ICANN Vancouver Report Executive Director December 2005
It was decidedly odd to attend the ICANN meeting in Vancouver without any considerable engagement in “normal” activities within the ccNSO and the greater ICANN arena. But from the organisational aspects for Wellington, much very useful progress was made.
Upon arrival in Vancouver I made contact with Anne Chappaz, the NZ Consul General and Trade Commissioner in Vancouver. In the absence of receiving shipping instructions from the Vancouver ICANN organisers, we had shipped our brochures to the Consul General’s Vancouver office. The cartons of brochures had burst in transit, and one carton completely disintegrated, the contents delivered in a DHL sack. So an interesting afternoon ensued with the Consul General and myself on the floor sorting the damaged from the undamaged. In the past couple of years we have met with the MFAT representatives for NZ to the GAC in Rome, Argentina and Luxembourg. In common with Anne from NZTE, our representatives internationally seem to me just the absolute best possible representatives for New Zealand in the international arena. They seem to typify the kiwi attitude, and have an enthusiasm to know and understand the issues ICANN faces.
Angela Winiata did a great job in manning our stand and promoting Wellington. Our stand included ongoing screening of various NZ tourism DVDs, and provision of brochures promoting NZ tourism, Wellington, and the events both associated with ICANN and just occurring in tandem with the ICANN meeting. We handed out more than 500 lapel pins of kiwis and silver ferns, and these were considerably sought after items. On the way out from NZ, I thought it a good idea to buy a map of the world, to highlight the distance for travellers to NZ. Unfortunately I could only find an “upside down” map in Auckland airport. But this ended up being a roaring success, with a frequent request to buy such a map. We will seek to have around 50 of these maps available for giveaways in Wellington, perhaps prizes at Happy Hours.
Andy Linton attended specifically to check out the technical requirements for Wellington, and established a great rapport with the 2 main ICANN technical staff, Steve Conte and John Crain. Andy managed to isolate a DoS attack that was crippling the bandwidth for the ICANN meeting, located a mis-configured wi-fi access point and other general network tweaks that assisted to iron out the many connectivity bugs affecting attendees. In general, Andy has considerable confidence that the issues that affected Vancouver could be eliminated for Wellington, but that undoubtedly other issues will arise for Wellington.
The major promotion of Wellington ICANN occurred on the Friday afternoon public forum, which saw more than 400 people in the audience. The DVD was a roaring success and was enthusiastically applauded. The troop of kiwis, including Colin, David, Debbie Monahan, Dave Baker, Peter Dengate Thrush, Andy Linton, Angela Winiata, Anne Chappaz, Stafford Guest, Marilyn Cade and myself looked resplendent in our black polo shirts sporting a silver fern, and emblazoned with the words “ICANN ^ in Wellington” – with the individuals own words added at the “^”. (ICANN DO IT in Wellington. ICANN TRADE in Wellington etc). The polos were so popular that people were offering to buy them! Some were requisitioned for photos – another great opportunity for sales and giveaways in Wellington.
My sincere thanks to Susi Fookes for her sterling efforts on the presentation materials and polo shirts.
Discussions with potential sponsors was a major time consumer for me, and a number of arrangements were confirmed while in Vancouver, and several new contacts established and being followed up on. I have confidence that total sponsorship for Wellington will exceed budget.
PIR (.org) are confirmed as the Platinum sponsor, with Afilias, Verisign, auDA, Domainz/MelbourneIT MCI, and Citylink all Gold sponsors.
As well as the above, I spent some considerable time co-ordinating with ICANN staff and constituency chairs for the organisation of the Wellington meeting and agenda. Michael Evans will be visiting Wellington in January to finalise meeting room allocations.
I also spent some time with the hosts of the next ICANN meeting after Wellington, the representatives of ISOC and GAC for Morocco. As relative newcomers to the ICANN arena, they were seeking significant assistance, and I took the opportunity to introduce them to potential sponsors etc.
I continued in my role as a member of the GAC<>ccNSO liaison committee, and with the absence of the other 4 regional ccNSO members of this committee, and all but the Chair of the GAC members, the agenda for this session was established in a virtual vacuum. However the topics covered included the ccNSO PDP and issues relating to the process, as well as the outcomes from it, and the Accountability Frameworks progress. The third item was a discussion on the applicability of the law relating to ccTLD managers and it was agreed that a joint ccNSO GAC working group be formed to initiate further discussion on this topic.
I was asked to participate as a panel member for a public forum workshop on WSIS. While ICANN generally subscribes to the view that the WSIS Tunis Declaration means that it is business as usual for ICANN, I tend to think that the ITU are so unhappy at their exclusion that we are far from safe from further interference. From general discussions it would appear that Wellington will see considerable GAC representation – perhaps not a great many more participants, but certainly some countries have an intention of sending more senior officials.
In general regard to WSIS, it should be noted that Ambassador Janis Karklins, who chaired the Tunis phase of WSIS over the past year, will be attending in Wellington. The Ambassador, Marcus Kummer, Suzanne Sene, and Dr Paul Twomey (amongst others) have agreed to participate in a WSIS/ICANN workshop / Access Grid in NZ – allowing broader audience participation in a Q&A session on the Tunis outcomes.
There was a specific desire from many from the Technical community within ICANN to come to NZ early to attend the NZNOG conference, but some of the more senior are unlikely to be able to, due to a meeting of the IETF being held in Dallas and not finishing until 22 March, prohibiting arrival in NZ until Friday 24 March.
The Pacific Islands Communications Forum is also now evolving into a significant event, with the anticipation that up to 75 Pacific Islanders (25 each from Governments, ccTLDs and Civil Society) will participate in ICANN GAC, ccNSO and At Large for 3 days in Wellington, then continue with 2 -3 days of their own conference.
Vancouver was a stunning city to see, on the rare occasions the snow and rain ceased and allowed a view. Unfortunately the bitter cold prohibited me any opportunity for sightseeing, but in any case with a full diary every day, there was not even a chance to go shopping.
In summary, I was concerned that Vancouver may have been a tough act to follow. However as always there were aspects of the organisation of the meeting that were truly excellent, and other aspects that were not so pleasant. So at least it is not an impossible act to follow, but certainly will be a hard one.
