Dear APRALO members, As January 22nd was the deadline for submission of FY17 special budget requests from RALOs to be considered by ICANN Board, I am happy to share with you that APRALO has submitted five special requests. For the first time APRALO had also submitted requests prepared and coordinated by our ALSs. Among 5 submitted requests we have three requests coming from our ALSs: ISOC Palestine to organize the first IGF, ISOC TRV in partnership with ISOC Delhi to organize the first summer school on IG in India, and ISOC Bangladesh (Dhaka) on organizing special APRALO members workshop during the next APRICOT 2017, which will take place in Bangladesh. Two other requests were submitted on behalf of APRALO leadership, one is for presentation/workshops at the Global IGF2016 and the second is special visit to China with the purpose of meeting ALSs there and establish new partnership opportunities for APRALO. All requests will be posted in the At-Large FY17 Development Workspace, so everyone can review them. The FBSC will begin reviewing them next week. Board decision on approval/disapproval of all requests from different constituencies will be available approximately by the end of April or May 2016. I would like to thank our ALSs to initiating requests and submit them on time for APRALO leadership team, who after review, comments and additional information provision, was able to submit them to At-Large staff on time. After FBSC review we may come back with additional information if needed. Fingers crossed for all our requests to be approved. Kind regards, Siranush APRALO