What Do You Want to Ask in Mexico City?

In a little over two weeks, ICANN's 34th international public meeting will take place in Mexico City.

An intrinsic part of every ICANN meeting is the ability of the community to ask questions and make comments in a public setting. In Mexico City, we will have two main public forums, as well as numerous other open-microphone periods during specific meetings.

The first main public forum will be on the opening day of the conference, Monday 2 March, and will be specifically dedicated to questions covering the New gTLD Applicant Guidebook and the process for creating new generic top-level domains. It will run for 90 minutes, starting at 11.00 in the main conference room.

The second main public forum will be on Thursday 5 March. It will run for three hours, with a half-hour break, starting at 10.00 in the main conference room. The forum will be open to any topic relevant to ICANN and its work.

To allow community members that are not able to physically attend, to account for those attendees that do not wish to speak into a public microphone, and to ensure that everyone has an opportunity to ask a question directly of ICANN staff and/or the ICANN Board, we have set up an online question box.

That question box is online now and you can find it at: http://icann.wufoo.com/forms/mexico-city-question-box/

The box should be straightforward to use and you will receive a receipt of your question. Those questions/comments will then be compiled and introduced at each session where the expectation is that as many of them as possible will be answered (and the responses captured by the meeting transcript).

In the event that time runs short, a response will be produced in the weeks following the meeting that will provide answers to unasked questions. That response will be sent to the email address supplied when you use the form. There is no limit to the number of questions you are able to ask.

More on the public forum itself

The Thursday public forum will enable the community to ask questions in one of three ways:

1. You can use the above form before 17.00 local time Wednesday 4 March to submit your question. These questions will be compiled and provided to ICANN's chairman for introduction into the meeting itself. Or:
2. You can queue up behind a microphone placed at the front of the room and wait your turn in line to ask the Board your question directly and in person. Or:
3. You can queue up at the back of the main conference room during the forum and provide an ICANN staffer, who will be at a desk with a computer, your questions (as well as your contact details) and they will note down your question and provide it to the chair.

ICANN's chairman, Peter Dengate Thrush, will be moderating the forum and will be in charge of introducing topics and questions, as well as asking for Board members and/or other audience members to respond to any particular topics that arise.

We hope that the community takes advantage of this open and transparent system to provide questions and in so doing allow for additional accountability of ICANN, its staff and its Board.

For those attending, we look forward to seeing you in Mexico City; for those unable to attend, we hope this system will provide you with an effective system for remote participation.

Related link:

The Mexico City question box: http://icann.wufoo.com/forms/mexico-city-question-box/