An audience estimated at close to 500 attended a quickly arranged early morning community forum on Wednesday at ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires. ICANN President & CEO Fadi Chehadé said he called the meeting after hearing questions and concerns from community members about three new ICANN initiatives on Internet Governance –1net, Brazil's international Internet governance conference and ICANN's strategy panel on Internet governance.
In brief opening remarks, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé said that the past two months have contained a fast succession of events aimed at continuing the evolution of Internet governance to reflect all of the Internet's users. "It is not that we share the same objectives for tackling Internet governance issues, but that we get there together." Community leaders from ICANN's Supporting Organizations, Advisory Committees and Board joined Chehadé at the front of room for a full, open community discussion.
The floor was then opened to comments from community members, who queued up at a microphone in the middle of the main ballroom. They focused mainly on recent announcements about ICANN's role in a 1net campaign and its participation at the Global Multistakeholder Internet Governance Conference to be hosted by the Brazilian government. The conference is planned for São Paulo in April.
Adiel Akplogan, CEO of AFRINIC, the Internet numbers' resource registry for Africa, proposed the new 1NET.ORG website be used as the focal point for engagement. While the site is being finalized, anyone interested can sign up for the current mailing list at https://nro.net/mailman/options/i-coordination.
"1net is a movement that is open to anyone that is supporting the goal of working to enhance the multistakeholder model; open to anyone who wants to join, who wants to support, who wants to work toward that evolution," Akplogan said.
Comments from the floor from civil society, business, technical and other communities addressed the need for more precision and concrete details when talking about the initiatives, while acknowledging that ICANN leaders were listening to the community.
At the conclusion of the 90 minute forum, Fadi Chehadé vowed, "We will move forward, and we will move forward together, Let's take in all this input."
http://audio.icann.org/meetings/buenosaires2013/chehade-ig-20nov13-en.mp3 [MP3, 212 MB]