NOTES | ICANN79

Universal Acceptance Committee (UAC)

Saturday, 2 March 2024 | 13:15-14:30 local (17:15-18:30 UTC)
https://sched.co/1a173

—

Welcome

Welcome by chair Abdalmonem

First time we meet face to face. Warm welcome to all members and our guests

Introduction by Anil Kumar Jain (UASG)

Introduction by Nabil, UASG Vice chair and chair of the measurements working group

Reference to UA Day celebrations coming soon.

2. Admin matters

a. Statement of Interest changes UAC members.

Mandatory for ccNSO WG/C new members.

Will soon be available to all.

Ai-Chin: update to SOI. I left .tw, will continue to work in AP community.

b. Action Items

See items on agenda later today

c. Schedule various presentations

3. Meeting with UA Steering Group

a. Welcome to UASG

b. Introduction by UASG

Anil: explains the UASG structure, and the various working groups. For instance: EAI

Self-assessment tools now available. Aim is to inform the ccTLD community about the work by UASG

Abdalmomen: how to imagine this world without universal acceptance?

Anil: UASG trying to ensure that UA is well engrossed in the various SO/ACs at ICANN. We have liaisons with the various efforts. Happy that the ccNSO has taken up a step. Looking forward to increased involvement by ccTLDs. Often ccTLDs are gvt-related. Gvt is one entity, which is very important for the promotion of UA. Gvt can influence the big technologies such as google, microsoft to ensure services to their citizens are inclusive in nature. Promote UA to registries, registrars and registrants. Honoured to speak here today. I offer my support to this committee on behalf of UASG, whether it be in terms of technology, policy or otherwise. Not just work on awareness, but also on the technological adoption.

Abdalmonem: huge number of applications regarding UA Day. shortlist of 50 applications

Nabil: good overview of our work and the various WGs by Anil. Other milestone for our measure WG: We created a curriculum for academia. Course in universities. To increase awareness among students in computer science field. Use of scripts. ITU resolution on role of administrations by members states regarding UA and use of IDNs. it is not just ICANN talking about UA. Next step is to invite faculties worldwide to teach the course.

Abdalmomen: reference to related courses on ICANN Learn

c. Introduction by UAC

Introduction about UAC and its purpose by Abdalmomen. Focus on information sharing. Policy development is out of scope for the ccNSO. For instance, liaising with other groups within icann. Ccnso appointed liaison to UASG. We are exploring activities. Why UAC? To fill in the gap of info sharing. Complement the efforts already happening, not duplicate.

UAC is open to all ccTLD managers. Whether ot not the ccTLD is a member of the ccnso or not.

>>> UAC recent activity:

ccNSO appointed liaison to UASG regularly informs ccNSO Council & UAC about UASG activities

2. UAC defined its work plan for the year ahead

o Taking into consideration the UAC scope as defined in its charter, UAC further explored the relevance of the themes for the ccTLD community and ccNSO in general, to better understand how to organise potential work on these themes.

o Phased approach:

· Brainstorming via napkin pitches (completed)

· Performing an impact-effort analysis (ongoing)

· Setting priorities (ongoing)

3. Launch of the UA library

WHAT IS THIS? | a vetted list of resources on UA, Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) and Email Address Internationalisation (EAI) for ccTLDs. Includes: link to tools, articles, reports and more.

PURPOSE | Provide central and open space of relevant information for ccTLDs

HOW? | UAC subgroup acts as Editorial Board for the UAC library. The Editorial Board reviews incoming requests for inclusion in the library. The group is guided by its Terms of Reference.

How to submit content:

ccnso-uac-submissions@icann.org

What to include:

Your name:
Category (presentations/reports, tools, definitions/policies, articles/commentaries, case studies:
Short summary (why is this relevant/why should this be included)
Source:
<Include any attachments>
Link to presentation:

Maria: There are useful and practical materials at UASG to add: 1. Trainings, 2.UA Curiculum 3. UA game

>>> Upcoming work items

Reaching out to ccTLD managers globally, to increase awareness about UAC and its activities. (E-mail by UAC leadership team)
Finalising the UAC workplan
Assisting in organizing sessions on UA readiness and practices during ICANN public meetings. (e.g. Tech Day, ccNSO Members Meetings)
Liaising with other relevant ICANN groups (e.g. UASG, GAC IDN WG, Board IDN/UA WG)
Creating an e-mail list for all ccTLDs interested in UA, IDNs and EAI, as a platform for information exchange

d. Identification areas of mutual interest & next steps

Bart: up to leadership by UAC and UASG to determine how a potential cooperation between the 2 groups could look like. For instance: materials sharing. Also in future: UA Day. UAC intends to play a more active role in UA day events, and to engage ccTLDs more. Another potential area is sharing success stories. To stress the importance of UA, why it matters, and how it makes a difference. Let’s revisit when we run through the workplan.

Abdalmomen: interested in running a survey related to UA, in cooperation with UASG.

Anil: gvt can request vendors to be UA ready. Cctld managers to identify the communities that have an influence. We can involve them in the work, train them. Adopt UA related activities.

Abdalmomen: we should not duplicate work by UASG. Up to cctld managers themselves if and how, but we can increase awareness.

Nabil: ticket system will increase the collaboration.

Abdalmomen: offer cctld managers to check UA readiness via a linl

4. Completion of Work Plan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Td27YCcDrDZ3pa4JzyX6n6CAY6anIG_n2kizDMcJACQ/edit#heading=h.mqwfjl4rn0t6

Bart: priority setting still needs to be done. These items here are major projects. High effort, require a lot of planning.

I will explain how the UAC defined the various projects.

See page 4.

a. Summary of Napkin Pitches & Impact/Effort Analysis

Phased approach:

Step 1: napkin exercise.

As per the charter, the UAC should liaise with various groups to be a point of contact regarding ccTLDs and UA-related matters. To identify why it is relevant for ccTLDs? For the ccNSO? And how can IGLC execute?

They explored this for 2 major tasks: firstly, liaising, secondly, organising UA practices sessions for ccTLDs. Napkin tables are included in the google doc with the workplan

Step 2: impact-effort analysis

How much impact does a certain action have? How much effort does it require?

You end up with 4 categories: quick wins, major projects, fill ins, thankless tasks.

They are already working on the quick wins. But now they need to start working on the major projects. See step 3

Step 3: priority setting

Volunteer time and other resources are limited. Therefore, priority-setting is fundamental.

Suggested major mid- to long-term projects, for which the priority-setting still needs to happen:

Liaising with email - and other service providers, including for instance local programming groups, W3C, registries and registrars, etc.
Planning and organising a tabletop exercise
Conducting a survey among ccTLDs regarding UA adoption
Assisting and cooperating with local counterparts to organise local events
Developing ccTLD UA readiness journeys, case studies

Jiankang: general comment. ccTLDs have good relation with the local gvt. Both can work together. How to encourage more ccTLD managers? How to encourage more ccTLDs to work together?

Shubham Saran, NIXI (.in): <Comment> Identifying Local counterparts /players will be a crucial aspect from awareness and eventually adoption point of view to make success stories

Bart: in addition to what Jiankang said. See item 5 on the agenda.

Jiankang: email list for UA related to ccTLDs

Bart: indeed. In the pipeline. Coming soon. Target those within the registries with an interest, and that have UA and related matters as part of their jobs.

Barrack: AFTLD tried to have UA activities for ccTLDs. One question i regularly get: bring out the value for ccTLDs. That is THE question to answer. What value are we adding? That needs to be better explained.

Bart: i understand your point

Perhaps we can go back to the napkin pitches. See page 4. What is benefit from a ccTLD perspective?

(notes paused for a moment)

Abdalmomen: raise awareness. Even important for ASCII ccTLDs.

Nabil: important comment.

I shared a link to developing curricula

What are the advantages for business? Huge amounts involved. For countries that only use the latin script. Cooperation with other countries. Business opportunity for all. The measurements WG prepares a whitepaper how ccTLDs can develop their business

b. Identify order of preference of projects:

i.Discussion and determining order of high effort work items

Mentimeter polling.

www.menti.com

5199 0643

Philippe Fouquart: As a side note to item 1 on the action point list (and mindful that this is a ccNSO session :) there may be a middle ground in reaching out at least to those constituencies within ICANN/Gnso (registrars, registries etc.) and I would respectfully suggest to include the ISPs here. This may turn that item into a somewhat lower hanging fruit.

ii. Sign-off work plan

10: yes

1: doubts

0: no

Ai-Chin: we did promo for several years. ccTLDs not good for promotion part. User demand is not so much. It is important that the email service providers act. The focus of the items in the workplan is on info sharing and capacity buikilding. But concretely, the promo of idns with email service providers is missing. Even gmail cannot use chinese IDN. you can send an email, but even gmail itself can not use the IDN email application. That is why i responded “orange” (doubts)

Bart: very realistic point of view

Anil: ccTLD managers are very influential. They can influence the community to adopt UA, and to make the systems inclusive. There are 2 aspect:

Adoption IDN. technological support available
Email services. UASG has a specialised working on Email Address Internationalisation (EAI)

Microsoft and google are now adopting. They declared they will support many local languages in their products. I feel very strong that the UAC role will be effective and supportive for our cause.

Regina: as vice chair of the UASC. invite to ccTLDs to join. We want to keep the group as useful and practical as possib;e. Thanks much for your input. Connections locally and with the tech service providers is important and good. Big thanks to icann staff to help supporting this group. Useful input in keeping the UAC on track.

Maria: It seems ccTLDs are still need more awareness rising materials/sessions to jump into all aspects of UA adoption issues. What is meant under UA adoption on ccTLDs side. After that it will be more clear what ccTLDs can do on their local levels to motivate other entities to implement UA.

Abdalmomen: thanks all. We are out of time.

5. Letter of UAC to ccTLD managers

a. Presentation around ICANN79

b. Presentation UA during prep week

c. Presentation to the GAC. Sunday 3 March 09.00-10.00 local time.

d. Presentation ccNSO: update of work UAC to date

ccNSO Working Group and Committee Updates

Wednesday, 6 March 2024 | 13:15-14:30 (17:15-18:30 UTC)

https://sched.co/1a1Do

6. Next meetings

two weekly cadence, starting Tuesday, 19 March or Wednesda, 20 March 2024

7. AOB