[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org; liaison6c[at]gnso.icann.org] [To: ga[at]gnso.icann.org; announce[at]gnso.icann.org] [To: regional-liaisons[at]icann.org] Two-Week Countdown to Sydney! 8 June 2009 ICANN's 35th International Public Meeting is just two weeks away. The conference will be held 21-26 June 2009 at the Hilton Sydney. A full schedule for the meeting, including a synopsis of each session being held throughout the week, is available on the ICANN Sydney Meeting website at http://syd.icann.org. Highlights Two main issues will likely dominate the conference: new generic Top-Level-Domains (gTLDs), and Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs). Workshops on the status of the new gTLD process, as well as the IDN Fast-Track process, will take place on Monday. A Joint AC/SO Meeting, in which representatives from ICANN's constituent groups will be discussing the roles and responsibilities of Advisory Committees, Supporting Organisations, Policy Staff and Board Members in ICANN's processes, is also on Monday's agenda . Other highlights include: the ccNSO Tech Day (Monday); an Improving Institutional Confidence Workshop (Wednesday); a forum on Abuse of the DNS (Thursday); and a public meeting of the Board's Public Participation Committee (Wednesday). Social events Two evenings of social events are also written into the calendar. Monday night will see a cocktail reception at the Hilton, followed by "restaurant night" on the waterfront in Sydney where several restaurants will offer a special 20% discount to ICANN Meeting attendees. On Wednesday, a Gala Event will be held at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal - where the world's luxury liners dock - with a spectacular view across Sydney harbour to the famous Opera House and Bridge. An after-party will be held at The Argyle bar. Remote participation Are you unable to attend in person, but still wish to follow events online? You will find extensive remote participation tools on the meeting website at http://syd.icann.org. Most sessions will have live, multilingual audio streaming, web chat rooms, and downloadable presentations. The main room and all ccNSO events will be broadcast live using Adobe's Connect software, which allows you to not only hear and see what is going on in the room but also see the presentations, a real-time text transcript, and interact in a chatroom at the same time. To access the interactive room you just need to go to a given meeting's webpage and a single link will launch it (please note: this system may not work with all Linux users). For sessions outside those two rooms, visit the session's specific webpage from the schedule and you will be able to choose from listening to audio feeds in multiple languages, to interacting in live web chatrooms and/or downloading speaker presentations. If you wish to ask a question in the public forum on Thursday, visit our online question box at http://syd.icann.org/public-forum. General information Other information regarding Sydney itself, including suggestions on things to do, travel and visa issues, transportation, and tourist advice are all available on the Sydney meeting website at http://syd.icann.org. We look forward to seeing you there. ICANN Staff Glen de Saint Géry GNSO Secretariat gnso.secretariat@gnso.icann.org http://gnso.icann.org