On 23/02/2017 15:56, Mathieu Weill wrote:
I certainly do not see any of the current recommendations as sexual or racial discrimination,
No, as I noted, the "hard quotas" idea is not part of the paper. But I would like the paper to do more than not introduce a problem; it should be making a positive commitment.
and would happily support additional recommendations to enhance commitments against any such discrimination.
I would like to see a clear commitment that discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, etc should not be tolerated at ICANN.
I also would welcome your suggestions about how to enhance outreach in order for them to effectively increase diversity. Can you elaborate on these proposals ?
At this point I would just be throwing out random and unformed ideas, completely untested for cost or feasibility. But here's two to be going on with: On travel: * Enjoyable as it is to visit lots of different countries, this can cause travel difficulties. Those may weigh most heavily on those for whom travelling is already difficult, or simply those with furthest to go. While I think the interests of fairness do demand that ICANN meetings circulate amongst continents, it might be worth looking into whether having more stable, repeat venues within each continent may make it easier to (i) choose venues that have better international travel connections from a wider variety of places, (frankly, Singapore, Dubai and London/Paris/Frankfurt are easier for more people than Jakarta, Muscat or Brussels); and (ii) to pick as our preferred venues places where visas require less advance notice, are less likely to run into processing delays, and involve less administrative overhead. Ideally, I would like ICANN to seek to develop special relationships with visa authorities to make special dispensations for or fast track conference visas. I know bureaucracies are impossible, but if repeat visits were offered, perhaps high level political intervention might be available to secure this for ICANN's benefit? Even a pre-clearance regime would help some. Conference visas with 5 year validity? * Likewise, if we had a set of established venues for intercessional and ad hoc meetings maybe we might have avoided some of the problems we found some had in our own CCWG f2f. On remote participation: * Remote participation capabilities are essential, but when they break down mid session the participant is effectively excluded, despite all good intentions. How often have we seen that in questions to the Board, where the remote questioner simply can't be heard, and all we get is an embarrassed "we'll get back to you"? Could we investigate the possibility of the remote participants also being offered the opportunity to record and upload their question, so these problems with live connections don't occur? And - I think this is essential - to be able to record it up to even a moment or two before it is called, not days in advance, so the remote participant is not disadvantaged compared with someone standing in the queue in person. Or perhaps an actual upload isn't needed: just video-calling software that is not optimised for low latency, but has a 10 second buffer. In the context of being called to the mic, 10 seconds latency is far preferable to the call breaking up inaudibly. I offer these not as well-formed proposals, but more as illustrative of the kind of creative thinking and attempt at solving practical problems on which I had hoped this subgroup would have focussed it attentions. Malcolm. -- Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523 Head of Public Affairs | Read the LINX Public Affairs blog London Internet Exchange | http://publicaffairs.linx.net/ London Internet Exchange Ltd Monument Place, 24 Monument Street London EC3R 8AJ Company Registered in England No. 3137929 Trinity Court, Trinity Street, Peterborough PE1 1DA