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Chair's Blog: A Preview of the Puerto Rico Board Workshop

26 February 2018
By Cherine Chalaby

Just a month ago, the ICANN Board met in Los Angeles for our first workshop of calendar 2018, and we are already preparing to head to San Juan for what will surely be another productive workshop, from 9 to 11 March, followed by a busy ICANN61.

Starting on Friday, 9 March, the Board Committees will meet to conduct their regular business. The Board Technical Committee will be holding a public session to provide an update of the activities of the Office of the CTO, and I hope you will be able to join them.

On Saturday, 10 March, we will begin the day with our regular dialogue with Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO, which we do at all of our workshops. We will hear about his current priorities and efforts, and then we’ll have an opportunity to discuss them with him. After that, Avri Doria will lead two consecutive sessions: first, a policy and advice briefing on priority issues that will be discussed at ICANN61, and second, a detailed preparation for Constituency Day, including a review of all the questions which were submitted by the constituencies for their meetings with the Board.

After our Constituency Day preparation, Chris Disspain will lead a session to review any outstanding resolutions or active accountability mechanisms. Our final session of the day will be a follow-up discussion to the one held at our last workshop on the potential impact of new technologies on the root server system, which will be led jointly by Kaveh Ranjbar and Ram Mohan.

On the morning of Sunday, 11 March, I will lead a discussion on planning for Workstream 2 implementation, followed by a lengthy session on the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), led by Becky Burr and Göran Marby. We will be focusing on the emerging recommended interim model and next steps for ensuring compliance and implementation. We will also be holding a session, led by Chris Disspain, where we will discuss the implications for the ongoing policy work related to WHOIS in light of the latest updates on GDPR.

In the afternoon, we will hold a public session, led by Ram Mohan, on the anticipated updates to the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Implementation Guidelines, which apply to the IDNs at the second level. Maarten Botterman and Becky Burr will then lead a discussion with the Board on the proposed disbursement mechanisms considered by the Cross Community Working Group on Auction Proceeds. After that Avri Doria will lead a session on the status of work on New gTLD Subsequent Procedures. Matthew Shears will run the final session of the day. He will guide us through a brief review of the workshop, so that we can look for ways to improve the Board’s efficiency and effectiveness while it is still fresh in our minds.

In the days following ICANN61, I will provide you with an update on this workshop, as well as the overall meeting. I hope to see and hear from many of you at ICANN61 in Puerto Rico, both in person and remotely.

Authors

Cherine Chalaby

Former ICANN Board Chair