[AfrICANN-discuss] ICANN Opens 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

ICANN Opens 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi

Topics include Internet internationalization, increasing domain names
choices

11 February 2008

***NEW DELHI** , INDIA:* Internet issues from around the world are front and
center in India as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
opened its 31st International Public Meeting today in New Delhi.

"This year is an important one for the future of ICANN. The U.S. government
is in the middle of its Midterm Review of its Joint Project Agreement with
ICANN, and we're arguing it's time to take the final step to originally
envisioned private sector model for ICANN," said Peter Dengate Thrush,
ICANN's Board Chairman. "In fact the public comment period closes on the
final day of this meeting – so we expect plenty of discussion about this in
New Delhi, and we will be encouraging everyone who believes in the ICANN
model of coordination not control to make their thoughts known."

The New Delhi meeting is the first of the three public ICANN meetings in
2008. These meetings are crucial because ICANN's polices are created through
a bottom-up, transparent process involving Internet Community.

"There wlll be key discussions at the New Delhi meting about our ongoing
work to develop a new application and approval model for new generic
top-level domains or gTLDs, and our work on Internationalized Domain Names
or IDNs, which will mean the languages and scripts of most of the world
could be used to write domain names," said Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President
and CEO. "Because the ICANN model is based on bottom-up, consensus-driven
policy making, these global meetings are important ways of making sure ICANN
is on track and meeting the needs of the wider Internet community."

Discussions around IDNs will include two workshops, one on the Fast-Track
Process to find a way to represent territory identifications in local
languages as country-code top-level domains as quickly as possible in the
areas of highest need, and another on the pioneering work India is doing on
IDNs in Indian Languages and Scripts.

Other meeting highlights include:

   - A workshop on ICANN's planning for what happens if a Registrar were
   to cease operating
   - IT Success Story of India session with some of the leading figures
   from the Indian IT sector.An open and public ICANN Board Meeting.

The complete schedule for ICANN's 31st meeting, as well as links to webcast
sessions and our public participation website, can be found at:
http://delhi.icann.org/

*About ICANN: *

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of
unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes
like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that
help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of
these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global
stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's
ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized,
public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit:
www.icann.org.

*Media Contacts:*

Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan at icann.org

International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson at edelman.com
I am also available if you need any other information.
AR
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20080211/75515d60/attachment.htm