wait a minute.  Timea, are you -- Some of the people are in and out of the queue.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   I just wanted to respond to Mary but I can do that in the end, so happy to give the floor to Paul.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL CHARLTON:   Okay.  Thank you.

 I just wanted to clarify -- and maybe Timea, when she comes in after me, can answer my question.  But my understanding is we would still have our individual reports out of each workshop.  And then the next step, the idea of the tailing, then, is that we will have discussions on one tailing session per each theme or it would go down to subthemes as well?  That's one question.

 The other thing is in terms of the substance of the tailing discussions, I share Ben's concern about having the parade of rapporteurs.  So I'm imagining the idea is to have sort of a value added because we already know -- we'll find out what the rapporteurs say when we get the workshop reports.  So then the idea of the tailing session is then it's sort of a new discussion but building on the -- on the -- on what's come out of the workshops or is it just addressing the themes without necessarily referring back, then, to the workshops?  Just for clarification.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   So we'll let Timea come in.  I think I can say authoritatively there will be no parade of rapporteurs.  We're not looking for a panel of 20.  We need to find a way to bring the messages up to that.  Timea, do you want to come in?  Or Chengetai --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   No, no.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Timea.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you.  I don't want to presuppose that I have the answers to every question, especially not the ones the secretariat knows way better than I do.

 My idea was that -- sorry.  My idea was that obviously all sessions would still have their long reports, and then we can look back into those and we'll tag them and put them on the website.  So I think that's very, very useful.  And it's impossible to capture all the nuances of a one half-hour session into a couple of messages.  So I think the reports should still be there still, to Kenta's point, probably a little bit later in the week or later in the month, sometime before Christmas, so that we do get them together.

 But I wanted to actually get back to what Mary was asking.  And I -- although economic and social and technical and governance issues sound like four stakeholder groups, that was in no way my intention.

 If I may give an example.  Look, for example, to gender inclusion.  We can approach that in so many different lenses.  You can look at, okay, what is the economic potential missed by not having women online?  How many jobs?  How much investment?  How much creativity is being lost?

 If you look at that from, you know, including women online in different culture settings, that's different.  Look at including in the Global South, including them in Europe, including them in rural communities, including them in urban communities.  That's another, in my mind, social and cultural norm difference issue.

 If you look at the actual technical possibility of reaching women, is that a language issue?  Is that a universal acceptance issue?  Is that a broadband issue?  Those are technical considerations.

 And then you have how do different branches of government communicate with each other when they want to solve this issue?  How do different stakeholders communicate with each other?  How different parts of the world, international organizations work to solve the issue?  Those are governance issues.  But in no way should only the business sector be dealing with solving the economic issues or in no way should only civil society be dealing with solving social issues.  It's not only the governments' job to solve governance issues.  So although they might sound that they have a lead to that, I don't think that's the spirit of the IGF, and I don't think that in our reporting we should be looking into providing special messages to special stakeholders.  I think we need to look at policy issues, and then use the spirit of the multistakeholder discussion at IGF to underline that each have part in each.

 I hope that makes it clear.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   A short response, Mary.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Okay.  It makes a lot of sense to me, but I thought those would have been what we have in the policy questions; okay?

 When it comes to reporting messages, we're sending messages to each stakeholder group, so we'll be targeting what would each stakeholder benefit from the discussion that we had during the workshop, and ideas that come from every other participant in the workshop.

 And again, when it is overloaded, I mean, people get discouraged in reading.  So we make it as sharp and as concise as possible so that it will interest the stakeholder group to actually read.  Some, if you write too much, they will not -- they will not have interest to go through all that.

 I agree with you, the long -- the long report should be.  But at the close of each workshop, I think the messages from the -- from the policy questions summary will come up from the rapporteurs, and that will feed into what we are sending to each stakeholder group.

 I think we're saying the same thing, and I get what you have.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  I think there are some really good comments there as well, and I really do hope you'll join the working group.

 I'm going to make sure that the secretariat actually sends last year's process around so we all have in front of us a good idea of what the workshop proposers -- workshop organizers were asked to do last year, and we will evolve that in line with the discussion we'll have in the ad hoc working group.  

 I'm going to pass the floor to Chengetai, then Marie, and then just a couple of final comments before we break for lunch, because we're past the hour already and I think people are probably getting hungry.

 So, Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Thank you, Lynn.  I just had a quick comment, and we will pass along what the workshop proposers were asked to do.  It also included the IGF messages that they had to derive from their sessions, but we'll pass that along.

 I just wanted to comment on the tail ended, that I don't think that the tail end should be not connected with what has gone on through the four weeks -- I mean through the four days.  So it should be connected.  Not, you know, a table of 20 people saying something, but it should be something that summarizes in some way and comes to some sort of conclusion that people can go home with and that also can be discussed in the afternoon session that we're going to have, a shorter version that's going to be discussed in the afternoon session which will include also the findings of the Best Practice Forums and et cetera.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Only to add to just the point that Chengetai raised.  I think there are a few, like, practical things again that we need to bear in mind in order to make the most effective process possible and which we're trying to build here as new methodology we're trying to implement to be clear in the message that we want to transmit.  And I think that just rescue what Jutta say a few minutes ago regarding that not lose of sight that we identify as a key question -- as a key element of the programming the identification of the policy question.

 So we cannot change them, the logical framework that we ask to a participant to think about.  So I understand the idea of cluster about economics, social issues, technical issues, but if you invite people to be part of a session that poses a specific policy question, you should allow them to follow the flow of that conversation and in some way reflect those, obviously cluster it in some way because you cannot have like a tailing session for each one of the programming session, but in a way that is easy to recognize for who participate before in the discussion so they can follow, like, the intellectual process of how this conversation started, developed, and is being concluding.

 I think we need to for that separate the issue of the specific report of the entire sessions that will follow probably the process and will build on top of what had been done in the past years, which is one thing.  And there we will find the full information about what happened precisely in that topic and separate that from the messaging we will be asking to these people that were in charge of these sessions to bring to a tailing session, would be like more shorter and condensed.

 In my suggestion that I don't think -- I'm not sure there's agreement about that or not.  In my suggestion, my view, those should be, like, again, sparkling points for, like, finalizing the discussion in this breakout session, in the tailing session.  So in that way, you don't have 20 people in a panel because you will have, I don't know, five breakouts in the tailing session which rapporteurs from the different sessions that were touching in that thematic cluster and then you can bring what happened in that tail session of each one of the tracks to a final session closing in the IGF in which you will have one from each track.  So you have three people in total, like, representing the summary of the conclusion.  

 I don't know if that is precisely the methodology but only to clarify that we are talking about different issues.  One, it's the report that is trying to capture the total discussion; and other one, the high-level take-away that we need to discuss in this tailing session and we need to bring to a conclusion of the event.  That's how I see.  I don't know if that is for the rest of the MAG.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Maria.  I think that captures what we are saying.  There are different phases of reporting for different purposes, and we'll pull that apart a little bit more in the ad hoc working group.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 For those who didn't hear, Sylvia said she will wait until after lunch.  She's hungry.

 I will ask Daniela for a few comments and then a quick precis to the afternoon and then lunch.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Thank you, Lynn.  Yes.  Very briefly, three points.  

 I wanted to support Jutta and Maria.  I think if you ask policy questions, then there should be a timing.  My expectations from a closing or tailing session is that I get an impression of what has been discussed to these policy questions because, personally, I couldn't have been in all of the workshops, so I expect to get the information there.

 But when Timea explained how she's thinking in a matrix, then it came to my mind, you know, that there are these artists who are painting a sort of mindmap while there are rapporteurs explaining what has been discussed over the week.  Maybe that could be sort of an idea for the hour and in the closing session at the end.

 And my last point is just a programmatic one which comes back to Kenta who asked how can we have input from workshops in the morning to the tailing session and maybe we can just move the workshops to 9:00 in the morning and the tailing session go from 11:30 to 12:30 or have a shorter -- 1:30 and have a shorter lunch break.  And then there is a break between the two sessions and that can be integrated in the tailing session.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's a good suggestion for the scheduling and a great suggestion for the programmatic.  Those maps are amazing.  I think the people that do them are amazing in terms of how they can track the conversation and draw at the same time, and it actually does capture well the discussion.

 So just -- this afternoon, we'll come back at 3:00.  We will hit the topping piece of the discussion quickly and then go into the main session discussion which is the next remaining significant -- very significant piece of work for the group here over the next few days.

 And just to get something for discussion over lunch, the two sort of kind of models I've heard for the topping session was one which is -- it's kind of a straightforward introduction, here's the track, the themes, the workshops.  Maybe there's something on context or positioning or definitional but kind of a more traditional -- stomach is growling -- a more traditional introduction.

 The other one was maybe -- because the slot is 90 minutes, maybe take a half-hour and do that and take another hour and actually have somebody who actually gave kind of, I don't know, an inspirational or aspirational or challenging speech from a different perspective.  

 What would be interesting is if we did something like that, that would give us the opportunity to invite political scientists, social scientists, philosophers, the other sorts of people we have all been wanting to more broadly engage in which we think would enrich the discussions and, of course, which the Secretary-General exhorted us to do in his comments last year.  But it would be a different perspective and a different richness as well.

 So maybe there's even a way to do a little bit of that, a kind of visionary or inspirational or challenging speaker or some different perspective and maybe we haven't pulled in.  

 I will leave that there.  We will come back after lunch and I think have a discussion on the topping session, and then we'll go into the main session planning.

 And before we start that, Chengetai and the secretariat will actually walk us through kind of current state of the overall scheduling so we all have this overall framework in mind as well.

 We found a good compromise.  There will be no physical out-of-the-room coffee break but everybody has coffee in front of them here in the room and the snacks and food will be in the back of the room.  As people desire, they can go back and grab their snacks and their food and the coffee is in front of you.  And treat that as a solid three-hour working block as we've traditionally done because we do still have an awful lot to do.

 And lunch is downstairs where it was yesterday, just one floor down.  Thank you, everybody.  See you back here at 3:00.  3:00 local time for those online.

 [ Lunch recess ]

   

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Okay. Thank you very much.  Welcome to the afternoon session of the MAG meeting.  Day two of our meetings, day one of the MAG meeting.

 As usual, we're being -- in case you weren't here this morning, there is transcription.  We are using the speaking queue, and you can find the link to the speaking queue on our front page underneath the tab, I think it's entitled "speaking queue."

 And of course the streaming is being sent to YouTube, so it's webcast.

 Thank you.  Take it over to Lynn, please.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chengetai.  As we all come back from lunch, I think we're very happy to welcome the rain and hopefully that takes it from 31, 32 degrees centigrade to 29, maybe.  It's been obviously very hot here.

 One thing.  I think the people on the speaking queue were left over from this morning because I think that's the queue we walked through.  So people should take their hands down unless they really want a hand up.

 And we had said we were going to come back and touch base quickly on the topping discussion, and then we will move into review of the overall scheduling so everybody has kind of a common picture of that.  And then we'll move into the main session planning, which is a substantive piece of today's discussion, but it was more to get the conversation started and sort of understand where we were.  And then we will review other sessions, the day zero and dynamic coalitions, NRI, et cetera.  And then again tomorrow, it was to complete on the main sessions.

 Just to establish the overall schedule for the main sessions, the intent is that we walk out of the meeting tomorrow understanding what the main sessions are at the level of kind of a draft title and a paragraph describing them with two co-facilitators assigned, so that we can go away and develop those fairly substantively in the next two three weeks, substantively enough so that we can put something in the program and that work can continue, albeit probably at a slower space, over July and August.  I'm sure that's not an entirely comfortable schedule, but if we don't get a start now, there is no real opportunity to get a good start in July and August.  And then, of course, we're coming back to September and all practical purposes, and the IGF is just too close at that point.  So we need to make a really substantive start on those.  We have all agreed that we would kind of move these main-session discussions to this point in the process because we wanted to see what had come through the workshop submissions so we understood the policy questions and then understood which sort of policy questions and workshops were actually going to make it up to the final program.  Obviously there ought to be some kind of complementarity between the main sessions and the key thrust of the program.

 So that's -- as I said, that's kind of the largest piece of work remaining before us for the next day and a half.

 So with that, just before we broke for lunch, I think we had sort of said with the tailing discussion there were some really good ideas that were suggested.  Those are obviously all captured here in the transcript.  We're going to set up an ad hoc working group that's going to look at the communications and the reporting, and I think that specifically will cover the tailing session as well.  It may well cover the topping session, but we haven't had that discussion yet.

 And I sort of said that I think the -- what I'd heard over the various meetings was that there were sort of two possible approaches.  One was a fairly straightforward introductory session to each one of the three major themes.  Another one might be -- again, we have 90 minutes for these.  Another one might be take a half hour and do that and then take an hour and get some challenging speakers, some visionary speakers, somebody who is going to open the discussion up and potentially bring in, you know, additional viewpoints.

 So I think that's sort of the question for the MAG.  If there are other suggestions for how we might do the topping meetings as well, then please make those suggestions now.  And if not, if you could please comment on the sort of two profiles I've outlined, which again, is just what I've actually heard from the group over the last few months.

 So we'll take your comments now.

 Any strong view to whether or not you think it would be most helpful to have, again, a rather sort of straightforward introductory session?  You know, this is digital inclusion, our track and sessions here today cover X.  If there were intersessional work that is appropriate, we could, of course, cover that as well.  But kind of an introduction to the IGF ecosystem as it relates to each one of those thematic tracks and maybe some -- I don't know if it's really definitional work but something that orients them to the program over the days.  We could do that.

 I don't know if we need 90 minutes to do that, but that's fine.  If we think we can do that in less, we can return time, as they say.  Or we could do that in a half hour and try and pull, again, you know a keynote speaker or a small panel or philosopher, social scientist.

 And if there's no strong opinion on that at this point in time, I'll come to Paul in a moment, it's something that the thematic working groups could maybe go away and think through overnight and we can revisit tomorrow.  So if it just needs more time to percolate, then we can do that as well.

 In the meantime, I'll thank Paul for jumping in, again, to the breach here.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.

 I actually like what you just said.  I just want to support that, of having the topping session doing the introductions and everything else but having some speaker of sorts that is quite prominent, because I think that would attract people to that session and probably make it more relevant for people to put it in their calendars.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Paul.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   You should put it in the chat room.  We really try to reserve portion of the meeting for MAG members, Antoine.  If you put it in the chat room and we think it's relevant enough, we can maybe read it out or something.

 Ben?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   No, no.

 Sorry?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   So today is a MAG meeting, and we tend to just hear from the MAG members.  But if you're in the Webex, the chat room, put your comment in there, and what we've done in some instances is read them out in the room or invite somebody to speak.  And I personally don't like to be too rigid with that but if I'm too flexible, I get calls.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you.  So this is a short comment about how we should approach the topping sessions.  And while I agree that it might be something that eventually the thematic working groups go away and organize, I think it would be best to start from a point where the MAG as a whole agrees on a template, because, I mean, with the evaluation process, we kind of grew organically because we had a short amount of time, and so the working groups took slightly different approaches.

 Another starting point could be the narrative descriptions we drew together back in April, March-April, that kind of give an introduction to the issues themselves.  But I'm not sure yet how to turn that into an interesting and useful one-hour session.  So clearly we still need to do some thinking about that.

 Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I wasn't suggesting we have different approaches.  But since we had the thematic working group and if people are more comfortable kicking around what would be most useful in terms of advancing what they think is most important in those tracks, to allow almost like breakout time in the background.  

 Anybody else who has a view otherwise?  I guess my reading would be the MAG needs more time to think about kind of which model is preferred or whether or not there's a third model.

 Why don't we try to come back to that tomorrow.  I think the question right now is pretty -- kind of either it's more of a traditional introductory session or it's a combination of an introductory session and a visionary speaker or a small panel or somebody who is kind of challenging or small panel of youth to talk about what some of this means to them and what their values and principles are.  I mean, there's a number of different threads we could potentially pick up if you wanted to pick up on any particular part of your thematic track that you thought could either bring in new people, open up the conversation, or advance the discussion.

 Okay, Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Sorry.  The speaking queue didn't work promptly, so that's why I raised my hand.

 I do think that the concept that we now have the three main themes is quite new to the community.  We have not had that before.  And I don't know whether people who have submitted proposals, they might be aware of that structure now, but most people that are participants don't have -- submitted a proposal would not be aware of that.  So I would follow what Ben suggested.  

 The narratives could be a good starting point to make people familiar what we have changed from previous years to this year to have a more structured program and that it's following these three tracks.  So that might be a starting point.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  We also haven't yet touched upon the newcomer sessions.  So doing something with a newcomer session might be a way to talk about the process this year and how to implement and look forward to next year as well as another opportunity to do some of the things you've said, Jutta.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Musical chairs, sorry.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.

 Just wanted to ask, it has been a little bit -- there's so many ideas floating in how to do the topping and tailing sessions and how they actually might make sense.  Would it be possible for the people that have made those proposals to send just a little short paragraph to the mailing list, to the MAG mailing list, so we can kind of see them all together.  And when we redeliver it tomorrow about where to go, it's not how I understood the proposal but how the person that was proposing it did it.  Because I think there are quite several implications on all of the proposals in terms of the logistics.  For example, if it is working groups, then if that meeting room can be reset to actually have round tables and stuff.  So there's quite a few considerations.  Even though I jump into all the excitement of the day of the ideas proposed, I think it would be really good if I could understand very briefly what it is that each one of the proposals is addressing.  

 If that's possible, then maybe we can make a little bit better comments, I guess, to decide how to structure those sessions.  Because there were two complementary proposals from Timea, Maria Paz, Daniela for how to put them all together.  I already lost count.  If that would be possible or a whole document maybe where we can start dumping some ideas.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Well, I mean, if Timea and Maria are willing to do that, I would say it's possible.  

 I actually think that we do need to do that at some point.  I think that was work that we agreed we'd move to the ad hoc working group and we can actually give it adequate time.

 If there was time to kind of document just what both were suggesting so we have it in mind today, that's fine.  I just -- I just don't know if for the tailing one in particular we need to define today because I think that's more about process and rapporteurs and consultants who are going to do the reporting.  And I think that's a little bit of internal work we have to do ourselves.

 And I don't know that that impacts the workshop organization.  It maybe impacts some of the rapporteur responsibilities within the workshop.  But the topping one is --

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  As Jutta just mentioned, because this is a new thing, right, and using the narratives might actually help to structure how those spaces are built, then to actually know how much of our time different members of the MAG can contribute to each one of the working groups is also -- you need a little bit of information to -- I need a little bit of information to decide where I can put the limited time I have to be able to contribute to the process.  

 So it's just a matter of a couple of paragraphs to understand where you guys are going to see if that's something we can contribute and then let the working group do the work or if it is something where I would like to be in the working group.  I just don't think I have enough to actually make that decision.  Just, yeah, a point of procedure, I guess.  Anyway, it's okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So I think Jutta's comment was more to the topping, although one can see how that might roll through to the tailing sessions as well.  I think the question is really are Timea and Maria, in particular, able to write up a couple of paragraphs or half a page on what your thoughts were.  I guess, that would be this afternoon, overnight, to bring it back in tomorrow.

 And then I think the topping session -- I don't know that there are any concrete proposals other than something which looked like a more traditional introductory and the other one.

 Let me go to Susan in the queue and then see where we are here in terms of what would be helpful to the group.

 Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  And I'll keep my comments brief.  But from what I've heard just at least on the topping session, a few different ideas.  But the idea of having a speaker, kind of a high-profile speaker, starting the session out also -- starting the week out with the topping session with a narrative, I think that makes a lot of sense.

 And it might be useful to -- since the session is 80 minutes, I think kind of having the narrative, a speaker, but even the opportunity for workshop participants or the panelists or the organizers to give a little preview of their session, that way the respective workshops could kind of -- they could maybe then get to know each other, have a feel for which subthemes they might want to look out for.  And it could foster a little bit more discussion within the workshop organizers in that track.

 But I agree with Sylvia, that we will have to turn to the mailing list to assess all of this out and to organize it.  But for those 80 minutes in that topping session, that might be something that we would like to consider as a format.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So I think there was a question on the table as to whether or not we could get Timea and Maria to kind of write up the points.  You have the transcript to start with.  You can cut and paste from the transcript.

 Maybe we do that for the tailing document.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  I can do it.  Do you want the two proposals, or do you want the merge together?  We can work together for merging, yeah?

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  I guess it's up to you guys.  But we would contribute to that because it would be kind of like a (indiscernible) of the MAG to do.  And there's a lot of sessions that are new.  

 So just having a little bit of guidance on how we would tackle those would probably be useful.  Just to start a thread on the mailing list and figure out how it goes from there, working groups or whatever, will happen afterwards.  Not to leave so many things hanging after, to me, if that's possible.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think -- so we can leave it to Timea and Maria to see whether it's a merge or whether both ideas are briefly explained and you believe there's a nice, happy combination.  Leave it to that but get that discussion kicked off on the mailing list.  

 That brings us back to the topping session which I think Susan just outlined kind of nicely pulling the various pieces together.

 Maybe it's a combination of -- or revisit of the narrative and the purpose of the track, maybe a high-level speaker to get some interest in or expand some view and something that actually does do an introduction to the individual workshop sessions, whether that's, you know, a kind of consolidated view or whether or not it's a workshop organizer.  I think it's something we can leave till later.  But it would be those kind of three components.

 Susan, do you want to write that up in a couple of paragraphs and get that thread kicked off on the mailing list?  She just said yes, so that's good.

 Jutta, you still -- are you in the queue?  Old hand.

 Ben, you're in the queue.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Yes, I am.  And for a minute, I had forgotten what I was going to say.

 [ Laughter ]

 I've remembered.  I'm in two minds about an idea around the topping session.  The themes were chosen by the MAG.  The narrative frameworks were drafted by the MAG.  And I wonder whether the MAG members themselves possibly would take a leading role in presenting in this session about what we envisaged to be discussed under this theme and that the MAG take responsibility for introducing the theme given that we chose it, we described it, we framed it.

 And I'm in two minds because I'm aware sometimes there's a feeling that the MAG's there to organize it but give enough time, it's possible for the community as a whole, MAG members shouldn't take up time in the schedule, that kind of thing.  

 But, on the other hand, you know, the MAG came up with these themes and described them and framed them, so maybe we've got a responsibility to kick things off and explain what we had in mind.

 So that -- that was a thought.  It's not a single -- that's an observation and maybe a contribution to Susan's efforts later.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ben.  

 I actually think that's fairly similar to what Jutta was describing as well when she had talked about -- a little bit about kind of the process, how we got here, and working through the narrative.  So I think the two of you were sort of very similar idea for at least that section of what might happen at the session.

 I'm sure Susan will take those comments in when she tries to -- again, this is about kind of capturing the current state of the discussion and also so we can get a discussion going on the mailing list.

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG: Thanks, Lynn, Jennifer Chung, private sector.

 Just a procedural question here.  I know perhaps before lunch you called for an ad hoc working group to deal with the topping and tailing sessions.  We're still doing that.  Is that correct?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm sorry.  We did call for an ad hoc working group, yes.  And the ad hoc working group is the one that's going to look at the -- look at the reporting process that's in place.  And I think the secretariat was going to send the document from last year's process around, take that into account.  There have been various ideas about how we can improve that.

 But I also think that what comes out of that ought to be something that feeds the tailing session and ultimately feeds the closing session on the Friday.  So the notion was that this ad hoc working group -- and we'll write this up as well in an email -- was the ad hoc working group would look through those kind of reporting requirements and also take into account the fact that we have these tailing sessions which have a kind of reporting component of them and the -- that one-hour slot in the closing session as well.  So it was to do those three activities.  But to write that up, get that out and get a formal callout to the MAG participants.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn, for that clarification.  

 I guess we would also want to wait for the documents to be sent to the list from Timea, Maria, and also Susan so we'll be able to fully embrace all the good ideas that we had earlier as well.

 One more point I wanted to, I guess, remind everyone, as we already know -- or the lightning wants to speak first.

 [ Laughter ]

 So, of course, this year, you know, thanks to the German hosts, they're doing their best to bring in a lot of high-level people from different stakeholders.  Perhaps something we could also consider for the topping and tailing would be, you know, people are saying bring in some high-profile people, bring in some people who can moderate.  However the sessions will turn out structurally, it would also be a very good thing for us to consider this part as well because it would make the program more attractive to people if we're intending to have it to be a very cohesive agenda.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yeah, I agree.  It would be a reasonable place to look for support and also something else you can offer to them as well in terms of some substantive role or some substantive visibilty in the program.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  I just thought about stepping in there because I think for the topping session, maybe that should be a combination of a brief introduction by a sort of moderator which could be a MAG member, of course, and then a high-ranking speaker.  And, of course, if you can help there because we hope that we have a lot of high-ranking speakers coming for the day zero and the first day and they should, of course, stay over the following days.  And that could give them a role, and maybe that could be a combination.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think those are really good suggestions as well.

 Danko, you were in the queue.

 No?

 Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  I think I can take my hand down because that was exactly what I wanted to address, what Jennifer said and also Daniela.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  So I think what we have is a call will go out with a brief description for the ad hoc working group for the reporting process and that will also incorporate the -- kind of some of the tailing requirements and the closing session requirements as well.

 And separately we'll have another thread which will look at the topping session which Susan is going to drive and could maybe incorporate some of this last round of discussions as well and we'll get those out and get them started soon.

 Anything more on the topping and tailing?  Again, that was a kind of new approach in line with the more cohesive, more focused approach to the program overall.  Any final thoughts or observations or questions?  Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Just -- I can't recall but I was wondering if -- I think it was either Paul or Ben.  I'm wondering who we have to thank for the topping and tailing term of art?

 [ Laughter ]

 >>BEN WALLIS:  We can get rid of it.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  It wasn't really a serious question.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I actually thought it might have been me, and I tried to move away from it several times but without success.  We can absolutely find better ways, but at least it didn't imply it was an introductory session, nothing more.

 So the next item is to move to the main session planning.  And we're first going to hear from the secretariat again so we all understand kind of the overall outline of the schedule.  And then we wanted just an introductory discussion so we can hear what sort of ideas people have, suggestions for how to approach them.  And we actually have quite a good amount of time for that discussion because I think we're -- probably we'll go through the day zero, open forums, dynamic coalitions, et cetera.  But I don't know that today we actually need to -- any additional format.  I think we can probably get a little bit of time back from agenda item 6 there.

 So let me go to the secretariat for the introduction, and then we'll come back.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Okay.  I'm just waiting for the scheduling template to be displayed.

 Okay.  If we can go to day one.  Yes, that's day one.  For day zero, it's not displayed but you already know the outline for day zero.  In the morning there's going to be the session for the high-level leaders meeting.  That's what I call it.  And that's going to take up four rooms, and we have populated the rest of the sessions with the day zero requests, and I think we managed to fit in everybody there if we give those people who applied just one session.  There's some organizations that applied for two sessions or three sessions, but we've asked them -- we will ask them to choose one.  And then I think that's fair and we can have a good distribution there.

 Of course there's going to be...

 Ah, yes.  Okay.  No, no.

 So that's for the day zero.

 For day one, I think we've already explained and gone through for the workshop sessions, so we don't have to go through those again.  And then we have one room for the open forums and then a room for the dynamic coalitions and Best Practice Forums.  And I think the rest is for the NRI sessions, which we're going to have six of them for the NRIs.

 And that's basically going to run through the whole program except for day four, the final day, where -- Can we just display day four quickly?  Yes.

 So we have the tailing sessions there, and there will be no parallel sessions in the afternoon as well.  And at the beginning of the afternoon, we have the -- I don't know what exactly to call it, but the summary session where we read out our concluding session which is just a broad overview of what has happened in all the sessions.

 So that's the thematic sessions plus also for the other sessions, the open forums and the national and regional initiatives.  So those people who have missed the other sessions because they were following a stream, a thematic stream or open forums, et cetera, can have an overview of what has happened and also hear the key messages that have been derived from those sessions.

 And then we have the opening -- open mic session, that's the traditional session, then taking stock session, and then the closing ceremony, which is the traditional closing ceremony.

 If we go back to day one again.  Sorry.

 For the main sessions, for the first day, it was just penciled in.  Don't regard that time so far.  We have a session for newcomers.  This is also up to discussion.  Do we need an hour and a half for newcomers?  If that session is there.  If there, the newcomers will also miss the topping sessions, et cetera, so do we want to shorten it so it only comes in the morning, so between 8:00 and 9:00 or we have 8:00 to 9:00 a quick session and then a longer session for those who want to stay behind and learn more about the IGF.  That's something that we have to discuss, but I can leave it to the newcomer session group to discuss about that.

 The second session on day one is what we just termed the frontier issues session.  So that's just been earmarked to talk about something that -- in line with the Secretary-General's speech and his wishes, frontiers-issues driven session and that could also be something to do with the HLPDC outcomes or anything else.  And it really depends because we don't know what the report is going to say on Monday.  We might have something to react to it.  We might have a consultative process and it could community Kate in that session, or we could have a philosophers and ethnographers meeting or whatever.  So we're just putting that there until we have a better definition of what's left coming out of the Secretary-General's office.

 As has already been explained this morning, the opening ceremony will begin at 2:00, and then we have the high-level session which is organized by the host country in cooperation with DESA.

 For the next day -- just go to day two.  Then, just as placeholders, we've divided the main sessions into an hour half session.  So we don't have to keep those hour and a half sessions, but that leaves eight sessions there.  So if we give the national and regional initiatives one session and if we give the dynamic coalitions one session, then that would give us six sessions that we have to fill in if we keep with the same timing.

 There's already been -- what I've seen, there's already been one solid proposal going around the Christchurch proposal, and then we have to see what other proposals that can come up.  And those are -- they're like that, but we can have a two-hour session and then a one-hour session.  It really depends on what the MAG feels and how we should organize it.

 I'll just turn over and see if I've left anything out.  No.  Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Giacomo, you have the floor.

 >>GIACOMO MAZZONE:   Yes.  It was simply for the point before, but you give me the floor now, but I think that is a proposal that can work for many points of the discussion we have now.

 If we are thinking eventually to ask for some professional moderators, journalists, in Berlin we have plenty of them, very high quality, from our members.  (Indiscernible) are there for (indiscernible).  So if we know in advance, if you think that it would be appropriate at a certain point, just let us know and we will discuss with them as soon as possible.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   And also as Lynn mentioned earlier on, this year we've got a little bit of freedom because they're thematic -- what used to be the thematic main sessions can be taken up with the topping sessions as well so that's something to think about.  We can have more freedom to see what we're going to do with these sessions.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chengetai.

 And I think what's giving us the added flexibility this year is the fact that we're not using U.N. interpreters.  We're using interpreters that the German government is bringing in.  So we have more ability to schedule their hours across a longer period, and it's making a tremendous difference in terms of, I think, the -- populating the program and doing it kind of comfortably.  And again, some additional flexibility.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:   Thank you, Lynn.  Well, I'm going to jump in into the proposal for the main session about the Christchurch call, which some of you have already hear about and Lynn mentioned, and Jeremy Malcolm sent an email from a separate thread, so I guess there are some interest in some of other communities as well.

 The background of the proposal that I'm just going to share with you is that when the Christchurch -- the attacks to the Mosque happened, the deadline for the workshop proposal was kind of looming.  And in the midst of all the challenges that the technical community and the social media platforms and the media was dealing in managing that crisis, in reacting to that crisis, they managed to submit a workshop proposal to the -- on the safety and security theme that was really, like, wanting something really quickly because of course they were dealing with the actual crisis at the moment, but just trying to capture what the possible lessons were going to be about what they were experiencing in Christchurch.  The Christchurch call came actually after the deadline for the workshops.  So if you look at proposal 144 where Internet New Zealand and other organizers presented a proposal about what was happening in their case, in their situation, it's just a very brief proposal that, as you know, in the last eight weeks have evolved into a full-blown text that was signed by several countries and many companies without that much of a consultation process, very limited influence from the civil society in that space.  And that, as a result, has had a little bit of a criticism about how the Christchurch call came to be.

 So the idea of this main session, the topic or the title, the draft title that we have been working on is Internet Platforms and the Challenges of Online Content Moderation from the Christchurch Call to the Future of Multistakeholder Participation in a World Demanding Quick Action.

 So I guess the challenge for -- or the idea that we're trying to encapsule in that title is to -- instead of criticizing, sitting at the side, at the borders of the call, the Christchurch call, the text and the process and everything else and criticize that it didn't have enough consultation, it didn't have civil society participation, which we know and they agreed and they are doing some processes on the side to kind of redress that, it's more about, okay, how can, as a community, see that there are some policy actions that are required during a crisis.  And in what context and how quick the multistakeholder process can adapt to help during a crisis.

 And so responses during crisis are chaotic.  Others are not well thought, and others are coming from good intentions and the heart, like the one that Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister from New Zealand, managed, and all the way how she managed the crisis.

 So the idea is that the proposal will try to look, by the time we are in Berlin, back in Berlin, the Christchurch call would have been started with the implementation process.  They are running, at the moment, an open consultation not to the text that was already signed by companies and governments but a process about how civil society and other stakeholders can participate in the implementation of the call.  So the idea of this main session will be to try to figure out what happened in all of those six months, what mechanisms were part of this, and doing the process of preparing the session, how can we contribute to the process, which is a real concrete outcome of how all of these issues around security and safety in cyberspace actually touch lives and affect lives of people in the real world every day.

 So what I have been doing with Jordan Carter, Ellen Strickland, David Reid from the New Zealand government, and some other folks that are participating in the proposal -- were participating in or are participating in the Christchurch call, sorry, is to take text on the regional proposal that they submitted and rearrange it into the template that we have for main sessions for last year and see how it addresses policy questions, how it touches on the relevant issues about what happened after the call for proposals closed down and how can we use those 90 minutes to come a productive conversation around what happened and how can we support to improve the process, not necessarily beat it with a stick and an academic eye; right?

 The good news is that there is actually a very strong possibility to have Jacinda Ardern to join the IGF to come and explain the Christchurch call and how the call came to be and how the call is implemented.  Of course, I don't want to raise expectations to have the coolest Prime Minister in the planet coming, but maybe.

 So I -- of course I will share the draft that we are working on, and I really welcome your comments and your input about how can we organize this.  There have been several mentions of the Christchurch call; for example, in the Internet and Jurisdiction Conference.  One of the high-ranking officials from the Canadian government, Mr. McGovern, that was in the opening plenary presented how Canada sees the implementation process and the text also.  And in several of the workshops, especially the workshop on the track around content, there were several of those conversations happening.

 So we've been investigating academics that might be able to contribute to the process, technical community members, civil society members that are actually part of that review and implementation process to see how that takes shape into a session.

 If you look at the link for what the Christchurch call activity is, it's a very stern text that the many media, social media companies agreed to sign and several governments are signatories, and that list is kind of growing.  So it is -- it's not bilateral, but it's not multistakeholder either, I guess.  So it's something in between.

 So if we could take a look at that and see.  It is a very concrete policy action on a very strong issue affecting society, and I hope to have the MAG consideration to see how to incorporate it into the program.  And I am merely facilitating and putting people together.  So all hands on deck if this goes ahead.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Sylvia.

 We'll keep going through the queue.  Let people think through that a little bit. I will note that at one point, the transcriber "saying the name" where you had actually said it was the Prime Minister of New Zealand who could potentially come, just to make sure that that was noted properly.

 Next in the queue, we have Chenai.  Chenai, you have the floor.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Thank you very much, Lynn.

 I think I just wanted a little bit more clarity on the frontier sessions.  So I've gone through the transcription and I've seen that it's reserved for when the HLPDC comes out on Monday, and it could be a space to also discuss that, and correct me if I'm wrong.  So I think the last time the frontier sessions were mentioned in the last meeting, they were spoken about as in when topics might that come up that might be -- that we might have missed during the selection and then something interesting comes up a month prior to the meeting.  And I thought they would be given maybe an opportunity for actually for -- either we would have seen them from the transitions that have come in that might be interesting topics but don't have room yet or if something fantastic happens, where, I don't know, maybe Facebook or Google is broken up, then there might be an opportunity for that to be a hot topic that's discussed at that meeting.

 So I would have assumed -- because I can see from the program that we haven't created space for flash discussions.  For example, if someone wants to say something in five minutes or for people who might already be there and they've got a new topic.

 So I was just thinking that it's fantastic to have this frontier session that we will discuss this high-level report as it comes out and has been given the rightful importance within the Internet Governance Forum meeting, but thinking about participants who will actually be there and have a topic that, you know, three months later, you weren't able to submit it for the proposal, but you're actually in the space and you would actually like to have an opportunity to engage on this topic.

 So I don't know if we could think about opening up that frontier session a little bit more to maybe have -- okay, thinking off the top of my head, maybe to have a town hall format, where you reserve perhaps the last 30 minutes and people can sign up for slots in advance to say, "I want to come and talk about this particular topic" if you're already coming.  Not to necessarily say that we extend an invite or someone has to apply again to actually then get an invitation, which is they come and talk to about this topic.

 So maybe thinking about the frontier sessions to be more about what has happened in the last couple of months that we hadn't thought about post workshop selection as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.  There was actually quite a lot in what you said, and I think we could come back to the frontier session in a moment.

 To take the last point, we do actually have an item on lightning sessions.  And is that what you would mean when you say flash sessions as well?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And then -- no, no.  I don't know if there's an opportunity to do something.  One of the last things you talked about was almost more of what, in some other communities, they'll call a birds-of-a-feather session which is, you know, there seems to be a burgeoning topic and there's some interest in it but it's not really well formed.  And people say if anybody wants to get together to discuss this to see if it's a real issue or of interest or I'll meet you here for an hour on -- and, you know, sometimes tremendous pieces of work have come out of that.  Sometimes it's really not.

 I don't know if you were -- if that's sort of what you were talking about when you talked about those 30-minute signup sessions or if that was kind of the flash lightning sessions.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  I think those birds of a feather usually organically happen at the IGF, so I wasn't thinking about those ones because I think people often self-organize.  I was thinking more in terms of kind of announcing there's lightning sessions.  But if people want to sign up and speak on the public forum, not just in the -- like having it in, like, a lunchtime space or something like that but to actually give importance for people to sign up and actually say, "I've got this whole captured audience and then this is what I want to say about this topic."

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'm sorry.  I couldn't hear you properly so I'm still reading.  You do understand there is a space for the flash sessions, correct?  And you were saying that you wanted another space where people can sign in, but there is going to be a space for the lightning sessions.

 And also to answer your question on the frontier issues, it's not necessarily for the HLPDC report because, you know, the report might come out on Monday and it's got nothing to do -- there's nothing there for the IGF to do.  But there are a lot of things that the U.N. and the Secretary-General is interested in because when he came last year he did mention quite a number of issues.  That we can fill in that spot later on.

 We do have six sessions.  We filled one so far.  Probably we filled in one.  So there's five more to fill in.  If we fill in those and then we're lacking space, I think then we can come back and revisit that other space.

 But, yes, I also do think it's good idea.  Maybe we can reverse -- reserve one of those five spaces for something that's going to come up and then we'll have four spaces to fill them in.  We can work it that way, and then we can come back and do a runover again.

 Would that be okay?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me just clarify the process we're working towards.  I think right now we're in the process of identifying possible topics for main sessions.

 What we have is a slot for the DCs, a slot for the NRIs, six sessions, and one that was kind of place carded as frontier issues for the U.N.

 So the things that I've got so far was -- there was a proposal for Christchurch.  I don't think any of these are given, by the way.  The MAG hasn't had the discussion yet.  

 There is a proposal for Christchurch.  Feels like there's a proposal somewhere in the winds for the frontier or a HLPDC.  

 Earlier this morning we heard some possible cross-cutting topics.  Internet of Things, jurisdiction and AI were the three things I took down.

 I think what we wanted to do in this session was kind of pull the ideas out from the room to see what we had for suggested topics, and then we will continue to let them percolate overnight and come back tomorrow and advance them.

 So I just want to make sure we're all kind of clear on the process.

 And, you know, it might be a good idea to leave some space open for late-minute topics.  I don't know that I would leave a 90-minute main session with interpretation open for a late topic because I'm not sure you really get the right organization and the right level of speakers there.

 But I think we can absolutely -- and particularly with the flexibility in the venue here and the flexibility of interpreters, I think if there was a really important late-breaking topic, I'm fairly confident we could find room for it.

 Let me see if Daniela and Rudolf have any other comments or anything you would like to --

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Yes.  Thank you, Lynn.

 In fact, I just wanted to say that I think it's very wise to leave one session for discussion on the High-Level Panel or whatever that might be done in the end.  

 I also noted some cross-cutting issues this morning thinking that could be wise to take them up in the main sessions.  You mentioned already IoT, jurisdiction, AI.  I had also human rights.  Maybe there is also an interlinkage with the Christchurch call, so could be a way to take that issue up maybe.

 And I have another one.  I think there's another issue that is discussed very much right now in the international level, not the least this weekend among the G20 ministers because there is a meeting of digital and trade ministers in Japan.  And so I would suggest one main session on digital governance and digital trade.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I noted those on the list.  We can get this list out to the MAG members later today as well.  So we've actually got it in our mailbox to think through overnight.

 So going through the list here, Kenta, Kenta, you have the floor.  You speak very quickly.  So if you could speak a little more slowly, we will make sure the transcribers --

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Thank you so much, Chair.  Sorry.  I'm Kenta Mochizuki, Japanese MAG member from business sector community.

 Actually, I might lose the point but regarding the schedule on day one with regard to the main session, especially with IGF for beginners main session, I think participants in the IGF for beginners main session should be able to -- should also be able to participate in topping sessions.  So would it be possible for us to move the topping sessions just after the IGF's main session?  And instead of that, to hold the other sessions, like open forum or DC, BPF and NRIs, in a slot from 9:30 to 11:20?  So I would appreciate if you could think about that.  Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Moving the other sessions would be a  bit difficult because then it squeezes the sessions and we may have to lose a workshop or two.  I think it might be a good idea to make the first session, the newcomer session, a little bit earlier if we can, yes, so that people who are newcomers can come in early and get the benefit of that session.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Thank you very much.  I fully agree with you.

 I just want to say one thing.  I fully support what Daniela has said because Japan is chair of the G20 now.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Kenta.

 So I think it's good solution if we do move the newcomers up and make sure it's not competing against any of the other really important and kind of introductory sessions.  And also Kenta's support for the digital governance, digital trade was noted.

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn.

 I originally had three points, but Kenta made one of them.  So I would just like to also support moving the beginners session or introductory session up so they'll be able to come to the thematic introductory sessions because I think that's pretty much why we wanted to have it in the first place.  So support for that.

 The second point I wanted to bring up is a little -- I guess it's to do with the scheduling.  Looking at the day two, day three schedules, it looks like the main sessions right now are being allotted 90 minutes.  I think that's a little short.  I don't know if I recall correctly that MAG members previously in our calls and also the April meeting -- we did mention that we thought that 120 minutes would be more fitting for a main session if we're giving, you know, this particular topic the importance of the transcribing, the translation as well.  

 So looking at day two and day three, I see there's a half an hour break in between the morning two main sessions.  If we could shorten that, it would make sense.  I don't know how much time we would need to move in between rooms.  But 30 minutes seems very generous.  I don't know how slow of workers we might be.

 And then for the afternoon, I do note we are starting again at 3:00 p.m. and it ends around 6:00.  So I don't know if that would mean we would lose a main session or if we would be able to push it up or push it down.

 One idea I had as I was listening to Chenai is if we do extend the main session, you know, supposedly we do extend it to 120 minutes, the afternoon session will become one main session and then we would still have an hour perhaps on day two and day three with a main room with transcription, with translation.  That could be reserved for emerging topics, not particularly in an ad hoc format like the lightning sessions but something less concrete than the Christchurch call, for example.  That came up after everything was closed.  

 But from now until November, there could be issues, topics, events that really affect, you know, the Internet governance space that we are in.  It's possible that we reserve that hour at the end of day two, for example, for something like that.  

 It's just a suggestion mainly because I think the 90 minutes for a main session is quite short because we're allotting 90 minutes for the workshops as well.

 And my third point I'll reserve for when we talk about lightning sessions.  So thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jennifer.

 I think it's entirely possible to have the main sessions of four for two hours each.  Because I understand we have the interpreters for eight hours over the course of the day.  We can get confirmation of that --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  It's been confirmed we can have interpreters for as long as is reasonable.  Yeah.  So whatever.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And, I don't know, we can look at the schedule overall.  I'm not sure I'd shorten the 30 minutes between the sessions.  That would probably take it away from the lunch break or something just in terms of they never end on time, people never get off the stage on time, and everybody needs to come in and need to clean up and reset.  It's always just a little bit tense between those that are being rushed off and those that are rushing on.  But that's a detail that I know the secretariat can walk us through.

 But I think the take-away from there is that two-hour sessions for main sessions is possible without reducing the number of main sessions.  So if anybody was in the queue to support that or comment on that, we can save ourselves some time and take it as a given that we will move up to two-hour main sessions where requested and we are not shortening them.

 Before I go to the next person in the queue, I just want to see if there's anything else.  Daniela, I think you need to leave soon.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  I just want to apologize because, in fact, I have to leave.  You know, Stefan Schweinfest is in Japan right now due to the G20 meeting and I have to take over some of his tasks.  So I apologize for that.  But I will be back tomorrow morning.  

 Have a nice evening even though the weather is much less good than yesterday.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  Can I just say on behalf of (saying name), he just got his bag -- he lost his bag yesterday in the public transportation here in Berlin.  And it was returned to him today.  So thank you, guys, for doing a great job in Berlin.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'd like to --

 >> (off microphone).

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  With a computer and a passport inside.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  The only other place that might happen is in Switzerland and I did that on a train once.

 I do want to just thank Daniela.  I know she was a little concerned about leaving.  I said she's already given so much and so much time here in terms of participation that we're very, very pleased to have her here.  And, obviously, Rudolf is here in good stead as well.

 So we'll make sure and take your comments earlier into account when we put out the draft.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Thanks very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  You're welcome.  Thank you.

 Giacomo, Giacomo, you have the floor.  No, Giacomo doesn't have the floor.

 So we'll get your hand taken down.  Helani, Helani is participating online.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA:  Thank you, Chair.  My point has been just raised by another MAG member, so I actually put my hand down.  But your system is a bit delayed.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Helani.  And thank you for your continued attention.  It's not always easy to participate remotely.  So appreciate your efforts.

 Susan Chalmers, Susan, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  I just briefly wanted to support Jen's comments regarding longer main sessions and supporting the general notion that we reserve some space for a late-breaking issue.  That's all.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I think both those things are a given.  We said we have some good flexibility in the overall program flexibility.  And, again, we can proceed on the assumption that we have two hours for the same number of main sessions.

 Jorge, you have the floor.

 >>JORGE CANCIO:  Thank you so much.  Jorge Cancio, Switzerland, former host country, for the record.

 Just wanted to support the idea put forward by the present host country co-chair that we reserve some space to the High-Level Panel.  

 And apart from supporting that to put some, let's say, history to this.  In 2017, the IGF, we co-organized, we hosted in Geneva.  We had a high-level session on the future of our common digital governance.  And seven months later and partly as a reaction to the broad feeling that we sensed in Geneva, and which also was reflected in the Geneva Messages, the U.N. Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel.

 When he came for the first time in person to an IGF in Paris, he really gave us a lot of ideas, a lot of requests to think about.  And I think he also involved a lot into discussion what the High-Level Panel at that moment was beginning to discuss internally.

 In a couple of days, we will have the report.  We will have a lot of processes going on in NRIs on this.  So I think that especially if the U.N. Secretary-General comes again to Berlin, hopefully, it would be very fitting that we continue that conversation.  So I will leave it by that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Jorge.

 Ben Wallis, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.

 So I understand this is a moment for canvassing ideas.  And many thanks to whoever is logging all of these in one place for us to be able to refer back to.

 I thank you, Lynn, for confirming that the main sessions will actually be two hours' long, if it feels like we need two hours for a main session.  That was going to be one of my concerns.

 On the Christchurch call, I think -- I think that's a very interesting, a very relevant topic and it brings in various stakeholder groups, the responsibilities of social media companies like Microsoft, the role of governments, the views of civil society.

 And in some ways, it might be seen as cross-cutting here, broader issues around online safety and digital civility, striking the balance between freedom of expression and protecting against hate speech and the spread of terror.  And the Christchurch call is a very timely focal point for such a discussion.

 We haven't got as far as discussing whether some of the main sessions should be set aside specifically for each of the three themes.  There might have been an assumption that that was the case.

 So we might need to reflect whether the proposals coming forward now in this canvassing of ideas should be seen as a main session related to one particular theme, so maybe Christchurch call comes under security theme.  Maybe digital trade comes under data governance or whether some of these ideas happen to be somehow different or cross-cutting.

 The final contribution I was going to make here was to go back over an idea that I raised back in Geneva at our April meeting about a potential main session topic.  And this would be something I think would be cross-cutting in nature.  The idea -- discussions around a holistic policy framework discussion on ICTs that could link to both what the U.N. Secretary-General was calling for during the address at last year's IGF and the reasons for High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, making sure that policies are discussed across government departments, across -- and bring in groups and experts that aren't normally involved in Internet governance.

 So the importance of multidisciplinary and working across silos.  So the session could explore how to ensure that multidisciplinary Internet governance discussions, and ensuring that there's holistic policy-making and how to improve coordination between networks and multidisciplinary discussions.

 We're yet to see the high-level panel report.  It could well be that this provides a way to have a discussion around some of its recommendations.  There are also two existing approaches that could be introduced into the discussion that I mentioned before, which are the OECD's going-digital framework, and the International Chamber of Commerce has a paper on the holistic policy framework.  And there you have the ideas that Timea was talking about earlier about when you look at an issue, are you thinking about the technical or are you looking at it from a social perspective or an economic perspective or cultural.  You have to look at all of these issues, all of these element of an issue.

 So that would be the specific proposal for main session at this point.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben, for your comments.  We'll capture your last suggestion.

 I don't know if there was a sort of firm idea that we would have main sessions that tied to the three, per se.  And if we think about what's included in each one of those three, they're all so broad.  So I think the room shouldn't feel restricted to trying to fit in, because I don't think that's what we've actually heard in all of our previous discussions.

 If sitting here today and having thought through the program and done the work that's what we want to do, we can, of course, do that.  But I think we should just keep the ideas coming out.

 Maybe just one other thing before -- you know, language sometimes.  I don't even see the -- I don't see what Sylvia just described as the Christchurch -- it had a very, very long title.  I actually don't see it as a Christchurch call, per se, but more something that I think could be generalized to how do the fact that there are events happening in the world that take place at a pretty rapid process where policymakers feel obligated to take some relatively quick action, and if you were to look at this from the private sector side, I guess the private sector side is trying to figure out what their response should be in that, and how do we make room in those processes for appropriate multistakeholder input and what kind of pressure might that put on some of the multistakeholder processes.

 So I saw it as something that could be kind of generalized to different sort of situation, maybe with the Christchurch as an example.

 So I'm just sort of encouraging us to think about it in a really broad kind of context, it could be useful in many others, rather than a particular country or a particular region's approach to one of the more recent events.

 And of course we have it not just in 2017 in Geneva but in every one of the IGFs that I can remember, we had a significant session if not a main session on evolution of the multistakeholder model.  We did that in Paris last year as well, because of course, of course, it's rather important to all of us who participate in the IGFs that we're continuing to look at how that process could be improved.  So, I mean, I continue to support things that advance the appreciation for the -- for the activities.

 I think that was all of your points, Ben.

 Paul.  Paul Rowney, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Thank you, Lynn.

 Just following on what Kenta just mentioned about the newcomer's track.  And I have a couple of thoughts on this.  One thought is we could hold the newcomer's track more than once, which means people could choose which session they went into, but another thought is that part of the -- what's covered in the intros could also form part of the newcomer's track, which gives some structure on how the themes are going to flow, et cetera.

 And possibly the same should apply to the open forums and DCs.  I don't know, just thinking aloud here.  That there's some commonality at the beginning to introduce some flow and thought process into how the whole IGF is going to move forward.  So these key points are the no lost regardless of where you go at the start of the IGF.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I think those are really good points.  Good points, Paul.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.

 I want to re-echo what China has said and Susan supported about giving space for unforeseen action or issue that might come up before November.  Because the way the Internet or digital space is moving, you can never predict what will happen.

 I would like to have some proposal for main session.  I'm looking at tying together the multidisciplinary call from the U.N. Secretary-General, the digital governance convention call from the private sector.  I think it was Microsoft or one of the organizations in 2017 or 2018 call for digital governance convention or something like that.  And then the Paris peace call.  If we can put those together and it be a main session so it can be raised and discussed again.  That's the one.

 And then I don't know what the high-level -- I agree with the high-level panel session.  No problem.  But I don't know what the legislation or the -- what -- I think the high level is the parliamentary session, parliamentarian session would look like and topics they would discuss.  But I know countries would be interested in SDGs.  So can we have a session that ties the tracks to the SDGs so we can discuss how it would tie into this, because when we are doing the proposal, you know, the tracks, we also dragged it to the SDGs.  Maybe you will look at that because countries will be interested, especially the Global South, how this could help -- any of these discussions could help achieve SDGs.

 So those are my three -- three suggestions.  Tying the calls together, whether it's Paris or it's Christchurch or the multidisciplinary one with the private sector, and also looking at the -- tying the -- having a session on SDG in all the tracks. 

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  Those are good suggestions.  And one question I had in the back of my mind a little bit is some of the Best Practice Forum work on cybersecurity in terms of how much would you expect to be in a position to address through what I'm assuming is a BPF session at the -- at the IGF.  Particularly because it was -- the Paris call was launched there, and at some point I think we should make a conscious decision as to whether or not we're going to ensure that there's been some action or response or, if not, that we can clearly talk to that and explain that, if only as a matter of courtesy at a very minimum.  But I do think it raises some -- some important points.  So maybe Ben can just think about that a little bit.  I'm not quite sure what the BPF was planning or going to do.  You can respond now or if you need time to think about it, too, that's fine.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   I mean, certainly it's -- it's going to be part of the BPF's work this year, and it will be a BPF session, and there will be a BPF report.  So we saw that as a natural place to -- to look at the Paris call.

 It would not be unheard of at all for a main session to look at cybersecurity or to have some discussions about cybersecurity and providing views on the Paris call or what the French government, you know -- the direction they think it's heading, could feed into a main session.  I'm not sure a main session on the Paris call alone would be -- would be relevant as much as my company as an active signatory to the Paris call would be happy to participate in one.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Totally agree with your comment in terms of it's probably not appropriate as a separate but just keep track of it as we go through these proposals.

 Thank you, Mary.

 What we're doing in the background here is Eleonora and I are just going to put a list together of the suggestions.  We can try to capture a little bit of the kind of background discussion behind them, but I think it will look more like a list that we will come back to tomorrow.  And we'll get that out to you tonight.

 Timea, you have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you, Chair.

 A couple of points that I wanted to make were actually very eloquently put by several of my colleagues, so I just want to quickly support the idea of having longer main sessions, the idea -- I think Paul was talking about newcomer sessions.  That might also be something to consider, to have several, if there's space for that.  Or even a newcomer's booth.  We even before had, in a previous meeting, I think two years ago we had mentors or senior MAG members who had a button for newcomers.  That might also be an idea that we want to revisit.

 Another idea that I have, and call me a radical, if you want, but we were thinking about streamlining the IGF program.  So I'm thinking about the main sessions.  Even if they are for two hours, and I think that's great because we need to give time for discussions, but do we really need four a day for two hours each?  Is there any way that we consider two or three a day or maybe a morning and an afternoon one for two hours?  And to give people space for even filling that extra hour with, you know, ideas for media communication or interviews with some of the prominent speakers we have, a networking session, or just leaving people the time to go to a bilateral meeting or whatever else they might have on their agendas.  Just a thought.

 In terms of concrete proposals, I'm sorry my idea is not fleshed out fully here because I wasn't -- I wasn't prepared of making a proposal on this today.  I was in -- I don't know why, but I thought we were going to do that with put proposals in writing and then decide on them.  But an idea I had for a main session, and this goes also into supporting a point that somebody else has made earlier about having main sessions for tracks.  I think it would be an interesting idea to have some of the main sessions at least link or draw the main topic from the three tracks to remain consistent with the program.

 And if we are to consider one that is linked to the inclusion track that I was working on with my colleagues, I would propose a session to look at the different elements required to improve and ensure inclusion as society undergoes digital transformation and preventing people from being left behind.

 The session could look, in my view, at the future of work aspects of digital transformation, and running through the entire spectrum of education, the skills training, and look also into beyond training, on the demand and supply side of how the future of work idea is going forward.  It could consider things like accessibility aspects, even goes to maybe people with disabilities that is coming up from a couple workshops, connectivity, local content issues, things like that, and on top of that skills and training.  If we can have a discussion on that, I think it would be very useful.

 We had a couple of very successful workshops on this in the past.  I think we could draw this out into the main session idea.

 And I promise I'll put my proposal forward in a more comprehensive way when I have the chance to write it down, and colleagues can look at it online.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  Working backwards as well.  I think that is a very, very important area in terms of proposals.  So I'm sure the MAG would look forward to receiving more -- more information on it.  It's just very, very important.

 With respect to fewer main sessions, I think we can leave that question for the MAG tomorrow, and I think it ought to probably depend more on whether or not we think there are subjects that are worthy of a main session and the time there.  Part of the reason for having the slightly longer lunch break was to facilitate those networking and more informal sessions and that sort of thing, which is already a pretty significant amount of time, which would of course probably be shortened somewhat if we had the two-hour main sessions.  But we were trying to create that time.

 Ananda, you have the floor.  And congratulations on getting your bag.

 >>ANANDA RAJ KHANAL:   Thank you, thank you.

 I first of all thank the people and the government of Germany for such a generous hosting of this meeting.  And as Lynn already mentioned, I left my bag in the tram, and then today, with the help of Jutta and a colleague there who raised the online found system and informed me that the bag was found and I just collected the bag.  So it is not only the generosity of the people but the integrity and the professionalism of the institutions I think that we really appreciate.

 Back home it is very unlikely to happen.  And if happens, it will become a front-page news.  So I am really happy to share this with you.

 Thank you.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ananda.

 Susan Chalmers, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:   Thank you, Chair.

 Just for the terms -- in terms of how we move forward with the main session process, one thing that at least I've seen to be missing are -- so did we ever have a call for proposals or is this discussion that call for proposals from the MAG members?  Because I think I really appreciated what Sylvia circulated, and I think that's nice that something that's in writing that I'm able to review and that we're all able to comment on.  And so I think I would -- and in the past we did have some process and guidelines around main session proposals.  I don't know if we want to dust those off.  They're not too old.

 But I was just wondering, are people expecting, given the agenda tomorrow, to develop proposals this evening or are we going to be given a little more time to consider and review and submit?

 So I hope that helps some folks in the room.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I could go right to the short answer and say not much more time.  I think we had decided at past MAG meetings, rather than starting the main session discussion earlier was that we wanted to wait and see what came through with this new process with the thematic tracks.  We had the narratives, we had the call for workshop submissions, which was based on the call for issues earlier in the year.  And the MAG said they wanted to see what policy questions came in and what the kind of approved workshops and that track developed like before deciding what to do with the main sessions.

 So I think it is a slightly different process than last year.  Last year we had had a discussion which basically said if we had eight tracks or ten tracks or whatever it is, there was none a agreement, maybe an implicit assumption that there would be a main session for each track.  And I think we moved away from that somewhat this year, wanting to, again, build a thoughtful program on the basis of the policy questions that came in and the proposals that were approved by the MAG.

 So I think the process we're in is trying to get to a high-level -- a high-level description, in quotes, before we leave here tomorrow so that we know that we're generally thinking on one on -- I don't know, to use one, digital governance and digital trade or another one on digital inclusion.  And kind of having enough of a discussion here in the MAG that we understand what kind of a high-level description of that will look like; that we get some co-facilitators to go away and develop that proposal, bring it back to the MAG so that, ideally, by the end of -- actually, I think we said by the third week in June, we would have enough that we could put a title and a description up in the schedule when they release the schedule.  And that would allow the working groups for each one of the main sessions to advance the proposal over July and August, which, you know, in the northern hemisphere is a really heavy vacation period.

 The timing is tight, but if we don't make a really good start on it in the next three weeks, for all practical purposes, the substantive discussion with the MAG would happen in September, and I think we all agree that's just far too late to pull together a substantive program and get I think the level of speakers we'd like to get.

 Please, Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Sorry.  And also, we've noticed, as has been commented on, in the previous years that if people go away and construct a proposal by themselves in isolation and then bring them to the MAG, there's a sort of competition that develops and people get very, very attached to their proposal and they will find it difficult to let it go.

 So this time round, we were trying to see that if we could come to some consensus on the topics.  So if we do have the six topics, then the MAG can break into these groups and come up with an agenda or a proposal, then that will be much better and much more conducive, too.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  That was a great point.  Thank you.

 So is that clear enough then, Susan, and everybody in the room?

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Yes, thanks so much for clarifying that.  Appreciate it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And I do think we should come back afterwards and maybe take a quick look at the existing documentation on how we would document main sessions and see if that still works in terms of the kind of information we would ultimately flesh out.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  I have two things I would like to add to the discussion.

 First thing as co-facilitator for the dynamic coalitions, I would like to emphasize the interest of the dynamic coalitions to have that joint main session.  Was discussed yesterday or reported yesterday, that there are still two potential ways to come to that joint session.  And that will be discussed in the next call of the dynamic coalitions, probably at the beginning of July, in the first week of July or last week of June, and then we can go forward with that.

 And second -- second thing about the main sessions, I would like to support what Timea said before about it would be a good idea to have main sessions around the three main thematic tracks.

 I do think we have come so far with the process of assessing these proposals that now we already know that there is enough flesh to the bones that we can have a main session out of the three tracks.  That's kind of different than three months ago when we just were starting with these main themes and we did not know what would come out of it and how good the proposals would be and how good the policy questions would be.  But now that we've come through the process of assessing the proposals, I do think there is enough in there.  And it would also help to have this concise program where people really understand, okay, there is this track and that track and that track.  And there is also a main session that is some of the cross-cutting issues that are within these main themes.  So I really would like to pled for having three main sessions for the three main topics.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And do you have any thoughts on what they might be or how we might structure them or have some of the things we already hit upon today, are they possible candidates?  Just trying to advance the discussion a little.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  If we could come back to that tomorrow, that would be easier.  It's just that I derived the ideas from what we had yesterday evening when we tried to agree within the group on the proposals that was shaping already what would be the issues and what could be the speakers.

 And probably we also have among those workshop proposals that did not come through, some of them because of diversity or something else, we still have high-level speakers in these proposals and we have very good policy questions.  So it could also be that we draw on these proposals again and ask the high-level speakers in these proposals whether they would contribute to a main session on the same theme.  So that could be one option to bring it more in shape.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Of course, the logical next step following that discussion would be that we'd ask the thematic working groups to take responsibility for organizing a main session aligned with those main themes.  So I think the question -- just to make sure the suggestion that Jutta is making, I think, says understand what we did with the narratives back at the beginning of the process, understand what's come through the workshop proposals, understand how the thematic working groups actually felt about what were the main themes and main discussions that should be brought forward, and build a main session off of that kind of flow.

 And Jutta is nodding her head yes which, of course, means it would be up to the working groups then to advance those main sessions.  So we'll leave that as maybe kind of a separate -- not a separate but a counterproposal or process.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  I just got the impression that would not be too much additional work because we already have gathered a lot out of the assessment process of the proposals.  Okay, it will need to have a deeper look but it would not be a completely new process and not so much additional work, I don't think.

 I saw Ben a bit of nodding, so maybe he feels the same about data governance group.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I can't tell if his nodding was on the positive side or "I'm not sure" side.  My reading was "I'm not sure" side.

 [ Laughter ]

 I think that's really funny we have different interpretations.

 But let's leave that as an open proposal, Jutta.  We'll continue going through the queue, and then people should come in and comment on it as they -- as we move through the queue.

 Miguel, you are next.  You have the floor.

 >>MIGUEL CANDIA:  Thank you.  Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  It's Miguel Candia for the record.

 Thank you for leaving open Jutta's proposal because I have to wrap around -- my head around it.  

 While doing so, I wanted to support the idea of having something on the SDGs because to put in a sentence is to recognize or to have an idea of the impact of the ICTs in the Internet ecosystem on the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda for the development -- sustainable development goals.

 That is, I think that would have a strong political impact on our agenda because every single country in the world is doing its part to try and get the SDGs done in their own countries, particularly in the national level.

 So that would give us a visibility, as I believe it.  And second of all, it would help to know on the Internet governance-wise what we can do to further the SDGs from our standpoint.  So that would be a thumbs-up for that proposal.

 On the number of main sessions, it would be interesting to look -- if we can have fewer maybe but as long as we don't have a negative impact on the strength of the program.  

 In that scenario, we should keep maybe shorter main sessions but still the number to have the eight main issues that we think are strong enough to be there at that level of attention or focus for our program.

 And we did speak about the main session in March, if I recall correctly, and decided -- or went the way of waiting up until this point in time to see how the program was developing.  So I think although I understand Susan's question very clearly, it was something that we made by choice this year.  So maybe we can take that into account for the next years.  That would be all for me.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Miguel.  Appreciate your points on the SDGs.  And there is always room for improvement in these processes.  Thank you.

 Chenai, Chenai, you have the floor.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  Thank you, Chair.

 I just want to follow up -- I just want to follow up on the point that Mary raised around newcomer session and having the MAG members or volunteers sort of mentoring.  

 And was just thinking perhaps it would also be good to engage with the working group on outreach and engagement, perhaps to think of actually setting up that little badge and if anyone else is willing to volunteer from the community for the newcomers day.  Because I have been to meetings, for example, ICANN meetings, where someone did have a little tag at the end of their badge that said, "If you have any questions, you can ask me."  And that was really useful to be able to speak to people.

 But, of course, the volunteers have to be willing to be stopped in the hallways because I think there's nothing as annoying as someone who wears a badge that says "I can help you" but they have no time to help.  So I think maybe that's the criteria to think about in whoever is going to be volunteering or going to be part of that.

 And I'm not sure if by then the new MAG members would have been selected by the time that we have the November meeting.  But perhaps it would also be good to encourage them to attend that newcomers meeting because although people have been in the circuit for a very long time, it would be good for them -- some might never have gone to a newcomers meeting.  And if this is something we prioritize in the MAG going forward, it would be good for them to actually, you know, engage in these sessions and actually see why we stress on outreach and why we stress on people learning more about the IGF space and how maybe they could contribute in the future.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Some very good points, Chenai.

 Let me just see if Chengetai has any observations on the newcomers badge and the volunteers that can help.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much.  And I for some reason -- I think your accent is very unfamiliar to me, so I am having difficulty hearing it.

 But, yes, for the newcomers badge, we will talk and see whether or not we can do that and also have volunteers who are willing to help.  Yes.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.

 Lucien, you have the floor.

 >>Lucien Castex:  Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  

 Two quick points really.  The first one is on SDGs.  I'm all for supporting a session on SDGs.  We are quite closing on the ten-years mark, and national implementation is key to the 2030 agenda.  It would be nice to have a session on SDGs.

 Also, I would like to reflect quickly on the discussion on the Paris call obviously and on the Christchurch call also.  I was myself involved in both of them.  

 Well, security in cyberspace and in particular, I'm for content while it's a growing concern.  It's a key concern in restoring trust in cyberspace.  And a main session on that topic focusing either on hate speech, disinformation, content configuration would be quite good.  I'm quite interested in proposing or supporting the session, following up on the remarks of Sylvia and other participants on that topic.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Lucien.

 Sylvia, Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Thank you, Lynn.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.

 I would also like to support the structure around -- of a main session around SDGs for many of the reasons that my colleagues have mentioned but with the idea in my mind that session could actually perfectly fit into the inclusion category in that I would like to encourage the MAG to try to keep the focus of the program in all of these new, as I call them, the red and the yellow sessions because those are taking quite a lot of considerable time from the program.

 So I hope that even if it's not full-on based on each one of the topics and is deviating to a certain extent, that there is a link that bring it back to the program.

 From the experience for last year, I would like just to clarify a couple of points that I may not have mentioned when I presented the idea about the session on platforms in content blocking, yeah, filtering.

 I mentioned it on the email that this one last year I helped to co-organize the main session on technical operation that was focusing on content blocking and filtering.  That session was only on operational issues.  It was co-organized by two members, MAG members, of the technical community and really required a lot of work to identify a good moderator that was neutral enough to carry on that conversation and was able to manage an interactive format.  

 Some of the main sessions in other areas, other topics, other baskets, did different formats.  So I actually would like to highlight the contribution that (saying name) mentioned before about trying to identify a good journalist from probably the Deutsche television or something that are able to manage such sessions and give them the high profile that is probably required.

 As background, I remembered that at the IGF -- one of the IGFs in Brazil, not the one in Joao Pessoa, there were -- some of the main sessions were moderated by a BBC journalist.  And those were really well-managed because of the way he structured the discussion.

 The proposal that I submitted, I submitted thinking it was aligned with a theme.  So I submitted on the subject.  It says security theme.

 And I -- I don't think the working group on security should take responsibility for the sessions -- the main sessions on security for two reasons or any of the working groups.  The working groups for the workshop selection were done randomly, not necessarily based on expertise or contacts or the network that specific MAG members have in a specific topic.

 We did struggle with many of the content in sessions assigned to us that are not our area of expertise.  But I think that for a main session, it is really important that the people can put forward the network of contacts, the people they know, the knowledge they have to be able to structure a session.  So I actually don't agree with the idea that it would be easy, let's say, to put that responsibility into the working groups that were created for work selection.

 I would rather think that maybe it could be something to be considered, for example, to partner with the BPFs that are more focusing on those specific topics, if we are looking at strengthening mechanisms that already exist as part of the IGF and the MAG work.

 I also -- the proposal that I submitted was based on community input.  It's in our proposal that will not make the cut, Number 144 that I mentioned in the presentation and included on the email.  It's not something I pull out of a hat.

 And I really hope that the main sessions to a certain extent, even if they are capturing emerging issues, use the call for issues, the workshop proposals, the open forums presentations -- proposals as basis to be -- so we are actually reflecting on the content that the community is demanding from us.

 And as I mentioned, I started using the template from last year.  It has been -- of course, it is not complete.  But I think it's not necessary that every time we do something we need to reinvent the wheel.  

 I feel really uncomfortable with changes of processes going on when the agenda was already submitted without a tracking of agreements from previous calls, where we don't have summaries of previous meetings to actually refer to -- for those of us that couldn't participate in conference calls to refer to something that the MAG agreed on a conference call but that the main sessions were not going to be attached to the themes.  

 I didn't have that information when I started working on this.  And to be honest, I don't have immense amounts of time to go through all the transcripts to figure out what was agreed in the end.  

 It is really important that we keep those summaries going to engage participation and to be effective to work on the mailing list.  Otherwise, for those of us that struggle with time zone differences, it's really difficult to do this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Sylvia.  Just comment on one or two of your points.  The -- I don't think there was an agreement from the MAG that the main sessions would tie directly to the themes.  I think this year, we consciously decided to leave it fairly open while we figured out what this new thematic process looked like, what policy questions came through, and what was finally accepted as the overall kind of themes and questions.  And that does, you know, make the process a little bit tight at this particular moment, but I think it's still possible.

 To the other point earlier, I think there's a way, if the MAG did decide that they wanted to use the expertise of the positions that were coming out of the thematic working groups, to say we think there should be something on digital inclusion.  I think we can merge several processes which would maybe pull in some of the thematic working group members who have the history of the proposals and the policy questions and the narrative and really understood that in depth and pulled in appropriate other expertise.  And in particular, and we're coming to this in the next session, in particular they can obviously tap the BPFs, they can tap the dynamic coalitions, they can tap the NRIs, they can tap other expertise in their kind of main session planning groups.  So I don't think it's an either/or.  I think if the MAG should decide to do something, there's a way to get the right expertise and the right history to come together in an appropriate working group.

 What I would like to do is go through the three people that are in the queue now and then I'd hike to come to the final session of the day, which is the one that would review the other sessions.

 I'd like to actually start with a review of the dynamic coalitions and the NRI plans for their sessions, but also any thoughts they have on their main sessions so we actually have that in the mix as well for our discussions.  And then we would -- time permitting, I certainly hope we would go through the day zero open forums and the plans for the newcomer and lightning sessions.  And that would give us a fairly good kind of overview of the main session territory that we're going to work in more depth on tomorrow.

 And I will point out for those of you who maybe weren't aware, there are snacks in the back of the room, coffee and water in front of you.  So if you're dying for a snack, you can certainly avail yourself of that.

 Mary.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor again.  Mary from technical community.

 I just want to draw attention to what Jutta said about having main session on the tracks.  If we're going to do the topping, we're going to do the tailing.  Would main session on this track still be needed since we do topping and tailing?  I think we should take that into consideration because those that will not be at the workshop -- workshop, the different workshops, will be at the topping or the tailing.

 And so I don't know what -- if we consider it very necessary.  Then if it's overflooding, if overflooding it, then we just look at the topping and the tailing and take other in the proposed other main sessions from the track.  It's a fact that we have gotten all the -- most of the policy questions, and we're going to use that as part of the topping and telling as well?  So maybe we'll see whether it will just be -- it will just be overflooding the tracks if we're going to have main session again for the tracks.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, let me just make sure I capture what you're saying.  I'm not sure this is right, so if it's not right, please.  I think you're saying to consider what we're doing with the topping and tailing sections for those tracks, and if there's an overflow or too many suggestions for main sessions, that we make sure that we take that into account as we open standards across them?  Or was it a different point?

 >>MARY UDUMA:   What I'm saying is if we're doing the topping and tailing, is there any need for administration for the tracks again?  That's what I'm saying.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's what I thought it was but you said it much more succinctly.  Thank you.

 I think it's a good point and it depends partly what we do with the topping session.  And I think we can just maybe put that as a question and come back to that tomorrow.  I think that plays to kind of Jutta's suggestion that maybe we think about whether or not we want to build on a main session on the basis of the narrative, the policy questions and the track we built.  I do think that's a good point, because if we were to do a substantive topping session, then that might actually be -- be somewhat redundant.  I think it's just something to keep in mind.

 So thank you, Mary.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you, Lynn.

 Yes, I think we indeed to think about how the topping and tailing sessions might be a main session or might be distinct from main sessions.  I have a sense that main sessions which are given two hours, which are given a more prominent part of the program are a little different in nature.  But, yes, as we're kind of working out what we think topping and tailing looks like, we should have in mind, you know, having a distinction.

 So on linking main sessions to the three themes, I wanted to support Jutta to some extent because over the last five months, we've made this effort to have a more narrowly focused IGF this year.  We selected three themes.  And I think it would be strange not to have at least one session related to each of the of three themes.  We've acquired all the workshop proposals to follow the three themes.  These are the three themes, and none of the main sessions were in the three themes, that would feel strange.  So I think -- I see definitely some link, and I think there should be at least one main session for each theme.  I think that would feel quite natural, but I don't think all main sessions necessarily need to cover the themes, and I think it could actually be valuable to leave some main sessions for more cross-cutting topics which will not get captured under the three themes, which are somehow broader or different.

 In terms of a process, yes, I think it could naturally fall to each of the thematic working groups to organize a main session related to their theme, but firstly, while yes, the groups would be able to draw on what they've already seen in the workshop evaluation, I do find it a little daunting to try and pull together a session which somehow covers all of the various -- the six baskets or, you know, six points of a flowchart or whatever in one two-hour session.  It's a challenge, and, indeed, the security theme might be the most disparate and broadest of the three.

 I'd also -- while I think it naturally could fall to each of the thematic working groups to organize a main session related to their theme, I think the other MAG members should be able to join the discussion.  So maybe the thematic group, when it gets to this task of developing a main session, it gets opened up to anyone else who wants to join from the MAG.

 It might be worth reflecting a little bit on how these ad hoc groups will be organized and the thematic groups have been set up so maybe we have a sense.  But particularly for those in their first year in the MAG, and this is only my second year, my understanding is that it's the responsibility of our system, MAG, to organize the main sessions.  And I think the way it worked last year was that it fell to MAG members to volunteer for ad hoc groups, and they could sign up for as many groups as they wanted.

 I can't remember whether those ad hoc groups were open to anyone in the public or were just for MAG members.  I led one of those groups, finding a way to bring together the topics of cybersecurity, privacy, and trust in an 80-minute coherent discussion.  And I had support from two other MAG members.  I think there were maybe 15 people on the list, but three of us did the work.

 So for main sessions related to the three themes as I said, I think this naturally falls to the existing thematic working groups as Jutta suggested but they could be opened up at that stage.  And if there are other main sessions, I wonder if it's going to be similar to the process last year, I think, with MAG members, would hopefully join and contribute to at least one of these working groups, at least one of these ad hoc working groups each, to make sure there's active contributions from around the table.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.

 Just a couple of quick points.  And of course whatever we do with the main sessions, we should always make sure we're pulling in BPFs, DCs, NRIs, et cetera in those main sessions as well, to your question about is it only MAG members or not only MAG members.

 And then I think with -- I mean, I really align with Mary's comment earlier, which is if we're going to have -- and we haven't agreed yet but if we were to have a topping session that really did build on the narrative of that theme, I'm not sure having that having a main theme that builds further on it or deeply on it is really that different.  And if we're looking for links, I also support the comments that have said the main themes -- main sessions should look like they tie to the rest of our program.  I don't think there's any difficulty.  If we look at what was suggested before, I think there's some pretty good alignment between some things around digital inclusion, some things around the security track as well.  I think the only one we haven't heard a really kind of specific proposal on would be around data governance that aligns.  

 So clearly although I -- maybe the digital governance and digital trade is one that did.

 So, frankly, I think there's enough commonality there that we can take some of those ideas and make them fit, unless we really wanted a really kind of thorough main session built up from the narratives and what the thematic working groups thought, in which case, again, then I think we need to make sure it's different enough from the topping session.

 So I guess the take-away is I think we actually have a lot of flexibility and a lot of coverage.  I don't feel like there's, like, big gaps opening up from this discussion.

 We'll go to Paul and then Carlos, and then we'll move to the dynamic coalitions and the NRIs so we can hear what their plans are for all their sessions plus main sessions.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL CHARLTON:   Thank you, Lynn.

 I just want to follow-up on what Ben and some others were saying.  I also think that it's extremely important that, you know, as we've undertaken this new process of having the three themes and we've taken the time to choose them and we follow through on that on the very arduous workshop evaluation process, so that part of the IGF is going to reflect the three themes, I think we have to follow through as well on the main sessions.

 I would support the idea of having a main session on each of the three themes.  And then as Ben said, the other -- the other main sessions could be on things that are quite different.

 The only alternative would be maybe if there are no main sessions specifically on any of the three themes, that the main sessions are clearly tied in.  And I think, Lynn, I like the word you used which was alignment.  We have to make sure one way or the other, whichever -- whichever option we go with that the main sessions are in many some way aligned and the topics are -- that we can show that at least some of the topics are directly or indirectly linked.

 I'd also add that I would support the idea of Miguel to have at least one main session relating to the SDGs, because I think that is a gap in our program so far.  There may have been some workshop proposals in the -- in the digital inclusion theme that mentioned the SDGs.  I don't recall offhand whether or how many of the top 20 would have related to that, but I think it's an important topic for us to ensure that we're covering.  And as Sylvia said, that's something that is clearly aligned with digital inclusion, so it would fit seamlessly into our program as well.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Those are good, good points, Paul.

 The queue keeps growing and we do need to get to the DCs and the NRIs so we have their perspective on these discussions, so I really would like to draw a firm line under Timea there, and then specifically ask those people to talk to the DCs, the dynamic coalitions.  Please do ensure we get to those important topics.

 Carlos, you have the floor.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:   This is a rare moment in which I have to disagree with Sylvia.  I was in one of the panels "moderated," quotation marks, by that BBC host and it was not good at all.  It was a TV show.  And the guy was very good at animating a TV show but not at understanding what kind of interaction was happening among the people that knew about the issues that were being discussed.  And he interfered very heavily sometimes.  Very -- Several people in the panel were irritated by that.  And I think the IGF learned from that thing and did not use these formats later on.

 So I recommend we don't do BBC shows on the IGF.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Carlos.

 June, you have the floor.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Thank you, Lynn.  I need a bit more clarity, getting back to what Ben was saying, about the main sessions and how do we get involved with the main sessions.

 Last year I got involved with the main session, and I thought it was the secretariat who had something to do with that.  Can I have some clarity, please?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   The secretariat has something to do with everything.

 Is the question specifically on who structured or populated the sessions?

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Yeah, how we got involved with the main sessions.  Was it because we joined the working groups or did the actual secretariat have something to do with it?

 My name was put on a main session but I really can't remember now it got there.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   It should have been from your own act of volunteering to be on the main session working group.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Oh, okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   What we did last year, there were a series of proposals and put those in front of the MAG and then asked the MAG to sign up for those main session working groups that they were interested in supporting.  And I'm sure quite often MAG members sign up because they're interested in tracking the developments in case it impacts on other things they're doing, and not, perhaps, expect to be a full member.  But it would have been presumably through your own act.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   You were very good at volunteering on a number of things last year and came through on all of them.  So thank you.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Yeah, firstly, apology for dragging out this matter, but I'm not convinced that having main sessions on the three themes is going to be good.  I still need some convincing there.  I feel that it can distract from the workshops.  It can also overlap with what's being discussed at the workshops and it draws people away from the workshops.

 I think the main sessions should be limited, and they are in the charts.  And I agree that we should be driving cross-cutting issues and issues that are not really directly being addressed in those workshops.

 So I actually support what Mary was saying.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   No, that's a good point, Paul, too, because we had said we would try to really pull out those kind of things that we thought were cross-cutting.

 Timea, you have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you, Lynn.  I'll try to be short, and apologies for taking the floor again after having spoken on this matter already.

 Regarding the topping, tailing and the main session on the tracks, I see those three very, very differently.  I think the topping session is more of a setting-the-scene sort of session where people would go there to understand what is it that the track is about, what he is going to happen, how are we reporting out there.  What are the actual sessions going on over the subthemes?  What's the flow?  And even I can see pulling in a couple of workshops from the floor, from the audience saying, well, I'm going to focus on this one, I'm going to focus on that one, who is interested to come and talk with me about that.

 And the tailing session would actually be the exact opposite, try to draw out messages, and we're going to work in a creative way of reporting out from the tracks, but really sort of taking stock, taking the messages out from the track.

 Now, in between those two I see a main session sort of a bigger platform, a more prominent two hours of discussing either a cross-cutting theme within that track or a particular issue that wasn't very distilled out in the workshops or something that would give us really a moment that when people think back to the IGF 2019, okay, those two hours on inclusion or those two hours on data were really worth my time.  There were prominent speakers, very important issue, and a really good session.

 So for me, those are very three different objectives.  And I think that still flows into a coherent program.

 So I actually would like to see this happen.  I think we can get, as I said, creative of how we're choosing out the topics on what the sessions are going to be about.  But just my two cents about this.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Timea.  I think we would all -- I think there's MAG agreement that on the tailing session, it is about drawing out messages and actions.  

 I think on the topping session there is not yet agreement.  What you just described was what I would call a fairly traditional introductory set of sessions:  This is what's happening in the track and if you're interested in this, go here and that sort of thing.  

 I think there was still an open question as to whether or not there might be a keynote speaker or something that would really drive interest in a real kind of heightened sense of anticipation, if you will, for it, the track and those activities.  I don't think the MAG is closed on that yet.

 Now, just to make sure it wasn't.... 

 Xiaofeng, you haven't taken the floor so we will allow you to take the floor.  And then I am definitely going next speaker to the DCs or the NRIs to understand their views and their programs.  

 Xiaofeng, you have the floor.  Can you push on your -- there you go.  That should work.

 No, it's not -- it's the same problem as Sylvia's earlier.  Perhaps you could just move to another mic next to you.

 >>XIAOFENG TAO:  I'm sorry.  About main session, I would like to support Mary about SDG main session.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Xiaofeng.

 So who's -- should we start with the NRIs and Anja's because at least I know to turn to Anja.  And then for the DCs, I'm not sure who I would turn to, to speak to what their desires are in terms of sessions and main session.

 So, Anja, NRIs.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Thank you.  Thank you very much for giving me the floor.  So the NRIs starting running the public consultations on the forms of the integration into the Berlin IGF in early January this year.

 We, again, called for topics for inputs from the NRIs to identify what could be the mutual interest in terms of the topic for all NRIs.

 Those consultations went on for almost 12 weeks, and they resulted in identifying several inputs that could be of interest for 114 NRIs.

 In that regard, the forms of the sessions that the NRIs would like to kindly request from the MAG would be the main joint session, as it was hosted for the past three IGFs.  And the topic would be focusing on emerging technologies and their interfaces with inclusion, security, and human rights.  

 As we were not really aware of the MAG's time line regarding calling for proposals, then the NRIs started drafting their proposals.  So that proposal is to a good extent done.  And I think whenever you, say, to set a deadline, we would be able to submit the proposal to the MAG.

 I will maybe not go into details now about the particular aspect this session will address, unless I'm asked to.  

 But I would just say that the format will be an interactive session and inclusion of inputs from all NRIs.

 The suggestion this year from the colleagues is to create an input document to the meeting few weeks before the meeting is supposed to start based on short case-study examples from the NRIs that will be sent to the secretariat and that will be analyzed and consolidated into a unique publication.  That would probably save also our time of not bringing all inputs to session but focusing on key issues.

 In regards to the format, it's something we're discussing.  But on the duration of the session, the NRIs will, of course, wait for your guidelines in this regard.  

 They, however, do advise that this session is, if possible, 120 minutes long.  Last year we had 90 minutes at disposal.  It was effective but, of course, also challenging given the number of speakers.

 In previous years, we operated on three-hours slot but I have to say in 2017 that three-hour slot was divided.  So after, let's say, two hours we had a one-hour break; and we wouldn't advise for that to be applied this year.  

 So that would be for the main sessions.  The key is to cover the emerging technologies and aspects of inclusion, security, and human rights.

 For aside of the main session -- as you said, I should probably cover all sessions -- the NRIs would, again, request collaborative sessions.  So this open call for inputs that we were running with all the NRIs resulted in having suggestions for six sessions.  Those sessions are available and generic proposals available on the IGF website.  

 But very clearly -- very shortly, just to say that these sessions would, again, focus on concrete case-study examples from countries and regions that could come to the global IGF just to give us a bit of a practical overview of the issues that they decided to focus on.

 And those issues for those sessions would be access as specifically focused on inclusion of vulnerable groups and developing digital capacity.  Then cybersecurity and cyber safety and resilience for infrastructure providers and users.  

 Human rights on the Internet from a perspective on national and regional priorities.  

 Data protection from the perspective on national and regional levels.  

 Regulation of harmful content on the Internet.  

 And privacy concerns on the local level with probably focus on surveillance mostly.

 Aside of these collaborative sessions, the NRIs will traditionally now organize the so-called coordination session which is, as you know, an open work meeting between the NRIs representatives from UN DESA, secretariat, chair of the MAG, MAG members, and anyone interested in the community.  

 The agenda will be, again, developed in a bottom-up manner by the NRIs, so we will probably start that work very soon.

 But in general, the agenda should focus on how can we strengthen the collaborative mechanism between all the NRIs and the IGF and how can we as a global community strengthen the local processes of the NRIs.

 And, also, maybe just to add since we're covering everything, as I said, the NRIs also will organize a booth at the IGF village.  And for that, given very good equipment that we have there and conditions, we will be preparing a dedicated presentation.  Should be a visual overview of all the IGFs that happened throughout the year in 2019.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Anja, thank you.  I'll give a moment to see if there are any kind of questions from the floor or other follow-up.

 I do have one question for you.  For the NRI collaborative sessions that are focusing on kind of case studies and that sort of thing, is there anything we can could do or a request we could put out that would allow us to kind of specifically learn from success stories or case stories or best practices or something if we had a different level of, I don't know, rapporteur or support or something.  Something we could document ahead of time going into the sessions, have the session, make them interactive, and then learning so we could pull out?

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Thank you very much for that question.  You actually reminded me on a very important point.

 For the main session, last year we collaborated with the MAG respecting working modalities of both networks and that really worked perfectly.  So we're honestly hoping for that good collaboration this year.

 For the collaborative session, this year I think the network is really motivated by great hosts, by great conditions in front of us and really focusing on case studies.  

 The IGF secretariat is also motivated to support those processes and really give them a proper format to gather their case studies and maybe even come with good outputs of those preparatory process that could be of use for the global community.

 In that sense, the whole work is open, of course, to everyone including the MAG, the chair of the MAG.  If you have any proposals, I would be very happy to bring it to the network to discuss.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me just follow up and ask you a question, too.  Is there something you need in terms of additional resource or -- I mean, not necessarily given you get it, but is there a consultant that could actually help support that process?  Or do we -- the German government is actually putting money into supporting a lot of the communications.  Is there a way we could direct the communications to really get some good case studies out of those collaborative sessions?  Maybe just think about how we could maximize those sessions as the preparations are made and we're going into them, the benefit of the sessions are there, and then the output.  Because you talk about them as case studies, and that kind of implies a whole set of documentation and support and output around them.  

 And I just want to make sure that we've at least tried to get the resources we can to really capture that really -- as fulsomely as we can.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Well, yes.  And really, thank you, that's actually a great proposal.  And I think in working with the NRIs, on the side of the NRIs and secretariat, there's always need for more people to be involved and especially experts on particular subjects because these sessions are very much subject-focused.

 So let me maybe consult with the network and see if possibly I think we could probably use a pair of hands for just analyzing all those inputs, putting them in a good format and so on without, of course, interfering with the content that's going to be communicated by the community.

 The same goes also with your concrete proposal on maybe having good rapporteurs for these sessions so that we kind of complement everything together at the end of the IGF.  

 So I will come back maybe to you in writing after this meeting when I consult with the colleagues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm always a firm believer in there's no harm in asking.  And we do have a lot of good support in so many ways, so maybe we'll have a better chance this year than in other years.

 Let's see.  Xiaofeng, is that hand from previously?  I think so because I don't think I ever saw it go down.

 So, Sandra, you have the floor.

 >>SANDRA HOFERICHTER:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  

 First of all, I would like to emphasize the great work of Anja, how she's doing, how she's managing the NRIs.  I participate on a regular basis.  And it's a bit like herding cats and she's doing it really, really well.  And without this network, we would not have gotten so far.

 On the main session, I would like to make a contribution which might be also a little bit controversial.  I know that not everyone in this room is in favor for giving a main session to the NRIs as we had the last three years.  I am also skeptical, I must admit.

 But, however, we have reached consensus within the NRI network that we would like to apply for a main session again.  And I would like to share some very relevant reasons with you that you might -- maybe not really are aware of.

 For some countries, and in particular the emerging economies, it is really, really important to have this visibility on a U.N. level and not just by participating in such a forum but by speaking in a main session which has full translation.

 For them it's really important to get this recognition.  With these tools they can basically engage their local stakeholders, governments, business, civil society.  This gives them a lot of legitimacy they wouldn't get otherwise.  That's why it is really important -- an important sign of diplomacy and of developing the multistakeholder model in certain countries.  

 This is definitely not the case for Germany.  This is definitely not the case for the U.S. or for Europe possibly.  But we have to take this into account when we are serious about developing the multistakeholder model worldwide.  This is one thing.

 On the other hand, we -- many here in this room criticize that in the past the main session has not been really interactive.  You had 20 speakers in a row and the output was not really of great value because it was too general.  I do agree with that.

 And maybe we have to find ways to serve the need of specific regions, of specific NRIs.  And if the MAG decides maybe not to give another NRI -- another main session to the NRI, maybe the MAG could then consider giving visibility for emerging economies on the panels of the other main sessions because that's the important point that they get the justification and the visibility, why they are attending the IGF, and why it is important to put local efforts into it.  

 And I must say, this is not -- what I'm saying here, I'm saying this totally in my personal capacity.  It was just an idea that popped in my mind when we were discussing here in a small group.

 This is not discussed within the NRI network.  That is not a proposal that comes out of that network.  It's really just a personal view and personal proposal, not even of EuroDIG but of Sandra Hoferichter.

 And I would like for you to take that into consideration, that there are reasons why it is important.  And, in particular, the first session that we had in Mexico when 20, 40 speakers were on stage, that was a political statement.  That was a sign.  That was important, even if it was not the most interactive and valuable session.

 But I do understand that these sessions are so important in the program and that so many people and groups have a demand to get one of those main sessions, that we really have to make them a very, very good session.  

 And we -- also as the NRI network, we have to find better ways of organizing these sessions as we have done it in the past.  Although there was also some improvement in the past, I would not like to neglect that.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Sandra.  Those were great points.

 I'd like to make two comments as well.  The session you commented on I think we should stop using as an example of maybe not a good session because I thought it was one of the best sessions I had been at and I sat there for three hours.  

 Everything happens at a certain time.  This was a time when people weren't really familiar with the NRIs.  To have the NRIs up there on a very graphic, visible way, going through all of their stories was really, really impactful.  And they all did great at walking through in the three minutes or something that they had.  

 There was so much learning between them and from every one of them, that I really think -- I have said that every single time because I think it was a great session.

 So, again, it might not be an appropriate session for now because, I think, the NRIs are much better understood and recognized across the system.  But just as a point because I feel bad every time I hear that for the NRIs because it was a great session, and they were so happy to be able to expose their activities, which is important, as you say, for all the visibility back there.

 I was trying to huddle here with Chengetai.  Sometimes I maybe go for presumptive closes or think something is such a no-brainer that I just assume its done.

 I have to admit, I have been going through this process assuming that the MAG was fully supportive of there being a dynamic coalition session and an NRI session of a full main session time allotment.  

 And so maybe the question is before I come to the next people in the queue as to whether or not that's a misreading on the part of the MAG.

 I mean, is there -- and we can do this quickly.  Is there objection to there being a main slot for -- let's do them one at a time -- for NRIs?  Organized in the way that Anja said which was a topic, which is obviously brought before the MAG.  She's given us regular updates.  Developed in cooperation with the MAG as it was last year.  So not something that's done in the background.  Is there anybody who wants to speak, I guess, strongly against that or just speak for it?  Ben --

 Anriette, if you don't mind, can I come back to you in the queue so we can close on this.  Thank you.

 Ben.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  So I'm not objecting, I've said before and I still believe that I think it's more productive to integrate the NRIs and the DCs into main sessions rather than having them in a stand-alone session.

 Having said that, I -- I think I took on board what Markus said at the meeting in April, was that we should think about whether the DCs want a main session -- at that point, he didn't know -- and what they would want to do with it.

 And I think I can see why both the DCs and the NRIs, different as they are, would want a space to come together at an annual meeting and that are certainly -- I think that's a good idea.  Whether that needs to be in the format of a main session or whether that can be something elsewhere they can congregate and exchange.  I don't know.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's something else already.  That's not what we are talking about.  We're talking about a main session.  Those management sessions are something else.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Yeah.  If they already have those management sessions, that's great.  Yes.

 I think ideally we manage to find a way to integrate them so they're part of the discussions rather than kept to the side but I'm not going to say they can't have a session.  We know there's a strong desire there.  And if they feel that's the best way for them to get exposure and to make most of the global IGF meeting, then I would leave that with them.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And just to be clear, I don't think it's an either/or.  I think we want the BPFs, DCs and NRIs integrated into all the sessions, whether it's a workshop or main session as well.  So I don't think it's an either/or.  Nebojsa, you have the floor.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   Thank you.  Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government stakeholders group.

 I'm definitely in favor of having separate or stand-alone NRI organized main session the same way that I think dynamic coalition and Best Practice Forum deserve such.

 On the first place, I think that is the way what Sandra actually mentioned, to give them special exposure rather than to be blended into other main sessions where somebody else is organized and their visibility is not that obvious.  

 And kind of make a connection to my previous comment about diversity, this, again, what Sandra mentioned about the need for visibility of developing south or whatever we are going to call them.  That's one of the reasons, I guess, and that's my understanding of the request for diversity in the workshop proposals to have speakers, organizers, moderators from different stakeholders group as well as region and other -- other groupings exactly for that reason, to provide them with additional possibility to participate in such important forum.

 And I don't know, I think that definitely should have main session -- main session that they organize on subject of their choosing.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Nebojsa.

 And I really want to kind of a call the question one more time.  Clearly, this isn't something that any of us were trying to sneak in.  Every time we've talked about the schedule and the number of main sessions, including Chengetai's comments when he put the schedule up and every time we've talking about it in previous MAG calls, we've always said there's a DC main session, there's an NRI main session and then these other sessions.  And maybe that was too quick a carry-on from past years, but I want to -- I just want to make it clear that we certainly haven't tried to hide that.  It was always a very specific request.  Every time the DCs and NRIs have presented at the meeting in January and in the meeting in April, there's been a discussion on both their individual requirements for individual sessions plus the main session.  So it's something we've been -- we've been tracking.

 So let me just see, is there -- are there any objection or anybody that feels that the MAG needs a more substantive discussion on whether or not there should be a main session organized by the NRIs along the lines Anja outlined, which is with the participation and supported engagement of the MAG?

 Okay.  So we'll call that a positive close.  To me, I just think it's so important to do everything we can to support their efforts and give them the visibility.  And, you know, to Sandra's point, we recognize how important it is back in a lot of countries and in a lot of capitals to give them the visibility and support, that shows that all their activities are actually impactful and are actually participating on a global stage.  And I've seen it firsthand too many times myself in countries to not recognize that that is a really serious benefit and a really serious -- no requirement is -- I just think it's appropriate.

 I will leave the call on the DCs until we actually go through the DC call, and go back to the queue which is Anriette.  Anriette, you have the floor.

 >>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:   Thank you, Lynn.  Anriette Esterhuysen.  I'm a member of the -- there's an echo -- of the MAG of the African IGF.

 I just wanted to reinforce what Sandra said.  I'm not at all opposed to there being a main session on NRIs.

 I think, Anja, you do fantastic work, and I think many people that do NRIs do fantastic work, but there's also challenges.  There are many NRIs that are not working that well.  You know, it's not just a success story.

 So really critical reflection on what works and what doesn't work is useful.  And I think getting everyone together is important as well, because so many people in this room and elsewhere are putting time and work and energy into NRIs.  And so I think it is important for the MAG to recognize that.

 But I agree with Sandra.  We need to see them in the main sessions; otherwise, it's quite patronizing.  You know, create a session where you can put all your developing country sessions, speakers, and actors and then you feel, okay, you've given them space.  But that's not actually what they want.  They don't just want space.  They want influence, as well.  We want to be heard on substantive issues.

 So I think as long as that is kept in mind.  And the NRI main session just doesn't play this role of being the space where you give people from the Global South the floor.  It needs to be more than that.  We need to hear their voices and the views of people from the Global South in all the substantive sessions.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Anriette.

 I have Natasa on the floor and then I'm guessing Mary was calling for the floor here as well.  But Natasa, you have been in the queue for a while so you have the floor.

 >>NATASA GLAVOR:   Thank you, chair.  Natasa Glavor, MAG member.

 My comment is not concerning NRI main session.  I think, of course, Anja is doing great job and congratulations to her.  I would like to comment about main sessions in combination with topping sessions.  So I apologize if I'm dragging the discussion backwards a little bit, but I wanted to say that even though I think introductory sessions or topping sessions are a really good idea, I think duration of nearly two hours is a little bit too long.

 So I would propose that we try to transform these topping sessions into main sessions of each particular theme with maybe 20 minutes introduction, like setting the tone and for the thematic workshops that are to come after that introductory session.  And so -- and after that, having a main session for each particular conference team in duration about at least 90 minutes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Natasa.  Those are helpful comments and we'll take them into account when we move forward for the discussion tomorrow.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, the chair, for giving me the floor again.  Mary from technical community, and I'm coordinator for two NRIs.  one is my national NRI, and the second --

 [ Phone ringing ]

 Sorry.  Sorry.

 [ Laughter ]

 The second one is the regional NRI.

 We started the collaborative session in 20- -- 2016, and if you can imagine the number of NRI that have come onboard from 2016.  We were 40 or so, but we're counting a hundred-plus.  Why?  Because of the visibility that was given to --

 [ Phone ringing ]

 What is wrong with this?

 Okay.  So we're counting and we're still counting.  Why?  Because countries are seeing value in what IGF is doing.  In terms of government support, some of us, some of the NRIs have gotten their government support for them to participate.  In terms of influence, at the local level, you find out that you get the -- you get all the stakeholder groups coming together to organize the regional or national NRI.

 So it might not be -- it might not be beneficial for the Global North, but the Global South, it is beneficial to us.

 So if -- When you look at the proposal that are sent in, the proposals more or less from the Global North, and they have the proposal and they are speakers.  But the Global South were not speakers, most of us are not; in those workshops.  And when you push -- You don't have the space to push out there because they weren't part of the proposal of the workshops.  And so apart from the fact that we are just started three years and we have made such a great stride by growing to 110, -12 or we are 114 now.  So is that not an influence?  Is that not an outcome?  And are those local perspectives not being taken into consideration?  Are they not part of the concrete outcomes of the IGF?  Legitimacy, outcomes, and visibility.  Those are things we consider.

 And some of the NRIs would be very, very happy that they are going to speak.  Some members of the NRIs or coordinators, they will be very, very happy that they are going to speak at global level.  Some of them record it and take it as a point to get things done in their local levels.

 So I don't see why we're trying to compare.  And in anything, if people are withdrawing from -- from the global IGF, people are joining the local IGF.  The national IGF.  So we're getting more members.

 So I don't think that it is a good argument to say that you are not seeing the influence of the collaborative sessions of the NRIs.

 And at the network level, we all agreed that it's important to us.  I think I want to say it to the MAG that the NRIs should be given that opportunity to continue the collaborative session.  If MAG has done its own work for about -- this is the 14th -- at least the 14th IGF, and instead of seeing a lot of stakeholders more coming, we are seeing some stakeholders withdrawing.  So I don't see why -- And that is the beauty of IGF.  IGF is for everybody, and it's open.  So no one should be put down because the others attend.

 Thank you.

 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, thank you.  You made a lot of good points and I'm sure the growth we've seen in the NRIs is due to their increasing visibility.  And I also think the increasing collaboration between all parts of the ecosystem are strengthening in both ways.  Strengthening the global annual meeting, it's strengthening a lot of those other intersessional events.  And I think we need to continue looking at it, but I think you made a number of good points.  And I personally have always been very, very supportive of the NRIs and think it's important we do what we can to support them and give them the visibility.

 We think it's hard doing an IGF as an annual meeting.  We've got a full-time secretariat support staff, we've got host country support, we've got venue logistic support.  All these sorts of activities are actually done at the local level for the NRIs, largely through volunteer networks.  So I think when we can support them at this level on the global stage, I actually personally just feel it's really kind of our duty and almost a responsibility to do as much as we can to support them.

 So Lucien has asked for the floor, and then -- okay, and then Christine.

 >>LUCIEN CASTEX:  Thank you.  I wanted to support what Mary said.  NRIs are quite important in bringing local topics and bringing up local issues to the global (indiscernible), but also the other way around, bringing, obviously, possible implementation of global policies to any of the countries in region.  So I'm quite in favor of giving them a voice in the global event at this level and also I agree on the fact that it's a tangible outcome to have a growing network on local communities, countries, and region.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Lucien.

 Christine.

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:   Sorry, there seems to be a problem with the mic.  This is Christine Arida from the government of Egypt, former host, for the record.

 Actually, I was thinking about what Sandra brought to the table and Anriette actually also put in a good thing that we really need to think how can we not only give a space but also get the voices of the Global South into the program.  And I think this is a very important point that we should think about for the future, even, in a more strategic way.

 So I'm happy that the MAG is going on with the idea of how giving the NRIs a main session this year.  I think that's an important thing.  But I think we should experiment how can we, through the NRIs, have more speaking slots within the main sessions felt, and so we can gradually integrate this main session into -- into actual sessions in further years.  So that we have a process for the future where the NRIs can bring to the table speakers from their local communities, and in that sense have the visibility that is needed, and, at the same time, have the voices from the Global South in terms of issues brought to the IGF.

 Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Christine.  

 So I've in the Webex chat room all day, but my computer was (indiscernible) and running at a rapid pace and it kicked me out, and I haven't logged back in.  If there are any kind of critical points in there that we should be bringing into the room, if somebody could just alert me.

 So let's -- We had the update from Anja on behalf of the NRIs with respect to their desires, their plans for the IGF.

 I would like to do the DCs as well.  So we have that discussion now, but I think the next question is whether we go through the day zero and the open forum events before we wrap up today or whether or not we start the morning with that.  So we can take that discussion.  And there's something nice about getting the overall program discussions and the overall lay of the land out, but I'm also conscious it's getting a little bit late and we would again be asking the transcribers and the AV folks to stay on.  So I will look to the MAG to kind of give some signals as to what they think is the most appropriate.

 But, Jutta, is it you who are going to kick off the discussion on dynamic coalitions?

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Of course, I think I can do that quickly.

 And first I need to apologize that I brought up the wish of the dynamic coalitions for a main session on the previous topic, I thought that was the time and not right now.

 So having said that, I could add that to the discussion whether it should be a thematic main session as it was done last year or main session of the dynamic coalitions only focusing on the dynamic coalitions' work.

 I do think what we did last year with the dynamic coalitions was a very good exercise, trying to tie the work of the dynamic coalitions to the sustainable development goals.  And that led us to a joint dynamic coalition session that was appreciated by many but not by all of the dynamic coalition members.

 One reason might have been that we only had 80 minutes, which was a bit of an overload for having all the dynamic coalition that took part and try to present their work and tie it to the SDGs.  And also we had the overarching theme of that main session.  So that might be different in case this year there is more time for a dynamic coalition session.

 Personally, I still think that it was a good exercise to try to find some commonalities in the work of the dynamic coalitions and to bring that forward also to the scene.

 We have discussed with the dynamic coalitions whether it would be better to have the joint session at the beginning where it could also be used for dynamic coalitions to advertise their individual sessions, then follow throughout the program of the IGF, or whether it could be the other way around and have the session at the end of the program.  And I do think it would be beneficial for the further dialogue of the dynamic coalitions if we could just see where it could be scheduled in the whole program, because then the dynamic coalitions could adapt to whether it's more like presenting the work that has been done or announcing that what should be done during the course of the four days.

 And with regard to the individual sessions of the dynamic coalitions, I would like to turn to Eleonora who has an overview on what proposals she's got from the -- 18, I think do we have now, or do we have 17?

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:   Thank you Jutta.  We have 18 DCs but we received 17 requests to hold sessions.  And all 17 are eligible, meaning all the 17 DCs who made the requests met their activity and reporting requirements over the last year.  And we actually have the list of those sessions displayed on the screens, but they're very tiny and difficult to read.

 I actually like seeing DCs listed all at once because it gives a good idea of the real range of -- or rainbow of issues that they cover.  And next to every DC name there's the title of their session.

 And, I mean, I hope it's also somewhat clear from the titles that these aren't just going to be sessions where DCs talk about themselves but they're going to be sharing their research, their ideas, and generating discussions around the topics that they cover.

 What's not on that list is the themes that most DCs indicated their sessions would be tied to.  I think 10 out of 17 chose the digital inclusion theme.  The rest are sort of evenly split among security and data governance.  So definitely we will expect DCs to be part of the reporting and process, too, for the thematic tracks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Eleanora, I think what's on the screen is the day zero events list.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Any comments, questions, on the day zero?  Or do we need to go back over the day zero main session request, if people aren't recalling it from earlier?  Of the DC main session request if people aren't recalling it from earlier?

 Is everybody set with the DC main session request, or would people like to hear it again?  I just don't want to rush through.  And, on the other hand, we don't need to beat something to death if we don't need to beat it to death either.

 What you just said when she started her comments was that she had covered the DC's position on the main session request earlier in the afternoon on another intervention.  And I just want to make sure that people feel that we're giving appropriate time to this discussion here, everybody recalls the discussion, and that we understand what the current request is.  

 So would people like to hear it again or are we okay?  I hear heads nodding okay and a few thumbs up.

 And now on the slide are the DC sessions.  We will wait just a moment and let everybody -- they're basically the DCs that we have.  We had two new ones this year, right?  Yes.  One on the dynamic coalition on domain name system issues.  And what was the other one?  Public access and libraries?  So the DC on sustainability of journalism and news media, which we heard about yesterday from one of the co-facilitators.

 Okay.  Then I guess we are square on that as I'm not hearing any further questions or further requests to bring that forward.

 Do we want to just quickly maybe introduce the day zero or the open forums?  Maybe the open forums quickly so that people know where to find it on the website, know it's there, and we can touch upon it quickly tomorrow morning once people have time to think about it?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  We can find the day zero on the day zero events on the IGF website, if we go to the IGF website, if we can, if they know.

 But you can follow on your computer as well.  Under "latest news," we have a list of all the proposals from the open forums, day zero events, DC sessions, and NRI sessions and the IGF village.

 So if you -- which one are we going on?  Day zero?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Whichever one you like.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  With the day zero events, that's more or less done.  We are -- as I mentioned before, we are able to accommodate all the requests, one from each organization.  There are some organizations that ask for two sessions, e.g., knowledge cafe.  

 We are going to -- if there's no objections, you know, from the MAG, we are going to contact them after this MAG meeting and tell them, please, can you please select one of them or they can merge the two sessions together.  They will only be given one slot.

 And then in doing that, we are able to fit in all the requests.  So basically I think the only question would be is there any objection to anybody receiving a day zero event.  But we are able to accommodate all of them.

 And if we go to the open forums or front page, if you just click, this is the list of the open forums.

 On the program template, at the moment, we only have 21 slots for the open forums.  And so barring the time selection, we'll only be able to accommodate 21 slots and what we're going to do, I think, is give preference to governments because governments are -- I mean, this is, of course, first looking at, you know, is it relevant, does it fit in, is it in line with the program theme because with the open forums, they were asked -- if you click on any one of them, they were asked which theme they fall under.  And that was also one comment that was made.  So we'll take that into consideration.

 And with all that, then we're going to, in fact, give a regional distribution for governments first because we are really trying to encourage governments to come to the IGF and have a session and tell us what they're doing in the Internet governance field.  And then, of course, the IGOs and international organizations.

 There are a few -- I'm sorry.  Since you're here, I might as well just say it -- like the IGF of Indonesia asking for an open forum, maybe you could consider merging it with a NRI session.  And there are a couple -- like, I think it was open forum Number 4, for instance, if you look at it, it's very thin on the ground and it's not -- in our estimation, not really in line with the current program and the current themes, what we're looking at.

 I mean, they're looking at -- yes, it is under cybersecurity.  But cybersecurity about information exchange between cause following the V2V scenario, that's I think a little bit too technical for the IGF.  And it's more -- looks to us more like a -- something that's better suited for another forum or another academic meeting.  So that will get the lowest priority, for instance.

 I think that's all.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Just as a quick, the day zero and the open forum events have traditionally been the responsibility of the secretariat.  But if you're coming in off the street and you walk into an IGF meeting, you don't know what the difference is.  You look at it and it feels like it's all the IGF program.  So the MAG has the last few years taken a look at all of those and the secretariat has used the MAG as kind of a consultation, sort of sanity check body.  So, I mean, that's the process the secretariat ran through this year as well, which is why Chengetai said if there's something that someone in this room objects to or thinks shouldn't be there, that is feedback you should provide to the secretariat.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  And, also, this year it's -- also, it's going to be clearer what is the workshop program, what is the main focus of the IGF because they are in set rooms.  The open forum program and the dynamic coalitions, et cetera, are in other rooms.  So it is more clearer for people this year.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Could you quickly talk about the plan for the lightning and flash sessions just so we get that?  Since that was a big topic earlier.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'll hand it over to Eleonora.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Thank you, Chengetai.

 So typically we actually manage the lightning sessions after the workshop selection has concluded because they emerge from nonselected workshop proposals.  

 So the way these reviews have been conducted in the past is priority has been given to workshop proposals that were not selected and were short to begin with, that had some indicators on them that were promising in the evaluation, like, they discussed an emerging topics or a -- or a topic that even if the proposal originally requested more time looked like it could be condensed into a 20-minute presentation.  

 And then, of course, we would work with those proposers on reformatting the content for a lightning session.  And the resulting sessions depends on this review and also the willingness of those proposers to actually take on that kind of very informal format.  

 Lightning sessions are held not in rooms but usually in a public space at the venue that gets some foot traffic so people walking by stop by and stand or sit and listen to the presentation.

 So that is something that we'll have to start looking at beginning, yeah, next week or the next few weeks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Eleonora.

 Just quickly on the newcomers, I believe we agreed earlier that we would move the newcomers' session up a little bit earlier in the morning so it wasn't competing with any of the topping or introductory sessions.

 We still need, I think, some work or another ad hoc team to actually pick up.  We've had MAG members in the past who were really excited about the newcomers and supporting, took responsibility for drafting a newcomers session.  

 I don't know if we have MAG members that have expressed interest in that this year or if that's something the secretariat is driving.  But that is an additional open item, I'm guessing, from the faces around the room here.

 Let's pick that up tomorrow.  Maybe we can think about what we need for newcomer sessions.  Maybe we're a little bit more clear on the topping and tailing.

 I think we will stop now.  Tomorrow -- we've gotten through the agenda for today.  Tomorrow the bulk of the day is on main session activities and preparations.  We have a session later in the afternoon which was to kind of cover some of the multiyear work programs and IGF outputs and reporting mechanisms.

 I think the IGF output and reporting mechanisms, some of that I think we can pick up in the tailing, the ad hoc working group we have going on, the reports and communications as a logical next step for that.  So we have time for that.  

 I'm hopeful that we actually get to both those topics, the multiyear work program and the IGF outputs tomorrow afternoon.  I think the priority has to be on the main sessions.  

 And we'll come back in the morning at 10:00.  Eleonora and I will work on a list of the kind of topics and suggestions we heard here.  So that will be in your email box tonight.

 And if we wanted to, tomorrow we could even potentially do a couple of small breakout groups if we wanted to kind of advance roughly some of the -- so we'll do a little bit of work to prep that discussion tonight.  But just come tomorrow prepared to work on significantly advancing the main topics -- main session planning.

 Again, tomorrow, same schedule as today.  10:00 to 1:00, 3:00 to 6:00.

 Thank you very much, everybody.  Thanks for staying with yet another very full day.  I think we made a lot of progress.

 [ Applause ]

 Thank you to the transcribers and the audiovisual team.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  One organizational point, I would have to ask you to leave the building today before 7:00.  That would be really, really welcome for everybody who is concerned with security.

 >> And without any more alarms like last night.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Is the door we came in --

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  The door you came in is open until 7:00 sharp.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, everybody.  Transcribers and the AV team, thank you.

 

 

  

 

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2019 Third Open Consultations and MAG Meeting in Berlin, Germany, from 5 to 7 June 2019. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

***

 IGF Third Open Consultations and MAG Meeting -  Day 2

 6 June 2019

 

 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We'll get started in just a moment.  And for those of you that are participating online, we're just waiting for everybody to make their final way into the room here and to get setup.

 Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to the second day of meetings, the first day of the MAG meeting.

 If we could all take our seats.

 Okay.  Thank you very much.

 Just a reminder, we're using the speaking queue, and you can get the link to the speaking queue on our front page.  And also, it's going to be put into the Webex room.

 There's a transcript, and the meeting is being recorded, and it's going to be archived in YouTube.

 With that, I'll hands the meeting over to Lynn to start.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you.  And welcome back, everybody, to those that are participating online and that are here in the room.  I think we had a good day yesterday, although we're still trying to find ways to improve the Open Consultation.  So we will take on board a lot of the comments that were made yesterday and work that up into a recommendation for future Open Consultations.  I think it's important that we kind of document that and leave it as a record as this is our last physical face-to-face MAG meeting and our last physical Open Consultation this year.  But we'll make sure that those comments and other suggestions for improvement are taken forward.

 I'm actually going to keep my remarks really short today.  We'll hit -- The next two days are really fairly serious working sessions, both in terms of finalizing the program and specifically one of the larger pieces of work is focused on the main sessions.

 I think Deniz from UNDESA has some opening remarks as does Daniela Bronstrup, so we'll turn to those and then we'll come back and move into the agenda.

 Before I do that, though, we should approve the agenda.  So the agenda, again, is posted for some time.  The only change from the agenda that is posted is we are moving the Best Practice Forum session that we didn't get to yesterday to the slot that starts at 10:30 this morning.  So we will do that and then we will move into the larger set of discussions.

 Are there any comments, suggestions, or any requests for AOB?

 Veni.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:   It's in the AOB section.  It's June 6 today, and it's a special day for one of the people, members of the MAG.  So I think we need to give her credit and wish her a happy birthday.  It's Susan.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Happy birthday, Susan.

 Any other suggestions, edits, AOB?

 If not, I'll move that the agenda is approved and wait a short time to see if there are any objections.

 Not seeing any, I'll call the agenda approved, and we'll immediately move to Dr. Bronstrup for some opening comments.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:   Thank you very much, Lynn, and good morning, everybody.  I hope you took advantage of the summer night in Berlin yesterday because this night the weather will be quite stormy and rainy so you get the full range of the continental climate in Berlin these days.

 Maybe just one reflection from my side.  When I thought again a little bit what we have heard yesterday during the Open Consultations, I reflected a little bit on the question of how could we strengthen the IGF, because that's what we would like to do.  And some mentioned yesterday that -- well, the (indiscernible) point of the IGF is that it's an open multistakeholder discussion forum, and, indeed, that's true in my view, and equally true is that there are a lot of other bodies who are dealing with Internet governance issues.  We heard about that yesterday in the evening.  And there are also a lot of, and maybe increasing, decision-making bodies on Internet governance issues.  I'm personally involved in the G7 and G20 discussions.  There is a G20 meeting upcoming up this weekend which is also dealing with Internet governance issues.  And the question that was raised yesterday and that I have also in mind is how can make sure that we bring the discussions and solutions we have inside the Internet Governance Forum to these other bodies, and especially to the decision-making bodies.  So when we discuss today the program of the IGF, maybe it's good to have that in mind, how we can bridge this gap that I also see, and how can we transfer our discussion, our outputs, in a way, to these other bodies.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Daniela, and I agree very much with your observations.  And hopefully we'll keep that in mind as we actually progress through the next two days' work.

 Deniz.

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:   Good morning, everyone.  Deniz Susar from UNDESA.

 I just want to make a short statement as well, because most of the things were said yesterday during the Open Consultation.

 So maybe two things to highlight.  We have made official announcement yesterday, the formal announcement, about the next host country.  So our Undersecretary-General accepted the offer from Poland, and we will be working with colleagues from Polish government in the next months to start planning the next meeting in 2020.

 And the second thing is I think most of you know about the report of the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation which will be launched on Monday.  And when the report is handed over the Secretary-General, the mandate of the task team will be over, but there will be a small team in the SG's office to do the consultations and follow-up with the recommendations.  And also on Monday, in New York, there will be a briefing to member states in the afternoon.

 So I think those are the updates from me, Lynn, so I can hand it over to you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Deniz.

 What we've tried to do is make sure that there was little redundancy between the introductions that were made yesterday and here today with the position that it's more important that we actually make a lot of the formal announcements in the Open Consultation where the community is actually participating fully.  So there were more fulsome announcements and more fulsome introductions yesterday, and the Polish government was thanked very much for their interest and application in hosting the IGF.  And just go briefly on record here with the thanks as well, but that was covered quite thoroughly yesterday, as was, of course, continued appreciation for the German government for all of their support for the IGF this year, for the MAG, and certainly for some of the extra activities as well with respect to supporting, in particular, participation from the Global South.

 So with that, I think we'd like to get right to work.  The first item is a briefing on the state of preparations for the annual meeting by the host country where they have, particularly, responsibility for items such as the high-level leaders meeting, the parliamentary meeting, and the opening sessions.

 So we'll turn the floor to Rudolf.  Rudolf Gridl.  Rudolf, you have the floor.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:   Yes, thank you very much, Lynn.

 Concerning the high-level leaders meeting, we are on a very good track.  The invitations to the ministers from our minister have gone out two weeks ago through the permanent representation at the United Nations in New York.  So all countries should have received the invitation by now.

 The business leaders have been contacted worldwide also by letter from our minister a little bit later, perhaps one week ago, ten days ago.  So concerning on where these leaders are located, they might have just received the invitations.

 One thing that is important, in the letter that was -- letters that were sent out, there were some very challenging dates for reply.  The 31st of May.  This is due to the whole process of drafting a letter, getting it signed by the minister, getting it then to the perm rep, and so forth.  So these are no-exclusion deadlines.  You can, of course, still confirm or your ministers or leaders can still confirm also at a later stage, and we would be glad and happy to receive as many as the leaders here as possible.

 On the track technical community and civil society, the invitations will go out very soon.

 We are planning to have the session during the whole morning and a little bit into the afternoon of day zero.  So that will be from the morning until after lunch.  And after having heard many of you and having a lot of input from the stakeholders, we are now heading towards some plenary segment, and afterwards having discussions, not stakeholder group by stakeholder group, but issue by issue, the three themes -- data, inclusion, and security, I'm shortening the titles -- but in a multistakeholder format.  So that the state high-level stakeholders could discuss amongst themselves and then come back to the plenary and take stock.

 Of course there will also be the possibility to have bilateral talks in the margins for all of them.  There are enough spaces available.  We have, I think, in total 11 rooms for bilateral talks throughout the whole IGF.  So whenever people feel the need to have a bilateral talk with anybody else, they will most probably find a time and space to have a quiet and thorough discussion.

 This is perhaps for the high-level segment.  The parliamentary meeting, which is the second issue on the agenda here, you heard a lot of it already yesterday from Mr.  Jarzombeck.  The parliament is in the process of drafting the invitations.  I hope that they will go out quite soon.  And we are assisting the parliament, but of course it is in the domain of our legislatures to decide on who to invite and how to invite.  We are very eager to have a broad representation of parliamentarians, and that's why, together with UNDESA, we have set aside a certain amount of the -- of the funds that we -- that we have put to the availability of the DESA for the Global South for -- dedicated to parliamentarians.  So there will be a parliamentarian travel expenses fund and so that we will have a broad representation from all over -- from all over the world.

 It will take place on day four in the morning.  It will be in the form of a -- we hope that it will be in the form of a main session because we would need to have the full translation for this session, supposedly.  And of course -- and this is through for the parliamentarians and high-level representatives, they are all being invited to the whole IGF.  They are being invited for the dedicated sessions but also to assist other segments, other parts of the IGF so that they are -- so that they feel welcome and that they can spend as much time in interesting sessions as possible.

 That brings me to the opening sessions.  That will take place in the afternoon of day one because of the availability of the chancellor.  There will be an opening segment with the chancellor, and we do not know yet which high-ranking -- other high-ranking representatives from stakeholder groups.  We are still hoping for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to assist and come to Berlin as he did to -- as he did in Paris, and we are counting on the support of our colleagues in the U.N. system to make this possible.

 After this first opening segment, there will be time and space to have two or three, we do not yet know exactly, two or three high-level panels that should perhaps be centered around the three themes, but also around other issues and should be, in our view, diverse and give a good representation of the whole IGF community, geographically, gender-wise and also all the other diversity aspects.  That is very important to us.

 That sums up for the moment state of the plannings.  Happy to answer your questions, to receive any comments from you.

 Lynn, over to you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you very much, Rudolf.  The floor is open for questions or comments.

 Maybe we'll wait to see if anybody has any comments.  I have just sort of a couple of questions, maybe, on the high-level leaders meeting in terms of making it really beneficial and feel that there's an intent from us to them.  I'm wondering if it would be possible to do even just a high-level presentation of the three thematic working groups, maybe following something like maybe the flowcharts and maybe something that quickly identifies the major policy questions that are coming up through each one of those flowcharts so there's something sort of substantive that could then feed into those three separate working groups that you have, and maybe there's even a package of materials that could be prepared from the various workshop sessions and any of the background papers that could be provided to them as well.  So again, that they really understand that -- we hear often the IGF is a talking shop.  It's not a talking shop.  There's a great deal of substance in it.

 So maybe there's a way to expose a little more deeply the discussions that are taking place in those thematic working groups over the two days.  And I don't know if there's even an opportunity to maybe have this as a suggestion or a request.  These are some of the topics that would be really helpful if they were discussed in those three separate groups and that that then could feedback into the IGF itself.  Just something to make a substantive link between those three breakout sessions, for lack of a better word, that you've scheduled and the work of the IGF that's taking place over the next four days.  I don't know what you had sort of envisioned for how they would be structured or moderated, but I think there's a lot of information we could actually provide and really with a focus on trying to tie those together.

 Let me just leave that there and go to the queue.

 We have Nebojsa.  Nebojsa, you have the floor.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   Thank you, Chair.  Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government group.

 Obviously, hosts are doing very well, and I congratulate you for all these efforts.  I have one really practical question when it comes to the invitation that Rudolf mentioned that have been sent.  If they are sent to a specific ministry, if they are sent to the executive body or if they are sent to just on the name, perhaps.  How was -- So that I can actually track it, where is it and to see if it reached really a person who will be interested.

 Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:   As in many countries, there are many ministers claiming the responsibility for, let's say, digital issues.  We could not, as a host country, decide which of those ministers we wanted to invite.  So what we did was really to have an invitation, a generic invitation to the countries with a verbal note from our mission specifying this was for the minister in your country responsible for digital issues.  So no name.  And then upon the mission in New York and the foreign office in your countries to distribute it to the relevant ministry.

 So the way would go through the mission in New York, to the foreign office, and from there to the responsible ministry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Christina, or Christine you have the floor.

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:   Thank you, chair.  This is Christine Arida, speaking on behalf of the Egyptian government, former host of the IGF.

 I have a couple of questions.  First off, I appreciate all the information that was provided on the high-level leaders meeting and the parliamentarian session and the opening.  I wanted to know whether the high-level leaders meeting is going to feed in a way into the IGF in a sense.  So are we expecting like some points to be taken up to maybe the high-level panel after the opening on the first -- on the day one?  

 Also, I think it is important that we keep the format of the discussion so that we do not have statements read, because I think we've passed that and I think this will be most important.  If we have really a dynamic discussion in the room, we might get more out of it.

 One other thing about the parliamentarian session.  So in order for people from the Global South to be able to go for the funding deadline, I think the invitations need to come out in due time, if possible, for it to be able for us to mobilize in our countries the parliamentarian to actually go for this and go for maybe for applying for the funding.

 Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yeah, of course.  Thank you very much.  We definitely want a dynamic discussion and some vivid, lively format, not a readout of 100 statements in a row.  We definitely don't want to go down this road.  

 And that's why we thought this breakout session in a multistakeholder format would be a good idea because then you have -- automatically you get a little bit out of this, let's say, classical United Nations reading-out-statements-after-statement format.  You have a more diverse panel with people from the civil society who are used to spark discussions.  Ministers can come in, business representatives as well.  

 So we will also try to make sure by giving specific, let's say, roles to specific persons in these settings, let's say antagonist positions, for instance, like two positions starting and then a discussion can come from that.  

 We can at the moment not yet specify much more because we do not yet know who exactly will be the persons in the room, but that's definitely the idea.  Of course, the idea is also to bring the discussion or to feed into the IGF.  That's why we thought at the end of these breakout sessions there will be one or two persons, even more -- we will have to see -- kind of wrapping up the sessions and being rapporteurs to, first, the plenary of the high-level meeting.  But then again, once this is done, we could easily and should easily feed these results into the IGF discussions.

 And the parliamentarians, yes, I see the point.  We will have to talk to DESA to adjust -- to adjust to the invitations.  That's an important point, yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, both Christine and Rudolf.

 Natasa, you have the floor.

 >>NATASA GLAVOR:  Hello, everyone.  My name is Natasa Glover.  I come from government stakeholder group from Croatia.  I have one question.

 You mentioned that there will be two or three high-level panels organized, probably focused on three themes.  So I wonder whether those themes are the conference themes like digital inclusion and safety, security, stability, resilience.  And what was the third one?  Yeah, data management, data governance.  Or those are some other themes that will be decided yet?

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Thanks for asking.  There will be some kind of overarching theme for the plenary that is where is the Internet going, so looking back 30 years of World Wide Web and 20 years of Internet governance structures, and looking to the future what is it about the open, free, inclusive human rights Internet.  So that's an overarching question that will be discussed.

 But the breakout questions will be along the lines of the three themes that we have identified here.  I was just shortening them by saying data inclusion and security; but in reality, it's data governance, inclusion, security, safety, resilience, and something else.  Stability, yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Natasa, Rudolf.

 Miguel, you have the floor.

 >>MIGUEL CANDIA:  Thank you very much, Chair, and good morning, everybody.  Again, thank you to the government of Germany for having us here in such style.  I feel very comfy here.  Thank you very much for that.

 It's a small question regarding the high-level segments of the panels.  How do we envisage the participations of the ministers that might -- may come?  We're inviting ministers from all over the world?  And in my experience -- I'm sorry, I'm Miguel Candia, government MAG member.  I should have started by that, sorry, for the record.

 In my experience, the ministers normally ask you what are they going to do when they travel.  And it's -- it's better to have a proper answer such as, "You will be a part of something."  And then the question is easy:  How do we envisage that in the sense of giving some participation to as many people as possible in the high-level rank?  Thank you.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yeah, thank you for this question.  That's not only a question of ministers.  It's also a question of CEOs and high-ranking representatives from other organizations.  

 We will try to organize this meeting in a way that every high-ranking person gets a role.  I can't tell you more at the moment because we have to adjust.  But, of course, people of this stature, they need an active role and they will get it.  I can't tell you what exactly, but they will get it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So this is where the German government gets extremely busy over the next few months after we've gone through the workshop submissions.

 As people consider whether or not there are any more questions, if I could just come back again to the high-level leaders meeting because this is a really significant opportunity.  We have not had the high-level leaders meeting the last two years because of the timing.  They both would have been on a Sunday.  One of them was not really possible in Geneva, and last year there were competing gets for the Paris Peace Forum and the centennial observation and that sort of thing.  This is really an opportunity to set a new bar and a new process.

 And there's two kind of threads I'd like to pick.  One is I think it would be a really good opportunity for the IGF community to do some marketing materials that make it clear what all the component pieces of the IGF ecosystem are.  So we could obviously put things in about the NRIs.  We could put things in about the BPFs.  We could talk about the CENB, connecting and enabling the next billion, four-year major intersessional policy project that we had.

 But with a view to -- I'm not looking at a huge compendium, but with a view to talking about the significant activities we've done.  And I think we could also maybe start up a crowdsource database of all the anecdotal evidence where something happened at an IGF event or process actually fed into another substantive part of a discussion we had yesterday.

 But I think that would rely on the IGF community to pull that set of materials together.  Of course, the question always then is we need resources to pull it together and sort of funding to present it.  But maybe there's even an opportunity to do something, if I understand part of the proposal yesterday which there was maybe some funding that supported kind of a Wikimedia/Wikipedia awareness thing around the IGF.  Maybe there's a way to pull some of these together and take some of those kind of resources and funds and support multiple efforts with them.  They're both trying to collect the same information, the same sort of profile of what we're doing and also focus on impact.

 So I'd like any other comments or thoughts on whether or not that's of interest as a possible, better ideas.  

 And then, secondly, really would like to come back -- we didn't have time to discuss this beforehand.  But I think we're really well-aligned in terms of really wanting to make the discussions in those three breakout groups of the high-level meetings really substantive.

 What we hear all the time from senior-level policymakers is:  What difference is the IGF making?  What am I taking away from it?  How substantive has this discussion been I just participated in?  What's it going to impact?  What it's doing?  What it's helping?  If we could find some way to understand what some of the key topics were, focus in on a couple of key policy areas with again some supporting papers beforehand, that kind of informs the discussion, provides enough leadership that hopefully we have a concrete discussion but not one that restricts whatever might come up in the meeting or there.  That also is going to require some preparation, and clearly it would require support from the German government.  It would also require support from MAG members, particularly those that were engaged deeply in the thematic working group preparations because we would be looking for you to say it would be really helpful or would really help tie together the discussion if we'd had a discussion on this particular topic ahead of the week.

 Again, I just throw that out.  I mean, I'm really trying to -- to some of your comments earlier, Daniela, which is how do we actually improve the IGF?  How do we respond to some of the suggestions we're getting for improvements?  

 And we all think there's a lot of really good knowledge and value that comes out of the IGF, so how do we actually make that known to them?  And how do we actually have that group of people feel that they are participating deeply and contributing to the work of the IGF?  Because I think that will engage them for the future, and it can't just be another discussion and another set of panel discussions because I don't think that's going to move it to the next step.

 Daniela.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Yes, thank you, Lynn.

 In fact, that's a little bit what we thought as well and that was also one of the reasons why we changed a little bit the idea that we had before because we thought that would make sense to show and let feel the high-ranking politicians how important it is to have that multistakeholder approach.  And that's why we tried to bring together to the breakout sessions the different stakeholder groups and then discuss in-depth policy questions around the three themes that we have circled around now.

 And what we are trying to do is, indeed, to have papers in advance with policy questions.  So let people know what we are still working on that, and we are getting help already fortunately.  So that's the idea.

 When we know better who is really coming, that will make things easier as well.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I just want to underline, too, it's a high-level leaders meeting with leaders from all the stakeholder groups.  So this isn't focused just on governments.  It's also if we get high-level private sector in, high-level civil society, high-level technical community, they also, I think, have the same considerations.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  We even call it in our internal papers the high-level multistakeholder meeting.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Right.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  So you could replace "leaders" by "multistakeholder."

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Either one is fine.  I think they're both excellent.

 Miguel, was that an old hand up or were you looking for the floor again?

 Any comments, reflections?  Good idea?  Bad idea?  Too much work?  You all have a lot of coffee in front of you, so there's no excuse for silence.

 Okay.  So let's leave that discussion there then.  And I think there's probably a request also for within DESA to really understand what kind of resources we might be able to marshal to support in particular what I would call some of the outreach activities.  I think it would be great if we had a really sort of sleek, concise document that talked about the various pieces of the IGF ecosystem, that talked about it not just from a here's what all the pieces are and what their charter and mission is but really some concrete examples of some of the impact and things.

 So if we could get the resources from -- within the community, maybe even with some potential contributions from some organizations to support that effort, we'd really be looking possibly for some additional support from DESA as well.  And I don't know what's there in terms of maybe printing or materials.  Not meaning to put you on the hook now, but maybe if you can just keep that in mind.

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:  Sure.  We are ready to support.  An outreach, as you know, is also one of the things that we discuss with IGF secretariat in our regular meetings every week.  So we are ready to support.  And we had a great collaboration with the German mission and Rudolf's team for the side event.

 We have printed these brochures, and I think we reached out to some diplomats in New York, and we should continue.  So we are ready to support.

 And one idea was maybe in the coming -- in the coming months to get some intern to help us only with this task until the meeting.  So, yeah.

 And, also, based on our discussions, if needed, maybe we could also bring like an individual, a supportive consultant, for that.  That was on paper.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I'm sure there are a few community members that would be helpful -- be very interested in helping to review any of those materials as well and ensure we're picking up all the key points, too.  So if we can help and help provide some additional support, if you do bring in an intern, I'm sure you will find support for that.

 Well, let's move to the next item then, which is the best practice forum discussion from the previous day.  And there what we wanted to do is to have brief updates on the best practice forums and their current status.  And then, of course, with every discussion, are there things we should consider that could further strengthen them or further extend their impact.

 We might also keep in mind the fact we have a number of main session slots to fill.  If there is anything that's triggered out of these discussions that might be worthy of a further outing, this might be the right territory for that.

 Who wants to go first?  Otherwise, we will go in the order of the agenda.

 Ben is putting his hand up to go first.  Ben Wallis, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.  So they're not in alphabetical order but in hand order.  I'm the MAG co-convener for the best practice forum on cybersecurity.  So I'll just give an update on how far we've got with the work this year and the direction we're headed as we work towards the annual meeting in November.

 So just to recap, the aim for this year is for the BPF to identify best practices related to the implementation of different elements that are contained within various international agreements and initiatives on cybersecurity.  So that could be picking out particular principles or policy approaches that we see within a number of different international agreements.

 The BPF is following an approach it took last year of developing a background paper which will be provided as a reference document alongside the call for contributions and then also included as part of the final report.

 And there's a volunteer group working on this paper that's working to identify and analyze relevant initiatives and agreements and then seeking to find horizontal overlapping elements, those that appear in more than one agreement that could be the focus of our work this year.

 Got background papers splitting the agreements into three buckets.  So there are agreements that are made within individual stakeholder groups such as the Cyber Tech Accord, which is an industry initiative or the various directives and declarations that are made by regional groupings of governments.

 There are agreements struck across multiple stakeholder groups, so obviously the Paris call is one of those.  And we heard from Wolfgang yesterday that the GCSC, the Global Commission on Security and Cyberspace which has its own package of norms.

 And the third bucket are those U.N. initiatives that we've also been hearing about, the EWG and the GGE.  And that was something that the MAG -- when I put the proposal for the work this year, MAG members asked that the BPF look in particular at those and make sure those are included.

 And we're conscious that the work in those two areas is just beginning, but we're definitely finding a way to include those in the work being done this year.

 We've also established a separate volunteer group to understand how legal frameworks support or underpin agreements and initiatives and also the extent to which national and regional cybersecurity strategies mention the applicability of international law to cyberspace.

 The call for contributions will be put out later this month as well as being targeted broadly to the Internet governance community as normal.  There are a few specific groups that we will target directly.

 We will try to reach out to the organizations behind the agreements and initiatives that we've identified in our background paper as well as the signatories to those agreements and initiatives, because we are interested in whether they've identified best practices for fulfilling the commitments in those agreements, and also whether there are any mechanisms in place for keeping track of the extent to which their signatories have acted in response to their commitments.

 Another group we are interested in getting input is from the NRIs, and we have just started exploring with the secretariat the best way that we might do this.

 The drafting of the BPF report will take place over the summer once the call for contributions has concluded.  And then we will reconvene the BPF in September to discuss the draft report as well as planning the session that we're going to be holding at IGF 2019.

 The aim is to publish the draft report in early October, about six weeks before the IGF meeting, to give the community time to reflect and consult internally on the draft report before coming to Berlin and providing any final views on it there during our discussion.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.

 Are there any comments or questions?

 Carlos.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Good morning.  Carlos Afonso.  Maybe I can speak a bit about the BPF from the local content.  We are trying, as you probably know, not only to emphasize creation and the formative aspects of producing content but also preserving content.  And this understood, in the most general sense of preserving material when -- material historical assets of all kinds, medias of all kinds, et cetera, archives, et cetera.  And we have very little activity so far in the list, but we are having, outside of the list, some activities, and I can say that the Latin American IGF, which will happen in August, will probably open a session to discuss the local content creation and preservation.  And we are in dialogue with them to organize this.

 The Brazilian IGF in October will also use the information from this BPF to discuss the theme as well.

 We have now about 26 or 30 members in the mailing list, but there is very little activity.  I hope that it picks up in the next few weeks, because already accumulated some experiences which can be posted in the list and stimulate the people to bring their experiences as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Carlos.

 I think it's a really important area.  I know when Carlos first triggered this, it was based on the very sad state of a fire in Brazil which had destroyed much of the, actually, museum, so there's a really real imperative to doing this work.  So....

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  May I?  The incredible thing is that one of the richest persons in Brazil, among those guys with billions of dollars, donated about $50 million to reconstruct Notre-Dame and donated zero cents to reconstruct the national museum.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Carlos, you may want to -- maybe we can just go back with the secretariat and make sure they correct the transcript here because there were a couple of -- couple of "indiscernibles."

 Are there comments or questions on the local content?  Carlos, is there anything you or the other leaders need from this MAG in terms of perhaps increasing the activity in the working group -- in the BPF?

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Yes, is the case is of a very rich family in Brazil, I can nominate because of Chatham House Rules, and the church in question is Notre-Dame in France.  Okay?

 Let's see if it appears.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We'll do it offline.  I think you're saying it's a sad state because, in fact, the donation wasn't made to reconstruct the national museum which was damaged through a fire in Brazil.  But again, that was part of the imperative of triggering this BPF in the first instance.

 Carlos, is there anything you're looking for from the MAG in terms of helping this BPF be a little more active or advance the topics?

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:  Probably it would be very helpful to have yet another facilitator because I know that Giacomo of the EDU is very busy and it's not easy for him and even for many, given the work we have in our countries and organizations, to pay more attention to that.  Another facilitator would be very, very helpful.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And of course the BPFs are not restricted to MAG members.  They are a community, and, in fact, are meant to be a great vehicle for actually reaching out to other organizations and get them engaged in specific issues that matter to them, whereas maybe they might not have been immediately attracted to Internet governance as a topic.

 So I would ask MAG members to please spend a few minutes and think about whether or not there are any other organizations that you think would be deeply interested in this BPF and would actively participate and support it and/or whether or not you would recommend any other potential leaders or participants in the BPF.

 And we closed out of the security BPF by (indiscernible).  I think the same thing goes there.  If people are aware of organizations that you think would be interested in the work that would be interested in participating or supporting the work, then please let the leaders in the BPF know.  Again, these BPFs have several objectives.  One was certainly to allow very substantive ongoing work to happen on a small number of important consequential topics, and then second, it was a great opportunity to pull in other people that maybe had more narrow interests than, again, perhaps might initially be attracted to the subject of Internet governance.

 So it's a great opportunity for people and governments that are engaged in these issues to really engage in an effort that's really concrete, really tangible, specific deliverables and has a really valuable, useful deliverable at the end.  So please, spend a few minutes and think through your own networks and contacts, and let's do what we can to further strengthen the BPFs.

 We have the BPF on gender and access.  Would you be willing to go next?  And then Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence is coming, so just make sure everybody is ready.

 Chenai, you're going to speak on gender and access?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Excellent.  Thank you.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Good morning, everyone.  I will be my on behalf of the third BPF for gender and access, with my co-chairs being Raquel and Maria.  And so far we have had to think about two, three calls with the community working on the BPF on gender.  And our main focus for this year is going to be specifically looking at gender and access, what happens after access specifically for the women -- for the inclusion of women into the digital economy.

 Thus far, we've worked on picking out what the different topics of the main session would be at the end of the day for the BPF.  Looking -- For example, we've looked at trust in terms of access to the Internet and the risks of it as well as the participation in the digital economy and the future of work, and the skills that are needed to ensure that, from a gender perspective, people would be able to optimally participate in the Internet ecosystem.  Our main aim is to come out with policy recommendations that will be taken on board going forward.

 We -- in terms of engagement, we've looked at specific outreach working with the HLPDC and other U.N. agencies, and also looking into the women's groups that have worked on economic growth and output, as well as trying to map the stakeholders that would be going forward.  And one of the questions that had been raised from the constituency which, if it's not already been communicated to us, would have been the consultant for the BPF who would be working on the project.  Just an update -- there was a requested update from their side.  But I think all is well from our side, and we will probably be putting out a call for volunteers as well to be part of -- from the IGF community and potentially working out with the -- working with the working group on outreach and engagement as well to get more people to participate in the BPF on gender and access.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.

 Are there any comments, questions, suggestions?

 Chenai, is there anything you would like to ask the MAG or the community for in terms of for their support?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yeah.  I think -- So the first question have been around the consultants, just to get an update on that.  But I think in terms of the MAG, across the different working groups and the dynamic coalitions to actually see if there is an opportunity, in particular I think maybe with the BPF that's working on AI, because we will be looking at the future of work and what it means for women, from a gender perspective, to participate in a vastly automated economic growth situation.  And also if there's anyone who would be interested to contributing from the different stakeholder perspective.  The gender issue does affect everyone across the board so I think it would be great to get different input.  And I think our main focus is looking at it from an after-access perspective, which I think impacts on everyone, what happens when you're actually connected and how does that enable you to participate and what are the risks -- what are the risks that one is likely to face that would impact negatively on participating, which I think works well very much into the theme that has been proposed -- not proposed -- the theme that the meeting will be running on, One Net, One Vision, One World.  What does it really mean from a gender perspective to be participating in that one net, one world, one vision.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.

 Let me ask Chengetai if he does have an update on the consultants, which is what was requested.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   One has been -- the contract is signed so one is working already.  The other consultant -- sorry, that's with a...

 Yeah, security.  And for local content access and gender, we are still going through the paperwork.  We had a little bit of difficulty because the consultant we wanted was already in the U.N. system doing another project so we had to wait for that to finish and to close out.  So that's done now and so she should be on board before the end of this month.  Yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Let's hope so.  That would be halfway through the year.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Having got an early start on the MAG last year, to be appointing consultants six, seven months later, we need to find a way to move that process along.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   This one is because you can't have two contracts, in, the U.N. system, and the contractors even travel.  So if you are traveling to a conference, you can't be hired for anything else, you know.  So it's a bit -- it's a quirk of the U.N. system.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Can I just push back and say there are always reasons.  It still doesn't -- it still doesn't resolve the fact that it's many, many months later and we're still without a consultant for three of the BPFs, which are some of the most significant output that we do.  So if we can just think through the process a little bit and see what we can do to move it forward next year, I think that won helpful.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   We can't change the rules.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   We can't change the rules but then we can change the consultants.  If the difference is we get a consultant six months earlier because we get somebody else in, that's a different solution to the same process.  I'm not suggesting we change the U.N. rules.  I'm suggesting we actually pay attention to the timing of our own processes here, and we launch appropriate kind of consultant and engagement processes to get people in in time.

 We're now in the process of maybe they'll be here by the end of the month for three out of our four BPFs, just at the start of the summer period in the northern hemisphere with an IGF coming up soon. 

 So we need to find a way to get ahead of these processes.  Every year it's a late appointment.

 So again, I'm not suggesting we change U.N. rules.  I'm suggesting we change our process for engaging consultants and try to find a way to get them early in the year.  

 Maricela, you have the floor.

 >>MARCIELA MUNOZ:   Thank you, Lynn, and good morning, colleagues.  I just wanted to congratulate Chenai and the group for the fantastic group they are doing.  And since we have been talking about building bridges, I was just curious about whether you have been able to establish contact with this special group that works within ITU on gender issues and closing the gender digital gap.  They also work with the trade coalition and U.N. Women and others.  So it will be fantastic to establish also links with their work and the work they have been able to advance and see if we can make it more visible and also see if those outcomes can also help us strengthen and enhance our work.

 And as a MAG member, I just would like to humbly concur with your comments, Lynn, regarding the need to speed up certain processes so we have the adequate support for substantive discussions on time and in a manner that we are able to basically gain, you know, the advice and the important support that we, you know, thought we will have in a timely manner for our work as well.  I think that's super important.  So I just wanted to add my voice to that recommendation and feedback.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maricela.  I think you're talking about the ITU Equals group, which I don't know if anybody from the BPF wants to talk to that, but I know we have worked with them in the past.

 Raquel, did you want to come in?  Or Chenai?

 I can't see back that far.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  I think with the equals group, some of us in our individual capacity have actually engaged with them.  And I think they could be part of BPF, but Raquel could confirm.  Definitely there's context there as well with -- I think it's called "She Trades" from the World Bank, especially looking at the future.  We've also been -- I think individuals have engaged with them.  They definitely would like to come on board and cross the bridges.  

 I think one group that's specific also is the WIEGO that has done a lot of work, women in the informal sector and in trade and economic growth.  They haven't exactly participated in these spaces.  That's, of course, once again, crossing over a bridge that I think in the beginning it was about bringing in other people, other people not necessarily participating in the Internet space but actually dealing with the issues that are cross-cutting.  So I think that's definitely something that the group is thinking about.

 We're also going to be working with the Feminist Internet Research Network that was set up by APC and IGRC so we also have the different perspective within the groups.  So it's got a lot of diverse people engaging with it, and hopefully other MAG members from other groups will also join who might not have been working on gender before.  So it's kind of like a call to other people to actually also come in on this one.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chenai.

 Any further comments or questions on that BPF before we go to the last one?  

 Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Just to compliment -- thank you, Lynn.  To also concur with your comments regarding the importance of having the consultant as soon as we can.  Being in the work of the BPF for the past three years now, it's really important to have the support in an early stage now that we are almost finished with the part of the workshop selection and so on.

 This is the next big sprint within the MAG work.  And we've done already the work we could with the meetings and shaping this document collaboratively.

 Luckily, we have support from the community and from members that are really willing -- nonMAG members and MAG members willing to put this forward.  But to have the consultant to streamline and really push the work forward, it's going to be important.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Raquel.  

 Maria, Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Only as a final complimenting.  I'm Maria Paz representing civil society, also co-facilitating the gender BPF.

 In order to give you more logistic approach of where we are in the process of the work of the BPF, we have had so far two meetings.  We're in the process of feeding this collaborative document my colleagues were mentioning.  We aim to identify subtopics of work in this broad topic that Chenai described so well at the beginning.  

 The idea is also to recruit more people interested in each one of these specific subtopics in order, like, to organize, like, task force for each one of these topics.  So we will provide an update on that, and maybe it would be good if we can share that broadly with the community in order to find the right people to feed this work.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maria.

 Not seeing any other hands up in the speaking queue.  Let's move to the last BPF, artificial intelligence -- I think it's Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence.

 >>CONCETTINA CASSA:  Thanks, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  My name is Titi Cassa, government stakeholder group.  So I give you a short update about the BPF on IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence.  Similar to last year, the BPF's focus is on where the three technologies are used together in an Internet context.  As an example, when IoT devices turn on data, which then they are analyzed with use of artificial intelligence, machine learning technologies.  All is considered in cases when data collected by social platforms are analyzed by machine learning technologies.

 So while last year the BPF discussed more on best practice to facilitate the stakeholder dialogue on issues pertaining to the three technologies, IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence.  This year the BPF intends to focus on making use of the technologies to address societal challenges.

 So starting from the charter that has been agreed by the MAG, the BPF has discussed the overarching narrative for the work on 2019 that is entitled "Announcing justified trust in IoT, big data and AI to stimulate the use to address societal challenges that otherwise will be difficult to address."

 The work platform for 2019 has been structured in five phases.  The first phase that is the most finished was identifying the number of priority policy challenges and also to launch the survey to collect inputs from the community.  The survey has just been launched, and it will be active until the 30th of June.  And the submission will be included in the first draft of the output paper.

 Then the second phase that has just started will be about discussing policy challenges, also on best practice to address these policy challenges.  

 Then we will have to prepare the report.  That is the third phase.  We will have the workshop in Berlin at the IGF 2019.  And then the publication of the final output.

 So the work actually is coordinated by four volunteers that are me.  That is also Alex Comninos, Michael Nelson, Maarten Botterman, and that's it.  And there is also Wim that is helping us as a stakeholder.

 We had six virtual meetings so far.  The next one will be on the 17th of June.

 I think we all think that participation -- stakeholder participation is the key for the success of the BPF.  So we need further outreach, so we invite you to participate to the BPF.  And we also invite the NRIs to be involved in this one -- in this BPF.

 As a last thing, I want to just mention the policy question that I've been pointing out so far that have been divided into three clusters.  They are trust in IoT, big data, and AI application to address societal challenges and best practice to enhance trust.

 The second cluster is referring to using the three technologies, IoT, big data, and AI, to achieve positive policy outcomes and also best practices to stimulate the uses of these three technologies to address challenges.

 And then the third cluster is about the policy question pertaining to the collection, the use of data generated over the Internet and also the availability of the best practice to address them.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you very much.

 Are there any comments or questions for that -- I like the fact you concluded with sort of three policy areas or policy questions you're actually addressing and certainly with anything that we might be bringing forward to the high-level multistakeholder leaders meeting.

 [ Laughter ]

 It would be obviously critical that we pull in work from any of the intersessional activities, and that obviously includes anything that the NRIs might be doing as well in some of their sessions.

 Maria, is that a old hand?  Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  It's a new one.  Regarding this topic, I just want to share with the BPF in AI and IoT that there is a recent initiative from the World Economic Forum to create an advisory council and they are touching on this topic.  There is one specifically in artificial intelligence, another one in IoT.  

 And I think it would be very good to find a way to connect with them.  I am in touch with some of them.  I am part of the IoT council.  So I would be happy to facilitate that communication in the case of there is not an existing link because I think they are very interested and they should take advantage of all the good work that is being done by this BPF.  And I am not sure that at this state they are totally aware of how much these BPFs have been working in the last time.  So I think that would be very good to find ways to collaborate.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think that would be helpful.  Thank you, Maria.

 Any other comments, reflections, on any of the four individual BPFs or on BPFs in general?

 I think one of the things we need to do with the BPF process is maybe as we advance through the year start to get a sense of what work the BPF think they might do or continue doing going forward and have that documented so that it was there and ready for the incoming MAG.  We actually did that last year, I think.  But I think a lot of these practices we need to institute as kind of standard operating practice so there's almost a seamless transition from one MAG to the other.  

 So we should probably look at the BPF processes and make sure that somewhere in those processes there is kind of a requirement that in the final stages that there is a recommendation for future work.

 The future work, by the way, doesn't need to be that the BPF continues.  It could be that the work is ready to move to other places, or some pieces of the work should move into another activity or another entity or another organization.  But something which says, you know, we've done this piece of work and here's some substantive next steps.

 Okay.  Let's move to the next agenda item then which is the overview of the workshop proposal evaluations and thematic track formation.

 Yesterday I covered, again, in the open consultation, I think the process we were working towards this year with respect to preparation of the core of the annual meeting.  

 I think what we'd like to do today is invite the three thematic working groups to talk about their proposal for the workshops within their tracks.  If you have recommendations or thoughts on flows, if you have any other kind of important scheduling advice you think is important for the secretariat to understand as they go forward, that would be a critical time to lay it out as well.

 It would also be helpful if as you went through your work -- I know we were all looking for kind of cross-cutting issues or horizontal issues.  If you identified some of those in your work, it would be good to call those out and we can either spend a few minutes on them now or set them aside because I think there's some perhaps natural candidates for some main sessions if, in fact, it's a substantive cross-cutting issue.

 We really do want to hear from the MAG members that were not part of those thematic working groups in terms of, you know, how all this sounds and feels to you.  Again, I think we have been quite clear we are not expecting a sort of rerun of the process because as a MAG member, if you weren't part of that thematic working group, you are very unlikely to have reviewed yet another 100-odd proposals.  But, I mean, again, there's a lot of value in being close to but maybe just even slightly outside of the process.

 So I do want people to think critically through this and see if there's anything that you think is missing from the perspective of kind of our daily global views as well.

 So, again, with that, is there anybody who really wants to go first or shall we go in the -- Paul.  Digital inclusion.  Oh, Ben has put his hand up.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Just as I prepare, is it helpful for me to basically repeat the intervention I gave yesterday which summarized the process we took and the recommendations we had to the secretariat and for a cross-cutting workshop?  Or are you looking for me to talk through each of the 20 workshops?  Or -- I'm happy to go over and repeat what I did yesterday as a way to kick off discussion.  But I didn't know if that would be repetitive or if you wanted more or something different. 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yeah.  So I think -- I mean, I don't think we're expecting people to go through every one of the workshops but something which says this -- and maybe you can do a little bit of the process again.  I think we've gone through the process on our MAG call of two weeks ago plus yesterday, so I wouldn't do a lot of the process.  If you have a question or you need input or feedback from the MAG, then certainly that.

 If there's specific kind of scheduling advice for the secretariat, I guess we could do it in meeting here or you could easily send an email or talk to them.

 I think the more substantive thing is the content and the topics, the policy questions, and sort of flow.  So I would, I think, suggest we spend a little more time in terms of the -- I think there were kind of natural groupings for a lot of the workshops that were in that track.  So if you talk about what those natural groupings were, what were the key topics that were within them or key policy questions, and then any -- if you were able to get to any metalevel policy questions or, again, any cross-cutting issues, those would be the ones that really -- but if people could put their remarks more towards the content and the substance of the proposals, I think that would be more appropriate.

 And really appreciate Paul going first.  Actually, digital inclusion working group has led us through much of this process and specifically with, you know, Paul's support and co-facilitation here as well.

 So, Paul, you have the floor.  Maria, was that an old hand up now?  Okay, Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.  I'm speaking on behalf of our working group, and I'm hoping they're going to chip in as we go along.

 This has been a very collective effort, and we had a late-night meeting last night.  I think we closed the building around 8:00.  And I think we set off the alarm on the way out.

 [ Laughter ]

 We have something.  I don't know if we can display it.  I don't know if we can get it up there.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think there's some slides that --

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  We have a Word document we sent through, I don't know shared with --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm sure Eleonora is on top of getting it up.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  There we go.  Okay.  So we don't want to repeat what was discussed at the face-to-face.  We went through a process of short listing.  We looked at the advice of the secretariat, looking at the top-rated workshops and filling any gaps.

 We've basically got five main thematical areas that we've ordered the workshops on which are access, affordability, infrastructure; local content and multilingualism; skills, education and jobs; social inclusion; and governance and policy.  So you'll see the workshops are ranked in those orders, started with access, affordability and infrastructure.  And this will feed into a flow diagram, which is at the end.  

 So we just also want to note that there were 106 workshop proposals, and we can't accommodate everybody.  So we apologize.  We would have wanted to have accommodated everybody; but, of course, it's not practical.

 So in the document here, you'll see we have 20 workshops in the first table plus one tutorial.  We will explain that in a little bit.

 We have two workshops that are in so-called waiting list that we feel are strong in our right that could be accommodated or not.  But we can explore that later.

 One key thing we want to mention is we did relook at the merger suggestions of the top 16 ranked workshops.  And on further investigation, we've determined that those workshops are strong in their own right and they are different enough that we don't feel we should be merging top 16 with top 16 workshops.

 So there is a proposed merger between workshop 200 which was ranked 13 and workshop 204 that was ranked 30.

 They're very similar.  Only one is in the top 16.  And there's a possibility that it is actually the same organizer of the two workshops, but it brings a gender aspect to the discussion.  That's basically the rationale of that merger.

 So we can glance through this.  We didn't circulate it to the general MAG yet because it still is provisional.  But depending on the thought process this year, we can share it -- the MAG to dig into it deeper.  But we didn't want to set any unnecessary expectations prior to firming this up.

 So you see as we go through, we have five workshops on access, affordability, and infrastructure.  We have three on local content and multilingualism.  Three on skills, education, and jobs.  We have four on social inclusion, and each of those focus on a different specific of social inclusion:  Disability, gender, and youth.

 And then the remaining five workshops are governance overarching policy and -- the one I spoke about which is a 30-minute tutorial, this is a cross-cutting workshop.  It's only 30 minutes.  And our thought is this could be tacked onto the end of lunch or something so it wouldn't necessarily affect the program.  It is quite short.  It's tutorial.  We have a strong feeling we can fit it in the program without taking one of the 90-minute slots.

 And the next table chose the  two in the parking lot, so to speak.  They bring different aspects, particularly around geographic, stakeholder, and issue balancing.  But they were not ranked so high, and there were other workshops in the top 20 that are stronger from the evaluation.  But we still feel if they could be fitted in somewhere, we should try and accommodate those.

 There's some other workshops that have been brought to our attention that we're looking into.  One is workshop 256, which is a workshop from Poland.  It seems to be a government workshop.  Taking into account they're our hosts next year, we feel it quite important to bring the host country into the IGF as much as possible.  So we want to find a way to see how we could accommodate that workshop.

 There's a thought that it could be accommodated as an open forum.  Just something we're putting out there for thought.

 There's a workshop 301 which is on IoT that we're looking for possible mergers.  IoT is not covered so deeply in the other workshops, so we're seeing if that can be accommodated as a possible merger or somewhere else in the program.  So there's a couple of tags at the end basically of the list.

 But right now what we have and what we're presenting to the MAG is our top 20 recommended workshops plus the tutorial, 30-minute tutorial, and the two in the waiting list.

 So I'm going to allow others in the working group to add anything, if they want to, and then open the floor to comments.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  First, are there additional members of the thematic working group that would like to comment?

 Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  Susan Chalmers, NTIA.  I just wanted to thank Paul for all the work that he's done to undertake the organization of this list.  And in terms of the thematic flow, one of the ideas was that this would be host in the OSI model, so starting with access and then building up the stack.  That's one idea.  So just wanted to mention that for context.  

 But, otherwise, it's been a pleasure to work with the group through this process, which was not easy but...

 I think we have a good result at the end of the day.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's the richness of these global groups.

 Was there just a question -- wait.  Was there sort of an expectation that all the access, affordability and infrastructure workshops there would come first in the program and then there really was a full physical (indiscernible).  I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  First, I would also like to thank Paul and the group for this concise and precise selection of workshop proposals.  I would like also to refer to the issue of Internet of Things that was mentioned, like, it was not as well represented as you thought it would be we had the same experience in the security and safety group, and I do think that as we see from the best practice form on the Internet of Things, big data and AI, this is an issue that is also related to the data governance, I would say.  So probably we could see Internet of Things as a cross-cutting issue and try to address it not only in the three main theme tracks but in an additional session.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta.

 If there aren't any other comments, I think we turn it back to Paul to see whether or not there's any additional feedback or input.  And of course it's open to MAG members as well for comments or clarity or question.

 Carlos, you have the floor.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:   On Jutta's comment, there is a dynamic coalition on Internet of Things.  Maybe that would be the way to cover it in the IGF.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's a very good point, too.  I think it depends on whether or not we think about it as a main session with a whole separate slot and focus.  I'm just going to start a list here of kind of the possible cross-cutting issues that are suggested.  But that's a good thing.  That's actually quite an active dynamic coalition.

 Any other comments from MAG members?  Paul, anything?

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Nothing, really, to add.  So we just wait to hear back on how we move forward and at the relevant time week circulate this document.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I do have one more question.  I know on one of our earlier MAG calls you said there was some discussion within the group whether you started with this sort of flow or whether it was reversed and you started with the governance and policy in the end.  And is this a final recommendation or is that still an open question?

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Okay.  To respond to that what we see on the display is a proposed way forward and basically the thought on that is by starting with access, affordability, infrastructure, we're actually raising policy issues that can then carry on later into the flow.  So our proposed way of the structure of the flow would be as displayed there.  And that gives some sense of the ordering of the program and when the workshops -- how the workshops would fit into the program.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Timea.

 >>Timea Suto:  Good morning, everyone.  Timea Suto from ICC-Basis.  

 Regarding this flow, what I wanted to underline, although we are starting with access and building up on content and skills and inclusion to arrive to governance and policy discussions, I just want to make it clear that we don't think any of these baskets are more important or -- or need to be the first one or the last one.  So there is an arrow there just to indicate how we're ordering this because in our mind there is a logic to it, but that doesn't mean that any of these components are more important than the other.  So I just wanted to make that clear.

 And the other thing that I wanted to also recognize that we are conscious that there is speakers that might have conflicts and there might be other issues.  So just to know and note for the secretariat that we don't expect that it's going to be hundred percent this way.  We're proposing a way forward, but we are conscious of the limitations.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  I actually like a lot the flow and I don't think anyone would think one was more.  I suspect any position one might have on what you think is more important is probably what you do in your day job than anything else and not the graphic on it.  But I think for me it really crystallizes the fact -- and again, I always keep in mind that the number one criticism we hear about the IGF is that it's a talking shop.  And obviously it's not that.  It's much more than that.  But I think this shows how all the different pieces -- Or the other on is there's always -- it's too broad.  There's always so many different things in the IGF, and it's hard to get a sense of what you're trying to do.  And I think these graphics show the kind of linkage and the relationship and that they build and that they can all and do ultimately support really critical questions.  So I personally like that a lot.

 Final call for any other questions from MAG members.  I keep checking for those MAG members that are online as well to see if there's a hand up there, although they would be using the speaking queue as well.  But if you are participating online and have any questions or thoughts, then please do come in.

 Otherwise we will move to the next one and thank very much -- I mean, this goes for all of the thematic working groups.  I mean, I know from personal past experience how much work it is.  There were days we were all reviewing 200 and 250 and 300 proposals.  But I think the proposals are actually getting -- the reviews and the process is getting even more in depth as we actually really look to ensure that we're building a cohesive program, a focused program, and really trying to focus on policy questions.  So I want to thank all the working groups for all of the very thorough effort.

 And I'm not sure which working group is going next.

 So I guess Jutta, you --

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I do think Eleonora has already put up the slides, so probably I can start.

 Ben, will that be fine with you if security goes on?

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Yes, security.  Sorry, I was trying to point.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Okay.  Thank you.  Yes, also the security group had a meeting yesterday in the evening.  And to be honest, it was the security group who set off the alarm, so funnily enough.

 [ Laughter ]

 As you may be aware from the communication on the list, security group decided to discuss potential mergers only face to face yesterday.  And so we started with the preliminary selection we already had and approved the 20 proposals that were first selected but with some condition.  And if you could put up the -- maybe we start with the flowchart because that would be the easiest thing to follow.

 Just a second.

 So I can explain a bit.  So we -- okay.  We can start on the second page, Eleonora.  I can click?  Okay.  That's fine.

 So you will see the list of proposals, and we became aware that in security and safety group, we had the first two places of the overall rank of all the workshop proposals; if you look at the list, place one and place two that were the highest ranking out of all workshop proposals.  And then it goes further down the list.

 And you can see that we had identified workshop 85, which is the last on this page.  It's misinformation, trust, and platform responsibility.  And then the next one ranking directly after that was coping in an era -- era of misinformation, who is responsible.  And the group decided that we would only look into mergers if the merger would not lead to broaden the focus of a session but to bring a closer look into a certain issue.  So these two were really overlapping.  They also were overlapping in the policy questions they had phrased.  And, therefore, the group suggested to merge these two sessions.  And also having in mind that 85 applied for a 90-minute session slot and 268 applied for 60 minutes.  So we thought it would be feasible to merge these without losing the focus of the session.

 For the other workshops on the list of the first 20, we thought that there was no room for merger because the approaches of the workshops, also they address somehow similar issues, it was just too broad to bring in two or three of them together.

 And going further down the list -- so that leaves us with 19 that are now approved, in consideration of one -- of two of them being merged.  So that would be 19 out of 20 that we first selected.

 Then for filling the gaps, we had identified, on suggestions from members of the group, of four additional workshops.  And given the fact that -- we got the feeling among -- around, I think it was, 86 workshops that we had to assess, that the Internet of Things was a little bit underrepresented under the first 20.  So we decided to accept workshop 307, transparency and control for the Internet of Things, so that we end up with a list of 20.  And that left us with the three additional workshops that we considered might be accepted if there is space because among these first 20, we still have four that applied only for 60-minute slots.  So there might be space.

 And then we took a deeper look into 150 and proposal 22, which are both dealing with hacking hate speech.  It was hate speech online, so one was called "Hacking Hate Speech Online, a Multistakeholder Approach," and the 22 was named "Tackling Hate Speech, Future Regulation of Intermediaries."  And we thought that both of them did not address diversity as well as it should be in such a -- in such an issue.  So the suggestion was to merge the two of them and then also advise the proposers that they would definitely need to add the perspective from the technical community.  And that should be done with respect to also geographical diversity because proposal 22 only had organizers and speakers from the Western European and others group.  150 was a bit more diverse but not as diverse as the group would like to see.  And because we understand that it would be give to merge these two sessions and to give the additional advice of improving diversity, especially in regard of the technical community perspective, two members of the group volunteered to guide through this merging process, which is, thankfully, Maria Paz Canales and Sylvia Cadena.  With the technical community background, they could help to improve this.  

 Then we had discussions about workshop 413, human values and Internet protocols, because some other group thought this would be an additional issue that was not covered exactly, although it's related to the Internet of Things somehow also.

 In the end, we decided to dismiss this proposal for the time being, and the group went home with some homework because we still thought that if there might be room for one additional workshop, each of the members should have a look at those that ranked high but still are not among these provisionally accepted workshop proposals.  And then if we get a signal from the secretariat that there would be space for one more workshop, we would decide among these favorites of the members of the group which one could then be accepted.

 One thing that just came in when I was speaking.  We also gave to the group a chance to look for cross-cutting issues, and a suggestion was that jurisdiction, that is among these workshops, could probably be a cross-cutting issue.  And I wanted just to click once more to give you a view on the flowchart that was produced based on the first model that Paul Rowney had produced.  We tried to also sort the workshops that were selected.  And you can see now that the two that we -- in two groups or two subthemes that we identified for merger are marked with this orange space around them.  And you will also see from the -- from the flowchart that difficulty that I had been speaking about yesterday that security, safety, stability, and resilience is really a very broad theme and it was difficult to group the workshop proposals under this broad, main theme.  But still, we do think -- like it was said by Timea, we don't think that the one on the left side are the highest and the more important than on the left side.  It's just that this would provide for a good flow within the whole program going from security, over the stability and resilience issues, and then ending up with the safety issues.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta, and the working group.

 It would be helpful if, in this slide, the little blue boxes that are under the workshop groupings are larger because I think that really helps to see where the topics and issues are.  Just a real nit, but I would find them useful.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I could read them out to give you an impression.  So we would start on the left side with the cyber attacks, somehow related also to the term "Internet kill switch."  Then going over to international norms and jurisdiction.  And the second would be -- or the third would be Internet protocols and Internet resources, then coming to the Internet of Things, trust and accountability together with democratic values.  Then we have kind of a block with misinformation, fake news, and the next one, freedom of expression and hate speech, coming to child safety and online sexism on the right side.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Jutta.  So it actually goes like this in terms of reading it.  Thank you, that's very helpful.

 Are there -- first, any other comments from other working group members?

 I know this was a big lift in particular because, you know, there really are four very significant areas in the -- in the track.

 Are there any comments, thoughts, questions from MAG members to the members of this working group?

 I think the titles are quite good for a lot of the workshops, too.  In both of the last two presentations, it was pretty easy to quickly get a sense of the flow and the perspective just from the title.  I think the community is doing a good job at finding something which is really interesting, really clear, and, you know, concise as well.  So...

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   I know I've said that before, but I really do think that asking the community to phrase the policy questions was very helpful for the community as well, because you can see the relationship between the title of the workshop and the policy questions they phrased.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And the hope is that with those policy questions, of course, that it actually gives guidance to the people that participate in the workshops.  Clearly the other organizers are paying attention to them, but that it also kind of drives the discussion in the room as well, so the people that participate feel there's a purpose and a focus and have actually participated in a meaningful way to move something forward.

 So anybody else who wants to make a comment?  Yes, Nebojsa.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   As a member -- Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government stakeholders group.

 As a member of this group, I want to thank to Jutta for her leadership and for all that she put in this exercise.

 I have one more general remark about the proposals we received yesterday, which I shared with the group last night.  I think that compared to last year, diversity was on a much lower level overall than previous year.  It's too bad that some of the proposals -- actually one of the proposals that we suggested to get improvement and to be conditionally accepted scored well on the policy issue but it was very low on diversity which lowered the total score.

 What are the reasons for overall lower level of diversity I really don't know.  But it really -- at least in this group of workshop proposals, it was both lacking diversity -- I mean, in all aspects of diversity, regional diversity, when it comes to the stakeholders group, gender balance.  I would say in all aspects of diversity.  That's just a general remark which would maybe, let's say, be of interest for the next year when defining the call for proposals to emphasize that really the diversity is an important issue that is paid attention for it when evaluating the proposals.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Nebojsa.  Very important comments and certainly very important consideration in everything we do.  So I think trying to understand why or what triggered that would be helpful.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Just to underline what Nebojsa just said, I would be interested to learn from the other two groups whether they had the same experience with regard to diversity.

 I do think we made an effort to ask for more diversity, and it was very elaborate, the whole system how we asked for diversity.  And then when we end up -- see that, of course, many people only ticked "yes, I addressed diversity in regard to gender, geographic region, stakeholder group," and so on and they really did not address diversity.  So kind of like we had overdrawn it with asking for more diversity, and now we end up with the opposite.  

 At least we can say that for the security and safety group.  I was wondering whether it was the same experience for the other groups.  

 And then I do think the working group on workshop proposal process should take that in consideration and then try to find a solution for next year's process.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.

 Maria.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Just to add an additional point of what Jutta just was mentioning, I think it is not really only important to clarify more, like, internally the process but also to be able to better communicate to the community in general this consideration in the workshop evaluation.  Because I have the feeling -- maybe it's not very founded in concrete evidence.  But I have the feeling that this is the result of, like, people not being clear how the workshops are being evaluated and thinking at the end if the topic is interesting, if the speakers are appealing, the workshop will be conditionally accepted anyway.  So they're not, like, putting the same effort in addressing the diversity from the very beginning, thinking that there will be time for fixing this later.  

 And I think that, like, to have more concrete guidelines in what is the internal procedure for evaluation and being able to openly communicate this to the community will necessarily impact the quality of the future proposals.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Maria.

 Sylvia.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Hello?  Okay.  Sorry.

 Sylvia Cadena, technical community.  I just wanted to add the point that the exercise of thinking about what the proposals don't have necessarily in common was also interesting when concerning mergers or how to address any mentoring that can be provided to workshop proposers, right?

 So one of the things we discussed was how instead of trying to look at the similarities between proposals, that we could discuss what is actually different between them, even if they are kind of covered in similar focus, similar areas, and then approach the organizers and request them to focus on that particular difference and give more depth to the conversation around that particularity that they were discussing.

 But that will require, I guess -- Maria Paz and I will be experimenting a little bit with that when we support the merger that came out of the group.  But I guess it is worth it -- would be worth it for the working groups to look at the different proposals and see what specific feedback can be given to the ones that are finally approved, to tell them if what we're looking at is more concise, in-depth discussion on a particular issue, look at the other proposals that are in your flow, right, in your little bucket where you were placed, and see if any of them are touching on things that you already think you are covering in your workshop so that you don't repeat things that the others are doing without thinking about mergers or anything like that.  They're probably trying to make the organizers aware of the rest of the program so that this intention of being more focused, actually everybody is on the same page.

 I just don't know exactly how we could do that, but I guess it's part of the communication that the secretariat would have to send to the approved proposals when that step happens.  

 I think it's worth the time to just pick and figure out, okay, you are -- you have six speakers talking about, I don't know, cyber norms and human rights and in the other workshop there is one that is touching on that issue.

 Why don't you just kind of drop that issue because the other workshop is going to cover it and then use your 60 minutes or 90 minutes to go deeper into the one policy question just to try to help them bring focus.

 Because a lot of the sessions -- well, not a lot.  Some of the sessions are very generic and it's like if they are trying to solve the problem all by themselves.  And it could be -- it's just a cube, right?  It's sides of the discussion.  

 So if we could encourage them to look at the rest of the sessions approved, even across other themes, maybe that will help us to prepare people to participate also in the topping and tailing sessions and how that flow actually guides the process.

 And I have -- I have been taking notes about how, for example, the way we collected the data on the application form about diversity actually shows on the evaluation process.  So if they have a different understanding of what diversity means and I tick, "yes, I am addressing diversity on gender" just because they have one woman on the panel, right, then -- or in the session, then that does not necessarily fit with what we described.  So maybe there are issues on the form of how you capture the information so it's kind of verified.  And then it's not -- it doesn't give us that "Yes, I did, yes, I did, yes, I did" and you go back and look and no, they didn't, no, they didn't, no, they didn't.  That happened in a few workshops.  But that's for the post-mortem of the process and the form and all that for later.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I have a follow-up question.  Thank you for that.  

 To Sylvia and others, would it be helpful to share the policy questions that are part of the approved workshops with all of the workshop organizers so that very quickly they could see if there was -- I know it's easy enough to extract the policy questions because the secretariat has done that.  But maybe there's an opportunity to take those policy questions, share them with the other workshop organizers just so that they're kind of generally aware.  And maybe that's a lightweight way to do what you're suggesting as well.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Yes, I think that the policy questions are an excellent way to get started and see what topics are discussed.  And maybe in some of the sessions, especially the ones that have a panel format where specific panelists are clearly saying I'm going to talk about X, then those two fields could help.  

 But the thing is, it would be very difficult to send, like, a generic email saying, please take a look at this, right?

 So, I guess, maybe a good thing to do, for example, to use that generic email with the flows and say, "Look for your workshop number in that little bucket" and then look for the proposals on that bucket and check their policy questions.  Something really concrete to help them initiate those conversations.

 And I think it's also a -- probably would be very important if we could try, although we mentioned this in the meeting in Geneva, I think in the first one in January, if we could try to do a little bit of a promotional campaign to ask speakers and organizers to go in the IGF website and update their profiles, their community profiles, so the information that's there is the one -- the actual one.  

 And if there are profiles that are duplicated, to try to identify the secretariat which one is the valid one.  Some organizations -- some speakers were listed under the wrong one, but it's because they have different old profiles in the system.  So maybe there is something also.

 If we run, I don't know, like, a clean -- let's clean our database of contacts thing before the IGF, we might end up in a better position to actually run the stats on diversity and to have better information for the speakers, the right work titles, the right organizations where they work, and not things from five years ago.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me try and quickly -- I think between the conversation we had, it sounds like there's a suggestion that we prepare a package that would go to the organizers of those workshops that are approved which might actually give a little intro to the track overall.  I think the flowchart is the two flowcharts we've seen.  We're still waiting for the third presentation.  But include the flowcharts and maybe a separate addendum of the policy questions.  

 I mean, it would make them feel they were actually part of an ongoing discussion and a full flow and understand what was coming before and what was coming afterwards, which I would think would actually be a good feeling and a good process for them as well.  And maybe as part of that, we ask them to ensure that the profiles are up to date and clean or something like that.

 But the real benefit is in saying this is the thematic track, this is where your workshop fits in, these are the other workshop organizers and these are the policy questions.  And if there's something else specifically we wanted to ask them to do, we should think about that.  I guess the question is whether or not that is something the secretariat will support and pull together or whether or not it starts from the thematic working groups and secretariat provides, I guess, as you know, kind of subsets of policy questions and things.  Maybe just think about that for a moment, and we'll come back to that afterwards because I think it's important to figure out what those next steps are while we're all here in the room fresh.

 But in the -- I'll go to Jutta, Jennifer, and then I think Timea wants to come in as well.

 So, Jutta, you have the floor.  It's an old hand?  

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn.  Jennifer Chung, private sector.  I was also in the security group as well, and so I really want to thank Jutta for preparing all this and updating what we were discussing throughout the whole process.

 I wanted to pick up on three points.  First, the question and also the issue that was raised by Nebojsa and Jutta about looking at why perhaps maybe it's just our group that had a lowering of diversity.  But maybe it is across all three themes, and this is -- and then looking at the reason why.  

 Jutta did bring up a really good point about, you know, if we understand it might be we're asking too much of the proposers, what can we improve on in the following process for next year.

 And related to this point is the point that Sylvia mentioned about the profiles.  Yesterday, Jim also brought up some things related as well about speaker profiles.  

 So if we're asking workshop proposers we have to check all these points in geographic diversity, in stakeholder diversity, in gender diversity, all of this, they may not have the resources to know this.  And we already have kind of a platform, the resource persons platform, for them to go to do that.  But in order for them to be able to use this well, we would need to actually have a platform that is, A, updated and, B, if you are listed as a speaker you get an email notification that, oh, somebody listed me as a speaker instead of finding it later.  

 So I guess all these issues are really interconnected.  If we're really trying to help workshop proposers increase the quality of their workshop proposals, increase all the diversity aspects that we're asking of them, we need to also give them the tools if they don't have it, give them the mentoring if they don't really know where to find it.  And I guess for us, I guess it might be a post-mortem thing as well to improve on this resource that we've already started, I think, for a few years ago.

 The second point I wanted to -- actually that was the first two points.  The second point I want to talk about is I think our group did a really interesting analysis where we were not really considering merging of two workshops per se.  In some areas, we were looking at the policy questions where one that we've provisionally accepted may be missing a few policy questions.  And that kind of merging is an interesting way of making a workshop proposal more full.

 I think Sylvia's suggestion just now was quite interesting.  I was trying to digest it as she was suggesting it, that we could possibly send a pack of policy questions either to the provisionally accepted workshop proposers for them to actually think about, hey, you know, if we already have a workshop on this theme, we can include this aspect.  We can include another aspect.

 Another thing that we are -- as a group yesterday we discussed was if a certain provisionally accepted workshop was missing one element, we could possibly pull a policy question from a different one that wasn't accepted and possibly pull another resource person, a technical person into it, too, to make the diversity more in line with what we're asking for.  So I guess these are the three points I really wanted to highlight.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think those are very useful comments, Jennifer.  I was taking some more notes as well.  Thank you.

 Timea.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  Thank you.  I also have two points I wanted to make really quickly, not necessarily on the security track but on our process in general, if it's the right time to do it now.  Or should I wait until we all finish?

 So on one hand about the flow and socializing the policy questions and the issues in between the workshops of the specific track, I think it's a really good idea.  We need to perhaps think it through of how we're going to do that.

 But I think it's really important for the workshops in a certain track to be aware of the context that their workshop is going to be happening in so they can link, you know, ahead with the other sessions.

 And I'm wondering -- I know we haven't discussed yet the topping and tailing sessions, but I'm wondering if that might also be the job of the topping session because we don't know what workshop proposers are going to do between now and the IGF.  But they are going to be there at the time.  And maybe they can devote half an hour of their time or an hour and a half of their time to really look into how the flow is going to look like, how the next three days are going to look like, and how are they also planning the reporting out of their session to make sure that their information gets picked up in the right way once the three, four days are over.

 So I'm wondering if this socializing of the flows can actually be done on the spot as well with the topping session, feeding into the tailing session.

 And then the second point I wanted to make about the speaker profiles, I think that's a very pertinent comment.  As Jennifer said, it came up yesterday in the open consultations.  I've seen it as well when I was marking sessions.  

 I'm guessing that for this year, we haven't -- unfortunately or not this has happened already.  But before we start the process next year, I would recommend we go through an update your profile campaign for all of those people who are already there, a quick automatic email "You are in our database, these are our information about you.  Is that correct.  Could you please update."  Perhaps that would be a solution to improve things for next year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  And we'll come to the last thematic track in a moment but I'm just wanting not to lose track of some of these discussions.  And we'll come to the topping and tailing.

 Maybe we could ask the secretariat to work across the three thematic working groups and understand what the experience was specifically as it relates to profiles and the resource section of the website so we can ask -- I mean, if that makes sense to go out with an email, as Timea just said, or if there's different advice we need to put within the workshop submission process, that sort of thing.  But if we can ask the secretariat maybe to take that lead.  Maybe we could ask the thematic working groups to take the lead on preparing the package which says this is the track we've put to the.  Here's a high-level intro, here are the other workshops that are engaged in it, here are the policy questions so that we're managing that communication out to the accepted workshop proposal organizers.

 And I think what we need for the secretariat in support there is the policy questions that are associated with those workshops, and then I'm sure Luis can do a quick extract, and then an easy mailing list or facility to email all those workshop organizers, I'm assuming is the right -- but I'm just trying to make sure that before we all leave the room and get on with other things, that we actually have some kind of clear next steps for this process because it's new.  I think it's coming together really, really well, so, again, thanks to all the working groups for all the work.

 Ben.  I think we're ready now to go to the final thematic track.  And again, we'll come back to the topping and tailing later.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you, Lynn.  So I'll briefly recap what I went into more detail yesterday.

 We provided to the MAG and to the secretariat the list of 20 workshops we propose take up the 20 slots that were provisionally allocated to our theme.

 We also provided specific comments for each of those 20 workshops that should be provided to the organizers for how they might improve their workshops.  That could include ways in which they could bring in -- diversify their policy questions or bring in different stakeholder groups or where they might be weak on diversity.  We didn't place any conditions on the approval of any of these workshops.  We didn't make any proposals for merging workshops, but we did suggest in these written comments to 6 of the 20 workshop organizers that they look at some specific other workshops and consider whether they could incorporate ideas, concepts or even speakers from those workshop proposals which we felt were in a similar area but might -- but by looking at them, might help them broaden out their workshop and bring in other perspectives.

 In terms of a flow, I may be at risk of disappointing you here, Lynn, but we've grouped the 20 workshop proposals into subthemes, which is what you can see in the table in front of you, which was in the document that I've sent a couple of times to the MAG as well.

 There's no particular order or flow.  To my mind, these are different elements of data governance, but one does not necessarily feed into the other.  So in this theme, I don't think it's necessarily relevant to have a flow.

 We did make a recommendation which is the first bullet underneath the table that the secretariat, when scheduling these 20 workshops, avoid scheduling any workshops within the same subtheme against each other.  So that anyone who is particularly interested in jurisdictional or sovereignty issues can attend all three of those workshops and not risk -- and there not be a clash, as an example.

 And in other words, there's no particular thought on how this grouping could be used after the schedule is drawn up, but maybe that will become clear when we do go to the topping and tailing.  And also you just talked about an action that the working group could take up as to packaging information that goes back to the successful workshop organizers.  So maybe it's used there as well.

 We did provide an additional three workshops that could be taken forward if time was found in the schedule.  Those are the ones at the bottom of the page.  They are ranked in order, so if there's any one slot available, then it would be the top, and so on.  And this, as we discussed earlier, was on the basis that we were provisionally allotted 20 slots of 90 minutes and we've come up with 15 minutes at 90 minutes and six slots at 60 minutes, I think.

 And finally, as I mentioned yesterday, we were asked by the security working group to look at a particular workshop which had some data governance elements, and our proposal after reflecting on it is it has both data governance and safety elements to it and would be worth taking forward as a cross-cutting workshop, using up some of that additional time that's been created by some of the approved workshops not being a full 90-minutes long.

 So that's what I wanted to present.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.  Let me see if there are any other comments from the working group members first.

 Maria?

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Thank you.  I just want to point it out that from this presentation of the last group it's pretty clear that the IoT thing emerge as a cross-cutting because each one of the groups are considering additional workshop or one of the workshops in the flow that takes on the IoT topic, so probably it's a really a good candidate.

 And to the last suggestion about the workshop 170, that it was referred from security to data governance group, I think that there are another workshop in the security track that already covers some of that, but it's true that it's also a cross-cutting issue that could be considered for another category of session.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Maria.

 Timea, is that an old hand?

 And Jutta, it's a new hand.

 You have the floor, Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Yes, that's a new hand.  I just became aware that the data governance group also had, like, a subtheme, human rights and Internet ethics, which is somehow related to what we have in the data -- in the security and safety group.

 So I don't think this should be merged in any way, but I suggest that the secretariat has a look into the flow of the workshops and then try to have these grouped somehow, one after another, but not overlapping like it was suggested by data governance already that workshop proposals that address similar or close to each other issues, that they are not going to the program in parallel but as subsequent order.

 Thank you.

 >>DANKO JEVTOVIC:   Thank you, Lynn.  Danko here, Jevtovic.  I just wanted to say thank you, Ben.  On behalf of our group, he present very well, but he also led the discussion in preparation of this.

 Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Danko.  We used to say in the technical community we never thought Vint Cerf slept because he was always on email all the time and I'm also pretty convinced that both Ben, Jutta and -- I'm drawing a complete blank -- Paul.  Oh, my God.  I'm sorry.  Not enough caffeine, not enough food.  Paul also don't sleep.  They have been leading these efforts through the -- you know, the actual MAG meeting some time ago and then through this entire process, too.  So thank you.

 I would actually like to still challenge the last group, the data governance groups, to see if they can find a graphic that actually groups.  And maybe it's just a simple graphic that doesn't have a flow and a linkage, but looks somewhat similar to the other ones so that when you're looking across the program, there's some kind of similarity and you can see they're grouped by this topic or something.  And maybe there's a creative person within the MAG that can help facilitate that or maybe it's within the secretariat, but something that kind of gave some consistency against them so as you move back and forth between them.  You know, it's confusing enough.  We're all pretty -- but when you come and look at all 150 possible workshops you can go to, it's kind of nice to have some overall structure that helps you figure out where the key kind of buckets or focuses are.  And you have the six kind of buckets there already.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Maybe, Anja, as a first step but the way Jutta's group represented it, maybe without arrows, but I could just use that format and it would look the same with the information that's on the screen, which would give a graphic.  I don't know.  And then we'll find out later where these graphics end up being used and how.  But I'm sure I could transform the table that way to help provide a more uniform kind of presentation of how the workshops are grouped.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   If we do think of it as sort of a stack of issues, you know, just scanning the titles it seems that some of them are more kind of an operational or factual or framework context or that kind of thing, and then others are really getting to different sort of questions.

 Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Yeah.  Only, like, a pragmatic approach to this.  If the data governance group, they don't think, necessarily, that there is a structured flow like in the case of the other two tracks, something that can be useful, it's like look the topics, the session that are going on in light of the other ones.  So maybe there are some of them that not necessarily, like, have a specific flow, like regarding the data track specifically, but maybe some of them could have a specific flow, like contributing to the other sessions in the other tracks.  So in that sense, precisely will fulfill this idea that people that want to benefit of participating in the different track will have that opportunity.

 So maybe like to have one of the track that doesn't require a more, like, fixed flow, it provide the flexibility to fill the gap and provide the opportunity of the participant to follow, like, equally or in a more distributed way the different tracks, as, like, a practical suggestion.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's another -- another thought as well.

 Any other comments or questions on... 

 Are there any -- We'll come to topping and tailing in a moment, but are there any kind of general observations or questions from the MAG?  And then I'm going to ask the same thing from the secretariat and from yourself, Daniela, as well.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  First I want to commend the track leaders.  Ben did good work for us in data governance, and Jutta has done very good work, plus Paul.  But on a general note, I want to -- since Jutta's group, I think you said did not consider the diversity.  Are we going to look at diversity again in total (indiscernible) for the three tracks or three thematic sessions -- aspects of the workshops?  So that we would look at it with have the opportunity of bringing up some other workshops that --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, I'm sorry.  Jutta's group didn't say they didn't consider diversity.  I think they just said they would have appreciated even greater diversity in the workshop.  So maybe we can just ask at this point Jutta to kind of restate what she said and then come back in.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Jutta -- yeah, she can clarify.  Maybe I am wrongly.

 Please, Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   So what we identified in the security group was that we would have expected more diversity, especially after providing this elaborate system of declaring how diversity was addressed by the proposers.  And what we found among the 86 proposals was that some were addressing diversity quite well but we also had other workshop proposals that did not address diversity as much as we had expected them to do.

 And of course this was taken in consideration with -- when we did the selection of proposals.  You remember that diversity had a weight of 20% for the overall score.  So of course we had a look at all these proposal, whether they had enough diversity.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you.  So when you were selecting your -- the extra five or six -- the extra five?  There were 16 already that the secretariat had approved, and you were to select additional four to make it 40 -- I mean to make it 20, did you find -- to make it 20.  Did you find any gaps to fill in with those workshops for any of them that had any of the diversity gaps you experience in your own workshops?

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   So the workshops we identified to fill the gaps also were high-scoring proposals.  And the two that I had mentioned before, the 150 and the 22 proposal, they did not address diversity as a single workshop proposals but merged together they would address diversity quite well.  Given the condition that was set that they also should include the technical community perspective and probably combine that with more regional diversity.  And that shall be guided by Sylvia and Maria, and I do think they know pretty well the job they have overtaken.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary, for looking for clarification if it hadn't been understood clearly before.

 Any other general comments?

 So as I said, next I'd really like to go to Daniela, if there are any kind of observations or -- and then we'll come to the secretariat to make sure you have everything you need for next steps, too.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:   Thank you, Lynn.  And, first of all, thank to all of those who worked in the three working groups and especially to the three speakers of them.  I hadn't seen the selection before, and I have to say I'm quite impressed.  I think it was really worth doing that selection process, also grouping the workshops around the three themes, and then giving a structure for people who are coming to the IGF and helping them to go through the week following their special interests, several special interests.  I very much like the diagrams with the flows.  That was very convincing to me.  And as Lynn said, it will be very helpful to have the six subthemes also in slightly similar way, because I think that's very helpful.  If you come and then you're especially interested in data governance and then you see the structure, that's much easier than just looking to the whole program.  So I think you all made very, very much progress.  Thanks for that.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I would concur as well.  And I said it's really amazing the sense you can get just from the titles.

 Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  The only thing we have to say is we do echo the same sentiments you have expressed and Daniela has expressed.  And it's the first time we did this, and it's really great work.  And it has come out a very organized flow, and I think it's easy to get the sense of it.  

 We'll work with the groups.  We'll collate the questions and the comments and help with the contact of the workshop proposers and also with the mergers, et cetera.  That's what we're going to do from here.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  And I think each one of the groups had a couple of if there was time or if there were additional slots --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Exactly.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  As we go through that, if you can just make sure we're communicating back to the thematic working groups in terms of what's happening with those so that they can continue to build the full flow.  I'm sure you would do that anyway, but just to be sure we understood who was going to take the responsibility because I think now the next step is with the secretariat to determine if there are sort of room and slots.  And depending how much room and how many slots, then I think we need to figure out what's the right way to do that across the three thematic working groups.  I think the next step is yours, is the secretariat's.

 In this session, we're doing fairly well on time.  Actually, we're doing quite well on time.  We wanted a quick discussion on the top and tail thematic planning sessions.

 I think we're at -- and the expectation with the secretariat is that the topping and the tailing would be normal workshop session slots.  Let me start with the tailing end first because I think the top kind of leads us into the main session later as well.  But I think the notion following discussions of the secretariat and the various working groups is that we would build from the individual reporting processes that each one of the workshops is building and we can talk about that later as well.  But there's a buildout based on the policy questions, what you expect to achieve, what are the key messages.  There's a series of submissions that are sent to the secretariat ahead of the IGF so that they can support other marketing and outreach and even press packages and things in the past.

 And then, of course, immediately after there's some high-level messages that have come out of the group and then the messages that ultimately make their way into both the fuller report of the working group and then of the chair's report.

 But I think the idea was that in each one of these individual tailing sessions there would be a review of kind of the messages that have come through.  If there was some way to make it not just a list or list of the messages but really almost try and build the same sort of flow we saw in these charts here which said either by main topic these were stop of the main messages.  You know, we -- if we take the digital inclusion flow, for those sort of buckets over there, in this particular issue, these were some of the things that had a lot of residencies or some of the key messages that the workshop participants took away.  We fed that in.  

 We could actually then use that to support the initial discussions next year, if people were wanting to understand what happened in that particular track, how successful was it, were there any hanging issues, was there anything we should be building on just to try and support a transition, if and as appropriate.

 And then the expectation is that on Friday, on the last day, we would actually have an hour which would be part this three-hour closing ceremony at the end.  But one hour would be based on kind of recapping what's happened in each one of these thematic tracks and what some of the key messages and take-aways were.  So let me just stop there, and we'll come to the tailing in a moment.

 But I see -- we're all feeling our way through here.  So none of this is cast in stone.  I mean, I tried to just summarize discussions I've kind of had and heard from around the room.  So if anybody thinks anything different, they should say so, including the secretariat, too, if there's a different comment.

 Right now we have -- and we'll come to the topping in a moment.  But, Timea, you are in the queue.  You have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  So I have a comment/proposal for that tailing session.  

 But before I get to that, I just wanted to clarify the process regarding the workshop selections.  Are we then now saying these 60 that were selected by the working groups, are these the final ones?  We are going to contact the organizers and draw the line here?  Or is there any more work we need to be doing just from my peace of mind?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think it's a good question I think the assumption we were taking away is the 20 that came in from each of the working groups are approved.  The ones that were below the line that said pending space, the secretariat is going to go away.  Once they have that first pass of the schedule, look and come back to the three working groups with an indication of what space is available.  And then they would oversee a process that would allocate if there is additional space, additional space according to -- again, I think we need to look at what space is available and which ones are below the line.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  We'll do it -- (audio dropped) -- space in one of those two rooms per theme, right?  Each room has got -- each theme has got two rooms.  If there's space in that room, then we'll allocate according from that theme.  That's how we'll do it.  And the rest is quite easy because we know the first one goes and then the second and then the third.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:  Thank you very much for clarifying.

 So I'm going to my second point which regards the tailing sessions.  I think in order for us to have quite an impactful wrapup of the week, we need to reflect a little bit on how we are reporting out from each session and how are we collecting those reports and how would those feed into the conversation at the end.

 I think that -- you know, as has been said before and even yesterday -- I think Wolfgang put it pretty well.  And we were reading through the leaflet that EuroDIG has here.  I'm going to quote from here.  Sorry, Ben, for stealing your idea.

 So colleagues at EuroDIG say that EuroDIG is a decision shaping, not a decision-making body and, therefore, a place to start and facilitate discussion but not to finalize it.  I think that captures very, very well.  So chapeau, Sandra, for putting it that well.  

 That really summarizes what we are supposed to do at IGF.

 I was wondering how are we thinking about the messages that would inform discussions and decisions elsewhere but not put us in a position where we actually need to draw out a message on a particular issue or solution or recommendation, call it whatever?

 So as I was reading the workshop proposals also, I keep seeing certain workshops, certain sessions approach the issue of inclusion or the issue of data governance or the issue of security or safety from a particular policy angle that the proposers deemed important for them.  

 Those can be ranked, in my mind, into various bigger policy buckets.  And I see that either addressing social cultural issues, either addressing economic issues, either addressing technical -- substantive technical issues or broader governance considerations, consideration of cooperation of multistakeholderism.

 And that leads me, in my mind, because I like to think about matrices, into a 3-by-4 table and the 3 being the three tracks we have and the 4 being the four policy buckets I just mentioned.  

 I'm wondering if we can think about asking the rapporteurs of all these sessions to come back somehow at the end of these -- in the tailing sessions and say, okay, we considered inclusion from my workshops from an economic perspective and this is what we thought.  These are some case studies we found.  These are some issues that we couldn't find an answer to.  These are messages that we think actually should be picked up and promoted widely.

 Somebody else could come -- and we actually considered this from a governance point of view or we have a technical issue that I think should be included there.  So we wouldn't make every workshop come up with one single message but say, okay, I'm considering this policy, I'm considering that policy.  

 Taking all the sessions together at the end, we would come up with some sort of a menu from IGF 2019 Berlin on the issues that we were discussing.  We would avoid somehow negotiating these messages but we still would have a really comprehensive overview of what has happened.

 So if we could facilitate the reporting out, I think the two-step approach we had last year, with a short report and a long report, would already have us looking to this pretty easily.

 And then we can perhaps later on see if we can also pull in messages from open forums or day zero sessions, the dynamic coalitions, or the main sessions as well as into that and then weave these things through.

 Sorry for the long explanation.  I hope this makes sense.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think it's a very interesting idea.  I think what we need to do -- there was a series of both documents and meetings last year that produced some documents that were given throughout the process.  I think we need to pull that process back out, those documents back out, and get a small ad hoc working group, I think, to actually look through that because of these topping and tailing sessions, because of what we said we're going to do with providing kind of this thematic overview to the work party organizers, and really try and kick our whole kind of reporting-out process up to the next level.  

 So I think that's a pretty substantive piece of work.  And I think it's probably best served with an ad hoc working group.

 But I like that idea.  What I like about it is because it starts to kind of beg the question of:  Where does this information go?  Who should get it?  If you can identify kind of the question, then you can figure out what you are trying to solve and direct it differently as well.  I think it's a really interesting suggestion, and I think I would like to work with the secretariat to get a request out to the MAG for who wants to participate in this ad hoc working group.  And it's one I think probably has about a six-weeks life cycle or something because I think we had to get it done quite early so we can inform the workshop organizers so everybody starts getting prepared as we go forward.

 And I think that would support the tailing sessions, and it would support the closing session on the Friday as well.  So I think that was a really good suggestion.

 Rudolf had asked to be in the queue, so I will go to Rudolf and then we will go to Maria.  Rudolf.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  Thank you very much.  I have one question.  Is there every day a tailing session or just at the end of the IGF?  That's one question.

 Then one remark.  We are intending to cooperate again with the DiploFoundation on not -- not on a, let's say, political or negotiation level but in order to capture what has been -- what has been discussed during the day.  

 And third point, we also were planning to have this kind of exercise at the beginning of the parliamentarian session, to have rapporteurs.  We will already be towards the end of the IGF, not exactly, but towards the end to have rapporteurs, perhaps high-ranking rapporteurs, to inform the parliamentarians about the discussions during the IGF in the three tracks.  So that would also then -- this work would also feed into this parliamentarian session.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  To answer your first question, I think the notion was that there was sort of one at the end of the track.  I don't think there's any difficulty with doing one at the end of each day if we wanted a shorter one given there seems to be some additional time in each track.  But if we do that, then we're taking away from potentially adding another workshop.  I think we can maybe leave that.

 With respect to the reporting that's done, the Diplo reporting is fun and it's interesting.  I think actually a number of people here would actually like something more substantive and more concrete along some other examples we've seen in the community as well.  So we're trying to figure out what that might look like and how we might actually get it funded and supported.  So I would like to sort of hold that open a little bit as well for this other ad hoc working group.  But to take nothing away from Diplo and what they're doing but put a marker down that we're trying to figure out if there's some way we can get similar some of the things that Timea said, a more substantive set of reports and something maybe more useful and maybe even something that we could ensure was appropriate to reach out to other bodies, either for further engagement or potential action.

 I think that was all your questions.

 Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  Maria Paz Canales, civil society for the record.  I never say it.

 [ Laughter ]

 Just to add to the point that was raised by Timea, I totally agree that there's a need to provide a kind of flow to these tail sessions of each one of the tracks.  I think the idea of, like, clustering according to this criteria she was mentioning, it's a very good idea.

 Another option is to precisely use this flow that we are doing in each one of the tracks as a way to identify these clusters and maybe honor the bottom-up spirit of the IGF and have a tail session of each one of the tracks that is more like a breakout session in which we could, like, ask to the different organizer of the workshops in each one of the tracks to fulfill a role as a kind of part of the commitment of being selected in which they will have, like, a task of not provide an extensive summary but at least a short -- I don't know -- answer to the same policy question that they presented as part of the workshop.  So they show up in each one of these breakout groups inside the track.  They provide this input, and they spark a last chance for having more open-up community discussion about these ideas that were raised in the specific topics in these clusters according to the flow of the track.

 I think that will be, like, an easy way to, like, fulfill the spirit that Timea was pointing out, that precisely the Euro IGF has in the sense of the decision shaping and not decision-making.

 And it will provide this criteria that is not only what is reported by the organizers of the workshop but also more opportunity to the community to rethink about what they have heard in all those days and recap.  

 And that, finally, could feed to a closing session in some way with some kind of rapporteur or something like that.  I think that could be a complementary proposal for handling this.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think there's good ideas there as well.  We'll keep working through the queue.  

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.  

 Firstly, I want to echo what has been said before me.  I don't want to repeat that.

 It's also difficult to separate the topping from the tailing because they feed into each other and it's important to talk about both.  I don't see these things as main sessions or workshops per se.  I see them as sessions that introduce the theme, give the context, set expectations.  

 I like the idea of encouraging the rapporteurs and possibly even the moderators to participate so we can also set what our expectations are of them to bring in some consistency.

 And the opening workshop or session, we're really introducing what the stream is about, setting the expectations.  I think it could be useful to have at least one representative from each of the stakeholder groups as well just to give an input or thought of what they expect to get out of that particular stream and, of course, get participation from the audience.

 As Timea was talking about, through the whole process of the stream is to find a way to capture the issues that are arising out of the different workshops and the messages.  So that can get fed into the tailing or the closing.

 And the closing is, in my mind, where we bring up these key issues or the key messages that have come out of the workshops, discuss how people can continue to participate, where they can go to access the reports and the information and get the feedback, et cetera.  

 And then have the same representatives, stakeholder representatives, give their views on how the workshop went, what they got out of it, and, of course, a view from the audience whether they felt the whole experience useful and if they actually got anything positive out of it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Paul.  Those are some really good ideas and good comments coming out of the discussion here.

 Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you, Lynn.  I will be short.  I know we are almost in the luncheon break.

 I just want to support the ad hoc group to work further those questions.  And I would like to be part of it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Raquel.  We will put out a request on the mailing list so that people can indicate that there.  No need to do it here.

 Ben Wallis, Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.

 I think what I particularly like about Timea's proposal is that it can provide a consistent way of having these sessions.  

 I think we need to be able to have the same approach for each of the topping and tailing sessions across the three working groups.  

 But I think it's very helpful to also incorporate a consistent and useful, helpful way of getting the rapporteurs to report.  And that can feed in not only to a productive tailing session but also helping with the way the final report and the Chair's messages and the reporting out is organized in a way that's easily searchable and groupable.

 So, yeah, I think it's great to take this forward into the work group, and I think Timea's ideas provide a really good starting point.

 What I'm -- and this isn't to do with Timea's suggestion particularly but I remember a session at my first IGF in message where there were 20 people positioned in chairs across the stage, and I'm just conscious that these are tailing sessions looking to somehow gather insights from 20 different sessions.  So we need some kind of creative thinking to make sure it doesn't become a parade of 20 rapporteurs taking two or three minutes each.

 And I'm sure there are ways around that, but...

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Clearly that wasn't the intent.  And I'm sure with all the creativity in this room, we can find a way to make it interesting.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.

 I just would like to underline the importance of the policy question that we already have.  I do think it was a very good suggestion that you made before that probably the proposers of workshops that were accepted should be informed about the policy question that the other workshop proposers in the same -- under the same main theme are addressing.  So that would help them to complement each other in a way, and then also the policy questions will give us guidance, I do think, for the tailing session as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I think that's a good point, Jutta.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.

 During the Geneva meeting, I think we agreed that messages that would come out from the workshops would be put into what exactly -- what exactly we'll be communicating to the stakeholder groups; right?  And what will be useful to each stakeholder group.  And so if -- if I get to know right, first that the messages should not be too many so that they can get it.  Second is that when a workshop would have been concluded and a message drawn out of it, a workshop, wouldn't it be flooding and, you know, getting people, you know, not overburdened by the term -- I need to get it right.  Maybe I'm not getting it right.  Maybe I need clarification.  The tailing, do we have (indiscernible) at the workshop rooms or it will be a different room?  That's one.  Second, the messages, are we targeting stakeholder groups or are we targeting economics, social and other cultural messages?  Because I think the output of the -- of the IGF should -- we should be able to send messages to all the stakeholder groups that are attending the IGF and not necessarily whether it is a cultural or economic or social messages.  I need to reconcile that, and maybe you can clarify that for me, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  Good questions.  I actually think there are two things we are trying to serve.  If you're a workshop organizer and you spent the time to submit a proposal and think about policy questions and get people to participate and run the workshop, (indiscernible), you probably want, you know, a fairly substantive report out from that meeting for your own purposes and your own use.  And I think that's one stream of reporting we need to do.  And I think there's a pretty good process for that already documented.  I think we're talking about maybe shaping it a little bit differently so it fits a higher aggregation of messages as well.

 So I think we still have the individual workshops reports that come out.  I think what Timea was suggesting I think actually aligns well with the stakeholder groups but it gives us a pretty nice way to take a small number of high-level messages to the group if we said in the digital inclusion track, you know, we can go quickly through the flowchart here, the topics that were covered here, some of the main policy questions, and then maybe there's a way to turn it and say so rather than not a report out of this happened in this workshop and this one and this one, but here's some of the things we actually hear that would be appropriate for the private sector of an economic sense or -- I'm not even sure we would target the categories that Timea labeled to specific stakeholders but I think in many cases, there's maybe a primary stakeholder but I think there are other stakeholders that are interested in them as well.  Even if it's an economic issue, it's not just going to be the private sector that will interested.  It would be governments and policymakers as well.

 But I think splitting it out to technical, political, social, et cetera is an interesting way to aggregate them to a number of high-level messages and also I think start to have -- so much with the information I think is what is your road in to understanding the information that's there.  What is the right way to do that.  And I think it's kind of a gentle framing, if you will, that would still get a lot of those high-level messages and then they could drill down, if they want to, by workshop or topic.

 So I don't think we've left the stakeholder notion behind, and I think it's a way of trying to provide a high-level aggregation of input while still having all the detail behind at the workshop level.

 But again, I think this is something the ad hoc working group will work through, and I think it will be really helpful if you were a part of that as well because you can help make sure we're being clear with it.

 And I think, actually, there was a pretty good document from the secretariat last year that laid out the reporting process that we expected from the workshop organizer standpoint.  Maybe we can just dust that off, make it clear it was last year's processes and send it out to the MAG so they are aware of it.  And obviously there are some MAG members that will be less aware of it because they weren't MAG members last year, and that could be just a good starting point.

 And I think we're thinking that the topping and the tailing sessions are 90 minutes long, so they're substantive meetings and we should expect engagement from the community, just as we do in all the other workshops as well.

 Let me go back to the list.

 Kenta.  Kenta, you have the floor.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   Thank you.  My name is Kenta Mochizuki, Japanese MAG member from business sector community.  So first of all, thank you etch have for giving me the floor.

 So my comment is just regarding Timea's sessions, I support what Timea and the previous speakers said, and we also have to think about (indiscernible) reporters or organizers, if we request quickly for some report (indiscernible) organizers.  Especially now ten sessions are scheduled on day four at 11:10, but there are several workshops just before the ten sessions.  So we have to think about how we can get the report from room those workshops.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I'm not sure I understand the point about the several workshops before the ten sessions.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   I miss your question.  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   If you could just repeat your last point.  Maybe speak just a little more slowly.  I'm not sure I understood the question about the workshops that were before the ten sessions.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:   Ah, yes, yes.  So far our tailing sessions are scheduled day 4 at 11:10, but according to the current schedule there are several workshops just before the tailing sessions.  So my question is how we will be able to gather quick reports from those sessions.  You know, if we, you know, request them to submit a quick report as soon as possible after finishing, sessions, you know, it might be a huge burden for them because they might want to, you know, make some network -- networking, you know, just after sessions or, you know, maybe they have to receive some questions from the participants.  So, you know, it might be very difficult for the organizers or reporters to issue some kind of quick reports, you know, just after a session.

 So that's my question.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Okay.  Thank you.  Now I understand it.  And it was basically that in the tentative schedule that we had, it had the tailing sessions before some of the sessions had completed, so we need to find a way, I think, to look at that and figure out how to pull them in.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yeah, I mean --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Chengetai says yes, we need to look at it.  And probably be creative with respect to how we actually do that.

 Paul.  Paul Charlton, you have the floor.

 I'm sorry; wait a minute.  Timea, are you -- Some of the people are in and out of the queue.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   I just wanted to respond to Mary but I can do that in the end, so happy to give the floor to Paul.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL CHARLTON:   Okay.  Thank you.

 I just wanted to clarify -- and maybe Timea, when she comes in after me, can answer my question.  But my understanding is we would still have our individual reports out of each workshop.  And then the next step, the idea of the tailing, then, is that we will have discussions on one tailing session per each theme or it would go down to subthemes as well?  That's one question.

 The other thing is in terms of the substance of the tailing discussions, I share Ben's concern about having the parade of rapporteurs.  So I'm imagining the idea is to have sort of a value added because we already know -- we'll find out what the rapporteurs say when we get the workshop reports.  So then the idea of the tailing session is then it's sort of a new discussion but building on the -- on the -- on what's come out of the workshops or is it just addressing the themes without necessarily referring back, then, to the workshops?  Just for clarification.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   So we'll let Timea come in.  I think I can say authoritatively there will be no parade of rapporteurs.  We're not looking for a panel of 20.  We need to find a way to bring the messages up to that.  Timea, do you want to come in?  Or Chengetai --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   No, no.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Timea.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you.  I don't want to presuppose that I have the answers to every question, especially not the ones the secretariat knows way better than I do.

 My idea was that -- sorry.  My idea was that obviously all sessions would still have their long reports, and then we can look back into those and we'll tag them and put them on the website.  So I think that's very, very useful.  And it's impossible to capture all the nuances of a one half-hour session into a couple of messages.  So I think the reports should still be there still, to Kenta's point, probably a little bit later in the week or later in the month, sometime before Christmas, so that we do get them together.

 But I wanted to actually get back to what Mary was asking.  And I -- although economic and social and technical and governance issues sound like four stakeholder groups, that was in no way my intention.

 If I may give an example.  Look, for example, to gender inclusion.  We can approach that in so many different lenses.  You can look at, okay, what is the economic potential missed by not having women online?  How many jobs?  How much investment?  How much creativity is being lost?

 If you look at that from, you know, including women online in different culture settings, that's different.  Look at including in the Global South, including them in Europe, including them in rural communities, including them in urban communities.  That's another, in my mind, social and cultural norm difference issue.

 If you look at the actual technical possibility of reaching women, is that a language issue?  Is that a universal acceptance issue?  Is that a broadband issue?  Those are technical considerations.

 And then you have how do different branches of government communicate with each other when they want to solve this issue?  How do different stakeholders communicate with each other?  How different parts of the world, international organizations work to solve the issue?  Those are governance issues.  But in no way should only the business sector be dealing with solving the economic issues or in no way should only civil society be dealing with solving social issues.  It's not only the governments' job to solve governance issues.  So although they might sound that they have a lead to that, I don't think that's the spirit of the IGF, and I don't think that in our reporting we should be looking into providing special messages to special stakeholders.  I think we need to look at policy issues, and then use the spirit of the multistakeholder discussion at IGF to underline that each have part in each.

 I hope that makes it clear.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   A short response, Mary.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Okay.  It makes a lot of sense to me, but I thought those would have been what we have in the policy questions; okay?

 When it comes to reporting messages, we're sending messages to each stakeholder group, so we'll be targeting what would each stakeholder benefit from the discussion that we had during the workshop, and ideas that come from every other participant in the workshop.

 And again, when it is overloaded, I mean, people get discouraged in reading.  So we make it as sharp and as concise as possible so that it will interest the stakeholder group to actually read.  Some, if you write too much, they will not -- they will not have interest to go through all that.

 I agree with you, the long -- the long report should be.  But at the close of each workshop, I think the messages from the -- from the policy questions summary will come up from the rapporteurs, and that will feed into what we are sending to each stakeholder group.

 I think we're saying the same thing, and I get what you have.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  I think there are some really good comments there as well, and I really do hope you'll join the working group.

 I'm going to make sure that the secretariat actually sends last year's process around so we all have in front of us a good idea of what the workshop proposers -- workshop organizers were asked to do last year, and we will evolve that in line with the discussion we'll have in the ad hoc working group.  

 I'm going to pass the floor to Chengetai, then Marie, and then just a couple of final comments before we break for lunch, because we're past the hour already and I think people are probably getting hungry.

 So, Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Thank you, Lynn.  I just had a quick comment, and we will pass along what the workshop proposers were asked to do.  It also included the IGF messages that they had to derive from their sessions, but we'll pass that along.

 I just wanted to comment on the tail ended, that I don't think that the tail end should be not connected with what has gone on through the four weeks -- I mean through the four days.  So it should be connected.  Not, you know, a table of 20 people saying something, but it should be something that summarizes in some way and comes to some sort of conclusion that people can go home with and that also can be discussed in the afternoon session that we're going to have, a shorter version that's going to be discussed in the afternoon session which will include also the findings of the Best Practice Forums and et cetera.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:   Only to add to just the point that Chengetai raised.  I think there are a few, like, practical things again that we need to bear in mind in order to make the most effective process possible and which we're trying to build here as new methodology we're trying to implement to be clear in the message that we want to transmit.  And I think that just rescue what Jutta say a few minutes ago regarding that not lose of sight that we identify as a key question -- as a key element of the programming the identification of the policy question.

 So we cannot change them, the logical framework that we ask to a participant to think about.  So I understand the idea of cluster about economics, social issues, technical issues, but if you invite people to be part of a session that poses a specific policy question, you should allow them to follow the flow of that conversation and in some way reflect those, obviously cluster it in some way because you cannot have like a tailing session for each one of the programming session, but in a way that is easy to recognize for who participate before in the discussion so they can follow, like, the intellectual process of how this conversation started, developed, and is being concluding.

 I think we need to for that separate the issue of the specific report of the entire sessions that will follow probably the process and will build on top of what had been done in the past years, which is one thing.  And there we will find the full information about what happened precisely in that topic and separate that from the messaging we will be asking to these people that were in charge of these sessions to bring to a tailing session, would be like more shorter and condensed.

 In my suggestion that I don't think -- I'm not sure there's agreement about that or not.  In my suggestion, my view, those should be, like, again, sparkling points for, like, finalizing the discussion in this breakout session, in the tailing session.  So in that way, you don't have 20 people in a panel because you will have, I don't know, five breakouts in the tailing session which rapporteurs from the different sessions that were touching in that thematic cluster and then you can bring what happened in that tail session of each one of the tracks to a final session closing in the IGF in which you will have one from each track.  So you have three people in total, like, representing the summary of the conclusion.  

 I don't know if that is precisely the methodology but only to clarify that we are talking about different issues.  One, it's the report that is trying to capture the total discussion; and other one, the high-level take-away that we need to discuss in this tailing session and we need to bring to a conclusion of the event.  That's how I see.  I don't know if that is for the rest of the MAG.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Maria.  I think that captures what we are saying.  There are different phases of reporting for different purposes, and we'll pull that apart a little bit more in the ad hoc working group.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 For those who didn't hear, Sylvia said she will wait until after lunch.  She's hungry.

 I will ask Daniela for a few comments and then a quick precis to the afternoon and then lunch.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Thank you, Lynn.  Yes.  Very briefly, three points.  

 I wanted to support Jutta and Maria.  I think if you ask policy questions, then there should be a timing.  My expectations from a closing or tailing session is that I get an impression of what has been discussed to these policy questions because, personally, I couldn't have been in all of the workshops, so I expect to get the information there.

 But when Timea explained how she's thinking in a matrix, then it came to my mind, you know, that there are these artists who are painting a sort of mindmap while there are rapporteurs explaining what has been discussed over the week.  Maybe that could be sort of an idea for the hour and in the closing session at the end.

 And my last point is just a programmatic one which comes back to Kenta who asked how can we have input from workshops in the morning to the tailing session and maybe we can just move the workshops to 9:00 in the morning and the tailing session go from 11:30 to 12:30 or have a shorter -- 1:30 and have a shorter lunch break.  And then there is a break between the two sessions and that can be integrated in the tailing session.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's a good suggestion for the scheduling and a great suggestion for the programmatic.  Those maps are amazing.  I think the people that do them are amazing in terms of how they can track the conversation and draw at the same time, and it actually does capture well the discussion.

 So just -- this afternoon, we'll come back at 3:00.  We will hit the topping piece of the discussion quickly and then go into the main session discussion which is the next remaining significant -- very significant piece of work for the group here over the next few days.

 And just to get something for discussion over lunch, the two sort of kind of models I've heard for the topping session was one which is -- it's kind of a straightforward introduction, here's the track, the themes, the workshops.  Maybe there's something on context or positioning or definitional but kind of a more traditional -- stomach is growling -- a more traditional introduction.

 The other one was maybe -- because the slot is 90 minutes, maybe take a half-hour and do that and take another hour and actually have somebody who actually gave kind of, I don't know, an inspirational or aspirational or challenging speech from a different perspective.  

 What would be interesting is if we did something like that, that would give us the opportunity to invite political scientists, social scientists, philosophers, the other sorts of people we have all been wanting to more broadly engage in which we think would enrich the discussions and, of course, which the Secretary-General exhorted us to do in his comments last year.  But it would be a different perspective and a different richness as well.

 So maybe there's even a way to do a little bit of that, a kind of visionary or inspirational or challenging speaker or some different perspective and maybe we haven't pulled in.  

 I will leave that there.  We will come back after lunch and I think have a discussion on the topping session, and then we'll go into the main session planning.

 And before we start that, Chengetai and the secretariat will actually walk us through kind of current state of the overall scheduling so we all have this overall framework in mind as well.

 We found a good compromise.  There will be no physical out-of-the-room coffee break but everybody has coffee in front of them here in the room and the snacks and food will be in the back of the room.  As people desire, they can go back and grab their snacks and their food and the coffee is in front of you.  And treat that as a solid three-hour working block as we've traditionally done because we do still have an awful lot to do.

 And lunch is downstairs where it was yesterday, just one floor down.  Thank you, everybody.  See you back here at 3:00.  3:00 local time for those online.

 [ Lunch recess ]

   

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Okay. Thank you very much.  Welcome to the afternoon session of the MAG meeting.  Day two of our meetings, day one of the MAG meeting.

 As usual, we're being -- in case you weren't here this morning, there is transcription.  We are using the speaking queue, and you can find the link to the speaking queue on our front page underneath the tab, I think it's entitled "speaking queue."

 And of course the streaming is being sent to YouTube, so it's webcast.

 Thank you.  Take it over to Lynn, please.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chengetai.  As we all come back from lunch, I think we're very happy to welcome the rain and hopefully that takes it from 31, 32 degrees centigrade to 29, maybe.  It's been obviously very hot here.

 One thing.  I think the people on the speaking queue were left over from this morning because I think that's the queue we walked through.  So people should take their hands down unless they really want a hand up.

 And we had said we were going to come back and touch base quickly on the topping discussion, and then we will move into review of the overall scheduling so everybody has kind of a common picture of that.  And then we'll move into the main session planning, which is a substantive piece of today's discussion, but it was more to get the conversation started and sort of understand where we were.  And then we will review other sessions, the day zero and dynamic coalitions, NRI, et cetera.  And then again tomorrow, it was to complete on the main sessions.

 Just to establish the overall schedule for the main sessions, the intent is that we walk out of the meeting tomorrow understanding what the main sessions are at the level of kind of a draft title and a paragraph describing them with two co-facilitators assigned, so that we can go away and develop those fairly substantively in the next two three weeks, substantively enough so that we can put something in the program and that work can continue, albeit probably at a slower space, over July and August.  I'm sure that's not an entirely comfortable schedule, but if we don't get a start now, there is no real opportunity to get a good start in July and August.  And then, of course, we're coming back to September and all practical purposes, and the IGF is just too close at that point.  So we need to make a really substantive start on those.  We have all agreed that we would kind of move these main-session discussions to this point in the process because we wanted to see what had come through the workshop submissions so we understood the policy questions and then understood which sort of policy questions and workshops were actually going to make it up to the final program.  Obviously there ought to be some kind of complementarity between the main sessions and the key thrust of the program.

 So that's -- as I said, that's kind of the largest piece of work remaining before us for the next day and a half.

 So with that, just before we broke for lunch, I think we had sort of said with the tailing discussion there were some really good ideas that were suggested.  Those are obviously all captured here in the transcript.  We're going to set up an ad hoc working group that's going to look at the communications and the reporting, and I think that specifically will cover the tailing session as well.  It may well cover the topping session, but we haven't had that discussion yet.

 And I sort of said that I think the -- what I'd heard over the various meetings was that there were sort of two possible approaches.  One was a fairly straightforward introductory session to each one of the three major themes.  Another one might be -- again, we have 90 minutes for these.  Another one might be take a half hour and do that and then take an hour and get some challenging speakers, some visionary speakers, somebody who is going to open the discussion up and potentially bring in, you know, additional viewpoints.

 So I think that's sort of the question for the MAG.  If there are other suggestions for how we might do the topping meetings as well, then please make those suggestions now.  And if not, if you could please comment on the sort of two profiles I've outlined, which again, is just what I've actually heard from the group over the last few months.

 So we'll take your comments now.

 Any strong view to whether or not you think it would be most helpful to have, again, a rather sort of straightforward introductory session?  You know, this is digital inclusion, our track and sessions here today cover X.  If there were intersessional work that is appropriate, we could, of course, cover that as well.  But kind of an introduction to the IGF ecosystem as it relates to each one of those thematic tracks and maybe some -- I don't know if it's really definitional work but something that orients them to the program over the days.  We could do that.

 I don't know if we need 90 minutes to do that, but that's fine.  If we think we can do that in less, we can return time, as they say.  Or we could do that in a half hour and try and pull, again, you know a keynote speaker or a small panel or philosopher, social scientist.

 And if there's no strong opinion on that at this point in time, I'll come to Paul in a moment, it's something that the thematic working groups could maybe go away and think through overnight and we can revisit tomorrow.  So if it just needs more time to percolate, then we can do that as well.

 In the meantime, I'll thank Paul for jumping in, again, to the breach here.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.

 I actually like what you just said.  I just want to support that, of having the topping session doing the introductions and everything else but having some speaker of sorts that is quite prominent, because I think that would attract people to that session and probably make it more relevant for people to put it in their calendars.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Paul.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   You should put it in the chat room.  We really try to reserve portion of the meeting for MAG members, Antoine.  If you put it in the chat room and we think it's relevant enough, we can maybe read it out or something.

 Ben?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   No, no.

 Sorry?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   So today is a MAG meeting, and we tend to just hear from the MAG members.  But if you're in the Webex, the chat room, put your comment in there, and what we've done in some instances is read them out in the room or invite somebody to speak.  And I personally don't like to be too rigid with that but if I'm too flexible, I get calls.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you.  So this is a short comment about how we should approach the topping sessions.  And while I agree that it might be something that eventually the thematic working groups go away and organize, I think it would be best to start from a point where the MAG as a whole agrees on a template, because, I mean, with the evaluation process, we kind of grew organically because we had a short amount of time, and so the working groups took slightly different approaches.

 Another starting point could be the narrative descriptions we drew together back in April, March-April, that kind of give an introduction to the issues themselves.  But I'm not sure yet how to turn that into an interesting and useful one-hour session.  So clearly we still need to do some thinking about that.

 Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I wasn't suggesting we have different approaches.  But since we had the thematic working group and if people are more comfortable kicking around what would be most useful in terms of advancing what they think is most important in those tracks, to allow almost like breakout time in the background.  

 Anybody else who has a view otherwise?  I guess my reading would be the MAG needs more time to think about kind of which model is preferred or whether or not there's a third model.

 Why don't we try to come back to that tomorrow.  I think the question right now is pretty -- kind of either it's more of a traditional introductory session or it's a combination of an introductory session and a visionary speaker or a small panel or somebody who is kind of challenging or small panel of youth to talk about what some of this means to them and what their values and principles are.  I mean, there's a number of different threads we could potentially pick up if you wanted to pick up on any particular part of your thematic track that you thought could either bring in new people, open up the conversation, or advance the discussion.

 Okay, Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Sorry.  The speaking queue didn't work promptly, so that's why I raised my hand.

 I do think that the concept that we now have the three main themes is quite new to the community.  We have not had that before.  And I don't know whether people who have submitted proposals, they might be aware of that structure now, but most people that are participants don't have -- submitted a proposal would not be aware of that.  So I would follow what Ben suggested.  

 The narratives could be a good starting point to make people familiar what we have changed from previous years to this year to have a more structured program and that it's following these three tracks.  So that might be a starting point.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  We also haven't yet touched upon the newcomer sessions.  So doing something with a newcomer session might be a way to talk about the process this year and how to implement and look forward to next year as well as another opportunity to do some of the things you've said, Jutta.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Musical chairs, sorry.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.

 Just wanted to ask, it has been a little bit -- there's so many ideas floating in how to do the topping and tailing sessions and how they actually might make sense.  Would it be possible for the people that have made those proposals to send just a little short paragraph to the mailing list, to the MAG mailing list, so we can kind of see them all together.  And when we redeliver it tomorrow about where to go, it's not how I understood the proposal but how the person that was proposing it did it.  Because I think there are quite several implications on all of the proposals in terms of the logistics.  For example, if it is working groups, then if that meeting room can be reset to actually have round tables and stuff.  So there's quite a few considerations.  Even though I jump into all the excitement of the day of the ideas proposed, I think it would be really good if I could understand very briefly what it is that each one of the proposals is addressing.  

 If that's possible, then maybe we can make a little bit better comments, I guess, to decide how to structure those sessions.  Because there were two complementary proposals from Timea, Maria Paz, Daniela for how to put them all together.  I already lost count.  If that would be possible or a whole document maybe where we can start dumping some ideas.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Well, I mean, if Timea and Maria are willing to do that, I would say it's possible.  

 I actually think that we do need to do that at some point.  I think that was work that we agreed we'd move to the ad hoc working group and we can actually give it adequate time.

 If there was time to kind of document just what both were suggesting so we have it in mind today, that's fine.  I just -- I just don't know if for the tailing one in particular we need to define today because I think that's more about process and rapporteurs and consultants who are going to do the reporting.  And I think that's a little bit of internal work we have to do ourselves.

 And I don't know that that impacts the workshop organization.  It maybe impacts some of the rapporteur responsibilities within the workshop.  But the topping one is --

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  As Jutta just mentioned, because this is a new thing, right, and using the narratives might actually help to structure how those spaces are built, then to actually know how much of our time different members of the MAG can contribute to each one of the working groups is also -- you need a little bit of information to -- I need a little bit of information to decide where I can put the limited time I have to be able to contribute to the process.  

 So it's just a matter of a couple of paragraphs to understand where you guys are going to see if that's something we can contribute and then let the working group do the work or if it is something where I would like to be in the working group.  I just don't think I have enough to actually make that decision.  Just, yeah, a point of procedure, I guess.  Anyway, it's okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So I think Jutta's comment was more to the topping, although one can see how that might roll through to the tailing sessions as well.  I think the question is really are Timea and Maria, in particular, able to write up a couple of paragraphs or half a page on what your thoughts were.  I guess, that would be this afternoon, overnight, to bring it back in tomorrow.

 And then I think the topping session -- I don't know that there are any concrete proposals other than something which looked like a more traditional introductory and the other one.

 Let me go to Susan in the queue and then see where we are here in terms of what would be helpful to the group.

 Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  And I'll keep my comments brief.  But from what I've heard just at least on the topping session, a few different ideas.  But the idea of having a speaker, kind of a high-profile speaker, starting the session out also -- starting the week out with the topping session with a narrative, I think that makes a lot of sense.

 And it might be useful to -- since the session is 80 minutes, I think kind of having the narrative, a speaker, but even the opportunity for workshop participants or the panelists or the organizers to give a little preview of their session, that way the respective workshops could kind of -- they could maybe then get to know each other, have a feel for which subthemes they might want to look out for.  And it could foster a little bit more discussion within the workshop organizers in that track.

 But I agree with Sylvia, that we will have to turn to the mailing list to assess all of this out and to organize it.  But for those 80 minutes in that topping session, that might be something that we would like to consider as a format.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So I think there was a question on the table as to whether or not we could get Timea and Maria to kind of write up the points.  You have the transcript to start with.  You can cut and paste from the transcript.

 Maybe we do that for the tailing document.

 >>MARIA PAZ CANALES:  I can do it.  Do you want the two proposals, or do you want the merge together?  We can work together for merging, yeah?

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  I guess it's up to you guys.  But we would contribute to that because it would be kind of like a (indiscernible) of the MAG to do.  And there's a lot of sessions that are new.  

 So just having a little bit of guidance on how we would tackle those would probably be useful.  Just to start a thread on the mailing list and figure out how it goes from there, working groups or whatever, will happen afterwards.  Not to leave so many things hanging after, to me, if that's possible.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think -- so we can leave it to Timea and Maria to see whether it's a merge or whether both ideas are briefly explained and you believe there's a nice, happy combination.  Leave it to that but get that discussion kicked off on the mailing list.  

 That brings us back to the topping session which I think Susan just outlined kind of nicely pulling the various pieces together.

 Maybe it's a combination of -- or revisit of the narrative and the purpose of the track, maybe a high-level speaker to get some interest in or expand some view and something that actually does do an introduction to the individual workshop sessions, whether that's, you know, a kind of consolidated view or whether or not it's a workshop organizer.  I think it's something we can leave till later.  But it would be those kind of three components.

 Susan, do you want to write that up in a couple of paragraphs and get that thread kicked off on the mailing list?  She just said yes, so that's good.

 Jutta, you still -- are you in the queue?  Old hand.

 Ben, you're in the queue.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Yes, I am.  And for a minute, I had forgotten what I was going to say.

 [ Laughter ]

 I've remembered.  I'm in two minds about an idea around the topping session.  The themes were chosen by the MAG.  The narrative frameworks were drafted by the MAG.  And I wonder whether the MAG members themselves possibly would take a leading role in presenting in this session about what we envisaged to be discussed under this theme and that the MAG take responsibility for introducing the theme given that we chose it, we described it, we framed it.

 And I'm in two minds because I'm aware sometimes there's a feeling that the MAG's there to organize it but give enough time, it's possible for the community as a whole, MAG members shouldn't take up time in the schedule, that kind of thing.  

 But, on the other hand, you know, the MAG came up with these themes and described them and framed them, so maybe we've got a responsibility to kick things off and explain what we had in mind.

 So that -- that was a thought.  It's not a single -- that's an observation and maybe a contribution to Susan's efforts later.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ben.  

 I actually think that's fairly similar to what Jutta was describing as well when she had talked about -- a little bit about kind of the process, how we got here, and working through the narrative.  So I think the two of you were sort of very similar idea for at least that section of what might happen at the session.

 I'm sure Susan will take those comments in when she tries to -- again, this is about kind of capturing the current state of the discussion and also so we can get a discussion going on the mailing list.

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG: Thanks, Lynn, Jennifer Chung, private sector.

 Just a procedural question here.  I know perhaps before lunch you called for an ad hoc working group to deal with the topping and tailing sessions.  We're still doing that.  Is that correct?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm sorry.  We did call for an ad hoc working group, yes.  And the ad hoc working group is the one that's going to look at the -- look at the reporting process that's in place.  And I think the secretariat was going to send the document from last year's process around, take that into account.  There have been various ideas about how we can improve that.

 But I also think that what comes out of that ought to be something that feeds the tailing session and ultimately feeds the closing session on the Friday.  So the notion was that this ad hoc working group -- and we'll write this up as well in an email -- was the ad hoc working group would look through those kind of reporting requirements and also take into account the fact that we have these tailing sessions which have a kind of reporting component of them and the -- that one-hour slot in the closing session as well.  So it was to do those three activities.  But to write that up, get that out and get a formal callout to the MAG participants.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn, for that clarification.  

 I guess we would also want to wait for the documents to be sent to the list from Timea, Maria, and also Susan so we'll be able to fully embrace all the good ideas that we had earlier as well.

 One more point I wanted to, I guess, remind everyone, as we already know -- or the lightning wants to speak first.

 [ Laughter ]

 So, of course, this year, you know, thanks to the German hosts, they're doing their best to bring in a lot of high-level people from different stakeholders.  Perhaps something we could also consider for the topping and tailing would be, you know, people are saying bring in some high-profile people, bring in some people who can moderate.  However the sessions will turn out structurally, it would also be a very good thing for us to consider this part as well because it would make the program more attractive to people if we're intending to have it to be a very cohesive agenda.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yeah, I agree.  It would be a reasonable place to look for support and also something else you can offer to them as well in terms of some substantive role or some substantive visibilty in the program.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  I just thought about stepping in there because I think for the topping session, maybe that should be a combination of a brief introduction by a sort of moderator which could be a MAG member, of course, and then a high-ranking speaker.  And, of course, if you can help there because we hope that we have a lot of high-ranking speakers coming for the day zero and the first day and they should, of course, stay over the following days.  And that could give them a role, and maybe that could be a combination.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think those are really good suggestions as well.

 Danko, you were in the queue.

 No?

 Jutta.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  I think I can take my hand down because that was exactly what I wanted to address, what Jennifer said and also Daniela.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  So I think what we have is a call will go out with a brief description for the ad hoc working group for the reporting process and that will also incorporate the -- kind of some of the tailing requirements and the closing session requirements as well.

 And separately we'll have another thread which will look at the topping session which Susan is going to drive and could maybe incorporate some of this last round of discussions as well and we'll get those out and get them started soon.

 Anything more on the topping and tailing?  Again, that was a kind of new approach in line with the more cohesive, more focused approach to the program overall.  Any final thoughts or observations or questions?  Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Just -- I can't recall but I was wondering if -- I think it was either Paul or Ben.  I'm wondering who we have to thank for the topping and tailing term of art?

 [ Laughter ]

 >>BEN WALLIS:  We can get rid of it.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  It wasn't really a serious question.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I actually thought it might have been me, and I tried to move away from it several times but without success.  We can absolutely find better ways, but at least it didn't imply it was an introductory session, nothing more.

 So the next item is to move to the main session planning.  And we're first going to hear from the secretariat again so we all understand kind of the overall outline of the schedule.  And then we wanted just an introductory discussion so we can hear what sort of ideas people have, suggestions for how to approach them.  And we actually have quite a good amount of time for that discussion because I think we're -- probably we'll go through the day zero, open forums, dynamic coalitions, et cetera.  But I don't know that today we actually need to -- any additional format.  I think we can probably get a little bit of time back from agenda item 6 there.

 So let me go to the secretariat for the introduction, and then we'll come back.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Okay.  I'm just waiting for the scheduling template to be displayed.

 Okay.  If we can go to day one.  Yes, that's day one.  For day zero, it's not displayed but you already know the outline for day zero.  In the morning there's going to be the session for the high-level leaders meeting.  That's what I call it.  And that's going to take up four rooms, and we have populated the rest of the sessions with the day zero requests, and I think we managed to fit in everybody there if we give those people who applied just one session.  There's some organizations that applied for two sessions or three sessions, but we've asked them -- we will ask them to choose one.  And then I think that's fair and we can have a good distribution there.

 Of course there's going to be...

 Ah, yes.  Okay.  No, no.

 So that's for the day zero.

 For day one, I think we've already explained and gone through for the workshop sessions, so we don't have to go through those again.  And then we have one room for the open forums and then a room for the dynamic coalitions and Best Practice Forums.  And I think the rest is for the NRI sessions, which we're going to have six of them for the NRIs.

 And that's basically going to run through the whole program except for day four, the final day, where -- Can we just display day four quickly?  Yes.

 So we have the tailing sessions there, and there will be no parallel sessions in the afternoon as well.  And at the beginning of the afternoon, we have the -- I don't know what exactly to call it, but the summary session where we read out our concluding session which is just a broad overview of what has happened in all the sessions.

 So that's the thematic sessions plus also for the other sessions, the open forums and the national and regional initiatives.  So those people who have missed the other sessions because they were following a stream, a thematic stream or open forums, et cetera, can have an overview of what has happened and also hear the key messages that have been derived from those sessions.

 And then we have the opening -- open mic session, that's the traditional session, then taking stock session, and then the closing ceremony, which is the traditional closing ceremony.

 If we go back to day one again.  Sorry.

 For the main sessions, for the first day, it was just penciled in.  Don't regard that time so far.  We have a session for newcomers.  This is also up to discussion.  Do we need an hour and a half for newcomers?  If that session is there.  If there, the newcomers will also miss the topping sessions, et cetera, so do we want to shorten it so it only comes in the morning, so between 8:00 and 9:00 or we have 8:00 to 9:00 a quick session and then a longer session for those who want to stay behind and learn more about the IGF.  That's something that we have to discuss, but I can leave it to the newcomer session group to discuss about that.

 The second session on day one is what we just termed the frontier issues session.  So that's just been earmarked to talk about something that -- in line with the Secretary-General's speech and his wishes, frontiers-issues driven session and that could also be something to do with the HLPDC outcomes or anything else.  And it really depends because we don't know what the report is going to say on Monday.  We might have something to react to it.  We might have a consultative process and it could community Kate in that session, or we could have a philosophers and ethnographers meeting or whatever.  So we're just putting that there until we have a better definition of what's left coming out of the Secretary-General's office.

 As has already been explained this morning, the opening ceremony will begin at 2:00, and then we have the high-level session which is organized by the host country in cooperation with DESA.

 For the next day -- just go to day two.  Then, just as placeholders, we've divided the main sessions into an hour half session.  So we don't have to keep those hour and a half sessions, but that leaves eight sessions there.  So if we give the national and regional initiatives one session and if we give the dynamic coalitions one session, then that would give us six sessions that we have to fill in if we keep with the same timing.

 There's already been -- what I've seen, there's already been one solid proposal going around the Christchurch proposal, and then we have to see what other proposals that can come up.  And those are -- they're like that, but we can have a two-hour session and then a one-hour session.  It really depends on what the MAG feels and how we should organize it.

 I'll just turn over and see if I've left anything out.  No.  Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Giacomo, you have the floor.

 >>GIACOMO MAZZONE:   Yes.  It was simply for the point before, but you give me the floor now, but I think that is a proposal that can work for many points of the discussion we have now.

 If we are thinking eventually to ask for some professional moderators, journalists, in Berlin we have plenty of them, very high quality, from our members.  (Indiscernible) are there for (indiscernible).  So if we know in advance, if you think that it would be appropriate at a certain point, just let us know and we will discuss with them as soon as possible.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   And also as Lynn mentioned earlier on, this year we've got a little bit of freedom because they're thematic -- what used to be the thematic main sessions can be taken up with the topping sessions as well so that's something to think about.  We can have more freedom to see what we're going to do with these sessions.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chengetai.

 And I think what's giving us the added flexibility this year is the fact that we're not using U.N. interpreters.  We're using interpreters that the German government is bringing in.  So we have more ability to schedule their hours across a longer period, and it's making a tremendous difference in terms of, I think, the -- populating the program and doing it kind of comfortably.  And again, some additional flexibility.

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:   Thank you, Lynn.  Well, I'm going to jump in into the proposal for the main session about the Christchurch call, which some of you have already hear about and Lynn mentioned, and Jeremy Malcolm sent an email from a separate thread, so I guess there are some interest in some of other communities as well.

 The background of the proposal that I'm just going to share with you is that when the Christchurch -- the attacks to the Mosque happened, the deadline for the workshop proposal was kind of looming.  And in the midst of all the challenges that the technical community and the social media platforms and the media was dealing in managing that crisis, in reacting to that crisis, they managed to submit a workshop proposal to the -- on the safety and security theme that was really, like, wanting something really quickly because of course they were dealing with the actual crisis at the moment, but just trying to capture what the possible lessons were going to be about what they were experiencing in Christchurch.  The Christchurch call came actually after the deadline for the workshops.  So if you look at proposal 144 where Internet New Zealand and other organizers presented a proposal about what was happening in their case, in their situation, it's just a very brief proposal that, as you know, in the last eight weeks have evolved into a full-blown text that was signed by several countries and many companies without that much of a consultation process, very limited influence from the civil society in that space.  And that, as a result, has had a little bit of a criticism about how the Christchurch call came to be.

 So the idea of this main session, the topic or the title, the draft title that we have been working on is Internet Platforms and the Challenges of Online Content Moderation from the Christchurch Call to the Future of Multistakeholder Participation in a World Demanding Quick Action.

 So I guess the challenge for -- or the idea that we're trying to encapsule in that title is to -- instead of criticizing, sitting at the side, at the borders of the call, the Christchurch call, the text and the process and everything else and criticize that it didn't have enough consultation, it didn't have civil society participation, which we know and they agreed and they are doing some processes on the side to kind of redress that, it's more about, okay, how can, as a community, see that there are some policy actions that are required during a crisis.  And in what context and how quick the multistakeholder process can adapt to help during a crisis.

 And so responses during crisis are chaotic.  Others are not well thought, and others are coming from good intentions and the heart, like the one that Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister from New Zealand, managed, and all the way how she managed the crisis.

 So the idea is that the proposal will try to look, by the time we are in Berlin, back in Berlin, the Christchurch call would have been started with the implementation process.  They are running, at the moment, an open consultation not to the text that was already signed by companies and governments but a process about how civil society and other stakeholders can participate in the implementation of the call.  So the idea of this main session will be to try to figure out what happened in all of those six months, what mechanisms were part of this, and doing the process of preparing the session, how can we contribute to the process, which is a real concrete outcome of how all of these issues around security and safety in cyberspace actually touch lives and affect lives of people in the real world every day.

 So what I have been doing with Jordan Carter, Ellen Strickland, David Reid from the New Zealand government, and some other folks that are participating in the proposal -- were participating in or are participating in the Christchurch call, sorry, is to take text on the regional proposal that they submitted and rearrange it into the template that we have for main sessions for last year and see how it addresses policy questions, how it touches on the relevant issues about what happened after the call for proposals closed down and how can we use those 90 minutes to come a productive conversation around what happened and how can we support to improve the process, not necessarily beat it with a stick and an academic eye; right?

 The good news is that there is actually a very strong possibility to have Jacinda Ardern to join the IGF to come and explain the Christchurch call and how the call came to be and how the call is implemented.  Of course, I don't want to raise expectations to have the coolest Prime Minister in the planet coming, but maybe.

 So I -- of course I will share the draft that we are working on, and I really welcome your comments and your input about how can we organize this.  There have been several mentions of the Christchurch call; for example, in the Internet and Jurisdiction Conference.  One of the high-ranking officials from the Canadian government, Mr. McGovern, that was in the opening plenary presented how Canada sees the implementation process and the text also.  And in several of the workshops, especially the workshop on the track around content, there were several of those conversations happening.

 So we've been investigating academics that might be able to contribute to the process, technical community members, civil society members that are actually part of that review and implementation process to see how that takes shape into a session.

 If you look at the link for what the Christchurch call activity is, it's a very stern text that the many media, social media companies agreed to sign and several governments are signatories, and that list is kind of growing.  So it is -- it's not bilateral, but it's not multistakeholder either, I guess.  So it's something in between.

 So if we could take a look at that and see.  It is a very concrete policy action on a very strong issue affecting society, and I hope to have the MAG consideration to see how to incorporate it into the program.  And I am merely facilitating and putting people together.  So all hands on deck if this goes ahead.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Sylvia.

 We'll keep going through the queue.  Let people think through that a little bit. I will note that at one point, the transcriber "saying the name" where you had actually said it was the Prime Minister of New Zealand who could potentially come, just to make sure that that was noted properly.

 Next in the queue, we have Chenai.  Chenai, you have the floor.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Thank you very much, Lynn.

 I think I just wanted a little bit more clarity on the frontier sessions.  So I've gone through the transcription and I've seen that it's reserved for when the HLPDC comes out on Monday, and it could be a space to also discuss that, and correct me if I'm wrong.  So I think the last time the frontier sessions were mentioned in the last meeting, they were spoken about as in when topics might that come up that might be -- that we might have missed during the selection and then something interesting comes up a month prior to the meeting.  And I thought they would be given maybe an opportunity for actually for -- either we would have seen them from the transitions that have come in that might be interesting topics but don't have room yet or if something fantastic happens, where, I don't know, maybe Facebook or Google is broken up, then there might be an opportunity for that to be a hot topic that's discussed at that meeting.

 So I would have assumed -- because I can see from the program that we haven't created space for flash discussions.  For example, if someone wants to say something in five minutes or for people who might already be there and they've got a new topic.

 So I was just thinking that it's fantastic to have this frontier session that we will discuss this high-level report as it comes out and has been given the rightful importance within the Internet Governance Forum meeting, but thinking about participants who will actually be there and have a topic that, you know, three months later, you weren't able to submit it for the proposal, but you're actually in the space and you would actually like to have an opportunity to engage on this topic.

 So I don't know if we could think about opening up that frontier session a little bit more to maybe have -- okay, thinking off the top of my head, maybe to have a town hall format, where you reserve perhaps the last 30 minutes and people can sign up for slots in advance to say, "I want to come and talk about this particular topic" if you're already coming.  Not to necessarily say that we extend an invite or someone has to apply again to actually then get an invitation, which is they come and talk to about this topic.

 So maybe thinking about the frontier sessions to be more about what has happened in the last couple of months that we hadn't thought about post workshop selection as well.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Chenai.  There was actually quite a lot in what you said, and I think we could come back to the frontier session in a moment.

 To take the last point, we do actually have an item on lightning sessions.  And is that what you would mean when you say flash sessions as well?

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:   Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And then -- no, no.  I don't know if there's an opportunity to do something.  One of the last things you talked about was almost more of what, in some other communities, they'll call a birds-of-a-feather session which is, you know, there seems to be a burgeoning topic and there's some interest in it but it's not really well formed.  And people say if anybody wants to get together to discuss this to see if it's a real issue or of interest or I'll meet you here for an hour on -- and, you know, sometimes tremendous pieces of work have come out of that.  Sometimes it's really not.

 I don't know if you were -- if that's sort of what you were talking about when you talked about those 30-minute signup sessions or if that was kind of the flash lightning sessions.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  I think those birds of a feather usually organically happen at the IGF, so I wasn't thinking about those ones because I think people often self-organize.  I was thinking more in terms of kind of announcing there's lightning sessions.  But if people want to sign up and speak on the public forum, not just in the -- like having it in, like, a lunchtime space or something like that but to actually give importance for people to sign up and actually say, "I've got this whole captured audience and then this is what I want to say about this topic."

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'm sorry.  I couldn't hear you properly so I'm still reading.  You do understand there is a space for the flash sessions, correct?  And you were saying that you wanted another space where people can sign in, but there is going to be a space for the lightning sessions.

 And also to answer your question on the frontier issues, it's not necessarily for the HLPDC report because, you know, the report might come out on Monday and it's got nothing to do -- there's nothing there for the IGF to do.  But there are a lot of things that the U.N. and the Secretary-General is interested in because when he came last year he did mention quite a number of issues.  That we can fill in that spot later on.

 We do have six sessions.  We filled one so far.  Probably we filled in one.  So there's five more to fill in.  If we fill in those and then we're lacking space, I think then we can come back and revisit that other space.

 But, yes, I also do think it's good idea.  Maybe we can reverse -- reserve one of those five spaces for something that's going to come up and then we'll have four spaces to fill them in.  We can work it that way, and then we can come back and do a runover again.

 Would that be okay?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me just clarify the process we're working towards.  I think right now we're in the process of identifying possible topics for main sessions.

 What we have is a slot for the DCs, a slot for the NRIs, six sessions, and one that was kind of place carded as frontier issues for the U.N.

 So the things that I've got so far was -- there was a proposal for Christchurch.  I don't think any of these are given, by the way.  The MAG hasn't had the discussion yet.  

 There is a proposal for Christchurch.  Feels like there's a proposal somewhere in the winds for the frontier or a HLPDC.  

 Earlier this morning we heard some possible cross-cutting topics.  Internet of Things, jurisdiction and AI were the three things I took down.

 I think what we wanted to do in this session was kind of pull the ideas out from the room to see what we had for suggested topics, and then we will continue to let them percolate overnight and come back tomorrow and advance them.

 So I just want to make sure we're all kind of clear on the process.

 And, you know, it might be a good idea to leave some space open for late-minute topics.  I don't know that I would leave a 90-minute main session with interpretation open for a late topic because I'm not sure you really get the right organization and the right level of speakers there.

 But I think we can absolutely -- and particularly with the flexibility in the venue here and the flexibility of interpreters, I think if there was a really important late-breaking topic, I'm fairly confident we could find room for it.

 Let me see if Daniela and Rudolf have any other comments or anything you would like to --

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Yes.  Thank you, Lynn.

 In fact, I just wanted to say that I think it's very wise to leave one session for discussion on the High-Level Panel or whatever that might be done in the end.  

 I also noted some cross-cutting issues this morning thinking that could be wise to take them up in the main sessions.  You mentioned already IoT, jurisdiction, AI.  I had also human rights.  Maybe there is also an interlinkage with the Christchurch call, so could be a way to take that issue up maybe.

 And I have another one.  I think there's another issue that is discussed very much right now in the international level, not the least this weekend among the G20 ministers because there is a meeting of digital and trade ministers in Japan.  And so I would suggest one main session on digital governance and digital trade.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I noted those on the list.  We can get this list out to the MAG members later today as well.  So we've actually got it in our mailbox to think through overnight.

 So going through the list here, Kenta, Kenta, you have the floor.  You speak very quickly.  So if you could speak a little more slowly, we will make sure the transcribers --

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Thank you so much, Chair.  Sorry.  I'm Kenta Mochizuki, Japanese MAG member from business sector community.

 Actually, I might lose the point but regarding the schedule on day one with regard to the main session, especially with IGF for beginners main session, I think participants in the IGF for beginners main session should be able to -- should also be able to participate in topping sessions.  So would it be possible for us to move the topping sessions just after the IGF's main session?  And instead of that, to hold the other sessions, like open forum or DC, BPF and NRIs, in a slot from 9:30 to 11:20?  So I would appreciate if you could think about that.  Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Moving the other sessions would be a  bit difficult because then it squeezes the sessions and we may have to lose a workshop or two.  I think it might be a good idea to make the first session, the newcomer session, a little bit earlier if we can, yes, so that people who are newcomers can come in early and get the benefit of that session.

 >>KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Thank you very much.  I fully agree with you.

 I just want to say one thing.  I fully support what Daniela has said because Japan is chair of the G20 now.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Kenta.

 So I think it's good solution if we do move the newcomers up and make sure it's not competing against any of the other really important and kind of introductory sessions.  And also Kenta's support for the digital governance, digital trade was noted.

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thanks, Lynn.

 I originally had three points, but Kenta made one of them.  So I would just like to also support moving the beginners session or introductory session up so they'll be able to come to the thematic introductory sessions because I think that's pretty much why we wanted to have it in the first place.  So support for that.

 The second point I wanted to bring up is a little -- I guess it's to do with the scheduling.  Looking at the day two, day three schedules, it looks like the main sessions right now are being allotted 90 minutes.  I think that's a little short.  I don't know if I recall correctly that MAG members previously in our calls and also the April meeting -- we did mention that we thought that 120 minutes would be more fitting for a main session if we're giving, you know, this particular topic the importance of the transcribing, the translation as well.  

 So looking at day two and day three, I see there's a half an hour break in between the morning two main sessions.  If we could shorten that, it would make sense.  I don't know how much time we would need to move in between rooms.  But 30 minutes seems very generous.  I don't know how slow of workers we might be.

 And then for the afternoon, I do note we are starting again at 3:00 p.m. and it ends around 6:00.  So I don't know if that would mean we would lose a main session or if we would be able to push it up or push it down.

 One idea I had as I was listening to Chenai is if we do extend the main session, you know, supposedly we do extend it to 120 minutes, the afternoon session will become one main session and then we would still have an hour perhaps on day two and day three with a main room with transcription, with translation.  That could be reserved for emerging topics, not particularly in an ad hoc format like the lightning sessions but something less concrete than the Christchurch call, for example.  That came up after everything was closed.  

 But from now until November, there could be issues, topics, events that really affect, you know, the Internet governance space that we are in.  It's possible that we reserve that hour at the end of day two, for example, for something like that.  

 It's just a suggestion mainly because I think the 90 minutes for a main session is quite short because we're allotting 90 minutes for the workshops as well.

 And my third point I'll reserve for when we talk about lightning sessions.  So thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jennifer.

 I think it's entirely possible to have the main sessions of four for two hours each.  Because I understand we have the interpreters for eight hours over the course of the day.  We can get confirmation of that --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  It's been confirmed we can have interpreters for as long as is reasonable.  Yeah.  So whatever.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And, I don't know, we can look at the schedule overall.  I'm not sure I'd shorten the 30 minutes between the sessions.  That would probably take it away from the lunch break or something just in terms of they never end on time, people never get off the stage on time, and everybody needs to come in and need to clean up and reset.  It's always just a little bit tense between those that are being rushed off and those that are rushing on.  But that's a detail that I know the secretariat can walk us through.

 But I think the take-away from there is that two-hour sessions for main sessions is possible without reducing the number of main sessions.  So if anybody was in the queue to support that or comment on that, we can save ourselves some time and take it as a given that we will move up to two-hour main sessions where requested and we are not shortening them.

 Before I go to the next person in the queue, I just want to see if there's anything else.  Daniela, I think you need to leave soon.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  I just want to apologize because, in fact, I have to leave.  You know, Stefan Schweinfest is in Japan right now due to the G20 meeting and I have to take over some of his tasks.  So I apologize for that.  But I will be back tomorrow morning.  

 Have a nice evening even though the weather is much less good than yesterday.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  Can I just say on behalf of (saying name), he just got his bag -- he lost his bag yesterday in the public transportation here in Berlin.  And it was returned to him today.  So thank you, guys, for doing a great job in Berlin.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'd like to --

 >> (off microphone).

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  With a computer and a passport inside.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  The only other place that might happen is in Switzerland and I did that on a train once.

 I do want to just thank Daniela.  I know she was a little concerned about leaving.  I said she's already given so much and so much time here in terms of participation that we're very, very pleased to have her here.  And, obviously, Rudolf is here in good stead as well.

 So we'll make sure and take your comments earlier into account when we put out the draft.

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  Thanks very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  You're welcome.  Thank you.

 Giacomo, Giacomo, you have the floor.  No, Giacomo doesn't have the floor.

 So we'll get your hand taken down.  Helani, Helani is participating online.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA:  Thank you, Chair.  My point has been just raised by another MAG member, so I actually put my hand down.  But your system is a bit delayed.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Helani.  And thank you for your continued attention.  It's not always easy to participate remotely.  So appreciate your efforts.

 Susan Chalmers, Susan, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Chair.  I just briefly wanted to support Jen's comments regarding longer main sessions and supporting the general notion that we reserve some space for a late-breaking issue.  That's all.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  I think both those things are a given.  We said we have some good flexibility in the overall program flexibility.  And, again, we can proceed on the assumption that we have two hours for the same number of main sessions.

 Jorge, you have the floor.

 >>JORGE CANCIO:  Thank you so much.  Jorge Cancio, Switzerland, former host country, for the record.

 Just wanted to support the idea put forward by the present host country co-chair that we reserve some space to the High-Level Panel.  

 And apart from supporting that to put some, let's say, history to this.  In 2017, the IGF, we co-organized, we hosted in Geneva.  We had a high-level session on the future of our common digital governance.  And seven months later and partly as a reaction to the broad feeling that we sensed in Geneva, and which also was reflected in the Geneva Messages, the U.N. Secretary-General established the High-Level Panel.

 When he came for the first time in person to an IGF in Paris, he really gave us a lot of ideas, a lot of requests to think about.  And I think he also involved a lot into discussion what the High-Level Panel at that moment was beginning to discuss internally.

 In a couple of days, we will have the report.  We will have a lot of processes going on in NRIs on this.  So I think that especially if the U.N. Secretary-General comes again to Berlin, hopefully, it would be very fitting that we continue that conversation.  So I will leave it by that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Jorge.

 Ben Wallis, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.

 So I understand this is a moment for canvassing ideas.  And many thanks to whoever is logging all of these in one place for us to be able to refer back to.

 I thank you, Lynn, for confirming that the main sessions will actually be two hours' long, if it feels like we need two hours for a main session.  That was going to be one of my concerns.

 On the Christchurch call, I think -- I think that's a very interesting, a very relevant topic and it brings in various stakeholder groups, the responsibilities of social media companies like Microsoft, the role of governments, the views of civil society.

 And in some ways, it might be seen as cross-cutting here, broader issues around online safety and digital civility, striking the balance between freedom of expression and protecting against hate speech and the spread of terror.  And the Christchurch call is a very timely focal point for such a discussion.

 We haven't got as far as discussing whether some of the main sessions should be set aside specifically for each of the three themes.  There might have been an assumption that that was the case.

 So we might need to reflect whether the proposals coming forward now in this canvassing of ideas should be seen as a main session related to one particular theme, so maybe Christchurch call comes under security theme.  Maybe digital trade comes under data governance or whether some of these ideas happen to be somehow different or cross-cutting.

 The final contribution I was going to make here was to go back over an idea that I raised back in Geneva at our April meeting about a potential main session topic.  And this would be something I think would be cross-cutting in nature.  The idea -- discussions around a holistic policy framework discussion on ICTs that could link to both what the U.N. Secretary-General was calling for during the address at last year's IGF and the reasons for High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, making sure that policies are discussed across government departments, across -- and bring in groups and experts that aren't normally involved in Internet governance.

 So the importance of multidisciplinary and working across silos.  So the session could explore how to ensure that multidisciplinary Internet governance discussions, and ensuring that there's holistic policy-making and how to improve coordination between networks and multidisciplinary discussions.

 We're yet to see the high-level panel report.  It could well be that this provides a way to have a discussion around some of its recommendations.  There are also two existing approaches that could be introduced into the discussion that I mentioned before, which are the OECD's going-digital framework, and the International Chamber of Commerce has a paper on the holistic policy framework.  And there you have the ideas that Timea was talking about earlier about when you look at an issue, are you thinking about the technical or are you looking at it from a social perspective or an economic perspective or cultural.  You have to look at all of these issues, all of these element of an issue.

 So that would be the specific proposal for main session at this point.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben, for your comments.  We'll capture your last suggestion.

 I don't know if there was a sort of firm idea that we would have main sessions that tied to the three, per se.  And if we think about what's included in each one of those three, they're all so broad.  So I think the room shouldn't feel restricted to trying to fit in, because I don't think that's what we've actually heard in all of our previous discussions.

 If sitting here today and having thought through the program and done the work that's what we want to do, we can, of course, do that.  But I think we should just keep the ideas coming out.

 Maybe just one other thing before -- you know, language sometimes.  I don't even see the -- I don't see what Sylvia just described as the Christchurch -- it had a very, very long title.  I actually don't see it as a Christchurch call, per se, but more something that I think could be generalized to how do the fact that there are events happening in the world that take place at a pretty rapid process where policymakers feel obligated to take some relatively quick action, and if you were to look at this from the private sector side, I guess the private sector side is trying to figure out what their response should be in that, and how do we make room in those processes for appropriate multistakeholder input and what kind of pressure might that put on some of the multistakeholder processes.

 So I saw it as something that could be kind of generalized to different sort of situation, maybe with the Christchurch as an example.

 So I'm just sort of encouraging us to think about it in a really broad kind of context, it could be useful in many others, rather than a particular country or a particular region's approach to one of the more recent events.

 And of course we have it not just in 2017 in Geneva but in every one of the IGFs that I can remember, we had a significant session if not a main session on evolution of the multistakeholder model.  We did that in Paris last year as well, because of course, of course, it's rather important to all of us who participate in the IGFs that we're continuing to look at how that process could be improved.  So, I mean, I continue to support things that advance the appreciation for the -- for the activities.

 I think that was all of your points, Ben.

 Paul.  Paul Rowney, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Thank you, Lynn.

 Just following on what Kenta just mentioned about the newcomer's track.  And I have a couple of thoughts on this.  One thought is we could hold the newcomer's track more than once, which means people could choose which session they went into, but another thought is that part of the -- what's covered in the intros could also form part of the newcomer's track, which gives some structure on how the themes are going to flow, et cetera.

 And possibly the same should apply to the open forums and DCs.  I don't know, just thinking aloud here.  That there's some commonality at the beginning to introduce some flow and thought process into how the whole IGF is going to move forward.  So these key points are the no lost regardless of where you go at the start of the IGF.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I think those are really good points.  Good points, Paul.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.

 I want to re-echo what China has said and Susan supported about giving space for unforeseen action or issue that might come up before November.  Because the way the Internet or digital space is moving, you can never predict what will happen.

 I would like to have some proposal for main session.  I'm looking at tying together the multidisciplinary call from the U.N. Secretary-General, the digital governance convention call from the private sector.  I think it was Microsoft or one of the organizations in 2017 or 2018 call for digital governance convention or something like that.  And then the Paris peace call.  If we can put those together and it be a main session so it can be raised and discussed again.  That's the one.

 And then I don't know what the high-level -- I agree with the high-level panel session.  No problem.  But I don't know what the legislation or the -- what -- I think the high level is the parliamentary session, parliamentarian session would look like and topics they would discuss.  But I know countries would be interested in SDGs.  So can we have a session that ties the tracks to the SDGs so we can discuss how it would tie into this, because when we are doing the proposal, you know, the tracks, we also dragged it to the SDGs.  Maybe you will look at that because countries will be interested, especially the Global South, how this could help -- any of these discussions could help achieve SDGs.

 So those are my three -- three suggestions.  Tying the calls together, whether it's Paris or it's Christchurch or the multidisciplinary one with the private sector, and also looking at the -- tying the -- having a session on SDG in all the tracks. 

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Mary.  Those are good suggestions.  And one question I had in the back of my mind a little bit is some of the Best Practice Forum work on cybersecurity in terms of how much would you expect to be in a position to address through what I'm assuming is a BPF session at the -- at the IGF.  Particularly because it was -- the Paris call was launched there, and at some point I think we should make a conscious decision as to whether or not we're going to ensure that there's been some action or response or, if not, that we can clearly talk to that and explain that, if only as a matter of courtesy at a very minimum.  But I do think it raises some -- some important points.  So maybe Ben can just think about that a little bit.  I'm not quite sure what the BPF was planning or going to do.  You can respond now or if you need time to think about it, too, that's fine.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   I mean, certainly it's -- it's going to be part of the BPF's work this year, and it will be a BPF session, and there will be a BPF report.  So we saw that as a natural place to -- to look at the Paris call.

 It would not be unheard of at all for a main session to look at cybersecurity or to have some discussions about cybersecurity and providing views on the Paris call or what the French government, you know -- the direction they think it's heading, could feed into a main session.  I'm not sure a main session on the Paris call alone would be -- would be relevant as much as my company as an active signatory to the Paris call would be happy to participate in one.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Totally agree with your comment in terms of it's probably not appropriate as a separate but just keep track of it as we go through these proposals.

 Thank you, Mary.

 What we're doing in the background here is Eleonora and I are just going to put a list together of the suggestions.  We can try to capture a little bit of the kind of background discussion behind them, but I think it will look more like a list that we will come back to tomorrow.  And we'll get that out to you tonight.

 Timea, you have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you, Chair.

 A couple of points that I wanted to make were actually very eloquently put by several of my colleagues, so I just want to quickly support the idea of having longer main sessions, the idea -- I think Paul was talking about newcomer sessions.  That might also be something to consider, to have several, if there's space for that.  Or even a newcomer's booth.  We even before had, in a previous meeting, I think two years ago we had mentors or senior MAG members who had a button for newcomers.  That might also be an idea that we want to revisit.

 Another idea that I have, and call me a radical, if you want, but we were thinking about streamlining the IGF program.  So I'm thinking about the main sessions.  Even if they are for two hours, and I think that's great because we need to give time for discussions, but do we really need four a day for two hours each?  Is there any way that we consider two or three a day or maybe a morning and an afternoon one for two hours?  And to give people space for even filling that extra hour with, you know, ideas for media communication or interviews with some of the prominent speakers we have, a networking session, or just leaving people the time to go to a bilateral meeting or whatever else they might have on their agendas.  Just a thought.

 In terms of concrete proposals, I'm sorry my idea is not fleshed out fully here because I wasn't -- I wasn't prepared of making a proposal on this today.  I was in -- I don't know why, but I thought we were going to do that with put proposals in writing and then decide on them.  But an idea I had for a main session, and this goes also into supporting a point that somebody else has made earlier about having main sessions for tracks.  I think it would be an interesting idea to have some of the main sessions at least link or draw the main topic from the three tracks to remain consistent with the program.

 And if we are to consider one that is linked to the inclusion track that I was working on with my colleagues, I would propose a session to look at the different elements required to improve and ensure inclusion as society undergoes digital transformation and preventing people from being left behind.

 The session could look, in my view, at the future of work aspects of digital transformation, and running through the entire spectrum of education, the skills training, and look also into beyond training, on the demand and supply side of how the future of work idea is going forward.  It could consider things like accessibility aspects, even goes to maybe people with disabilities that is coming up from a couple workshops, connectivity, local content issues, things like that, and on top of that skills and training.  If we can have a discussion on that, I think it would be very useful.

 We had a couple of very successful workshops on this in the past.  I think we could draw this out into the main session idea.

 And I promise I'll put my proposal forward in a more comprehensive way when I have the chance to write it down, and colleagues can look at it online.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Timea.  Working backwards as well.  I think that is a very, very important area in terms of proposals.  So I'm sure the MAG would look forward to receiving more -- more information on it.  It's just very, very important.

 With respect to fewer main sessions, I think we can leave that question for the MAG tomorrow, and I think it ought to probably depend more on whether or not we think there are subjects that are worthy of a main session and the time there.  Part of the reason for having the slightly longer lunch break was to facilitate those networking and more informal sessions and that sort of thing, which is already a pretty significant amount of time, which would of course probably be shortened somewhat if we had the two-hour main sessions.  But we were trying to create that time.

 Ananda, you have the floor.  And congratulations on getting your bag.

 >>ANANDA RAJ KHANAL:   Thank you, thank you.

 I first of all thank the people and the government of Germany for such a generous hosting of this meeting.  And as Lynn already mentioned, I left my bag in the tram, and then today, with the help of Jutta and a colleague there who raised the online found system and informed me that the bag was found and I just collected the bag.  So it is not only the generosity of the people but the integrity and the professionalism of the institutions I think that we really appreciate.

 Back home it is very unlikely to happen.  And if happens, it will become a front-page news.  So I am really happy to share this with you.

 Thank you.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ananda.

 Susan Chalmers, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:   Thank you, Chair.

 Just for the terms -- in terms of how we move forward with the main session process, one thing that at least I've seen to be missing are -- so did we ever have a call for proposals or is this discussion that call for proposals from the MAG members?  Because I think I really appreciated what Sylvia circulated, and I think that's nice that something that's in writing that I'm able to review and that we're all able to comment on.  And so I think I would -- and in the past we did have some process and guidelines around main session proposals.  I don't know if we want to dust those off.  They're not too old.

 But I was just wondering, are people expecting, given the agenda tomorrow, to develop proposals this evening or are we going to be given a little more time to consider and review and submit?

 So I hope that helps some folks in the room.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   I could go right to the short answer and say not much more time.  I think we had decided at past MAG meetings, rather than starting the main session discussion earlier was that we wanted to wait and see what came through with this new process with the thematic tracks.  We had the narratives, we had the call for workshop submissions, which was based on the call for issues earlier in the year.  And the MAG said they wanted to see what policy questions came in and what the kind of approved workshops and that track developed like before deciding what to do with the main sessions.

 So I think it is a slightly different process than last year.  Last year we had had a discussion which basically said if we had eight tracks or ten tracks or whatever it is, there was none a agreement, maybe an implicit assumption that there would be a main session for each track.  And I think we moved away from that somewhat this year, wanting to, again, build a thoughtful program on the basis of the policy questions that came in and the proposals that were approved by the MAG.

 So I think the process we're in is trying to get to a high-level -- a high-level description, in quotes, before we leave here tomorrow so that we know that we're generally thinking on one on -- I don't know, to use one, digital governance and digital trade or another one on digital inclusion.  And kind of having enough of a discussion here in the MAG that we understand what kind of a high-level description of that will look like; that we get some co-facilitators to go away and develop that proposal, bring it back to the MAG so that, ideally, by the end of -- actually, I think we said by the third week in June, we would have enough that we could put a title and a description up in the schedule when they release the schedule.  And that would allow the working groups for each one of the main sessions to advance the proposal over July and August, which, you know, in the northern hemisphere is a really heavy vacation period.

 The timing is tight, but if we don't make a really good start on it in the next three weeks, for all practical purposes, the substantive discussion with the MAG would happen in September, and I think we all agree that's just far too late to pull together a substantive program and get I think the level of speakers we'd like to get.

 Please, Chengetai.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Sorry.  And also, we've noticed, as has been commented on, in the previous years that if people go away and construct a proposal by themselves in isolation and then bring them to the MAG, there's a sort of competition that develops and people get very, very attached to their proposal and they will find it difficult to let it go.

 So this time round, we were trying to see that if we could come to some consensus on the topics.  So if we do have the six topics, then the MAG can break into these groups and come up with an agenda or a proposal, then that will be much better and much more conducive, too.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  That was a great point.  Thank you.

 So is that clear enough then, Susan, and everybody in the room?

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Yes, thanks so much for clarifying that.  Appreciate it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And I do think we should come back afterwards and maybe take a quick look at the existing documentation on how we would document main sessions and see if that still works in terms of the kind of information we would ultimately flesh out.

 Jutta, you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  I have two things I would like to add to the discussion.

 First thing as co-facilitator for the dynamic coalitions, I would like to emphasize the interest of the dynamic coalitions to have that joint main session.  Was discussed yesterday or reported yesterday, that there are still two potential ways to come to that joint session.  And that will be discussed in the next call of the dynamic coalitions, probably at the beginning of July, in the first week of July or last week of June, and then we can go forward with that.

 And second -- second thing about the main sessions, I would like to support what Timea said before about it would be a good idea to have main sessions around the three main thematic tracks.

 I do think we have come so far with the process of assessing these proposals that now we already know that there is enough flesh to the bones that we can have a main session out of the three tracks.  That's kind of different than three months ago when we just were starting with these main themes and we did not know what would come out of it and how good the proposals would be and how good the policy questions would be.  But now that we've come through the process of assessing the proposals, I do think there is enough in there.  And it would also help to have this concise program where people really understand, okay, there is this track and that track and that track.  And there is also a main session that is some of the cross-cutting issues that are within these main themes.  So I really would like to pled for having three main sessions for the three main topics.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And do you have any thoughts on what they might be or how we might structure them or have some of the things we already hit upon today, are they possible candidates?  Just trying to advance the discussion a little.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  If we could come back to that tomorrow, that would be easier.  It's just that I derived the ideas from what we had yesterday evening when we tried to agree within the group on the proposals that was shaping already what would be the issues and what could be the speakers.

 And probably we also have among those workshop proposals that did not come through, some of them because of diversity or something else, we still have high-level speakers in these proposals and we have very good policy questions.  So it could also be that we draw on these proposals again and ask the high-level speakers in these proposals whether they would contribute to a main session on the same theme.  So that could be one option to bring it more in shape.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Of course, the logical next step following that discussion would be that we'd ask the thematic working groups to take responsibility for organizing a main session aligned with those main themes.  So I think the question -- just to make sure the suggestion that Jutta is making, I think, says understand what we did with the narratives back at the beginning of the process, understand what's come through the workshop proposals, understand how the thematic working groups actually felt about what were the main themes and main discussions that should be brought forward, and build a main session off of that kind of flow.

 And Jutta is nodding her head yes which, of course, means it would be up to the working groups then to advance those main sessions.  So we'll leave that as maybe kind of a separate -- not a separate but a counterproposal or process.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  I just got the impression that would not be too much additional work because we already have gathered a lot out of the assessment process of the proposals.  Okay, it will need to have a deeper look but it would not be a completely new process and not so much additional work, I don't think.

 I saw Ben a bit of nodding, so maybe he feels the same about data governance group.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I can't tell if his nodding was on the positive side or "I'm not sure" side.  My reading was "I'm not sure" side.

 [ Laughter ]

 I think that's really funny we have different interpretations.

 But let's leave that as an open proposal, Jutta.  We'll continue going through the queue, and then people should come in and comment on it as they -- as we move through the queue.

 Miguel, you are next.  You have the floor.

 >>MIGUEL CANDIA:  Thank you.  Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  It's Miguel Candia for the record.

 Thank you for leaving open Jutta's proposal because I have to wrap around -- my head around it.  

 While doing so, I wanted to support the idea of having something on the SDGs because to put in a sentence is to recognize or to have an idea of the impact of the ICTs in the Internet ecosystem on the fulfillment of the 2030 agenda for the development -- sustainable development goals.

 That is, I think that would have a strong political impact on our agenda because every single country in the world is doing its part to try and get the SDGs done in their own countries, particularly in the national level.

 So that would give us a visibility, as I believe it.  And second of all, it would help to know on the Internet governance-wise what we can do to further the SDGs from our standpoint.  So that would be a thumbs-up for that proposal.

 On the number of main sessions, it would be interesting to look -- if we can have fewer maybe but as long as we don't have a negative impact on the strength of the program.  

 In that scenario, we should keep maybe shorter main sessions but still the number to have the eight main issues that we think are strong enough to be there at that level of attention or focus for our program.

 And we did speak about the main session in March, if I recall correctly, and decided -- or went the way of waiting up until this point in time to see how the program was developing.  So I think although I understand Susan's question very clearly, it was something that we made by choice this year.  So maybe we can take that into account for the next years.  That would be all for me.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Miguel.  Appreciate your points on the SDGs.  And there is always room for improvement in these processes.  Thank you.

 Chenai, Chenai, you have the floor.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR:  Thank you, Chair.

 I just want to follow up -- I just want to follow up on the point that Mary raised around newcomer session and having the MAG members or volunteers sort of mentoring.  

 And was just thinking perhaps it would also be good to engage with the working group on outreach and engagement, perhaps to think of actually setting up that little badge and if anyone else is willing to volunteer from the community for the newcomers day.  Because I have been to meetings, for example, ICANN meetings, where someone did have a little tag at the end of their badge that said, "If you have any questions, you can ask me."  And that was really useful to be able to speak to people.

 But, of course, the volunteers have to be willing to be stopped in the hallways because I think there's nothing as annoying as someone who wears a badge that says "I can help you" but they have no time to help.  So I think maybe that's the criteria to think about in whoever is going to be volunteering or going to be part of that.

 And I'm not sure if by then the new MAG members would have been selected by the time that we have the November meeting.  But perhaps it would also be good to encourage them to attend that newcomers meeting because although people have been in the circuit for a very long time, it would be good for them -- some might never have gone to a newcomers meeting.  And if this is something we prioritize in the MAG going forward, it would be good for them to actually, you know, engage in these sessions and actually see why we stress on outreach and why we stress on people learning more about the IGF space and how maybe they could contribute in the future.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Some very good points, Chenai.

 Let me just see if Chengetai has any observations on the newcomers badge and the volunteers that can help.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much.  And I for some reason -- I think your accent is very unfamiliar to me, so I am having difficulty hearing it.

 But, yes, for the newcomers badge, we will talk and see whether or not we can do that and also have volunteers who are willing to help.  Yes.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.

 Lucien, you have the floor.

 >>Lucien Castex:  Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  

 Two quick points really.  The first one is on SDGs.  I'm all for supporting a session on SDGs.  We are quite closing on the ten-years mark, and national implementation is key to the 2030 agenda.  It would be nice to have a session on SDGs.

 Also, I would like to reflect quickly on the discussion on the Paris call obviously and on the Christchurch call also.  I was myself involved in both of them.  

 Well, security in cyberspace and in particular, I'm for content while it's a growing concern.  It's a key concern in restoring trust in cyberspace.  And a main session on that topic focusing either on hate speech, disinformation, content configuration would be quite good.  I'm quite interested in proposing or supporting the session, following up on the remarks of Sylvia and other participants on that topic.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Lucien.

 Sylvia, Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Thank you, Lynn.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.

 I would also like to support the structure around -- of a main session around SDGs for many of the reasons that my colleagues have mentioned but with the idea in my mind that session could actually perfectly fit into the inclusion category in that I would like to encourage the MAG to try to keep the focus of the program in all of these new, as I call them, the red and the yellow sessions because those are taking quite a lot of considerable time from the program.

 So I hope that even if it's not full-on based on each one of the topics and is deviating to a certain extent, that there is a link that bring it back to the program.

 From the experience for last year, I would like just to clarify a couple of points that I may not have mentioned when I presented the idea about the session on platforms in content blocking, yeah, filtering.

 I mentioned it on the email that this one last year I helped to co-organize the main session on technical operation that was focusing on content blocking and filtering.  That session was only on operational issues.  It was co-organized by two members, MAG members, of the technical community and really required a lot of work to identify a good moderator that was neutral enough to carry on that conversation and was able to manage an interactive format.  

 Some of the main sessions in other areas, other topics, other baskets, did different formats.  So I actually would like to highlight the contribution that (saying name) mentioned before about trying to identify a good journalist from probably the Deutsche television or something that are able to manage such sessions and give them the high profile that is probably required.

 As background, I remembered that at the IGF -- one of the IGFs in Brazil, not the one in Joao Pessoa, there were -- some of the main sessions were moderated by a BBC journalist.  And those were really well-managed because of the way he structured the discussion.

 The proposal that I submitted, I submitted thinking it was aligned with a theme.  So I submitted on the subject.  It says security theme.

 And I -- I don't think the working group on security should take responsibility for the sessions -- the main sessions on security for two reasons or any of the working groups.  The working groups for the workshop selection were done randomly, not necessarily based on expertise or contacts or the network that specific MAG members have in a specific topic.

 We did struggle with many of the content in sessions assigned to us that are not our area of expertise.  But I think that for a main session, it is really important that the people can put forward the network of contacts, the people they know, the knowledge they have to be able to structure a session.  So I actually don't agree with the idea that it would be easy, let's say, to put that responsibility into the working groups that were created for work selection.

 I would rather think that maybe it could be something to be considered, for example, to partner with the BPFs that are more focusing on those specific topics, if we are looking at strengthening mechanisms that already exist as part of the IGF and the MAG work.

 I also -- the proposal that I submitted was based on community input.  It's in our proposal that will not make the cut, Number 144 that I mentioned in the presentation and included on the email.  It's not something I pull out of a hat.

 And I really hope that the main sessions to a certain extent, even if they are capturing emerging issues, use the call for issues, the workshop proposals, the open forums presentations -- proposals as basis to be -- so we are actually reflecting on the content that the community is demanding from us.

 And as I mentioned, I started using the template from last year.  It has been -- of course, it is not complete.  But I think it's not necessary that every time we do something we need to reinvent the wheel.  

 I feel really uncomfortable with changes of processes going on when the agenda was already submitted without a tracking of agreements from previous calls, where we don't have summaries of previous meetings to actually refer to -- for those of us that couldn't participate in conference calls to refer to something that the MAG agreed on a conference call but that the main sessions were not going to be attached to the themes.  

 I didn't have that information when I started working on this.  And to be honest, I don't have immense amounts of time to go through all the transcripts to figure out what was agreed in the end.  

 It is really important that we keep those summaries going to engage participation and to be effective to work on the mailing list.  Otherwise, for those of us that struggle with time zone differences, it's really difficult to do this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Sylvia.  Just comment on one or two of your points.  The -- I don't think there was an agreement from the MAG that the main sessions would tie directly to the themes.  I think this year, we consciously decided to leave it fairly open while we figured out what this new thematic process looked like, what policy questions came through, and what was finally accepted as the overall kind of themes and questions.  And that does, you know, make the process a little bit tight at this particular moment, but I think it's still possible.

 To the other point earlier, I think there's a way, if the MAG did decide that they wanted to use the expertise of the positions that were coming out of the thematic working groups, to say we think there should be something on digital inclusion.  I think we can merge several processes which would maybe pull in some of the thematic working group members who have the history of the proposals and the policy questions and the narrative and really understood that in depth and pulled in appropriate other expertise.  And in particular, and we're coming to this in the next session, in particular they can obviously tap the BPFs, they can tap the dynamic coalitions, they can tap the NRIs, they can tap other expertise in their kind of main session planning groups.  So I don't think it's an either/or.  I think if the MAG should decide to do something, there's a way to get the right expertise and the right history to come together in an appropriate working group.

 What I would like to do is go through the three people that are in the queue now and then I'd hike to come to the final session of the day, which is the one that would review the other sessions.

 I'd like to actually start with a review of the dynamic coalitions and the NRI plans for their sessions, but also any thoughts they have on their main sessions so we actually have that in the mix as well for our discussions.  And then we would -- time permitting, I certainly hope we would go through the day zero open forums and the plans for the newcomer and lightning sessions.  And that would give us a fairly good kind of overview of the main session territory that we're going to work in more depth on tomorrow.

 And I will point out for those of you who maybe weren't aware, there are snacks in the back of the room, coffee and water in front of you.  So if you're dying for a snack, you can certainly avail yourself of that.

 Mary.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor again.  Mary from technical community.

 I just want to draw attention to what Jutta said about having main session on the tracks.  If we're going to do the topping, we're going to do the tailing.  Would main session on this track still be needed since we do topping and tailing?  I think we should take that into consideration because those that will not be at the workshop -- workshop, the different workshops, will be at the topping or the tailing.

 And so I don't know what -- if we consider it very necessary.  Then if it's overflooding, if overflooding it, then we just look at the topping and the tailing and take other in the proposed other main sessions from the track.  It's a fact that we have gotten all the -- most of the policy questions, and we're going to use that as part of the topping and telling as well?  So maybe we'll see whether it will just be -- it will just be overflooding the tracks if we're going to have main session again for the tracks.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, let me just make sure I capture what you're saying.  I'm not sure this is right, so if it's not right, please.  I think you're saying to consider what we're doing with the topping and tailing sections for those tracks, and if there's an overflow or too many suggestions for main sessions, that we make sure that we take that into account as we open standards across them?  Or was it a different point?

 >>MARY UDUMA:   What I'm saying is if we're doing the topping and tailing, is there any need for administration for the tracks again?  That's what I'm saying.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   That's what I thought it was but you said it much more succinctly.  Thank you.

 I think it's a good point and it depends partly what we do with the topping session.  And I think we can just maybe put that as a question and come back to that tomorrow.  I think that plays to kind of Jutta's suggestion that maybe we think about whether or not we want to build on a main session on the basis of the narrative, the policy questions and the track we built.  I do think that's a good point, because if we were to do a substantive topping session, then that might actually be -- be somewhat redundant.  I think it's just something to keep in mind.

 So thank you, Mary.

 Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:   Thank you, Lynn.

 Yes, I think we indeed to think about how the topping and tailing sessions might be a main session or might be distinct from main sessions.  I have a sense that main sessions which are given two hours, which are given a more prominent part of the program are a little different in nature.  But, yes, as we're kind of working out what we think topping and tailing looks like, we should have in mind, you know, having a distinction.

 So on linking main sessions to the three themes, I wanted to support Jutta to some extent because over the last five months, we've made this effort to have a more narrowly focused IGF this year.  We selected three themes.  And I think it would be strange not to have at least one session related to each of the of three themes.  We've acquired all the workshop proposals to follow the three themes.  These are the three themes, and none of the main sessions were in the three themes, that would feel strange.  So I think -- I see definitely some link, and I think there should be at least one main session for each theme.  I think that would feel quite natural, but I don't think all main sessions necessarily need to cover the themes, and I think it could actually be valuable to leave some main sessions for more cross-cutting topics which will not get captured under the three themes, which are somehow broader or different.

 In terms of a process, yes, I think it could naturally fall to each of the thematic working groups to organize a main session related to their theme, but firstly, while yes, the groups would be able to draw on what they've already seen in the workshop evaluation, I do find it a little daunting to try and pull together a session which somehow covers all of the various -- the six baskets or, you know, six points of a flowchart or whatever in one two-hour session.  It's a challenge, and, indeed, the security theme might be the most disparate and broadest of the three.

 I'd also -- while I think it naturally could fall to each of the thematic working groups to organize a main session related to their theme, I think the other MAG members should be able to join the discussion.  So maybe the thematic group, when it gets to this task of developing a main session, it gets opened up to anyone else who wants to join from the MAG.

 It might be worth reflecting a little bit on how these ad hoc groups will be organized and the thematic groups have been set up so maybe we have a sense.  But particularly for those in their first year in the MAG, and this is only my second year, my understanding is that it's the responsibility of our system, MAG, to organize the main sessions.  And I think the way it worked last year was that it fell to MAG members to volunteer for ad hoc groups, and they could sign up for as many groups as they wanted.

 I can't remember whether those ad hoc groups were open to anyone in the public or were just for MAG members.  I led one of those groups, finding a way to bring together the topics of cybersecurity, privacy, and trust in an 80-minute coherent discussion.  And I had support from two other MAG members.  I think there were maybe 15 people on the list, but three of us did the work.

 So for main sessions related to the three themes as I said, I think this naturally falls to the existing thematic working groups as Jutta suggested but they could be opened up at that stage.  And if there are other main sessions, I wonder if it's going to be similar to the process last year, I think, with MAG members, would hopefully join and contribute to at least one of these working groups, at least one of these ad hoc working groups each, to make sure there's active contributions from around the table.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Ben.

 Just a couple of quick points.  And of course whatever we do with the main sessions, we should always make sure we're pulling in BPFs, DCs, NRIs, et cetera in those main sessions as well, to your question about is it only MAG members or not only MAG members.

 And then I think with -- I mean, I really align with Mary's comment earlier, which is if we're going to have -- and we haven't agreed yet but if we were to have a topping session that really did build on the narrative of that theme, I'm not sure having that having a main theme that builds further on it or deeply on it is really that different.  And if we're looking for links, I also support the comments that have said the main themes -- main sessions should look like they tie to the rest of our program.  I don't think there's any difficulty.  If we look at what was suggested before, I think there's some pretty good alignment between some things around digital inclusion, some things around the security track as well.  I think the only one we haven't heard a really kind of specific proposal on would be around data governance that aligns.  

 So clearly although I -- maybe the digital governance and digital trade is one that did.

 So, frankly, I think there's enough commonality there that we can take some of those ideas and make them fit, unless we really wanted a really kind of thorough main session built up from the narratives and what the thematic working groups thought, in which case, again, then I think we need to make sure it's different enough from the topping session.

 So I guess the take-away is I think we actually have a lot of flexibility and a lot of coverage.  I don't feel like there's, like, big gaps opening up from this discussion.

 We'll go to Paul and then Carlos, and then we'll move to the dynamic coalitions and the NRIs so we can hear what their plans are for all their sessions plus main sessions.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL CHARLTON:   Thank you, Lynn.

 I just want to follow-up on what Ben and some others were saying.  I also think that it's extremely important that, you know, as we've undertaken this new process of having the three themes and we've taken the time to choose them and we follow through on that on the very arduous workshop evaluation process, so that part of the IGF is going to reflect the three themes, I think we have to follow through as well on the main sessions.

 I would support the idea of having a main session on each of the three themes.  And then as Ben said, the other -- the other main sessions could be on things that are quite different.

 The only alternative would be maybe if there are no main sessions specifically on any of the three themes, that the main sessions are clearly tied in.  And I think, Lynn, I like the word you used which was alignment.  We have to make sure one way or the other, whichever -- whichever option we go with that the main sessions are in many some way aligned and the topics are -- that we can show that at least some of the topics are directly or indirectly linked.

 I'd also add that I would support the idea of Miguel to have at least one main session relating to the SDGs, because I think that is a gap in our program so far.  There may have been some workshop proposals in the -- in the digital inclusion theme that mentioned the SDGs.  I don't recall offhand whether or how many of the top 20 would have related to that, but I think it's an important topic for us to ensure that we're covering.  And as Sylvia said, that's something that is clearly aligned with digital inclusion, so it would fit seamlessly into our program as well.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Those are good, good points, Paul.

 The queue keeps growing and we do need to get to the DCs and the NRIs so we have their perspective on these discussions, so I really would like to draw a firm line under Timea there, and then specifically ask those people to talk to the DCs, the dynamic coalitions.  Please do ensure we get to those important topics.

 Carlos, you have the floor.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO:   This is a rare moment in which I have to disagree with Sylvia.  I was in one of the panels "moderated," quotation marks, by that BBC host and it was not good at all.  It was a TV show.  And the guy was very good at animating a TV show but not at understanding what kind of interaction was happening among the people that knew about the issues that were being discussed.  And he interfered very heavily sometimes.  Very -- Several people in the panel were irritated by that.  And I think the IGF learned from that thing and did not use these formats later on.

 So I recommend we don't do BBC shows on the IGF.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Carlos.

 June, you have the floor.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Thank you, Lynn.  I need a bit more clarity, getting back to what Ben was saying, about the main sessions and how do we get involved with the main sessions.

 Last year I got involved with the main session, and I thought it was the secretariat who had something to do with that.  Can I have some clarity, please?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   The secretariat has something to do with everything.

 Is the question specifically on who structured or populated the sessions?

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Yeah, how we got involved with the main sessions.  Was it because we joined the working groups or did the actual secretariat have something to do with it?

 My name was put on a main session but I really can't remember now it got there.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   It should have been from your own act of volunteering to be on the main session working group.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Oh, okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   What we did last year, there were a series of proposals and put those in front of the MAG and then asked the MAG to sign up for those main session working groups that they were interested in supporting.  And I'm sure quite often MAG members sign up because they're interested in tracking the developments in case it impacts on other things they're doing, and not, perhaps, expect to be a full member.  But it would have been presumably through your own act.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:   Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   You were very good at volunteering on a number of things last year and came through on all of them.  So thank you.

 Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:   Yeah, firstly, apology for dragging out this matter, but I'm not convinced that having main sessions on the three themes is going to be good.  I still need some convincing there.  I feel that it can distract from the workshops.  It can also overlap with what's being discussed at the workshops and it draws people away from the workshops.

 I think the main sessions should be limited, and they are in the charts.  And I agree that we should be driving cross-cutting issues and issues that are not really directly being addressed in those workshops.

 So I actually support what Mary was saying.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   No, that's a good point, Paul, too, because we had said we would try to really pull out those kind of things that we thought were cross-cutting.

 Timea, you have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO:   Thank you, Lynn.  I'll try to be short, and apologies for taking the floor again after having spoken on this matter already.

 Regarding the topping, tailing and the main session on the tracks, I see those three very, very differently.  I think the topping session is more of a setting-the-scene sort of session where people would go there to understand what is it that the track is about, what he is going to happen, how are we reporting out there.  What are the actual sessions going on over the subthemes?  What's the flow?  And even I can see pulling in a couple of workshops from the floor, from the audience saying, well, I'm going to focus on this one, I'm going to focus on that one, who is interested to come and talk with me about that.

 And the tailing session would actually be the exact opposite, try to draw out messages, and we're going to work in a creative way of reporting out from the tracks, but really sort of taking stock, taking the messages out from the track.

 Now, in between those two I see a main session sort of a bigger platform, a more prominent two hours of discussing either a cross-cutting theme within that track or a particular issue that wasn't very distilled out in the workshops or something that would give us really a moment that when people think back to the IGF 2019, okay, those two hours on inclusion or those two hours on data were really worth my time.  There were prominent speakers, very important issue, and a really good session.

 So for me, those are very three different objectives.  And I think that still flows into a coherent program.

 So I actually would like to see this happen.  I think we can get, as I said, creative of how we're choosing out the topics on what the sessions are going to be about.  But just my two cents about this.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Timea.  I think we would all -- I think there's MAG agreement that on the tailing session, it is about drawing out messages and actions.  

 I think on the topping session there is not yet agreement.  What you just described was what I would call a fairly traditional introductory set of sessions:  This is what's happening in the track and if you're interested in this, go here and that sort of thing.  

 I think there was still an open question as to whether or not there might be a keynote speaker or something that would really drive interest in a real kind of heightened sense of anticipation, if you will, for it, the track and those activities.  I don't think the MAG is closed on that yet.

 Now, just to make sure it wasn't.... 

 Xiaofeng, you haven't taken the floor so we will allow you to take the floor.  And then I am definitely going next speaker to the DCs or the NRIs to understand their views and their programs.  

 Xiaofeng, you have the floor.  Can you push on your -- there you go.  That should work.

 No, it's not -- it's the same problem as Sylvia's earlier.  Perhaps you could just move to another mic next to you.

 >>XIAOFENG TAO:  I'm sorry.  About main session, I would like to support Mary about SDG main session.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Xiaofeng.

 So who's -- should we start with the NRIs and Anja's because at least I know to turn to Anja.  And then for the DCs, I'm not sure who I would turn to, to speak to what their desires are in terms of sessions and main session.

 So, Anja, NRIs.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Thank you.  Thank you very much for giving me the floor.  So the NRIs starting running the public consultations on the forms of the integration into the Berlin IGF in early January this year.

 We, again, called for topics for inputs from the NRIs to identify what could be the mutual interest in terms of the topic for all NRIs.

 Those consultations went on for almost 12 weeks, and they resulted in identifying several inputs that could be of interest for 114 NRIs.

 In that regard, the forms of the sessions that the NRIs would like to kindly request from the MAG would be the main joint session, as it was hosted for the past three IGFs.  And the topic would be focusing on emerging technologies and their interfaces with inclusion, security, and human rights.  

 As we were not really aware of the MAG's time line regarding calling for proposals, then the NRIs started drafting their proposals.  So that proposal is to a good extent done.  And I think whenever you, say, to set a deadline, we would be able to submit the proposal to the MAG.

 I will maybe not go into details now about the particular aspect this session will address, unless I'm asked to.  

 But I would just say that the format will be an interactive session and inclusion of inputs from all NRIs.

 The suggestion this year from the colleagues is to create an input document to the meeting few weeks before the meeting is supposed to start based on short case-study examples from the NRIs that will be sent to the secretariat and that will be analyzed and consolidated into a unique publication.  That would probably save also our time of not bringing all inputs to session but focusing on key issues.

 In regards to the format, it's something we're discussing.  But on the duration of the session, the NRIs will, of course, wait for your guidelines in this regard.  

 They, however, do advise that this session is, if possible, 120 minutes long.  Last year we had 90 minutes at disposal.  It was effective but, of course, also challenging given the number of speakers.

 In previous years, we operated on three-hours slot but I have to say in 2017 that three-hour slot was divided.  So after, let's say, two hours we had a one-hour break; and we wouldn't advise for that to be applied this year.  

 So that would be for the main sessions.  The key is to cover the emerging technologies and aspects of inclusion, security, and human rights.

 For aside of the main session -- as you said, I should probably cover all sessions -- the NRIs would, again, request collaborative sessions.  So this open call for inputs that we were running with all the NRIs resulted in having suggestions for six sessions.  Those sessions are available and generic proposals available on the IGF website.  

 But very clearly -- very shortly, just to say that these sessions would, again, focus on concrete case-study examples from countries and regions that could come to the global IGF just to give us a bit of a practical overview of the issues that they decided to focus on.

 And those issues for those sessions would be access as specifically focused on inclusion of vulnerable groups and developing digital capacity.  Then cybersecurity and cyber safety and resilience for infrastructure providers and users.  

 Human rights on the Internet from a perspective on national and regional priorities.  

 Data protection from the perspective on national and regional levels.  

 Regulation of harmful content on the Internet.  

 And privacy concerns on the local level with probably focus on surveillance mostly.

 Aside of these collaborative sessions, the NRIs will traditionally now organize the so-called coordination session which is, as you know, an open work meeting between the NRIs representatives from UN DESA, secretariat, chair of the MAG, MAG members, and anyone interested in the community.  

 The agenda will be, again, developed in a bottom-up manner by the NRIs, so we will probably start that work very soon.

 But in general, the agenda should focus on how can we strengthen the collaborative mechanism between all the NRIs and the IGF and how can we as a global community strengthen the local processes of the NRIs.

 And, also, maybe just to add since we're covering everything, as I said, the NRIs also will organize a booth at the IGF village.  And for that, given very good equipment that we have there and conditions, we will be preparing a dedicated presentation.  Should be a visual overview of all the IGFs that happened throughout the year in 2019.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Anja, thank you.  I'll give a moment to see if there are any kind of questions from the floor or other follow-up.

 I do have one question for you.  For the NRI collaborative sessions that are focusing on kind of case studies and that sort of thing, is there anything we can could do or a request we could put out that would allow us to kind of specifically learn from success stories or case stories or best practices or something if we had a different level of, I don't know, rapporteur or support or something.  Something we could document ahead of time going into the sessions, have the session, make them interactive, and then learning so we could pull out?

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Thank you very much for that question.  You actually reminded me on a very important point.

 For the main session, last year we collaborated with the MAG respecting working modalities of both networks and that really worked perfectly.  So we're honestly hoping for that good collaboration this year.

 For the collaborative session, this year I think the network is really motivated by great hosts, by great conditions in front of us and really focusing on case studies.  

 The IGF secretariat is also motivated to support those processes and really give them a proper format to gather their case studies and maybe even come with good outputs of those preparatory process that could be of use for the global community.

 In that sense, the whole work is open, of course, to everyone including the MAG, the chair of the MAG.  If you have any proposals, I would be very happy to bring it to the network to discuss.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me just follow up and ask you a question, too.  Is there something you need in terms of additional resource or -- I mean, not necessarily given you get it, but is there a consultant that could actually help support that process?  Or do we -- the German government is actually putting money into supporting a lot of the communications.  Is there a way we could direct the communications to really get some good case studies out of those collaborative sessions?  Maybe just think about how we could maximize those sessions as the preparations are made and we're going into them, the benefit of the sessions are there, and then the output.  Because you talk about them as case studies, and that kind of implies a whole set of documentation and support and output around them.  

 And I just want to make sure that we've at least tried to get the resources we can to really capture that really -- as fulsomely as we can.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Well, yes.  And really, thank you, that's actually a great proposal.  And I think in working with the NRIs, on the side of the NRIs and secretariat, there's always need for more people to be involved and especially experts on particular subjects because these sessions are very much subject-focused.

 So let me maybe consult with the network and see if possibly I think we could probably use a pair of hands for just analyzing all those inputs, putting them in a good format and so on without, of course, interfering with the content that's going to be communicated by the community.

 The same goes also with your concrete proposal on maybe having good rapporteurs for these sessions so that we kind of complement everything together at the end of the IGF.  

 So I will come back maybe to you in writing after this meeting when I consult with the colleagues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm always a firm believer in there's no harm in asking.  And we do have a lot of good support in so many ways, so maybe we'll have a better chance this year than in other years.

 Let's see.  Xiaofeng, is that hand from previously?  I think so because I don't think I ever saw it go down.

 So, Sandra, you have the floor.

 >>SANDRA HOFERICHTER:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  

 First of all, I would like to emphasize the great work of Anja, how she's doing, how she's managing the NRIs.  I participate on a regular basis.  And it's a bit like herding cats and she's doing it really, really well.  And without this network, we would not have gotten so far.

 On the main session, I would like to make a contribution which might be also a little bit controversial.  I know that not everyone in this room is in favor for giving a main session to the NRIs as we had the last three years.  I am also skeptical, I must admit.

 But, however, we have reached consensus within the NRI network that we would like to apply for a main session again.  And I would like to share some very relevant reasons with you that you might -- maybe not really are aware of.

 For some countries, and in particular the emerging economies, it is really, really important to have this visibility on a U.N. level and not just by participating in such a forum but by speaking in a main session which has full translation.

 For them it's really important to get this recognition.  With these tools they can basically engage their local stakeholders, governments, business, civil society.  This gives them a lot of legitimacy they wouldn't get otherwise.  That's why it is really important -- an important sign of diplomacy and of developing the multistakeholder model in certain countries.  

 This is definitely not the case for Germany.  This is definitely not the case for the U.S. or for Europe possibly.  But we have to take this into account when we are serious about developing the multistakeholder model worldwide.  This is one thing.

 On the other hand, we -- many here in this room criticize that in the past the main session has not been really interactive.  You had 20 speakers in a row and the output was not really of great value because it was too general.  I do agree with that.

 And maybe we have to find ways to serve the need of specific regions, of specific NRIs.  And if the MAG decides maybe not to give another NRI -- another main session to the NRI, maybe the MAG could then consider giving visibility for emerging economies on the panels of the other main sessions because that's the important point that they get the justification and the visibility, why they are attending the IGF, and why it is important to put local efforts into it.  

 And I must say, this is not -- what I'm saying here, I'm saying this totally in my personal capacity.  It was just an idea that popped in my mind when we were discussing here in a small group.

 This is not discussed within the NRI network.  That is not a proposal that comes out of that network.  It's really just a personal view and personal proposal, not even of EuroDIG but of Sandra Hoferichter.

 And I would like for you to take that into consideration, that there are reasons why it is important.  And, in particular, the first session that we had in Mexico when 20, 40 speakers were on stage, that was a political statement.  That was a sign.  That was important, even if it was not the most interactive and valuable session.

 But I do understand that these sessions are so important in the program and that so many people and groups have a demand to get one of those main sessions, that we really have to make them a very, very good session.  

 And we -- also as the NRI network, we have to find better ways of organizing these sessions as we have done it in the past.  Although there was also some improvement in the past, I would not like to neglect that.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Sandra.  Those were great points.

 I'd like to make two comments as well.  The session you commented on I think we should stop using as an example of maybe not a good session because I thought it was one of the best sessions I had been at and I sat there for three hours.  

 Everything happens at a certain time.  This was a time when people weren't really familiar with the NRIs.  To have the NRIs up there on a very graphic, visible way, going through all of their stories was really, really impactful.  And they all did great at walking through in the three minutes or something that they had.  

 There was so much learning between them and from every one of them, that I really think -- I have said that every single time because I think it was a great session.

 So, again, it might not be an appropriate session for now because, I think, the NRIs are much better understood and recognized across the system.  But just as a point because I feel bad every time I hear that for the NRIs because it was a great session, and they were so happy to be able to expose their activities, which is important, as you say, for all the visibility back there.

 I was trying to huddle here with Chengetai.  Sometimes I maybe go for presumptive closes or think something is such a no-brainer that I just assume its done.

 I have to admit, I have been going through this process assuming that the MAG was fully supportive of there being a dynamic coalition session and an NRI session of a full main session time allotment.  

 And so maybe the question is before I come to the next people in the queue as to whether or not that's a misreading on the part of the MAG.

 I mean, is there -- and we can do this quickly.  Is there objection to there being a main slot for -- let's do them one at a time -- for NRIs?  Organized in the way that Anja said which was a topic, which is obviously brought before the MAG.  She's given us regular updates.  Developed in cooperation with the MAG as it was last year.  So not something that's done in the background.  Is there anybody who wants to speak, I guess, strongly against that or just speak for it?  Ben --

 Anriette, if you don't mind, can I come back to you in the queue so we can close on this.  Thank you.

 Ben.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  So I'm not objecting, I've said before and I still believe that I think it's more productive to integrate the NRIs and the DCs into main sessions rather than having them in a stand-alone session.

 Having said that, I -- I think I took on board what Markus said at the meeting in April, was that we should think about whether the DCs want a main session -- at that point, he didn't know -- and what they would want to do with it.

 And I think I can see why both the DCs and the NRIs, different as they are, would want a space to come together at an annual meeting and that are certainly -- I think that's a good idea.  Whether that needs to be in the format of a main session or whether that can be something elsewhere they can congregate and exchange.  I don't know.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's something else already.  That's not what we are talking about.  We're talking about a main session.  Those management sessions are something else.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Yeah.  If they already have those management sessions, that's great.  Yes.

 I think ideally we manage to find a way to integrate them so they're part of the discussions rather than kept to the side but I'm not going to say they can't have a session.  We know there's a strong desire there.  And if they feel that's the best way for them to get exposure and to make most of the global IGF meeting, then I would leave that with them.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   And just to be clear, I don't think it's an either/or.  I think we want the BPFs, DCs and NRIs integrated into all the sessions, whether it's a workshop or main session as well.  So I don't think it's an either/or.  Nebojsa, you have the floor.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:   Thank you.  Nebojsa Regoje, MAG member, government stakeholders group.

 I'm definitely in favor of having separate or stand-alone NRI organized main session the same way that I think dynamic coalition and Best Practice Forum deserve such.

 On the first place, I think that is the way what Sandra actually mentioned, to give them special exposure rather than to be blended into other main sessions where somebody else is organized and their visibility is not that obvious.  

 And kind of make a connection to my previous comment about diversity, this, again, what Sandra mentioned about the need for visibility of developing south or whatever we are going to call them.  That's one of the reasons, I guess, and that's my understanding of the request for diversity in the workshop proposals to have speakers, organizers, moderators from different stakeholders group as well as region and other -- other groupings exactly for that reason, to provide them with additional possibility to participate in such important forum.

 And I don't know, I think that definitely should have main session -- main session that they organize on subject of their choosing.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Nebojsa.

 And I really want to kind of a call the question one more time.  Clearly, this isn't something that any of us were trying to sneak in.  Every time we've talked about the schedule and the number of main sessions, including Chengetai's comments when he put the schedule up and every time we've talking about it in previous MAG calls, we've always said there's a DC main session, there's an NRI main session and then these other sessions.  And maybe that was too quick a carry-on from past years, but I want to -- I just want to make it clear that we certainly haven't tried to hide that.  It was always a very specific request.  Every time the DCs and NRIs have presented at the meeting in January and in the meeting in April, there's been a discussion on both their individual requirements for individual sessions plus the main session.  So it's something we've been -- we've been tracking.

 So let me just see, is there -- are there any objection or anybody that feels that the MAG needs a more substantive discussion on whether or not there should be a main session organized by the NRIs along the lines Anja outlined, which is with the participation and supported engagement of the MAG?

 Okay.  So we'll call that a positive close.  To me, I just think it's so important to do everything we can to support their efforts and give them the visibility.  And, you know, to Sandra's point, we recognize how important it is back in a lot of countries and in a lot of capitals to give them the visibility and support, that shows that all their activities are actually impactful and are actually participating on a global stage.  And I've seen it firsthand too many times myself in countries to not recognize that that is a really serious benefit and a really serious -- no requirement is -- I just think it's appropriate.

 I will leave the call on the DCs until we actually go through the DC call, and go back to the queue which is Anriette.  Anriette, you have the floor.

 >>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN:   Thank you, Lynn.  Anriette Esterhuysen.  I'm a member of the -- there's an echo -- of the MAG of the African IGF.

 I just wanted to reinforce what Sandra said.  I'm not at all opposed to there being a main session on NRIs.

 I think, Anja, you do fantastic work, and I think many people that do NRIs do fantastic work, but there's also challenges.  There are many NRIs that are not working that well.  You know, it's not just a success story.

 So really critical reflection on what works and what doesn't work is useful.  And I think getting everyone together is important as well, because so many people in this room and elsewhere are putting time and work and energy into NRIs.  And so I think it is important for the MAG to recognize that.

 But I agree with Sandra.  We need to see them in the main sessions; otherwise, it's quite patronizing.  You know, create a session where you can put all your developing country sessions, speakers, and actors and then you feel, okay, you've given them space.  But that's not actually what they want.  They don't just want space.  They want influence, as well.  We want to be heard on substantive issues.

 So I think as long as that is kept in mind.  And the NRI main session just doesn't play this role of being the space where you give people from the Global South the floor.  It needs to be more than that.  We need to hear their voices and the views of people from the Global South in all the substantive sessions.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Anriette.

 I have Natasa on the floor and then I'm guessing Mary was calling for the floor here as well.  But Natasa, you have been in the queue for a while so you have the floor.

 >>NATASA GLAVOR:   Thank you, chair.  Natasa Glavor, MAG member.

 My comment is not concerning NRI main session.  I think, of course, Anja is doing great job and congratulations to her.  I would like to comment about main sessions in combination with topping sessions.  So I apologize if I'm dragging the discussion backwards a little bit, but I wanted to say that even though I think introductory sessions or topping sessions are a really good idea, I think duration of nearly two hours is a little bit too long.

 So I would propose that we try to transform these topping sessions into main sessions of each particular theme with maybe 20 minutes introduction, like setting the tone and for the thematic workshops that are to come after that introductory session.  And so -- and after that, having a main session for each particular conference team in duration about at least 90 minutes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Natasa.  Those are helpful comments and we'll take them into account when we move forward for the discussion tomorrow.

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:   Thank you, the chair, for giving me the floor again.  Mary from technical community, and I'm coordinator for two NRIs.  one is my national NRI, and the second --

 [ Phone ringing ]

 Sorry.  Sorry.

 [ Laughter ]

 The second one is the regional NRI.

 We started the collaborative session in 20- -- 2016, and if you can imagine the number of NRI that have come onboard from 2016.  We were 40 or so, but we're counting a hundred-plus.  Why?  Because of the visibility that was given to --

 [ Phone ringing ]

 What is wrong with this?

 Okay.  So we're counting and we're still counting.  Why?  Because countries are seeing value in what IGF is doing.  In terms of government support, some of us, some of the NRIs have gotten their government support for them to participate.  In terms of influence, at the local level, you find out that you get the -- you get all the stakeholder groups coming together to organize the regional or national NRI.

 So it might not be -- it might not be beneficial for the Global North, but the Global South, it is beneficial to us.

 So if -- When you look at the proposal that are sent in, the proposals more or less from the Global North, and they have the proposal and they are speakers.  But the Global South were not speakers, most of us are not; in those workshops.  And when you push -- You don't have the space to push out there because they weren't part of the proposal of the workshops.  And so apart from the fact that we are just started three years and we have made such a great stride by growing to 110, -12 or we are 114 now.  So is that not an influence?  Is that not an outcome?  And are those local perspectives not being taken into consideration?  Are they not part of the concrete outcomes of the IGF?  Legitimacy, outcomes, and visibility.  Those are things we consider.

 And some of the NRIs would be very, very happy that they are going to speak.  Some members of the NRIs or coordinators, they will be very, very happy that they are going to speak at global level.  Some of them record it and take it as a point to get things done in their local levels.

 So I don't see why we're trying to compare.  And in anything, if people are withdrawing from -- from the global IGF, people are joining the local IGF.  The national IGF.  So we're getting more members.

 So I don't think that it is a good argument to say that you are not seeing the influence of the collaborative sessions of the NRIs.

 And at the network level, we all agreed that it's important to us.  I think I want to say it to the MAG that the NRIs should be given that opportunity to continue the collaborative session.  If MAG has done its own work for about -- this is the 14th -- at least the 14th IGF, and instead of seeing a lot of stakeholders more coming, we are seeing some stakeholders withdrawing.  So I don't see why -- And that is the beauty of IGF.  IGF is for everybody, and it's open.  So no one should be put down because the others attend.

 Thank you.

 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Mary, thank you.  You made a lot of good points and I'm sure the growth we've seen in the NRIs is due to their increasing visibility.  And I also think the increasing collaboration between all parts of the ecosystem are strengthening in both ways.  Strengthening the global annual meeting, it's strengthening a lot of those other intersessional events.  And I think we need to continue looking at it, but I think you made a number of good points.  And I personally have always been very, very supportive of the NRIs and think it's important we do what we can to support them and give them the visibility.

 We think it's hard doing an IGF as an annual meeting.  We've got a full-time secretariat support staff, we've got host country support, we've got venue logistic support.  All these sorts of activities are actually done at the local level for the NRIs, largely through volunteer networks.  So I think when we can support them at this level on the global stage, I actually personally just feel it's really kind of our duty and almost a responsibility to do as much as we can to support them.

 So Lucien has asked for the floor, and then -- okay, and then Christine.

 >>LUCIEN CASTEX:  Thank you.  I wanted to support what Mary said.  NRIs are quite important in bringing local topics and bringing up local issues to the global (indiscernible), but also the other way around, bringing, obviously, possible implementation of global policies to any of the countries in region.  So I'm quite in favor of giving them a voice in the global event at this level and also I agree on the fact that it's a tangible outcome to have a growing network on local communities, countries, and region.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Lucien.

 Christine.

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA:   Sorry, there seems to be a problem with the mic.  This is Christine Arida from the government of Egypt, former host, for the record.

 Actually, I was thinking about what Sandra brought to the table and Anriette actually also put in a good thing that we really need to think how can we not only give a space but also get the voices of the Global South into the program.  And I think this is a very important point that we should think about for the future, even, in a more strategic way.

 So I'm happy that the MAG is going on with the idea of how giving the NRIs a main session this year.  I think that's an important thing.  But I think we should experiment how can we, through the NRIs, have more speaking slots within the main sessions felt, and so we can gradually integrate this main session into -- into actual sessions in further years.  So that we have a process for the future where the NRIs can bring to the table speakers from their local communities, and in that sense have the visibility that is needed, and, at the same time, have the voices from the Global South in terms of issues brought to the IGF.

 Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:   Thank you, Christine.  

 So I've in the Webex chat room all day, but my computer was (indiscernible) and running at a rapid pace and it kicked me out, and I haven't logged back in.  If there are any kind of critical points in there that we should be bringing into the room, if somebody could just alert me.

 So let's -- We had the update from Anja on behalf of the NRIs with respect to their desires, their plans for the IGF.

 I would like to do the DCs as well.  So we have that discussion now, but I think the next question is whether we go through the day zero and the open forum events before we wrap up today or whether or not we start the morning with that.  So we can take that discussion.  And there's something nice about getting the overall program discussions and the overall lay of the land out, but I'm also conscious it's getting a little bit late and we would again be asking the transcribers and the AV folks to stay on.  So I will look to the MAG to kind of give some signals as to what they think is the most appropriate.

 But, Jutta, is it you who are going to kick off the discussion on dynamic coalitions?

 >>JUTTA CROLL:   Of course, I think I can do that quickly.

 And first I need to apologize that I brought up the wish of the dynamic coalitions for a main session on the previous topic, I thought that was the time and not right now.

 So having said that, I could add that to the discussion whether it should be a thematic main session as it was done last year or main session of the dynamic coalitions only focusing on the dynamic coalitions' work.

 I do think what we did last year with the dynamic coalitions was a very good exercise, trying to tie the work of the dynamic coalitions to the sustainable development goals.  And that led us to a joint dynamic coalition session that was appreciated by many but not by all of the dynamic coalition members.

 One reason might have been that we only had 80 minutes, which was a bit of an overload for having all the dynamic coalition that took part and try to present their work and tie it to the SDGs.  And also we had the overarching theme of that main session.  So that might be different in case this year there is more time for a dynamic coalition session.

 Personally, I still think that it was a good exercise to try to find some commonalities in the work of the dynamic coalitions and to bring that forward also to the scene.

 We have discussed with the dynamic coalitions whether it would be better to have the joint session at the beginning where it could also be used for dynamic coalitions to advertise their individual sessions, then follow throughout the program of the IGF, or whether it could be the other way around and have the session at the end of the program.  And I do think it would be beneficial for the further dialogue of the dynamic coalitions if we could just see where it could be scheduled in the whole program, because then the dynamic coalitions could adapt to whether it's more like presenting the work that has been done or announcing that what should be done during the course of the four days.

 And with regard to the individual sessions of the dynamic coalitions, I would like to turn to Eleonora who has an overview on what proposals she's got from the -- 18, I think do we have now, or do we have 17?

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:   Thank you Jutta.  We have 18 DCs but we received 17 requests to hold sessions.  And all 17 are eligible, meaning all the 17 DCs who made the requests met their activity and reporting requirements over the last year.  And we actually have the list of those sessions displayed on the screens, but they're very tiny and difficult to read.

 I actually like seeing DCs listed all at once because it gives a good idea of the real range of -- or rainbow of issues that they cover.  And next to every DC name there's the title of their session.

 And, I mean, I hope it's also somewhat clear from the titles that these aren't just going to be sessions where DCs talk about themselves but they're going to be sharing their research, their ideas, and generating discussions around the topics that they cover.

 What's not on that list is the themes that most DCs indicated their sessions would be tied to.  I think 10 out of 17 chose the digital inclusion theme.  The rest are sort of evenly split among security and data governance.  So definitely we will expect DCs to be part of the reporting and process, too, for the thematic tracks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Eleanora, I think what's on the screen is the day zero events list.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Sorry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Any comments, questions, on the day zero?  Or do we need to go back over the day zero main session request, if people aren't recalling it from earlier?  Of the DC main session request if people aren't recalling it from earlier?

 Is everybody set with the DC main session request, or would people like to hear it again?  I just don't want to rush through.  And, on the other hand, we don't need to beat something to death if we don't need to beat it to death either.

 What you just said when she started her comments was that she had covered the DC's position on the main session request earlier in the afternoon on another intervention.  And I just want to make sure that people feel that we're giving appropriate time to this discussion here, everybody recalls the discussion, and that we understand what the current request is.  

 So would people like to hear it again or are we okay?  I hear heads nodding okay and a few thumbs up.

 And now on the slide are the DC sessions.  We will wait just a moment and let everybody -- they're basically the DCs that we have.  We had two new ones this year, right?  Yes.  One on the dynamic coalition on domain name system issues.  And what was the other one?  Public access and libraries?  So the DC on sustainability of journalism and news media, which we heard about yesterday from one of the co-facilitators.

 Okay.  Then I guess we are square on that as I'm not hearing any further questions or further requests to bring that forward.

 Do we want to just quickly maybe introduce the day zero or the open forums?  Maybe the open forums quickly so that people know where to find it on the website, know it's there, and we can touch upon it quickly tomorrow morning once people have time to think about it?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  We can find the day zero on the day zero events on the IGF website, if we go to the IGF website, if we can, if they know.

 But you can follow on your computer as well.  Under "latest news," we have a list of all the proposals from the open forums, day zero events, DC sessions, and NRI sessions and the IGF village.

 So if you -- which one are we going on?  Day zero?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Whichever one you like.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  With the day zero events, that's more or less done.  We are -- as I mentioned before, we are able to accommodate all the requests, one from each organization.  There are some organizations that ask for two sessions, e.g., knowledge cafe.  

 We are going to -- if there's no objections, you know, from the MAG, we are going to contact them after this MAG meeting and tell them, please, can you please select one of them or they can merge the two sessions together.  They will only be given one slot.

 And then in doing that, we are able to fit in all the requests.  So basically I think the only question would be is there any objection to anybody receiving a day zero event.  But we are able to accommodate all of them.

 And if we go to the open forums or front page, if you just click, this is the list of the open forums.

 On the program template, at the moment, we only have 21 slots for the open forums.  And so barring the time selection, we'll only be able to accommodate 21 slots and what we're going to do, I think, is give preference to governments because governments are -- I mean, this is, of course, first looking at, you know, is it relevant, does it fit in, is it in line with the program theme because with the open forums, they were asked -- if you click on any one of them, they were asked which theme they fall under.  And that was also one comment that was made.  So we'll take that into consideration.

 And with all that, then we're going to, in fact, give a regional distribution for governments first because we are really trying to encourage governments to come to the IGF and have a session and tell us what they're doing in the Internet governance field.  And then, of course, the IGOs and international organizations.

 There are a few -- I'm sorry.  Since you're here, I might as well just say it -- like the IGF of Indonesia asking for an open forum, maybe you could consider merging it with a NRI session.  And there are a couple -- like, I think it was open forum Number 4, for instance, if you look at it, it's very thin on the ground and it's not -- in our estimation, not really in line with the current program and the current themes, what we're looking at.

 I mean, they're looking at -- yes, it is under cybersecurity.  But cybersecurity about information exchange between cause following the V2V scenario, that's I think a little bit too technical for the IGF.  And it's more -- looks to us more like a -- something that's better suited for another forum or another academic meeting.  So that will get the lowest priority, for instance.

 I think that's all.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Just as a quick, the day zero and the open forum events have traditionally been the responsibility of the secretariat.  But if you're coming in off the street and you walk into an IGF meeting, you don't know what the difference is.  You look at it and it feels like it's all the IGF program.  So the MAG has the last few years taken a look at all of those and the secretariat has used the MAG as kind of a consultation, sort of sanity check body.  So, I mean, that's the process the secretariat ran through this year as well, which is why Chengetai said if there's something that someone in this room objects to or thinks shouldn't be there, that is feedback you should provide to the secretariat.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  And, also, this year it's -- also, it's going to be clearer what is the workshop program, what is the main focus of the IGF because they are in set rooms.  The open forum program and the dynamic coalitions, et cetera, are in other rooms.  So it is more clearer for people this year.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Could you quickly talk about the plan for the lightning and flash sessions just so we get that?  Since that was a big topic earlier.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'll hand it over to Eleonora.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Thank you, Chengetai.

 So typically we actually manage the lightning sessions after the workshop selection has concluded because they emerge from nonselected workshop proposals.  

 So the way these reviews have been conducted in the past is priority has been given to workshop proposals that were not selected and were short to begin with, that had some indicators on them that were promising in the evaluation, like, they discussed an emerging topics or a -- or a topic that even if the proposal originally requested more time looked like it could be condensed into a 20-minute presentation.  

 And then, of course, we would work with those proposers on reformatting the content for a lightning session.  And the resulting sessions depends on this review and also the willingness of those proposers to actually take on that kind of very informal format.  

 Lightning sessions are held not in rooms but usually in a public space at the venue that gets some foot traffic so people walking by stop by and stand or sit and listen to the presentation.

 So that is something that we'll have to start looking at beginning, yeah, next week or the next few weeks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Eleonora.

 Just quickly on the newcomers, I believe we agreed earlier that we would move the newcomers' session up a little bit earlier in the morning so it wasn't competing with any of the topping or introductory sessions.

 We still need, I think, some work or another ad hoc team to actually pick up.  We've had MAG members in the past who were really excited about the newcomers and supporting, took responsibility for drafting a newcomers session.  

 I don't know if we have MAG members that have expressed interest in that this year or if that's something the secretariat is driving.  But that is an additional open item, I'm guessing, from the faces around the room here.

 Let's pick that up tomorrow.  Maybe we can think about what we need for newcomer sessions.  Maybe we're a little bit more clear on the topping and tailing.

 I think we will stop now.  Tomorrow -- we've gotten through the agenda for today.  Tomorrow the bulk of the day is on main session activities and preparations.  We have a session later in the afternoon which was to kind of cover some of the multiyear work programs and IGF outputs and reporting mechanisms.

 I think the IGF output and reporting mechanisms, some of that I think we can pick up in the tailing, the ad hoc working group we have going on, the reports and communications as a logical next step for that.  So we have time for that.  

 I'm hopeful that we actually get to both those topics, the multiyear work program and the IGF outputs tomorrow afternoon.  I think the priority has to be on the main sessions.  

 And we'll come back in the morning at 10:00.  Eleonora and I will work on a list of the kind of topics and suggestions we heard here.  So that will be in your email box tonight.

 And if we wanted to, tomorrow we could even potentially do a couple of small breakout groups if we wanted to kind of advance roughly some of the -- so we'll do a little bit of work to prep that discussion tonight.  But just come tomorrow prepared to work on significantly advancing the main topics -- main session planning.

 Again, tomorrow, same schedule as today.  10:00 to 1:00, 3:00 to 6:00.

 Thank you very much, everybody.  Thanks for staying with yet another very full day.  I think we made a lot of progress.

 [ Applause ]

 Thank you to the transcribers and the audiovisual team.

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  One organizational point, I would have to ask you to leave the building today before 7:00.  That would be really, really welcome for everybody who is concerned with security.

 >> And without any more alarms like last night.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Is the door we came in --

 >>RUDOLF GRIDL:  The door you came in is open until 7:00 sharp.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, everybody.  Transcribers and the AV team, thank you.