We are delighted to see so much interest reflected, with over 240 registrants for the regional Registry Registrar meeting taking place in Amsterdam January 24th and 25th 2013. This is by far the most attended regional meeting since ICANN started the hosting regional meetings in 2005. We expect a productive event and a positive dialogue among all the registry and registrar stakeholders attending. We are honored to have ICANN Board Member Bertrand de la Chapelle opening the meeting as our keynote speaker and ICANN’s President and CEO Fadi Chehadé closing the meeting with a roundtable session on Friday. As part of the event, ICANN also welcomes the future registries and registrars from the region that have registered, and is hosting a special newcomers session on Thursday morning.
With the high number of pre-registrations, we have reached full on-site capacity for this event. If you are unable to attend in person, you are welcome to join via remote participation. For the agenda and remote participation access details, please see: http://meetings.icann.org/meetings/registry-registrar-jan13-en. These meeting will be recorded, and the presentations will be posted on the site soon after the conclusion of the meeting.
The regional Registry Registrar meetings were originally intended to give these two stakeholder groups an opportunity to interface with each other and with ICANN staff to discuss issues that are specific for these groups, such as compliance and registrar accreditation. As the industry grows, so do the needs and expectations of the stakeholder groups evolve. On Thursday at 15:15 UTC, we are hosting a session to begin discussing the future of the regional Registry Registrar meetings to best meet our stakeholder needs and expectations.