[NCUC-DISCUSS] NCUC Event News

[William Drake]

Hello

The IGF's Multistakeholder Advisory Group met here in Geneva over the past few days, and we approved the main lines of the IGF meeting in Bali 22-25 October.  The workshop proposals put forth by NCUC and its members fared well in the review process and should all go forward.  Official confirmation is pending, needed first are some last looks at the approved workshops as a group and efforts to prompt mergers between related sessions etc.

On another front, we have several events under consideration for the ICANN Duban meeting 14-18 July.  First, it appears that NCUC member the Association for Progressive Communication will be organizing a capacity building 'winter school' on Internet governance for some government and stakeholder attendees just prior to the ICANN meeting, i.e. 10-12 (Wed. - Friday) July.  This will likely be held off site at a university campus.   The last session on Friday will be a joint event organized by NCUC on how we work in GNSO and how to get involved etc.  This could be sort of a prequel to broader workshop I proposed for Bali, Civil Society in ICANN’s Multistakeholderism: The GNSO Case http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/wks2013/workshop_2013_list_view.php?xpsltipq_je=249.  Basically, it'd be an outreach effort geared toward African civil society in particular.  Afterwards, NCUC will sponsor a reception for attendees—nothing swank obviously, but a good bridge building opportunity.  

I am also talking with staff about securing a space within the main ICANN Durban program for an NCUC workshop.  A priori, on both substantive and effort optimization grounds I'm inclined to do another prequel, this one to our IGF Bali workshop, The Debate on ‘Closed’ Generic Top Level Domains  http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/wks2013/workshop_2013_list_view.php?xpsltipq_je=253.  After all, it'd be nice to sponsor a debate on a hot topic in front of a full ICANN crowd a couple of days before the Board may take action one way or another on the matter (although that expectation could mean some push back from ICANN on the topic, we'll see).  This seems like a useful contribution we can make, and we have members and other colleagues who'll be in Durban who have strong views on the various sides of the matter who could serve as speakers.  The other option I thought about was to broaden the focus and do a workshop on the GAC's Beijing Communique, and the community responses to it.  But this might be seen in a less favorable light in some quarters, plus we can get into that via the closed topic anyway.  

Staff are asking for me to submit the workshop request within a few days, so time's a bit pressed.  I'd be interested to hear from members if the above sounds ok, or if there's another workshop topic we ought to be considering.  Needless to say, if we were to strike out in a new direction rather than take the path of least resistance with a closed generic prequel, there'd have to be a group effort to organize it, starting fairly soon.

Thanks,

Bill


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William J. Drake
International Fellow & Lecturer
  Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
  University of Zurich, Switzerland
Chair, Noncommercial Users Constituency, 
  ICANN, www.ncuc.org
william.drake at uzh.ch  
www.williamdrake.org
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