ICANN’s 51st Public Meeting took place in Los Angeles last week. 2500 participants from 100 countries participated in 150 sessions, discussing Internet names and numbers, as well as broader technical, business, and governance issues.
Transition of IANA stewardship and ICANN accountability were the two central topics of the meeting, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker addressing both in her speech at the Opening Ceremony. APNIC’s participation at ICANN 51 focused on those two topics, as well as meetings and discussions related to ASO and RIR/NRO activities.
APNIC representatives in attendance included Secretariat staff members Paul Wilson, Geoff Huston, Pablo Hinojosa, Craig Ng and Siena Perry; and APNIC EC members Akinori Maemura, and Wendy Zhao.
APNIC staff activities at ICANN 51 included:
- As a member of the IANA Transition Coordination Group (ICG), Paul Wilson participated in ICANN’s Community Discussion with the ICG on 16 October; and the 3rd ICG face-face Meeting on 17 October
- Akinori Maemura and Pablo Hinojosa attended the meeting between senior ICANN and RIR staff to discuss ICANN Accountability, ASO and regional cooperation, and other issues
- Pablo attended the ASO meeting with the ICANN Board; followed the Cross Community Working Group (CWG) which has agreed on a timeline to develop a proposal for IANA Stewardship Transition on Naming Related Functions; met with staff of I* organizations to coordinate activities at the upcoming ITU Plenipotentiary Conference in Busan, South Korea; met with representatives from the Asia Pacific including representatives from Internet NZ, JPNIC, ICANN staff and NIXI to discuss topics including development activities, the IANA stewardship transition and APRICOT 2015; and reported on the APNIC community’s IANA stewardship transfer discussions to other communities such as APRALO
- Geoff Huston participated in the ICANN Tech Day, attended the DNSSEC workshop on Wednesday referencing APNIC measurements of DNSSEC, attended the Root Key Roll workshop, and presented on the topic of use of Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) as a zone signing algorithm
- Craig Ng also attended the ASO meeting with the ICANN Board, where he reported on community discussions at APNIC 38 on the IANA stewardship transition, and other community activities in the APNIC region; followed discussions on enhancing ICANN’s accountability and governance; met with representatives from other RIRs to discuss the straw man proposal for IANA stewardship transition which was discussed at APNIC 38; and met with IANA staff to discuss issues surrounding the IANA stewardship transition
- APNIC Staff also attended other ICANN sessions including the Welcome Ceremony and President’s Opening, ICANN Accountability & Governance Cross Community Group Meeting, Public Board Meeting, Joint Meeting of the GAC and ICANN Board, 2015 and Beyond: Internet Governance Update, Enhancing ICANN Accountability, Constituency Day, the Public Forum, and Public Board Meeting
- APNIC staff also attended the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) sessions on IANA and accountability and had informal conversations with government representatives from the AP region
- The NRO took the opportunity of this ICANN meeting to schedule two coordination meetings:
- Siena Perry attended an NRO Communications Coordination Group meeting with RIR communications staff to develop public communication on the IANA stewardship transfer and other current issues
- Paul Wilson, Craig Ng and Akinori Maemura attended a meeting of the NRO Executive Committee to discuss current issues including ICANN and RIR approaches to the IANA transition and Accountability reviews.
Photos of ICANN 51 can be viewed at ICANN’s Flikr page.
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