ICANN 40 San Francisco Meeting - Monday 14 March

The day started with the Fellowship Meeting at 7AM wherein an overview of gNSO (generic Names Supporting Organization) was provided alonside presentation from fellow Alumni on the experience in ICANN.

Following it was the opening ceremony which saw VInt Cerf (Father of the Internet) as speaker. It was a life time achievement for me to listen to Vint Cerf in person. In context to ICANN he focussed on the following issues among many others:

• Transperancy in the ICANN decion making process
• GAC to contribute more on public policy
• The relation between ICANN and Dept of Commerce is of Procurement Contract which can be changed to MOU
• There can be multiple ways of doing things so decide on one of the way and follow it.

The cermony also saw Asst Secretary of State - Dept of Commercce, USA. He mentioned that "The Obama Administration has made it a priority to develop policies to ensure that we continue to have an Internet environment that encourages innovation and creativity and fosters trust with its users"  He said that within the Department of Commerce, they are focussing on four issues of internet

• Enhancing Internet privacy;
• Ensuring cyber security;
• Protecting online copyright
• Ensuring the global free flow of information.

 He also mentioned about they are guided by two principles :on which the issues needs to be resolved.

• Idea of trust. 
• preserve and enhance a multistakeholder model  

It also saw Andrew McLaughlin who served as the deputy chief technology officer at the White House from 2009 until earlier this year. His thoughts were really radical likewhere in last few years he said that Humans have changed from information consumers or passive consumers to active creators. His comparision of Human Development Index of World Bank witht he growth of Internet presented an extra ordinary reflection of the situation. His comment "well informed public is the corner stone of a representative government" is defnitely a clincher.

One of the prominent speakers was IRA MAGAZINER who was the founder of ICANN. His speech took us in History where he gave a glimse that in 1995 there were three technologies which were upcoming like The Internet, the sequencing of the human genome, and advances in renewable energy. The Clinton administration choose to focus on INternet and here we are today. His tribute to Job Postel was also overwhelming. He finished by suggesting the following:

•  ICANN always needs to work hard to be more international and, in particular, to include more people in its leadership and management from developing countries around the world.  
• Number two, ICANN must take great pains to operate in an efficient manner.

I attended other meetings round the day primarily on IDNs. Post lunch there was a good discussion with Dr. Mahesh Kulkarni from CDAC Pune who is also a speaker here in ICANN on IDN. I could understant the readiness of India on IDNs and the basic building blocks. I could understand his views on blocking the variants in IDNs and not considering the homophones as part of language table.

There was a coffee talk with particiapnts of South Asia Pacific countries wherein it was decided that volntary organization in this part of the world should join hands to work on some of the INternet related issues.