2019 IGF - MAG - Virtual Meeting - XV

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during an IGF virtual call. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Okay.  It's two minutes past.  Good afternoon, morning, and evening, ladies and gentlemen.  This is MAG Virtual Meeting XV.  We're about to start.  As usual, the meeting is being recorded, as the transcript and the meeting summary is going to be posted after the meeting. 

Apologies for the meeting summary from last, we have not posted it yet, but we will post it either this afternoon or early tomorrow morning.  Sorry.  There was just a delay and mixup because of the holidays and people going in and out of the office. 

So with that, we'll hand the meeting over to Lynn to start the meeting. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  

Can everyone hear me, again?  I don't have the transcript open yet. 

Can you hear me, Chengetai?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes, we can. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay, thank you.  Sorry. 

Well, welcome, everybody.  I hope everybody had a good break, whether you're in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern Hemisphere.  I thank everybody for the all work that's been happening over the last few months, as well.  It was somewhat difficult, given the holiday break, but it's clear that we made a lot of really good and useful progress over the last few months. 

The first agenda item of business is the approval of the agenda, which was sent to the MAG list earlier.  It is there in the Zoom window.  Let me give it a moment and see if there are any requests for edits or requests for A.O.B.?

>> MARY UDUMA:  Hello?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Yes, hi, Mary.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Can you hear me, please?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We can hear you, Mary.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Hi, everyone.  On the A.O.B., I did raise issue on the shadow, the publication on the shadow, and the idea of shadow.  Please, if we can put it on the A.O.B.  And also, the IGF hubs. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  IGF hubs, and what was the first one?  The IGF shadow?

>> MARY UDUMA:  The shadow.  I had some concerns about the shadow.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Yeah.  That's right.  I did see the note on the IGF schedule.  Okay.

Okay.  We've added those two items.  

Any other requests or comments?  The agenda is being updated there in realtime.

Then I'd like to call for approval of the agenda.

We'll wait just a moment to make sure there's no additional requests.  We will be using the speaking queue as far as possible.  Okay.  Seeing no additional requests or comments, we will call the agenda approved.

And we'll move to the next item of interest which is the introduction and welcome, which I completed at the beginning of the call.  In addition to those comments, we do have quite a full agenda today, so I would like to make it through the full agenda with updates.  If people could build on updates either from past meetings or past communications, online communications, with a real focus on any specific suggestions for help or possible speakers, whatever is required to progress the preparations, if you could focus on that and call that out clearly I think that would help us make maximum progress and stick to the schedule, as well.

With that, let me move to the next item, which is the update from the IGF Secretariat.  Chengetai, you have the floor.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you.  Very few updates this time around.  As Mary mentioned, the latest iteration of the schedule has been posted.  We hope only just to make a few changes now and it should be more or less set.  I mean there's a few things that were mentioned, and we're swapping, and some people agreed to swap sessions by themselves.  We're doing that.

I know Mary had a lot of comments, but unfortunately we'll get to it when we get to it, any other business.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Actually, Chengetai, if you want to cover it now, this is probably the best time that we do get to it, because I know it's important for you that you close the schedule.  If you could get to it now, that would be good.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Mary made some good points, but unfortunately for the NRI sessions we can really reorganize the schedule anymore.  To follow Mary's suggestion, it's not a light reorganization.  It's a much more heavier one and we cannot do that at the moment.

As for the African Open Forum, we can move it if the organizers agree.  I don't think we've heard back from them yet.  And the NRI sessions are only one hour long.

I don't know if Mary wants to say something now?  Mary?

>> MARY UDUMA:  Thank you, Chengetai.  I actually admire the difficult work you and your team would have to work through to bring us to where we are in terms of scheduling of the meeting.

I only want offer that if the opening session is going to be what I thought, probably mistaking it, what I thought it would be, I thought the opening session would not have competing sessions or workshops or even open forum, but it seems to me that I was wrong; that opening session is just as one of those sessions that will happen at parallel, on parallel business.  So if that is the case, I had volunteered to be one of the organizers of the opening sessions and closing session    opening session and closing session.  So I have to drop because I will be with the NRI's.  I know most NRI's also would want to be at the DC O forum.  So one session might not    my understanding, then, was that it's like something that would be    will not be competing with other sessions.  So if there's nothing that can be done about it, so be it.  That's the first.  The NRI's might want to opt out of the opening session to run our programme in the NRI sessions or DC sessions or even open forum sessions. 

Thank you.

That was my concern and that was what I was trying to raise.  So the opening session is not as important as I thought it was.  Thank you.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you, Mary.  It is important, but unfortunately we couldn't have it stand alone because it would reduce greatly the number of sessions that we can hold.  So unfortunately there's nothing we can do about it.  But thank you, Mary, for your comments.

The other update, for registration we have 1,200 registrations at the moment.  So I think it's going at a good pace and hopefully more and more people will register.  As usual, registrations do go, you know, the classic S curve.  A lot of people register at the beginning and then at the middle very few and right at the end, near the deadline, then you have the same number of people who registered at the beginning as well.

So I think, looking at the historic data, it's actually quite good, the number of registrations we have at the moment.  But that does not mean that we should stop encouraging people to register as early as possible.  Especially if people want to get visas and they might require help and all this takes time.

As for the registration of the hubs, we have about 10, a little bit more than 10 hubs that are also registered.  I would ask for your help to encourage hubs to register early because we do want to have some sort of a training session with the hubs and also connect these hubs with sessions that they may be interested in.  

And with the session organizers, talk to them to see where they can have an input or even have prepared inputs where they think about policy questions and give an input during the session that piques their interest.  So I'd ask for your help with that.

That's all the updates from the Secretariat.  

Let me just ask the others if they have any updates?  Luis?  Anja?

>> LUIS BOBO GARCIA:  No more updates.  Thank you, Chengetai.

>> ANJA GENGO:  Nothing, Chengetai.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'd also like to introduce Lima.  She's a new fellow that started.  I think she's been here about a month, now.  She's from Afghanistan and she has a lot of experience with the National IGF and also Women and Tech.  I'll just ask her to say hello quickly, so that you know her.  And sorry for putting her on the spot because I think she wasn't expecting to say anything.

>> LIMA MADOMI:  Hello?  Yeah.  Hello, everyone.  This is Lima. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Welcome, Lima.  I'm sure you'll find the entire IGF community and the MAG, as well, very willing to help support any questions.  So don't hesitate to reach out to any of us individually or collectively.

>> LIMA MADOMI:  Thank you so much.  I'm also looking forward to it.  I hope I'll be more, I could say, like, useful for the whole IGF community and I could help as much as I can.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  We're very happy to have you in the Secretariat, and I'm sure the Secretariat is very appreciative, as well.

>> LIMA MADOMI:  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Chengetai, before we leave there, maybe we can take the IGF hub question from Mary here now again.  I think these are key questions and we need to get to them.  There are also two chat questions for you, and Paul has requested the floor, as well.  Paul, I'm not sure if it's on a past topic or a new subject.  If you can come in, we'll figure out where to slot that as well.

>> PAUL:  Hi, Lynn.  It's actually on the schedule.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Let's take the schedule, then.  Maybe come back and just finish the hubs.  Mary, I call on you to see if there are any additional questions, and then Chengetai there are a couple of questions on registration in the chat room.  I'll give you a couple of minutes to look at those, as well.  Paul, you have the floor on the IGF schedule.

>> PAUL:  Thank you, Lynn.  My comment really is on the schedule, and I see it's a very complex.  There's a lot of things happening.

But on the additional inconclusion track, we have a workshop that happens at the same time as the concluding session.  And of course, that's not ideal, because we would want to give the opportunity for everybody that's participated in that track to participate in the concluding session.  So my ask really is that we don't have an overlap with a workshop from that track at the same time as the concluding session.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  That's a very good point.  We'll fix that.  Thank you for pointing that out.  We'll fix it.

>> PAUL:  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Paul.

IGF hubs, Mary?  Move the A.O.B. item up to the Secretariat update.

Mary, what was your question on the hubs?

Chengetai, perhaps you could ask the two questions in the that room on the registration and then we'll see if Mary comes back.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  For registration, yes, it would be good if everybody registers, even the high level officials.  I think it is also important that, so that people know who is coming, and maybe people would want to have, you know, bilateral meetings because a lot of bilateral meetings happen.  This will also be an opportunity for them to be approached or the team to be approached to organize bilateral meetings with other high level meetings or with anybody they will accept bilaterals with.  So I would encourage everybody to register, even if you haven't received an invitation letter.  Please encourage them to register.

As for the regional breakdown, no, not yet.  But I can send one afterwards.  It didn't take that long to get a breakdown.  As soon as we have it, I can send it out.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Maybe we can periodically post the stakeholder and regional breakdowns online clear, as of such and such a date or something.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  Actually, we can have an active page where you can click on it and see it in realtime, what the breakdown is.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  That would be very good.

>> Sorry to jump in here.  There's a live date which includes the presentation type.  So you can be already seen there.  There are no graphs but you can see in the structure of the page how many are registered from the stakeholder group.  If additional information is needed, it can be done, but in snapshots, not live, because the system we're using doesn't provide this feature.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Luis.  If we could make sure that everybody has the link, as well.  And appreciate everything you're doing to keep the information up to date.  So I'll leave it to you and Chengetai to see what's most appropriate.

Mary, if you could come in now with any additional questions or comments on the IGF hubs?

>> MARY UDUMA:  Okay.  I'm happy Chengetai already made the comment that I wanted to ask, that is whether there would be something like a one hour training, one.  And secondly, like what we did in Mexico, where one of the hubs were beamed to their respective session interests.  So if we're holding administration, for instance, and a hub from Afghanistan wants to intervene, it can be beamed and we can see live connection and live communication with those at the hub.  Those are the things I had wanted to get clarification on and, also, Chengetai has already explained much of the training side.  And if we could also look at having live interventions, that would be fine.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Mary.

Chengetai?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  I didn't hear a question, but   

>> LUIS BOBO GARCIA:  Maybe I can answer, Chengetai? 

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Sure.

>> LUIS BOBO GARCIA:  For the remote hubs, I just put on the screen, I'm going to share the link.  This is a live update with all registered remote hubs.  If you're loading our page, you can simply click on the tab and you will access the content information.  It has all the sessions and things in which they're interested, so it's easily reachable, and this is the area.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Thank you, Luis.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Anything further?  Mary?  Chengetai?  Or Luis?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No, nothing.

>> MARY UDUMA:  I'm fine.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Mary, thank you for your always very helpful questions, too.  I appreciate all the attention.

I saw a question go by a moment ago, I think, which is on the parliamentarian session.  I don't believe    I looked a few minutes ago and I don't believe we have anybody from the host country, the German government, on the call yet.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  This is Rudolf.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Rudolf, excellent.  I didn't see you in the list.  Are there any updates you'd like to give with respect to the preparations and specifically the parliamentarian session?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  I think two weeks ago the invitations have been sent out from the president of our parliament to the presidents of all the parliaments, and we're now at a confirmation right of around 50 parliamentarians from all around the world, which is very good.  Still confirmations are coming in.  I don't know if Jutta is on the call.  She might know a little bit more.  I'm on the Civil Society track, but on the Private Sector and the Government track for the day zero, we also have very good turnout.

Many of the governmental representatives are coming now out of their break, summer break, so we are confident that at the end we will have a good number of representatives from governments at day zero, and we already have around 30 participants from CEO level from the business sector.

So this high level multistakeholder meeting is going also on a very good track.  I don't know, perhaps Jutta can add something on the Civil Society, but that's more or less where we are on the parliamentarians and, also, the day zero. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Rudolf, and apologies for not having a specific agenda item for the host country.  In the future, we will make sure we have.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  No problem.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Jutta, is there anything you'd like to add?

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Yes, thank you for giving me the floor.  We sent out an invitation to Civil Society and Technical Community about two or three weeks ago, and we had a very good resonance from Civil Society and from Technical Community, so now we are preparing for defining the roles for speakers, moderators, and based on the profiles of those people that had already responded positively to the invitation, and so we tried to have a balanced assembly of people in the four stakeholder groups.  In the end, we will only be able to define who is speaking to which group and so on after we know in full who will take part in the meeting.  But we are confident that it will be a good mix of stakeholder groups and a very high level of representation of the four stakeholders groups.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.

Rudolf, anything further?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  No.  Perhaps on day one, we are also advancing, we are thinking about, yet we're not quite sure yet, if we want to do two panels after the opening segment or three.  We would have to put time for three, if we limited the time per panel to one hour.  So that we are still thinking what might be the best solution.  It's also depending on the issues to be covered by those panels.  One would probably cover the question of future internet governance or something like that.  And it will also be, hopefully, quite high level.  And the other one, we are still thinking about, the other two ones. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Rudolf.

I'm also assuming the parliamentarians will be registered, as well.  At some point I believe they need to be registered just to get access to the full plan of IGF activities.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yes.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think that would be helpful to the community, as well.

And there's a question for Michael in the chat room about ten days given to travel support for the parliamentarians was too short.  I'm not sure if Michael wants to say anything additional or if you understand the question.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  As the host country, we can be very flexible about this, but I don't know about the UN in terms of regulations and procedures.  So I give it back to Chengetai, if he has anything to add.  But from our side, we can be as flexible as possible on this time issue.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  We have increased that period until 15th of September, if I'm not mistaken.  So they do have more time.

But unfortunately, we can't really go over that, because we are traveling a lot of people, and the UN system is a little bit slow in granting this travel, because they have to have insurance and a lot of paperwork.  So we can't go beyond that.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  It's a thorough process (laughs.)

There was also one or two specific requests, Rudolf, for you to share the copy of invitation sent to the various, for instance, one of them was from the Italian president of parliament.  Mary has a similar question for Nigeria.  I would ask people, if they have specific requests, I guess, to contact    I'm not sure.  Is that you?  Or Jutta?  Or somebody?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  They can contact me.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Okay.  We'll take that offline.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Yeah.  Yes.  We can provide anyone who has, I mean, some issues, we can provide them with a copy of the invitation.  That's also true for the ministers, by the way.  Some ministers state they never got the invitation.  Others got it.  So it's there in some countries.  Those who think they should be invited and they feel they haven't been, please contact me.  The best thing would be via the embassy in Berlin.  I think all the countries have an embassy and we will provide them with a copy.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  That's helpful.  Helpful, Rudolf.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Yeah.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Any further comments, Rudolf, from your side?  Or anything you're looking for, from the MAG?  The secretariat?  Or myself?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Not for the moment, Lynn.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you.  And likewise, thank you to all the MAG members who put the questions in the chat room.  And we can share Rudolf's email address offline.

Moving then to the next agenda item.  It was a very brief one.  It's the UN Digital Cooperation Report consultation.  I just wanted to remind everyone that that was still open.  It's open until the end of this month.  There have been a few comments.  I think the last time I looked was a couple of days ago and there were comments from two or three individuals only.  So we really need to push the outreach, particularly beyond our normal communities, as well.  I had also    would like to ask the Secretariat, I sent a memo in yesterday, Chengetai, to see if we could also support statements being posted, as well as supporting the kind of inline commenting, that the commenting platform allows.

In my discussions with a couple of individuals across stakeholder groups, I think people felt that if there was the ability to actually post a statement, similar to the way a lot of these consultations work, that that would bring in some additional comments, as well.  That that was a process that was more comfortable to many than the commenting platform.

Is it possible to do that, Chengetai?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes, it is possible.  And we have updated the instructions to say that respondents can also email contributions to IGF at UN.org.  Then we'll post them onto the website.  So we've already amended the instructions.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you.  Sorry, I missed that.  

Maria was saying she had a couple of comments that weren't    Maria, you have the floor on the previous item.  Going back to   

>> MARIA PAZ CANALES LOEBEL: Hi, Lynn.  Thank you.  Yes, I'm here.  

My two previous questions, I'm sorry they got lost in the channel in the chat.  One is directed to Jutta regarding the confirmation of the high level participants of the different stakeholder groups.  If there's any place, maybe I missed the information, that these will be available so we will have a sense of who will be representing the different regions and the different groups.  That was one.

And the other one was directed to the Secretariat regarding the booking of the bilateral rooms for meetings.  Which is showing now, in my own experience, as still pending of configuration.  So I'm asking if there will be a message that will be sent to confirm in the booking was provided or not?  Or when we should expect that information to be confirmed?  Thank you very much.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Maria.  

Chengetai?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  You will receive written confirmation.  We had a discussion about the bookings because the reason why we said we will send you a confirmation email is because we, first of all, wanted to see the demand for the rooms.  Right now, it seems we are able to take in all the requests.  So I think we'll be sending them beginning of next week, we'll send you the requests.  If you don't get them at the beginning, you'll get them at the end of this week.  I think we can comfortably fit everybody in.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Maria, did that answer your questions?

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Lynn, if I may step in here, because one question was directed to me, Jutta. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Please.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Maria, I cannot answer the question right now.  We have not published a list of those who have confirmed them being attending the high level meeting.  We have a bilateral meeting with Rudolf tomorrow and we will discuss then.  So then probably we will give you an individual answer on that question. 

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.

And of course, my general response is that if everybody, as the Secretariat requested, does in fact fill out the registration and agree to make their names public, that would also serve as the list, as well.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  That's very important, Lynn.  We are, of course, encouraging everybody who is responding to the invitation to the high level meeting that they also need to register on the IGF website at their earliest convenience.  Of course, the list of registrants to the IGF meeting will also serve as a list for high level participation.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Excellent.  Thank you, Jutta.  Thank you for all the support you're giving for these additional activities in addition to all your MAG activities.

Just one final comment on the Digital Cooperation Report.  It is important that we respond.  MAG members should feel free to respond either as individuals or, if it's more appropriate, on behalf of your organizations or your entities. 

Again, this consultation and the responses to it are going to drive one of the main sessions at the IGF, where it's been clear from the Secretary General's office that they're actually looking for a substantive discussion and are hoping to be able to make some kind of concrete advancements or concrete improvements to the IGF activities. 

So I think it's really important that we provide some time, provide some input.  The more we spend doing that now, of course, the better the session, and the better the results will be for this consultation and for all of our improvement exercises.

This is a relatively unique opportunity, given the genesis of the high level panel report, to really ensure that things that we obviously feel very, very strongly about and are very knowledgeable about are brought into the discussion, and brought in in a timely enough manner.  So it really is important that we contribute now in the consultation, and we can use that for the session and build upon that.

But please, don't just hold back thinking we're coming in and having a day zero discussion during the IGF on the report.  Because I think the intent is that that discussion starts now and we just continue to progress it over the coming months.

I want to encourage everybody to give it some time, give it some thought.

And again, please, reach out beyond the usual suspects.  The one thing the IGF community has always cared about, and certainly was supported, as well, during the report phase, of course, is bringing in those voices that aren't yet a part of these discussions or aren't yet enjoying the same level of access as many of us do.

So that's going to take an extra effort to bring some of those voices in.

I don't know if there's even the possibility to use some of the hubs that we've set up ahead of time to get some of their thoughts and input and early contribution, but I really want to encourage everybody to think a little creatively about how we can get some additional voices in and how we can actually get a discussion started online now.

Again, it will make the discussion a lot more useful during the IGF itself.

Chengetai, or Rudolf, is there anything you want to add with respect to that consultation for the main session that we'll be feeding into?

>> Rudolph: This is Rudolph speaking.  First of all, I can announce there will be quite extensive input by the German government that we're in the process of coordinating, all the departments in our government, which has also been a little bit delayed due to the holiday season, but we will come up with this statement in due time and we will communicate it through different channels, actually.

This channel that we have set up.  There is also another one, a consultation, that we will also communicate directly to the UN.  That is for us as Germany.

As host country, as I told you, for us, this is one of the main issues to be discussed on different levels during the IGF, and we will probably    we are trying to have, on the basis of the input that we are getting, a high level segment on day one, of one hour or so, a panel just like the panels we had last year, after the speech of President Macron.  And that could then also feed into the main session and all the discussions during the IGF

So it is really very important to us as a host country and we are very actively participating in this process, also, via our firm office with New York and we would really encourage everybody to do the same, to engage, to give comments, and to speak up, because if you don't do it somebody else will take the lead and provide for us.  And that is perhaps not what this body might wish for. 

And I'm taking the opportunity to announce that I have to leave in a half an hour earlier.

Thank you, Lynn.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Rudolf.  

Chengetai, anything you want to add?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.  I just want to underscore everything that Rudolf and you just said, Lynn.  It's important that you contribute and encourage everybody else to.  I know we ask a lot for the NRI's, as well, to get together, discuss it.  I mean they don't have to discuss the whole document, just discuss the pertinent sections, especially recommendation 5B.  And give input.  I think this is one of the rare chances where you can actually make a change.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  And strong agreement, as well, with your comments and with Rudolf's.

And obviously, it would be important to hear from the NRI's.  It would be important to hear from the intercessional activities, as well, in terms of how we can strengthen some of their activities.

And really, just want to make it clear that, you know, we've, for many years, probably not an overstatement to say since the very first year of the IGF, suggestions for improvements, requests for improvements, and many times they've come from governments, which is also    and private sector, which are two of the stakeholder groups we'd really like to increase participation from.  You know?  In order to do that, we need to pay attention to their comments and ensure that we're putting our own thoughts into the process as well, as has been said many times.

So again, I think this is a relatively unique opportunity and a really important opportunity and we should all be taking advantage of it.  I want to make sure MAG members are clear, even as a MAG member, obviously we shouldn't respond as a MAG member, but you can respond in your individual capacity or respond on behalf of your organization.  That's more appropriate.

But whether current MAG members or previous MAG members, that community is the community that obviously has a very important insight into the IGF, and should have a lot to    a lot to contribute.

So please, do come in on that.

Jutta?  You have the floor.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  I just wanted to give a small hint at what we've done with the report is that we highlighted a special section of the report.  I do think the whole report is very well structured, but still some people might be afraid that if you encourage them to comment on the report it's a big document and it's a lot of things to read.  But when you highlight to them that there are special sections, for example, we highlighted the Human Rights section, and point the people especially to a section where you think this community might be interested in, especially that part of the report, then they would be more likely to comment. 

It's not necessary to comment on the whole report.  We've just sent out a newsletter to around about 1,000 people that are especially interested in human rights and children's rights, and I do think it's very useful to report back to the    or to comment and report back to the report with regard to a special section, not the report all over.  Most people might be afraid it's too difficult to do so, but if you point them to a special part of the report, I do think that would be more successful.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Jutta, that's an excellent point.  It ties in really well with the Secretary General's office expectation of a light weight, flexible process.  They're really hoping individuals or entities, whether within the UN system or outside, read the report and take upon themselves whatever actions they may think appropriate, whether that's something that was suggested directly in the report or something that comes about as a result of their own consultations and processes.  So I think that's a very good point.

And I'll come to Hana's question in a moment.

I think the fact that Jurdig (phonetic) has a consultation process and others have them is very, very good.  It's very important to have lots of different views, whether it's a view aggregated as a regional input or whether it's a view shared to support a global discussion. 

So I think all these efforts are complementary and everyone should determine where they think their inputs could be more useful.

Hana has a question for you, Rudolf, which is whether or not the host country would be so kind as to provide the list of ministers to delegations on request, understanding that title and registration would be different categories. 

Rudolf, if you're still here?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Yes.  Perhaps    perhaps we need some more, like, one week or ten days to have a really consolidated view, and then we can provide the list.  I can tell you that there are many of the G20 countries, some European countries, but also countries from the Global South.

The countries from the Global South, actually, some of them have expressed their interest, subject to the decision of the Secretariat on the travel support.  So there's a little certain conditionality on that.  So I don't have a clear view on this at the moment.  So we need to work it out.  And then we can, on request, provide you with some more information.

It is a tricky thing.  You know?  Everyone is asking for it.  Everyone wants to know it.  We have to be transparent but we also have to be efficient.  So let's see.  We can provide information.  I'm not sure if we will provide an entire list.  Certainly not inviting, actually.  But we can give you some overall indications.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Rudolf.  There were a couple other comments, as well, that I think I might suggest we take offline.  Hana for instance said it might be helpful if we add the designation of HE for high level dignitaries.

And there was a question from Arsene about whether the invitations were sent to the current or former ministers.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: They were sent to the permanent missions of all countries in New York.  They have not been sent directly to the ministers.  It's through the diplomatic channels.  So you have to ask with your New York colleagues or with the foreign offices.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you, Rudolf.

Again, if people have specific questions, maybe we can start with the Secretariat or if it's clear it's a question for the host country then with them.

But Chengetai, could I ask you to look through the comments?  A lot of them have to do with visibility and listings and that sort of thing.  And just ensure that we're taking on board anything we can, and that we flag to the German government any specific requests when they have, just so we can move forward with the agenda here.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Sure.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Again, to everyone who has posted questions, if you don't see your questions addressed in the coming days, then put them forward to Chengetai and I again, and we'll make sure they're taken up.

But if we could move to the next item, which is update and approval of the thematic or introductory sessions.

On the last call we had asked for a Working Group, ad hoc Working Group, to go forward and try to finalize a couple of the remaining questions.  I'm not sure who is going to talk to that status update.  Is that Susan?

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Sure.  Can you hear me?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We can, yes.  Thank you, Susan.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Great.  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, everybody.  I'm Susan Chalmers, NTIA. 

There's nothing like an impending meeting to be an action forcing event for MAG homework.  So I should say that yesterday I sent out templates for the introductory sessions to those who volunteered to co lead.  I'd like to go ahead and thank Ben Wallis and Lucien Castex for leading the Data Governance organization; Sylvia Cadena and Rajesh Chharia, who are leading the Security, Safety, Stability and Resilience interest section; and thank you to Paul Rowney who is joining me to organize the Digital Inclusion section.

And thanks to all the volunteers who have raised their hands to participate in those three different organization groups. 

So with that template that's sent out to the coleads, I've invited folks to go ahead and to review the template and then we'll be sending those templates which has an organizational project plan out to the various thematic groups.

And I may as well go ahead, as I have the floor, to remind those that if you are in a thematic group to begin with, say you were engaged in evaluation of digital inclusion, and were in workshops and on the digital inclusion list, that does not mean that you can't volunteer to help organize an interest section for a different theme. 

Luis sent out and I recirculated the mailing list for sign ups.  Please feel free to subscribe to that list. 

And then hopefully within a few days, the co leads will contact everybody on those lists and begin the organization discussion. 

I'm happy to answer any questions.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Susan, and Paul, and everybody else who has been helping to move this forward.  

Just giving a moment to see if there are any questions?

Is there anything else, Susan, that you or the Working Group members feel is still a significant open question?  Or are we pretty much closing down now on those questions and the process and just need to   

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  So at this point, I don't think so.  I mean something could always come up, but at this point I do not think so.  I might ask everybody to start thinking about    those who are volunteering to start thinking about ideas for a speaker who will be at the IGF who can give a really nice set of scene setting remarks, and in the various categories.

So if people could just keep that in mind and send suggestions to the list, once the process kicks off, that would be very helpful.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think the document actually called for kind of a TED Talk like speaker.  Which I think a speaker that really kind of underlines how important, you know, these issues are and highlights in some really kind of visible way the importance of the work that we're doing and gets people really excited, I think, would be really    really useful.

Ben, you have the floor.

>> BEN WALLIS: Thank you, Lynn.  And hello, everybody.  Just a really quick point about the work that will take place now to prepare these introductory and conclusion sessions.  Very grateful to Susan for everything she's done to kind of drive this forward.  And I noted in response to her emails to the MAG list there were several people volunteering, saying they'd be happy to volunteer, they'd like to join in with a particular thematic group.  I just wanted to kind of emphasize that those people need to sign up to the lists.  They won't be signed up themselves.  Because all the work now that's going to happen to prepare these sessions that will kick off in the next few days is going to happen via those lists.  So if people are volunteering and want to take part, they need to physically sign themselves up to the lists.  The point is being made in emails, but I just thought it was worth emphasizing, because I know some people seem to respond that they're volunteering, but it's not clear whether they're also signing up.  Just a kind of process point.  Thanks.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Good point, Ben.  Thank you.

Mary, you have the floor.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Thank you.  Can you hear me?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We can.  Yes.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Thank you.  I want to also join Ben to congratulate Susan for the great work and all the efforts.  Just as I said at the beginning, I think I got it wrong in understanding of what the programme was all about.  I got it wrong.  But now that I understand, all those issues that I raise, I want to withdraw them and I want to withdraw my membership of that session.  I will not participate because I will be working with the NRI's.  I wish that the programme will go well.

But one of the things I want to also raise is that if the breakout session is there, maybe we'll look at what Raquel said last time, if we could have a breakout session along the line of languages, that would make it more engaging and more interesting, since there will be no translation.

Thank you very much.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Mary.

Susan, did you want to say anything further? 

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you, Ben.  Thank you, Mary.  Thank you, Lynn.

Mary, sorry that we won't be able to have you as part of the organizational effort, but I completely and fully understand, because of the scheduling conflict.

And no, I think that's it.  I mean folks are certainly more than welcome to reach out with any questions, but just, you know, just to reinforce what Ben says.  Please note that you'll have to sign up for the list yourself, and we will be contacting you shortly.

And I think this is a real opportunity for people to engage and collaborate and build those connections across shared interests in these different thematic tracks.  So I think that will be a very neat aspect to incorporate the IGF this year.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Susan.  I'd like to add my thanks to you and Paul and the other members of the Working Group for all the work done on this, and you in particular as well did a lot of work on the main session guidelines and process.

I'd also like to point out that as part of this activity there was a second part, which was the concluding sessions.  There were some thoughts with respect to how the concluding sessions could be organized, and also some thoughts on some of the reporting that might come out of them, that we had agreed on an earlier call to move to the ad hoc Working Group on reporting.

And as Susan said, meetings being a sourcing function and the holiday season coming to an end meant I actually launched the ad hoc Working Group on reporting last night.  So we can pick up the reporting piece of that activity as part of that work. 

And that would probably be a good time to revisit what we want to achieve with the concluding sessions, as well.  So we will pull in the work by    I think from memory it was Timea and Maria who had done some work on those sessions.  My apologies if I left someone out.

But we'll bring that forward and bring it forward to the MAG as well and have a similar discussion on the preparations and support for the concluding sessions.

I think both the introductory and concluding sessions are really important new parts to the IGF process, which should set up all of our discussions really well during the IGF week, and equally should facilitate a lot of the messaging and reporting coming out of the IGF.  Just wanted to recognize and thank everybody's efforts there.

There was something I thought a moment ago.  Oh, one of the things we'd asked the Secretariat on the last call to do was to provide a set of all of the policy questions that had come forward as a part of the approved sessions, and to organize those along the three main thematic tracks with some of the subsets embedded in each one of them, as well.

So that it can help all of us in our messaging and reporting as we go through these next month or two to get organized.

I think it could also be quite a useful tool in terms of helping to support any participants' decision point with respect to what sessions they would be interested in participating in.  So we will keep working that and ensure that we actually get a process and a posting that facilitates that as well.

If there aren't anymore questions, for Susan or Paul on that, or anymore comments for Susan or Paul, we'll move to the next item.

Just give it a short count here.

>> Lynn?  Hello, Lynn.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Hi, Mary.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Yes.  I just want to also ask that my last comment be taken into consideration for the Global South to participate fully in the introductory.  It might not be a large crowd for a breakout session, because discussion session could also be broken out along the line of languages.  So I'm saying this again because some of the Global South participants would like to be in that session and it's not going to be translated.  So maybe we can still consider that.  But if it's not possible, I support the agenda that's been proposed by Susan.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Mary.  Your points are very, very important, certainly with respect to doing whatever you can to facilitate participation, whether you're physically on site or participating online, and then, of course, the language support as well.

I actually think that the notion was that there may be breakout groups but that it would be kind of an organic decision from the community that was gathered in these sessions, and I use "gathered" in quotes because it could be physically or online.  I don't think there was a forced breakout.  I think the notion was that it would be the individuals that were participating in those sessions that would determine what was the, you know, most interesting or most useful way to move forward and that would determine whether or not there were breakout groups and along what lines those breakout groups were organized.

I believe that's where we left it last time or maybe I can ask Susan or Paul to comment.

Susan?  Or Paul?

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Hi.  Can you hear me?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Yes.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Sorry.  It's a different interface for Zoom for me.  I apologize.  So I think that is    that is a moving discussion.  Once discussion kicks off with the coleads and the different Working Groups, I think that, you know, I don't know if there needs to be a hard and fast rule across all three groups, but I think that that question will evolve as the Working Groups actually dig in and do their work.

So we'll see what they decide on a consensus basis as we go forward.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think there were three.  Is it fair to say that there were three main objectives, if you will, for the sessions?  One is certainly to provide some background, some introduction, to the theme, to the sessions, to what was going to take place over the week, to have a kind of inspirational challenging speaker to somehow make this kind of real and immediate; and then two    then three, a piece of that session would actually be to get the discussion started?

And some of the benefits, of course, that it would obviously facilitate connections being made.

But is it fair to say that those are what the three major objectives were of those sessions?

Maybe that will help people as they think about what that third section is in those sessions.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thanks, Lynn, and I do think it is helpful to think across those broad objectives, absolutely.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think we can wait to hear from the Working Groups with respect to what they think is the most appropriate.

Again, we should recall that the thematic sessions actually had a stream of kind of subthemes underneath them, which was illustrated.  The one that always comes to mind is the one from inclusion (laughs.), because they were first to go in the discussion.

But it showed how one, you know, subtheme sort of led to another subtheme, and overall supported the entire discussion on that, on the main theme.

So again, I think letting the community, the participants that are there, determine how they actually kind of get in substantively to the discussions that they're expecting to have over the course of the week is good.

So let    if there are no more comments or questions, again, thanks, Susan, and Paul, and everybody who is working on those, and for Mary for always keeping those important questions in front of us, as well.

Let's move to the next agenda item, which is updates from the main sessions.

And for this, I'd look to the Secretariat to actually help pull in the appropriate speakers.  So I think if we've got the main sessions there listed now in the chat room, we kind of covered one of the main sessions about the high level panels report.  That's a work in progress.  We're waiting to hear what comments come in.

Is there somebody who can speak to any of the main sessions that are there?  We can either start at the top and go through, which maybe is the most straightforward.  So the first one was the main session on content governance.

Again, just looking for a quick update.  Is there anything specific you need?  Some suggestions?  Support from the MAG?  To progress this main session?

>> SUSAN CHALMERS:  Hi, Lynn.  I'd be happy to give an update.  Now, we can change the title to Main Session    well, the nickname could be violent extremist content, because we are focusing on that category of content.

So we circled back with the group.  We've had a number of suggestions for speakers.  We'll have    we're going to schedule a call to determine those speakers.  The group before in discussion had said that eight speakers is our maximum.  We're still looking for candidates from the Technical Community, and from the Global South, especially from government. 

So we have one speaker who may soon contribute, throw their hat into the ring in the Global South government area, but also any suggestions for speakers from the African Union would be useful.

So our next step is to finalize those eight slots, and then work on the design, fine tune the design of the discussion around rights, responsibilities, responses, and risks, in terms of policy approaches to dealing with violent extremist content online. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Susan.  Thank you for jumping in, too.

Any comments or questions for Susan?  Or for any of the organizers for that main session?

Not seeing any, we'll move to the next.

In the meantime, I thank the Secretariat for the very useful list of main sessions and for scrolling through the submissions here, as well.  Very, very helpful.

Who is going to give an update on the main session on multidisciplinary policy frameworks?

>> BEN WALLIS:  Hi.  Lynn, I could start.  I know Maria Patterson is on the call, as well, so she could add if she has anything to add.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Excellent.  Thank you, Ben. 

>> BEN WALLIS:  Just a few quick words to give you a sense of where we're at.  We split a two hour session into two parts.  The first shorter part will be a more conceptual theoretical discussion about what multidisciplinary policy making is, and a second part will be a longer session where we'll look into actual examples from different parts of the world and different stakeholder groups of how multidisciplinary policy making is done in practice. 

We've identified speakers from all the different stakeholder groups for those different parts of the session, and we've started to send out invitations, but with a keen eye to ensure that there's the right balance and diversity of geographic region and stakeholder group.

So we're kind of    so that is giving us    that means we're sequencing the invitation in certain ways so we're going step by step.  Anyway, we have started to send out invitations.  I was away last Week, and Maria, Pass, and I are talking later this morning after the MAG meeting.  I'm not sure right now what help we could need from the MAG, but after Maria, Pass and I have had an opportunity to talk we might be writing to the MAG for specific ideas or help.  And I just pass the floor to Maria if she has anything she'd like to add.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ben.  Maria?

>> MARIA PAZ CANALES LOEBEL:  Yeah, only to add to that final point that we will check now with the final speakers that we can confirm that they would be willing and interested to participate, and the balance Ben was mentioning.  Probably from there, we'll take it to a whole list, if we have additional requests or suggestion of the speakers in a specific sectors or what we have so far.  So far, we are in a good place for organizing the session and even defining the speakers.  

Thank you very much.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Maria.  Thank you, Ben.  

Any questions or comments from MAG members on that main session?  No?

I think if there are requests coming from this Working Group or any others to make it really clear in the title "Request: Something or Other" would be really helpful.  I suspect there's going to be quite a few emails over the next few weeks as everything gets ramped up after the holiday period, so do what you can to make it clear. 

The next main session update, then, is on trade and jurisdiction.  Who is going to speak to that?

Kenta?

>> KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Hello?  Can you hear me?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We can hear you.  Yes, thank you, Kenta.

>> KENTA MOCHIZUKI:  Good morning, good afternoon, good evening.  This is Kenta speaking.  Just a quick update, to be honest, I don't have any updates on our main session due to the season, but we have just started reaching out to the speaker candidates together.  And fortunately, so far, we've got a possible list, not final confirmation, though, from our Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication in Japan, and a Mr. Redlickson (phonetic) Chief ICT Intersection Science Technology and Accessibility Branch, Digital Technology and Logistics; and Miss Tatu (phonetic), Counselor, Creating Substance and Investment Division, (?).

In addition to that, because I have expressed this is the main session, I already have what I have to figure in the future, write an off shore invitation letter for some speakers, so based on that, I'm going to put it together for the group's three members.  And the group's three members, feel free to take the floor if you have any updates.

Apart from that, actually, last Week, I have had several meetings with the minister of (?) industry and financial services.  And they are interested in IGF.  Our biggest Japanese business federation is also interested in participating in IGF, upcoming IGF.  So I did the best to increase the number of Japanese participants in our May session and the IGF a whole.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Kenta.  

Any other Working Group members who want to add to Kenta's update, Kenta's report?  Not seeing any additional requests, thank you, Kenta.  

I think this is a really important main session.  Not obviously just because of its topic, but of interest to one of the key communities we're trying to engage more deeply.

>> KENTA MOCHIZUKI: Thank you so much. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.

The next main session is on AI.  Who is going to speak to that?  Is there anyone on the call here who can give us a call update for the main session activities for the main session of AI.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  It's Jutta speaking here, if I may come in with a floor request?  

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Sure.  

>> JUTTA CROLL:  I had short contact with Juliana Harsianti this morning where she sent a message that she probably cannot join into the call.  So I cannot report in full, but we've been in exchange with regard to a speaker on IOT, a female speaker from Germany, and trying heavily to find a person with the right experience and knowledge. 

We had contacted someone from the German initiative D21, which stands for Deutschland 21.  She's an expert but unfortunately she's not available on the date when the main session will happen.

This is also my question.  Am I right that the main sessions are now set firmly so that we don't expect that there will be changes between the days of the main sessions and the times?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I'll ask Chengetai to confirm.  Yes.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  There's one potential change, but it doesn't affect most people.  There may be a change between the NRI session and the SDG session, but everything else is set.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Okay.  Thank you, Chengetai.  I have nothing else to report, just to say that we are trying to appoint the speakers and that Juliana will probably have to say more in the next meeting.  

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.  

And Juliana did send out an update this morning with an update to the proposal.  You can find that there as well.

Chengetai, when do you expect to have the schedule "firm" firm?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  The schedule will never be "firm" firm but I don't expect there will be any changes.  If anything is going to change, it will be with the agreement of the session organizers.  As I say, one or two swaps that can happen.  But I will say it's 90% firm.  There's not going to be any surprises, so to speak.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think Jutta's question, which am I able to say with confidence (laughs.), that this is the schedule and can schedule speakers?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Put it this way.  If you've not been approved and don't have any questions    we had one or two questions at the beginning of this call.  You can with all certainty, as certain as we can get, that it is set.  Your session will not move.  As I said, there's basically like four which we're going to move around.  So you can inform basically.  Yes, you can inform.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  And you would expect any of those movements to be complete by the end of this week?  Is that true?  (Slight laugh).

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I   

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Just looking for a date, a sure date, when people can   

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.  As of now, if you haven't heard anything else, it's set.  As I said, the only main session that's in question is we might change    we might swap the NRI session with the SDG session, but everything else is set.

For all the workshops, we did institute    we had a request for swapping.  There's, like, one or two.  So for the majority of the people, please, just go ahead and inform.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you, Chengetai.

Just coming back briefly, is there anyone who can give us an update on the main session on AI? 

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Can you hear me?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Yes.  Just faintly.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Is it better now?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  A little bit.  Yes.  

Can you identify who is speaking?

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Natasa.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Natasa, hi.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  I can make a short update on behalf of group working on preparation of the AI session.  It's (?). I hope I didn't forget to mention anyone.

So tied to the main session is the human rights and responsibilities to governance and AI.  So I'll send a link to our main session template proposal shortly after the meeting.  My apologies for not doing that prior to this meeting.  I had to arrange our proposal a little bit so it's more clearer and comprehensive, because now it's a working document so there's a lot of things that we were considering, whether to put in the proposal or not. 

So I'll make it clearer on that list.

Concerning our panelists, we tried to ensure multistakeholder approach and geographical diversities, as well.  So we are still waiting for the panelist confirmation, and expecting to have them till the end of next week.  I hope it's still within the allowed time frame.

And one of the two moderators we planned for our main session sent confirmation.  So we think it's good progress so far.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Excellent.  Thank you, Natasa.  Any additional comments from Working Group members or comments from MAG members for Natasa and the group?  Just doing a slow count to six.  Not hearing anyone.

Thank you, Natasa.  I appreciate the update.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  You're welcome. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think the next one was either the DC's or the NRI's from the list.

And as soon as the titles are established for those sessions, it would be good to identify them by title, rather than just "NRI main session" or "DC main session."

Is there someone would can speak to the NRI main session?  Anja?  Is that you?

>> ANJA GENGO:  Yes.  Maybe start with the title, as you mentioned.  On the current schedule on the website, it is titled as the NRI's Main Session and the full title follows as Emerging Technologies and Their Interfaces with Inclusion, Security and Human Rights.

We may modify.  I think it would be good for the sake of the schedule, consistency, to put just "main session" but then maybe add "Perspectives from the NRI's" or something like that.  It's a joint session between the MAG and the NRI's.

To briefly give the latest update, on Monday this week, the group met.  We had quite an intensive discussion.  I'm going to update from that meeting.

So the agenda, firstly, focused on the format of the main session, and also in that regard to agreeing which ten NRI's will set the stage of this important session in the first 45 minutes.  And after that, all other NRI's will follow with their inputs, within the limited time.  I think at their disposal they have 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The group discussed then the criteria how to choose these ten NRI's among 118 now.  And there are four key objectives which are provisionally agreed, they're subject to further agreement of the network, starting as of today when we shared that in our list.

But in any case, one of the criteria for the network is that those ten representatives that will be on the stage and will be kind of giving very complete examples of impact of newly emerging technologies on the lives of people in their countries will be mixed in terms of the geographical origin.  We want to have representation those IGF's on the least developing countries, small and developing states, but also those coming from traditional economies and developed countries.

They should be from all subregions within each regional group.  For instance, if we're going to have three or four from Africa, we need to make sure we cover all four parts of the continent, or four major regions.

They should also, of course, be active with the NRI's network.  To be honest, this is a bit more of a pragmatical criteria because we're a bit short on time.  We don't have time for substantive coaching, but in any case I think the majority are.

And we will aim to, among that group, have a balanced gender and age wise group.

So the proposal was that from Africa we have Gambia, Chad IGF, South Sudan, Namibia IGF.  We need to approach these for their agreement in the first section of this session. 

From Asia Pacific, we would have a maximum of three.  We're hoping to have Afghanistan, Japan, and (?). 

From Eastern Europe, given how the region is significantly smaller than others, we will have one.  Probably that will be the North Macedonian IGF

(?) will be el Salvador and Argentine.  

From (?) we're hoping to have the host country, Italian, and Australian IGF.

So that's the update.

And the last thing that I would like to say is that the deadline for the NRI's to send their inputs that will be consolidated into a publication is 15th of September.

And hopefully, by the first of November we will have final output publication of those inputs published to the IGF website.

That will be everything from me for this meeting.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Anja, for the excellent update and all the work.

Any comments or questions for Anja?  Any other contributions from any MAG members that are also active in the NRI's?

Maybe just one suggestion for the naming convention, and the same thing for the DC's, is perhaps we could actually have the substantive title, Emerging Issues, et cetera, and then An NRI Perspective, or The DC Perspective, or something, so we give visibility to these communities that are organizing these sessions, and at the same time focusing on the issue, as well.  So maybe we can think about some convention for those two sessions. 

Not seeing any other requests for the floor on that particular topic, thank you again, Anja.  

And move to an update on the DC's main session.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Hello, Lynn, and everybody.  I think it's my turn to speak on the dynamic coalition's main session.  We have a little bit of slow progress in regard to the templates that we had asked the Dynamic Coalitions to fill in, but it's maybe due to the summer break, but now there are still more coming in within the last few days.  So far, we have seven different Dynamic Coalitions who have filled out the form and responded to our request.  The title for the session was set as Dynamic Coalition's joint efforts to achieve the SDG's.  So that should underline that the Dynamic Coalitions are somehow working together with regard to the sustainable development goals.

And what we've got so far from the Dynamic Coalitions giving very good impression of how they try to achieve the different sustainable    sustainable development goals.

Sorry.

And also they have placed very useful policy questions for the session.

So given that those who have not yet responded and MAG members who are members of Dynamic Coalitions I would like to encourage to go back to the Dynamic Coalitions and ask them to fill in the template as soon as possible so that we get out a good description of the session onto the website, and then I'm pretty sure that we will assemble a very good main session with regard to the work the Dynamic Coalitions are doing throughout the year.

I'm happy to answer any further questions if you have.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta. 

Any comments or questions or any additional comments from MAG members who are engaged in the DC's? 

Okay.  Not seeing anyone.

Thank everyone for all their efforts in organizing the sessions.  I think we've made a lot of progress here over the last couple of months, which I know hasn't always been easy.

I would ask that that list in the future include the Digital Cooperation main session.  As we've said several times already, that's a work in progress.  We're really waiting for more feedback from the ongoing consultation. 

If there are no other comments or any requests or comments from the Secretariat on the main session preparation?  I'll just go to Chengetai first and then   

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.  There's none from the Secretariat at the moment.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We're still on schedule?

(Laughter)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Actually, we're doing quite well.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Excellent.  Ben Wallis, you have the floor.

>> BEN WALLIS:  Thanks, Lynn.  On your last point, actually, I was going to ask for an update about the high level panel main session, partly from the perspective of the person co organizing the main session on multidisciplinary policy making, which was partly inspired by the high level panel's existence and its call for multidisciplinary policy making. 

So I'm keen to understand what that high level panel discussion will cover and if it's going to be quite narrowly focused on what an IGF Plus would look like.  I guess it's clear there isn't an overlap, but I'm also genuinely interested in how that session is going to look.  If anything could be added, that would be great.  Thanks.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Maybe just take one moment on that, then.

The organizers for that are going to be some combination of DESA, the Secretariat, the host country, myself as Chair, and I'm sure there will be check ins with the EOSG, Executive Office's Secretary General, as well, as we expect to have a representative there probably for the entire week, if not for that session.

Again, we're waiting to see what the consultation drives.  I think the working assumption is that it will focus mainly on recommendation five and probably in the IGF plus.  I don't know if we've settled yet on whether or not there would be an opportunity to discuss other parts of the report.  You know, as was said earlier, there are some other really important parts of the report, and parts of the report that really matter a lot to large parts of this community.

So I don't think we've ruled that out, but we're just not quite certain how it would work

What we're hoping to do with the consultations, it's meant to close the end of this month, the end of September.  We're then hoping to pull together kind of a synthesis of the comments, try and understand if there's any, you know, sort of significant agreements or significant directions that might be further debated or discussed during the IGF itself, in which case, of course, that would form a part of that main session, as well.

The Secretary General's office has made it pretty clear, quite clear, that they're really hoping to have a substantive and fairly concrete discussion.  That there have been many and varied calls for improvements in the IGF or across the IGF ecosystem, and that this is a good time to build on those path calls for improvements, to build on some of the recommendations or comments from the high level panels report.  And really start to assess what some of those improvements might be and how we might begin implementing them.

So I think I would say that the EOSG's office has been very clear that they're really sort of action oriented.  They want to see some substantive progress.  They're looking for concrete suggestions.  That's the sort of thing they'd like to table and have a discussion on during the IGF itself.

Again, I think that's why contributions are so important to the consultation.  I would invite you, actually, to be a member of that Working Group.  We haven't established any formal Working Group or any meetings yet, but I think given the multidisciplinary main session that you're working on, I think that would be a useful intersect to make sure that we're actually complementary and not redundant.

So we can keep you in the loop.  We can make you a part of the team.  It's whatever you're kind of working schedule would support.  But I think that's a really good suggestion that we make sure that we're closely aligned.

Any questions or comments or anything that Chengetai wants to add with respect to that main session preparation?  I believe Rudolf has left us already.  But if not, Rudolf, you're very welcome to comment as well.  Yeah, I think he's gone.

Chengetai, anything you wanted to add?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.  I think you covered it.  No.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Work in progress.  (laughs.)

Okay.  Thank you.  Thank you, Ben, for bringing that up, as well.  It's an important point.

The next item is the updates from the best practice forums and the other intercessional activities.

So let's see if we can get some updates from DC's, the BPF's, and Anja if there's anything you'd like to comment on from the NRI section, as well, this would be a good time.

Who wants to go first?

>> BEN WALLIS:  Hi, Lynn.  It's Ben Wallis, again.  I'm happy to give a brief update on the BPF on cybersecurity.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you.

>> BEN WALLIS: So we're at the open consultation phase.  And the call for inputs went out the end of July, and it's open until the sixth of September.

Whim had, last week, put out a LinkedIn article to help promote the call for inputs.  And in fact, our lead expert earlier this year had done an article on (?).  At this point, we haven't had any responses.  We're conscious that, one, it's for some been a holiday period and, two, people often, you know, work towards deadlines and provide responses right up at the deadline.

But that said, within the kind of management group, so our lead expert, my co facilitator, Markus and with Whim, our consultants, were discussing whether to extend the deadline a week or two, and we'll send an update to the BPF list this week.  If nothing else, it will obviously be a reminder for people to respond to the call for inputs and to be aware of the deadline, but we're looking at we'll probably extend it by a week or so just to give    maximize the opportunity to get in responses to our call.

Thanks.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ben.

Any comments or questions?

If we do, we can take them to the mail list.

Is there another volunteer from the BPF's?  Either local content?  Internet of things?  Gender?

>> Hi, Lynn.  This is Titi.  I hope you can hear me. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  We can hear you very well.  Thank you, Titi.

>> Okay.  I will give a quick update about where we are with data and artificial intelligence.  Actually, it was a vacation period, so there is not much updating.  Anyway, we have resumed the virtual meeting.  The next one will be next week on the 10th of September.  We actually have also drafted a report I will share with the Working Group.  There have not been too many submissions so far.  We invite you to participate, to the summary.

We already told you that we are trying, also, to involve people from UNESCO, from also ITU, just try to give some input on the report.

And we tried also to involve Google and also other stakeholder, but we didn't get any feedback so far. 

Okay.  That's all.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you very much, Titi, for coming in. 

Any comments or questions?

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO:  Hi, Lynn.  Carlos.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Hi, Carlos.

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO:  A little comment on BPF and local content.  We tried to include it in the regional meeting on the Latin America and the Caribbean.  And we were not successful.  We now have a meeting in October of the Brazilian IGF in which the issue of local content will be discussed in a session, which is good.

I would ask a particular question to perhaps Luis.  How many members are subscribing the BPF and local content list?  Because we are not sure.  If we don't have the numbers, if there aren't enough people subscribing, there's no point in even doing a survey or whatever.  And I see that there is no response from the few posts that we have done in the list, from the people who are supposedly subscribed to it.  There's not much animation in participating.

So if I know at least the number of people who are there, we could try some techniques to try and animate the discussion.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Carlos.

Chengetai or Luis, I don't know if you have a question to that.  I mean it's pretty disconcerting, I think, that there's so little interest and so little progress given something that I think is just so central to people being able to, you know, participate in the online economy. 

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  We'll take a look at it and get back.  We'll take a look at the list and see if there's anything else we can do. 

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO:  Thank you.  Thank you, Chengetai. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Is there anything we can build on from last year?  We shouldn't keep and don't need to keep pulling this forward if there's not enough interest and not enough support from the MAG members to drive it.  Again, the BPF's are MAG chosen, MAG led, MAG supported.  They're obviously open to other parts of the community, but these are activities that are MAG led.  It sounds like it's time to ask ourselves whether or not there's enough interest or enough support.  Maybe it's just hours in the day, to support these meetings.

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO: We have the facilitator for the list, and she tried, as well, and there was not much response.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  So it looks as those Luis is saying there's 105 members in local content list.  Well, maybe we should start with a posting to the list.

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO: This is a huge number.  Great!  I'll try something.  (laughs.) 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Let's try something, Carlos.  If we can't get something fairly substantive in the next week or two, I think we should probably set this aside and reassess for next year whether or not this is something the MAG wants to support going forward.  I don't know if we can look at any of the work that was done the last couple of years and build on that. 

Maybe there's something ready made there, if you will, for a next step.

But at this point if we're starting from ground zero I'm not sure how much we're going to be able to do substantively.  Let's take a look at it and maybe post some things to the list and see if we can get something moving.

>> CARLOS ALBERTO AFONSO: Okay.  Thank you, Lynn.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Carlos.  Thank you.

I think Chenai Chair had volunteered to give us an update on the BFP on gender.  You have the floor.

>> CHENAI CHAIR: Hi, everyone.  Hi, Lynn.  Just an update on the BPF on gender.  We have closed our survey, which we were being assisted on.  We closed with 25 participants    25 respondents, I mean.  And now, once the survey was running, we experts, as part of our strategy, to engage people beyond the community and other people also working on issues that we're looking at on the BPF, on participation on digital economy from a gender perspective.

So now, we actually do have a planning call tomorrow with the planning community    committee, just to think about the way forward.  And yeah.  I think we're progressing quite well.  

That's all.  Thanks.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chenai.  Thank you for jumping in and all your work, as well.  I know it's not easy in the first year.  Any questions or comments for Chenai?

All right. 

Not seeing any.

Markus, or Jutta, are you able to give us an update on the DC's at this time?

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Hi there.  It's Jutta speaking.  I don't have more to update than I had said before on the main session.  So the Dynamic Coalitions have been a bit inactive during the last three to four weeks, but hopefully I will be able to give you more of an update in our next call.  Obviously, we are a bit suffering from having not (?) who was pushing all the Dynamic Coalitions, but we will emphasize that and hopefully be able to report more in the next meeting.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.  If there's anything Chengetai or I can do to help, don't hesitate to let us know, as well.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you for that.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Any questions for Jutta for the DC's from MAG members?

All right.  Not seeing any requests for the floor.

Anja, is there any further update on the NRI's?

>> ANJA GENGO:  Hi, Lynn.  Nothing major.  We are very much engaged, working on the collaborative sessions, because we're also developing some publications for those.  In October, we should have all those ready.  So now we're just in a planning phase of getting the inputs.  Sorry, Lynn, I can just announce, but colleagues can do that, that this month, there are a few NRI meetings.  We will be announcing them on the NRI mailing list staring from the African IGF and Chad IGF, Nepal IGF, and Haiti IGF.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Do you have a current count how many NRI meetings you expect over the course of the year?  Not that have necessarily already happened, but I think last year there were 76 or something like that.

>> ANJA GENGO:  That's the estimate for this year, also, up to 80.  Because we had three or four national IGF recognized in the past weeks, so they will also hold meetings.  Up to 80, I think.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  That's excellent.  Very good.  Earlier in the year there was a request with the Secretary General's Office with respect to how many, and I at that point in time I had shared that there were relatively few that had been scheduled, but that this was standard practice and, again, that there were 70 something last year and we expected that or slightly more this year. 

Excellent.  That's great.  I know it takes an awful lot of work to pull all these together so it's a great effort.

Thank you, Anja.

If we move to, I think, actually, our final agenda item, which I think we covered the A.O.B. items earlier in the    earlier in the meeting, this is updates from the Working Groups.

I can go first to get it started.

As I think Susan said earlier, it's a great forcing function (laughs) of having the MAG meetings.  But also that and in recognition, of course, of the heavy holiday period, which is I think now behind us.

I did last night send two memos out.  One was with respect to Working Group on fundraising, which as I said in past meetings there have been a number of discussions of what we might do of a fairly substantive nature with the German government, taking advantage of the high level meeting that they're hosting, and we're still trying to determine exactly what we might do there.

At the same time, the high level    I'm sorry, the Working Group on fundraising has an awful lot of materials from last year, and I have asked for a meeting where we might identify a very small number of potential donors that we can reach out to completely and substantively over the next couple of months, certainly building on the very successful IGF's of the last couple of years, as well as the substantive effort going forward for this year's IGF to try to see if we can bring in some additional donors.  That meeting will hopefully be scheduled in the next couple of weeks or so.

We also revisited the card that was created last year based on, mainly, Sylvia Cadena's and (?) efforts.  We're going to revisit that and make sure the text is all still appropriate and then we will be printing some more of those.  I'm going to a couple of meetings and things over the next few months, which will be useful to have that kind of material to pass out.

I think the nice thing about this tool is we can make it available to everybody online and people can print out locally, in fact, if there's some efforts that they can use it with, as well.

That's pretty much it on the fundraising.

I'm going to come to Jutta to see what Jutta's comments are and then we'll come back to some of the other Working Group updates.  Jutta, you have the floor.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  

I wanted to come back to an issue that was raised to the Working Group on workshop proposal evaluation some meetings ago.  That was whether we should have a survey addressed to all those people who had submitted a proposal, those who were successful and also those proposals which had been rejected.  The group had a meeting on July 29th, but it was only a very small group.  It's four to five people attending to the meeting.

And we had sent out the minutes of that meeting to the whole MAG list but did not get any feedback so far.

So I'm a bit wondering whether we still should follow up with the idea to have that survey.  The group suggested to concentrate in the survey on the overall satisfaction of the process, on the comprehension of the feedback the workshop proposals had got, and they should differentiate in case of rejection, if they understand why their proposal was rejected, and in case of acceptance could they explain how they are reacting to the comments and recommendations they got from the MAG, then their readiness to accept mergers, and if they have any suggestions for the process.  These were kind of the issues that we suggested to focus on in such a survey.

And the idea was to send it out as soon after the summer break; though, that would mean more or less right now.  Pointing also the submitters of workshop proposals to the actual IGF programme, and suggest that those whose proposals were rejected, that they bring their issues forward in other sessions that had been accepted.

So I do think this is a question to the whole of the MAG.  Should we follow this procedure?  Should the survey be prepared and sent out?  What do you think about the whole process?  So far we did not have so much resonance to the idea of the survey.  

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jutta.  

Let's hear from the MAG members.  Again, the process that we built this time, that built the programme, is one that was under the MAG's responsibility and purview.  Is there interest or support in surveying the community to get their thoughts on    I actually like the questions that Jutta and the Working Group posed there, but Jutta has asked a direct question of the MAG.  Is there support for a survey? 

Just watching the comments in the chat room.

In the meantime, Ben, you have the floor.

>> BEN WALLIS: Thanks, Lynn.

Yes, I would support a survey.  I think that's a good idea.  And yeah.  Yes.  I would support a survey.  So I appreciate the work that the Working Group did and I think it would be good to move forward with that.

We did, I think, maybe separately, also, maybe talked about whether MAG members should provide feedback, on the process this time.  I'm not sure where that got to.  It might not be the same as a formal survey to those workshop proponents, but that could also be useful when the MAG comes to review the process later this year or next year.

Thanks.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ben.  I do think that's a good second suggestion.

I see, you know, comments of support in the chat room.  I haven't seen a "no" (laughs) in the chat room, as well.

I actually saw an offer of support, Jutta, to help you, from Helani, I think, to help you with the survey.  I'm sure the Secretariat would help, as well.  I personally would, you know, feel that a survey is really important.  It's an opportunity to say the community who sent an awful lot of time preparing those submissions, how to process worked for them, how they felt, was it useful? 

I would say based in the chat room comments that we should go ahead and offer a survey.  Helani offered support.  And I think the Secretariat would offer support as well.  I think your questions were really good, Jutta.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  I do also see the support in the chat, so I think the best way is we phrase what I had said before as proper questions that could go into a survey and then hand it over to the Secretariat who probably need to set it up technically so people can answer to the survey and the link to the survey would be sent out to those who have submitted a proposal.

I don't know whether we need a second round of consent or agreement with the questions or whether we just can go forward with what we already had sent out.  It was on August 1st that we sent out the minutes, where the questions are all in, and maybe we can just go the way that people have a look again at these minutes and say whether they    if they have anything they want to change, and if nothing comes in for amendments or changes, then we go ahead with what we drafted with the group at the end of July.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  I think that's a good way forward, Jutta.  This was the output of the Working Group that's been very thoughtful about all this work, but maybe we can just send that note out to the MAG again, tell them we'll leave it open for any further thoughts through maybe just the end of this weekend and that would allow the WG and the Secretariat to hopefully get the survey posted in the coming week or so.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  That sounds perfect.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Excellent.  Thank you for all the work.  I do like Ben's suggestion, as well, and there was support in the chat room for that with respect to asking the MAG.  And maybe we can even just ask    I don't know if that's the Secretariat, to just    I think this can be kind of a light weight series of questions with respect to the process, and ask the MAG to respond, I think, both to kind of the workload, the tools, the process, basically whatever is on their mind.

Jutta, I do have a question for you.

If the Working Group has already had some discussion or thought on kind of a survey or what we'd like to know from the MAG, I would turn it over to you, if that's kind of putting you and the Working Group a little bit over the top, because I know you have a lot of activities going on, then I think we can put it to the Secretariat.  What's your preference?

>> JUTTA CROLL:  To be honest, I do think that we already had a discussion about what the MAG members felt about the process of assessing the workshop proposals with the new tool and with the additional questions that we had this year and also with the system of scores.  It must be in one of our meeting minutes, I do think.  I'm pretty sure we already had a discussion about that.  And also, to be honest, I'm not sure whether people are ready to answer these questions about the assessment process so many weeks and months later after they have done that.  Even myself, after having been working with Sylvia on the system and the score and everything, I don't remember too well how we did the scoring in this assessment of proposals.

So that might be a bit tricky for MAG members to remember now what they have done three or four months ago.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  So maybe we can    because there was a comment in the chat room that said it would be helpful for the MAG to review the processes used, especially comparing experience to first year MAG members in regular sessions.  Maybe we could ask the Secretariat    every time I say those words, I cringe a little bit because I know they're so under resourced.  So just try and find any substantive minutes from the discussion, as you just referenced, and maybe the light weight way to do this is to share this back out with the MAG and ask the MAG members if there's anything else they'd like to comment on or contribute to the discussion, whether you're a first year or third year MAG member because all of this should inform next year's MAG, what this experience was.

Maybe we can try and make it a light weight exercise, given the discussions we have had in the past.

So can we ask the Secretariat to   

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  We can do that.  Yes.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Chengetai.  It should set everybody up well for next year that way, as well.

Just moving quickly.  I know we're over time.  I sent a note out for the Working Group on ad hoc reporting.  Again, we've reported on that the last couple of MAG meetings as well.  We want to kick off that work.  It's more on the reporting and messaging, building on some of the innovations we've had in this year's workshop planning processes, and taking advantage of very substantive support we have from the German government with respect to resources to help with that messaging and there's currently a pull out for the first meeting.

All this is open and visible on the website.  So we'd encourage people to take a look at that, participate if they want, and, again, the meetings are recorded, made available, and there are summaries of the meetings as well so the MAG can follow the discussion.

We're very careful to focus on reporting and messaging, and trying to advance that as much as we can align with all the suggestions for improvements we've had.

Finally, is there any other Working Group update, communications and outreach?  Or?  Hate to cut them short, but I recognize we're over time.

Not seeing any.

I think Chengetai, when is our next meeting?

Two weeks?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  In two week's time.  I'm scrambling for the calendar right now.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Yeah.  Maybe just send out a reminder to everybody.

I think, you know, there's probably time for just a couple more MAG meetings before we get to the end.  So I think it's important that people continue to progress on all these items and that we ensure the MAG is updated appropriately.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  The 18th of September.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Okay.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yeah.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR:  All right.  Thank you.  Apologies for the kind of quick close here at the end.  I'm just conscious that we're over time and I know a couple of people have had to leave the call already.  If we didn't get to some of the Working Group updates we'll make sure we get to those next time, or feel free to send the updates in to the mailing list as well.

Thank you, everybody, for all the work, all the effort, for making this meeting, and we'll talk to you again in two week's time.  Have a good day.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you, very much, Lynn.  And thank you, everyone.