ICANN78 Hybrid Meeting Agenda
Agenda
Hamburg, Germany 21 October 2023 - 26 October 2023
Introduction
Management of the GAC ICANN78 Hamburg, Germany Hybrid Meeting
(GAC Members login recommended)
The ICANN78 Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held in Hamburg, Germany. The meeting will be conducted as a hybrid event to accommodate both in-person and virtual attendance. The GAC schedule during the ICANN78 AGM has been developed by the committee to leverage that hybrid AGM format.
The GAC public meeting during ICANN78 will cover a total of six (6) calendar days from Saturday 21 October through Thursday 26 October 2023. The first two days, Saturday 21 October and Sunday 21 October, will feature a Capacity Development Workshop (CDW) program including five session blocks each day providing an array of topics to inform and allow GAC participants to discuss the priorities of the committee and learn about the DNS and its future.
Specific CDW sessions will include information about the GAC”s role in the broader arena of internet governance, committee priority policy topics, DNS basics and new technologies that are emerging to impact the DNS including alternative namespaces and blockchain. GAC Members participating in the CDW will leverage scheduled “breakout” sessions to discuss what they have learned and to explore their own regional priorities that can be considered among themselves and by the broader committee.
The remaining 4 core days of the GAC meeting (Monday through Thursday) at ICANN78 will present many opportunities for attendee discussions and deliberations. The GAC has made time for the committee’s various policy and advice priorities while also providing bandwidth for Members to participate in important cross-community endeavors. During the meeting, committee members will continue their work on several key topics that have attracted priority attention from governments throughout the last several years. These topics will include (1) discussions regarding the program for the next round of new generic top-level domains (including how to ensure an organizational commitment to substantially reduce or eliminate the application fees and ongoing ICANN registry fees to expand financial support for applicants from underrepresented or underserved regions); (2) Registration Data Services (RDS/WHOIS) and data protection policies; and (3) DNS abuse mitigation measures. In addition, GAC Members will discuss various operational issues, including the GAC’s future contributions to the work of the ICANN Nominating Committee. The rest of the ICANN78 program will involve a community public forum and full community sessions regarding geopolitical matters.
GAC Meeting Schedule:
Health and Safety
ICANN org will continue to monitor governmental and public health guidelines closely, including all updates from the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the regional governments of this event location. The following is a general overview of what to expect on-site during the meeting.
ICANN Org will implement a comprehensive plan to ensure a safe and productive meeting, which includes;
- All attendees will be required to attest (while registering to attend) that on/before 21 October 2023 that they will be fully vaccinated and up to date against COVID-19, which, in most cases, includes booster shot(s).
- Mask wearing while indoors is strongly recommended.
- Contact tracing measures (badge scanning).
- Enhanced venue cleaning and contact safety measures
- Enhanced food service handling and safety for catered services
- Attendee acknowledgement to agree to the outlined health and safety measures
More details on health and safety measures for ICANN78 are available in a comprehensive “FAQ” document at https://meetings.icann.org/en/icann78.
This information will be updated as events warrant.
Event Registration - Mandatory for in-person attendees
Anyone planning to attend ICANN78 in-person will be required to pre-register for the meeting no later than 20 October 2023. This will allow the ICANN Meetings Team to allocate on-site resources effectively.
Registration for the meeting is now open. And virtual registration will remain available through 26 October 2023.
GAC Support staff will reach out to the full GAC mailing list to remind all potential attendees (both in-person and remote) to register for the meeting.
At the bottom of this page, GAC Support staff will create individual links to each GAC plenary session to enable attendees to access session connection information and supporting documentation as they are made available.
Meeting Page Updates
This page will continue to be updated as additional information (e.g., session agendas, pre-meeting briefings, etc.) about ICANN78 becomes available.
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Calendar Invitations:
It has become standard GAC practice to directly email calendar invitations to all GAC participants for all individual GAC sessions, community plenary (cross-community) sessions and notable community working group sessionsç This will be done again for the hybrid format ICANN78 Annual General Meeting. The initial emailed calendar invitations for individual sessions are typically transmitted to GAC representatives and delegates a week or so before each public meeting. Specific call connection details are then added to the invitations as they become available the day before each session.
For ICANN78, invitations are expected to be sent during the ICANN Prep Week.
ICANN78 Zoom and Real Time Transcriptions (RTT):
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GAC Members will receive Zoom link and RTT information via email in direct session calendar invite updates.
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Every GAC Zoom room session will have a different distinct web link.
- Links to session recording and transcripts will be posted after the public meeting week concludes.
GAC Briefings
[Until the start of the ICANN78 meeting, this content section will be amended from time to time with web links as various pre-session written briefings and other materials become available.]
In preparation for GAC Public Meetings, GAC topic leads and Support Staff have traditionally prepared a number of topical briefings for GAC members that provide (1) information about the objectives for each session topic, (2) updates on recent developments regarding the topic, (3) previews of the proposed session agendas and (4) links to other resources of information about the session subject matter. These briefings are supported by other ICANN org staff, as appropriate, to ensure factual accuracy.
Pre-ICANN78 GAC Webinars
Prior to the ICANN78 AGM, GAC participants had the opportunity to attend two (2) onboarding webinars dedicated to informing new participants about GAC operational basics and preparing attendees for their first ICANN meeting.
The first webinar scheduled on 21 September, was designed to help new GAC participants understand the basic operational functions of the committee.
The second webinar, scheduled on 3 October, shared with new committee participants the key pieces of information that they might find helpful for them to prepare for their meeting and to participate effectively.
Both webinars offered basic informational foundations useful for all participants. Links to both webinar events can be found at the top of this GAC ICANN78 Meeting page.
Written Briefings
Applicable individual briefings for each of the scheduled GAC sessions at ICANN78 may be accessed via links provided below on this page in the “Materials” section of each session link.
Briefings are typically circulated to the GAC Membership about two weeks prior to the start of the public meeting and are planned to be made available on or about 11 October for the ICANN78 Public Meeting:
- Applicable individual Briefings for each of the scheduled GAC plenary sessions can be accessed via links provided on this page in the “Materials” section of each session link.
- All written briefings for each of the scheduled sessions may also be downloaded directly from this page. Watch this space for links to be posted approximately two weeks prior to the start of the public meeting:
- All ICANN78 written briefings together as a ZIP file
- Individual ICANN78 written briefings as a single PDF file
As developments warrant, GAC Support staff will provide updated materials to various session links on this web page right up until the start of the ICANN78 Annual General Meeting.
Other Resource Briefing Documents:
In addition to the resources on this web page, GAC Support staff is compiling preparation materials to help attendees fully utilize the remote connection services and resources that are being provided by ICANN org for the ICANN78 Annual General Meeting. That documentation is developed for every GAC meeting in the form of a “one-stop” reference manual that consolidates various notices and reminders about meeting planning and logistics. A web link to the ICANN org document will be posted on this page after an email notice is made to GAC Members and Observers.
As they become available, this web page section will also provide links to preview and briefing documents prepared by the GNSO Support staff and the ICANN org Policy Development Support team.
- GAC ICANN78 Annual General Meeting Logistics Details
- GNSO ICANN78 Briefing
- ICANN78 Policy Outlook Report
- ICANN Policy Research and Stakeholder Programs - Pre ICANN78 Report - with status update on Next Round of New gTLDs
For each ICANN Public Meeting, the ICANN organization (“ICANN org”) also publishes a general meeting guide for meeting attendees. You may find more details at the following link:
Please contact GAC Support Staff at gac-staff@icann.org if you have questions about accessing any of these briefing documents.
Individual GAC ICANN78 Agenda Sessions:
All GAC plenary session entries below reflect the time of the session in the “UTC” time zone.
Where appropriate, and as they become available, each GAC session link below is accompanied by links to a preparatory session briefing and other materials that are associated with the session. After the ICANN78 Meeting concludes, links to meeting session recordings will also be added to each session page link.
Please contact GAC Support Staff at gac-staff@icann.org if you have questions regarding any of these session preparations or arrangements.