Indeed.
There are two issues here: At-Large Summits and ICANN meetings in general.
It is within our capacity now to commit ATLAS IV to be virtual, which gives plenty of time to plan and test. (Indeed, given the massively lower cost and improved access, virtual Summits could be held every year.)
Meanwhile, it is my opinion that ALAC should be advancing very strong Advice to the Board to hasten the virtualisation of its meetings. This is not only a developing-world issue, it's one with real consequences worldwide. The current meeting policy impairs developing-world access well beyond the visa issue. Visa problems are irrelevant to those who want to attend but can't afford to go and are not deemed worthy of subsidy; virtual meetings eliminate these barriers for all.
Currently, only the financially motivated and the subsidized can attend ICANN meetings with regularity; under this situation the vested interests overwhelm the meetings, from working groups to the Public Forum to private invitation-only side-events which trade influence for cocktails. Making ICANN meetings virtual greatly reduces this unbalanced access to the ICANN Board, staff and policy apparatus. Not only do virtual meetings eliminate attendance barriers for the developing world, they also reduce the imbalance between he public interest and the domain industry. Imagine if every ALS were able to attend every ICANN meeting as easily as any registrar! It's no wonder that the establishment wants to maintain this imbalance despite claims of inclusiveness.
As for short term help, ICANN Constituency Travel has been grappling with this issue for decades. ICANN itself can't be expected to understand local visa issues everywhere they have meetings, and
very very few countries have no entry restrictions. ICANN 68 will be in a country that denies all access to people from Israel, period. ICANN 67 and ICANN 70 will be held in a country that requires visas from almost all of Africa and Asia (
except for Israelis, for which entry is visa-free) and has 27 fewer embassies than Canada. ICANN 72 will be in a country that might approve your visa but still turn you away at the point of entry after
demanding to see your phone's social media postings. And not everyone has an easy time getting into Schengen, either.
It's unlikely that these meeting locations, already approved by the Board, are likely to change. So what can be done?
What is crucial is to have a good local host for each meeting with governmental connections. At ICANN 42 in Toronto almost exactly seven years ago, the local ccTLD (CIRA) was heavily involved as host and I don't recall any visa problems. (Indeed that meeting was either the first or second time ever that an At-Large event was hosted at an ALAC member's home -- mine). Next week's meeting host is the
dot-quebec geoTLD -- have they been involved at all in facilitating anyone's visa issues? If not that's a problem, they should be the ones with local knowledge, willing to provide advice or make interventions.
So ... in the short term, demand that ICANN has a reliable local hosts for each meeting who will be expected to support -- and intervene on behalf of -- visa applications. In the medium term and beyond, ALAC needs to push for virtual meetings on a general principle of inclusivity.
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I was asked for solutions; these are mine. You may now resume the gratuitous Canada-bashing and petition-starting, while determining if those constitute solutions.