NOTES | UAC | 24 September 2025 at 07:00 UTC 1. Welcome Welcome by Abdalmomen 2. Admin matters a. SoI update Any updates? none From email with ICANN staff: ICANN and UNESCO collaborate on UA policy brief, which is intended for the public sector. It will be shared through UNESCO with their member states to promote UA awareness and adoption among countries. ICANN IDN team intends to use the GAC channels to promote it as well. At the suggestion of Abdalmonem UAC to provide input to brief. Abdalmonem: request to please convert into a google doc, to allow UAC to comment Bart: before we do so, can you guide us through the doc? Abdalmomen: explains intent of the document. Recommendations from 2013 regarding diversity and multilingualism. The point of this brief, as per the WSIS and UNESCO recommendations. Fostering an inclusive digital environment. In the 2013 recommendations, multilingualism was highlighted often. International cooperation. Content in different languages. E.g. facebook in different languages. Challenges for UA acceptance. What are the benefits? Big tech is looking at the return on investment. Using IDNs and AI, vs using English. Bart: any questions? Abdalmomen: the doc is fine. But we did not tackle the point. Digital inclusion. Project carried by the gvt. We did not address the role of ccTLDs. That role and cooperation between stakeholders needs to be explored. Bart: what do you expect the group to do with respect to this doc? Abdalmomen: google doc with deadline. Adding other words that are relevant to work of the ccNSO? Let’s discuss at the next meeting. Bart: you want the UAC to see if there are ccTLD perspectives to be added to the outline? Local and regional level. Abdalmomen: indeed. Bart: we will send an email to the UAC list, asking you to provide input. Wear your ccTLD hat, and add suggestions regarding the local and regional level. Any comments on the language itself are welcome as well. Any other questions? none 3. Drivers & Barriers Action items and prioritization – outcome discussion and next steps included as pdf & word, link to Google doc to be shared and overview of results of 27 August session whiteboard (pdf) Agenda UAC – GAC UA WG https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18rEj6FNZjmEGCMfponbBxzJEA4niq4_mTxaO... Abdalmomen: recommendation SSAC 095 Bart: also identified in the barriers. Larger fonts are the barriers identified in the sessions. The smaller ones are from the whiteboard. Bart explains the structure of the doc Regina: clear structure. How did the need for emoji domains get to the list? Why would that be important for ccTLDs? Especially in contract to work in terms of higher demand for other scripts Bart: this was included as a barrier. Some people in Prague identified it as a barrier. That is why it was included. There was a study group by the ccnso on the use of emojis. There are technical limitations, to put it nicely. Joke: https://ccnso.icann.org/en/workinggroups/emoji-sld.htm Bart: it is a signal to say the repertoire is too limited. Perhaps worth to say this is public input, not necessarily the view of the UAC Abdalmomen: emoji are not required by design. Potentially a much larger set of symbols. Greater rendering, ambiguous. We need to be careful. Refer to SSAC doc. Accepting or rejecting emoji are ccTLD responsibility Bart: If you would look at the ccnso study group report, you see it builds on the SSAC report. Abdalmomen: add references to SSAC recommendations. Bart: it was raised in the Prague meeting Andrew: Could you please present this in table format? Made simpler. More consumable for the audiences Bart: yes, I was struggling too on how to present this. Some actions identified address multiple barriers. It is difficult to see. I need to think about a way to clearly present this. Qing Cai: additional context regarding emoji domain names. We do not know the demand. We do not have a DB about emoji domain name support. Last week there was a chinese expert conference. software , wide range, we may loose focus. Software development case. If we push this group to support UA, we can - in the background - deal with the barriers. Email addresses and software. The barriers are not included as the key Before we focus on the application, the awareness. It is hard to push the big tech. If we could find the group, it could be a good path to solve the problem. That is what we discussed last week. Bart: is that related to “big tech through local branches”? Local action? Qing Cai: indeed. Bart: in a way addressed as an action items. You start at the top. Bart: next steps are prioritisation. We cannot do everything at the same time. Needs to happen before Dublin. Staff will convert in a more readable format, and share as google doc. One of the action items was working closer with GVT. for UAC, this means, working closer with GAC, see our session in Dublin, and Abdalmomen being chair of the UAC and the GAC WG, it is indeed a part of the ongoing actions. My suggestion is to exclude this from the prioritisation. At the next meeting, review the doc, and start to prioritise where you want to focus on next year. Any questions? None Bart: group to review 2 documents in the next 2 weeks. Sami: Is there any support system we will be offering governments as UAC? I mean technical support or funding etc. what are the incentives Bart: no funding. The library etc is what you can share. ccNSO itself does not have any money at all. Regina: see the session in Dublin. Exploring ways to cooperate. 4. Next meeting 30 September - small team preparing session 30 September 7 October - Full UAC 14 October - small team 25 October - joint UAC/GAC IDN WG meeting 5. AOB none 6. Closure Thank you all Joke Braeken joke.braeken@icann.org<mailto:joke.braeken@icann.org>