Team, Don’t want to be overly defensive here, but we have a good story to tell. What they seem to be complaining about, really, is not diversity — or efforts at diversity — but language diversity, and specifically French. To my mind, there’s nothing that would keep a French company from joining the BC, but I rarely see French companies at ICANN generally. Seems a bit of a chicken and egg. What I’d propose we say is something along these lines. Please tell me what you think or if we should soften it in some way. Cheers, Andrew The BC welcomes the comments from Afnic, as expanding diversity of all sorts has been a top priority for our group for many years. This is not simply a rhetorical statement about the importance of diversity as a goal: it is a commitment to diversity and outreach as an important component of how the BC works and our longer term success. To that end, the BC has taken a leading role promoting additional data collection on the participation of women and diverse audiences as part of ICANN meetings and events. BC member attendance has routinely been very close to even between women and men. In addition, we have made increasing outreach to emerging markets and other non-traditional potential business participants a top priority. To that end, we have set aside substantial budgets from our own membership to build outreach, complementing ICANN funding in areas like CROPP but going well beyond these funds. Over the last 3 years the BC has participated in x major ICT events Africa, Asia and Latin America — sharing information about the BC, ICANN and the opportunities for participation. We have specific targets to grow membership in historically less-represented parts of the global south, have worked to create mentorship for new businesses joining the BC from less-represented regions, and have supported the participation of new attendees both through our own funds and by encouraging ICANN to select additional business representatives as part of the Fellows program. These efforts have taken time and work, but have provided results. BC membership from countries like Brazil, Nigeria, Kenya and India is up significantly (Chantelle, do you have the numbers over the last 3 years?). Language diversity — which seems to be at the heart of Afnic’s concern — is important. And it is true that there are currently few French or French-speaking members of the BC. Native speakers of Portuguese, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi and other languages have played important roles in the BC — including as liaisons or other officers — in years past, and we would be pleased to welcome more French and/or Francophone voices in the BC as part of our membership and leadership. We look forward to sitting down with Afnic (and potentially with ICANN) to discuss how, working together, we could create targeted efforts to enhance participation within these specific communities, in keeping with our broader — and we think well demonstrated — commitment to promoting diversity. ___________________ Andrew Mack Principal C: +1 (202) 256-1077 O: +1 (202) 642-6429 Skype: Andrew.Mack [cid:0DD3CCF8-4EEE-4DD4-BCA5-5E57CD4FBEF7] AMGlobal Consulting 2001 Massachusetts Avenue, NW First Floor Washington, DC 20036 USA www.amglobal.com<http://www.amglobal.com/> | amack@amglobal.com
