ICANN65 was held at the Palmeraie Conference Center Marrakech. Two representatives from DNS were in attendance - Sasha Dinculescu and Calvin Browne. The 4 day event marked the 2019 ICANN Policy Forum which is typically dedicated to policy development work of the Supporting Organisations and Advisory Committees (SO/ACs), and regional outreach activities.
Internet policy is developed by the ICANN community's bottom-up, consensus-based policy-making structure. Three groups at ICANN are responsible for developing Internet policy and making recommendations to the ICANN Board: The Address Supporting Organisation (ASO), Country Code Names Supporting Organisation (ccNSO), and Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) which is the largest policy-making organisation in ICANN.
The GNSO's Policy Development Process (PDP) is a detailed bottom-up, multi-stakeholder process that invites global participation and depends on the Internet community's input for success. The Policy Forum is an important opportunity for PDP working groups to advance their work in face-to-face meetings with the broader community.
Recognising his dedication to the multistakeholder model, ICANN announces Kurt Pritz as the recipient of the 2019 Multistakeholder Ethos AwardI spoke to Sasha Dinculescu following his return to South Africa after the ICANN Policy Forum about his experience at the event. This was not his first ICANN Policy Forum and it definitely won't be his last!
He was drawn to attend in order to keep abreast of ICANN's and the community’s efforts that are ongoing related to RDAP (Registration Data Access Protocol), the future of a System for Standardised Access/Disclosure of Non-Public Data (SSAD), the implementation of the EPDP (Expedited Policy Development Process) Phase 1 requirements, and the next round of gTLDS.
All of the meeting throughout the 4 days were great and very informative. However, the last day stood out for him because the community held a cross-community discussion on how it plans to tackle all the changes coming out of the EPDP Phase 1. This affects all the ICANN Consensus Policies, ICANN Contracts and various other documents and procedures in the ICANN sphere. "The task is mammoth in size, and it's good to see the diversity in opinion of the community coming together for a common goal." Sasha comments.
Back in the office, Sasha plans to use all the information he's gained at this years' forum and filter it into our DNS systems and processes, whether now or in the future. His primary gain from ICANN65 is knowing whats coming over the horizon and being prepared for the future.
Sasha Dinculescu and Ronald Schwärzler at the ICANN 65 Music Night in Marrakesh
DNS Business regularly attends ICANN meetings and events and is set have attendees at ICANN66 in Montréal later this year.
Posted by Kilana Chohan
