8 April 2013 For Immediate Release ICANN Engagement Center to Open In Beijing 46th Public Meeting in Beijing is Largest Ever Beijing, ChinaŠ ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer Fadi Chehadé announced today that the organization will open its first new global engagement office in Beijing. ³Engagement with China is not merely an option, we simply must engage at every level or we will lose our legitimacy,² said Chehadé. ³This is part of our effort to embrace the world.² The ICANN leader made the announcement during the welcoming session at ICANN¹s 46th public meeting in Beijing - the largest meeting in the 15-year history of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. So far more than 2,100 people have so far show up for the Beijing meeting. ³We¹ve never seen anything like it,² said Nick Tomasso, ICANN¹s Senior Director of Meetings. ³Last year 1,821 showed up for our meeting in Prague in the Czech Republic which, until now, was our largest meeting. That record has now been broken and people are still arriving.² The announcement of ICANN¹s expanding presence in China was heralded by Chinese Internet leaders. ³Our Internet future will now be brilliant,² said Madam Hu Qiheng, the President of the Internet Society of China. ³This is bridge for ICANN and China and it will lead to greater expansion of Internet development.² ICANN Board Chair Dr. Stephen Crocker pointed out the dramatic growth of Internet users in China in the past decade. ³In the past decade, Internet use has increase ten fold,² said Crocker. ³There are now 564 million Internet users in China and that is expected to climb sharply in the future.² ICANN¹s public meeting in Beijing will continue through the week. ### To download high-resolution photos from the welcoming session of ICANN¹s public meeting in Beijing, go here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/icann/sets/72157633193204460/ MEDIA CONTACTS: Brad White Director of Global Media Affairs Washington, DC, USA Tel. +1 202.570.7118 brad.white@icann.org Andrew Robertson Edelman Public Relations London, U.K. Tel. + 44 (7811) 341 945 andrew.Robertson@edelman.com About ICANN: ICANN¹s mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet¹s unique identifiers. ICANN doesn¹t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn¹t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet¹s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet. For more information please visit: www.icann.org <http://www.icann.org> . If you would rather not receive future communications from ICANN, let us know by clicking here. <http://ICANN.pr-optout.com/OptOut.aspx?523509x19831x93440x1x3785396x24000x6 &Email=david.olive%40icann.org> ICANN, 12025 Waterfront Drive Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90094 United States