The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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4 April 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first open consultations and MAG meetings for the 2016 IGF. I'd like to welcome you all, and just before we start, I'll just make a few points.
If you want to make an intervention, could you please either raise your hand or your nameplate and then we'll write your name down on a piece of paper and the chair will call your name when your turn comes.
When your name is called, can you please just state your full name slowly, for the scribes, and your organization, and then you can state your intervention.
We're also going to have some remote participation, so it's very important for them as well because they cannot see you.
Okay. With that, I would like to introduce our chair, Ms. Lynn St. Amour.
[ Applause ]
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you. As Chengetai just said, my name is Lynn St. Amour. I'm chair of the 2016 IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group, and I'd like to give a warm welcome to everybody here. I just had a volume -- is everybody -- can everybody hear me?
Okay. Thank you.
So this is the first meeting in a series of preparatory sessions for IGF 2016, and I think as has already been stated quite a number of times in the list, we're in a slightly compressed timetable due to the events late last year.
I'd like to move forward at this point with an adoption of today's agenda.
So I know there have been a number of comments on the mailing list. The secretariat actually informs me that those comments have been taken into account. I think I'd like to make one additional point, and that was that Virat had kindly suggested that we should move the introductions of the MAG members from tomorrow to today and that that would facilitate discussions.
I have to say that my concern with doing that is it never takes less than an hour to introduce all the incoming and outgoing MAGs, and from my perspective, that takes away from the open consultation.
As it is, we have six hours and a very, very full agenda, so I think with everybody's forbearance, what I'd like to do, perhaps, is just in two ways ask the incoming MAG members to stand up for a moment, so that everybody can sort of get a sense of who's here and where they are around the room, and then I'll ask the current MAG members to do the same, and then we will hold the fuller introductions to tomorrow.
So I do hope that's okay with the MAG and certainly with Virat who introduced it.
Again, my goal is simply to maximize the open community consultation time.
So if that's okay, could I ask the incoming MAG members to just stand up for a moment?
Okay. Excellent. And obviously, welcome. We'll have a much fuller welcome tomorrow.
And could I ask the current or returning MAG members.
Okay. Thank you.
And I also have to recognize that this, of course, leaves out those MAG members who are participating through our online mechanisms, so I would like to thank them. That's not the easiest way to participate in these sorts of meetings, but certainly putting the time and effort into it is much appreciated and I really hope they do feel that they can contribute fully, and we will do our best to continue to recognize them and encourage that.
So I'll just describe the agenda briefly and then we'll move to approve it.
So we'll start out this morning with a number of comments from the honorary co-chairs, both outgoing from last year's IGF and incoming, and I'll do those introductions in a moment.
We then move, for the bulk of the morning, to the taking stock of IGF 2015, and the intent there is to look at the achievements, the challenges, and to do that with a view to how that impacts and what implications it might have for IGF 2016.
I'd like to conclude that by lunch, although we may need to continue it for a short period of time in the afternoon session.
We'll come back at 3:00, and at that point we're actually going to have a presentation and open discussion on the outcomes of the December 2015 high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of WSIS, including, of course, which was the IGF mandate, a very kind of momentous point, I think, in Internet governance world.
So with that, I'd like to put forward the question of endorsing the agenda, and I will look for any comments or questions.
Seeing none, I will take our agenda --
Sorry.
>> Thank you. Good morning to all and congratulations to you. Yeah, working here.
Just wanted to have the password for the WiFi. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Chengetai?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: What's the password?
>> It's W4C16.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: So with that, I will take the agenda for today's open consultation as approved.
Now, on the panel here this morning, I will just do now a very brief introduction and we'll have a fuller introduction and certainly many thanks over the course of the morning.
We actually have Wai-Min Kwok, who is the representative from UNDESA, and he will address us shortly.
We have Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca, who, as you all know, is the honorary outgoing chair. He was honorary co-chair of IGF 2016 and he's an Ambassador of Brazil with the Ministry of External Relations.
And then immediately here to my left, we have the honorary co-chair for the IGF 2016 Mexico, Mr. Victor Lagunes, who is the Chief Information Officer for the Head of the Unit for Innovation and Technology Strategy, Office of the President, Republic of Mexico.
And I'd like to obviously warmly welcome all of them.
And you all know Chengetai, but it doesn't feel right not to do some sort of introduction. Chengetai from the secretariat.
So if I'm not mistaken, at this point we move directly to comments from Wai-Min.
>>WAI-MIN KWOK: Thank you. Chair. Good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to read this statement on behalf of Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.
I quote.
"On this occasion of the first open consultations and Multistakeholder Advisory Group meeting of the 2016 Internet Governance Forum, I would like to extend on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General our warm welcome and greetings to the chairperson and membership of the MAG.
I also would want to thank the government of Mexico for hosting the 2016 IGF.
Our thanks also go to all MAG members and multistakeholders for their past work that has had a profound effect on Internet governance today.
I also thank Ambassador Janis Karklins for his leadership as the MAG chair over the past two years.
Most of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation to all of you as stakeholders representing the wider global community. It is your presence that reminds us of the diverse perspective on the Internet and the importance of facilitating an ongoing deliberation involving all stakeholders on complex issues affecting the Internet ecosystem.
The year 2015 marked an historic turning point for the United Nations and its member states. In September 2015, world leaders adopted the (indiscernible) agenda for sustainable development anchored in 17 universal, interconnected, and integrated substantive development goals and 169 targets, many of which are relating in one way or another to the Internet and the information and communication technologies.
Last December, the General Assembly also endorsed the remarkable progress of the Internet and ICT at the overall review of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society.
As part of the outcome of WSIS+10, the General Assembly acknowledged the role of the IGF as the multistakeholder platform for discussion of Internet governance issues and decided to extend for another 10 years the existing mandate of the IGF as set up in Paragraphs 72 through 78 of the Tunis Agenda.
Member states further recognized that during that period the forum should continue to show progress on working modalities and the participation of relevant stakeholders from developing countries. We've asked here today the 2016 MAG membership, appointed by the secretary-general, to advise and assess him on the program of the 2016 IGF in Mexico through its two MAG members and you, out of a total of 55 members representing 46 countries from diverse stakeholder groups, a step toward the broader representation of MAG membership compared to previous years.
Let me reiterate that the United Nations attaches great importance to the open and inclusive process of the IGF and the multistakeholder policy dialogue on Internet governance.
Together with you, we strive to do more to ensure that the value of multistakeholder participation continues to be embraced and broadened to include those who are not yet privileged to participate in this important journey. Together with you and the Internet broader stakeholders, we hope to continue improving the working modalities of the IGF and the participation of stakeholders from developing countries.
The 2016 MAG and the IGF community have important tasks ahead. Collectively, we need to work harder to bring about greater roles of the IGF and the Internet in driving and empowering sustainable development to ensure that no one is left behind. Let us fulfill this vision.
I wish you a productive and successful meeting ahead.
End of quote."
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Wai-Min. And please pass our regards and thank you to the Under Secretary-General.
So at this point in the agenda, it calls for a welcome by the MAG Chair. I think it's particularly important to recognize all the contributions of the outgoing MAG members. There was a tremendous amount of work last year. In addition to preparing the program for IGF 2015, there were also an awful lot of other activities associated with the WSIS+10 review that was running in parallel. So that was an additional set of activities which many of the MAG members supported. And I think the success of that work is clear in that the IGF mandate was renewed and not only for a five-year period but, in fact, for an extended period of ten years.
So I'd like to very much recognize and thank all the outgoing MAG members for their contributions and at the same time welcome the incoming MAG members of which I say this year's task is no less daunting because of the expectations that I believe are so high given the ten-year renewal. It's a significant roadway ahead of us. It means we should have, I think, high aspirations and big goals to make a difference here. And at the same time, we are working within a slightly compressed time schedule for this year's IGF. But we'll touch on more of those points over the course of the day.
I am very honored to be here as the IGF MAG Chair. Congratulations are obviously due to many for getting us so far. The IGF and certainly every Internet governance effort I can think of is best served when it's done in a global multistakeholder effort and certainly in a teamwork, collaborative environment.
Those congratulations extend obviously far beyond the MAG to many individuals, organizations, institutions, community groups that have all supported Internet governance activities and certainly all the intersessional activities that were a part of this greater Internet governance ecosystem. The ones that come to mind of course are the best practice forums to the IGF, the dynamic coalitions to the IGF, and also the national and regional IGF initiatives. But there are so many other forums out there whether it's the Wuzhen Summit in China or the NETmundial Initiative that have all contributed and for the appreciation of matters and what they mean.
I think at this point, I would like to thank UN-DESA and the U.N. Secretary-General for the confidence that I believe they showed in the multistakeholder processes by appointing for the first time a chair that doesn't come from a government background. And I think it's a very good recognition of all that we've achieved together and as well as what multistakeholder processes can accomplish. It's not a surprise to a lot of us that have worked in these environments for a very, very long time. And particularly when we look at what it took to get the Internet here after so many decades, it's a very common way of working in some communities but not in all communities. So, again, I really appreciate the recognition from the U.N. Secretary-General and UN-DESA to those processes.
I'd also like to specifically thank Chengetai and the IGF secretariat for all the work they do day in, day out. They do a great job with, I have to say, surprisingly few resources. And I'm sure they can count on all of us to do what we can to help their efforts as well. This is going to just as big a lift for them as it is for us with the reduced time frame.
Before we pass on to the next agenda item, though, there are a couple of other people I'd like to recognize. We'll come to the hosts of the IGF 2015 and IGF 2016 in a moment. So this isn't passing them by. Perhaps we can think of it more of as sort of warming up the crowd.
But specifically I'd like to thank Ambassador Karklins, not only for his very capable chairmanship of the IGF MAG over the last few years but for all he's done since the very, very earliest days of WSIS.
I first met him when he became engaged as the WSIS-2 Prepcom chair in 2004. And he showed great leadership through that process. And he's been at all of the key events in Internet governance since that time. He's participated in roles across many of the Internet community organizations, certainly within ICANN and the GAC. And I know his attention to other entities and other communities in this Internet governance ecosystem has been much, much appreciated.
Personally, I and the tech community owe Ambassador Karklins a lot just as frankly we owe Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer a lot because when we started engaging in these processes, in fact, there were three communities that were recognized within the U.N. system. And the Internet technical community, those organizations that are responsible for the management of a lot of the critical infrastructure were not necessarily a natural home in those other communities. And they found ways to include us, to ensure we had a voice. And the result of those discussions and those processes is, in fact, what gave us the fourth stakeholder community, if you will, in this IGF system.
So, Janis, Nitin, and Markus as well as far as that goes, they found a way for all voices to be heard. They did that by being open to new ideas, new people, new organizations. They were inclusive, and they were thoughtful about the processes which, by the way, were not particularly well-defined and were in many instances being made up as we were -- as we were moving forward.
It didn't mean in those processes that everyone got their way but at least -- I'm speaking for myself -- I always felt like I had a voice. I felt that I was heard. They took pains to make sure that we understood their decisions and, to the best we could, were satisfied with them, that we were supported. At a minimum, the rationale was always known.
So, by and large, I think that worked well and has been a key piece of the Internet governance activities since then. I hope we can keep a lot of those principles up as we go forward. And with that, I would just like to thank and recognize Ambassador Karklins for all his activities to Internet governance over the years.
[ Applause ]
He has been very supportive of me in this role. I have worked with him for a very, very long time. He has said he would make himself available as needed to support me, and I greatly appreciate that. And he will be joining us tonight at the co*cktail reception which follows immediately after this. So everybody will have the opportunity to thank him in person.
So with that, excitingly, now with the renewal of the IGF for ten years, let's move on to the work of IGF 2016. So I'd like to introduce Ambassador Fonseca. He's going to make a few comments on IGF 2015. I would also like to thank Ambassador Fonseca for going, I think, far and beyond what's perhaps normally seen in an honorary co-chair for an IGF event. And, again, that was because of the WSIS+10 events.
Benedicto went out of his way, I think, to ensure that the IGF was present in many key events and forums over the course of the year as part of the WSIS+10 review, actively supported the WSIS+10, having a session at the IGF in 2015 in Joao Pessoa. And certainly supported those similar activities back in New York as well, which was incredibly important. So I would just like to recognize that at the same time as we recognize what a tremendous, tremendous event IGF 2015 was. So with that, Ambassador Fonseca.
>>BENEDICTO FONSECA: Good morning to everyone. And thank you, Lynn, for those very kind words. I welcome the opportunity to address the plenary at this moment in time. And personally it's a great pleasure to meet all of you colleagues we have been working with in the last few years and also incoming MAG members.
We are very honored and proud to have hosted IGF 2015 in Joao Pessoa last November. And with your indulgence, Madam Chair, I would like to turn to the MAG members from Brazil. We have two MAG members: Flavio, Professor Flavio representing technical community, and also Jandyr Santos who represents Brazil as former host country.
Let me also acknowledge the participation, the presence here of Professor Hartmut Glaser. Many of you know him very well. He's the executive secretary of the Brazilian steering committee. We are very honored that he could join us here together with other members of the Brazilian steering committee, Carlos Alfonso and Thiago Tavares.
I think this is also a witness -- this also witnesses our commitment to this process. I'm very honored with your very kind words in regard to my participation in those processes in the last few years. But it is just something we do in alignment with what we have been doing in Brazil in that regard.
One thing we used to say is that even ten years before the WSIS outcome documents which endorsed the notion that Internet governance should be multistakeholder and involve all stakeholders in their roles and responsibilities, ten years before that, we have been doing this in Brazil with the Brazilian steering committee. So we are very comfortable in working in this environment and doing -- in an international environment, something we have been trying to address in Brazil.
Just before then turning to the MAG members for their statement, let me just assure Victor Lagunes in the Mexican government that we will be more than pleased to work and support everything in our capacity to make sure we have a very successful meeting in Mexico this year.
Thank you.
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you, Ambassador, Madam Chair. On behalf of the host country of the 2015 IGF, let me reiterate the satisfaction of the government of Brazil for having hosted this memorable event. The tenth IGF took place during an important time for the future of Internet governance.
It happened amidst several key processes. The WSIS+10 process in which IGF's own extension was decided, the IANA transition seen by many as an important test for the multistakeholder model as a whole, and in the wake of the adoption of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
As you know, more than 2,400 registered participants from over 116 countries attended the meeting with thousands participating on line.
The overarching theme for the IGF 2015, evolution of the Internet governance, empowering sustainable development, was chosen mainly because of the United Nations General Assembly at the time had just adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. It's important to remember that.
Output-oriented debates and discussions during the four-day meeting addressed both opportunities and challenges under different subthemes. The meeting hosted more than 150 sessions throughout the week and provided the broader IGF community an opportunity to contribute on a variety of significant outcomes. Among the main highlights, Madam Chair, let me name just a few.
IGF 2015 was planned in consultation with the Brazilian government in accordance with the guidance provided by the MAG. Let me recall that in Brazil, the preparatory work, both in terms of logistics and substance, was carried out by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, as mentioned by Ambassador Fonseca.
In line with the CSTD working group recommendations, the IGF demonstrated its capacity to produce tangible outcomes with the multistakeholder collaboration frameworks.
Let me mention just one of them. The policy options for connecting the next billion process produced a tangible and community-driven bottom-up IGF output. The compilation output document and the comprehensive collection of inputs and contributions to the process was forwarded to the other related processes, with a request to further disseminate this information as widely as possible to make public officials aware of the work.
Another point, co-facilitators of the WSIS+10 high-level review, Ambassador Janis Mazeiks, permanent representative of Republic of Latvia and Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, permanent representative of the United Arab Emirates, attended the 10th IGF.
The report from the consultations held at the IGF on the WSIS+10 review was duly forwarded by the co-facilitators of the process and informed the outcomes of the WSIS+10 meeting.
Our understanding was that this report was instrumental to the final outcome of the WSIS+10 meeting as well as to the extensions of the IGF mandate.
Let me mention as well the youth program. Youth participation was particularly strong during the 10th IGF. A program called "Youth at IGF" empowered the next generation of leaders and increased the on-site participation of approximately 70 young leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean in the days throughout the IGF.
Let me acknowledge at this point the work done by Mr. Thiago Tavares from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee on coordinating this program.
The entire 2015 IGF was Webcast and interactive online participation enriched sessions throughout the week, allowing many participants from the developing world to engage with those present in Joao Pessoa.
As you know, real-time transcription was also available to augment the overall participatory experience for delegates in the meeting rooms and following around the globe. 50 remote hubs connected participants all over the world.
And last, but not least, let me take this opportunity as the representative from the host country of the IGF 2015 to once again thank the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee -- in particular, Mr. Hartmut Glaser -- as well as all ICG board members for their dedication and professionalism in helping organize this memorable event. Thank you very much.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you. And thank you, Ambassador Fonseca, and the Government of Brazil, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, CGI.BR, and certainly Hartmut Glaser. I know what a tremendous job that was.
And Nitin Desai used to say there are only two types of U.N. meetings, successful and remember successful. I do hope I actually got that right. I would say that IGF 2015 was a very successful meeting, and I'm sure we will all have our support and put our support towards Mexico to ensure that we have -- the meeting will have to expand its categories. A very, very successful meeting in Mexico. Thank you.
So with that, we do move to the honorary co-chair for IGF 2016. Mr. Victor Lagunes will share some remarks. Thank you.
>>VICTOR LAGUNAS: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Chengetai, for your support and for having visited us a couple of times to ensure that Mexico is ready and Mexico's commitment towards IGF is valued and it's as real as our hopes and our work towards hosting this event. Thank you, Ambassador Benedicto, for having hosted the 2015 IGF. I know it was a tremendous success and I can only hope to follow in those -- in those footsteps as part of my Mexican delegation, as part of the Mexican organizing committee.
I know you're leaving behind a heritage throughout the multistakeholder ecosystem and I will make an effort throughout my team in Mexico just to build upon that. And thank you to all of you to receive us.
Today, really I have the opportunity to represent the federal government, the Mexican federal government, to host the next Internet Governance Forum meeting. I would like to raise our appreciation to UNDESA and the IGF secretariat and the multistakeholder Internet community for all their support and involvement in the preparation process.
The Internet has become an extremely powerful tool to democratize access to information, enable public and private digital services, and enable human rights to promote freedom of expression. In short, to create a more equal society through the achievement of sustainable development goals and the WSIS action items.
During the WSIS+10 process, Mexico, along with the international community, agreed to a new IGF mandate for another 10 years. This is a pure sign of confidence on the strength of the multistakeholder cooperation. At the same time, the renewal of the mandate is an opportunity to reinforce the IGF and better reflect all the amazing work of the multistakeholder community.
Mexico is truly committed to (indiscernible) principles and values and has proven this within the national and international fora.
We have a presentation that we were working towards tomorrow's agenda. We actually believe that we should share it with you today. Mind that we are still working on it. Really this is in an effort to have an open discussion and your feedback towards making this the first of a conversation around the lines of strengthening the IGF 2016 in Mexico.
Please go ahead, Yolanda.
Yeah. So our goal really is to host the best IGF that we can host, and this is -- and this is really to build upon the last 10 iterations. We can only, as I said, hope to strengthen what happened in Brazil, in Joao Pessoa, and the reality is that Mexico is quite thrilled, quite excited. The community and the ecosystem in Mexico is ready. We hosted the regional IGF last year. Tremendous success. As well as the ALAC forum.
We have a lot of inertia and a lot of conversations happening not around the technical lines, but also around the human rights issues that are -- that have been making inroads more and more into the Internet ecosystem.
Mexico is the third largest I.T. services exporter. According to our national chamber of ITC, 4.1 of our GDP comes from the ITC sector itself, and this is only growing. The investment into ICT, it's only growing and it's actually -- and we're actually capitalizing that for our younger generations.
Second largest recipient of software projects within Latin America, following our good peer, Brazil.
As I said, the commitment of Mexico to host -- to not only host these events but actually take an active participation and share the true investment in initiatives towards a true transparent and robust ecosystem is the reason why we want to host the IGF.
We launched our national digital strategy within the national federal government which worked towards not only interoperability frameworks but also connectivity and open standards. Really, it works to bridge our digital divide faster and insert Mexico into the information society.
We live and breathe our national digital strategy and I know it may be new to you. This matrix is how we work and how we live our daily lives within government, but also in cooperation with civil society, industry, and the academic sector.
As government officials, we can only respond to social asks, and we do so through our national digital strategy. We work around government transformation, which is really improving the discussions or the conversation with our own citizens. Or we as citizens. Improve the digital economy, transform education using new platforms, improve eHealth, and also engage better in civic participation and civic innovation through different engagement models.
Go ahead, Yolanda, please.
So this is where we stand.
Last year, we hosted the Latin American IGF. We had the pleasure of having in Mexico -- having Chengetai and some of his team in Mexico, and also some of you are also familiar faces helping us through the event.
We were active -- we had an active participation to the renewal of the IGF mandate last December, and we've already had a couple of visitations from Chengetai's team to Mexico to ensure that the venue itself is ready, and the last one was actually just last week.
The -- the reason why we wanted to share this with you is because we -- as Madam Chair mentioned, we have -- we're in a very short time frame.
For the first time -- and I say this in a very sensitive way -- we have only some months to plan the event itself, which is different than having a couple years only, or at least a year and a half, to select the venue and also plan for a very strong and very open participation forum.
We are really looking for your feedback and your open thoughts to strengthen the agenda itself, to strengthen the main -- the main rooms, and also the bilateral and the -- and the workshops.
We are presenting this proposal to host the next MAG meeting in Mexico City. Of course we're taking advantage of the fact that we're hosting the IGF. So hopeful this can be evaluated.
And also receive you for the next planning session, Chengetai.
We are -- the IGF is proposed to be -- to happen on the second week of December, starting on the 4th-5th of December, and it will be hosted Guadalajara City in the State of Jalisco in Mexico.
For those of you who haven't been there, it's beautiful. Can you --
I'm going to present you a short video on Mexico.
No sound? Yes, sound. You will forgive for technical difficulties. We were not prepared to do this today.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Let this -- the titles are quite explanatory as well. Certainly the volume would have been nice, but we very much appreciate, Victor, you pushing forward with the presentation today from tomorrow. Still no...
>>VICTOR LAGUNAS: Thank you, Madam Chair. Yolanda, can you help me go into the next slide?
We also selected Guadalajara really because it is the land of mariachi and tequila. It's a beautiful place for you who haven't been here. It really represents the core of what Mexico is in terms of food, in terms of cultural heritage, and also it's one of the largest ICT hubs in Mexico today. It has the largest investments with global companies and also innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives.
The place that we -- we're fortunate enough to have been granted is called the Instituto de Cabanas. It was declared a global heritage by UNESCO. We were there last -- just last week. And just walking through it, it is a big museum. We will have active exhibitions at the same time as the IGF is happening. So there will be bilateral meetings actually happening inside a museum, which is, basically, based -- dated from the colonial area of Mexico.
We already met and got support from the different federal and state-level agencies, everything from logistics all the way into security response and health response units.
We are happy to share with you that we will be taking over control of the whole museum, which is a big feat. We had to move the meeting to start on the first week of December, second week of December based on the different international events that were happening in the month of November. I do hope this doesn't go into your December holiday planned vacation.
We just are sharing with you a couple of photographs of the venue itself. We will have some open spaces as well as some closed ones for engaging and active participation.
So Guadalajara has an international airport, 300 daily flights. It was one of our concerns also because, you know, we know an additional hub to get into our destination could bring us some challenges. It does have many flights from the U.S. So we don't believe it's going to raise that much problem.
The venue itself is very close by. Also, there is -- there are plenty of hotels nearby, walking distance, and also some that are just, like, around five minutes or ten-minute cab rides.
As I said last week, we walked actually the neighborhood so there's hotels ranging from the two stars all the way into the five-star ranges. We are working with the foreign affairs ministry to ensure that we can plan to have a very complete quorum. We know that the event itself will have delegations from most countries, so we will plan in advance towards making that happen and having -- and not have a challenge in the days closer to the event.
We are planning to have the Web site ready for tomorrow. We already have the domain selected, but we are actually planning to present -- or launch it tomorrow.
While -- Guadalajara itself has hosted many different international meetings and forums for this size already, so we feel confident that this will not present an issue for the forum and the venue itself.
So with that -- and we know we only have some months to go, we're going to have active participation on the different forums working towards our own hosted IGF. If you do have some feedback, some comments in the ways of ensuring that we really strengthen the Mexico 2016 IGF, they are more than welcome. We will receive them gladly and incorporate them into the agenda. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Victor.
Let's turn to Chengetai for a moment just to see if there's anything else he wants to add from the secretariat with respect to the dates or the venue?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No, I think Victor covered it most. We saw the venue. It's a historic UNESCO World Heritage Site. So it's going to be a very interesting venue. And we look forward to it.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Let me open the floor. Hartmut?
>>HARTMUT GLASER: For us Brazilians it will be a -- (off microphone).
So the question is will Mexico offer free -- (off microphone).
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: We have raised the topic with our foreign affairs ministry. Usually for international events, they do not waive the fee for the visas. What they do is they expedite the process so they will help along the lines. We're still working towards that.
The first response that our foreign affairs ministry gave us was that they're invested into ensuring that the process is expedited. But as of today, the fee itself is not waived.
>> YOLANDA MANCILLA: Just to add to that comment many countries -- the list of the countries will be on the Web site available tomorrow do not require a visa. Or in many other countries, we do have arrangements for visa waivers. We are going to make sure that we have available the entire list of countries that have agreements with Mexico, and we're going to keep working with our foreign affairs office to make sure that we have we have an expedite process on those countries that require a visa.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you for the excellent presentation. Hartmut said it took about two MAG meetings to get us to pronounce Joao Pessoa. I am going to request you to pronounce the destination for us so we can pronounce it well. He started in December --
[ Laughter ]
He succeeded in May. But we will try and do it. If you can pronounce it slowly for us so we can get hold of it.
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: I will try my best. It's Guadalajara.
So say it with me.
[ Laughter ]
It's Gua-da-la-har-a.
Hartmut knows.
[ Applause ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think German is in the queue next. I would like to remind everybody to please state their name and, if they could, which stakeholder group they are from. That will help with the relationships.
>> GERMAN VALDEZ: German Valdez from the numbers organization. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Victor, for the information. I know the place, is a really beautiful place. I'm really looking forward to go to Guadalajara and be part of the IGF in 2016.
My question I think it was partially answered by Yolanda.
Maybe you can have confirmation when we will have all the information about visas and hotels in the local IGF Web site, when we can expect to have that information.
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: So tomorrow we're launching the Web site. You will have most information there. We're working -- we're not -- we haven't stopped working since we started really working with Chengetai's team. So we're going to be uploading and, of course, improving the information as we go. But we hope we will have enough information tomorrow to start giving us feedback, I guess.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Omar is next. And before I go to him, I want to remind everybody that this is, in fact, the open community consultation. So everybody is very warmly invited to speak. This is not just the forum for the MAG members. And, in fact, when we move into the later sessions, we will prioritize non-MAG members' participation ahead. Again, it is the open community so everybody should feel free to comment.
Omar?
>>OMAR MANSOOR ANSARI: Hi. I'm Omar Ansari, a newcomer at the IGF MAG. You proposed the second MAG to be held at Mexico City, and the event is Guadalajara. I suggest it would be better if the MAG meeting is also in Guadalajara so the members can see the venue and arrangements.
The second issue is with the visa, especially for the developing countries. Mexico does not have embassies in all countries. It gets really difficult for individuals to go to other countries for visa purposes.
Are there any special arrangements for the countries -- participants from the countries where there's no Mexican mission?
>>VICTOR LAGUNAS: As I mentioned, we have full support of our foreign affairs ministry. We have around 120 embassies and consulates. Of course, most of them are located within the U.S. Yet, we do have a global presence.
You're right, we don't have consulates and embassies in all countries. We do have the process to expedite that. There's many things that can be done remotely or online. But then, again, to receive the visa, it's -- it has to be face-to-face within the closest consulate. Our investment there is to ensure that happens in a fast way or an expedited process.
We take your comment around the MAG being hosted in Guadalajara at face value. We can here decide if that's a point we can actually pursue whether it's best to host it in Mexico City or in Guadalajara. But thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. Segun.
>>SEGUN OLUGBILE: Please, can you hear me, please? Okay. First and foremost, I want to apologize for coming late. It's not my intention.
Secondly, I want to appeal that we find it difficult to hear at the back, so if effort can be made to increase the volume.
Number three, I want to support the notion that -- sorry, my name. I'm sorry. I'm Segun Olugbile. I'm from Nigeria, the CEO of Continent Project Affairs Associates, an (indiscernible) of AfICTA.
I want to support the notion that the second MAG consultation should be in Mexico because it would allow us to see -- to evaluate and see the preparation that the host country has been making, just to lend my voice to that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Segun. Thank you for the comment on volume. I think it has given quite a number of people some problems. Hopefully that can be addressed here.
The next speaker is Mourad. Please, you have the floor.
>>MOURAD BOUKADOUM: Thank you, Chair. I would like to congratulate Mexico as the host country for the next IGF. And I have no doubt that the procedure for Guadalajaran and the Mexican government will lead us with their reputation as an organizer of world-class events.
This is not just a compliment but a personal experience because I have been in Guadalajara in 2010 attending the ITU PP.
Having said that, I wish the Mexican government would take into consideration the comments made about some logistical aspects of previous IGF sessions in order to improve things. Thanks very much.
>>VICTOR LAGUNAS: Of course. Thank you for your comments. We have been reviewing the feedback recently from the 2015 IGF, and we believe it's a learning experience. We're going to take that intervention as well as your contributions towards making the 2016 IGF the best one possible.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Marilyn Cade, you have the floor.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. My name is Marilyn Cade. I want to also join with others to thank Mexico for the very, I think, inspiring invitation for us. I confess to having been to Guadalajara a couple of times before for the World Congress on I.T. which was very successful. And for those who are not familiar with Jalisco and Guadalajara, there are a very significant number of high-tech companies that have a strong presence there. And perhaps we can look ahead at how to encourage both SMEs and also more expansion of the business and industry sector in participating.
But I took the microphone to make a comment. I welcome the idea of holding one of what I think will probably need to be two more face-to-face working sessions of the MAG in Mexico. But I would suggest that we may want to consider the implications of travel time and of whether the visa issues could be addressed by the June time frame. And we may want to think about returning to Geneva because I suspect we're going to have a maybe even a four-day working session coming up ahead of us given our compressed time cycle.
Let me just make one other comment about -- I want to take this opportunity to mention to new MAG members and to other members of the community the debt of appreciation that I believe we owe Mexico for actually stepping forward even when there was already a host in Brazil who had graciously offered to host. Mexico stepped forward and offered to host in 2016 when we did not yet know that we had the extension of the IGF. And I think that we all owe you a vote of great appreciation for doing that.
[ Applause ]
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Marilyn. That was well recalled. And if I'm not mistaken, actually, in March of last year, Mexico was the government that put forward the proposal in the WSIS+10 process for an extension of the IGF mandate as well, so I forgot to mention that earlier in my comments but that was much appreciated.
Next I think we have Mark in the queue.
>>MARK CARVELL: Yes. Thank you, Lynn.
Good morning, everybody. Thank -- appreciation, first of all, for your taking over the chair of the MAG. Congratulations to you for that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Lagunes, for your presentation and for demonstrating Mexico's commitment to the multistakeholder model and the IGF in particular, and I just very much endorse Marilyn's comments. Mexico has been a very strong voice and it's been much appreciated. U.K. government is very supportive of the IGF and we welcome very much Mexico offering to hosting IGF 11 this year and we will -- we look forward to participating actively in Guadalajara. Hopefully I've got that right.
My question is with regard to the week's schedule. In particular, what's now the convention of having day zero events, which would be on the 5th of December, and in particular whether you can say anything more about the likelihood of a host country forum for government ministers and high-level officials and also VIPs from the industry, as to whether this would be a multistakeholder forum which we can then alert to our ministers and stakeholders in the U.K. and in Europe and elsewhere, of course.
Is there anything further you can say about the likely schedule for the 5th?
Thank you very much.
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you for your comment.
What we can share today, in summary, is: Yes, we would very much like to have a high-level ministerial meeting. Taking the comments from the 2015 IGF, I understand that there's -- there was some feedback around having the day zero moved into either mid-IGF or the latter part of the IGF to ensure that there are ministerial delegations taking advantage already on the lessons learned or already the summaries provided by the IGF workshops themselves. Really, I think it's open discussion today, and we'll be welcoming your feedback as to ensure whether we do want to host it as a day zero, meaning before the inaugural day, or whether we are -- we push the high-level meeting some days after the inaugural speech.
As to the industry VIPs and so on, we're very much considering this as well.
We do also have a strong presence, of course, in Mexico for global companies that are very much invested and taking advantage of what the Internet provides, and we do believe we can actually have a very big forum of industry VIPs coming -- or industry champions or leaders coming to Mexico to share with us and collaborate with us in the discussions.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Victor.
I think at this point, Ambassador Fonseca would like to say a few words and then the last question was probably a good segue to the next session.
The next session would actually look at IGF 2015, take stock, and again, that is supposed to inform our discussions for 2015 [sic].
Day zero is a specific item under there, and I think just one point that we need to recognize, that the day zero certainly has had a high-level ministerial event in the last four or five IGFs, I believe, but there are other events that take place in day zero as well, so I think when we're talking about the day zero events, we need to be sort of quite specific about which set of events we're talking about, because they do start to impact -- particularly the high-level ministerial meeting starts to impact the discussions around the opening ceremony as well.
So if we can just make sure and pull those apart, I think our conversations would be well-served, but Ambassador Fonseca?
>>BENEDICTO FONSECA: Thank you, Madam Chair, and just very briefly to go back to what Marilyn has initially stated, and yourself as well, I think it's very important to acknowledge the very important impact that the announcement made by Mexico early last year on its intention to host the IGF this year in the context of the WSIS+10 negotiations.
We followed very closely those negotiations in New York and I -- personally I followed the last months of negotiations and I can assure you it was very important to have on the table the Mexican offer because it indicated a very clear, concrete interest on the part of members, delegations supported by others, to pursue the IGF beyond the existing 10 at the time that the 10-year mandate that was before us. And of course the intent and the indication that the 10-year extension would be our, let's say, realistic goal I would say in the context of the negotiation, I think this was also very important.
Other proposals were on the table. Just to recall that my own delegation, we could support even to make IGF a standing body, a permanent body, because we are convinced it fulfills a unique role in the context of Internet governance discussions, but I think 10 years was the realistic goal we successfully could achieve.
And we fully concur and we are enthusiastic about the goal you have set to make Guadalajara the best-ever IGF.
We think IGF meetings should be incremental in their gains. One of the messages that also emerged from the WSIS+10 outcome documents is that we should continuously improve our working methods and the processes that lead to outputs of those IGF meetings.
So we are -- we hope this will, indeed, make place in Guadalajara that we can build on what has been done before and certainly, again, we want to contribute to that, to the extent of our possibilities. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Those were very important points and worthy of reiterating some of the earlier ones as well.
So I think we have Lee in the queue, and then we'll move to the next agenda item.
>>LEE HIBBARD: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. For the record, Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe. I'm the Internet governance coordinator of the Council of Europe, an international governmental organization in Strasbourg with 47 member states and observer states, including Mexico, I would point out, and Mexico has a status with the organization and comes to the meetings, many of the meetings in Strasbourg, and has signed several of the treaties of the Council of Europe and is very committed to its human rights, rule of law, and democracy.
Welcome, chair. Great to have you. Thank you. I echo your thanks to Janis Karklins, a really excellent chair and it really was a pleasure to work with him.
Thank you, of course, to our Brazilian friends and colleagues, the authorities. Personally speaking, it was a very efficient and dynamic and very friendly IGF -- very friendly IGF, I would say too, because it was really a pleasure. Everybody was smiling. I think it was a very good atmosphere. I think it was very good for dialogue.
Thank you to the IGF secretariat, of course, Chengetai and colleagues, to always being open and accessible.
The Council of Europe has been very supportive since the start of the Internet Governance Forum way back when in 2006 and has been there ever since. Last June, the 47 member states adopted a declaration en bloc in support of Swiss+10, and proposed and agreed upon proposing a 10-year extension of the IGF, so it's really great that we were able to feed that into the WSIS+10 process last year.
I hope that helped those of you who were in New York, in the process running up, to have that 47 bloc countries support the Internet Governance Fora. It was really important for the Council of Europe back in Strasbourg.
The U.N. General Assembly resolution, of course, is very important because from a Council of Europe perspective it gives legitimacy to the whole process. When you talk to ambassadors, when you talk to member states, one should not underestimate the importance of the legitimacy of having this acknowledged at your level, at the U.N. level, so that's very important.
Also with regard to human rights, rule of law, and democracy. Sort of -- you know, as organizations, we're very mutually reinforcing, I would say.
On that basis, last week, the member states adopted a new Council of Europe strategy on Internet governance for four years supporting dialogue, supporting IGF, supporting the EuroDIG, supporting national and regional forums on Internet governance. I have colleagues going to the (indiscernible) European dialogue on Internet governance soon. Some are going to the Russian IGF this week in Moscow. You know, we have a new mandate to support you in the work of the IGF at national and regional levels, so that's important so that's why it's mutually reinforcing to have this work build on our work and vice versa.
Now, just a few points on feedback for Agenda Item 2.
Again, it was a great pleasure to see so many stakeholders, as you mentioned, Madam Chair. Especially youth. Of course we can only welcome that and encourage that.
We noticed that still there needs to be more -- perhaps more participation of state authorities, government officials, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement. Were they really there? You know, was there enough there to discuss these issues, whether it be mass surveillance or cybersecurity? I really think we should try to push that a little bit more.
A good range of topics, which helped us because when you're covering not one topic but many topics ranging from literacy to crime, you know, it's very important to have a range of topics so you can go and take part because if the mandate is narrow, it's very difficult to justify traveling to a place for four or five days.
And I would underline the access to VIPs, such as the U.N. special rapporteurs, David Kaye, Joe Cannatacithe, et cetera. Very important because it's very important that, you know, we can talk to these people on the side of meetings and also have them in meetings. Very important to have their, you know -- to get VIPs, our own VIPs there, to talk and to network, et cetera.
We had a couple of open forums, one which was a joint open forum with the U.N. HCHR -- sorry, the OHCHR, which were -- could have had better participation. I think there's a problem of sign posting, of perhaps needing -- I think I would seek help from you from you, from the secretariat, to know how to better communicate these forums, which are generic, just so that we can get more participation.
I would say one of the meeting rooms was so noisy we had to put our headphones on to speak.
But still, it was -- it was still very good.
Perhaps too many panelists sometimes still in different events. The opening ceremony, the length and style, you know, does it fit with the spirit of Internet governance dialogue? And workshop planning was sometimes last-minute, but that's -- planning is also, you've said, very important.
And finally, I would say that -- what you said, Chair, which is that things like the policy options work, the work in which we have written things down and analyzed issues is very important.
More analysis is, of course, very welcome, very much needed. It helps us to disseminate in our own networks and show the gravitas of the work that's being done.
It's very easy to scratch the surface on issues and to go around and around and around, but effectively I think it's very important to go down and drill down more, and if we can demonstrate that over the next years, that we can really do in-depth analysis, I think we're on the right track. Thank you.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: That's exactly what my announcement is about.
[ Laughter ]
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: We've actually been informed that the norm for this room is that you need to wear your headsets in order to hear properly. That is the way the sound system is actually managed.
So they're doing what they can to get the volume to a level, but if you're not hearing properly, please wear your headsets.
There is translation. I mean, it's unfortunate we only have translation in two of the six U.N. languages, and it's French and English. I'm assuming it's 0 and 1, since English is on 0, but please do wear your headsets if you're having difficulty with any of the sound.
And again, we're going to go to the remote participation in a moment. I'll just remind everybody again that this is an open consultation so we really look forward to hearing from everybody in the room, and with preference from non-MAG members, and certainly we will then encourage MAG members to enter into the discussion and engage, but we really do want to hear from non-MAG members.
And now I think, Anja, I think we're going to a remote participant?
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Avri Doria. Avri, I'm going to unmute you now so you can speak.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Victor? Yolanda? Any --
>>VICTOR LAGUNES: I think Yolanda can take -- can you take this answer because I couldn't barely hear.
>>YOLANDA MANCILLA: We're going to make sure that all the requests regarding visa recommendations and inquiries from the attendants in these open consultations are going to be taken forward to our foreign affairs minister.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Avri, for coming into -- in the background of another meeting.
Okay. Well, let me -- we have Constance, but let me just make -- because we sort of did a gentle segue, I think.
Right now, we're in the taking stock section of the agenda where we are looking for comments, talking about the achievements, the challenges of IGF 2015, looking forward to any possible implications or recommendations for IGF 2016.
This is where we'd like to -- we should come back in a moment to the secretariat's summary. Chengetai will have a short summary and then we will open the floor up more fully.
But again, this is where we should talk about the program, the logistics, intersessional activities, day zero, suggestions for improvement broadly.
So let me go to Constance and then I'll turn to Chengetai to do a summary to kick off more formally that portion of the agenda.
>>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you very much and good morning, everyone, and congratulations to the new chair. I think we're very lucky to have Lynn St. Amour in this role.
With regards to IGF 2015, ISOC, the Internet Society, submitted a written contribution listing the positive aspects, of course, and there were many positive aspects for IGF 2015.
I will just go through a few of them, a few of the highlights.
First of all, the logistical arrangements were very good. In addition to that, I think the work that resulted in IGF outputs, whether the best practices or the policy options for connecting the next billion, again showed that the IGF was able to evolve and make some progress towards useful outcomes.
I think Vint Cerf actually concluded the main session on IGF intersessional activities saying it was the most useful thing the IGF had done in 10 years, so I think it's useful thinking about 2016, about ways how to continue and improve these IGF intersessional activities.
One of our colleagues mentioned it, but IGF, the youth -- the youth initiative worked very well, and I'm happy to say that the Internet Society has already committed to supporting again this -- this important initiative in 2016.
And the last highlight, I think, would be the contribution of IGF 2015 to WSIS+10.
That contribution was very important and well-noted.
In terms of possible improvements, very quickly it seemed that although the past years we were able to focus the discussion and (indiscernible), we had perhaps main less sessions and less workshops. In 2015 again, the number inflated and we heard several participants saying that it could be useful to try to focus further discussion, have less main sessions, less workshops, in general.
And finally, I think it's worth noting this idea that it's important to continue improving the IGF working modalities, and specifically with regards to intersessional activities. Thank you very much.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: So with that, I think we'll move to formally introduce this agenda item, have Chengetai go through a short summary, and then we'll come back to the queue.
We have Virat and Cheryl in the queue at the moment.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Chair.
So I'm just going to summarize the summary, the synthesis paper that the secretariat did from the total of 28 contributions that we received when we made a call for the stock-taking session.
The purpose of the synthesis paper, as well, and my summary is so that we don't repeat, because many of the papers said more or less the same things, so we just want to shorten the amount of time that we have to discuss this.
So to start off with, most of the contributions expressed their deep appreciation to the Brazilian hosts for their hospitality during the tenth IGF, as well as for providing an excellent venue and supporting team on the ground in Joao Pessoa.
I think none of us can dispute that. This was one of the best organized IGFs that we've had.
It was also emphasized that the IGF 2015 was very easy to navigate and the simplified naming of the rooms was very much appreciated.
Also, the selection of food offered for all tastes and/or dietary needs. And staff of the conference center were outstanding. So thank you to Brazil for that.
Many contributions also thanked UN-DESA, the IGF secretariat and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for their efforts in planning the IGF event and developing its program and also the MAG Chair, Janis Karklins, for his guidance and leadership throughout the preparation process.
I'll skip those. I think those are fine.
As Constance has said already, many lauded the enhanced participation from the youth and also the special programs that were made for youth participation.
A number of efforts noted an appreciation their efforts to continually improve the workshops. Some particularly noted that the 2015 work to help the community submit workshop proposals by clarifying the proposal criteria and developing guidelines that were translated into several languages to help by community volunteers. This simple step helped a lot for the quality of the workshops that were submitted, especially from developing countries.
Other contributions, however, noted there were too many workshops at the IGF and some workshops were duplicative in content and had limited speakers. Some said that it was better to combine them. And just a comment from me, we always have this "shall we merge workshops," and it's an ongoing discussion, the value of merging these workshops together.
Having fewer workshops with clearer criteria for accepting workshop proposals. Many contributions appreciated the 2015 intersessional work program which resulted in community-driven production of helpful resources on Internet policy issues for the benefit of any stakeholder interested in the various topics that they addressed.
Representatives from many IGF dynamic coalitions also expressed their appreciation for the establishment of a main session for dynamic coalitions at the 2015 IGF and said this significant and timely step helped towards creating a more formal link between these self-organizing thematic groups and the IGF as a larger process.
There was some comments say that the main sessions would have benefited from a more interactive communication from moderators as sessions often devolved into roundtables or speeches. Moderated question-and-answer sessions within panels in addition to audience question-and-answer sessions should be encouraged.
Other contributions suggested that better criteria should be set for main sessions and there should be fewer speakers to promote a more interactive session. Some say the IGF should push for more fact-based sessions and promote non-ideological discussions on different issues.
In some cases, there were examples of the zero rating and net neutrality.
Where it has been agreed that more research is needed to be done, the sessions should focus more on the research and tangible results rather than ideologies and perceived results.
And then going on to suggestions and recommendations looking forward to IGF in -- the 11th IGF, the MAG should address the process of main session organization and the process of which main session topics are determined and the session program developed.
On the -- on intersessional work, that the intersessional work should be included in the annual IGF meeting foreword and it should be consistent with the IGF principles. This means providing enhanced guidelines on intersessional work and also monitoring from the IGF that it takes place throughout the year.
Certain rules and policies, procedures should be made about such work and should be universally known as a prerequisite.
Many inputs also noted the growing interest and activity in the national and regional IGF initiatives and recognize the efforts that have been made to bring the ideas from these initiatives into the global IGF, especially with the intersessional work. And it was stressed that connecting different conversations at different levels of the IGF ecosystem should continue in order to enrich the global dialogue and contribute to ongoing Internet governance discussions at the domestic and regional levels.
Some contributions suggested that the workshop and main session proposals and report forms should be reassessed. It was stated that workshops and main sessions should do three things: Enlighten the audience through informed discussions, address related challenges and/or identify opportunities, and, three, bring the discussion to a point where ways forward might be agreed upon.
Some inputs recommended to reduce the number of main sessions to four or five maximum and suggested to avoid holding them in conjunction with other sessions.
Best practice forums and other stakeholders involved in the day-to-day best practice forum work recommended that each best practice forum have the ability to decide its own methods and approaches, and this was deemed to be very valuable and contributed to the success of the best practice forums. Best practice forum work should continue for the 2016 IGF as well.
Regarding thematic elements of the IGF program, some inputs noted that the MAG process has matured to allow a more progressive and deeper conversation about particular topics as well as accommodate timely hot-button topics. Both types of conversations are valuable attributes to the IGF. And it was said in this regard, one thing that the MAG to consider is to begin the process towards IGF Mexico in how better to reflect bottom-up community input into the subtheme development process.
Another side comment from me, I think we have done this -- we have started doing this at the moment from the input from the regional and national IGFs into the themes and subthemes.
One suggestion was that the subthemes of the 2016 should be determined based upon subject areas of workshop proposals as submitted by community rather than designed in advance by the MAG. So a bottom-up process that we receive the workshops, the workshops first and then come about defining the themes and subthemes from those submissions.
One input suggested that consideration for the theme -- okay. These are just themes for the 2016. I will just skip that. We'll just leave that for the discussions.
And then we had general comments about visa processing varied from country to country but reinforce importance of the location and dates of the IGF being communicated sufficiently in advance of the conference so to help with participants getting the visas.
And also that the -- more information should be made available in the IGF Web site and also the host country Web sites to allow people to plan ahead.
Many contributions stress that the efforts to improve the working methods of the MAG should continue into 2016 in line with the recommendations made by the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Improvements of Internet governance and in light of the General Assembly's recent call for accelerated implementation of these recommendations.
There was also an input that commented on day zero and that it now seemed to be an integral part of the IGF, and there was need for a discussion on the MAG role in day zero event selection and also transparency on the events.
For dynamic coalitions, representatives from many of the IGF dynamic coalitions proposed an idea for a dynamic coalition coordination group to be created, made up of members which will be selected from each of the individual dynamic coalitions. And this group could communicate and coordinate between the DCs and the IGF secretariat and between the DCs and the MAG.
One input invited the MAG to consider if and how the Global Internet Policy Observatory, GIPO, and other such programs and mapping initiatives could help in the MAG work and in further supporting the IGF process.
It was also suggested that the main outcome documents produced by the IGF should be translated into all OF the U.N. official languages to ensure broader outreach.
And I think, yes, I think that's all for the summary. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Chengetai. And thank you to everybody who took the time to submit comments last year. It's obviously very helpful.
We have four speakers in the queue. I note that most of them are MAG members. So, again, we want to hear from other members as well. So, please, do feel free to jump in.
So at this point in time, Cheryl -- I would like to recognize Cheryl Miller.
>>CHERYL MILLER: Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, I'm just getting used to these microphones.
For those who don't know me, my name is Cheryl Miller. And I'm with the business community. I look forward to meeting those who I haven't met yet and look forward to working with all of you. Very warm welcome to all the new MAG members, and warm welcome to the new Chair. And thank you to all of those outgoing members.
I wanted to make a couple of comments on the 2015 meeting. Actually, I think it was Lee that mentioned the friendliness of the meeting last year. And I couldn't agree more. And I think in part what contributed to that was sort of the construction of the IGF village. The actual layout of it really allowed for conversations to sort of flow and for different groups to come together. And so I thought that was a very good addition last year.
Last year also it's been said many times the youth program I thought was a great addition. I definitely think that's very valuable and worth continuing, and I want to make sure we continue to seek diversity within that program as well.
I do think that last year the main sessions could have been more dynamic. One of the things that differed between Brazil and Istanbul, I think in Istanbul we actually had fewer main sessions. But those main sessions from my recollection had a higher level of attendance as compared to Brazil. But we had more main sessions in Brazil. So that's something to think about as we move forward and sort of balance out workshops, main sessions, and how we divide the time over the days. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.
Virat?
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Virat Bhatia. I also represent the business community. I couldn't travel to Joao Pessoa for personal reasons but watched the sessions very carefully remotely. So that was a good experience in trying to assess how the remote piece works and also get an objective view of being slightly far away.
Amongst the things that worked exceedingly well, as many have said, I think that absolute top thing was free food. I want the host to record, and the new host to record, that nothing pleases people and delegates than free food and fully available. So we can go back to Baku, Bali wherever you want to go, that really works well. So think about it.
I just wanted to place that one comment that came to people who traveled back. And good food and easily availability, accessible, so that was one thing that nobody was running for coupons and stuff like that.
The other thing that worked exceedingly well, which is also very visible, was youth. Very, very visible on the screens. Lots of mostly, I think, Latin American young people but lots of them in many sessions queuing up and speaking. So that sort of seemed really well.
The energy was very positive. The staff very friendly. Lots of help available, et cetera. So that worked really well.
A couple of things that's not so much a host issue but actually it's a MAG issue -- and I think we need to sort of look at that carefully, sort of the main sessions and the workshops, which becomes the mainstay -- apart from the intersessional work which is year-round, the mainstay of the four-day conference is the main sessions and the workshops.
We had excellent recommendations for workshops that came out last year based on some very outstanding work done by Susan Chalmers, who is here today with us, and Fiona who is not. Outstanding guidelines, evaluation, et cetera. All of that worked really well.
In the end, however, I think we went to a little bit more than we should have taken. So we were -- I'm not sure, but I think we were about 110 workshops. We could have sort of cut off at 90, 95. We just need to know that figure so once you -- because it's four days, it works like a grid. So the moment you go beyond that point, then it becomes difficult to fit things in and it becomes very tight. So we could do with a little less.
I also want to commend the work that was done by the working group of workshops because thanks to them, the developing country workshops were up 200% from Istanbul and first-timers were up 150%.
And they had set themselves three objectives: Increase developing country participation, increase first-timers, and have more roundtables than panels. And even there was a significantly high number even for the roundtables. With panels, though, I think did some people masquerade panels (audio cut out) and showed up and you were seeing them.
But did exceedingly well on the first two. Something we should really be proud of.
And the selection procedure worked. So I urge that we look at that -- those criteria that have been given and try and work on that and improve if we can, but we have something available.
The other one was on the main sessions. On the main sessions, likewise, we got a very fine set of recommendations from the working group led by Professor Subi Chaturvedi, who was a member last year, and my colleague Flavio. I posted some of this before this meeting. Excellent sort of guidelines for picking main sessions, et cetera.
But this is where I think I have to admit we went off the mark. We started with nearly 11 main sessions in the end. I was sort of asked to put together a working group to discuss this. And had my very distinguished colleague Cheryl not withdraw her very important main session on IGF at ten and then sort of bring it together in some other main session, it would have been virtually impossible to fit in.
I think even in the end we had nine main sessions plus opening and closing. I'd urge that we look at that very differently. And for the new MAG members, just think of the four days as a grid. It's three hours before lunch, three hours after lunch. There is an opening, and there's a closing, and there's an orientation. So actually what you are left with is six three-hour sessions for main sessions. And I would urge that we very carefully look at no more than four or five main sessions with some breathing spaces.
Our former chair very famously quoted that the program should be like Swiss cheese and enough holes should be left in them so that they can be filled in later.
And I think those are the two big learnings, one place where we did exceedingly well and another where I think we can really improve in terms of numbers. We should try and fix those themes early, agree early.
And this year we have very little time to -- last year I think is the most time we've had between MAG meetings and a session. We started in December, and we had almost a year to go before the MAG. This year we have six months flat -- maybe -- now with December, probably 7 1/2 months. So we have slightly more, but we still need to be very careful about our planning. And that's the other thing that I wanted to leave with you.
The last piece was about the main session room. I had made a request last year -- I wasn't there, but -- the main session -- on an average day, there are 1,500 people in the IGF. That's the average for the last few years.
To have a main session room that has a thousand seats makes the main session look as if no one's attending. Even with 150 people, which is three times the number of people here, it would look as if it's virtually empty.
So our request to the host is to consider a 4- or 500-seater room, unless you expect a very large local population, because otherwise they look empty and that sort of gives a feeling of sort of it isn't going well and that shouldn't be the case.
But if you had a 400 or a 5- -- like Istanbul, for example, did that really well. They had a 400-member room and it was almost always full. Almost all of the six main sessions were always full.
So this is a small feedback based on what I was seeing visually, some of the mistakes we made going in, this time for correction.
I would request one last request for the new MAG members, especially. Please do have a look at the recommendations made by the two working groups last year. I think if you want to improve on them, we should talk about that shortly, but if we can adopt them for this year, I think we'll be on our way, because last year the working group started work in December and by March they had those recommendations ready.
This year we don't have that luxury. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Virat. I particularly appreciate the comments as seen from an online view because we're obviously doing everything we can to try and encourage more online participation as well.
Next in the queue I think we have remote and then Mike Nelson. Remote?
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you, Chair. We have one comment from Virginia Paque that I will read.
There was also input that online participation must be built into the session organization so that online participation is taken into account not only in infrastructure preparations but also by session organizers, moderators, and participants.
And we have a second intervention from Michael. He would like to speak, if you allow.
So Michael, I'm going to unmute you now.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: And one more intervention from Siva Subramanian from the national IGF. I will unmute you now, Siva.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you to Ginger, Michael, and Siva as well. Again appreciate your staying with us and your comments.
Mike Nelson is next in the queue.
>>MICHAEL NELSON: Chairman, I'm Michael Nelson. It's my third year on the MAG. I handle global public policy for CloudFlare. And that's F-l-a-r-e.
I also teach Internet studies at Georgetown and I'm very active in my Washington, D.C. chapter of the Internet Society. I just wanted to chime in on a couple things.
First to say that I agreed with almost everything that Chengetai reported from the summary except I strongly urge us not to think about having main sessions by themselves without any parallel sessions.
I think we really, in a way, create a misimpression by calling them main sessions. They're not keynote sessions. They're not main sessions. They're really thematic sessions.
They're very broad. They cover a lot of territory. They often cover territory we don't cover anywhere else. But they're not really that different from the other sessions.
And so I would urge us to continue to do some thematic sessions, but I also agree with Virat that we don't need as many and we don't need to have them in all the time slots.
The other thing I would urge us to do, as was done in Joao Pessoa, is to involve students. There are a number of large universities in Guadalajara, and I found it very useful during the breaks to be able to talk to people who were not thinking about Internet governance and Internet technology 100% of the time but instead were on the receiving end of the technologies that we were building and deploying.
I also would like to say that as Ginger said and Virat emphasized, that the virtual component of this meeting is going to be even more important than normal.
As somebody who attended my first seven IGFs virtually, I've seen a lot of improvement in this area, but we can do better. And particularly, we can do better in enabling people who are part of the online experience to interact with each other and with the people in the room.
The reason it's more important this year than most is that Guadalajara is going to be ideally situated to reach people in the U.S. and Europe, so you've got a lot of potential viewers who can tune in.
And then the last -- and following that also, I think we can also do a much better job of advertising ahead of schedule where the Webcasts will be available, how people can be part of that discussion. In many years past, people didn't learn about the ability to be part of the online experience until after the fact and then they were able to watch the videos, but that wasn't quite the same.
And then one more point.
One of my few criticisms of last year's IGF was that the location was far away from the hotels and it took quite a bit of time for us to get there. I'm glad to see that the venue in Guadalajara is more centrally located.
One thing you might think about doing, though, for this year is to take an Internet approach to registration.
What happened in Joao Pessoa is we all had to show up at the conference site the day before, which was a half-hour -- was an hour-long commute, or we had to wait in line to get our registration.
So maybe there's a way to set up registration points at the hotels the day before, in several of them, so that people can be already registered and ready to go and not have to wait. That's a very small point, but it would save a lot of time and effort.
Thank you very much. And again, thank you to Mexico and to Brazil for being willing to host a very important meeting.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Michael.
Izumi, you have the floor.
>>IZUMI OKUTANI: Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Izumi Okutani, I'm a policy liaison from JPNIC coming from the Asia-Pacific region and the technical community.
I would like to first express a warm welcome to Lynn as the new chair of the MAG, as well as the new MAG members.
I would like to make observations on three broad areas.
First, about the local arrangement of the meeting. Second, about the basic framework of planning the meeting. And third, to lightly touch on the content.
So first on the local arrangement, I really echo Cheryl's comment about the friendliness of the meeting and I -- I think it -- it -- there may be two reasons, or one of the two -- there may be two reasons. They may not be the only ones behind it.
One is that the volunteers were very friendly. I think they were enthusiastic to be a part of this, like, international event, and I think this -- their enthusiasm actually reflected to the atmosphere of the venue.
So I support Mike's comment about having more students helping out in the venue.
Second is that we had a common place for lunch. We had a big venue for lunch. And I understand it may be quite challenging to provide free lunch at every meeting. I think Brazil was, I know, being extremely generous, but I think even if free lunch is not provided, having a big common place for lunch helps the participants to have dialogue between meetings, so I found that really helpful.
I also found the IGF Web site, it was -- the local Web site was easy to find and search sessions, which topic is relevant, who are the speakers, so I hope that we can continue this style of Web site in the coming year as well.
So to move on to the basic framework of the meeting, I support Virat's comment about having better planning and strategy about the main session, not just keep on adding themes one after the other, but then having an integrated comprehensive discussion about what should be the theme and then based on that, think about what the theme should be, and I think it's worth considering the recommendations made in the CSTD, as some of the MAG colleagues has expressed on the mailing list.
So lastly, to touch on the -- on the content, I echo Constance's observation about success in producing concrete outputs this year and intersessional work certainly contributed a great deal on this.
And I quite like this style of combination of dialogue and written documents for two reasons.
One is actually helped in diversity, in that the people who are not so comfortable in verbally expressing themselves at a microphone and non- -- people, like, coming from Asia, they're not, like, so vocal, so having a document really helped them make contributions.
It also helped people who are not physically able to participate at the meeting make effective and substantial contribution.
So I hope that we can consider and continue this style of discussion this year as well.
And then on national and regional IGF, I think it's -- having a common theme like last year was good. And just to add, one suggestion for improvement is that I think the secretariat was being helpful in reaching out to each of the regional and maybe some national IGFs on line, but to be truly effective, you need people to explain what the context is and then what the whole idea behind it is. And I was involved in the APR IGF, the regional IGF for the Asia-Pacific region, so I attended their meetings, explained why, and then I actually tried to coordinate to have the discussions at the APR IGF so that they can actually feed into the main session.
So I think the MAG members can actually help -- coming from diverse regions can help out in the regional and possibly national IGFs to explain and help make contributions if we are going to continue with a similar approach of having a common theme and to help encourage participation from these IGFs. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Izumi. Cristina?
>>CHRISTINE ARIDA:
>CRISTINA MONTI: Thank you, madam chair. And congratulations for your recent appointment.
My name is Cristina Monti. I work at the European Commission in the Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology.
First of all, I'm very glad to be here today. I have to say usually it only takes one hour to get here from Brussels, but this time due to the recent events that took place in Brussels it was slightly more difficult to be here with you today. And you might also remember that the last IGF also finished with the terrible news of the attacks in Paris.
So unfortunately these are some of the difficulties we have to face when we have to travel in our interconnected world, but here we are. And I just wanted to say a few remarks concerning this agenda item, taking stock of IGF 2015.
We provided a written contribution which is well-reflected in the synthesis paper kindly provided by the secretariat, so I will not go into much detail. I just would like to reaffirm our overall positive assessment of last year's IGF. It really raised the bar for future meetings, and so the MAG will now need to respond to even increased expectations from the global community and will have to continue to build on previous achievements and improvements. Especially now that we have a longer mandate of 10 years ahead of us. And I think -- I hope that this will also stimulate the MAG into thinking longer term, in a broader context, and not just considering one IGF meeting at a time.
In general, as has been said, the IGF has run really smoothly with a positive and constructive mood. It took place in a year that was particularly intense for Internet governance discussions, and the IGF really managed to connect to the other processes and also to inform such processes like the WSIS+10 review and the importance of linking to ICT and post-2015 sustainable development goals.
Also, new formats and ideas were tested and implemented with a view to produce nonbinding outputs and recommendations for voluntary adoption on a number of topical issues.
So our assessment, again, it was very positive. There was a significant and constructive European presence, as well, which is a direct manifestation of the strong youth support for the multistakeholder approach of Internet governance which is embodied by the IGF.
In terms of participation, we had the vice president of the European Commission present, but also nine members of the European Parliament, as well as significant participation of private sector and civil society representatives.
And on this, maybe a suggestion from the logistical point of view.
For European delegates, in addition to the official program, it is also very important the bilateral and informal meetings that take place on the margins of the IGF.
And we see that with time, these kind of meetings, even though they are informal and unofficial, they tend to become bigger and bigger, so sometimes also the facilities for bilateral meetings also need to be taken into account.
And finally, my last remark, Chengetai, you also mentioned our suggestion to invite the MAG to consider how the Global Internet Policy Observatory or other mapping initiatives and Internet governance observatory tools can be put to use to develop the program or in other ways that the MAG considers useful to carry out their tasks.
I was planning maybe to say a few words on the global -- on GIPO, on the Global Internet Policy Observatory, maybe in the afternoon when we will discussing about Internet governance developments. Thank you very much.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cristina, and look forward to hearing about that at the end of the day today.
Next in the queue is Nigel.
>>NIGEL HICKSON: Yes. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Nigel Hickson from ICANN, a non-MAG member.
First of all -- I better put my glasses on.
First of all, congratulations on your appointment. I think it's absolutely splendid that you're Chair and actually splendid that the U.N. has chosen a non-government stakeholder for the first time. Really, really positive.
I will try and be brief, as I always am.
[ Laughter ]
First of all -- thank you. Looking back to 2015, I don't think I need to say much because it has all been said. It was clearly an excellent meeting on many different levels, I think.
In terms of substance for me and I think for many of us, the dialogue we had on the WSIS+10 review -- and I know that Marilyn has mentioned this, and she personally contributed an awful lot to it -- was very important indeed.
The dialogue in terms of process and substance. In substance in that we were able to interact with the co-facilitators on a wide range of WSIS issues and on process in that the co-facilitators saw the energy, the enthusiasm, the commitment of all the different stakeholders from across the page, if you'd like; co-facilitators that were used to working in an U.N. environment. The Second Committee and other committees in New York were exposed to this sort of vibrant energy that came from the different stakeholders, including the excellent participation we had from the young people.
And I think clearly that enthusiasm really did help in terms of the output that was achieved in New York in December.
I think the intersessional work that preceded the IGF was clearly important. The best practice forums clearly came forward with a number of initiatives, a number of discussions which really did light up the room in many different areas. And I think they have an additional importance because as we've seen, several of these initiatives -- and many were taken forward by ISOC and others -- involve people that never come to IGF meetings, involve people that get involved perhaps because they know about national IGFs, they know about regional IGFs, but they can't come to the main IGF but they want to be involved in this dialogue. And this is what's just so important because this is the energy, this is the real enthusiasm that we need for the future.
The remote participation, again, that we had at the meeting, I think, was first class.
And, finally, on the 2015 meeting, as Cheryl and others have said, the practical arrangements -- I mean, when people ask me, you know, did you have a good meeting? And someone says, Well, the lunch was good, I always think, Well, how trivial. Why do we need to talk about lunches? But, in fact, what happened in Brazil was so important in that everyone gathered together. There was this tremendous energy, and really it was an excellent venue. And sometimes these practical arrangements really do sort of combine to make things a success.
And personally I love the site. I like that it was remote from the hotels. I love the buses as well. And it was really enjoyable.
So 2016, I'll say very little. Clearly a lot of work to do, and we're lucky we've got such a committed MAG. Congratulations on all the new MAG appointees. It's really fantastic to see such a diverse and exciting MAG take shape.
I'm sure we're going to have a success. I love the enthusiasm that Mexico came forward with. The arrangements seem ideal.
It is going to be an important meeting. It's the first in the mandate. And because 2016 is a different year to 2015 -- in 2015, there was so much pressure because of the WSIS and other events. This is the main event for 2016, the main event. And, therefore, the eyes are upon us, as they say. And so I really do think it's important.
To finish off, just wanted to say how important I think the national and regional IGFs are, and we've all been involved in some of these. They continue to sort of spread and it's fantastic to see in many different continents.
And we need to be able to capture some of those ideas. We need to be able to capture the energy, not to dictate what they do, not to structure anything, but just capture what comes out of those for the good of us all at the IGF and at the open consultation. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Nigel. And you certainly did live up to your commitment to be positive.
Sandra, you are next in the queue.
>> SANDRA HOFERICHTER: Thank you very much, Mrs. Chair. And welcome in this environment, and congratulations to your appointment.
I want to make two comments, one looking back to the IGF and Joao Pessoa in 2015 and another comment on the current process of program drafting for the IGF 2017.
But, first of all, I would like to express our pleasance about the extension of the IGF for ten years. We understand EuroDIG, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, which is the European IGF is one of the -- is the European section to contribute to this global process. And also for us, it makes it much more easier now to have planning security how to move forward for the next ten years. So we are very much looking forward to this ongoing collaboration.
To my first point, I would like to highlight the IGF village and the way it was set up during the Joao Pessoa meeting. We usually have to -- we usually set up a booth during the IGF. And for us it's always a great effort to bring all the material there, to rent a screen, and do all the logistics.
And I must say, last year's IGF village was of such a great value in terms of providing a space for communication, reaching out to new participants, serving as a meeting point, it was really, truly the center of the conference. And we had so great opportunities to interact, to get together, to have a meeting there, to have in-depth discussions that I would wish that a similar space could be available for the IGF in 2016. So thank you again for the Brazilian host team for giving so much effort into this village.
My second point -- my second point, I would like to share some experiences we recently made at EuroDIG in our program drafting process. Time-wise, we are always a little bit ahead of the global IGF because the meeting takes place in June. So we are already in the stage of shaping the program and forming org teams.
And other than at the IGF, we are at EuroDIG not calling for session proposals or workshops or plenary proposals but we call very generally for themes and issues to be discussed on the next EuroDIG.
We are, so to say, not accepting or disregarding proposals. We try to merge all incoming submissions and try to accommodate them all in the program. This has been always a challenging step in the program-planning process over the years. But we could realize we had improvement this year which was really -- which really made a difference, and I would like to share this with you. Maybe the IGF MAG can take elements from this process and incorporate this in the processes.
I know that also when submitting a proposal through the IGF Web site that there are certain categories where you have to submit your proposal under to. And this year, we incorporated subject matter experts for each category. This made it much more easier to merge proposals, to identify similar proposals. In the past, it was always the secretariat dealing with these proposals. I guess at the IGF it is more the MAG dealing with these proposals.
This year we concentrated on each category, assigned a subject matter expert, and those experts were reviewing which proposal can go along with another proposal. And they really created meaningful subcategories. Afterwards, it was decided which category might go into a plenary and which proposal might go into a workshop.
We made the experience that other than in the years before we had way less interventions when opening the draft program with the assigned proposal so each proposal was incorporated in the program. They all got an ID. They could see, Okay, I'm in this basket. I'm in this basket.
In the past, it was always quite a lot of communication in terms of "Oh, I didn't feel well," "I was misunderstood", My proposal was different." But this year with the inclusion of subject matter experts which went through this beforehand, before a draft program was created, we had way less interventions in terms of changing the categories, changing the sessions. And this did speed up our process very much and made it for us at the end very clear, so to say, to have a mandate to go forward with this draft proposal. And we could almost incorporate all proposals. There were just a few exemptions which were then offered a flash session or a side event or a pre-event. But really -- and we had 150 proposals or -- it was a joint call with SEEDIG and EuroDIG. For EuroDIG, we had 117 proposals. And I can really say we could accommodate all of them.
This is really thanks to the subject matter experts. One of them is next to me. I think it's Olivier Crepin-LeBlond. I think there are more in the room.
This might be something we would like to share our experiences with the global IGF and be as much help as possible in terms of if you want to learn more about these processes. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sandra. That's very interesting, and we certainly look forward to any suggestions or advice on how we might move forward in the program this year. Not only is it in a compressed cycle, in fact, it's going to take place over summertime in the northern hemisphere which does add an extra complication to the overall timetable. So really appreciate the input. Thank you.
Susan, you have the floor.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you very much, Chair. Congratulations on your appointment.
My name is Susan Chalmers, and I have recently joined the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce. I'm offering my observations, however, as an observer and a former MAG member, a representative of the technical community.
I would like to thank Virat for his kind words regarding our work on the workshop evaluation and selection process but more importantly to echo his comments in terms of being conservative to changes within the process given our compressed time line.
I think that if one area of focus could be isolated, it would be the in-person selection meeting of the MAG for the workshops.
And I would like to again support Virat's idea for having a grid or a set number of workshops and clarifying the process before going into this meeting. It's a very important meeting. But it would be good to have clarity on that beforehand. And this should help alleviate the problem of having too many workshops. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Susan.
Mourad, you have the floor.
>> MOURAD BOUKADOUM: Thank you very much. Unfortunately, I didn't attend the Joao Pessoa meeting due to professional obligations. However, I have some comments to make.
I have questions to the Brazilian delegation. How many ministers attended the high-level meeting last year? And the same issue is raised with the industrial leaders.
I'm asking this question because it's related the visibility of the IGF meeting of the decision makers both at the government and industrial levels.
Would like also to know the perspective of Mexico regarding this issue in the context of the next IGF.
I remember last year during the preparatory process, concerns -- many concerns were raised regarding the necessity of improving governments' participation. Again turning back to the Brazilian delegation, do you have data, some figures regarding the government participation in the last edition of IGF?
I think also we need to -- as a MAG group, we need also to have more participation from the academic community so maybe we need to more engage with this community in the future. That's all. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mourad.
Brazil?
>>BENEDICTO FONSECA: Thank you for the question. And I think this is a very important topic of discussion, how to further engage government participation.
As I have said before, having participated in those WSIS+10 discussions, one thing we noticed was that for many colleagues, even from our governments that are in New York, there's not a lot of familiarity with IGF. And that also is the case in other areas of government. In regard to -- and there's an ongoing effort in that regard, one that we want to strengthen.
But in regard to the figures for last IGF, I would like to turn to my colleague, I think, who probably will have some additions in that regard. Thank you.
>> JANDYR SANTOS: Thank you. Thank you, Ambassador. I'll gladly report back to you with a detailed list of the high-level participation and ministerial participation as well and not only -- and as well as the government participation.
I just would like to remind that this meeting, the ministerial meeting, was organized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil. And it was organizing with the support of a wide range of embassies around the globe and was very instrumental to have people in the embassies promoting the event and getting in touch with local governments and having the confirmation of participation in advance.
I won't be able to give you the detail numbers right now today, but I will report back with a detailed list as soon as possible. Thank you.
>>BENEDICTO FONSECA: If I can just add we decided to designate not as ministerial meeting but as high-level meeting because we wanted to make sure that the right message was given that were aiming at having not only high-level participants from governments but high-level participants from all stakeholders, just for clarity.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.
Hossam, you have the floor.
>>HOSSAM ELGAMAL: Thank you, Madam Chair. And congratulations one more time. My name is Hossam Elgamal. I'm coming from Egypt representing private sector, related to AfICTA and also contributing to ICC-BASIS.
First of all, I would like to thank Brazil for last year's event. There's a lot of hard work done. Very welcoming staff, very welcoming contribution from everyone. There was a good participation from high-level people as well during last year.
I have just a few comments regarding moving forward, if possible. I agree with Virat on the fact that fewer sessions -- fewer thematic sessions would be a good thing to do. And I go back to my contribution last year in the MAG saying that, if possible, if we can have the workshop serving the thematic main sessions, this would be good.
It's like today workshops would serve tomorrow main sessions. If we are able to do something like that, this would be very good in order to really integrate the work to be done and conclude within the main sessions.
Second thing is, if possible, and being around the Internet, if we are able to start -- help starting a strong social media promotion campaign in order to really be able to have more inclusiveness, especially for different developing countries, especially the ones that do not have currently national or regional IGF, this would certainly make an impact. And if we are able also to promote or announce about any possibility of funding for people from LDCs, this would be as well a good thing to be done.
One thing that might be of interest, subject for the MAG to discuss, is the idea of not looking at this year's IGF on its own but as part of the ten years' plan.
Now we have a ten years' mandate, and also we have parallel to that the SDGs. So if we are able to look in a more wider view for the ten years or at least for five years' approach and then go back and see what we can do this year as part of a five years' approach, this might be of value as well.
Finally, maybe, again, the idea of remembering to integrate further sectorial -- different sectors, especially if we're going to again align our work with SDGs, so environment, employment, use, health, finance, et cetera, and getting more and more from different sectors. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Hossam.
Elizabeth, you have the floor.
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: Thank you, Madam Chair. Elizabeth Thomas-Raynaud. I come from both Canada and France, and I'm speaking from the private sector perspective.
For those of you who don't know me, I'm a policy executive at the International Chamber of Commerce based in Paris. I'm also the director of the ICC-BASIS initiative, that's Business Action to Support the Information Society.
Since this is the first time I'm taking the mic, I'd like to say thank you to UN-DESA and to the IGF secretariat for their efforts between December and now to get this 2016 MAG established and to convene today's meeting for us.
I'd also like to congratulate again and welcome our new Chair. I am extremely delighted to be joining this first MAG of the new IGF mandate. And I believe this is going to prove a new frontier, an era for us as we have just been given this road ahead and concur with the comments made just by Hossam in looking at this not just as a one-year exercise but really what are we building towards.
I also wanted to recognize the very thoughtful and worthwhile tribute made by the Chair to our past MAG Chair and the recognition of how significant Ambassador Karklins' contributions have been made to both the IGF but also to the multistakeholder cooperation for Internet governance across all of the WSIS communities and activities.
And, of course, I'd like to thank the government of Mexico for the proposal for the 2016 meeting. We look forward to working collaboratively with you on this effort.
And I would like to commend you for the efforts you already started working with other stakeholders in your community. I understand from our friends at ICC Mexico and other colleagues and other stakeholder groups that are working on a team with you, and I commend you for doing what we always say which is to think global and then start acting locally. So actually integrating that is great fun for us.
On the topic of this taking stock section, I would also like to express our appreciation to the host country of Brazil for the 2015 IGF effort. I know there was a huge team in planning and executing that. We saw on the ground an extremely motivated and energized community of Brazilian ambassadors of all sizes and shapes who were really, really welcoming in our sessions. And that was most enjoyable and echoed by all who participated.
ICC-BASIS has actually contributed a very detailed submission towards this discussion. Chengetai raised many of the points that we made in that summary so I'm not going to reiterate all of them. I just want to highlight a couple of additional points and perhaps reiterate some of the more important ones.
On the substance side, I would like to note that the intersessional work that was done was a significant effort. And it's important that we recognize the IGF secretariat and congratulate them for that extra effort because it did add an additional burden on already shortened resources. And so I would like us to consider that as we move forward, the resources we have at the IGF secretariat. And if we're going to load more intersessional work in a shorter period of time, that we consider the impact of that and how that can be managed and addressed.
I would also like -- I think it's important to note that the achievement of the work on connecting the next billion was also very significantly helped by the drive and determination of Constance Bommelaer at ISOC, who really, I think, put a special personal commitment into successfully completing that, and so I'd like to thank her as well for those efforts.
Regarding the main sessions, I would again reiterate, looking back at the past experiences both I've had at the IGFs but also the reports and, you know, fortunately in my previous (indiscernible), ICC/BASIS was a very, very good reporter and grabbed all of the information, cataloged it each year, so looking back on that, I think some of the most positive experiences that we've had have come where there are fewer but more focused and substantively strong main sessions supported by workshops, as our colleagues have said, again respecting the guidelines process while choosing and containing the numbers of these so that the substance is strong and people are able to participate.
I will echo, as well, that the sessions in between are extremely important parts of IGF.
This year was extremely -- an extremely good example. The village was mentioned. The lunches were mentioned.
Having rooms for bilateral meetings that are large enough for delegations is -- was a little bit of a challenge this year and is an important factor for the meetings, so I would suggest that to our hosts for consideration.
I will also say that not very long ago, Nespresso introduced a promotional coffee from Mexico that was absolutely gorgeous and they have taken it off the market again, unfortunately, so we're all going to have to come to you, and my request is that we will have this kind of delicious coffee accessible around the clock because some of us are die-hard addicts and like to sneak out of the sessions every once in a while and have coffee in close proximity.
Finally, I would like to mention that I think one of the big successes that happened last year came from this strong link that the MAG built in the program with the wider global sustainable development agenda context. I think that we value -- we valued this and benefitted from this because it contextualized our work in the minds of others who are outside the Internet governance community, and that doing so also allows us to stay very close to the raison d'etre, as we would say, of this work. And so I would encourage us, as we look forward to programs and themes ahead, to consider that.
There is a proposal for intersessional work consideration in our ICC/BASIS document. I will share that with people on the MAG again and raise it in more detail later on.
So I look forward to working with all of you towards a very successful IGF, working collectively, and bringing in new perspectives and talents that are going to contribute to this new phase of our journey and the goals that we set for it.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Elizabeth.
Christine, you have the floor.
>>CHRISTINE ARIDA: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Christine Arida. I work for the government of Egypt and I represent Egypt on the MAG as the previous host for the IGF.
Allow me first to thank UNDESA and to congratulate you on your appointment. I really look forward to working with you and with incoming and returning MAG members.
I also take the community to thank Ambassador Karklins for guiding and leading the work of the MAG last year.
I would also like to congratulate Brazil for the Joao Pessoa meeting, an extremely successful IGF meeting at an important time for Internet governance. And I thank Mexico for their proposal of hosting us this year in Guadalajara and for their presentation earlier. Looking forward to a great meeting this year.
At first, I wish to express our pleasure for the extension of the IGF mandate for a new 10 years. We look forward to working with everyone towards further strengthening the IGF as a multistakeholder platform and multistakeholder process, and enabling the global dialogue on Internet governance during this renewed period.
I appreciate many of the comments that were put forward by previous speakers in taking stock of last year and looking forward to the next IGF. I'm not going to reiterate them here, but I would just like to stress on one specific point. That is the issue of further engaging stakeholders from developing countries, as was outlined by the resolution of the General Assembly. And in that respect, I would like to acknowledge and commend the intersessional work that was done last year by the MAG and the secretariat, especially in reaching out to national and regional IGF initiatives.
I believe this practice should continue and be further strengthened this year. We need to bring in voices that are not commonly there at the IGFs, as Nigel mentioned, especially on subjects that are of common interest and on themes where the opinion coming out -- coming in from different parts is a real addition to the dialogue.
I also would like to commend the secretariat for the support that they have been providing to the group of national and regional IGF coordinators. I believe the group has gained enthusiasm and momentum that has proved quite important in engaging stakeholders from all corners of the world. I hope, as we go forward, that we can provide this group and through them the national and regional initiatives with the support that is well needed to grow further organically. Thank you very much.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Christine.
(saying name), you have the floor.
>> Bonjour, madam. Merci. Good morning. Thank you, madam. Thank you for giving the floor. My name is (saying name). I'm speaking on behalf of African civil society for WSIS.
First off, I would like to congratulate you on your recent nomination and wish you every success in your endeavors to help the Internet community. Here and now, I would also like to congratulate Brazil for its IGF. It was very successful. That was the point of view of many observers, in any case.
I would also like to congratulate Mexico for agreeing to host the next IGF conference.
Many thanks to the entire team for organizing all of this. Thousands of participants, hundreds of topics, or tens of topics, dozens of topics for workshops is an incredible amount of work.
Let me also draw your attention to one thing, to a number of points that have already been put forth by my predecessors.
First, for us to have good topics, very successful topics, at least in terms of Africa, I would like to say that it's necessary for the national processes to develop to the level -- global level, especially in the African continent where there are very few Internet Governance Forum conferences, so it's necessary to have high-level meetings there. And based on those meetings, I think that we will have some good feedback. I think that some of the most important and most interesting feedback will come from countries where they're not been any IGFs.
It's important also to provide the private sector and other actors at the state level and other levels, and let's try to ensure that we have lots of national IGFs.
I've said this before but I just want to say this again, that it's so important to have IGFs in order to consolidate some of what we've achieved in certain countries.
Let me draw your attention as well to the fact that in Africa the majority of our national conferences or regional conferences were possible thanks to the participation of several society, and indeed, they were often the initiators of these conferences, so let me make an appeal here for African civil society and for your support, so that it can play fully its role that it will be able to -- so that it will be able to make a significant conference to this incredible effort, which is the IGC, and let us ensure that the WSIS is a success. We know that the future is fairly uncertain in the field of human rights and in the field of privacy, and we know that the private sector really does have a lot of influence in terms of Internet governance, so we really do have to think about how our lives will unfold with the Internet tomorrow. And I can say this: That African civil society is one of the greatest contributors to this reflection, so I wanted to want again draw your attention to this fact and appeal to your support so that the African civil society will be (indiscernible) in Mexico and beyond Mexico. I'm here as a representative of civil society because I'm here in Geneva, but other people would want -- would have liked to have come as well. This is so important. It's so important from the point of experience and the experiences and ideas that they will bring forward, and I think it's the same case not only in Africa but in Asia and other continents as well.
And the other thing I wanted to say is to -- I want to endorse the colleagues, speakers before me, and say how important that sustainable development is as a topic for the conferences in the coming years, because this is really key, I think, Madam. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you. Mark, you have the floor.
>>MARK CARVELL: Thank you, Madam Chair. It's Mark Carvell, United Kingdom government, former MAG member.
U.K. government has submitted detailed comments in the consultation held earlier this year so I won't recount those, but suffice to say we endorse very much the positive comments that have been made this morning and elsewhere in the other comments about the successful IGF in Joao Pessoa and we greatly appreciate all the hard work by the Brazilian CGI team in constructing and hosting the event, which was indeed very enjoyable and a very productive IGF. One of the best that's ever been held.
I do want to highlight one note of concern that we expressed in our comments, and it follows on from the last set of comments from African civil society, in that we felt that the numbers of participants from Africa and Asia were lower than we would have hoped, given the overarching theme of sustainable development and one of the key outputs was access for the next billion.
So I think the experience from Joao Pessoa highlights the importance of outreach to stakeholder communities in -- throughout the world but in particular from developing countries and small island developing states in particular, and we very much hope that the national and regional IGFs in those regions will help with the outreach and bring up the level of participation for Guadalajara.
So the relationship-building with the national and regional IGFs I think has a vital role to play in that. The IGF has to demonstrate, consistent with the CSTD's recommendations, full outreach and participation from -- by stakeholder communities in developing countries.
I'm pleased to report in this respect that the Commonwealth IGF is being relaunched, with the help of the commonwealth telecommunications organization. The commonwealth membership includes 53 states, many of which are in Africa and Asia, as well as in the Caribbean.
So look out for that. The Commonwealth IGF Web site will relaunch and that provides a vehicle for promoting the opportunities for engagement, for contributing to the IGF in Guadalajara, both in person and of course as remote participants.
So hope very much that the attendees or people listening in to this open consultation session who are from the commonwealth will use that opportunity afforded by the commonwealth telecommunications organization.
So that is my main point, really, the criticality of outreach to developing countries and as a commonwealth member, the U.K. will assist with that process.
Thank you very much.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mark.
Next one? Segun, you have the chair -- the floor. You're not in the -- okay. Not in the queue?
Then Slobodan, you have the floor.
>>SLOBODAN MARKOVIC: Thank you, Madam Chair.
My name is Slobodan Markovic. I work on ICT policy and Internet community relations at Serbian ccTLD registry, which is a part of the technical community and a major supporter of Internet governance initiatives in the region of southeast Europe.
For example, towards the end of this month, we will host in Belgrade the second regional dialogue on Internet governance, the SEEDIG.
I speak as a MAG member and a member of MAG working group on the remote participation and will make a couple of remarks regarding online but also on-site participation following up on earlier comments by Ginger Paque.
At IGF in Brazil, I supported the online participation in the main room, and my impression was that most sessions were -- that most sessions there looked more like panels, with very few of them involving the audience, both on line and in the room, in any significant way.
Some of the notable exceptions were main sessions on cybersecurity and zero rating.
IGF is a really huge gathering and a rare opportunity for actual dialogue. We're wasting this opportunity, I think, if we perceive the audience just as those people who ask questions or make remarks at the end of the session if time permits, so we should seek to make main sessions more interactive and inclusive this year, and not just push questions and comments towards the end of the session.
I would like to congratulate the Brazilian hosts for their efforts in providing excellent facilities and thank again all volunteers who supported the event in general and online participation in particular.
This year's IGF should raise the standards in online participation and enabling effective participation of people with disabilities attending both on site and on line.
I look forward to working towards this goal with my fellow MAG members and our Mexican hosts. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Slobodan.
We have three more speakers, a remote speaker which I'll go to in a moment, and then Virat and Cheryl, because you've had the floor.
Just want to point out that we're actually coming up to the end of this particular session so we'll make a determination when to sort of cut the queue here and move any of the remaining speakers to the next session, if necessary.
So remote participant?
And I hate calling them remote participants, as well, but I -- you know, I have no visibility into who's actually waiting to speak on the line, so count on Anja to introduce them.
>>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you.
We have two interventions. The first one is from (saying name) from Asia-Pacific regional IGF. IGF platform and national and regional IGFs have huge gaps. It needs to be reduced with efforts. I would like to suggest the MAG to use the committee to be used during IGF to raise awareness for regional and national IGFs.
The second comment -- the second is from (saying name) from Afghanistan.
The past and in-conflict countries have minimum representation so more relevant stakeholders in the IGF 2015. Governments play a crucial role in the Internet governance in these countries. Surveillance, content filtering, more Internet infrastructure management, et cetera. Civil society efforts are not taken into consideration by the local governments, hence making it very difficult for true representation of civil society at the national level and also at the IGF and other relevant platforms.
So if I may suggest that IGF 2016 have some data collected on each country's and each stakeholder's involvement in the process so that proper representation of all stakeholders.
That's the end of the sentence.
And we also have certain complaints that the time zones are a bit challenging for participating on line, as there are differences between times. Thank you.
>>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Anja, and thank you to all the online participants, as well, from whatever time zone you might be participating in.
Virat, you have the floor.
>>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll make three quick points in response to some of the stuff that has been said, because we will get very deep into this area tomorrow when we actually set up our criteria of selection, et cetera.
So taking forward the point that was made by Susan, the -- one of the things that we spend a lot of time is to finally select -- finalize the criteria and then finally select workshops.
As she said, there's an outstanding set of criteria that is already available. I said that and she kind of agreed to that. That was actually her contribution, along with Fiona's.
The one thing that happened when we were getting to select this -- and this is a reflection -- was that in spite of having a very detailed sort of guidelines on what to apply for, when we got into the room to pick our sessions we added two more to it, which was new ideas and sessions with government speakers.
And my colleague, Mike and I, had a long discussion on that and how to go and pick those, but I think it was an important point.
My only point would be that please look at what has been circulated. In fact, look at what Liesyl has circulated, which is even a more comprehensive set of documents from the workshop selection tips, et cetera.
Let's add to that, if you want to, anything now so that we don't have left -- things left in the end, and it will also be for a more transparent process, because if new ideas is important for the MAG this year, we should say it up front. If government speakers is an important thing, then the panelists should -- those workshop submitters should know that up front.
So in addition to the two objectives that we had last year -- three, actually -- developing countries, first timers, and roundtables and not panels but my colleague here just talked about not everything that seemed like a roundtable was a roundtable, so we need to sort of find a way to fix that and then add anything new as soon as we can now, so that at the end we don't have to go through --
We've started picking proposals at 60 for the last 10 years, out of a hundred. My urge -- I would urge the MAG that we should do it in a way that we start at 75 or 80, so that we have corrective measures now, rather than later. That's just an improvement. Because we need to show improvement over the last year. So that is one point. Of course open to discussion.
On the other, very quickly points that were made on the remote and then Mourad made this point and it was also made by (indiscernible) participation. I have some numbers that I will just quickly run through for the benefit of the MAG. As I said, everybody has said this is an outstanding, one of the best IGFs that has happened. Here are some hard facts, numbers, from two sources, from the secretariat. One is the 2014 IGF -- (audio cut out ) -- 2014 Chair summary and then 2015 attendance statistics of the IGF which are on the Web site.
I will just quickly give you some of those numbers. Actually civil society, the gentleman who spoke about it, did exceedingly well. They were up 11% over 2014. Governments were down 2% in terms of participation. Intergovernmental organizations were exactly the same. Private sector was down 12%. Actually the highest drop experienced between two IGFs was the private sector, vis-a-vis -- I'm talking about Istanbul vis-a-vis Joao Pessoa.
The technical community was down 1%, so almost the same. The media was up 3%.
Onsite participation was down 11% vis-a-vis the numbers registered at Istanbul.
Remote participation was really up. So thanks to Ginger, 35% higher remote participation or online participation. Outstanding result there.
Overall in terms of number of countries, that question was also asked. We went down from 144 to 112. So reduction of about 22%.
In terms of regions, very quickly, Africa down 3%. Asia-Pacific down 3%. Latin America, as expected, was up. Host country up 18%. That was the big youth contingent. So excellent move there. Eastern Europe down 2%. Latin America was up 3%. Western Europe and others, minus 6%. Onsite participation said minus 11%. Overall numbers.
That is -- one of the things I want to say, one of -- the outreach piece that I think was spoken about by the distinguished colleague from the U.K. government but also I think the cost.
On average, the cost increment between getting to Sao Paulo or one of the large cities in Brazil vis-a-vis Joao Pessoa was about 600 to $800 for Asia, about $400 extra for Europe.
I just did some numbers on the net. The cost of actually getting to -- I want to say this -- Guadalajara is almost the same as getting to Mexico City. So I think that will certainly -- in terms of cost, you're not putting an extra burden if were in a large city. I've seen lots of direct flights get into this so it's probably in terms of choice. So apart from that, I think this is one thing that we've already sort of gotten over because that might have been a factor for some of it.
Though, civil society really much higher in terms of participation. So I just wanted to leave those numbers.
Last point, a point was made by developing country participation. I just wanted to say that, as I said, 200% hike in the number of developing country participation from workshops. We can do better. I'm sure there is a niche to it.
And it also goes to the core of the improvements document of March 2012, the resolution of the UNGA of December 2015, and today.
Hossam's statement in the morning, he talked about developing countries. And I think you would see an ICC-BASIS intersessional work proposal for increasing developing country participation as a concentrated effort throughout 2016. The MAG can discuss when we go to that stage. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Virat. And thank you for reminding us of those statistics from the secretariat as well.
And perhaps I'd even suggest next time in the summary of the IGF, maybe we include those right up front because I think it's actually a really good helpful sort of reminder and scene setter. Maybe we can just do that next time as part of the secretariat's summary.
Cheryl, you have the floor.
>>CHERYL MILLER: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I actually was also going to respond to Mark's comment because I do think that he hit the nail right on the head. It's really key that we increase our outreach to developing nations.
And in part Virat already answered. I think part of what I heard last year in conversations with folks, it was both the cost. There were also some travel complications that folks faced. The flights were a little bit longer. I think in talking to people, Istanbul was more centrally located from a number of different places so they could get there pretty easily.
But there are other things that, you know, host countries think of up front that are really important. For example, providing lunch in Brazil, that was incredible -- that really helps a lot to cover all those meals for people who are coming who may have a hard time paying for the meeting. And so it's important to think of all of these things, hotels that are centrally located, affordable, et cetera, on the front end in terms of upping participation.
And then on the comment with respect to making the sessions more interactive, I think that's exactly right. No one really wants to sit in a room and feel as though they're just being talked at. And I think that will also help with participation as well. People feel they can come and they can really be a part of it. I think we should definitely work to keep including as many new voices as possible and keep including as many new speakers as possible to kind of share the wealth of information, so to speak.
And then just very quickly on the comments on the workshops, I think what we did last year with respect to kind of helping along new proposals and highlighting new proposals really helped to increase the number of new proposers who came through. I think it's always important at the front end to offer guidance in whatever way we can.
If I remember correctly last year, we put them on the Web site. I think that kind of helps for someone new who had never submitted a proposal to go and see kind of what we're looking for, what should be included, all of those things are really helpful for someone who's walking up to it and doesn't have this sort of insider knowledge on what makes a good proposal, so to speak. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cheryl.
Hartmut.
>>HARTMUT GLASER: After so many comments, I would like to thank Mark, my good friend, that you learn to spell Joao Pessoa.
And then, Virat, I think there's hope that you will learn to speak Guadalajara. No problem.
[ Laughter ]
But let's go to my main concern. About the youth participation, we need to avoid, let's say, a competition that everyone now likes to take over this program. Constance already mentioned that ISOC is willing to support the program. And myself, CGI, we have an agreement with ISOC that we would like to maintain this coordination, will be an effort. And it's very, very, very important to mention that this project is not only ISOC or only CGI. We receive support from Google, we receive support from Verizon, and we receive support from Intel, and others are joining.
So if we like to see more than 70 or 80 people, young people, attending in Guadalajara, we are inviting you, companies, to help us to put some money together. In Brazil, we have Webinars in preparation for all the young people. They were not only selected because they have a nice face or nice -- I don't know -- country. So they need to work hard before we select them.
We have more than 120 requests. They need to attend (indiscernible) Webinars. Then we select the 70, so on, 75. We paid the hotel. We paid everything for them from Mexico to Argentina to be part of the event in Joao Pessoa.
So, again, ISOC and CGI together, we would like to support the program. And we invite others. And already I have information that some sponsors already are ready to put money again for Guadalajara.
I have a discussion with Yolanda and with Victor that Mexico also will be, let's say, part of the program. So let's do it together.
My understanding is there can be a parallel effort that we can coordinate in the same way that we do it this year or last year in Joao Pessoa. I don't like to see that everyone now starts to run his own program. My idea is to have a joint effort, to put this under one umbrella and that we avoid energy. And together we can do it in a very similar way that we do it in Brazil.
Only to finish, this last week we have an event in Washington, D.C. I don't remember exactly. I think eight or nine of the young people that we invite in Joao Pessoa participate at this event in Washington, D.C. about cybersecurity.
So if we have time and money and energy to train young people, they will be following us and they will work together with us. And we are preparing the next generation to be on our side. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Hartmut. It's a very critical, very critical program.
That actually brings us to the end of the time. We have Sala who in the queue. We will pick up with you when we come back at 3:00 right after the break, if that's okay.
If we need more time on the taking stock and the IGF -- looking forward to the IGF 2016, we will do that. So I will have one more call for further interventions.
And then, again, just a quick reminder, the agenda this afternoon will focus on the outcomes from the high-level meetings in December and other initiatives, other Internet governance initiatives.
So with that, I want to thank everybody for, I think, a very productive morning session.
I don't know if, Chengetai, the secretariat has any kind of announcements, public service announcements?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No. We'll just meet back here at 3:00. Thank you.
[ Lunch break ]
