IGF 2015 First Open Consultations and MAG Meeting 2 December

IGF  MAG Meeting
 02 DEC 2014 (AFTERNOON SESSION)
 Geneva, Switzerland

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you -- good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.  We are resuming our session.  

 When I asked Hartmut to show that video seven minutes before the beginning of the meeting, I was just testing his punctuality.  Now I see that the host country representatives are very punctual, and that gives us even more confidence that everything will be on time.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  Thank you.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So let us resume our conversation, and as I mentioned, the first speaker in the session is a representative of the European Union.  

 Please, Cristina, you have the floor.

 >>CRISTINA MONTI: Yes.  Cristina Monti from the European Commission.

 Thank you, Mr. Chair.  

 So if my voice allows me, I would like to share a few observations and maybe some practical suggestions for consideration by the MAG and the host country.  My remarks are more on the preparatory process.  

 So building on the overall positive and encouraging assessment of IGF Istanbul, we have recognized that the next IGF will be under even more intense scrutiny because it will be the 10th IGF and the last one under the current U.N. mandate, and because it will need to show it is able to meet increased expectations from the global community, and this is prompting the MAG to put even more energy and focus into its activities.

 I believe it is particularly important to maximize efficiency and synergies during the preparatory process leading up to Brazil, including through intersessional work and the creation of working groups focusing on different areas, as it has been proposed.

 So I wish to welcome the proposal by the MAG chair, in its summary document, to concentrate intersessional activities on themes of a developmental nature, also in connection to the discussion on new sustainable development goals possibly.

 And as a practical suggestion, the work of the MAG could focus in a structured way on the very concrete recommendations that are collected in the chair's summary.

 For instance, this is just an idea but different working groups could be created in order to explore more in detail and implement the described recommendations.

 And linking up to the important discussions on Internet governance that we reviewed yesterday and that we mentioned again today, and which will influence the work of the MAG, one concrete deliverable for the next IGF could be a message addressed to the U.N. General Assembly on the WSIS+10 high-level meeting of December 2015.

 So we agree that considering that the IGF will take place only one month before this meeting, this could provide an excellent opportunity to express the views of the multistakeholder community on this important process.

 And final point, on IGF outputs, in order to ensure a broader outreach, I think it would be useful that the main -- at least the main outcome documents are translated into U.N. official languages.

 As we see even in our preparatory meeting, we are relying on the services of interpreters providing multilingual translation, so we should allow the broader community to have at least similar treatment too.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Cristina, for your comments and proposals.

 Actually. 

 I would like to draw your attention to one element that Cristina just said and it is for further reflection and I would like to gather your reaction.  So Cristina suggested that maybe outcome -- one structured outcome, if you wish, from the Brazil meeting would be the message to the WSIS+10 review conference, and that message would be endorsed by all participants of IGF and would be prepared through the intersessional period and so on.

 So please reflect on that proposal.

 My immediate reaction personally, it looks appealing, but it may drive us in a very sort of existential discussion about Internet governance.

 Again, that's my first reaction, just drawing your attention to this proposal.

 Hartmut, please, you are next on the list.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  I like a lot of comments that already we received before the lunch, but I think that one concern that was not very strong commented, we need to avoid competition between workshops and the main session.  

 I think that one or two mentioned this, and I'd like to introduce a complete timetable for all the days.  

 Is that already on the -- can we show this on the screen?

 I think we -- most of us, or the newcomers, are lost.  They don't see the total agenda.  So we put together a proposal.  Forget the timing.  Let's see only the structure before we go in details.  

 No, no, not this.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah.  No, please continue talking.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  So the idea is that we have first workshops, and then in the end of each day a main session, without any competition between the two kinds of -- 

 When I say "workshop," I mean all the --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Parallel workshops.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  -- parallel -- yeah.

 We have, let's say, 10 rooms so we can have a lot of parallel sessions in the -- during the sessions in the afternoon, and then later, as the last session on the day, a main session about the themes.

 My proposal is that we don't compete.  

 I think that in Istanbul we probably have too many options, and on the end, the main session with high-level invited people compete with workshops and this was probably one of the problems that as an old-timer participating in most of the IGFs until now -- not myself alone but others also feel.  So the idea is, if possible, to avoid this superposition of these kind of programs.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  Thank you.  So if I understand correctly, you're suggesting that we have, let's assume 10 -- as you mentioned that there will be 10 rooms -- 10 parallel workshops starting in the morning, two times; then in the afternoon, one time; and then we go for plenary, not competing.  Which means that instead of having 80 workshops per day -- sorry, not 80 -- 40 workshops per day, we'll have 30.  Right?

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  Well, depends on the time.  We can have 60-, 90-, and 120-minute workshops.  Depends how we use the time.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No.  If we take average.

 So please, the proposal coming from host is to have -- instead of having a plenary in parallel with all workshops, as we usually have, to consider having parallel workshops and, at the end of each day, to have one concluding plenary.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  Now you have it on the screen, yes.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS: And that would be without having parallel workshops at that time.

 Again, that's for -- that's an option for consideration and reflection.

 I have next --

 Have you finished?

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  About the time schedule, yes.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Go ahead, then.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  I'd like to underline the working time is exactly the same as normal.  I received some comments that we are spending too much time on the beach.  I said it's flexible time.  It's working time.  And the working time after lunch is exactly the same or more than in the last years.

 So the argument that we are spending time for pleasure is not a correct argument.

 And very important, we try to go near to Europe and Asia, that they're not on-site participants have better time to follow all the negotiations during the -- the MAG, the forum.

 I think if we expect to have 30, 40, 50, 60 hubs as we have during the NETmundial, we need to respect also the time zone difference and I am in favor that we use, let's say, three or four hours to go in favor of the on-site -- not on-site -- on-line participants.  That this is very strong argument that must be considered.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Hartmut.

 Again, please do not pay attention to the left column, which says "Timetable."

 So that is not decided.  We haven't discussed it and no decision has been taken.

 So the basic idea is to have parallel workshops in the morning, then one session of our workshops in the afternoon, and then the main session without having in parallel any other workshops.  So that's one option which is proposed.

 Let me turn to the next one.  Shita, please.

 >>SHITA LAKSMI:  Thank you, Chair.  I'll be quick.  

 I would like to echo what Fatima and Izumi have said.  In Bali there is a specific booth especially for Indonesian who is very new to IGF to inform them about IGF.  So if we want to, as usual suspects, inform those newcomers with better information to take meaningful part of the discussion of the forum, it will be good to provide that kind of booth in the IGF 2015.

 That specific booth for newcomers is not only providing written information but also a bit of discussion or dialogue to understand further the jargon or Internet ecosystem and the forums rules.  And also don't forget to promote the booth because it was quite successful.

 Other issues I would like to raise is I personally agree with Cristina about bringing IGF voices to U.N. General Assembly on WSIS+10.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  

 Let me ask Kossi to take the floor at this time.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chair.  

 I'd like to stay in the same field as others.

 If we listen to the different proposals that have been made, well, we see on the time frame about seven hours of working time to be managed here.  

 I would like to propose an alternative.

 It says 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., which would let us have extra time in the morning but give us six hours of work and have two hours to deal with other matters.

 In those six hours, this can be subdivided in different ways, and let me give you a few basic orientations here.

 Often we have orientation sessions that we get in the morning, and instead of having blocks of 30 minutes, let's say on the first day two hours for orientation, two hours for other things, and if possible to have the secretariat available permanently for orientation for newcomers and for older participants.

 One of the activities is a top-level science aspect.  I propose that this be done on the first day, and that this be given adequate time, with one or two 30-minute preliminary presentations, then an hour and a half to deal with the high-level science representatives of major firms, ministries, et cetera, and civil society, so that we can then derive from this very acute issues to be dealt with.

 Here we will find the ideas that might allow us to reach a consensus between regions.

 Concerning plenary sessions, I propose that these be three hours maximum, and in those three hours we have two hours for discussion, which would give us room for four presenters if each one is given 15 minutes.

 Concerning plenary sessions, they should be three hours maximum.  And in those three hours, we have two hours for discussion, which would give us room for four presenters if each one is given 15 minutes.  Maximum then of four presenters for each plenary session.  This would give us enough open time for exchanges for parallel workshops and best practices workshops.  

 I would have hoped that these be limited to 1 1/2 hours with the demand that presentations or introductions to the themes last no more than 30 minutes and the rest of the time being an exchange of experience.

 Here we will be able to look at case studies but different countries bring forth.  Now, in saying this, I would suggest that these be focused on current needs of developing countries as per under the Millennium Development Goals.  For example, my country, we have three basic sectors:  Education, agriculture, and health.  We have been lucky to have had different activities.  One recently took place which allowed me to meet the top people in one of my ministries.  That kind of connection was very appreciated.  We were given practical cases that we were able to observe, online activities, and so on, one of the important things for us now.  These were all, I think, things that we can be deal with when we deal with best practices.

 Now, for the opening session, here I think we need to have the five regions on the panel in representation as well as international organizations and the host country with their specific slots on the opening.  And I would propose that this be done very briefly, that we have a -- kind of a summary of main recommendations of IGF and perhaps 30 minutes to one hour for debate and discussion on this.  And we have one single intervention, that is the host country that would give the final communique instead of having a drawn-out closing ceremony.

 I can't stress enough the need for translation on the spot which will be crucial to the quality and accessibility that everyone needs at this meeting.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Kossi, for your practical suggestions.  Of course, it will be very difficult to provide translation in every meeting room, so that is extremely costly and is not feasible.  But we will see how far we can get with that.

 There was a request from delegation from China, from transmission.  Is Mr. Chen in the room?  I don't see him.  No, he's not in the room.

 Ihsan is next, please.

 >>IHSAN DURDU:  Thank you, Chair.  Let me just talk about one interesting remark made by Minister Ivo Ivanovski in Istanbul.  I think it was an interesting remark he made.  He said, any time I come to these high-level meetings, I notice that there's only I.T. or telecommunication ministers present.  I don't see ministers from other disciplines such as health, education, environment, trade.  He asked the question:  Do they think IGF is not there anything interesting for them?  I think it is a very stunning point that he made.  Yes, what about the other disciplines?  Usually I also experience I see those ministers, I.T. or telecommunications, coming to the high-level events and they talk about very much in a similar format the numbers, how much they achieved in their own country in terms of numbers, connectivity, Internet usage and things like that.  And they make their comments and they leave.  It is not very much of an interactive session for them either unless they have a very good advisor, they don't learn much also from IGF, all the processes taking place at IGF.

 So I mean, I start thinking about how we can improve the situation so everybody finds some kind of an interesting point where they can contribute and they can learn something from each other instead of maybe having one high-level meeting first day.  Maybe we should have several or several high-level meetings.  One for each day in the mornings, for instance, with a different topic, of course, one on health, one on trade, one on security.  And they can come in, the high-level or the ministers of different disciplines can come in and not only they talk about how much they are doing in their own country in terms of Internet usage and Internet utilization but also interactively learn from each other.  Maybe they can gather some information in interactive and informative sessions.  So that's just an idea.

 But I think if we are in a position to attract interest of the high decision -- high-level decision makers, we have to think a little bit differently to format so that not only the certain parts of the government are interested but there might be interest for all of them.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  That might be something to consider.  As far as I know, Olympic games are organized in the way each federation of each individual sport is organizing its own event at the same time in the same place.  And then this is what we know.  Olympic games in reality is the compilation of parallel games organized individually by each federation.  So transposing that to just what Ihsan just said, maybe we make one stream devoted to ICTs in education or Internet and education and allow -- in parallel with everything else, we concentrate this year, meaning in '15, maybe education.  Not that we should.  I'm just interpreting what Ihsan just said.  Please consider that option as well.

 Next speaker on the list is Desiree.

 >>DESIREE ZACHARIAH:  Mr. Chairman, fellow MAG members, I would just like to make a comment about the involvement of MAG members.  I must admit that I am seeing -- and I am thankful that there is a lot of effort being put to ensuring that new MAG members are given a really good orientation.  However, I would like to ask that that be extended.

 I think that since this meeting is being organized -- the forum, sorry, is being coordinated by the MAG, that one of the things that should happen is that MAG members should really be involved in the workshops, not as observers but rather as people directly involved in the process.  So as part of that, if it would be possible to have MAG members assigned to workshops either on a voluntarily basis or selection basis, random selection basis, that will allow -- that would ensure that all MAG members get the opportunity of working alongside the workshop and, therefore, understand better.  That would also, I think, help in the self-assessment we need to go through later on.

 Just in that process, I would like to suggest that we could have maybe a room available for MAG members whereby they are able to meet in the morning and have a debriefing and in the evenings and have a debriefing so that we could identify issues that have been encountered during the various workshops, et cetera, et cetera.  That would then give us the ability to keep our fingers on the pulse of what it is that has transpired throughout the days.

 I'd like to also say something on the benefit to the participants of the IGF.  Right now we have a situation -- and the IGF is intended to be a place where you can have dialogue, open dialogue on any IG issue without fear or favor.  And that's an excellent thing, and I also realize the capacity-building opportunities will ensure that we can identify some best practices.  But I'd like to see this extended a little bit more because for some countries when they send an individual to the IGF, what they want is for that individual to bring back something that's tangible, something that's implementable.

 And if we could have maybe a track or a theme which will allow -- provide the complete solution so it provides -- it identifies the policies necessary for a particular theme, the legislation, the procedure, the implementation issues, activities, and possibly a testimonial from countries which have implemented one of the specific solutions.  So that if -- let's suppose a country has been good at providing for disabled persons, that they could then provide us with their instructions, that is, the how-to instructions as to how this was done in their countries thereby helping especially developing countries to assist them in that process.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  In other words, you're reinforcing the need to do the best practice -- focus on best practice compilations in the meeting and run up to the meeting.  Thank you.

 Next is Constance.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER:  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.  I'll try to be brief and also to focus my comments on structural aspects, understanding that we'll talk about themes later.

 With regards to the structure, I think we need to integrate in our discussions how we're going to structure the intersessional work which I understand should start in the coming weeks.  

 So one possible way of doing this, once we have the themes agreed, is to have MAG individuals or non-MAG individuals volunteer to pick up the workflow one volunteer or a group of volunteers per theme.

 That work, whether it's best practices, whether it's cooking outcomes for dynamic coalitions, we're simply putting together workshops which would feed into the events of the IGF week.  And we would have workshops, best practices forums, maybe flash sessions, dynamic coalition events.  

 And all of those events organized per theme could feed into specific main sessions, understanding that main sessions would not overlap with any of those specific activities.

 I like the idea -- I think it was Brazil -- to have main sessions at the end of the day because, again, it could show -- it could be the end point of a progression, intersessional work, and then best practices, then workshops, all that feeding into main sessions.  And I would be inclined to have the high-level event merged with the closing at the end of the week to encourage high-level participants to be there and listen to basically a presentation of the outcome of our work throughout the year and throughout the IGF week.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Constance, for your proposals.

 Next on the list is Soonjoung.  My apologies if I mispronounced your name.

 >>SOONJOUNG BYUN:  No, correct, Soonjoung.  Thank you, Chair.  

 I would like to make some comments and suggestions regarding the preparatory process very shortly.  Considering we have quite enough time to prepare next IGF meeting comparably the last IGF, I think carrying out open consultations, we are getting input documents to ask other participants' opinions other than MAG members about structure of IGF 2015 including but not limited to how many workshops and main sessions should next IGF have and what criteria has to apply to evaluate workshops and what criteria has to apply to select workshops and time changes which host country has proposed today and any other issues that we have right now.

 It would be necessary because MAG members are not the only ones who decide those matters, and there's need to include more participants, not just in the IGF meeting but from the process of preparing.  Some MAG members says that the number of workshops is too many and others are not.  We have various opinions on every issue.  However, this is only MAG members' opinions at least from the point of non-members' view.  As a facilitator, not as a decision maker, listening to others' opinion would be more effectful way for others to think IGF as their event, not some small (indiscernible) event.

 If we make final decision on these issues after considering the accumulated opinion from others, we will have more legitimacy and bigger support with the structure of the next IGF.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much for your comments.

 Now, next on the list is Matthew and after that will be Bianca and I understand there will be an attempt to a presentation during that intervention.

 Matthew, you have a microphone.  Matthew is not willing to speak.  Okay, in that case, it goes straight to Bianca.

 >>BIANCA HO:  Hi.  Thank you, Chair.  So the civil society kind of discussed during lunch and we have a proposal for the structure of the IGF.  So Lea and also Jac will speak more on that.  And afterwards, I will add on my thoughts on making it a bit more user friendly.

 >> LEA KASPAR:  Thank you, chairperson, and thank you, Bianca, for letting us use your slot to make this intervention.  I also thank the MAG members for your indulgence in allowing us to present this.  

 So over lunch a number of civil society MAG members got together, and we were trying to kind of put on paper in a similar vein that Hartmut was doing an outline of a program.  And a rationale of how we went about it was to identify a few issues that we saw as needed to be addressed.  

 Just before we go into this, I would like to say to put on my humble hat as a newcomer and say I do understand that a lot of these discussions have happened in the past and we do acknowledge that these discussions have been happening for years.  We would very much like to thank Hartmut as well for the presentation earlier, and we hope that this can be used as an input into that discussion.

 So in terms of the rationale, what we were trying to address here is to first allow people to more easily follow different tracks and also to avoid clashing between workshops and main sessions.

 We also thought that there it would be logic where it would be logical to have a flow where the workshops in different tracks would flow into main sessions and perhaps comment in main sessions.  We also noticed that the event often loses momentum towards the end of the fourth day.  So these are the elements that we wanted to address.  As Jac will now show, the main point is there to tip the balance towards the end with the main sessions in the last two days rather than at the beginning of the event.  So thank you.  I will let Jac speak.

 >>JAC SM KEE:  Hi.  So basically the idea was as Lea outlined.  Rather having the main sessions throughout the four days, we will focus the main sessions or focus sessions to the last two days so then we can dedicate the first kind of 2 1/2 days to really just have parallel workshops running and identify within the subthemes.  So there's probably about six to eight subthemes but understanding that not all of them will eventually end up in the main session discussion.  And you will be able then to follow, say, workshop subtheme A through (indiscernible) two and three and then for the workshop organizers to then input into the main focus session discussions.  

 And we understand that this has happened in previous IGFs before, and maybe there are some sort of like practicalities and evaluation that we can do to see how we can work on this better.  And maybe not all workshop types will necessarily feed into the main sessions.  So, for example, there could be workshop types focusing on capacity-building and maybe those will not feed into the main sessions.  But maybe those that are more around sort of discussing context issues or trying to come to solutions or trying to come up with best practices that could possibly feed into it.  

 So for workshop organizers to then, say, come up with one key question for discussion at the main session and one key issue or recommendation that came up from the workshop and then for these to be screen projected on overhead projectors beforehand so that it also facilitates a better -- not better, but also enables greater participation.

 And for this to work, then there will necessarily need to have quite strong facilitators.  And we understand from the Hyderabad IGF, for example, there were, like, main sessions with very strong co-facilitators who were able to sort of move the conversation going so that's possibly one way to go about it.

 And then in that way, the workshops will -- the conversations and the richness from the dialogue from the different workshops and then follow into the main session discussions that will sort of lead to something broader and stronger.

 So we really very much look forward -- and also as Lea was saying, it also helps to address one of the issues of kind of -- by day four usually a lot of people check out and leave.  So now instead you are sort of like, you really do -- you are sort built to something that's very concrete towards the end of the workshop.  

 So we are very much keen to hear feedback and thoughts on this.  We have also been discussing amongst a few of us during the lunchtime.  We also spoke to government delegation from Argentina who shared a lot of her learnings from the previous workshops to help fine-tune this as well.

 So that's really around this structure proposal that we would like to share. And then there is another point that I would just like to very quickly talk which is day zero capacity-building track, capacity-building day.

 I would really like to emphasize on using day zero as a capacity-building day but not just on an introduction to IGF but also around key thematic issues of IGF.  I think it will be a quite useful thing to have also and to have, like, different people to organize kind of like capacity-building around content as well as the process and structure.  And then I'll turn over to Bianca.

 >>BIANCA CAROLINE HO:  So other than this structure, I've also come to think of, you know, a few ways of making IGF a bit more useful or newcomer-friendly, so on top of the help desk booth which has been raised, which I totally agree, the IGF guide which makes, you know, the thematic issues and other things more accessible to use, there are also, you know, potentially any ideas of a youth IGF, which has already occurred with the Asia-Pacific one.  So it could take the form of, you know, a capacity-building workshop on day zero or other forms, but I think this would definitely be important for youth to take their stance on IG issues.

 The other part of it is other than the MAG badge which has been raised by Izumi, I think MAG members should have the responsibility as a mentor not only to youth but also newcomers, and we also have the commitment to speak to them.

 So I think that's quite important to establish as a MAG member.

 So those are the few suggestions I have to make IGF a bit more youth-friendly, so really appreciate people's comments.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Thank you very much.  I think this is another option that could be considered.  Only, please, when you think about IGF, think also in practical terms:  I would like to repeat, once again, that there are some limitations and those limitations are linked with interpretation services.  Interpretation is usually calculated in blocks of three hours.  We can split one block in three -- of three hours in half.  That gives us two times 90 minutes, with a minimum break in between.  I think that that is what interpreters usually tolerate, that if there is a half an hour in between those 90-minute blocks.

 So if we go, for instance, two hours workshop, then it will be billed as three hours whether we use three hours or not, and if we -- if we -- and we cannot go beyond that.  So that is one of the limitations.

 That also determines that usually sessions are three hours long, if they are translated, so that is -- please take that into account, whatever sort of thinking you put in those.

 The second element is -- which we're facing every year is that the number of proposals far exceeds, let's say, resources available.  And by the resources, I mean rooms available and time available.

 So last year we had to cut about 60% of all proposals because there were too many, and when you look in practical terms what we have at our disposal, these are four days.

 If we take away, let's say at -- let's assume half a day, which we would devote to a very high-level segment, nothing in parallel, so that leaves us still with three and a half days of parallel sessions.

 In one day, we cannot make more than 40 events, because 10 tracks in parallel, four times 90 minutes, it makes 40.

 If we take three and a half days, in the best case we get about 140 sessions possible.  We cannot do more than 140 sessions.  That is the limitation.  And 140 sessions, we never get to that because there are some "must be" events.  Not only opening ceremony and letting ministers address if we want to have a high-level presence, but then we need to do a closing, and closing, many people said, a number of participants leave already by that time.  

 So we really are looking at about 100, 120 slots for workshops or events, and that is what we have.  And that, we need to put in the best sort of most rational way and use for participants.

 Please, these are the limitations that you need to have in mind.

 Also, I see the time is -- time is going and we have -- I would like maybe to try to draw this part of the conversation to conclusion maybe by 4:15, if possible.

 I have Fiona, Lynn, Juan Alfonso, Segun, Arnold from the Netherlands, Avri, Marilyn, and Virat on the table.  Now I see also Michael and Baher.  Baher, I saw you earlier.

 So I would -- I would assume that this would be the list of interventions for this part of the session and then we will move on to the further discussion of, I would suggest, what would be the themes of the IGF 2015, and also better shaping an understanding about intersessional process.  So intersessional process -- 

 The on-line participants are having problems hearing me.

 >>VIRGINIA PAQUE:  They are having some problems with the sound and are asking the speakers please speak closer to the microphone to facilitate the audio.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Okay.  I'll do my best.

 So I would like also to hear more about intersessional, because what I heard so far is that we need to address specific sort of subjects, and that leads me to think that these would be topics for best practices that we would work throughout the whole period and would come with a mature document to the IGF in Brazil, which then would be presented in Brazil as we did in Istanbul.

 The difference is that for Istanbul, we had seven weeks to -- to develop those documents.  Now we hopefully will have almost nine months to develop those documents.

 So -- and we may hope that those best practice compilations would come to IGF Brazil already as mature, well-developed papers for -- and useful for delegations or member states.

 So if that's acceptable, I'm asking now Fiona to make her comments.

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis.

 I'd like to just a comment on a variety of things I've heard from colleagues today, and I think that it would be helpful to have some clarity amongst MAG members about the role of the MAG in the day zero events.

 Officially, the day zero events are not part of the IGF but they do sort of expropriate and use the IGF brand and there has been, over the course of recent years, an overlapping of some of the day zero events and the actual IGF activities.

 So maybe we could have a discussion at some point about that process and, if nothing else, I'm not saying that the MAG needs to get involved in setting the agenda of the day zero events but maybe there should be a time frame of understanding of what's happening and what's not happening.  So that could be useful.

 I think I've also heard colleagues suggest that we sort of change the schedule, which is always a good option and thing to consider, but if we are looking for sort of senior political participation and it does give a certain sense of legitimate to these type of events, we have to be mindful of schedules.  So if there's going to be a ministerial, it has to be closely tied to the actual opening ceremony.  There can't be multiple days in between.  Because you'll lose participation as a practical matter for planning.

 And then the other thing I think I heard someone suggest was to have the day zero activities at the end of the week, and I would just urge some caution and concern with the idea that there has to be some kind of ministerial event to bless or endorse the IGF which sort of defeats the purpose of multistakeholder from my perspective.

 So concerns on that.

 I'd also like to voice support for the idea that Soonjoung put forward about putting whatever proposal we have out on the IGF Web site to get input and feedback in some fashion.  I think that's a great practice and one the IGF and the MAG should be adopting as a general best practice.

 And then I know tomorrow we're talking about the workshops and the main sessions, so I'll leave the specifics for that till tomorrow, but just to point out to everyone that there's an inherent tension between wanting to limit the number of workshops, make it more user accessible and make it more user-friendly, and the IGF being a victim of its own success and actually having -- being oversubscribed in terms of people wanting to do events.

 Last year was the first year we actually rejected workshop proposals, so for the first time in nine years we said "no" and we said "no" to 60%.  And I could imagine we're going to have more.  

 So just something to keep in mind, if we're going to be limiting things, how the impact is.  I mean, I think my personal perspective is that I would like to eliminate the main sessions.  I don't find them quite as useful anymore, unless there's a specific activity, and use that more for workshops.  But again, just to be cognizant of the tensions in that process and the need that we're going to have -- I mean, it's very difficult.  It took the MAG eight years to say "no" to workshop proposals so I can only imagine it's going to be tougher next year.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  Maybe we can think of also establishing kind of a deadline for submitting requests to the secretariat for activities in day zero.  Until now, MAG hasn't been involved and maybe MAG should not be involved in activities of day zero, but certainly the secretariat should keep the MAG informed which requests have come to the secretariat for room allocations, and at least we are -- we are informed about it.  

 Lynn, please.  

 I understand that, Jac, you already spoke and then used your time during the presentation.

 Lynn, please.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chair.

 I fully agree with so many of the more recent comments talking about some of the different structures, Avri's earlier comments about looking to make this much more participatory, and I think I'll -- I have a question to you at the end, but preface this with, you know, I've been deeply engaged in all the WSIS proceedings -- WSIS 1, WSIS 2 -- and every one of the IGFs, and I have to say I've been listening very carefully the last day and a half and am having a bit of a hard time matching up the discussions here with, on the one hand, you know, what I see as a very clear need for the IGF to step up its game, and two, the opportunity to do so.

 So -- and I don't know if that's just because of where we are at this point in the agenda but I guess my question to you is it -- do you intend to close on these more administrative aspects of the actual structure of the days ahead of the themes or might we actually go to the themes and perhaps, I would hope, actually try and reach a more sort of focused structure or focused set of objectives or impacts we hope to get out of the IGF and then perhaps come back and finalize this later?

 So I mean, I guess the one thing that maybe I didn't say as clearly as I would have liked to is I think it's important that we really try to find a way to make a significant impact on Internet governance at the global level.  

 And you used an analogy earlier about the Olympic Games and it almost seems to me that that's the way the MAG has actually run the IGF in past years, and rather than have it be an aggregation of a number of different games or themes that come together because there's sort of support, frankly that the MAG, being very participatory and going out, as she just said, for support, that we actually try and find a way to concretely move the global Internet governance agenda forward, and I think that requires us to probably be a little more focused and a little more structured than perhaps we have been historically.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Lynn.

 I -- this discussion is not conclusive, and please understand that the agenda that was proposed was based on our knowledge at the time when the agenda was constructed of different thoughts.

 So we heard that -- and again, I apologize.  Some of those were based on rumors or let's say water cooler conversations.  We heard that hosts would like to do events in NETmundial style, so in order to understand what does it mean, I thought that the general discussion about how we reach there, what is the structure of the meeting -- you know, either we start at 2:00 in the afternoon before going to beach and getting burned and then going back to the office and saying, "Oh, hey, I was in the conference," or we start the conference in the time as usual and so on, these type of things.

 Of course the substance will determine or influence also the form, and I do not intend to conclude and to suggest anything conclusive at the end of the discussion, but that was, in my view, needed for our own understanding.

 Setting up also the framework in which then we will discuss substantive -- substantive issues.

 The number of main sessions.  The question that we always had trouble to agree upon, and even last year when we agreed to minimize the number of main sessions, we ended up at the end with the four main sessions because they were added as we went -- progressed in the preparation.

 The same thing, there might have been an event that will pop up after every decision is made, and we need to be able to bring that sort of new item in the agenda, no matter what.

 The Snowden thing was brought in very last-minute because the preparations were -- had been finished already for Bali meeting.

 So as I say, our task is to -- really to think through and prepare a meeting for the best use of participants.

 Juan. 

 Juan Alfonso, please.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  Well, first of all, I'd like to endorse what Lynn just said, but I ask the floor because I'm puzzled.  I need clarification in a very basic issue that some of the previous interventions, and even one of your interventions, have me a little bit confused.

 I remembered at the beginning -- well, I'm new in MAG so I'm asking -- maybe I'm asking.  Maybe this has changed.  But I remembered at the beginning that even Nitin Desai insisted that IGF was about public policy issues that pertained to Internet governance.  

 So let me explain.

 A minister of a country speaking about how they use Internet for health, maybe that's interesting, but that's not Internet governance.  Maybe that is in an ICT4D event or an Internet for development event, but not in this event.  Or a workshop in that same line.  It's not public policy issue pertaining to the Internet governance.  

 So I -- I know -- I know that the boundary is -- the frontier is very fuzzy, but I think it's up to us here to really clear out the line, because this is not an ICT4D event, and not because that's not interesting or useful or needed, but because we are wasting an opportunity to really configure the Internet -- international Internet governance to -- in the direction that we want.

 And so I want this clarification because I hear many of my colleagues that have this confusion of ICT4D because I come also from ICT4D.  You know, I was in the ICT task force of the United Nations and then the global alliance.  We have very clear this boundary.  But maybe this boundary is not very clear for some of our colleagues and I please ask you, Chairman, to please clarify on this.  Maybe this changed and maybe this IGF now is about for Internet for development and not only Internet for governance, so please, I need clarification.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I think this is not a new issue that we have been discussing or this has been on the table for many years.

 It depends how you interpret the definition of Internet governance, whether you interpret it in a narrow sense and consider Internet governance being Internet -- governance of critical Internet resources only or you interpret it in a wider sense that brings many other aspects, including developmental aspects, educational aspects, health aspects, and everything.

 So since the very beginning, IGF has approached the issue with a -- with the understanding or using a wider interpretation, and always we had on the agenda different type of issues that has also a public policy angle on that because how to organize, how to use ICTs in education also has problem policy issue.  It's not just who controls or where main root servers are located and so on.

 I hope that clarified your question.

 So I am going to next speaker -- no?

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Thank you.  I have here the definition.  I know the narrow -- the distinction between narrow Internet governance and wide, and I'm for the wide one, but for instance, in Paragraph 72 of Tunis Agenda, which is the one who creates this, the first -- where the terms of reference of Internet governance is set, the first one says "Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to foster the sustainability, security, stability, and development of the Internet."  I'm not saying that Internet used in medicine is not important or it's not a public policy issue, but what we should see is how the international Internet governance could foster or makes easier the use of the Internet for medicine.  That's the thing -- that's the angle we have to take.  Not -- not just this application for medicine, but how Internet governance can help development, how Internet governance can help -- can help the use of this.  

 That's my interpretation and I think that we should debate it, because otherwise, it's just a -- an ICT4D approach and, well, okay, that's good, but I -- I'm not convinced yet.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I hope you will be convinced once you come to Joao Pessoa and participate in the meeting.  I think the substance of the meeting is very much dependent on those who organize the workshops and all events that we're planning here.  Our task is to put those elements together in the best possible way that all participants benefit from them.

 So I call on Olusegun.  My apologies if my pronunciation was not exact.

 >>OLUSEGUN OLUGBILE:  Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Sorry.  Maybe you could introduce yourself since you were not present in the morning when everybody introduced.  That should not take more than ten seconds.

 >>OLUSEGUN OLUGBILE:  Yeah.  I'm Segun.  I'm a member of the (indiscernible) Internet Governance Forum.  I'm happy to be here, and I'm happy to see that the contentious issues that were raised at the local level have been addressed here.  

 One of them that we have the issues of cybersecurity and the issues of child online protection, on how Internet governance can be used to enable (indiscernible) development.  These issues are (inaudible).  

 I also put myself in the position of learning.  I have been observing.  I have heard a lot of rumors about MAG and IGF.  But by being here, I discovered that a lot of things have not been passed across the roads really.  So it is changing my perception about IGF.  I'm still working and I'm still learning.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  I hope that you will bring only the best of the MAG and will become our ambassador in Nigeria.

 Avri, please.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  I wanted to speak favorably about many of the things that I've heard, the notion of working with themes, the notion of taking those themes from the things that have been brought forward by comments, of taking those themes and working throughout the year to achieve something and hopefully come to an outcome are all really good.

 One of the things that concerns me is this notion of prohibiting work sessions during plenary.  The people that are attracted to these two types of sessions are often a different group of people.  And I think that we cut ourselves short by saying you can have no work session, you can have no workshop because a ministerial is going on, because an opening session is going on, because, you know, ministers are talking and people should be there to listen to them.  They won't.  It will be a good chance for those people to go to the beach.

 But -- so I think that we should be careful about sort of taking time when we could have a bunch of parallel sessions.  

 I tend to support the idea that we have as many parallel themes as we can support, being careful not to have inter-theme conflicts or intra-theme conflicts so that someone who is following a theme can follow it without having to -- because the main point about attending a session is that you intend to participate.  You can watch them all on TV later for the appreciation of what others were doing.  But the point about going is because you want to participate, you want to say something.

 So I think that that certain opposite -- certainly we want to avoid duplication.  Certainly we want to avoid panels, though I've been told by people that there are some people that won't come unless there are some panels.  So if we have to, let's set aside a number of panels but be very strict about it.

 In terms of starting late, I was originally against it but now I've thought about it.  And I don't mind a 12-hour day.  And the idea that a bunch of us could meet in the morning, educators and those that want to sort of help in terms of, you know, teaching people about some of the issues, doing the IGF 101, the IG101s, we could put then.  We could have little sessions on the beach and do a Socratic thing and actually do that.  So perhaps starting later in the day can work and we can use the morning as an educational opportunity, while other people are sort of playing on the beach.  So I think that can be a workable model.

 I think in terms of the ministerials, I think having them at the end would be sort of problematic because then it looks like we're asking for their approval.  It looks like we're coming up and saying, you know, "Dear ministers, here's our solution, please bless it."  So I think whether it is in the middle or at the beginning based on logistics, I think it's best.

 One of the things that I did want to say is going forward from here, we've come up with many different issues to work on, themes -- not themes, I don't want to use them.  But modalities to work on and that perhaps we can start getting into smaller groups that sort of take some of these ideas, flesh them out, work the details, and then come back to the sessions and sort of say, We took this idea.  We played it out.  And here, what do people think?  And also go out to the community as was suggested to get more comments from people.

 So I think a lot of good has gone on, but I think we have to sort of now start threading it so we can get deeper into the issues.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Avri.  Very useful comments.

 Marilyn?

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Chair.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  My comments are going to be fairly short, I hope.  One comment I want to make is that I do think that the benefit of the high-level event on day zero has been increasingly to bring ministers to the IGF.  And as I said earlier, and I would urge all of us to do this, we need to make a concerted effort to find speaking opportunities for those ministers in workshops and in other events so that they are able to justify staying with us throughout.

 I am uncomfortable with having such an event at the end of the meeting because I think it does, as others have said, imply that there would be some kind of document to approve which I do not think has been agreed.

 I share the concern that I think Avri was stating.  Last year we had what I would have called main sessions, and those main sessions were held in big rooms but they weren't really a plenary.  And that meant that multiple workshops could go on at the same time.  You could pick a topic that many people were interested in but not all people were interested in.  And I would just say that as fascinating as the IANA transition is that it only will attract a subsection of the attendees.  So I would prefer that we allow workshops to go on at the same time as those main sessions.  "Plenary" to me is something really justifies the attendance of absolutely everyone, and to me those are few and far between other than the opening session and the closing session.

 Finally, I wanted to make a quick comment about dynamic coalitions and relying too much on work being done by either dynamic coalitions or national and regional IGF initiatives.  All of these entities are unique.  They all have their own organic characteristics and not all of the dynamic coalitions are as well resourced or as well developed as the one that was described earlier.  

 So I would just ask us to pause before we start thinking about assigning intersessional work to any group that has, after all, its own work program and then try to make sure how we would be able to respect their situation and needs while also reflecting any relevant input in relation to contributing into the program.

 I, too, like the idea that we ought to go out for at least a short public consultation on our ideas.  And I support Kossi's idea that we move up a little bit at least to start at 10:00 a.m.  I'm just going to say, it will be very difficult to explain to businesses and, I think, to many governments that we are starting that late in the day.  Whether that's just a perception problem, it is still a problem.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Marilyn.

 We have one online participant, Izumi Okutani.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  Hello, everybody.  Can you all hear me?

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yes, we hear you.  Please go ahead.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  Okay.  So I agree with comments made by some of the colleagues that it is important for IGF to have clear take-aways.  And to do this, I feel that it is first important for newcomers to have access to basic information before joining the session as well as have a some kind of structure in a session.  

 So based on this, I do like the idea of, one, having capacity-building track including the content of major issues.  I think this was an idea that was expressed by one of the (indiscernible) representatives of civil society.

 The second is to have main sessions after workshops as compilation of what has been discussed as a related theme.  So I quite like the suggestion which was made by Constance in having a theme per day and then have related workshops and then have the main theme related to this topic at the end of the day.

 I think this would give some structure to this session while also giving some diversity to allowing various workshops being conducted.

 I also note a few people have mentioned the idea of having a help desk-style booth.  I support this idea if this is something that we have enough resources in addition to the intersessional work.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you, Izumi, for your comments and joining us from a distance.

 So next is Virat, then Michael, Baher, and then we will draw a conclusion and we will open up the next subject and then, Mark, you will be first on that one.

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Let me just make some quick points based on what I've heard.  Firstly, on the main sessions we're sort of discussing right now, the structure of the IGF, just on the main sessions, I think we should give Avri's point good consideration not only because she makes sense in what she's saying but also the fact that our experience in Istanbul was that four main sessions that were held, access, network neutrality, Internet ecosystem, and IANA transition, had 80 to 90% full rooms throughout the three hours even though there were 10 to 11 workshops running parallelly.  So people chose where they want to be.  So we have experience from that and, therefore, we shouldn't worry about losing people in that sense.

 The second is -- the comment was made on day zero.  I think whether we bring it under the umbrella of MAG or not, the fact is it is under the IGF umbrella.  Minimally, the MAG should be fully aware of what sessions are being planned, and they should be able to provide inputs into that or at least participate into that.  One of our challenges was at the last IGF even MAG members had very little idea about some of the day zero events still 48 hours before the event was being held.  And when we requested information from the organizers, it wasn't coming through.  So I don't want to get into a lot of details, but I think it will help to broadly keep the MAG informed so the MAG can then, in turn, inform others because it has been said several times in the rooms that the MAG should help and be at the help desk and wear a badge, et cetera.  In this case, there is a challenge.

 On the issue of making workshops more interactive, I think we'll have to find a way to actually limit the panels or remove panels and actually ask for roundtables because, as I said, even when we give higher marks for innovative formats of the 208 proposals received, 95% had panels.  So either we remove panels as an option and then everybody moves a roundtable.  That would require the host country to inform us whether they are in a position to provide roundtable settings in at least eight of the ten rooms or seven of the ten rooms.  That's the only way it will happen.  Otherwise, we are back to the panels.  Of course, the roundtables will require two facilitators each, and that's a design problem but that comes with the flexibility that the host will have to show in terms of availability.

 My comment -- there was an excellent presentation made by the civil society.  Not sure if the slide can come back up, but I think it assumed four themes from the colors that I saw, four subthemes and four main sessions for two hours each.  And here's the challenge, we just need to keep this in mind.

 If you have 20 workshops and total of 80 workshops, 20 for each of the themes and have them input into the main session, which is what was recommended, that's a two-minute intervention each.  That's 40 minutes.  If you have 10 to 12 speakers speak for five minutes, that's another 60 minutes.  Between the opening and the moderator and presentations, that's about ten minutes.  And if the moderator takes only 15 seconds to go from one presenter to the other, only 15 seconds, you are at 117 minutes out of the 120 minutes that had been allocated.  So you will get 32 people in, or 30 people in, including the workshop presenters but that's the limit to a two-hour session.  I just keep bringing us back to the limitations because we have one these sessions and that's what happens.

 So my request would be to consider in that design a three-hour session because that also then allows us to address the issue that Fiona had suggested, which is we will need in this IGF high-level participants because we want to take the messaging back to New York.  So if we have to accommodate 25 high-level participants from the government between the opening ceremonies and two three-hour main sessions which are not exclusive, not plenaries, we're able to at least put them on the panel, give them six to seven minutes, that's all.  Imagine flying down all the way for a seven-minute speaking slot.  And that will only happen if you have three hours and if you have two main sessions.

 I would request two things, Mr. Chairman, before we proceed any further.  We should absolutely take a call finally on the time right now.  The house seems to be having two very separate views on 9:00 and 1:00 and secondly on the subthemes because with four subthemes, the game is different.  At six subthemes, the game is completely different.  So if we can just close these two points, then others can flow from there.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Honestly, I'm not sure voting is the right way to proceed specifically on the time issue.  I think that will drive us slightly in the wrong direction.  But what we would need to do is to go to the discussions of themes, and this is my intention to go and sort of to see what would be the substance of our conversation.

 Michael, please.  And then Baher and after that we will go to the themes.  Mark will be first and Amelia will be second on that topic.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  Thank you very much.  This is my first intervention.  And one of the advantages of waiting so long is that many very good points that I was going to make have already been made including ones by Marilyn and Virat.  

 For the last ten years, one of the most famous quotes about Internet and Internet governance that we have heard was from Vint Cerf who used to say "If it ain't broke, why fix it."  

 I thought that the IGF schedule was one of those things we didn't need to fix.  I've only been involved with the MAG for one year but last year I think we did a very good job of accommodating a lot of very innovative workshops.  We were able to reward those people who worked very hard to put together very good proposals by giving them a slot on the program.

 I'm very concerned that we have fewer workshop slots this next year.  We will frustrate a lot of people who will put a lot of work into developing good proposals, and I do not understand what problem we're trying to fix by not having workshops in parallel with the main session.

 I could see having only eight workshops at the same time as the main session because more people will want to go to the main session, but not having any workshops?  That would be a terrible loss and it would, I think, undermine the most important output of the IGF.

 The IGF is not like any other international meeting.  It's not a centralized process where people come together to try to find agreements.  It's all about peer-to-peer or p-to-p, people-to-people governance.  It's about people talking to each other about their specific problems.  And for that to happen, the more workshops the better, because it allows us to find the people who are working on problems like the one we have which we can discuss in the workshop and then spend three or four hours at the bar or on the beach really digging into the issues.

 So I urge us to think about what the real output of IGF has been, what the real success of this process has been.  It's not been proposals or agreements on anything; it's been people talking to each other, people sharing information, people building relationships that can continue and in some case build into partnerships that will develop really important new business initiatives, new civil society initiatives, new government policies in the future.

 If we want 5,000 people to attend, we want a wide breadth of workshops, we want even more variety in the proposals, and we want even higher quality.

 If we decide to have 70 rather than 120 workshops, we're going to narrow down, we're going to focus on the things we always focus on, and we're going to end up with a lot of debates on IANA transition and talking about WSIS, and that might attract 2,000 people.

 If you go further and you say no workshops at the same time of main sessions, you're now going to throw out great proposals and those people aren't going to come either, so now you're down to 1200 people.

 This is not -- this is not what we really want.  We want a broader discussion.  

 I can sum this up by the best tweet from Istanbul.  Those of you who know me know I like to tweet.

 There was a precious perfect tweet at Istanbul.  It said, "What is this meeting about?  The Internet?  Internet governance?  Or governing Internet governance?"  

 And that person had come there wanting to talk about the Internet and the broader picture, and we gave them something.  We're not going to do that, if we have half as many workshops.

 I'm really worried that fewer workshops means that we're going to have -- have to throw out the most innovative, controversial, outside-the-box proposals, the things that are new.  We're going to end up forcing people to go to sessions they don't want to go to.  And that's not in our interest.

 I really think we need to think about our real output here, which is more information to more people, more connections.

 I also think one very specific suggestion that hasn't been mentioned yet but was discussed in the past, it would be very useful if somehow we asked the proposers to rate their workshop proposal in terms of the depth of expertise expected among participants in the discussion.

 In some ways, this would be like the menus we have at Thai restaurants in the United States where you have one pepper, two pepper, or three pepper, depending on how spicy it is.  You might have three levels, sort of the general audience, the undergraduate level, and the graduate level, and people who go to the graduate level sessions would know that they're going to hear a lot of acronyms and a lot of people are going to assume that people know the basics of the issue.

 But I think that would help us, too, making sure that people got to the right sessions and got to meet the people they really want to meet.

 Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Michael, for these suggestions.  Let us think about marking whether that is for beginners, medium level, or advanced level of knowledge.  

 Baher, please.

 >>BAHER ESMAT:  Thank you, Chairman.  

 Just since we are still discussing the structure of the meeting and the program, I think it's difficult to make the linkages between, you know, the main or focus sessions and the workshops.  I mean, we haven't discussed the themes yet, and assuming that some workshops will feed into main sessions and then the other assumption that we can design, you know, each day to focus on Theme A or B, I think it's pretty premature to do that, so I'd rather see this discussion come up organically when we come to the themes.

 One of the things that worked very well last year is that we had a larger number of subthemes which allowed for people to submit and to have the space to submit workshops on different topics and issues.

 And also, the other thing that worked quite well was that the focus sessions -- and I'd like to call them focus sessions rather than main sessions -- they -- the themes were very focused on certain topics and this helped make the discussions more focused and constructive.

 So let's hold on the linkages until we come to the themes.

 I'm also for -- I'm -- I totally agree with those who are for not reducing the number of workshops.  I still see the IGF, it offers a huge opportunity for participants from all over the world, including developing countries, to come and participate with workshops.

 I also don't think we need to reduce the number of main sessions.  Last year, as Virat said, we only had four main sessions.  I mean, I'm not counting opening and closing and all this.  And I don't think we should go below four main sessions in four -- in four days.

 Having sessions running in parallel has been, you know, our challenge since the beginning, and I think -- from last year, I think the participation in the main sessions -- at least the three that I attended -- and in other workshops, participation was quite good.

 The last point, I'm for keeping the high-level meeting to take place on day zero.  Perhaps one thing we would -- though I'm not sure whether it's MAG or it's the host country, but I think the format of this meeting may need to be rethought so that it does not look like the opening ceremony.

 So just to make sure that it has its theme or themes and also it has a multistakeholder format.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.

 I would like now to suggest that we go beyond the structure and preparatory process.  Yes.

 Sorry, you didn't speak, but let me sort of open up for next topic and then you will be first to speak and then my apologies.  I really omitted your name on the list.

 Let me suggest that we open up now and go beyond talking about structure and preparatory process.

 What I heard is that we would -- we would follow sort of the logic of maximizing the engagement with participants and would not try to limit artificially sort of expression, which means that we would go for maximum possible number of workshops in parallel, in parallel with the main or focus sessions; that we would organize -- we would try to minimize the time when only one session in -- is in motion.  That is, plenary.  And of course there are unavoidable things like opening is unavoidable and that should be only one and nothing in parallel.

 Also, the day zero planning seems to me should be more transparent and MAG should be more informed, and definitely the substance that we are now starting to talk will influence the form.

 Talking about the beginning of the work every day, the -- it is very appealing to go on the beach in the morning but what Hartmut didn't say is that the sun is rising I think at 5:30 or 6:00 in the morning and if we start maybe not at 9:00 but start at 10:00, there will be still time to go to the beach and enjoy the sort of environment, but still go to the congress center and do our work.

 We also need to factor in that part of the IGF is social events that usually take place in the evening, and if we end up too late, then we basically eliminate the possibility of reaching out through social events like receptions and dinners and what is an integral part of the IGF.

 So -- and also, since the congress center is in driving distance from hotels, the time which we will use going to and from also will -- will need to be factored in in our planning.

 So let us maybe stop -- stop for the moment that we will not start at 8:00 in the morning but we will not go -- we will not start at 12:00.  Let's look at somewhere in between and come up with a sort of proposal based also on logistical considerations sometime in January.  

 That will not influence in any way substantive preparations.  All that will kind of come together nicely.

 Please now let's talk about themes, subthemes, intersessional work on best practices, what would be those best practices that we would address during intersessional time through the engagement with experts and the community.

 And -- but of course you can still continue addressing also substantive issues.

 On my list for the moment is Arnold, Mark, Amelia, Ihsan, in that order, and then you're on the list afterwards.  

 Please, Arnold.

 >>ARNOLD VAN RHIJN: Thank you, Chair.  My name is Arnold van Rhijn.  I represent the Dutch government as well as our national IGF.

 I would like to make a structure-related comment.  You can even call it a theme-related remark.

 It's all about improving the interaction between the national, regional IGFs, and the global IGF.

 We see the amount of national IGFs as growing, and that's good news.  However, they're acting independently, and there are countries who don't have a national IGF and would like to set up one.

 So my proposal is to find a slot in the program where the organizers of national and regional IGFs, as well as the secretariat of the IGF, can meet, where they can share best practices, where they can learn from each other, where countries who don't have a national IGF can also learn how to set up one, and I think in my view that this should help to create a better interaction between the national and regional IGFs as well as the secretariat of the -- the global IGF.

 This is my proposal.

 And my last comment relates to the intersessional work.  Lots has been said about that.  I heard very clear the remarks made by ISOC, and we fully support that.  

 In addition to that, we could also consider using an online platform through perhaps the Web site of the secretariat of the IGF.

 Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Arnold, for your proposal.  I think that this year we had -- I mean, in Istanbul we had a session for national/regional IGFs, coordination session, exchange of information.  That might be repeated also next year.

 Mark, please.

 >>MARK CARVELL:  Yes.  Thank you, Chair.  Mark Carvell, United Kingdom government.

 A couple of comments on structure and themes, main themes.

 First of all, I -- on structure, while I'm very sympathetic to the desire to clear space for main sessions in order to ensure it's easier to navigate the program and maximize participation, I simply don't think it's possible to do that.

 And comments were made earlier about how, in fact, the experience of Istanbul showed that it is possible to conduct well-attended main sessions when there are parallel workshops in train, but there are a few factors which I think simply argue against trying to achieve that separation of workshops and main sessions.

 First of all, I very much agree with what you have summarized, Chair, in terms of the desirability of maximizing workshops proposals.  That's the very essence of the IGF in enriching the event and validating its bottom-up process.  We should not constrain the opportunities for proposals.

 What the MAG should do is look at refining options for conducting those workshops in order to accommodate as many as possible, you know, different types of sessions, maybe shorter sessions, flash sessions and so on, the kinds of things we've considered before.

 Secondly, we haven't talked about emerging issues and I think we do need to allow a space in the IGF program for consideration of emerging issues.  This is a key objective for the IGF, in our view.  

 And of course we need to look beyond the 2015 IGF in terms of intersessional work leading up to 2016, and an emerging issues dialogue will help identify the program of intersessional activity after Joao Pessoa.

 Thirdly, a reminder that net neutrality discussion was not concluded in Istanbul.  We undertook as a community to ensure that discussions would continue up to the 2015 IGF on net neutrality, so that, I think, should be considered as a subtheme for Joao Pessoa.

 Fourthly, we talked about -- well, I raised, certainly, the importance of placing dynamic coalitions work in the IGF program and the extent to which they will be providing concrete outputs.

 I note what Marilyn Cade said, and I'm -- I tried to make clear that the MAG should take account of progress with the more active dynamic coalitions in determining how we place dynamic coalitions' work in the IGF program for Joao Pessoa.

 Fifthly, we need to allow time for reporting into the IGF next year on the intersessional work, so that again mitigates the time available for clearing space.

 We have to allow the opportunity for reviewing the progress of the intersessional work, so we shouldn't lose sight of that.

 I agree with the comments about the opportunity for ministers and industry leaders and so on to speak at the opening of the IGF, not at the conclusion, for the reasons that have been well advanced previously.

 With regard to the pre-IGF high-level meeting, that is very much for the host country.  I don't think it's our job, really, to preempt national-level discussions in Brazil about the conduct of the high-level -- high-level meeting.

 On main theme, I think we should start to consider gravitating towards a theme relating to sustainable development.

 This would intersect with the WSIS review and the transition to sustainable development goals and the role of the digital economy in advancing and securing goals and objectives relating to sustainable development.

 So I would put on the table, first of all, that as a key theme for Joao Pessoa.

 The contribution of the digital economy or the Internet to sustainable development.  

 And then we have some related subthemes according to that overarching theme and objective.

 So those are my thoughts on main theme.  I hope that's a helpful start to the discussion.  Look forward to hearing what others have to say.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much, Mark.

 I also would like to remind that Susan -- Susan made a proposal that we consider this time adding tags to the workshops instead of subthemes.  That was her proposal.  I refer to her email.  You can reread it as her contribution since she couldn't participate here in the meeting.

 So next is Amelia.

 >>AMELIA ANDERSDOTTER:  Yeah.  Thank you, Chair.  

 So my name is Amelia.  I've been a member of the European Parliament, so I would like to agree with that point that was raised by a previous speaker that we need to know what the purpose of what we're discussing.  Like what are the Internet governance issues that are relevant for -- to bring up in thematic discussions at the Internet Governance Forum, and so I believe one of the reasons of the Internet Governance Forum came into being was because there is hesitation about standardization in ICT, who is responsible for this, what are the values that are put behind standards.  

 We have had a European situation very recently with domain names, which is clearly an Internet governance issue but where one member state felt that some of the international processes were not sufficiently taking into account their political concerns.  And so I think focusing our discussions and themes towards this type of policy issue is useful.

 As for proposing what themes are useful to bring up now, we know that copyright affects greatly the economic setting in which technologies are being developed.  We have important revising procedures in both the European Union and in the United States.  There is also a lot of intensive discussions at the United Nations about how we introduce better exceptions and limitations, other things like this.  I think it could be highly relevant to focus at least part of the efforts at the Internet Governance Forum into this discussion of the interaction between that type of legal framework and the setting in which Internet technology standardization is being made.

 There is other legislation that also affects the way the technical standards are developed, namely, in the fields of surveillance, data protection.  I think it is something a lot of nations are now concerned about, and I think it is something that a lot of businesses and civil society organizations are also concerned about.  So tying legacy processes and how they impact standardization organizations or do not impact standardization organizations, as it were, I think would be a useful path for the MAG to explore when it continues on to making a schedule for the ultimate event.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Amelia, for those proposals.  Maybe a slight clarification.  We're talking not about every specific item that should be addressed during the IGF and they will be addressed.  They will be proposed in different workshops or panels or whatever.  We're talking now about the theme -- the overarching themes, how we would -- what focus we would put to this year's gathering, '15 year gathering.  The proposal was made that they should be linked to sustainable development but without specific sort of suggestion in reaching out and asking for comments.  We got a proposal for the overarching theme, "Internet governance for sustainable development and promotion of human rights."  That was suggested by community -- or somebody from community who commented.  

 And so usually we have had either four or -- until recently, we had four subthemes.  Those were called very simply access, openness, diversity, and security as a subtheme of the main theme.

 And last year we couldn't agree -- we wanted to depart from those traditional four subthemes.  We couldn't agree, and then at the end, we had eight different subthemes.  So, again, today we need to just give some thought how we would like to proceed for next year.

 And please remember there's also proposal for tags.  That was put forward by Susan.  Tag question was already on the table in the preparation for the Istanbul meeting.  At that time, we felt some unease with that proposal.  But maybe now we are better suited.

 Ihsan, please.

 >>IHSAN DURDU:  Thank you, Chair.  I would like to give some examples on how we need to consider several ministries into the Internet Governance Forum and its workings.  Just one of them, for instance, Child Online Protection Act.  For instance, we have a ministry that's called Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs, and Communications that deals with the Internet policies.  On the other hand, we have the ministry called Ministry for Family, Child, and Social Policies.  It is not neither one.  It is both, need to use their expertise in these processes.  And, of course, another example would be education -- Internet on education.  Again, Ministry of Education has to get involved in the policy making part of that issue.  So we cannot just limit only one ministry into the Internet policies.

 On the other hand, I can also talk about the main and focus sessions that are very important, especially for the newcomers if they have no clue about how Internet IGF is working.  They tend to go to the main session to understand what's going on.  So it is also guidance for many newcomers or many people who are not so familiar with all details of Internet governance policy -- procedures.  So I think you have to keep them available for their access.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  So I have following MAG members on my list:  Cheryl, Ana -- Arnold already spoke -- Juan Alfonso, Michael, Robert, Virat, Hossam, Jandyr.  So please those whom I mentioned, you can put down your flags.  I can see those who want to -- okay.  Thank you.  So let me turn now to Cheryl.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  First I want to say that I like very much Mark's idea of sustainable development as an overarching theme.  I think that would be a strong candidate.

 I also think that for a subtheme, it would be important to also include access this year.  And I'd like to ask the MAG to consider kind of shining a light on Internet access for the special needs community.  I think the Internet has enabled people with disabilities in many different ways.  The U.K. office of disability issues recently listed that more than -- there are more than 10 million people living in the U.K. with either a long-term illness, impairment, or disability.  And access has really enabled them to become independent.  And the online space has become a space for them without barriers.

 And so I'm not sure exactly how we might bring it up.  I don't know if it could be a candidate for a best practice session or for further work in some way.  But I think it would be good for us to consider this issue this year in a more prominent way than we have in past years.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Cheryl, for proposals.

 Ana?

 >>ANA NEVES:  Thank you very much.  Well, I totally concur with Cheryl's comments.  And moreover, I think that adding tags, it is a very good idea as well.  I think the timing is right to do that, and we should do that.

 On the main theme, I think that we should include people.  We should find a way to include people because until now, we never do that.  And I think we have to go through this way.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  I think that all we do, we do for people.  That goes without saying.  We need to find maybe the way -- human rights, mentioning human rights is for people.  But we will come to that.  Most probably we would need to do the brainstorming on possible themes or how we formulate the theme if we can agree that that should be linked to sustainable development in general.  But we're not yet there.

 Juan Alfonso, please.

 >> JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you, Chairman.  What I talked earlier about themes, now you call it subthemes.  I also have been listening very carefully to the proposals, and I'm beginning to have an idea of my preference and I will put it to you.  

 I think that each day we will have -- we should -- we need to have each day one theme or you call it a subtheme.  And all the workshops in the morning or in the earliest part of the day related to that theme and then a plenary in which all those resources will come there.  In this sense, we can have at least two or three themes or subthemes as you call.

 I will talk my proposal about those two themes.  So I think that what you call the overarching theme or the title, I call it the title or the lemma of the conference should be a broader one so the themes could come inside.  

 I was thinking that, you know, remember the definition of "Internet governance," you know it has two parts.  One part is the process and principles, and that has been discussed elsewhere.  But the other part is very interesting, that it says, "shared principles, not rules, decision-making procedures, and programs that shape the evolution and use of the Internet."  

 I would propose humbly to you to consider to say 200 -- 2015 Internet Governance Forum Shaping the Evolution and Use of the Internet.

 And now I will propose the themes.  I said before that I thought before in two themes, but the third that was proposed about sustainable development, I think it is a good theme.  I think that theme could be in the last day, the sustainable development, and all the workshops could access part of sustainable development.  Access and all that that has been talked about can be there.

 But for the first two subthemes or themes, I talked before that I think this should be an IGF that has impact.  So we should concentrate because this is the most important policy discussion place in which everybody discusses, you know?  So I think that we should concentrate those things that are really the concerns not only of users, governments, enterprises, everybody related to the Internet.

 The first, without any doubt, it was related with what is called cybersecurity, cyber conflict, and all that.  In order to illustrate that, this year has been many events regarding that.  The United Nations Institute for Training and Research had a seminar this year.  Also ECOSOC had a special event on implementing the post-2015 development agenda, enhancing access and security of ICTs.  Many present here were in that event earlier.  Also, the General Assembly in the First Committee is constantly discussing this.  So this subject, it is a place of concern.  

 There even the cyber conflict and all that, we should all -- because we represent here the real constituency of the people who like and love Internet and want Internet to be good for the good of mankind, we have to ensure that Internet should be a place of peace.  It should not be a place of conflict.  It should not be a place for terrorists to do cybercrime and all that.  

 I can give you details.  This is not fantasy.  I can give you details, exactly of how many cyber attacks has attacked Cuba.  And some of those cyber attacks are for taking control of computers in our I.P. space to attack third countries, military, and civilian installations.  Can you imagine the danger of that?  Is that the Internet we want?  No.  We want an Internet of peace.  I think that should be a theme and to have a lot of workshops around that.

 The second theme that I think is important is Internet economy.  Many academics and writers agree that the Internet economy is in its infancy.  That allows for a lot of distortions.  By the way, net neutrality is an economy distorted in a particular country.  But there's some other distortion and problems.  You know all these problems about taxing.  

 You know, Internet -- for instance, this should be very dear to the host country Brazil.  We in Latin America, we host every year the FRIDA awards in which we give awards to the best projects of the Internet.  But all these awards have to be funded with donations or with grants.  It is a paradox, that internet that has a vibrant economy cannot have some of the resources to fund the projects that are not -- that should be free, access free.  But it cannot be funded.  And some of these projects when the fund dies, it dies.  That's why things are emerging like crowd funding and all that.  

 I think all the economy should be a track and one day devoted to the economy, taxing, all the things everybody can talk about economy.  

 And the third, Chairman, could be sustainable development as a sort of closing of all that because all that is needed for that.  So I propose -- I will repeat, an overall lemma is IGF or Joao Pessoa IGF Shaping the Evolution on the Use -- how it says?

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Juan Alfonso, we heard all --

 >> JUAN FERNANDEZ:  And the three themes: cybersecurity, it has different names.  The other one, economy and sustainable development.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Internet economy and sustainable development.  We listened.  We follow you.

 >> JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much for your proposals.  Let me maybe explain.  We have been through this already.  The problem of having one theme per day is that there might be people who are not interested in that particular theme and those people then will go to the beach.  We don't want.  We want them to be with us and maximize their presence and do exploration.

 So we can think of organizing kind of a logical sequence of workshops that would lead to the main event of the day at the end of the day, main sort of discussion, but without limiting other topics being discussed during that day in other parallel workshops.

 What you said, shaping the Internet, it sounds very good to me as a motto.  Maybe we could decide and propose that IGF has a motto which says -- that would be permanent motto, IGF "Shaping Internet for the Future" or whatever we decide.

 And on subthemes -- so thank you very much.  They are very much like we had.  

 We had security as a theme, access basically with economic driver, and diversity, openness, that has been already a long time on the table.

 So -- but thank you for your proposals.

 Michael, you are next on the list.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  Thank you very much.  

 I know it's very difficult to pick an overarching theme that makes everyone happy, and as a result, over the last few years we've had very broad and I think quite generic themes.

 I hope we can do a little better this year and we can really focus attention on the big changes that have happened over the last 12 months and will continue over the next 12 months.

 The theme I have in mind is a broad one but a specific -- it has -- it's specific enough to get people excited, and it goes something like this:  "Building a Trustworthy Network" or "Building a Trustworthy Net."

 This focuses not just on cybersecurity and privacy, but it would also talk about reliability, it would talk about some of the most important things that are happening without people even noticing, which is that companies who are running the Internet are putting in place much stronger encryption.  This is leading to huge debates between law enforcement and the network providers.  And governments are involved in these debates.

 We also have this whole question of misinformation and how do we counter some of the hate-speech and the material that's being disseminated on line and causing people to join the Islamic state by the thousands.

 There's a lot of issues around trust, but I think this is the big hot new issue.  Development's a great subtheme but it's an issue we've talked about for almost since the beginning of IGF.  

 Same thing with economic impacts.

 Trust is really important here, and I think the other thing that we could weave into it that we haven't talked much about is trust for conflict avoidance and a trusted network that gets people sharing information and dispelling some of the rumors that lead to conflict and war.  That's another issue we haven't talked about, but again, that doesn't happen unless we have trust.

 So again, this is -- this is a proposal.  We can wordsmith it, but I think "Building a Trustworthy Net" would excite a lot of people, it would bring in a lot of ministers that haven't come to these meetings in the past, and also a lot of companies like the banks and some of the -- even the defense companies that haven't been part of this discussion.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  What about "Building Trustworthy Net for Sustainable Development"?  As a proposal.

 Next speaker on my list is Robert, please.

 >>ROBERT SHLEGEL:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Dear colleagues, I think that the next IGF could be paid more attention for successful general experience of different stakeholders.  

 We need to find the best solutions uniting, not dividing, us.

 As a representative for -- of private sector, I want to propose to include in the agenda over the next IGF a question about the development of legislation in the Internet sphere as international space and within the framework of local experience in different countries.

 This topic is not about the technical infrastructure, not about ICANN and the IANA, but is something that is important today, for my opinion.

 This is a question about the future of the Internet, because the laws in different countries are not harmonized among themselves and some of them reduce the freedom to disseminate information.

 On the other hand, we see that human rights on the Internet are not protected by law but users need it.  Billions of users around the world need protection.

 We have the big danger is the fragmentation of the Internet.  Now it's much more important than in the past.  

 Because we have no international law, there is no universal rules for the universal space, but we need it.

 In my opinion, we need something that will really work in the international space, and not illusory principles and suggestions in the hope of avenues of various governments.  And when the Parliaments of different countries try to protect their citizens, it often happens that they destroy the Internet, break it into pieces, and I think that our mission in this situation is to protect the Internet and save its integrity.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much, Robert, for this proposal.  I think you raise a very important issue, and this issue has been discussed through different workshops.  I recall there were a couple of workshops on jurisdictional issues in Istanbul.  But that does not sort of qualify for an overarching theme that we're discussing.  Security issues were mentioned.  Security is much broader than just legislation and that has been mentioned, but thank you very much.  This is an important -- an important topic.

 We have one remote participant but I will wait a little bit and will invite first Virat, then Hossam, and then Izumi to make the floor.  

 Virat, please.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I thought we should sort of approach this subject of the theme in a likely structured way.  

 Just quickly for the benefit of the house, we've had these themes running and it sort of shows the sense that each MAG had invested in the theme since 2006, where in 2006 and '7, the theme that was retained was "Internet Governance For Development."  

 In 2008, it was "Internet for All."  

 In 2009, it became "Internet Governance, Creating Opportunity for All."  

 In 2010, "IGF 2010:  Developing the Future Together."  

 2011, "Internet as a Catalyst for Change, Access, Development, Freedoms, and Innovation."

 In 2012, "Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic, and Social Development."

 And the last IGF was -- had the theme of "Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multistakeholder Internet Governance."

 So if we were to sort of look at this in the way the MAG has been invested in this, almost each of them have a very strong developmental aspect to it.  In fact, the first two just left of development.

 If you had to qualify a theme, it should be action-oriented, hopefully concise -- there are some long ones in here -- easy to communicate -- each this year, the 10th year -- limited sort of in terms of the words, aspirational, global in nature, and universally acceptable to all countries while taking into account different national capabilities and levels of development, et cetera, regarding the -- respecting the national policies.

 We also are fortunate to have the guidance of subthemes.

 If we look at the eight subthemes that we picked last year, they actually fit quite well in the four main subthemes that have flown from the first IGF:  Access, openness, diversity, and security.

 The points made by some of my distinguished colleagues here is very important.  Actually, the subthemes find a way to accommodate all the concerns.

 If we can limit ourselves to four subthemes and these broad subthemes seem to get almost all the points that we want to get in, then that will structure our workshops in a certain fashion.

 But given what we have done since 2006, given the fact that we want to get a theme that closely matches the mandate of the Tunis Agenda, what the ITU is currently pursuing, WSIS work, the UNESCO presentation made yesterday, some of the outcomes on the NETmundial statement, and also the fact that New York will certainly put its weight behind the sustainable development goals, I think the -- the proposal made by Mark earlier about "Internet Governance for Sustainable Development" actually fits in quite well and flows away with all of these qualifications that we -- we need and require.

 I would add, though, that the point about introducing the human aspect to it, even though it's all understood, if there's a way to do it innovatively, we can, but this -- it seems qualified on many accounts, especially getting the attention in New York this year, which we need, by matching it with the sustainable development goals.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much for your proposal and also recalling the history of that.  

 I see Michael wants to react but I do not want to introduce that.  We still have a lot of -- a lot of requests for the floor.

 But I will give you 20 seconds, Michael.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  I just wanted to indicate that New York is very interested in development but there's also growing interest in security issues in New York, and the recent resolutions on privacy and the like are, I think, an indication that we could help inform that debate as well as informing the debate about sustainability.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  May -- again, let's collect more input, and next on my list is Hossam.

 >>HOSSAM ELGAMAL:  Thank you, Chair.  

 Well, I have many points but I'll try to be brief.

 First, regarding the theme itself, I might not be the best one to phrase it, but I had a colleague who suggested "Enabling Sustainable Development with a Trustworthy Internet," so I'm just passing that, if it works.

 But for me, as being from a developing country -- and I attended the last IGF, participated in the last MAG -- I think the one thing that we really need in many developing countries are policies related to enabling health, education, finance, through the Internet.

 We have -- we lack legislation, proper legislation, on this and we -- it takes too much time to find the proper one.

 And if I go back to the proposal suggested before by Virat and Cheryl about the next billion connected people, and having policy menus coming out of that, we wish to have policy menus related to using the Internet to enable health, to enable education, to enable finance.

 So this is my two points.

 I have just a question regarding what Hartmut said earlier.  He said the word "negotiation" and I didn't know, do we have negotiation on our IGF or not?  Because it was -- it was like that.  I don't know why.  So this is just my comment.

 And still, I just want to express still our worries in many developing countries, in Africa and Asia, regarding still the costs of going to the resort.

 This is -- I mean, going already to Sao Paulo or a main city is already expensive.  Going to the resort is double the expense.

 So we need to think about that.

 Also, the timing again, but you already covered this part because in order to have at least our -- the people in Africa and Asia be able to have an online participation, they need really to have a proper timing to participate.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Hossam.  

 We hear the concern, but also there's a counterargument that hotel prices in big cities would be much higher than hotel prices in Joao Pessoa, and that would somehow compensate the additional expense for flights.  I don't know whether that fully compensates, but still that also should be factored in.

 I will now take the comment from on-line participant, Izumi.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  This is Izumi Okutani.  I'm actually finding it hard to just focus on one theme as I listen to others, and so far, I like the idea of sustainable development.  I also like the theme that was raised, increasing trustworthy in the Internet.  

 And with the second point, I feel, in addition to the actual physical network element about network security, if there -- we can actually add some social implications such as trust of networks being not only the physical network but the trust between communities, trust between stakeholders, I would see more -- I can -- I feel I can support it even more.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much for your comments.

 Let me know -- read out the list of speakers that have asked for the floor.

 Jandyr, Slobodan, Mourad, Jac, ICC/BASIS, and ISOC.  

 I see Avri and for the moment no one else, so thank you.  Jandyr, please.

 >>JANDYR SANTOS: Thank you, Janis.  And this is Jandyr Santos from the Brazilian government.  And we do have a concrete proposal for the main theme of the IGF Brazil next year but before I get to this concrete proposal, I would like to provide with some short comments on the rationale for this proposal.

 The first comment is that we in Brazil, we are pretty much aware of the importance of this IGF 2015.  We are aware of the fact that it will take place in a very critical moment towards the end of a negotiation process in New York that will decide, among other things, on the future of the IGF itself.

 So as we've been saying, we think it's critical for the IGF to continue exploring ways of communicating, improving dialogue, with the multistakeholder fora.  In particular, with the U.N., because of the WSIS+10 overall review process, but also in the context of the post-2015 development process in the context of the sustainable development goals.

 This is the first comment.

 My second comment is that we in Brazil, we also support the view that while maintaining this key characteristic of being an open platform for discussion, the IGF should continue to develop more tangible outcomes.  This is something that we've been discussing, and we do hope that the IGF Brazil can contribute to this evolution.  This requires innovation as an evolution.

 And my last comment is that we in Brazil, we view that the NETmundial declaration has already identified points that need better understanding and further discussion, and some of these points have already been mentioned here.  Net neutrality, for instance, is one of them, but there are others.

 And it is our wish that these points be further explored in the context of the IGF Joao Pessoa.  

 So this will bring me to our concrete proposal and I will read it.

 And our proposal would be:  Advancing the Internet Governance Ecosystem from the NETmundial Outcomes Towards Sustainable Development Goals."  And I'll read it again.

 It will be:  "Advancing the Internet Governance Ecosystem from the NETmundial Outcomes Towards Sustainable Development Goals."  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  We have now a proposal from the host country.  I would like to ask others to comment and react on that proposal.

 Next on my list is Slobodan.

 >>SLOBODAN MARKOVIC: Thank you, Janis.  

 I would like to basically second two proposals.  The first one is for the topic of building trustworthy Internet that Mike proposed as particularly a relevant issue for technical community, but as long as it includes the aspect of how to move towards the Internet on which we would not feel constantly tracked, profiled, and tapped by both corporations and state security agencies worldwide.

 The second proposal is the one that Juan proposed on Internet economy.  That could include topics such as the cross-border taxing, import tax for procedures, financial transactions including crowd funding, consumer protections, et cetera, and when we are at this topic, we could also get practical and include it as a theme for the best practices forum but let's leave that for the time when we get to the best practices hopefully. 

 And just a small footnote.  I've sent an email to the MAG mailing list with a link to a service that could help us in visualizing time slots for IGF events across different time zones because I think that we should also -- apart from the valid concerns that you mentioned earlier, we should also aim at arranging time for events in such a way that maximizes the possibilities for remote participation.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you, Slobodan.  I think I invited MAG members also to suggest themes for best practices.  If not, I wanted to mention that.  I think we should not restrain ourselves because that is also part of the discussion on substance, so what would be those topics that we would want to address during -- at the meeting and in the runup to the meeting and conclude our conversation at the meeting.  Mourad is next on my list, please.

 >>MOURAD BOUKADOUM:  Thank you, Chair.  I make my intervention in French.

 We think that it would be advisable to focusing too much on certain themes that have already been debated at length during preceding IGF meetings.

 This would allow us to avoid redundancy and at the same time allow us to discuss issues that have not been dealt with at any length.  

 Now, having said that, I'd like to propose the following theme that could be included in our program in Brazil.  

 First of all, the objectives of sustainable development post-2015 and how IGF could make a contribution.  

 Second theme, the transformational nature of Internet and its impact on daily life.  And here we can go into aspects such as Internet and the creation of wealth.  Does Internet favor the status quo in terms of creation of wealth, or does it participate in a better distribution of wealth?  What are the economic actors who have most benefited?  Companies, transformers, manufacturers.  How the governmental and private sectors can maximize opportunities offered by the digital economies.  

 And third subject has to do with the most recent developments on cyberspace security.  Here it seems to me very important to consider the possibility of holding a workshop that would allow specialists especially in the social sciences to work with the stakeholders on research that is being done in universities currently on Internet governance in general.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much for those proposals.  And, of course, what we need to do, we need to try to wrap them in very concise headings and all that you mentioned are very relevant topics for conversation.

 I would like to ask Silvia, you are in line.  Okay.  I will give you the floor.  I was not sure whether you were in line or not.

 So let me move now to Jac and then Silvia after.

 >>JAC SM KEE:  Thank you.  I would like to propose for human rights to be one of the subthemes for three reasons.  One is that as demonstrated through the numbers of workshop proposals that was actually workshop -- that was organized in 2014, this year, 47 -- I think almost half of it was related to human rights to some extent.  So this demonstrates both interest as well as relevance in this area of work.

 Secondly, there is also greater interest in other key institutions such as the Human Rights Council, Council of Europe, Freedom Online Coalition, TaC (phonetic), human rights dimensions of Internet governance policy issues.  And IGF can play a really key role in facilitating into institutional conversations and dialogues such as what took place -- what took place this year around conversations that IGF inputting into the Human Rights Council document on privacy in a digital age.

 And the third reason is that it also provides a concrete framing to many intersecting issues, for example, not just on civil and political rights which will cover things like privacy and surveillance and also around copyright as a mechanism for censorship, which was raised by Amelia earlier, but also things around economic, social, and cultural rights, which links very well and strongly to development issues, which I agree is very key for 2015 for various reasons.

 So for that, I would like to strongly propose human rights -- I would like to propose human rights to be a subtheme.

 And also, if possible, I would like to clarify a little bit about the structure that we proposed earlier because of the amount of responses that came about that seem to show that we -- that seem to understand our proposal as saying that main sessions will be at the exclusion of all other workshops.  That actually isn't what we were suggesting.  We were thinking there would be some main sessions or focus sessions that could benefit from a next-steps discussion.  For example, like human rights where all of different workshop dialogues will feed into this kind of focus session.  And, of course, other sub-thematic track conversations as well as things like flash sessions and so on will -- can continue to happen.  It is just that the workshops on the similar theme shouldn't be at the same time so then it sort of defeats itself and it doesn't feed into the conversation.

 And, finally, for best practice forum proposal in terms of the theme, I would like to suggest actually gender as one of the themes because it is quite timely.  Next year is also the Beijing+20 review process where some of this discussion about promoting women in the field of STEM, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics will be discussed at the Commission on the Status of Women.  

 And also, of course, post-2015 discussions we will also bring in some of these intersessional issues around gender and ICT.  And I think that in a sense this is quite timely.  It is one of the more mature topics as well.  So, yeah.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  Just a question, are you sure that this -- we will have enough material for that best practice on ICT and gender?  The idea of the compilation of best practices is to advise how countries could improve situation by using the good examples.  And as far as I know, even in most developed countries, question how to attract young women to ICTs is still a puzzle.  So from that perspective, with all respect to that, my question is whether that theme is mature for best practice compilations.

 Again, I'm just asking a question.  I'm not expecting an answer.  In the conversations, we need to clarify those things.

 Silvia, please, you have the floor now.

 >>SILVIA BIDART:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I think the themes should include trustworthy Internet and socioeconomic.  These two concepts should be included and maybe the summary of this could be another one, but it is important to explain that the economic -- socioeconomic growth is important.  And I don't know if trustworthy Internet would be enough to explain what we are meaning in this concept.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.

 ICC-BASIS.

 >>ICC-BASIS:  So I will only just take -- can you hear me?  Just one quick moment to mention that we have a proposal that I spoke of yesterday for a theme on intersessional work that has been made available to the MAG and will be distributed so that people can see it and consider it in advance of the discussion.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Actually, that would be time now to announce it because -- or that will be Cheryl who will announce it?

 >>ICC-BASIS:  We were going to post it for people's consideration.  Do you want us to -- I didn't want to jump the gun in that topic if you're still on --

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  No, no.  With intersessional, we -- I think what I heard during the discussion, that intersessional work will be devoted to developing best practices and preparing documents, compilation of best practices on the themes that we need to now define what they would be throughout the intersessional period.  So this is what I heard from our conversation before.

 We need to define those best practice topics that we would be addressing intersessionally, developing those compilations.  And I think from a practical respect, we should aim at three, four, maybe maximum five topics to be addressed as we did in the run up to the Istanbul meeting.  I don't think that going beyond five would be reasonable because of the resource limitations and so on.

 So, therefore, feel free to announce them as you wish.

 Now or later?  Okay.  Cheryl is on my list.  I will let Cheryl speak.  Okay.  Let me come back to you once you're ready.

 ISOC, please.  ISOC, please.

 >>ISOC:  Thank you, Chair.  With regards to the overall theme, I think -- I think including the idea of "sustainable development" is a good idea and will echo nicely in New York as we prepare for WSIS 2015.

 Then I hear that some colleagues are already proposing subthemes.  I think human rights, trust, economic development, access, multistakeholder governance are probably natural themes.  At the same time, as we think of future outcomes for the IGF and what we may be able to produce through the best practices but also through the workshops and the dynamic coalitions, I would invite colleagues to think about possibly organizing clusters of subthemes and thinking that if we have more specific subthemes we will have better outcomes.

 This takes me to the necessity we've discussed of having intersessional work and probably identifying volunteers at the end of this week to lead thematic work and maybe that group of volunteers could work with the community on then identifying, fine-tuning themes for best practices, themes for workshops and with the view, of course, of progressing towards outcomes for the final IGF week.

 With regards to concrete proposals for the best practices, experience shows that, again, we need focus themes if we want to have a fruitful discussion.  Some of the 2014 themes could benefit from additional work.  I'm thinking of the multistakeholder track which needs extra work in my view.  Some of them I think are complete, the spam and the SIRT ones certainly.  

 Ideas for new themes for consideration for the group, best practices for developing IXPs, best practices for managing identity online, best practices for ethical data handling.  And I'd be happy to put forward additional ideas, if needed.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much, Constance, for very practical suggestions.  So I have following MAG members on my list:  Avri, Marilyn, Jivan, Virat, Cheryl, Markus, Olga.  Okay.

 And also I would like to -- we have until 6:00 and I would like maybe to devote last five minutes for homework, meaning homework for you.

 So, please, Avri.

 >>AVRI DORIA:  Thank you.  In terms of the themes, over the last couple years, one of the issues I've always had is that these word-salad themes have sort of ended up very confusing.  They are things that I've never quite been able to explain to anyone, even when I've remembered the correct juxtaposition of the words.  So as we get into these multiple where we put everybody's words together to get to a theme, we get to things that I really don't comprehend and I can't explain and I can't even remember.

 So I think that we really should pull ourselves back and think about very simple -- I mean, I'm not quite sure I understand why we need a grandiose, cross-cutting theme name.  I would be happy is just something like "IGF Joao Pessoa" and leave it as something simple that says where we are and then we have all the rest of it flow about.

 But the rest of the themes I just find -- maybe it is because I'm really quite simple when you get right down to it, is I don't understand them.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I think all of us at the end of the day are very simple and all of us are just humans.  What about IGF on the beach, for instance?

 [ Laughter ]

 More seriously, we don't have much time.  We don't have much time to crack jokes here.

 Marilyn, please.

 Marilyn has -- she has disappeared.  I will come back to Marilyn afterwards.  Then she can write -- send in writing.

 Jivan, please.

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Hello.  I would like to touch on Avri's point on simplicity.  And I also have a feeling that sometimes we get stuck into thinking of U.N. kind of catch phrases like "sustainable development" and this and this and this and this and that and that or marketing strategies "Connecting the World" and things like that.

 But to touch on what I was saying yesterday, that we should think about a communication outlook as well but not only -- we are here because we all love the Internet.  And I think that something like celebrating the Internet can be a good one as well.

 The Internet doesn't really have a birthday, you know?  You can't really say the TCP/IP was drafted then.  The World Wide Web does.  But the whole of the Internet doesn't really have a starting point.  So we can really -- we've never really stopped and celebrated the Internet properly I think in all this time.  So next year could be a good moment to show that.

 And then celebrating the Internet can be adopted in many different ways:  Celebrating the Internet for sustainable development, celebrating the trustworthiness of the Internet.  Each theme can have an application within the celebrating the Internet kind of general theme or whatever.

 In terms of the New York discussion, well, if New York sees that we celebrate what we do, what we're here and all about, then they'll give us a chance to do it further.  And I think it's good enough.  Cheers.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you for your comment, Jivan.  

 I mean, we always spend a lot of time in trying to identify what would be those phrases.  And at the end of the day, eight years in a row, we came, for instance, to conclusion that four simple words, "access," "openness," "security" and "diversity" would be the best sort of representation of difference -- different opinions.  So last year we did extra work, and then we concluded that we could not get simpler than that.  So we ended up with eight.

 Nevertheless, the overarching theme, I think it is important because that sort of points to a certain either values or importance that every country attaches to this event and why we're putting -- connecting continents because Istanbul specifically is a city on both sides of two continents.  So there is a logic behind that.  Everybody understands that.  So all the rest, of course, is the question of imagination.  "sustainable development" is "the" topic of 2015 in the world.  It is not "a" topic, it is "the" topic.  So as a result, it would be wise for us to try to point that we're part of that global conversation about sustainable development.

 But now Virat will be telling what he thinks about it.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  I was actually going to respond to your point about the best practice forums.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Please go ahead.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  First, I think, I support already the proposal that is yet to come from Cheryl that she is going to present in a moment.  And we put that through a tight test of what it should look like, and so I think that would help to decide the themes.

 But I also suggested -- I think Markus' comments yesterday had mentioned that this is work in progress, this is very good work that's been done last year.  But I don't think it went beyond the three or four months, I think, of engagement.

 I think the existing five themes that exist in the best practices should continue.  I don't believe we've finished those.  So we should then pick themes, in addition to that maybe one or two at best, and actually focus our attention on intersessional work on the existing themes that are already there.

 I think the two points about IXPs and managing entities that were mentioned, we should put anything that we picked to the test of, as you mentioned, Chair, is there sufficient material available for engagement and a set of parameters we might want to push this through.

 When the ICC-BASIS document is presented, I think you will see a set of parameters that we try to put the themes through so that they can pass that test of what can become intersessional work or best practice.

 So in summary, I support the theme that ICC-BASIS will present.  I also suggest that we continue the work on the five themes that we have and add maybe one, at the best two because we're going to have a lot of work to do during the year.  And on that, I support the IXPs' part that was mentioned by a distinguished colleague, Constance.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.

 Cheryl, please.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  

 As Virat mentioned, the business community, we spent some time thinking about what a good theme would be, how we would go about selecting a topic not just for this IGF but thinking in mind of future IGFs as well, and the topic that we came up with for the intersessional work in 2015 was "Menu of Policies for Enabling the Next Billion On-Line."  And I'll repeat it in case I read it too fast.  "Menu of Policies for Enabling the Next Billion On-Line."

 And so we created a chart, and looked at the different sections of Paragraph 72 in the Tunis Agenda, and also kept in mind the general overall sense of the MAG that we need to strengthen outputs of the IGF.  

 And so we've come -- came up with this criteria for selecting a topic.

 So first, it needs to be a significant globally unresolved continuing developmental IG-related challenge.

 Second, it would need to enable a broad range of international cooperation amongst the Internet governance community.

 Third, the topic would need to substantially enhance international best practices and experience sharing.

 The topic would also need to be a current challenge faced by developing countries, which also continues to be a global issue.

 The topic would need to ensure all multistakeholders can contribute substantively but equally ensures ready availability of experts who are responsible for dealing with the issue during the course of the intersessional work and at the IGF meeting.

 The topic needs to be -- it needs to enable bottom-up country -- country and regional IGF capacity-building and contribution.

 The topic can be based on existing verifiable and credible evidence, data, for the purposes of tracking progress across subsequent IGFs.

 The topic needs to allow international intergovernmental organizations to contribute substantively, including ITU, UNESCO, WSIS processes, et cetera.

 The topic needs to facilitate frank and free participation of all relevant stakeholders who can and will contribute without any hindrance in order to avoid a skewed discussion.

 The topic should connect to and advance other key Internet governance work streams to the greatest extent possible, such as the IGF's best practice forums, WSIS, MDGs, and the NETmundial outcomes.

 The intersessional work should have a specific objective.  More importantly, the effort should result in a widely usable output which takes the form of best practices and allows for information sharing to strengthen IGF's knowledge agenda.

 The theme should help enhance visibility of and the substantive work being undertaken at the IGF, keeping in mind the IGF renewal discussions in December of 2015.

 And then finally, the topic should go beyond Internet and telecom objectives to address broader issues such as empowerment, especially for vulnerable and marginalized sections, improve opportunities for social and financial well-being, and support complex objectives such as poverty eradication.

 Those are the criteria.  I would be happy to post the document to the MAG list, if that would be helpful.  I don't know if we're past that point or not, but whatever would be useful, I'm happy to do.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yeah.  No, please do, because that -- that is an important contribution to our conversation and a very concrete and well-developed proposal.

 I have another six requests for the floor and I hope that we can accommodate them.

 Markus, Olga, Aida, Lee, Peter, and Kossi, and so we will see how far we will get in terms of timing because I said I mentioned I want to keep another five minutes at the end.  Markus, please.

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:  Thank you, Chairman.

 Just a few words on the best practices and pick up on what you said and also on what Virat said, and others.

 I definitely think there is merit in continuing at least some of the best practices forum we had this year, and I would strongly recommend taking forward those on spam and on CSIRTs.

 The work on spam I'm clear revealed that what many of us thought was a problem that had been solved actually is much deeper, and the group came forward with a very good suggestion for deepening this work.

 I also agree with you, Chairman, that maybe more than five could be rather challenging, or six maybe, but we have to be careful not to overload the boat.  

 And I would also ask the question whether maybe not all the themes are -- or the format is maybe not best suited for all the themes we had tried to tackle.

 Gender was mentioned as a theme and you asked the question and I would tend to agree with you, but at the same time, it is an important issue which maybe we should consider tackling the theme in another format.

 It could be tackled as intersessional work but maybe not as a best practice forum.

 I also wonder whether the multistakeholder thread lends itself that well to a best practice forum.  As the discussion this time around has showed, it was more at a theoretical level, almost philosophical, and it is important that this discussion is carried forward by the IGF but maybe it could be also a slightly different format could be used for having this issue.  

 And I would also strongly support including IXPs.  This is a very narrowly focused theme where we do have results we can show and document and which will be very much in the spirit of the best practices format.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you, Markus.  

 Just one question of clarification.  When you spoke about continuation working on spam and CERTs, CSIRTs, I think that I understood from Constance that those were the most mature documents, that we could discontinue working on them and present them as finalized at this point in time, or did I misunderstand?

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:  Well, I agree that the documents that have been presented are definitely the most mature ones after this year's session, and there is a lot of merit in the documents as stand-alone documents, but at the same time, they do point to further work and they make suggestions for further work, and I hold the view that there will be merit in pursuing this work.

 As Virat said, there may also be merit in pursuing the work of the other best practice forums, but this is something the MAG may wish to consider, and I would also put forward a suggestion that maybe in a slightly different format, maybe also less labor-intensive and could be more of a discussion forum, not so much as documenting practices but more having a free-ranging discussion on some of these issues which are important to the MAG for sure.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you.  Thank you very much for those comments.

 I will now call on Olga.

 >>OLGA CAVALLI:  Thank you, Chair.  

 I do agree that sustainable development is a main major issue and there is no sustainable development, especially for developing countries, if we don't have trained people especially in technology.

 So I would support the best practice -- the proposal of the best practice forum on gender in ICTs.  

 And responding to your question if there is enough material, I can tell you yes, I've been working on that for many, many years at the regional and global level.  We also partner with UNESCO at the Latin American level to enhance that, and we are working on specific materials to promote that.  We think it's a relevant issue to have more people that can handle technology in developing countries, which is critical because then when we train people, they go to work to developed countries where they get more money.

 So we need more people to develop our own economy, so I would support that and I think it's a very important issue.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you.  Thank you very much.  

 Aida?

 >>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC: Thank you.  So I would also briefly like to let you know that there is more than enough material for best practice on gender in ICT, and I can only speak now for southeast Europe region where we have so many amazing -- amazing examples.  Like in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we are focusing on actual Yugoslav countries with a discotheque event that is gathering successful women in ICT than Women Rock-IT which was happening as a small event and now it is becoming regional and gathering around 15 -- 50 women dealing with ICT and human rights, et cetera.

 So there are really many examples.  

 So please let's not forget also the amazing global "Take Back the Tech" campaign that was just recently acknowledged with U.N. women and ITU award as the best possible example on gender in ICT.

 So, yeah, I completely support suggestion made by Jac.  This will also provide guidance and be very helpful to address the gender gap issues that is present in the field of IG and policy.  

 And of course for the record, I would also like to express my support for human rights as a subtheme.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.

 Lee?

 >>LEE HIBBARD: Thank you, Mr. Chair.  Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe.  

 I wanted just to concur with Avri regarding the overarching theme, which is that often I find with IGFs that there is -- they're rather long, these titles, and very hard to recall, so something shorter and more punchy may be something one could recall more easily.  And perhaps using new words, words we haven't used before in previous titles.  

 So I'll give it a go.

 "Internet Governance for Peace, Prosperity, and Trust."  

 "Peace" would cover the scaling attacks that we've heard about.  "Prosperity" for economic prosperity but also for sustainable development, perhaps.  

 And "Trust" for obvious reasons.

 So it's something short.  It may be interesting for you.

 I'd also like to recall the chair's summary of 2014, which talked about "from dialogue to action."  So there is some continuum that we need to reflect upon from 2014 to 2015.  You've discussed it in different ways.  National and regional IGFs, and best practice forums, human rights, et cetera.  Digital trust.  Even youth.

 I think we should try to reflect that in the subthemes, too, because that would show, you know, a continuity with the last IGF.

 And one last point which I'd like to refer back to the Russian Federation speaker, which is that the question of law is something which is very important and inescapable, because whether you like it or not, Internet is a space for freedom but it's also a space for the rule of law, some would say.  

 So is it worth thinking about the question of, you know, how can -- what can the law or legislation achieve regarding the protection of the Internet on freedom?  Is that, you know, an important theme or issue which needs to be addressed?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much, Lee, for your suggestion.

 I think that colleagues will reflect on it.

 Peter?

 >>PETER DENGATE THRUSH:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.

 Peter Dengate Thrush.

 What I'm, as an incoming member, listening for and haven't yet heard really is the sort of strategic policy behind this discussion.

 I think we've heard some complaints which are very resonating with me from Avri about the word "valid," and I have a great deal of sympathy with my colleague from Cuba.  Sessions that I've been to also have seemed to have strayed around the issues and it's difficult to tell whether it's about something new that's happening on the Internet or something that's got to do with governance, and Mike's tweet from the earlier session is the same:  "What is all this about?"  

 And so what I think we need to do first is work out why we want a theme.  And one of the points of a theme is to identify what's not going to be talked about, and that might be an easier discussion to have.

 Unless we decide the theme is, in fact, not going to be used as a strategic goal, it's not going to be a limiting or guiding strategic tool, it's simply just going to be an umbrella under which everyone can find a home for their own particular topic.

 So I think that's the first approach:  Is a theme going to be the guiding, strategic, directing tool for the construction then of the workshops, the construction -- because it has all those advantages if you go that way.

 I just made some notes.  

 It sets strategic direction.  It helps evaluate incoming proposals.  Do they support the theme.  Are they outside the theme.  Once they've been done, you can evaluate whether they were successful in supporting the theme.

 It has the other advantages that other people have talked about.  Marketing benefits.  Communications.  Never forget that we have to attract people to these seminars.  They need to go to their bosses and explain why they need leave and funding.  If there's a theme and there's a clear direction and a strategic goal and a program constructed around that, that helps all of that.

 So I think the strategic decision comes first, rather than people floating actual ideas.

 Why do we want a theme?  Is it going to be a guiding principle or is it just simply an umbrella title that's going to look good once or twice but actually isn't going to be used as a tool?

 My preference obviously is for a limiting, strategically conceived theme with subthemes that also support it, but that necessarily means excluding some topics.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I think that this is a very sort of right approach and this is what we're trying to pursue, to identify what direction the discussion will go.

 The problem is that historically the MAG never wanted to sort of narrow discussion and point to one particular narrow theme.

 Therefore, the subthemes, for instance -- the overarching theme always has been linked either with a sort of actual political event or sort of process or something with -- linked with the host country.

 At the same time, subthemes indicated which direction the discussion should go during the workshops.

 If we identify -- or formulate subthemes very narrowly, then we limit the broadness of discussion because then one of the evaluation criteria is how the proposed workshop fits in one of the subthemes, and then if that does not fit, technically we need to reject that workshop.

 And so we are automatically narrowing down.

 Yeah, this is the search for the balance between strategic direction and the wideness and richness of discussion.

 I have two more -- sorry.  So I have one from Izumi.  Izumi is waiting a long time.  We have -- we're running out of time.  I need to give two more -- 

 Izumi, please, very briefly, go ahead.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI:  Thank you, Chair.  

 So as a possible topic for best practices, I would like to raise IPv4 to IPv6 transition as a possible candidate, if there is room to add.

 I recall this was one of the issues raised in Busan, so it might be good to cover.

 And I also think the IXP best practices is a good idea.

 I agree with Virat's comments about continuing with the themes covered in 2014, to add continuity to the work, unless there are topics regarded as not necessary to continue.

 And on the best practice on the multistakeholder mechanism, I agree with Markus' observation.  It was more conceptual this time.

 So perhaps this will fit in well, better, with sharing best practices on existing community building and just reshape a little bit.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  

 Fiona?

 >>FIONA ALEXANDER:  Yes.  Thank you very much, Janis.  

 Just a couple of observations and starting to build off what Peter was suggesting, it might be useful to have a conversation about what exactly we want to do with the theme, and then from that, it helps figure out exactly the options.  And perhaps there's a way to do some of this on line this evening and have a back-and-forth or an exchange on the MAG list or even a Doodle poll about which ones people prefer.

 But in terms of the idea of best practices and gender issues, I'd be very supportive of raising the issue of gender and more women in ICT issues in the context of the IGF.  I don't think it's something that's happened in the nine-year history so far of the IGF and I think that's why folks are sort of questioning the best practices and the breadth of material.

 I think the best practices thus far have fallen from many of the workshops and many of the things that have happened, so I think that may be some of the reaction you're hearing from people here.  But I would also like to point out that I just spent three weeks in Korea debating some of these issues and it took us two weeks to get an institution to agree to have an aim of gender diversity.  So I would not think -- like you all to think that it's that set in terms of importance.  So if you want to make it an important issue, which I'd be very supportive of, I don't know that doing best practices is the only way or the best way to do it, so I would consider looking at other options in addition to that.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  So thank you very much.  I will now ask Carolina Aguerre, who is listening from distance, to contribute to the discussion.  But very briefly, please.  Carolina?

 Seems we have a problem with the connection.

 Kossi.  Then I'm going to you and we'll see if Carolina can be after you.

 >>KOSSI AMESSINOU:  Thank you very much, Chairman.  

 I'd like to propose a central theme:  "Governance of Internet for Inclusive Development."

 For the workshops, I think we should bear in mind that the idea behind these is to have things that we can implement in our countries.  In other words, good practices.  That's really what we want.

 I share the idea that we should always stress points of exchange where we can strengthen the Internet and public data.

 I think that the point is that in our countries, we have a very hard time undertaking management.  We need qualitative improvement there.  And I'd also conclude by saying can we get as much practical experience in terms of elections, which is a very important issue for countries on my continent.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Thank you very much.  It seems that Carolina is not online anymore.  It has been very interesting and enriching discussion.  We have -- I think we have outlined more or less direction which we would think.  And our host country certainly got a number of ideas how to shape the meeting.

 For the homework, I would like to ask a few things.  First and foremost, please read the documents that Chengetai sent out to the MAG list, especially new MAG members, because we will be talking tomorrow on more technical issues that require prior knowledge on some of those, specifically on evaluation methodology of the workshops and so on.  So, therefore, please read them.

 Secondly, I would like to ask based on the conversation we had this afternoon, please share online on the MAG list your ideas about themes and subthemes.

 What I heard, majority that though we need to encompass everything, we need to be simple at the same time.  So we have experience of being very simple and formulating -- in formulating subthemes in four words:  Openness, access, security, diversity.

 We have experience being more elaborate, but then we couldn't agree on four subthemes.  And then that stretches out -- and, again, four subthemes were defined because there were four days of the IGF, and there was a logic of that division that each day would be devoted to one theme without hampering debate on other themes during the same day.

 So please think, once again, and share your thoughts in writing over this evening that tomorrow morning I could try to summarize and make some kind of proposal that would be for discussion in the morning part of the session.

 Secondly, on the intersessional I think that we have now two proposals on the table.  One proposal is to take this developmental theme suggested by ICC-BASIS, the policy mix for next billion online -- policy menus for next billion online as the theme for intersessional work that would result with a policy compilation that we would present to the IGF as a tangible outcome.

 That theme also could be -- could be if agreed by national and regional IGFs, addressed during those meetings and contributions could be -- could become an integral part of that document.  So that is about the possible theme for intersessional work.

 On top of it, we would work on best practice compilations which then would be presented at the IGF meeting in Brazil as a mature document and, again, would be presented as a tangible output from the document -- from the meeting.  We cannot go beyond five because of practical sort of reasons, capacity reasons.

 So what I heard that maybe some of the five themes that have been worked on for Istanbul IGF, we could park and would present them as accomplished for the moment.  We heard that two of them may go further in the second volume or second iteration because they're very complex and there's many issues that could be developed further.

 But, again, we need to bring also some new issues on the table.  

 Today we heard gender and Internet-proposed IXPs, proposed managing identity, online ethical data handling.  Those were proposals during the discussion.  Maybe there are some more.  Please share your views in the sort of bullet-point format what these best practice themes could be or issues could be.  And tomorrow I will try to summarize and make a suggestion for the group.

 So if that is agreeable -- and I see no objections -- then we could finish.

 For tomorrow, also -- Fiona, please.

 >> FIONA ALEXANDER:  Thank you very much, Janis.  So no objections to what you proposed.  But just a suggestion to facilitate tomorrow's conversation, if now is this the right time?  

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  Yes, please.

 >> FIONA ALEXANDER:  On the agenda for tomorrow afternoon, Item 6 is the overall preparatory calendar of meetings and milestones for IGF.  It might be useful for the conversation for there to be a draft circulated of what those milestones tend to have historically been so we are not starting fresh for many people, that we actually understand we have to finish the evaluation criteria.  We have to do the call for workshops.  We have to do the evaluation.  Just an understanding of what is exactly before us next year.  It might help facilitate the discussion and even suggested dates if the secretariat would like to offer those.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR KARKLINS:  I see that is return the ball to the Chair, right?  I ask you do the homework, and you ask me to do the homework.

 [ Laughter ]

 Okay.  I'm taking that.  So I will do that.  Thank you for suggestion.

 I would like to thank our interpreters who helped us enormously today understand each other much better, especially for extra work translating Spanish of conversation and thank you very much.  We will resume our meeting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. sharp in this very room.  Enjoy your evening in Geneva.  Thank you.

 

 (Meeting concluded)