Hi everyone

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a great break over the Xmas and
New Year period. We will all be back to work again soon, so make the most
of it 🤓.

I have recently been appointed by the ALAC to participate on the GNSO
Guidance Process Applicant Support team which is preparing a  guidance
document for users and administrators for the next round of new gTLDs,

*Firstly, * I would be very interested to hear from anyone who applied for
a new domain during the last round in 2012, whether you were successful or
not. I'd like to hear
* What were the barriers you experienced during the application process?
* How could the process have been made more user-friendly?
* What did you know about the process *before* the round opened?
* What support did you get from ICANN (or anyone) during the application
process?

>From our region, I would have expected that more people would have applied
for Applicant Support, yet there were very few (3), and only one was
successful. ICANN had set aside US$2m for Financial assistance but the
other two applicants did not qualify on one or both of the first two
criteria
1) that their domain had a public interest objective that would benefit a
community group
2) that their business plan demonstrated sustainable management of their
domain name project should they be successful.
3) that they could not afford the application fee

*Secondly, * I would also be interested in hearing from anyone who is
considering  applying for a new domain in the upcoming round although we
are not sure when that will be.
* What do you need to know to be better prepared for this new round?
* What information do you need from ICANN?
* What other assistance do you think you might need - to make a successful
application?
* What services would you expect from Applicant Support?

I would be very happy to take comments and suggestions from the APAC
region, to the rest of the team, via this email list or directly to me via
maureen.hilyard@gmail.com.  Any contributions would be very welcome.

Have a great 2023!
Regards
Maureen