July 2013 - Alac-sc-outreach

Durban
by Roberto Gaetano July 13, 2013

July 13, 2013

Who is in Durban, from the members of this WG? Cheers, R.

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Trip to Caucasus - conclusions and recommendations
by Roberto Gaetano July 10, 2013

July 10, 2013

I would like to conclude this sequence of messages with some final consideration and proposals for action. As usual, separate messages for different lists. Regional issue There is wide unhappiness in the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) about being considered in the Asia-Pacific-Australasia region, they would rather be included in the European region. I have included some of the rationale in my previous messages, but just to summarize, it is about preferential partnership with Europe for Internet projects, long term plans to join the European Union, being already considered part of Europe in other cases related to music and sport, the proximity to Europe more than to the Pacific rim, and, last but not least, that for IP addresses and ccTLDs often these countries are members of the European regional organizations (RIPE and CENTR). There is an ongoing activity to rethink the ICANN regions. These considerations should be brought forward in that context (actually, I believe that this is the case already, but I would like to bring this item to the attention of the whole ALAC community). IDNs I have noted only mild interest about IDNs in my discussions with the local community. This was a surprise to me, in particular considering that two countries have a different script and the third one has several special characters added to the latin script. Is this a matter of fact, i.e. IDNs will not bring much to the local internet community, neither in terms of business opportunities nor in terms of ease of use by the community, or does this show a lack of promotion and advertisement of the IDNs by ICANN and its stakeholders? I think that this is a serious question: are we spending a lot of resources for something that is only of mild interest, or are we jeopardizing huge efforts by not advertising enough to our community? Also, I have an additional question. This is the feedback I have from the South Caucasus region, but what is the situation in other parts of the world? Does anybody have other types of info? I guess that the deployment of the first IDNs will give a partial answer to this question, but do we really need to wait more to take appropriate marketing steps for what is one of the major innovations in the DNS, and one of ICANN's success stories? Outreach - 1 In my report from Armenia I spoke about the "blank spot" on the ICANN penetration map. Without any doubt, we have much to do in relation to At-Large outreach in the former Soviet Union. ALAC is present with ALSes in very few of these countries, and completely absent in all the "stans". This is related to the situation about human rights, government control, freedom of press, and so on. However, aren't we in a vicious circle? In other words, which is the cause and which is the effect? Had we some active users organizations, wouldn't these be able to influence the government? I think that people living in that reality can contribute more to this debate than somebody like me, who only was there visiting, but unless the local community in the CIS (Community of Independent States) tell me loud and clear that there's nothing we can do to change the situation, I will continue thinking that developing At-Large community and structures must be one of our priorities. If we believe in the multi-stakeholder model, we must be committed to develop this model where it is not fully implemented. I would recommend to have a meeting of the Outreach WG in Durban. I know it is late in the game, but I don't think we need a large room and a long time, if it is not possible to have an "official" meeting I would at least hope that the members of the WG can get together at the bar to have a chat. But of course a meeting with staff support, minutes, and a clear action list as a result would be better. Incidentally, I hope that Veni will be in Durban, because his contribution is essential. I learned that there is already sub-regional collaboration for technical issues related to the internet, and that the internet technical community of the former Soviet Union countries already meets regularly. Shall we seek to have a couple of (Russian-speaking) ALAC members participating, to explore collaboration opportunities? About 10 years ago I went to a CENTR meeting to promote links between the ccTLDs and the forming ALAC. Nothing came out of it, but in time we had some developments, including ccTLD operators joining At-Large. But if we never start, we will never get anywhere. Outreach - 2 Besides outreach to specific geographical areas, it seems that we need outreach plans for specific stakeholder groups. First of all, I had confirmation of something we all had observed over the years: the lack of interest by the scientific and research community in ICANN activities. Is this a matter of fact, i.e. there is no reason why the internet scientific and research community should participate in Internet Governance activities, or do we have here another case of lack of marketing of ICANN's role? The key question is what can ICANN, and ALAC, offer to this community so that we can establish collaboration? If we establish collaboration on specific projects, we will naturally see a higher interest in participation by them. Again, there is probably one simple way: to participate, as observers, to some of the activities that the internet scientific and research community is performing. We need a couple of ALAC members that are technically competent, to be respected by the other participants, that can understand and report what are the needs and priorities, and then we can analyse the implications for the user community and propose contributions. Also, we need to take into account the more general question: "What can ICANN do for the user community?". I am under the impression that, although ALAC has grown in size and importance, the core of our group is still composed by idealists who debate matters of principle. Matters of principle are surely important, but we need also to address some practical needs. For instance, what do we do in support of registrants, to make them better aware of their rights and to help them when they get in trouble with their suppliers? The development of the new TLD programme might make this aspect even more critical. Can we think of training activities, done by ALSes in collaboration with other bodies? I am sure that some ALSes do already this, for instance ISOC chapters are involved in user training, but how much are these experiences shared within ALAC, and used as example for building new activities? For instance, at the ISOC Armenia meeting I spoke with Narine Khachatryan (Media Education Center), who told me about a "train the trainer" programme, an experience that could be interesting to other ALSes. Should we include in the ATLAS II programme some time for sharing these experiences? There are discussions already going on in terms of budget, I do not want to interfere here with the official bodies that are making decisions now, but I strongly believe that ALAC, as a grown-up adult, should be entitled to manage a part of the budget for initiatives that can be decided when the opportunity comes, without having to go for a long and cumbersome approval cycle. If this is done, we should have a budget item earmarked for "Outreach" where we can decide activities that we will perform with the objective of improving our penetration in the wide At-Large community worldwide. Last but not least, when we talk about "Digital Divide" we often think in terms of developing countries vs. industrialized world. However, there are other divides within each country. The experience in the South Caucasus made me aware of the divide between cities and countryside, the problems of scarcely populated areas (I believe we already have an example of ALS operating in Canada in this type of environment), the divide between the digital natives and the others (Tijani might remember a discussion we had in Tunisia years ago about the effort in doing something to help elderly people). I think these are things we need to start thinking about if we want to go to the next step in ALAC's life, which is to be more relevant in the internet community's everyday life, and I am sure that this will bring new people, new organizations, new ideas, and will drive the multi-stakeholder model to a higher level of implementation. Cheers, Roberto

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Trip to Caucasus - Chapter 3 - Georgia
by Roberto Gaetano July 5, 2013

July 5, 2013

Hi all. Following up my previous reports on Armenia and Azerbaijan, I would like to continue with Georgia. I will also have some final considerations on the region, and some recommendations, but that will be part of a future message. My main contact in the country was Ramaz Kvatadze, from the Georgian Research and Educational Networking Association (GRENA - http://grena.ge/eng/) I had a very good meeting with him, and other short occasional conversations with other folks. The main points that came out from the discussion with Ramaz were (to the best of my recollection, in random order, after validation by Ramaz): . There is an ISOC chapter, not member of the At-Large, some groups are participating in ISOC Community Grants programmes. . The infrastructure is in average good, but there are substantial differences between big cities and remote villages. . While the main problem in the countryside is connectivity, that must be improved, the main complaint in big cities is compliance of the operators with the promised quality of service. . The government has undertaken efforts for developing eGovernment, as of today there are many applications that allow citizen and organizations to obtain certificates and make declarations online. . The scientific and research community is not active on ICANN matters because there is no benefit associated to its participation. . The scientific and research community has strong collaboration with similar communities in other Caucasus countries as well as other geographical areas worldwide, but the main interest and efforts are devoted to cooperation with Europe. . Although Georgia feels strongly more European than Asian, the current location in AP as ICANN geographic region is not felt as an obstacle. However, the main goal of Georgia is to become real member of European community. . The adoption of new technologies (mobile telecommunication, internet) have been slowed down initially by the monopoly situation, but now the competition among operators favours rapid development and strong improvement of the infrastructure. . The main obstacle for further improvement of the ICT infrastructure is lack of financial resources, as private business is unable to invest in development in rural/mountain areas as these are scarcely populated and there will be not enough return on investment. . Georgia has good relationships with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, organizing regional meetings in Georgia is easier than in the neighboring countries. In fact almost all regional meetings are organized in Georgia. To this, I would like to add some personal considerations. I have travelled extensively, in cities and in rural areas, and have found fair to good internet connectivity. I have experienced a difference between cities and countryside, which confirms the feedback I had from Ramaz. However, the improvement of the connectivity seems no simple task, and other comments I have gathered from different sources, mainly individual internet users, is that the overall connectivity is not the first priority. From a different source, I have learned that Georgia is planning to lay down a second backbone cable that should connect east and west Georgia running close to the southern border (unfortunately, I was unable to get confirmation of this from other sources). It seems that addressing the risk of a cut in the intra-Georgian communication (between east and west Georgia) is a higher priority than addressing the connectivity in remote areas. The reason might appear obvious to people who know the recent history and the current threats of the region. I am under the impression that tourism, that is a flourishing business in Georgia, and rightfully so, can be an incentive to the improvement of the internet infrastructure. For instance, my last day was in Batumi, touristic area on the Black Sea, close to the border with Turkey. I have found a large number of bars, coffee shops, restaurants, that were offering free WiFi. On the other hand, I compare this with Mestia, in the Svaneti, another place with high touristic potential, but on the Caucasus mountains, where no B&B offered WiFi, and I was unable to find any establishment included it. My assumption was, although it was difficult to verify this with the local people, that the limited bandwidth in some areas was the limiting factor. But, as I said, it is just my personal speculation. I had another example of the situation in remote areas travelling to the Tusheti area (in the Caucasus mountains, north-east Georgia). The electric and telephone lines, installed in Soviet times, were abandoned because the cost of maintenance was too high, leaving the whole area without power and connectivity. It has to be said that the road itself to Omalo, the largest village in Tusheti, is passable only by 4x4 vehicles and the Abano pass itself is closed from October to May because of snow. However, the population got organized: almost every household has solar cells and is therefore autonomous for electrical power, and there are GSM (solar-powered) cells that ensure mobile phone connectivity to the valley. I was impressed by this, and thought that this could be an example for other parts of the world, where laying cables is too costly. Incidentally, at about the same time I heard the recent news about the experiments on internet connection via satellite in New Zealand, which shows that new ways are being explored. Talking about mobile phones, there seems to be excellent market penetration. While it is true that the monopoly situation has slowed down the progress, my observation, in cities and also in remote areas, is that the initial delay has been caught up. There is a wide offer, and if you get a local SIM card you can reload it also at ATM-like machines that are widely available for different types of payments. The last comment is about the geopolitical collocation of Georgia. I have to say that travelling through the country I had the impression to be in Europe. Just the signs in Georgian alphabet reminded me that I was in the Caucasus. As a matter of fact, this proximity to Europe made me forget to inquiry about another topic I wanted to get information on: the need, or not, for IDN. However, I have the feeling that, while this is probably an issue in large cities, the main problem in scarcely populated areas remains the connection. Best regards, Roberto Additional note for the Outreach WG: we need a serious discussion about outreach in this region. I have questions like how can we get the attention from GRENA, or ISOC Georgia, how can we improve the action in this region. I believe it will be good to have a F2F meeting in Durban.

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