2019 IGF - MAG - Virtual Meeting - XIII

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.  Good morning, afternoon and evening, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to virtual MAG meeting number 13, and as usual, this meeting is being recorded, transcribed, and a summary report will appear later.

We will be using the speaking queue, and the link is in the chat.  Thank you, Luis, for putting it in.

And with that, I will hand over the meeting to Lynn to start it. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Chengetai.  I know this is a heavy holiday period for a portion of the world.  So I appreciate everybody making effort to be here.

The first item, of course, is to approve the agenda.  It was posted, I think about two weeks ago.  Let me see if there are any comments on the agenda or any suggestions for AOB, any other business?  I will allow a slightly longer count for everybody to sort of find speaking queues and that sort of thing.

All right.  I'm not seeing any additional suggestions for any other business.  I would like to call for approval of the agenda and just to see if there are any objections to that.

(Background noise) 

Is there someone trying to join or to comment?  I could hear an open mic.

I'm not seeing any comments or requests for the floor.  We will consider the agenda approved.  One minor point, if there are suggestions for the agenda or AOB, people can always indicate that online ahead of time as well. 

Okay.  So if we move to the first order of business, the Chair's introduction and welcome.  Well, the first thing I did want to do is thank everybody again for all the work that's been happening in the background on the main sessions and some of the introductory and closing session activities, all extremely important and we are well ahead of schedule on the latter, and just about on schedule for the main session planning.  We'll come to that timetable in just a moment.

I think the    the other substantive item we need to spend some time on today is item 5, the discussion on the thematic or introductory sessions and their reporting mechanisms.  This is a good time to say that we will still kick off the ad hoc Working Group on reporting, discussions with the Secretariat.  We decided to wait until after this last crush here of main session activities over the last month was complete, and we also wanted to get through the meeting in New York that was held about two weeks ago.  So we'll give it another week or two, I think, and then start up the ad hoc Working Group on reporting which should tie together all the activities, not simply these    you know, these introductory and closing session activities, but we'll come to that over the next couple of weeks.

There's one final comment.  We are still working on the consultation for the final report from the Secretary General's high-level panel on digital cooperation.  The Secretariat is virtually complete with respect to the platform, as was indicated on our last call that we will focus on Recommendation 5, and specifically on the IGF plus model, and we are looking at a timetable and a process that will allow us to get a good sense from the community with respect to suggestions from    suggestions and comments on the report and stay, and we can definitely go beyond that.  All of that is in support of a discussion at the IGF in Berlin.

So our goal is to have that out as soon as possible, hopefully by the end of this week, and it's a straightforward commenting platform, the same one we have used to report from the DESA retreat and other activities, and the key text, the relevant text from the HLPC report.

I think with that, I will stop there and move to the Secretariat.  I do want to ask, though, if there is anybody who wants to speak on behalf of the German government.  I just noted that it's not on the agenda.  They may not be with us because of holidays.

>> I'm here.

Can I talk to you about these things on perhaps point number four?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Sure.  Mm hmm.  That would be fine.  Thank you, Rudolf.  I just got a new computer and somehow the zoom screen is a little different.  So I still need to find the participants and things.  So thank you Rudolf and thank you for coming in too in the middle of the summer here.  Chengetai, let's go to you for an update from the IGF Secretariat.  We will move on with the rest of the agenda.  Chengetai, you have the floor.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Lynn.  As you note, the registration is started.  It's live now on the website and I would encourage everybody to register as early as possible.  That will help us and you in terms of getting visas, et cetera.

At the moment, we have about 300 registrations.  So we encourage people to register early.  And we also have opened the booking for the bilateral rooms at    during the IGF meeting.  If you require a room for a bilateral meeting, you can go to the IGF website and book one.  We have done it in one hour slots.  So if you do need two hours, you just book two slots and then we'll confirm that for you.

And we have also started the registration for the remote hubs and I think the remote hubs are rather important.  It's for those people who cannot make it to Berlin, but, you know, if they can get together in one room, maybe at university or sometimes at ISOC offices or ICANN offices worldwide, and participate in a meeting or in a session as a group, that would be great.

So the registration for that is online and once we get a lot of registrations, then we can start communicating with these groups and ask them, you know, which sessions they are interested in and try and incorporate them into the meeting where possible.

Also, we are still evaluating the power requests.  As you know, we received quite a lot, about 830 power requests.  So we are still evaluating them, and hopefully we'll be finished by the end of August, we'll have finished the process.  As you know, the preference has been given to people who have not    from regions who have not been at an IGF meeting and the second preference as well is for those who have a part in the IGF meeting, be it a panelist, an organizer, et cetera, and we go down to see when    until the places have run out.

Also the IGF Secretariat participated in two regional IGF meetings, the first one was the Asia Pacific regional IGF and then this was the west African IGF.  I don't know if Jennifer wants to say something about the Asia Pacific regional IGF very shortly?

>> Jennifer:  Sure, thanks.  Chengetai.  This is Jennifer.  Can you all hear me?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we can.

>> JENNIFER CHUNG:  Yes, so Chengetai was very graciously invited to the Asia Pacific regional IGF that was held in Russia earlier this month, and it was actually a pretty big success for an IGF that was held actually just outside of the regions of the    the normal regions of Asia Pacific.  We had just over 300 people attend at the    at the conference and the Russian hosts were extremely gracious and I think it went pretty well.  We will have some reporting done pretty soon.  We will be sending it over to the NRI network and have more information over there.

Thank you. 

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: We will also be posting those messages on to the IGF website and also hopefully that will be incorporated as input documents into the IGF 2019.

The second meeting was the west African IGF.  Do we have someone from the west African IGF who was there and can say something about it?

>> Yes.  Can you hear me?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes.

>> MARY UDUMA:  This is Mary.  So I can say briefly about West Africa IGF.  And this year, it was held at the Gambia in West Africa and gracious, Anja was there.  We had the west African school of Internet Governance held for three days or I will say four days    three and a half days.  Then we had the first West Africa youth IGF and it went very well, and it was well attended.  We have 400 participants from all the countries in West Africa and this time around, we had people from the academia, from    from the usual suspects of Internet community and we had the minister and even high level officials from other west African countries to attend in Gambia.

And the icing on the cake was the presence of Secretary General of ITU.  He appeared    we didn't know he was there, but he came and spoke to us.  And it was a great success.  Sorry.  The communique will soon be posted, as well as the report and some of the few recordings would also be sent to the Secretariat.

Anja, thank you for your presence.  We appreciate it.  Thank you, everyone.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Mary.  And I think that's all the updates.  Back to you, Lynn.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Chengetai and thank you, Jennifer and Mary on the updates on the regional IGFs.  Very happy that they have been so well attended.  I look forward to the communiques.  Like Chengetai, the communiques are extremely useful in terms of input to the upcoming IGF.  So I look forward to all the reports.

If we move to the next item on the agenda, that's updates from the main session organizing teams and within the meeting materials, we now have a list of all of the main sessions, and the co facilitators, co organizers.  We are roughly on schedule with the timetable that was approved a few months ago in that this week we are meant to have the finalization of the templates so that the Secretariat can complete all the posting of online information for the schedule, and then the next major deadline is expected final confirmation of the panelists and speakers which is in early September.  September 6th there.  So I think we are    we are in general largely on schedule.

I think what we would like to do with this report out, building on the reports from the meeting two weeks ago is give any substantive updates, you know, if, in fact, the titles changed or the focus, I know in some case, the focus, the Working Group drills down on the focus.  So if we can cover the main focus in just a minute or two, and then basically, an update on where you are with panelists and speakers and at the same time, would like to encourage you to be specific in terms of requests for support or speakers or other nominations.  I mean, obviously, that's the value of the MAG and the richness that we cover.  So if there are particular profiles that you are looking for or individuals from a region or a particular expertise, to the extent we can identify that, and ask the MAG members for their thoughts, probably offline, I think that would help everybody move forward and ensure we have a really broad representation in our    in our sessions here as well.

So with that, let me just see for a moment if there are any general questions on the schedule timetable, what we are trying to do here.  I will do a slow count to six and then if not, we'll just move through the reviews.  And I'm proposing that we follow the order of the table that was posted with the meeting materials.

So there's an open mic.  Is someone trying to come in? 

Okay.  I'm not hearing anybody coming in or seeing any requests from the floor.  We'll got first session, which is content governance, rights, responsibilities, responses, and risks.  And there are three co facilitators Sylvia Cadena, Susan Chalmers and Jutta Croll.  I'm not sure who is going to speak to it today.  We would just ask that you take the floor.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: Hi, Lynn.  This is Susan Chalmers.  Can you hear me?

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

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: Great.  Hello, everybody.  So we had a meeting yesterday on the content governance session and made a few threshold decisions for the scope of this session, which will focus on content.  We are working on    we had a discussion about the different types of speakers that we think are important to have the different viewpoints.  For example, having somebody speak to legislation that deals with this topic, a speaker, obviously, to deal with the    with the government led non regulatory options to deal with this issue such as the Christchurch, representative from the global Internet forum to counter terrorism and civil society participation, focusing particularly on the freedom of expression concerns with some of the proposals.

And so we are in the process of identifying and confirming speakers for each of those different perspectives.  There may also be other perspectives that we would look to add, for example, the UN has the program called the tech against terrorism project.  And I think that something that we could use help with are finding roles for the technical perspective, the end user's perspective, and we may appeal for assistance with the geographical diversity as well, and the composition of the panel.

So that's where we are right now.  I have sent a summary of the call to the list and asking for feedback by Friday so I can incorporate that feedback into the session documents Google Doc that we have been using.  So just a reminder to those who are participating in this list to please send feedback and thoughts and a welcome to anybody else who would like to join the development of the session.  And I'm happy to answer any questions.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Susan.  I have one question.  This is Lynn.  We'll see if anybody else wants the floor.  I know the group just recently decided to focus on violent content, as opposed to more general harmful content.  Are you considering any change to the title?  I don't know that the title actually reflects that, I think, very important, very pertinent, very timely focus.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: We can    I will raise that with the group.  I think the    yep.  The title doesn't focus specifically on that.  The description certainly will, but I will ask the group's opinion on a change of title. 

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

And I'm trying to see if there are any other requests for the floor.  Maybe what we could do    I mean, in their report out yesterday, as Susan said, they did actually indicate where they were looking for some suggestions for names and things, and maybe as we go forward over the next month we could adopt a kind of protocol that says in the title if we put request, colon and then a short title for the request, that might actually help MAG members quickly sort through and determine where we could actually be helpful to the various main session activities.

But if you read the minute report, there was a couple of clear    clear requests there.

Okay.  Well thank you, Susan.  And on behalf of the group as well, I do think that's a very important, timely topic.

The next one is the main session on multidisciplinary policy frameworks.  It appears as though Ben might still be looking for a co facilitator and I believe Ben is   

>> No, it's me.  Sorry Lynn.  It's Maria.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: And are you the co facilitator as well?

>> Yes.  Ben is going on holiday, but it's okay.  He precisely request me to be in charge of update of our works and if you don't mind, I can do it. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: No, that excellent Maria.  We want to ensure that each of these Working Groups has two co facilitators so if the Working Group hasn't closed on that yet, if you could bring that back to the Working Group and then inform the Secretariat, that would be helpful.  We just ensure that we got good coverage on the next couple of months.

But thank you for taking the floor.  And    and you have the floor for an update on main session on multidisciplinary policy frameworks.

>> MARIA:  Thank you, Lynn.  Yes, we made some changes in the last report that Ben provided in the last meeting.

That is mostly oriented to finalize some parts of the template, regarding how we will see unfold the session.  So we keep the idea that it was in some way drafted a couple of weeks ago of having two different section of the session.  One will be more devoted to the    the framework of the discussion, and the different concepts and elements that should be taken into consideration for building multidisciplinary policy framework.  So in that part, we are thinking more of the participation of the academic institutions and some international organizations in terms of providing experience about how they have researched about these different elements and they have built some recommendation in order to achieve these kind of multidisciplinary framework processes.

And then we want a second section of the session that will be devoted more to the concrete cases, where these frameworks are being applied in specific study cases, or exercise, or other cases that maybe don't come from this analytical frameworks but they are, like, in themselves good examples of how different countries either on the public side or in the private experience, are trying to deal with the multidisciplinary for policy making that can be valid or private.

So we have started with the brainstorming about what would be the possible option for speakers.  We haven't officially approached anybody, but we are, like, assessing the availability of some of them in order to have a good sense of what will be a sensitive combination in terms of geographical presentation and also the multi stakeholder representation.  So in this part, we still welcome a suggestion and    and we are considering to a whole new Working Group meeting on the 2 of August in which we expect that maybe we can have more participation of the other MAG members that are in the list of the Working Group for this session because we know that some of them they have participated more actively before, and now we expect that maybe they could join us in a meeting on the 2nd of August.  Ben, before going on vacation, sent an invitation on the list, and other MAG members that want to joint the work of the group are also very welcome to join.

For the update, I think that's where we are in the update.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maria.  Develop informative update.  I would echo Maria and Ben's call for additional participation in the Working Group.  This is one Working Group that was actually meant to follow up on some of the activities from the last IGF, one specifically was the Paris call.  It's also focused on the two recent cybersecurity efforts in the United Nations, the open ended Working Group and the GGE.  So the topics there are very important.  And, you know, the value is really looking at these types of frameworks and how to make them as useful and successful as possible, which, of course is at the heart of virtually everything that we are doing.  So I hope there's some increased participation there in the Working Group.  Any other comments or requests for the floor? 

I'm not seeing anybody.  Thank you, again, Maria.  Very informative.  And we'll move to the main session on digital governance and trade.  And, again, I see that Kenta is the facilitator.  We would be looking for a second co facilitator for that group as well.  So I would like to ask the group to move that forward at one of its next meetings.

Is Kenta on the call here to give an update or is somebody else prepared to? 

I don't see Kenta.  Chengetai?  Somebody else looking for the mic to give us an update on the digital governance and trade? 

>> Lynn, Carlos here.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Hi, Carlos.

>> CARLOS:  Well, Kenta is the facilitator.  I would hope that he could be give an update.  I have a question to the group, and to all of you.  On the way we are expressing this    the title and the description, I think we should drop the word "free" in the title, and the short description.  Because we are not organizing anything which would be    would have us    it's defending free flow of data in ICT products, but we are going to discuss it, no?  The flow of that and ICT products.  We are not starting from the basis that it's free.  We are starting on the basis that there is a lot of questions about free or not free.  So my suggestion independently of what Kenta and the group has advanced, is to drop the word "free" from the title and the description, to    I think this would open up the discussion in all aspects of the discussion of the flow of that and ICT products and services.  Today we are reading the news about flow of ICT    of products and services and there is a war there.  We see the big organizations, big companies and states fighting around trade and really the free is not in question.  No?

So that's my suggestion.  I hope Kenta can join in the    present us with some defenses on the group.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Carlos.  I don't believe that Kenta is on the call, unless he's one of the call in numbers but it doesn't appear to be.

>> Well, here's the template that I filled out.  I will thought Kenta would be on, but maybe he faced some difficulties.  I don't know if there's anybody else in the group who can fill in or we can wait    we can come back to this last and maybe somebody will come up.  Otherwise, we can read the template.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Why don't you put the template up since we are there already. 

>> Daniella?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Daniella?  No, she's out.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  This is Rudolf.  I see your point.  Perhaps we could say free flow of data and ICT question mark or for how long or something like that? 

>> CARLOS:  Okay. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So I think this is a good discussion to take back to the Working Group.  And as there's not a formal report here, I would like to do a couple of things.  Maybe Carlos, if you can make sure that the Working Group is aware of your point.  I think you are a member of that Working Group.

>> Carlos:  Sure.  Sure.  Thank you, Lynn.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: And then with the Secretariat, maybe we could ask Kenta two things.  One, to ask the Working Group to appoint a second co facilitator so we have appropriate coverage; and two, to put a    send a brief update in writing to the MAG as there wasn't one here. 

>> This document was posted on the MAG.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: As an update?

>> Yeah, mm hmm.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Then maybe we can follow up to get another co facilitator as well. 

(Beep).

I'm trying to see if there's anything    I don't know if anybody has had a    if folks had a collapse to read through it or if there's any other comments.  Maybe we can make a note here in terms of being kind of respectful of time in the agenda as well to ask everybody to read through the submission, ask the Working Group to take up Carlos' comment with respect to free and work to identify a second co facilitator.  That is a very important    very important area, fairly unique in terms of some of the issues it's trying to cover.  And I think we want to make sure that it's getting all the support    the support that it needs here. 

I'm trying scan quickly in the background, while speaking as well.  So thank you Chengetai and thank you for pointing that out as well.

Let's move to the next session and I guess we need to make sure that the titles in this block of main session facilitators reflects kind of current state because there's some    there seems to be a different title in the update that they provided than what is in the table here.  Let's go to the fourth one which is applying human rights and ethics in responsible data governance and artificial intelligence, and that's Natasa, Titti or Sorina.  Although, Sorina sent her apologies.  Is there anyone from the Working Group that can give us an update?  Natasa, thank you.  You have the floor.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Can you hear me now?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Yes, excellent.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  So I will speak on behalf of our group for preparing the main session proposal, applying human rights and ethics in responsible data governance and artificial intelligence.  And we will slightly changed the narrative or the description.  So it's now in the document I sent a few minutes ago before our meeting.

And we also changed slightly our policy questions so they could better reflect what we could cover on the main session.  And then this particular connection with the conclusion of the previous year main session, main emerging technology, and this year main session is some kind of maybe we could say organic or thematic continuation of that main session.  So we think it's important to make some kind of a short conclusion or overview of the conclusion of that last year main session.

And we also plan to make connection with the actual initiatives on the    dealing with the artificial intelligence in the ethics realm, and we would also    we also think that it's good idea to have some kind of    some kind of short overview of the requirements that those initiatives put in their frameworks.

Concerning the speakers, we do not have yet final list, but we are thinking about possible speakers that could cover the theme in the best possible way.  So if MAG members have any kind of suggestion, it's more than welcome.  And, of course, if anyone would like to join our group, it's also    it's also welcome.

So that would be all.  If there's any question, I will try to answer. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Natasa.  We have another really interesting set of topics here. 

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Maybe one addition if I may.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Mm hmm.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  We think that having the same moderators we had on the last year's session, and it's colleague would be a very good idea.  Of course, it depends on their availability and willing to cooperate with that.  We will check that, of course.  But I think that    we think that it would be a nice continuation of that thematic discussion.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Natasa.  I can see the logic in kind of continuity, particularly given the session description you just read and at the same time, we really want to encourage new voices and new perspectives and new    but moderators should have a relatively kind of background role as well.  I think we will leave it to the Working Group to    to make the right decision. 

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Sure.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Any other comments or    reflections?  I'm not seeing any.  Thank you, Natasa.  Again, I think this is a really important session as well, as, of course, they all are.  That's why they are all main sessions.

The next one on the table here is the Internet of Things and cybersecurity, securing the interconnection of everything.  And Juliana and Afi are the two co facilitators.  Who is prepared to speak to it today?  Let me just see if Juliana or Afi are on the call.  Is there anyone else from is the    well, Juliana is on the call.  Juliana?

>> JULIANA HARSIANTI:  Hello. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Hello.  Can you speak to us on the session?  Juliana, please, you have the floor. 

Luis is there something you can do to help in the background?  I heard Juliana come in a moment ago?

>> LUIS:  Check your mic.  Maybe   

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Juliana, we are having difficulty hearing you.  You come and go.  Could you try again?  And if not, I don't actually see Afi on the call. 

Juliana, we are having difficulty hearing you.  I think Luis from the Secretariat is going to try to troubleshoot it in the background.

>> LUIS:  Maybe you can go to the next main session, Lynn, and I will try to help her.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Right.  We'll do that.  Again, Juliana, we will come back to you.  Hopefully we can sort out the audio difficulties.

The next one is achieving the SDGs in the digital age.  Miguel Candia.  Is Miguel on the call?  No, I don't see Miguel either.

>> Hello?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Hello, Mary?

>> MARY UDUMA:  Yes, I think Miguel is not on the call, and Paul as well, I just sent them a mail.  I was visit with my initiative, now that it's done, I'm a co facilitator.  I volunteered to be a co facilitator on that.  And so Miguel had sent email.  I think it will start in the next to look at our presentation.  I'm sorry that we are not able to present again now.  I said it last time, that some of us are busy with the initiatives.  So now that it's over, even if it's online, we can send some information to the Secretariat online.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Okay.  Thank you, Mary.  So I also understood and I did see that on the list that you are co facilitator with Miguel.  And I will have the list updated.  If you could actually send    oh, Paul is here.  So Paul, can you give us an update on this particular topic? 

>> PAUL ROWNEY:  Hi, Lynn.  Not really.  Mary and Miguel or the facilitators.  But just to add to what Mary said, it's a working draft that's out there.  The Working Group is working on it, and we do expect that there will be substantial additional work over the coming two weeks.  I don't know whether the facilitators are ready to share the draft with the MAG because I don't see it on the list.  Maybe Mary can respond to that. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Okay.

>> MARY UDUMA:  No, it's not yet at the point of sharing.  We will give the coming week to be able to update it and then share online.

>> PAUL ROWNEY:  Okay. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Okay.  Thank you, Paul and Mary.  So we will wait for the updated description from the Working Group, and we should take another look at the title as well.  You know, while you are updating the sessions.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Yes, yes.  We will take a look at the    the title again and    (Audio cut out).

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Super.  Thank you.  Thank you, Paul. 

The    I want to go back to Juliana if we can, since she's prepared.  Let's see if we can get her online.  If not, we will continue down through the list.  Juliana? 

>> LUIS:  So I gave her some instructions, Lynn, but I don't if she has the time to test it.  Just test your microphone.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Oh, okay.  Why don't you just let us know, Luis.  Juliana just said in the chat that the test is not working.  We will come back a little bit later and Timea has asked for the floor with respect to the SDG session.  

>> TIMEA SUTO:  Thank you, Lynn.  Thank you for the floor and thanks to everyone who talked to the session.  Just    I'm also part of the group.  So thank you for Miguel and Mary for the leadership, as you said Miguel had shared the first draft and we are in the process of commenting and streamlining that.

I just wanted to highlight, based on the discussion that we had on the last MAG call that dynamic are also focused on the SDGs and also we heard from Kenta last week, that the trade session might also look into the SDGs in some respects.  And then on the    on the third link that I see with other main sessions is the    the one co facilitated by Ben and Maria Price on the multidiscipline and policy frameworks.

So I'm wondering how we can discuss this probably in the group, but how we can connect the dots and see if the four of us    these four groups can make sure that we will work together and collaborate on    on the individual focus each of us is taking and how we can drive the session so that we can even build um or point to each other's discussions so that the participants can really have a full view on what the IGF is doing and what the IGF is doing around the SDGs.  I think that would be great.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Timea.  That's a very important point and the way to start is to get the facilitator from the other efforts to be a full part of the Working Group, and I hope that happens.  I would expect that they would be very, very interested in    in engaging deeply in the session on the topic.

I think the policy questions are going to be important as well.  To make sure that we are bringing something unique and new to help advance the achievement of the SDGs.  I think that will be another key area to look at.

If you need any help, letting some of the other participants in or something, then reach out to myself and the Secretariat, and we'll see what we can do.  I think that's an important point.  I think that goes for virtual every one of the main sessions if we look across the Dynamic Coalitions and the NRI activities, and obviously the best practice forms as well.  There's a lot of points of intersect.

I'm not seeing any other comments or requests from the floor.  I'm going to allow Juliana and Afi and Michael to talk in the background and determine when they are ready to actually have April update from them on the earlier session on IoT and cybersecurity.  In the meantime, let's go to the legislative main session.  Rudolf, is this a good time for you to an update.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  No, it's fine.  It's fine.  I will update you on this    on this legislative main session.  Actually, the president of our parliament, he sent out the invitations via the embassies in Berlin ten days ago or two weeks ago.  So we already got some responses from countries that they will    that they are planning to send parliamentarians.  We will have one particular, let's say, host, special host, which will be the Polish parliamentarians, as they will be the next    the Polish will be the next presidency.  They got a special invitation, that is only because they are the next ones.

So we are now waiting for the responses.  I think there have been some requests already for traveling expenses to be covered and so forth.  Those who addressed us directly, we directly    we forwarded them to the Secretariat, because they are the ones in charge of the trust fund.  I don't know if Chengetai you had already some of these countries approaching you.  We are quite confident that there will be a good turnout, at least from what we have seen now.  Some of the countries even want to come with large delegations.  I told them not too large.  It is not so important how many people come, but that they have some connections with Internet, IT Internet Governance issues.  So let's see waiting for the reply and the response, but up to now, it seems to be quite well received by the    by the Member States of the United Nations.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we have had some requests from parliamentarians.  Yes. 

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Are there any questions or comments?

>> MARY UDUMA:  Yes, just a clarification.  This is Mary.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yes.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Yes, I received the mail from the coordinators of    I think you gave it a special coordinator to reach out to us and I'm working with   

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yes.  Yes.

>> MARY:  They are asking is there any support from the German government if there are some that are not able to    to fund themselves to come?  Is there any support?  Just a question.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yes, we have the support that we are providing is being managed by the United Nations, by the Secretariat, the IGF Secretariat, the IGF trust fund.  We gave all the money to this trust fund.  So the whole management and the whole procedure goes through the Secretariat, the IGF trust fund.  So those who are interested should get in contact with Chengetai, you?  Or somebody in your team? 

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, that's fine.  Either me or Anja and then we will take note of the names.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Okay.  And then we will have to see how much requests    how many requests there are and so forth.  But, yes, that's the    that's the official way to go. 

>> MARY:  Thank you very much for that clarification.  Thank you.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  You're welcome.  And just for serve, the special coordinator that you have been mentioning, who is contracted by us to support our parliament and our parliamentarians in the management of this parliamentarian sessions.  So if she approaches you, it is on    let's say, it's open behalf of us or on our parliamentarians and this is    everything is in good order and is correct, and you should not be afraid of being in contact with Sandra.  You should never be afraid, actually.

(Laughter).

But in this way, in this regard even less. 

>> MARY:  Thank you very much.  Natasa, you have the floor.

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  Thank you, Lynn.  Thank you, Rudolf.  I have one question.  Would it be possible to share the information about countries that committed to send their parliamentarians to the IGF?  So just for practical reasons that we do not need to check    check with our ministries where those invitations are.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  The invitations are all with the embassies in Berlin.  That's for sure.  That's the point where they first got.  Now on the process of who replied to what, I'm a little bit hesitant.  We can do it in four weeks' time.  They say, yes, in principle we are ready to come or we can check something or we have an election.  So it's not so easy to make a timetable.  I will bear it in and mind and check with Sandra so she can provide you with some regulated, updated list or something.  But now it's August.  I mean, as you know, most of the countries, especially in Europe, they are just on holidays.  So we will have to wait at least for another four weeks to get probably even more to get a    a more consolidated view of who will come.  But we will try to set something up. 

>> NATASA GLAVOR:  That is great.

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

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  You're welcome.

>> Lynn, I have my hand up.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Christine, you have the floor.

>> CHRISTINE:  We were also approached by Sandra, as mentioned and we received some questions from the parliamentarians again on the funding, and so I note that we have to go to Chengetai.  I was just wondering if there is a process to share specific information?  Is there a timeline where there would be a cutoff for applications?  Because it's still a discussion with parliamentarians?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  We agreed with Chengetai that for the parliamentarians we would not apply the hard deadline that has been published on the IGF website for general requests for funding because of the situation that you described, and as you note.  And also because the invitation got out only ten days ago.  But I don't know if there is another, like, final, final deadline, Chengetai, but   

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we should know the names by September.  Otherwise it becomes difficult for us to process.

>> CHRISTINE:  Thank you.

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

Any final questions, Rudolf or comments?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  The funding issue is important to us and many delegations, it might come to the point where in order to have as many delegations as possible or as many countries or parliamentarians as possible, represented that we would perhaps try to give, like partial funding so that some of the costs would be    I mean, depending on the countries, some of the costs would be covered by the trust fund and some would be covered by the delegations.  So that would allow us to give to more than    to more delegations, the opportunity to attend.  Just to flag this possibility. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I think that's a really interesting    interesting idea.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  I had some calls these last days from the embassies in Berlin.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I'm sure.  Chengetai, do you have any further comments?

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: It would also be helpful if the parliament    if we have a lot of parliamentarians, then we have to make    start making decisions.  So one of the decisions we are making, is parliamentarian in a committee that deals with IG issues?  There are several of them around.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  Yes.  Very good point.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Be part of their portfolio, I guess.  Thank you very much, Rudolf and with every week that goes by, we are very thankful for everything that the German government has put in to make this IGF a success.  This is just a tremendous effort and not just the funding, of course, which is substantial and so important, but all the personal and personnel effort as well.  Very, very much appreciated thank you.

Let me try to go back to IoT and cybersecurity while it's still warm before we move on through the table.  Let me see if Juliana has the floor or if not, she mentioned Michael or Afi.

>> Hello?  Hello?  Can you hear me.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Excellent.

>> JULIANA HARSIANTI:  I connect through the phone.  So the update from the Internet of thing, we can definitely decide the title for the main session.  It's about the    securing the intersection of everything.  And the focus is still on the cybersecurity and the security related with the Internet of Things.  To address this, the    the topic, we divided the policy question into three groups.  The first is about the Internet of things and cybersecurity and the second group is about Internet of things and security issues and then second is about good process to protect your private data, and how they should know about the Internet of Things and about    how you should know about securing the data.  And how the regulator can incorporate that with the civil society to make the manufacturer or the products of manufacturer of Internet of Things to have better for regulated data.

Now we try to get the list for the speakers.  We were trying best to get from the private sector, the technical community and the civil society and government as well to give    to give a better experience than    the experience from that point of view.

We still are finding the speaker and then we will come if another member has suggestions for the speaker, especially from the private sector or the government because me and Afi are from the civil society and the technical community.  So our contact is from technical and civil society.  So I need    we need to have another stakeholder regarding the speaker. 

We also invited a MAG member to join our group so we can    yeah, we can have better output for the main session.  And for the    for the    at the end, we have    at the end, we hope we can create some communication and for the Internet of Things and the stakeholder, and we can talk about the better regulation on Internet of Things.

I think Afi or Michael have something to add for the session?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Juliana, thank you.

>> I also have some comment.  We need the speaker from the local community to join us.

>> JULIANA HARSIANTI:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you both.  Are there any comments or questions?  I mean, again, the subject obviously is very topical, very timely given some of the other participants.  I mean, I assume that we are reaching out actively to the Best Practice Forums and DCs and that sort of thing as well.  If there's anything else we can do, let us know.  Thank you, Juliana for persisting with the communication problems as well, and thank you for the update.

Okay.  I'm not seeing any other requests for the floor.  We will move to the next item which is the main session on digital cooperation and Internet Governance.  This is the one that was formerly kind of named in a place holder fashion frontier issues.  Again, the facilitators, this will be myself, probably Rudolf, I'm guessing for the German government, and DESA and the Secretariat.  What we are planning is pending the launch of the consultation process    and I will come to that in a moment, that we would prepare a synthesization in the early October, mid October time frame and that would then be shared with the community and that set of comments and output from the first consultation is what would drive the session at the IGF in Berlin.

So the specific modalities of that, in terms of kind of topics that might be    be called out for additional coverage is not known yet.  We haven't had the consultation, but if we step back a moment to what the Secretary General and the Secretary General's office is looking for out of this consultation and it's not just this consultation, with respect to Internet Governance or IGF models, it's the entire report.

There, as we understood, from media a few weeks ago, going to put in place a very small lightweight Secretariat and specifically, they are looking for kind of a distributed approach to the report.  So the sections of the report that deal with human rights, they are expecting those activities, bodies within the UN system that have human rights portfolio will pick up the report, extent an advance the report and take whatever actions they can in the short term within their mandate.  So they are not looking for at this point a    a heavy, broad kind of UN process.

They did emphasize that they are very much looking for movement for advancement across all the activities identified in the report.  I think this clearly is in line with the Secretary General's actions himself, ever since he it can office, with respect to the reform in the United Nations and focus on the frontier issues and fully recognizing the frontier impacts and it's trying to push much of the UN system forward with respect to kind of addressing and advancing a lot of these issues.  And they are looking for the same things out of the Internet Governance recommendations and the Internet Governance mechanisms and processes.

So what we are expecting to be launched any day now is consultation, again, built on the commenting platform that we used before for past consultations, including the DESA retreat back in 2016.  It will include the text of the full report, because there are a lot of good suggestions, good ideas that, of course are of interest to the broad IGF community, but the consultation specifically is meant to address Recommendation 5 on Internet governance and specifically the IGF plus model.  I expect we'll look at all of the models and pull forward any, you know, good ideas or suggestions in our own set of reviews.  So we are not meaning to be restrictive, but, I mean, this is the one area that we can specifically advance and help advance.

So specifically, the consultation, again, will focus on Recommendation 5 on governance, and the IGF plus model and there are a series of questions that are focused on looking for concrete suggestions, concrete recommendations of what could be done, how it could be done, and specifically trying to focus on resource or process of implementation.  As we want    as I know we all do to advance these topics    it's clear that just wishing it so or suggesting it so, is not so.  We need to very much couple issues of funding and resources in order to make whatever progress may be suggested.  So we are hoping that as a part of all the consultation, not only will there be suggestions that we will actually specifically start to think about the resourced requirements and some possible kind of resource plans or sources of resource if you will to advance them.

The Secretary General's office was clear at the Berlin meeting, they would very much like to be in a position to take away some concrete recommendations of how they can advance on these issues, which are of great interest to the Secretary General and to the UN system as well.  And would plan to bring those activities forward over the next course of the year as they lead up to the 75th anniversary of the UN.

So the timetable we are looking at is sort of late September to close on the first round of comments or consultations, which would allow us some time to just synthesize what has been heard and what that that would then be used to set up the discussion at the IGF in Berlin and we expect to have very good representation from the Secretary General's office as we    as we discussed this.

So let me stop there and see if Rudolf wants to add anything or if Chengetai wants to add anything and then we'll open it up to any other questions.  Rudolf or Chengetai?

>> RUDOLF GRIDL:  I think summarized it quite well.  That's the state of play, and I    in my view, the question of how the follow up process after the IGF and then on the way to the 75 years of the United Nations celebration should be structured is not yet clearly decided upon the    at the moment.  So I think what we should do, we should really concentrate on our, like, IGF consultation process, our discussion at the IGF, and then that is something we can bring into the debate and the structure that will come after the IGF in Berlin, which is not so determined    seems not to be completely determined yet.

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

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I would like to underline    I think you made a complete presentation.  We are looking for concrete, actionable comments, and deliberations and not just what we would like, but it also has to be connected with what sort of funding model.  And especially, you know, for the IGF plus, specific comments on things like the cooperation, accelerator that was mentioned, the policy incubator and the help desk, et cetera.  But it's very, very important that it's not just    oh, yes, we would like this.  That's important as well, but also how to operationalize that.  Those are the kind of comments that we are looking for.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Rudolf and Chengetai.  I think we do have some good models for how we can manage ourselves in Berlin, based on some of the WSIS+10 consultations that were done in a main session at the IGF back in 2015.  But I agree totally with Rudolf, I think that is a second step.  I do want to mention outreach.  I mean, we need to find a way to reach out very, very broadly, not just to those people that have participated in past IGFs or, you know, even the national regional youth IGF initiatives, but more broadly than that.

You know, everything that we care about and everything that the UN cares about, of course, is extending connectivity to everyone, certainly inclusion is key.  And we really need to understand how we can pull those views in, and what that means for the future of internet governance.

So I don't know if there is an opportunity for all of us to try and    obviously we can all use our own networks, non IG networks to kind of solicit more input.  Maybe there's even an opportunity to do things possibly through whether it's Dynamic Coalitions or NRIs or our own activities with small groups of people from parts of the world that traditionally haven't been    parts of the world and sectors that traditionally haven't been active or well represented in the IGF.

So I really want to kind of underline the point that this is not just about a consultation from those IG insiders, but, in fact, needs to be much, much broader than that.  I think we will have to be quite creative and spend some cycles in terms of pulling some of those additional inputs in.  So I will see if there's any kind of comments, either from MAG members or    and, again from Rudolf and Chengetai.  If not, we will move to the next item.

Okay.  Seeing none, we'll move to the next item and, again, it's our hope that we'll have everything lined up and get that out this week.  And we can then share some additional ideas, perhaps on outreach.

Let me move to the NRI main session.  I'm not sure if that's Anja or Paul Rowney who will speak to that.

>> PAUL ROWNEY:  Hi, Lynn, it's Paul here.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Excellent, hi, Paul.

>> PAUL ROWNEY:  Anja asked me to speak.  I think she's experiencing how most of us experience the Internet in this part of the world, not so well.  So anyway, on that, there are not any major updates since the last MAG meeting, on the 17th of July.  I think we all have seen the document.  The document is shared with the MAG.  We have identified the co moderators and the co moderators will be Anja and Marilyn Kate.  They are drawn from the NRIs and they have been investigated, basically, to bring diversity and real world experience and represent the different geographical regions and demographics and make sure that the Least Developed Countries, small islands are represented as speakers.

There will be a call    or we are planning for a call in the next week with the NRIs to concretize the document further and Anja will be working on a one on one base witness the NRIs to get the case studies documented, which are part of the output documents, so that these get published before the IGF meeting later in the year.

So other than that, there's not much more I can add.  I don't know if Mary has anything additional that I missed.  Mary is also involved in the NRI Working Group, but if she hasn't, then I think that's basically it for now. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Paul.  Mary is there anything you would like to add?

>> MARY:  No, except that some initiatives are still consulting within themselves in getting speakers and also the aspect of the collaborative sessions that they want to participate on.  We are still working on that.  Thank you.

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

I note that Anja has indicated that they are still looking for some additional co facilitators from the MAG there.  I don't know if that's been closed or not yet.  But if not, again, for all of the sessions, we really would like at least two co facilitators and I think it would be excellent to have a MAG member there as well.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Lynn thank you for raising this.  Some of us are also in the MAG so I'm not sure    naturally, we are co facilitators as well, since some of us are involved in the NRIs are also in the MAG.  Can we naturally go that way?

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: You absolutely can go that way.  It was to ensure that we have two named individuals as co facilitators for each session.  And, again, that's a discussion within the Working Group.  So I just    I just note that there was a request from Anja for somebody to be designated as a co facilitator with her as well.  So I would like the    the Working Group to take that up if you haven't already and if you have, we will simply update the table here. 

>> MARY UDUMA:  Paul, I'm not sure    I think we said because we are members of MAG, but if we must name someone so we are still waiting for anybody to volunteer to be cofacilitators amongst all of us in the NRI network, if there's nobody being I'm there.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: That's fine, Mary.  We will leave it to the Working Group to indicate and obviously, we are very, very happy that there's so much overlap between NRIs and MAG participation, specifically in this session too.

Are there any comments or questions for Anja, Paul, Mary?  Almost sounds like a band. 

I'm not seeing any.  We will go to the final session.  And that's the DCs main session.  Jutta or Markus, are you prepared to give us an update? 

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Hello, Lynn, this is Jutta speaking.  I will speak on behalf of the Dynamic Coalition main session.  Thank you for giving me the floor.  The dynamic relations had their last call yesterday, and we more or less with those who could take part due to having holiday time, not all Dynamic Coalitions were able to take part in the call.  But we more or less agreed on the title for the session, which would be Dynamic Coalitions joint efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals, and the title should reflect that Dynamic Coalitions are working on SDGs and that they are working that as a network.  So each Dynamic Coalition is a network and they all somehow work together to achieve the Dynamic Coalition    the sustainable development goals.  Sorry.

What we also did is we had sent out a template for the Dynamic Coalitions about two weeks ago, and thankfully the Secretariat has also put that template into a web form.  So that now all Dynamic Coalitions are able to log in with their IGF account, and fill in the template where they are answering the following 5 2 questions which SDG the Dynamic Coalition's work is mostly represented, which are the achievements of Dynamic Coalition in regard of that specific sustainable development goal, and then describing shortly their plans towards 2025 in regard of that specific SDG.  And then we also asked them to maybe phrase one or two policy questions related to the work they are doing to achieve that speak sustainable development goal.

So we had hoped to get feedback sooner as it now came in, and it was agreed yesterday that we set a final deadline for the 26th of August for all Dynamic Coalitions to answer these few questions, and I have been informed that quickly after the link to the web form was shared, Dynamic Coalitions have reacted and have also filled in their information.  So we hope that we will be able in the last week of August to structure the responses that we get so that we get a clearer structure of the whole session for Dynamic Coalitions and probably it will be possible to group them around SDGs that are related somehow that we'll have maybe three or four blocks in the session, where Dynamic Coalitions then report back from their own work.

The purpose is also that Dynamic Coalitions make participants in the session aware that Dynamic Coalition work is ongoing work throughout the year, not only at the IGF but intersessional work and that it's open for other people and organizations to join in the work of the Dynamic Coalitions, to make their own work visible, but also to help to achieve the sustainable development goals.

The group is aware that there is another session which is somehow also close to this title, which is    let me have a look.  Achieving the S DGs in the digital age and there may be overhangs and we would be happy to confer with the facilitators of that main session, to find out how with a title and with a session description make clear that the two sessions come from a different angle, but also somehow are related to each other.

So that would be the    the offer that the Dynamic Coalition group would have to the organizers the second main session that's dealing with the SDGs.  I think that's it for the moment.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jutta and in particular, thank you for the comments here with respect to working together with the other main session activity to ensure that they are complimentary.  That mirrors a request from the earlier main session report out.  So that's all excellent.  Any comments or questions for Jutta? 

So I want to thank everybody for the extended updates.  I know it's taken a lot of time, but I think this is some    obviously a really important set of sessions here.  I would like to do two things, I guess.  At the face to face meeting in Berlin, and I think it was the inclusion group that did it first, there was kind of a flow chart which actually showed for their theme of inclusion sort of the main sort of subthemes if you will.  There was access, affordability, skills identification and identified the workshops associated with those themes et cetera, working up towards governance and policy.

I asked the Secretariat if we can work with each one of the thematic Working Groups to expand those to make sure that we have one for each one of the three main themes.  I think we should also include the open forum sessions NR Is, DCs and BPF as well.  So if you are a participant coming to the IGF, you are not just looking at the workshop sessions but the full richness of activities across the IGF ecosystem.

If there are any MAG members good at visualizing these things, I'm sure the Secretariat would appreciate that.

I would like to make that a more visible feature.  I think it's an easy way to understand what is happening at this IGF and where to direct their attention a little bit easier than looking through multiple Excel page schedules.  So I think they are both obviously very, very useful, but I think it would graphically aid an awful lot.

I think one of the other things we should do at our future sessions is to grab all the policy sessions and put them in a table so that we can see what that profile of policy questions look like and, again being ensure that the program is kind of as complimentary as it can possibly be.  But I think we'll just schedule that for a future session.

Now, that's the graph IGF meeting right there, that's just showing up in the chatroom.

Right now, it includes the workshops, but I think if we can extend that to include all the other sessions, that would be really, really helpful.

Let me go quickly then to the closing and the wrap up sessions and I think this was a discussion on thematic introductory sessions and reporting mechanisms.  I think we have Susan to talk to the introductory and Timea to talk to the closing.  They sent out an updated document yesterday, which people should have in their email but will be shown here on the screen in a moment as well.  So I will turn it over to Susan.  Susan, you have the floor and thank you and to the rest of the group as well for all the work on this activity. 

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

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: We can, yes.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: So we have, as Lynn had said, we circulated the latest version of the Google Doc.  So let me see if I can just pull this up and share that again.  People can have it up on their screen. 

So basically, the    we took the work we had begun in Berlin during the third MAG meeting and open consultation.  You see it's a very kind of short description and a plan for the introductory sessions.  The introductory sessions, as well as the concluding sessions have been scheduled for one hour and 15 minutes or 120 minutes.  Each theme will have an introductory and a concluding session.  The purpose of the introductory session at the beginning of the week is to set the scene for each of the IGF main themes.  In other words, we would like to introduce participants who are interested in a particular theme, in particular, who would perhaps like to follow that theme throughout the course of the week during the IGF to be exposed to a brief overview of the theme's narrative.

So if everybody will recall, we developed a narrative for each theme at the beginning of our process earlier in the year.  And so we'll go over that.  We'll explore the different sub thematic areas and the sub thematic areas will be    we're taking a cue from the very documents that Lynn had just mentioned, the flow documents and so those sub thematic areas will be discussed during the introductory session, and it's an opportunity for some folks to volunteer, not everybody, but some folks to volunteer to preview their sessions, whether it's a workshop, open forum, Best Practice Forum, Dynamic Coalition, or a main session that's related to that specific theme.

And then finally, we are hoping to incorporate keynote remarks from a featured speaker.  And this will be a speaker who will be able to give kind of a thought provoking and, let's just say very relevant to the theme set of remarks that should be about 15 minutes.  And so you will see that we have worked out timings and also a plan for how to organize    oops it looks like these dates need to be updated.

But a plan to organize these introductory sessions.  So before I open the floor up to any questions, I would like to    or for any comments, I would just like to emphasize that we're appealing to    for the introductory sessions, folks who would like to take the lead, folks who were engaged in the different workshop evaluation groups.  So we need one or two people from the different workshop evaluation groups to help in this.  So if you are not involved in an organizational activity, this is your chance.  And so with that, I will    I will ask if there are any questions or comments.

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Susan.  I will give a moment to see if anybody wants to come in.  While we are waiting, I mean, I guess I have one kind of question on the expert remarks.  I don't know if you really meant an expert, per se, or perhaps just a speaker who would actually set some challenges or identify why this area is so important or, you know which is kind of a different profile than an expert per se.

Some of the earlier discussions had really focused on kind of more of a visionary speaker or somebody who would set a challenge to the group.  So maybe you can just comment a little bit on the thinking there, if this really is an expert that you are actually looking for.

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: That could be    I don't want to    it could be a distinction without a difference.  That's exactly what we are looking for, is somebody who is in command of the sub, but who can accept the challenge.  I'm just    we are thinking kind of like a Ted Talk type level.  So it doesn't    I'm not sure    if the word "expert" is confusing people, then we can change that.  We are looking for someone who is very compelling and who can, I guess, set out that vision.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I will leave it to others and maybe people can kind of comment online.  I suspect a lot of people are still looking through the document.  But maybe even just, you know, a little note with respect to the profile or the intent of that particular speaker, might be another way to    to clarify what    what you are looking for.

And then, I think we need to, as well, think about the breakout groups and make sure that we can support that physically, if, in fact, it's going to be in    running in parallel.  Maybe I will let the Secretariat sort of think that through and either come back later or unless they have some sort of observations now.  But more important than I think for the logistics can support it or not, I think we need to hear from the MAG in terms of their support for this as    as a process or a model for the introductory session.

Are there any comments?  So June is saying she supports.  I can also appreciate that it's a lot to take in give on the workload a number of people have had here in the last week.  Maybe we can put a specific request out to the MAG for comments, giving them a week to put some additional comments in and then see if we can move towards concluding that in the next call in two weeks' time. 

I'm not seeing any other requests for the floor, and wanting to make sure that we get through the document, maybe we leave this for now.  We can come back to it at the end and ask Timea to speak to the concluding sessions and then, again, we can open the floor for comments on concluding session and the introductory session if people have a bit more time to think it through.

Timea, can you walk us through the concluding session?

>> TIMEA SUTO:  Absolutely.  Happy to.  Thank you, inn there.

So what we have done, it's pretty similar to what Susan just presented, but if I can say, it's in reverse order and skipping the expert speakers.  So that would be the very top level summary of what the concluding sessions are looking to be.  Basically we aim in the one hour and 50 minutes that are allocated to each concluding session to distill the discussions that were had over the week.

Also in the workshops, but also in the various other sessions, including the main sessions, the BPF, the Dynamic Coalition, and the regional IGF sessions and open forums and any other talks or sessions that occurred over the week.  And we don't aim to have a single solution or one message per track, but rather to give a summary or a roadmap that was raised by the community and also hopefully facilitate reporting out in terms of, you know, interesting case studies shared or solutions raised or just questions or areas for further research and debate pointed out in any of the sessions that occurred.  We just don't want to lose any of that information, and we would like to have this opportunity in the concluding sessions to point to those things.

In terms of organization, we are taking to mimic the same structure that Susan presented earlier.  So we have a MAG member give a quick welcome and introduction and set the scene of what the session is supposed to be.  Break out into discussions around the sub themes again to discuss takeaways from people's sessions.  And then report back from the breakout discussions to the plenary and give a last chance to the full public to    to react or share any    any more inputs or highlight any questions.

And then that would basically be it.  It's a pretty simple format, but it depends a lot on the volunteering and the help of the groups who worked on the evaluation of each track.  So it could be the same persons who would volunteer to do both the introductory and the closing.  It could be different people.  So I leave it up to you, but I just wanted to underline that we would really appreciate the help from each of those groups so that we can make sure that this session is working well.

And one last thing, we don't want to mandate this, but I think it would be very, very helpful, that each session would designate    that each session organizing team, that goes for workshops or anything else, during the IGF, to designate a person under the rapporteur or one of the organizers or the moderators, depending who would be available at that time to attend the closing sessions so we can make sure that any message that they might want to highlight is not lost.

If there are any questions, I would be happy to answer.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Timea, particularly your point with needing to identify early participants for the closing session to make sure that we have full representation there. 

One of the comments I would like    I mean, I like the comment about your    the aim of the concluding sessions is to provide a concise summary, a roadmap of suggestions.  I think it would be extremely helpful and I think some of this more detailed is    we can pick it up in the ad hoc reporting group.  It would be really helpful to identify if we are talking about roadmap or suggestions or future work that needs to be done or future policy questions that should be explored, that we identify who and/or where they should be explored so that we can use that to facilitate specific outreach going forward.

But, again, I think some of the more detail behind the various reporting stages will pick up in the ad hoc reporting group once we got the overall strategic direction supported by the MAG.

Any    I'm trying to fill some space there to give people a chance to put their hands up.  Are there any comments or questions for Susan, Timea, any reflections? 

This is the sort of process that I think we should be formally approving within the MAG.  So why don't we leave it open for comments for another week.  We'll SCT Secretariat to send out a reminder.  That would allow us to take on board any of those comments or suggestions and then formally approve it two weeks from now, and also we point out, of course that there was a specific request that the people that take responsibility for organizing these two sessions, I think, be drawn from, if not completely overlapping with those frenetic workshop review sessions that were in place to review and prepare the workshop program itself.  So I think that's a specific request and obviously we'll be looking for leads for these six sessions as well.

Susan or Timea, is there anything else you want to call out, outline, any specific requests we should be aware of or be considering?

>> TIMEA SUTO:  Timea here, one point, not recording to the opening and concluding sessions, but if we control down the document, that we shared with you, there's a third one.  I'm not sure that this is the place to share it, but naturally, our conversations, especially around concluding session, how are we reporting out from the IGF.  So we formulated a couple of suggestions on reporting.  So I would like to just offer that up to you, at this point and when the ad hoc Working Group is constituted, we will make sure we share with that group as well.  I have no further comments.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: That's very helpful.  Very helpful, Timea and I think it's important to pull it into the ad hoc Working Group.  There's a lot of interest, as I reported on last call and earlier on this call, we decided to hold off on kicking off that meeting until a lot of the main session work was done over the last four to six weeks and it was also pending the meeting that was held in New York a couple of weeks ago.  But I will get a poll out and we will set that out a few weeks from now.

So I think what we are saying is that we will put a specific request out to the MAG for support on the introductory and concluding process recommendations that are here.  Note that there was a specific request again that those individuals that were part of the review team for the workshop submission process be the ones that lead.  At least it's really important that they lead the introductory session.  And the concluding session will speak for itself, as it's a little more process oriented on everything that has happened beforehand.  But we'll put those two points out to the MAG, one for approval of this document, and two, we will need to begin identifying co facilitators for the sessions here.

Any final comments or questions, reflections on this agenda item? 

>> MARY UDUMA:  Hello, this is Mary.  I was out and I didn't listen very well    I missed most of what Susan said, but my first    my first reaction was the time frame given is even    the timing is even bigger than the main sessions and I'm wondering whether we are not wearying the participants so much.  I thought it was an introduction of what we are going to do and it won't be a breakout session.  I don't know whether I got it wrong.  Correct me if I'm wrong.  So taking them on for 100 minutes as an intro, I think I find it might be    it might be    it seems to me it's too long, and some.  Actions    some of these sessions maybe we look at it.

At the close, I like so much the closing, because you are    we are now going to hear from the participants what they got from all the sessions and then summary or messages or high points or anything that will go into their reports.  I don't know whether maybe because I didn't stay to the    I had to go attend to something before coming back.  I'm sorry if I missed it.  But I'm looking at the timing, it seems to me the 100 minutes is too long.  You know, whether we can cut off some of the issues so they can go to the workshops.  When they get to the workshops, they will listen to all of that.

If we do the narratives, if you recap on the narratives that you sent out on the workshops, I think it's good enough and to have them express their    choose which of the sessions they want to attend.  So that's what I think.  Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mary.  Timea, Susan or any members of the Working Group?  Care you to comment?

>> SUSAN CHALMERS: Hi, this is Susan.  Thanks, Mary.

In terms of how we built the session, I think originally the session was meant to be 60 minutes, but then when we received the schedule, it was scheduled for almost twice that amount of time.  So that was a decision that was taken by the Secretariat and so we developed a proposal in response to the time that was allocated.

And so I guess if there is a decision to listen the amount of time, then the nature of the session can be changed accordingly.

Just in terms of the breakout groups, what we had envisioned was that the session, if it    if it is going to be this duration can serve as really kind of an orientation.  And a chance for people to develop connections at the beginning of the IGF, and around certain thematic areas.  We are envisioning less formal, where folks can    much in the way that we developed main session ideas in Berlin.  To discuss some of the issues that are particularly within a subtheme of this theme, and those are    and this is work that will be undertaken or Lynn had appealed to before we started to introduce discussing the introductory and the conclusory sessions.  Organization of sessions, different types of sessions according to the subtheme that were put forward by each of the narrative groups in Berlin, when we were doing our workshop evaluations.

So that is the idea and it will require people to step forward and    and be responsible for the sessions.  And so if there isn't a commitment by MAG members to do that, then obviously we need to readjust accordingly, but I'm hoping that there will be.  So I think you raised a very good point, Mary, and I appreciate your comments on that.  I just wanted to give a little bit of an explanation on why we    we chose this format and    and also a little bit about the breakout groups.

I hope that helps.

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

I don't know if Mary has a response or if there's anything the Secretariat wants to come in with respect to, you know, what their thoughts were for the timing. 

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: No, I think the conversation is going on well.  It's just a decision that we have to make, and Mary does make some very good points.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So maybe we can    thank you, Chengetai and thank you, Mary and Susan also.

Why don't we actually try and really kind of facilitate or nurture this discussion online so that we actually have a discussion online with respect to, you know, what is it we want to achieve with these sessions?  What do we think would be useful?

I have to say, I did like some of the Susan's comments as well, which was, you know, a way for people to make hopefully new connections with, you know, individuals and organizations that are in their kind of thematic or sub thematic areas of interest.

So I think there's obviously a number of things we can do with this session, that would be a value to the community.  I think we need to settle on certainly what is most appropriate and then, of course, laterally, what we can actually resource and support.

>> MARY UDUMA:  Thank you, Lynn for that clarification and thank you, Susan for making that explanation.  I want to know if we do orientation.  We usually dot first orientation work, or new attendee orientation.  So is that removed from the agenda?  Is it just orientation for everybody?

I agree with is Susan that people need to connect with others, but I think we are too big to even connect the    the crowd is in numbers.  And one    one session will not take anything less than 500 participants, because    or 300 participants, I think.  So those are things we should also consider.

And since    I think the essence of the topic as I understood it was we are trying to look to what are the colleagues are setting the scene and, you know, looking at the issues that will happen, especially the policy questions and the narratives that we did at the beginning and telling people what the expectation.  Okay, making sure that they have some expectation when they get to the workshops, and when they are following a particular track of workshop, they know at the end of the day, we are expecting such and such and such.

But at the end, they will come back to us to tell us what they were able to get from the workshops and what they are able to get and that will enter into their report.  That's my understanding, but I have no    I have no    whether we reduce the number of    the    the time slot or not, but the thing is that we shouldn't weary the participants so much and allow them to go and get themselves going since we also have main sessions.  So    and, again, as I said, we are doing away with the orientation session that we normally do at the beginning of the IGF?

Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: So Mary, those were excellent comments, both your comments and Susan and Timea as well, I really appreciate the thought that's gone in.  And, you know, the kind of careful approach we are taking to try and advance this.

I'm going to ask the Secretariat for a final comment    I know there's a discussion around newcomers orientation, and there's a general orientation, this is the IGF, and all the voices are equal in participation and that sort of thing.  And then we traditionally have had a topical session as well, but I think what we are doing with respect to newcomers orientation is still under discussion within the    within the Secretariat, and obviously we would be informed by whatever we do with these    with these sessions.

Let me just see if there are any final comments from the Secretariat.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we do have an IGF for beginners main session, between 8:00 and 9:30.  And then we don't have any other newcomer sessions in the schedule because, of course, if there is a newcomers session, that means that they cannot be in any other sessions.  And the whole point is for them to engage.  And so it should happen actually before the main meeting starts.  That's why we only have that slot at the very beginning.

But we are open to suggestions and if there is a group that wants to do a more involved newcomer session, sprinkled out throughout the session, then we can.  Do we do that during the lunchtime?  Because I really don't think we should do it while other sessions are going on.

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

We are at the top of the hour now.  So I will just close out quickly by thanking Timea, Susan and the other members of the Working Group for advancing this.  Again, they took this on in the middle of face to face Berlin meeting and presented a draft there and have continued to    to advance it.

Much appreciated and much appreciated to Mary for her comments and Jennifer's comment in the chatroom as well.

I do think this is important, because it's a relatively flu approach.  I think it could quite nicely    hopefully this is the last time I use these words    top and tail in these main thematic sessions we are actually organizing.  So I think it really is deserving of some more thought.  I would encourage everybody to do that online.  And we'll set aside a fairly substantive and probably the first order of business for our MAG meeting in two weeks' time.

But please keep the discussion going online and let's see if we can actually advance this.  And I see Maria would like a quick ask from the gender BPF, Maria and then Jutta.

>> MARIA:  From the gender BPF, we have the ask of the old MAG members maybe they can participate in a short survey that we have put to go and it's online now with the help of Luis, and trying to research a little bit more of what will be the most important focus inside a topic that we have had to choose for this year, for gender BPF on access.  We want to talk about after access and what are the different considerations and condition that we need to work from a policy perspective, to really provide the possibility of women and nonbinary people to be part of the community.  So I will send just right now to the whole MAG list, linked with the survey and I will appreciate you if you can participate answering the survey, but also sharing in your networks.

Thank you very much. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maria.  Jutta, you have the floor.

>> JUTTA CROLL:  Yes, thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  Just a quick notice, since I do think that we would not be able to discuss the updates from the Working Groups in full in this session, also it was on the agenda.  At the second to last workshop MAG meet, you raised the question to the Working Group and the workshop evaluation process, whether we should have a survey with regard to the satisfaction, those people who submitted workshop proposals had with the whole process, and to gain some feedback in order to sharpen and revise the process description for next year.

The Working Group has met two days ago to discuss this again, and also due to summer break, we had not so much response.  We were considering we would need more feedback from the MAG members what would really be the objective of having such a survey.  All of the member    group members that attended the Cadena you will said, yes, they individually already got some feedback from those people who had submitted workshop proposals.  Many of them had questions with regard to the comments they had got, the feedback they had got from MAG members and the IGF Secretariat.  Several of them said that they did not understand how the selection process worked.  So we got the feeling that it would be important to have such a survey, but in order for the Working Group to shape the survey, we would need a little bit more guidance from the MAG.

We have produced short minutes from that meeting.  So we can circulate that.  It was circulated to the Working Group list.  We could also circulate it to the MAG list and then probably you could give us some feedback on whether you think this goes in the right direction or whether additional questions would be necessary.  And we had the survey at the end of August or the beginning of the September.  So feedback would be very appreciated by the group in order then to have enough time to shape the questionnaire and to set it up online and send out the link to all those people who had sent in a workshop proposal.

That's all.  Thank you. 

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jutta.  That was a very comprehensive update and I think sending a note to the MAG list would be very good.  Wim had put a note in well, with respect to the BPF cybersecurity also launched a call for contributions.  Wim, it's good in the chatroom there, but if you could send that request on the MAG list, that would ensure it got even broader visible.

I'm not trying to wrap this up too kind of quickly, but we are over time and I know some people have already left for other meetings.  We will have another call in two weeks.  We will make sure that    I think next time it should be a much shorter set of updates on the main sessions.  We really advanced them a lot in the last two calls here, which will allow us more time on the introductory and closing sessions, and updates from the Working Groups and I think it would be useful to do an updates on the BPFs and some of the other intersessional activity as well.

So we'll get that agenda out in the coming days.  And I want to thank everybody again for all the effort here over the last couple of weeks, couple of months.  Again, appreciate it.  It's a difficult period, but I think we are really making an awful lot of progress here.  So thank you.  Have a good rest of your day or evening, and we'll talk to you in a few weeks.  Bye bye.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Lynn.

>> Bye, all.

>> Bye bye.