We are less than two weeks away from ICANN62 in Panama City, Panama. That means the Board is once again getting ready for another workshop, which will be held from 22-24 June, right before the meeting.
If you’ll recall, we reorganized our last workshop in Vancouver to allow for more time to discuss the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the proposed Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data, so this upcoming workshop will give us an opportunity to reconvene on some of the issues we set aside when we last met. We’ll be holding quite a few public sessions, as well as a public Board meeting. You can find out how to dial-in to these listen-only sessions here.
On Friday, 22 June, the first day of the workshop, we’re going to start off with a dialogue with Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO, and then jump into a discussion about the current status of GDPR. This will include an update on progress made in resolving the outstanding items outlined in the Appendix of the Temporary Specification.
After lunch, Akinori Maemura will be leading a public session on recommendations for implementation of Internationalized Domain Name variant top-level domains. Following that session, Ram Mohan and Kaveh Ranjbar, along with David Conrad, will be providing an update on potential strategies to increase the resilience of the L-root. Avri Doria will then be leading a session on the status of the new generic TLD (gTLD) subsequent procedures policy work in the GNSO. As the gTLD Policy Development Process is getting close to making a recommendation about the possible launch of another round of new gTLD applications, it’s important that the Board discuss and start considering what its input might be. Afterwards, Becky Burr will spearhead a session on the status of work on the new Independent Review Process system, followed by a session on the Board’s communications strategy, which will be led by Lousewies Van der Laan.
Saturday, 23 June, is packed with public sessions, so I highly encourage you to review the schedule and see which ones you might be interested in listening to. We will start the day with a public Board meeting, and then Avri and the Policy Development team will be briefing the Board on some of the hot topics that will be discussed during ICANN62 to ensure we are prepared. Maarten Botterman will then lead the second public session of the day, which will be an update on the status of deliverables related to the Board’s FY18 priorities, such as replenishing the ICANN org’s Reserve Fund and measuring the community’s satisfaction with the Board. The third public session of the day will be led by Khaled Koubaa and will be an update on the long and short-term options for streamlining the various ICANN reviews, a topic which is currently out for public comment.
Following this, Maarten will hold a session on identifying our FY19 priorities. Becky Burr will then be joining him to host a session to discuss the Board’s inputs into the new gTLD auction proceeds work. During the final public session of the day, led by Matthew Shears, the Board Working Group on Internet Governance will be briefing the full Board about the upcoming potential policy issues that may have an impact on ICANN. The day will end with our feedback session, where we discuss how the workshop went and look for ways to improve upon the efficiency and effectiveness during the next iteration.
The last day of the workshop, Sunday, 24 June, will be dedicated to strategic planning, as well as a roundtable with the chairs of ICANN’s Supporting Organizations and Advisory Committees, which Göran, Chris Disspain, and I plan to attend.
Given the wide range of issues that we’ll be addressing during the workshop, I expect that this will be an intense and productive three days. I look forward to having you join us for our public sessions, as well as seeing many of you during the meeting.