On behalf of the ICANN Asia Pacific (APAC) Hub, I'm pleased to welcome you to ICANN's 52nd Public Meeting. We are also thrilled that it has returned to our very own backyard, Singapore.
ICANN 52 promises to be another busy meeting, a few of the topics covered on Monday include WHOIS, new gTLDs, DNSSEC, GAC and GNSO (see the full meeting schedule here: http://singapore52.icann.org/en/schedule-full). ICANN 52 comes at a critical time for ICANN, particularly regarding the various efforts supporting the IANA Functions Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability.
These two processes were launched one year ago, right here in Singapore. Much progress has been made since that time thanks to the ICANN community's tireless effort and commitment.
I look forward to the many discussions that will take place this week, not only regarding Transition and Accountability, but also about the core policy development activities across the ICANN Supporting Organizations and the policy advice work of the ICANN Advisory Committees.
ICANN in Asia Pacific
At the APAC hub, we remain committed to building ICANN into a truly a global organization that serves the needs of our stakeholders. From the APAC Hub, I am pleased to report that we continue to grow. We now have 23 staff operating out of the Hub office in Singapore or stationed in the APAC Region in Australia, China, India, Japan and Korea.
We filled key positions to allow us to better engage and serve our stakeholders in the region, specifically concerning Registry and Registrar Services, Contractual Compliance, Global Stakeholder Engagement, Communications, Legal, Operations and IT.
We also signed key partnership Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with the China Academy of Telecommunication Research (CATR), as well as APNIC. Such developments help us coordinate efforts with partner organizations to meet the needs of the region.
These achievements would not be possible without the collaboration, support and feedback from our APAC stakeholder community, a community that is experiencing significant growth. For example, subscribers to our APAC Hub mailing list and our APAC Hub newsletter increased 3 times over the past Quarter alone. You can access our newsletter archives at: https://community.icann.org/display/gseasiawkspc/APAC+Newsletters
On behalf of the ICANN team, I look forward to spending time with you this week.
Kuek Yu-Chuang is the Vice President and Managing Director of ICANN Asia Pacific Hub.