Welcome Ceremony Monday 29 October 2007 ICANN Meeting - Los Angeles >>VINT CERF: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. If you'll take your seats, we'll begin the proceedings. My name is Vint Cerf. I'm chairman of the board of ICANN. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to what I understand is the 30th meeting of ICANN, here in Los Angeles. Before we begin the proceedings, I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have language translation available, and we have headsets available. It's to your left on that wall over there. [ Applause ] >>VINT CERF: We have three languages being translated -- French, Spanish, and Russian, and of course English. I'd like to invite our translators to explain in their languages exactly what they are prepared to do. Please. (Translation). >> Those people who do not have the headsets, if you hear another language being spoken, a question being asked in another language, if it's in French, Russian, or Spanish, don't worry. If you don't have a headset at that moment, it will be relayed into English and it will be up on the screen in English. Thank you. [ Applause ] >>VINT CERF: ICANN meetings revolve around the responsibilities of ICANN and its constituents to act, to preserve the stable, secure, and reliable operation of the Internet system of unique identifiers. Since its inception, ICANN has maintained an important relationship with the U.S. Department of Commerce through its National Telecommunications and Information Agency. While the detailed terms of that relationship have evolved over the last nine years, it is rooted in a mutual interest in the creation and operation of an enduring institution to serve the global Internet community. Among the features of the multistakeholder organization of ICANN that I most value is the rich, candid, and respectful dialogue that takes place among the various constituencies with an interest in the Internet's identifier systems. There's a great deal of passion and energy to be found among the participants in the ICANN process, and I've been impressed by the maturing of the ICANN dialogue into an increasingly thoughtful and substantive examination of the issues facing the users and operators of various portions of the Internet. Before I introduce our keynote speaker this morning -- in this morning's session, I'd like to draw your attention to three people of note to ICANN who have served us well and who are poised to continue their service. Normally, I would be making these remarks at the end of the week. But because not all of them are going to be here all week, I am taking advantage of this morning's moment to make this announcement. The first one I want to recognize is Hagen Hultzsch. Hagen, if you could stand up, please. Hagen is a former board member and has accepted the responsibility to lead the next nominating committee. His assistant -- his associate chair is Wolfgang Kleinw?chter. Wolfgang is here as well. I would like to encourage you to contact either of them. Wolfgang will be here all week, I believe. Hagen has to fly off to other responsibilities. But I want to encourage each and every one of you to look for candidates, qualified candidates, to serve in various positions in the ICANN universe. Your help is essential to populating the various committees and boards that we depend upon. I also want very much to recognize George Sadowsky, who is here in the front, who has served for three years as the Nominating Committee chair, and will serve as an advisor to Hagen in this next cycle. And, finally, I'd like to thank Adam Peake, who I hope is here. Where is Adam? I don't see him standing up. Well, let me thank him anyway. He has worked very diligently with George Sadowsky and their colleagues in this year's Nominating Committee. And I ask you to thank all of them for their service. [ Applause ] >>VINT CERF: We're honored and privileged this morning to host the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, Mr. John Kneuer, within whose purview is the relationship between NTIA and ICANN. Expressed in the form of a joint project agreement, both parties are focused on developing an enduring ICANN that can serve the needs of all Internet users. The secretary has asked me not to read his bio, which I was fully prepared to do, because it's quite impressive. But he reminds me that he has been hanging around in this crowd for at least four years' time. So rather than walking through his biography, I think probably you'd like to hear what he has to say. So please join me in welcoming Assistant Secretary Kneuer. [ Applause ] >>ASSISTANT SECTY KNEUER: Thanks very much, Vint. And thank you all for having me here. Good morning. It's a real pleasure to be able to join you at the outset of ICANN's 30th meeting. This particular meeting represents a milestone in ICANN's development. Vint will be stepping down after eight years as ICANN's chairman of the board at the end of the week. As we all know, this particular span of eight years represents almost the entirety of ICANN's life cycle and arguably can be defined as the formative stage in ICANN's development. Many of you in this room have been actively engaged in ICANN since its inception and are no doubt personally familiar with the challenges confronting ICANN in its early days. There have also been more recent challenges that we have all faced together, and we can all agree that Vint's steady and farsighted leadership have played a critical role in meeting and overcoming these challenges. Many people far more esteemed than I have already paid tribute to Vint. In 1997, President Clinton ordered Vint the National Medal of Technology. And in 2005, the current President, George Bush, awarded our nation's highest honor to both Vint Cerf and Robert KAHN for their work, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. We don't have awards of such stature or similar awards at NTIA, which is a small agency. All I can really offer is my personal gratitude and thanks for your leadership and hard work and your friendship over these years. So thank you. [ Applause ] >>ASSISTANT SECTY KNEUER: The combination of Vint's technical expertise, business experience, and global stature has been exceptionally well suited to this unique enterprise that ICANN represents. Over the course of the past eight years, ICANN's model of full participation by all interested stakeholders in decisions and policy- making has progressively evolved and strengthened. As I look out into the audience today, it is clear to me that the expertise and resource commitments you all represent are a testament to the validity of the ICANN model. During my tenure at NTIA, I worked directly with Vint and Paul Twomey to continue this transition to the private sector management of the Internet domain name and addressing system. As Vint was pointing out, it occurred to me this morning that I've been at this for roughly four years, almost half of ICANN's existence. If my own short experience represents half of ICANN's existence, it really underscored to me how relatively young this institution is, given the enormously important work it is called upon to perform. While there have been the inevitable growing pains to be expected in any lasting institution, there's also been great progress. I think, in particular, the agreement that we executed in 2006, the Joint Program Agreement, was an important step forward and reflects maturity of the ICANN model. These aren't just my views. These are the views that were largely shared by the over 700 contributions that we received when we had an open process around the time of the execution of the new JPA. As you know, our public consultation process revealed broad support for the continued transition to the private sector. The majority of interested stakeholders endorsed the original principles put forward to guide this transition, stability and security, competition, bottom-up policy coordination, and broad representation. Equally importantly, the consultation revealed very strong support for further institutionalizing transparency and accountability. While our public consultation was very, very important, I think just as important was the ultimate result and the end product of that consultation. The new JPA included ten milestones to be achieved. And significantly, these weren't milestones or measures that were determined by the Department of Commerce. These were milestones that ICANN and the ICANN board adopted in response to the input of the community. Its continuing evolution is shaped by the affirmation of these responsibilities in the resolution. Although this is still a work in progress, it is fair to say there has been dramatic progress towards meeting the responsibilities outlined by the board. There will be an opportunity to review ICANN's progress towards becoming a more stable organization with greater transparency and accountability in the very near term. As you know, both ICANN and the Department agreed to a midterm review of the Joint Program Agreement, which will be in March of 2008. To assist us in conducting this midpoint review of ICANN's progress, we intend to undertake a similar exercise that we did when we originally signed up the JPA. I expect we will issue a Notice of Inquiry publicly very soon that will encourage all the relevant stakeholders to share their views with us. I cannot emphasize enough the importance the Department attaches to hearing directly from all interested parties involved in the ICANN community. We feel strongly that our review and the resulting report must be informed by your experiences with ICANN and perspectives regarding this evolution. I fully expect we will be working together with ICANN and with the board and with the community. As I said, the important measurements are the ten criteria that were adopted by the board resolution. Those were commitments that ICANN made to its board, and the board will ultimately be the judge of whether or not ICANN is meeting those responsibilities. So, clearly, working collaboratively together as a community, bringing our various interests and equities to this process, I'm confident this will be one more step forward to ensuring that ICANN serves as this enduring institution that we all rely upon to execute these very critical functions. We'll also be hosting a public session on the results of the Notice of Inquiry in the first quarter of 2008. We will have more detailed information about that as time progresses. But, again, I want to encourage your active participation in this. In closing, I think we can all agree that effective leadership is critical to the success of any enterprise, and I'm pleased to join all of you in recognizing Vint Cerf's invaluable contributions to ICANN. I would like to congratulate the new members of the board who are joining at this meeting. And I'm sure that Vint would agree with me that it is the continued active support by all of the members of the board that are fundamental to. The continued success of this institution. So I wish you all very productive meeting, I thank you for having me, and good morning. [ Applause ] >>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you, John. My name is Paul Twomey. I am the president and CEO of ICANN. And I would like to also join with Vint's remarks to welcome everybody here today for the 30th ICANN meeting. Public meeting. I would also like to welcome all of those who are online, who are participating through the public participation sites, many more than who are actually in this building here. And we have about, somewhere between a thousand and 1200 people here, I understand, in the building. So first of all, welcome to all of you. Second, thank you, John, for your words. And I personally thank you for both being here with us, I think it's an important signal. But I think as you pointed out, the ongoing discussion and work that we have done together in partnership in the last years with Vint and with others I think has been very valuable. We welcome your words and your comments. I would like to reinforce the sense of partnership that you talked about in terms of working together. We also see the Joint Partnership Agreement as being a milestone in that evolution. We welcome the announcement of the Joint Partnership Agreement midterm review, and you mentioned something potentially coming out officially shortly. As we have discussed that review and as we discussed the partnership in operation together, we find that very pleasing. The board takes its management principles, those ten principles that John referred to, very seriously. The board takes the views and the perspectives of the community very, very seriously. So we, too, look forward to the feedback from the community and the sort of, if you like, a more formalized process and look forward to receiving it, encouraging. I would make the point to the community that if you believe in the value of the single global interoperable Internet, if you believe in a multi-stakeholder approach to how it is managed across a global Internet, if you believe in the bottom-up participatory process, then I think this is the chance for you to say that. This is the chance for you to stand up for it, give your perspectives on it. And we would encourage all members of the community to give the partnership, if you like, that feedback as to how well ICANN is going in the pursuit of that as goals, and particularly how well the board itself is very keen -- would be very keen to hear feedback from the community about the execution towards those ten principles, which is so important to the board that it passed in resolution in September 2006. Perhaps I might just take a minute or two to talk a little bit about this particular meeting. This meeting clearly is an important milestone for ICANN. In one sense, because we have some leadership change. We have some members of the board who are moving on. We have new members of the board who are attending. And we are in the process of a change in the leadership of the board. First of all, a change some months back at the vice-chairman leadership, position with Alejandro Pisanty moving on, and then clearly at this meeting with Vint Cerf. We will have an opportunity to register our thoughts and thanks to Vint throughout the week, particularly on Tuesday night and also at the board meeting on Friday. But I would just like to make this particular point. As John, I think, indicated, we have been in the process together of building an institution that helps support a single global interoperable Internet that serves now something like 1, 1.2 billion people, which will in the future serve many more than that. And I think in the building of that institution, the important thing is to build upon the important principles established by the founders of the Internet. There are some incredibly important principles in the way in which they work, in the way in which they establish the -- the way the network actually works, the way the protocols work which have served the world in an amazing way. In a truly amazing way. But it is also important that as this becomes such an important part of the world social economic and technical future that it's based upon institutional strengths, not just upon heros. And so while we will celebrate one of our heros, I think we will also be celebrating the role here others have played in building an institution. An institution, one of Vint's geniuses, I think, in his time on the Internet is not just what is produced technically but at various key times in the history of the Internet he has stood up and helped build the administrative structures. I am reminded of his role in DARPA, the role in setting up the Internet Society and many other things. So in some respects, the moving on of Vint as chairman is also celebration of the strength of the institution that -- partly what we are all here for is to build the strength of institutions such that good people matter, but individuals matter less. And that we can make that transition, and I know that we have a strong board and a good -- and a rich board which will be able to take the task forward, and we are looking forward to that. I will also point out at this meeting we have several very intense pieces of work that are being undertaken. Part of what we will be doing is reviewing ICANN's ongoing technical test of Internationalized Domain Names. I notice one of the general articles recently referred to that as one of the biggest changes to the DNS in 20 years. I would like to point out to people who are actually here in the room that there will be computers set up in the lobby reception area which will allow you to actually go in and test, even if your screens are not -- keyboards are not set up for multilingual characters that there will be computers set up just for that and that you will be able to go and test the test environment itself here in the lobby during the meeting. So I would encourage all of you who, like myself, have ASCII-based keyboards to come and have a go and try it out in another character set. We are also obviously having a lot of discussion here about the development of policies on how Internationalized Domain Names will be implemented, so global Internet users can get their names in their languages. And we have somewhat summarized this whole initiative, if you like, in the phrase "My name, my language, my Internet." We're having a major workshop on increasing consumer choice through the development of application and approval processes for new generic top-level domains. I don't think we can underestimate the significance of the work being done in establishing a long-term liberalized regime for new gTLDs. Married with the introduction of IDN TLDs, I think this is one of the most significant pieces of work we will do for years, and I think this meeting is a very important part of that. There are many other activities underway, one which is an important discussion which I very much appreciate from the registrar constituency on others on enhancing protection for domain name registrants through amendments to the Registrar Accreditation Agreement. So those are a few instances, John, that are a matter of discussion here. You should have some confidence that this is a community that meets and gets work done. This is probably the only time we're going to get to see this many people in one room before they disappear off into multiple rooms, getting multiples tasks done working together as constituencies. I wish everybody Good Luck for this week. I very much appreciate people's attendance. I very much appreciate people's efforts. I very much appreciate the work done. One of our key volunteers here said to me just before -- we have a one-week meeting. The one-week meeting seems to start now on the Friday of the previous work and dribbles into the Saturday of the following weekend. So it's probably a very Internet thing to have a ten-day week. And we certainly reflect that here. So thank you very much to everybody. Thank you, John, for your words, Vint. With that, we'll bring this opening session to a close. [ Applause ] >>VINT CERF: I hope everyone noticed that we finished 15 minutes early. Maybe we can be expeditious for the rest of the week and deal with that ten-day-week thing. You are excused. [ Laughter ]