IGF 2022 Second Open Consultations and MAG Meeting - Day 2

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  We're about to start.  Can we please take our seats?

 I think it's time to use the hammer.

 Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.  Good morning.  And I'd like it thank all those in the room and all those online who are here for coming in on time.  It's very much appreciated.  As you know, today is the second day of the Open Consultations and MAG meeting but the first day of the MAG meeting.  And as opposed to yesterday, MAG members have preference, and it's up to the chair's discretion if other member -- other people can speak, that's I'm talking about the observers, either online or offline.

 As you know, this meeting is being recorded, and it's being transmitted through YouTube as well.

 If you would like to take the floor, we would ask you first of all to use the Webex hand up.  If you cannot use the Webex hand up and you're in the room, you can put up your flag, your nameplate.  And please, if you could angle your nameplate towards us so that we can see who it is, and then we'll call upon you.  But the preference is hand up in the Webex room.  So it's a level playing field for those people who are online and also here in the room.

 There is going to be a summary report consisting mainly of the main points and the action points, so it's not a full summary.  We will be depending on the transcript and also the recording if you want a more in depth into the proceedings.

 With that, I will hand it over to our chair Paul Mitchell to start the meeting and adopt the agenda.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.  You all have the agenda in front of you, I hope.  And I ask you to approve the agenda.  I'll just note that we've received apologies from Courtney, Zeneva (phonetic), and Evelyne who are not in the room at the moment and aren't able to attend.

 The agenda does suggest I'm going to recap and a debrief of yesterday.  I'm not going to do that.  I think I did it yesterday.  I refer you to the recording if you want to catch up on what we did yesterday.

 The work of today is to begin diving into the content for this year's actual event.  We had over 240 submissions.  They've all been scored.  We have a lot of work to do to figure out which ones we're going to accept and which ones we're not and how we're going to outline them.  I am looking forward to very collaborative and interesting discussion.

 So can I have an affirmation for today's agenda.  Any objections?

 Agenda is carried, and the meeting is open.

 Good morning.  Okay.  You are our first agenda items (laughing).

 >>HURIA ALI MAHDI:   There was a problem when I was...

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   All right.  So I would like to invite you if you would like to make any opening remarks today, feel free.  And take a moment to catch your breath if you need to.

 >>HURIA ALI MAHDI:   Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.  Good morning, everyone here and everyone online.  I can say good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, because wherever you are.

 What I would like to say, I am very honorable to be here because the discussion was very much interesting and very insightful.

 As I have said it yesterday, the MAG contribution to the IGF 2022 is more impactful and more successful.  And as all time, it will be very relevant to the forum.  That's what I have been observing yesterday from the discussion, more discussion.

 So I wish to take this opportunity to thank all participants of this meeting in this hybrid format, both onsite in Geneva and online everywhere.  It was very relevant discussion we have made yesterday.

 So I can relay that I am very glad to be here to address you today on behalf of the Ethiopian government; specifically from Ministry of Innovation and Technology.

 Ethiopia is, as you know, highly values to such global multiple stakeholder platform.  We believe that it will bring people together from various groups of equally to contribute their ideas, suggestions.  So the Government of Ethiopia firmly believe that Internet access is a foundation for digital economy, and digital economy offers to governments unprecedents opportunity to achieve U.N. sustainable development goals and ultimately improve the well-being of our citizens.  So we are very grateful to select -- to host the IGF, which is after 11 years which it was held in our continent, Egypt.  So we are very much happy again it comes to Africa.

 This is an important and timely event for our continent, especially in these challenging times.  As we know, COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated as the crucial contribution of the Internet in supporting our economies and societies despite several difficulties and adaptations that must further endeavors, because even though COVID-19 is a challenge, but it gives us a lot of lesson also, how we -- this is must engage on Internet.

 So excellencies and gentlemen, it's very important to align the message, which are five sets of message, each of them dealing with the teams that have decide for this year IGF teams, aligning with the Global Digital Compact.  Those themes are well connected with the global agenda of the Secretary-General.  A program is developed around the following themes, as you know:  Connecting all people and safeguarding human rights, avoiding Internet fragmentation, governing data and protecting privacy, enabling safety and security and accountability, addressing advancing technologies including artificial intelligence.

 To be successful, we think that it's a must (indiscernible), and our infrastructure, advance our foundational platforms like digital IDS, ePayments, trade, eGovernment, and achieve these outcomes, as we know.

 We look forward to welcoming all of you to the land of origin despite, as any kind of developing countries, some challenge.  This is exactly what Ethiopia has been working on the broad and of upcoming.

 So Ethiopia has overcome its difficulties and it's moving forward with our endeavor in 2022.

 As some of you know, the African Union Heads of States Summit every year, and this year has hosted large conferences, including African Union Head of State Summit in March, as you have seen it in different medias.  And there we invite you all to be part of this exciting journey and make history of the 17th IGF, as most of you.

 So what I would like to assure you is Ethiopia, especially Addis Ababa at this time is a safest place for any kind of conference, workshops, and other events.  So of course you might hear different medias which are telling which is different from the fact on the ground.  That's why this forum is the most important forum, because we want to elevate or mitigate this misinformation and this disinformation.  As I have tried to say it yesterday, as a matter of fact, I can be a witness or I can be a firsthand experience to this kind of.  So I would like to assure you, you will have the most enjoyable time in Addis, and it's a safest place for conference because Africa head states summit had been done in the March, and others.  And Ethiopia is a diplomatic, Addis Ababa is a diplomatic place.  So everyone there, U.N., African U.N., others, others in U.S. are already there, and they are performing their events, conferences and others because it's a safe.  That's why I'm here to discuss with you, because it's safe.  I came here, and I'll back, and I will continue our preparation for the event.  That's what I would like to assure.

 So our continent, Africa, is a young continent, and the majority, its population is making up the youth with full of potential and energy, with new ideas, innovations, technology.  And that make IGF as excellent region to discuss our transformation.  It can be safe, secure, and accessible to all through IGF processes.

 So as you know, yesterday I have already mentioned the achievements we have done.  Most of the technical preparation is almost done at this time.  So I will not say -- I will not go to that because I have mentioned it yesterday.

 The most important thing is what we are doing is we're trying to the best fully integrate the program, the communication, and the spread of information across using different channels to engage the IGF leadership.

 So we are working on engaging all stakeholders on the national IGF.  At this time, we want to link them to participate, to engage of leaders, governments, politicians, policymakers, and member of parliaments, technical committees, and various (indiscernible), civil societies, academia, and others to have a know-how of what the IGF does and what it means to all these multistakeholders across the globe.  

 So our intention is to engage all the stakeholders and to be part of on the discussion to have their views, their ideas.  And then hopefully it will be -- it will get to the policymakers, governments, and it will be relevant for the future of the Internet or the Internet society.  That's what we have believed.

 So I would like to assure the government of Ethiopia and the Minister of Innovation and Technology in partnership with the Economic Commission for Africa and the entire nation are already working on the IGF.  Will spare no effort to contribute and support the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, to deliver successfully the 17th edition of United Nations Internet Forum.  

 So I hope we will meet soon in Addis Ababa.  Thank you so much.  This is what I would like to say.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  And thank you very much for your words.

 Okay.  Now, we're going to get right into business.  I'm going to invite Eleonora to present a little session on the received sessions proposals and bring us up to speed before we actually start tearing into them.  

 So, Eleonora.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Thank you, Chair.  Just bear with me while I set up my presentation.

 Okay.  I hope you can all see.  All right.  I'll try not to dwell too long on these slides because most of the MAG have seen them before or heard about them before.  There's a little bit of additional content.  Okay.  So let's get started.

 So the IGF 2022 call for workshop proposals was open for two months, from the 15th of April through the 10th of June.  As we know, 246 proposals were evaluated.  That's actually an approximately 25% increase over last year, so it's encouraging that we received more proposals this year.

 Looking at the formats of all of the workshop proposals, we saw that roundtable formats were the most popular, followed by panels.  As I've noted before, it's possibly a good sign that there are more roundtables selected, as they make for more dynamic sessions.  And in the past, the IGF actually tended to have more panels.  And over time, we've seen this evolve in a positive way.

 This is another visualization of the formats on all of the workshop proposals.  Again, we see that roundtables were the most popular, as well as the 90-minute duration.  Given the choice, people will tend to pick 90 minutes over 60-minute sessions.

 Looking at the organizing teams behind the proposals, there were 581 co-organizers, which gives a sense of just how many people are involved in all of these workshop proposals.  20% of them were involved in more than one proposal.  This is in line with last year.  There's always a small proportion of organizers that are involved in multiple workshops.

 About half of the proposers were first-time proposers, a slight decrease from last year in which a little more than half were first-time proposers.

 Zooming in on the organizing teams, or the groups of organizers on each proposal, we see that the most represented regions were the African region and the Western European and Others Group, or WEOG.  WEOG slightly in lead over the African region.  

 Civil society was the most represented stakeholder group at 61%.  The gender breakdown, or the gender balance, shows slightly more women than men as organizers, with 1% of organizers identifying as nonbinary or using another gender identifier.

 Looking at the speakers, there were 804 speakers across all of the proposals.  What was encouraging here is that a little more than 10% were repeat speakers.  That's a decrease over last year, where 15% were repeat speakers.  We like to see that number decrease, as having fewer repeat speakers makes for more dynamic, engaging sessions.

 Zooming in on the speakers, we see a similar pattern as with the co-organizers.  The most represented regions were the African region and WEOG.  Civil society the most represented stakeholder group.  And again, very similar breakdown in terms of gender, slightly more women than men and 1% identifying as other.

 Looking at the policy questions in the proposers, it was good to see that given that this was voluntary, nearly 90% provided three policy questions which provided some good substance for our MAG evaluators.

 Looking at the themes in the proposals, this was the distribution.  The Connecting All People and Safeguarding Human Rights theme was the most popular, followed by Enabling Safety, Security, and Accountability, followed by Addressing Advanced Technologies, including AI, then Governing Data and Protecting Privacy, with Avoiding Internet Fragmentation as the least-represented theme.  

 This is just another way of visualizing that balance of themes, again, with clearly the Connecting and Rights theme as the most represented.

 This is a little bit of the additional content I mentioned at the top.  These are just some word clouds on each of the themes to give a little bit of an idea of what the terms and topics were under each one.  So we see under Connecting and Rights, aside from the obvious like "digital" and "Internet," "youth" stand out, "universal," "meaningful" and "community networks" and perhaps not surprisingly "challenges" as connectivity and rights really continue to be ongoing challenges and struggles in digital policy.

 In the security theme, "disinformation" stands out, "cyber attacks," the cyber piece, "rights," and "accountability."

 Looking at the Advanced Technologies and AI theme, definitely "governance" is prominent as well as "regulation," "sustainable," "Global South," perhaps referring to the strong number of proposals that discussed advanced technologies in the context of the African region and the Global South.

 Under data, we see "privacy," "protection" clearly, "governance" also but also "cross-border flows."

 And then under Internet fragmentation, "post-pandemic," "regulations," "sovereignty," "government."

 These are just some details on the logistics and hosting that the proposers gave us.  17% indicated that they would be hosting the session online only, a slight drop from last year, 21% in 2021.  Probably the decrease is due to the, knock on wood, changed pandemic conditions.

 97% confirmed that they would attend some kind of training, moderation hybrid training organized by the secretariat.  That's pretty heartening considering our discussion here about the need to build the capacity of session organizers.  So we see here that we definitely would have their buy-in.

 And 31% said that they had engaged members of local Ethiopian communities in their proposals, either as co-organizers or speakers, which is also encouraging that those local connections are being made.

 This is also a little bit of additional content.  It's actually publicly posted on our website.  But these are the numbers on the other session proposals that the secretariat has received, aside from workshops.  They are all increased from last year.  Just as we received more workshop proposals, we received more proposals on all other types of sessions.  32 town halls, 40 lightning talks, 52 open forums, 12 lunches and awards, 14 networking sessions, 19 DC sessions and NRI sessions.  

 The DC and NRI sessions, the numbers are actually quite similar to last year but all of the other session proposal numbers have increased.

 And this is just an overview of the sessions that are traditionally present in the IGF program.  Clearly the opening and closing ceremony, the best practice forum and policy networks that each get a session to present their reports, parliamentary session, and high-level sessions that this year we estimate will be around three or four and maybe two hours long, 120 minutes long.  But those are still in formation.  

 And that's it for our overview of our session proposals.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you very much.  Before we move on, does anyone have any questions for Eleonora?  No?  That's great.  Then we can move right along, and I'd like to turn the mic over to Roberto and/or Peace, the working group on workshops to provide an overview on workshop evaluations.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  Thank you very much, Chair.  Good morning, everyone.  This is Roberto Zambrana for the record.  And what I wanted to share with you, I would like to ask, Eleonora, please, if you could share the document that we were preparing, the screen.

 The last shared version, Eleonora.  Thank you.

 Okay.  Thank you very much, Eleonora.

 This is the last version.  You already saw this particular version.  And there was just a slight change.  The idea of this document is to give us a guideline for the work that we are going to start today in the evaluation inside each of our five groups.  

 The idea, as Eleonora proposed, is just to have four groups.  We're going to combine one.  But at the same time, we're going to join again the first that was split in two different groups regarding the theme that had the most proposals.  The idea now is to evaluate, considering the results that we got from secretariat regarding the top-scored proposals.

 And if we can go below, please, Eleonora.

 We will try to use this basket approach, considering the ones that were in each -- inside of each group evaluated and ranked.

 And, yeah, we can go a little bit up.

 Initially, we suggested to work with this number of slots.  We know that it's just a reference number because we didn't discuss about the final number yet, but considering 75 slots that we could manage to distribute the different proposals and considering the proportion of the proposals that we received in each of the five themes, then the initial idea will be to have this distribution of proposals.

 Again, it was just a reference number.  And once you can read this document, because you all have the link to this document, you will find this relation between this proportion to the final allocated slots for each of the five themes, meaning that, just an example, for the first time it will have 27 for the enabling safety, security, and accountability, you will have 15.  And you have the number there which is out of the -- I mean, 27 out of 87 proposals that represented in connecting all people.  Another example, 12 out of 42 workshops that represented in governing data and protecting privacy, et cetera.

 Well, coming from this proposal, we received inside the working group, we received some other suggestions.  And we were discussing about these other suggestions, we found that it will be better if we were not considering this as fixed numbers and not considering these 75 slots initially.  And then the idea would be to be around, let's say, 50.  And now we can go a little bit below, Eleonora, please.

 And with this other approach we will be considering just 50 but keeping the same proportion that the number of workshop received, proposals we received.  So in this case, then we will be allocating, of course, the top-scored proposals.  In the first case, connect being all people and safeguarding human rights will have 18 out of 87 proposals; enabling safety, security, and accountability, ten out of 49 proposals, et cetera.

 Again, these will be the top-ranked proposals.  And once again, this is a reference number.  It's a place where we can start in each of our groups, and the idea is from there to continue, of course, the discussion inside each evaluation teams with the different criteria we establish in the same document.

 In some cases, the evaluation team will feel that -- let's say we're talking about addressing advanced technologies, including AI, that we should allocate as a reference number around nine out of -- up to 12 proposals.  Then the evaluation team will have to discuss about how well their proposals were ranked and if some of them will have the merit, will have the merit to actually be included in the program.

 And if we have just these reference numbers, then this will give us some space and room inside the evaluating working groups in order to define, to decide which other proposals will be suggested to be included in the final program.  That's more or less the idea of the work that we're going to do inside the evaluation team.

 So have these numbers as a reference.  And after that, once each evaluation team will come up with the particular number of proposals they will suggest to be part of the final program, then we -- I think we'll start discussing as a whole in the MAG and try to come up with the final decision about which ones of the proposals are going to be part of the final program.

 So that's a summary.  Perhaps Peace would like to maybe add something or some other member of the working group, because there were some other ideas as well.

 Thank you very much, Chair.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL: 

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Thank you, Paul.  Chris Buckridge, MAG member for the record.

 First I thank Eleonora and the secretariat for the work done in pulling this all together.  I know there's a huge amount there, and I think it's really valuable to be able to see all those different perspectives and stats.  So that's really useful.

 Thank you also, Roberto, for the work that's gone into this.  I know working with the working group but I know a lot of the work just came from Roberto himself.  So thank you very much for that, and thank you for I think pulling us together yesterday for some of us to have some more discussion about this.

 I don't actually think I'm in any severe disagreement with Roberto and the approach he's suggesting here at this point, but I think it's probably worth having a little bit of discussion about what we were talking about yesterday in the working group and some of the different views that came through there.  Particularly, one thing I personally think we should be a little wary of is placing too much stock in that ratio proportion of different proposals for different themes.  I think we should be really careful of assuming that that indicates sort of urgency or, you know, interest or community interest at the global level in -- for those different themes.

 I think there are probably a number of other factors that can come into play here that mean certain themes will get more workshop proposals, will have more people engaged in that way to put forward proposals for those themes.  And that's a good thing.  It's not a bad thing.  But I think we also, as the MAG, need to take a very intentional look at what we want this -- this IGF event this year to be and what we need to achieve with it.

 I think looking at the Global Digital Compact, we don't have any indication that Secretary-General or any other member states are ranking those themes in the way that we might be ranking them based on the number of proposals we received.  And so I think it would be a shame, in that sense, to lose an opportunity to engage with some of the themes more fully because we'd gone with a ratio based on the number of proposals.

 So I think we're going to break out into the same groups that we had, or roughly the same groups, to discuss these.  So I think what I would suggest probably people in those groups be doing is looking at what are the -- what are the workshops in there that need to make it through.  And in the back of the mind, certainly having an awareness that we have a limited number of workshop spaces and that we're going to have to have these discussions about who gets what and who doesn't make the cut, but not feel too constrained.  I think if there are a significant number that you can really, as a group, make a strong argument to say these are valuable, these are looking at really a number of different and important perspectives on this theme, it would be a shame to, you know, remove some of these just because we're focused on numbers.

 So, yeah, I think -- as I say, I don't think that's in any great conflict with what Roberto has proposed anyway, but perhaps it's just a slightly different Iceland slant on it.

 So thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 I see a flag that's backwards and I can't see whose it is.  There you go.  Thank you. 

 >> TEREZA HOREJSOVA:  Good morning.  Thank you very much, Chair.  Good morning, everybody.  Thank you also for all the work done by the secretariat, by Roberto, your team, yes.  You're not in an easy position because you gave us a way forward and now you will have many people, you know, having different ideas, but I think have done a marvelous job in also leading your group to give us a suggestion how to proceed.

 I just want to reiterate exactly, actually, the points that Chris has made.

 First, yes, most proposals have been submitted for the first theme, yet this is not the human rights event we are organizing.  And the community, we can say also, expects that all of those themes that we have agreed should be the main themes of this IGF, should be represented at the IGF.

 So while the IGF may historically also, you know, tend to have attracted many sessions dealing with the issues falling under the first theme, it's not the only themes that we should cover.  So maybe one consideration to take into account.  But like Chris said, it would be great if when we go into our groups, we are not just obsessed about the numbers but really try to look at it more holistically from this perspective. 

 I also would like to encourage us all in our work today and tomorrow to reconsider some of the points we have raised on the proposals.  I know how I evaluated my proposals, and I was caught by surprise how other people might have evaluated proposals that I liked or how people liked proposals I didn't like.  And that's, I think, where the value of the work that we will be doing today will really lie, yes?  Let us take a step back.  Let us not just stick to what we put on the paper one week ago before midnight but how we want this track to be.  Are there maybe some issues that are missing?  Are there maybe some issues that are overrepresented?

 So that's just my suggestion on the way forward, and hopefully we can do it that way.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Amrita.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Thank you.  Amrita, MAG member for the record.

 I completely agree, and I think Roberto mentioned it that we need to be flexible.  You know, we had some numbers in mind, but we need to be flexible and try to see, when we are (indiscernible) on it as a group, that if there are some interesting proposals and we think that should be there, we kind of negotiate for it if possible to bring them into the program.

 Simultaneously, I think we -- the quality of program is necessary.  We also should try in some way to balance new versus old.  This is something which I always kind of say, to get in new voices, if that is how it is.

 And the other thing which is important is perhaps there was a discussion that should we have a separate track for Africa.  This also was something which we were discussing yesterday.  I'm not sure -- We discussed it, but it was not something which was discussed in totality, but I think it was -- the group felt that if there is a need, we could suggest later on but not at this point of time because some of the sessions seem to be catering to the African issues.  So I don't know how the MAG looks at it and how they want to do, but these were certain things for people who were not physically present, some of these points were discussed.

 So I guess these are certain things which we need to keep in mind in a group when we deliberate, we would be coming up with our own supposedly preferred sessions which we want to see.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Marielza.

 >> MARIELZA OLIVEIRA:  Thank you, everyone.  And Roberto, fantastico.  And I would like to reiterate what Chris and everybody else had said, but I wanted to add one suggestion.  I think, you know, we're looking at the proposals one by one and of the overall themes, but I think also -- and I didn't see that in the agenda of the meeting, I think this group should be looking at also what should be like -- should a report coming from these meetings look like in order for it to really inform the Global Digital Compact.  There is an ambition and an expectation for the sessions to actually make a contribution.  But we have to really think of what is it that we want out of those sessions in order for it to really be able to -- first, to consolidate that and send it back as feedback, as expected also by the Global Digital Compact -- the Tech Envoy's office.

 So this is something I think should be part of the discussion of this group, what does it look like, the input.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.  Amado.

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Amado Espinosa, MAG member.

 I just want to -- I just want to take the -- advance the opportunity to recommend once again that we, as MAG members, maybe have the opportunity to advise the proposers in order to make a good proposal for the IGF.

 When I listen to this discussion, which I listen every year, I think we really should be in the position to take advantage of it by preparing the next organizing committee to provide proposers for a better outcome.  That's my first point.

 The second point is specifically talking about the distribution in this IGF edition.  I strongly recommend to take into consideration the mission of the IGF, which is of course to go after the -- the -- most -- at the most part of the regions or most larger number of participants at this event in order for them to have the opportunity to really become engaged.  And certainly the criteria that we can right now have here in Europa or in Latin America, in the USA or in the African region, it's quite very different in order to consider which topics are the most important for the whole community as such.  Then I strongly recommend to take advantage of the experience from Roberto, who has been in these kind of processes in different regions, in different groups, and allow us the -- or people the opportunity to listen to his advice, which I also agree -- of course it's very good work that has been done -- and to move forward to a more comprehensive IGF in which of course, of course, the level of technology is very important.

 I would also push forward the papers which we were involved at the high tech, but certainly all the topics are also very important, and I think they deserve to have an opportunity, especially now that we are going to attempt a meeting in which we expect most of the attendees will be from Africa and they have a certain level of cultural adoption of the technology.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Adam.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   Hello.  Adam Peake.

 Thank you.  And, yeah, I agree with I think everything that's been said, particularly Chris's intervention at the beginning.

 I just wanted to say that looking through the other sessions, types of session that are being proposed, you know, you can see there are -- we've got 52 open forums, 32 town halls, 14 networking sessions, then there's the dynamic coalitions and others.  And if you look through those, you see an awful lot of overlaps with people who have open forums, multiple open forums, multiple dynamic coalitions.  They're also involved in networking sessions, and so on, and they're probably somewhere within the workshop proposals as well.  And we don't have time now to go through this, but there's an element of fairness in this that organizations shouldn't be multiply represented, and I don't think we can do anything about that at this stage, unless there's something blindingly obvious, of which there are a couple.

 It sounds harsh, but we're meant to be inclusive and we're meant to have as many voices as possible, and this is not possible if we go forward in this way.  It's not fair to have somebody who is basically proposing four or five sessions where their interests are being represented.  And I don't know what we can do about this at this stage.

 But I do hope at some point, probably not at this meeting but in a MAG meeting that happens soon with as many of the community members as possible who are involved in submitting proposals, can actually talk about how we can improve these processes.  And that's for everything from the submission form, which is complicated, and you can have -- it's not easy to read 50, 60 submissions when a description might be a thousand words of not necessarily structured text.  And then -- you know, it's hard work trying to evaluate some of these things.

 So I think we need to rethink how we do the structure of the submission form.  Make it simpler, more concise, and there are models for that.  And we need to start thinking about different guidelines of what you can and cannot submit for different opportunities.  There shouldn't be people who have open forums, multiple open forums, a town hall, a networking session, a dynamic coalition session.  It's just an unfair use of the process.  And then probably within a working -- you know, a workshop proposal as well.  So I think we need to look at that and look at both the efficiency of the process but also the overall fairness and inclusiveness of the process.

 So perhaps not for this meeting this week but something we really should take a look at.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Thank you.  Do you want to introduce yourself?

 >>ALHAGIE MBOW:  Thank you.  I'm Alhagie Mbow, a MAG member.  I think it is really not going to be an easy task, having seen all the works that were actually submitted.  But again, you can only evaluate what is submitted.  So essentially, you will see, for the most part, you have things dealing with the human rights, even though, like was said, it's a component of it.  But again, it's going to be very difficult to vote on because this is actually what is submitted to you.

 Now, my only issue is the feedback that is actually given back to the proposers.  Some may think that they will have a second bite, which I think now what we're going to do, the evaluation is actually final.  Really, I'm not so sure the feedback you are giving back to the proposers in the evaluation, what exactly is it going to do for them?  Is it for next -- you know, for following time or what exactly is it going to do?  Because some may think, Oh, I can change this and then come back again.  But I think what we are going to do is actually going to be final, yeah.

 So maybe they just need to know the purpose like this.  Yeah, okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.  Joyce.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Thank you, Paul.  This is Joyce, MAG member, speaking online.

 I'd like to talk in specifics.  And I thank Roberto and the working group for the very good work that has been put together in the workshop evaluation document with the numbers.  And I'm looking at the numbers.  And I think depending on the number of slots for workshops available, there would be quite a dramatic difference in the quality of proposal selected based on the current ratios, based at the current percentages.  

 I think at 50 slots, we're not seeing that much of a difference in quality, especially for the bottom numbers.  But once we expand to 75 slots, then you start to see that there will be certain themes with a larger percentage based on the total number of workshops that were proposed for that theme, the quality of which goes down compared to the bottom numbers for the other themes that may have had a smaller ratio but still doing very well in terms of quality.

 So I think we need to think in terms of fairness.  Are we being fair about the proposals that have come in, in terms of the quality?  And does it meet a certain bottom line that we should have?

 The other thing is, I've heard all the other speakers talking about the need for new voices.  And I do agree.  I think last year we did have a slightly different way of putting the themes together.  And we had two, I believe, themes that were on sort of emerging issues.  Again, we saw the case that there were not as many proposals submitted for those themes, perhaps because they are relatively new.  But I do believe that doesn't mean that those proposals were not quality or that those themes were not important.

 I think it is just the case that because this is a relatively new theme that people are sort of struggling to put together a good workshop.  They're trying to find the right people, the right speakers to put together a session.  And obviously the people who are able to do so, I don't think there would be as many as some of the other themes that have traditionally been in the IGF program for many, many, many years, probably for as long as the IGF has started.

 And so I think, in fact, we should go even further to give a greater spotlight for those themes that are relatively new.  So, for example, the one on avoiding Internet fragmentation and this has a direct link to the Global Digital Compact.  And if we only had five sessions in the entire IGF program on this theme, I think it would be such a waste of opportunity for the people who will be attending the IGF to discuss the topic that's very, very important and sort of have that theme be drowned out by all the other themes, right, that have been traditionally in the IGF; that people are very comfortable talking about; very comfortable putting proposals in.  They very clearly know how to sort of -- and I would say, game the system in putting together the perfect proposal that hits all the points, all the marks as well.  It's very easy to do that for a traditional theme but so difficult to do it for a newer one.  

 And so I think we should give even more attention to those topics that, you know, might have fewer workshops.  But just based on the skill -- the top and the bottom numbers, they still are quality workshops.  They clearly did pass a certain mark.  I think we should pay attention to them.  That's my take on this.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.  Adam?  Okay.

 There was a flag on this side that just went away.  Nobody wants to talk?  Okay.

 Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Sorry.  I'll jump in.  Chris Buckridge.

 Just partly to jump in on Adam's point there, because I think that's another question that's a little before us here, is, yeah, those other -- the other sessions that are not workshop proposals and the role of the MAG.  I'm coming at this sort of as a first-year MAG member, so I haven't really been involved in this way previously so it's interesting to sort of see what role the MAG has in relation to that.  

 Because I do think that the MAG is a body entrusted with shaping and guiding this event, the IGF.  And if such a significant portion of that event is on sessions that the MAG has no input or sort of guidance over, that has a significant impact on where the event is going and how it looks and what its sort of outputs look like.

 So I think there's certainly a discussion to have about what role the MAG can play in working with the secretariat to shape the whole program, including those sessions that are not necessarily being assessed in the same way as workshop proposals but making sure that, as Adam says, we're not duplicating, we're not sort of seeing multiple sessions that basically do the same thing because different organizations want to have their take on it or their lead.

 I think there is an important role for those extra sessions in helping us to engage with and bring in other intergovernmental organizations and other organizations generally.

 But we have to have a holistic view of this event.  We have to have a holistic view of the outputs and the impact that it can have, and we can only do that with a holistic view of the content of the event.  Thanks.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Hi, Chris.  Yes, that question has been asked quite a few times and I think within Lynn's time.  We have a table of each session and who's responsible for what.  So we'll dig that up and we'll share that with you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Adam.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Just to Chris' point, I mean, if you add up the open forums, town halls, and networking sessions, you end up with 96 sessions and we're talking about 75 workshops and that doesn't include some of the different types of sessions:  the launches, et cetera, et cetera.  And I do think if we're going to have an IGF that is primarily convened by the MAG and the input from the multistakeholder community -- and that is the mandate -- in the mandate of the IGF -- then this has to be rebalanced.  I don't think there's very much we can do now because, as Chengetai has mentioned, the venue wouldn't allow us to overflow with hundreds and thousands of sessions.

 But this is something to look to because we are not following the mandate that was given to us, essentially.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Sorry.  Just to mention about the launches, et cetera, they really shouldn't take up workshop spaces as such.  They should be in the lunches and in the break.  These are like book launches, things like that.

 Town halls are fairly new, and I think those we can discuss later.  I'm not too -- maybe I'm mistaken, but I'm not too sure about the concreteness of it as such.  These are fairly new.  

 Open forums have always been there, and they're there for that specific purpose and we have that in the table, which, as I said, we will share with you.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Just to respond to that, yeah, I mean, there's value in having all of these sessions.  There's nothing bad about them.  But if you look at the open forums, they have changed.  The nature of them has changed.  The breadth of organizations that are now being allocated open forums has changed significantly over time.

 And, again, Chris mentioned, there's value in this.  We wanted governments and intergovernmental organizations to have opportunities to participate in the IGF because it was recognized some years ago that that particular sort of stakeholder grouping was not participating to the extent we wanted.  And so giving them an opportunity is very valuable.

 But the sort of scope of what -- of eligibility for an open forum has obviously broadened.  And the nature of open forums have changed.  Many of them look like workshops, and that is different.  It's a way -- and I want to be careful.  No, I won't be careful.  It's a way of going around the process of workshops.  It's workshop that is not evaluated by a MAG.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yeah, no --

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  They're not being followed.  I know what you're going to say.  You are going to have say you have got very strict criteria.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No, no, no.  Well, that's part of what I was going to say.  

 We are very aware of that part, and we know that we're not supposed to admit open forums in the form of workshops.

 Open forums, the strict definition at the very beginning was just for treaty-based international organizations to showcase what they're doing in IGF.  So we had that treaty-based.

 Then we had some complaints from civil society, et cetera, well, we have some international organizations, et cetera.  So, of course, we had to make the adjustment.

 So, again, this is a discussion.  As I said to Chris, it's a long discussion.  And it was rather strict at the beginning.  Then, of course, it was opened up for fairness.  And this was discussed amongst the MAG.  So then you have the option shall we -- are we going to be opening it up and discussing it every single year or is that a continuation?

 But, as I said, we'll share the table and then we can have the discussion from there.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Amrita.

 Okay.  I would just offer a couple of thoughts in this issue.  One overarching thing is:  What is the role of the MAG in this entire process?  And the operative letter is "A" for advisory.  And we're supposed to be an advisory group that deals with Internet-related issues.  And I think that provides us with the opportunity to be quite ground-breaking.  

 If you just go back five years, the delta between what the Internet is today and what the Internet was five years ago is substantial.  And I don't think that we are in this discussion at this point in time really reflecting that growth, that it's not just a growth in terms of, you know, people accessed but it's a wholesale reimagining of what it means to have connectivity and what can be done for society.

 When we evaluate these workshops and the other elements that go into the IGF, how much thought are we giving to bringing out what's new, what's changed, what's the trajectory?  Who are potential winners and losers?  What's the impact on Joe Person, right?

 And I think in all of these proposals as they have been written and provided for us to review and evaluate, elements of these ideas are present.  But I'm not sure that the weighting and the thought in terms of all of the evaluation is leaning into or out of any particular direction.

 And so for me -- and I have no official opinion, right?  But I'll just share my unofficial view, which is that we should be really thoughtful about moving into the momentum of the change that's happening and to some extent being really careful not to favor boxes that got checked with content that we heard last year and the year before and the year before and the year before.  

 What's new?  Who were the proposers that are trying to break new ground, that are trying to be -- or watch out for developments that could be used negatively or be harmful to certain populations, certain marginalized -- already marginalized groups.  Where are the people, where are the proposals that are reaching new ground, trying to put forth new ideas?  Not trying to tear things down but recognizing where the changes are going.

 And I just look at the delta between all of the proposals in our five groups and it was 22, I think, was the number for Internet fragmentation, which is a big, gigantic issue.  A real-world gigantic issue that is made more evident by geopolitical factors that have occurred in the last several months.

 So I offer you my personal thought, that for us to be truly effective in our advisory role over Internet issues, we have to think very carefully about what it means to be an adviser as opposed to just running a show.  And I don't mean that in any pejorative way, but I think there's -- there's a big risk in both sides of this question, right?

 There's a risk that you get the advice wrong if you dig too far in one direction.  But there's a risk that you become irrelevant in the system.  And we have a situation where finally the U.N. system is beginning to coalesce with consistency, with greater consistency around recognition of these important topics.

 We have the opportunity to really influence and advise people who are in the role that can make a gigantic difference in the world.  

 And I think we need to think about that carefully as we go into our breakout groups.  Nothing is solid at this point, right?  There's a bunch of proposals.  There's a bunch of very good work on the part of many people.  And we are going to sit -- we have a situation where we will have limited amount of space to program.

 And I would encourage us to think about what's going to be the most impactful and the most useful and the most creative that we can be.  End of sermon.  You can take that for what -- however you take that, but I hope it stimulates some thoughts before we go into breakouts.

 So open the floor back up.  Anybody want to react?

 Yes.

 >> JUTTA MEIER:  So thank you.  Hello, to everyone.  Jutta from Identity Valley.

 I got invited and I'm very happy to be here.  Thank you for the invitation.  I'm not a MAG member yet, and I'm not a -- we haven't proposed anything to the IGF, so I'm trying to share my thoughts independently, so to say.  

 Identity Valley is a reaction on and hopefully an evolution on Silicon Valley, so it puts our identity in the center of innovation and not material that enables to build things like this.

 But I wanted to share because -- Thank you for these words right now.  So I'm driven, and this is why I founded the Identity Valley organization as a nonprofit organization, I'm driven by the recognition of us as human beings not being relevant in the digital world.  So so many others -- sorry, I'm kind of nervous.  I'm talking at a U.N. conference (laughing).  It's really something that's very important to me.

 So United Nations proposed the Sustainability Development Goals in 2015, and from my point of view this was a great, great job for all of us, for the whole world, because you -- we have been able to bring in some goals that everyone can understand and everyone can work and contribute to, and something that this is go missing in the digital world.

 So I'm very happy that U.N. now is working at the two topics, and of course that an organization like the IGF is here.

 So what I did is multistakeholders from Europe right now, is we created some digital responsibility goals.  So we were thinking about what are the topics that we need to know, that everyone needs to understand.  And they are starting with digital literacy.  And then we do have five technical topics, like cybersecurity, privacy, trustworthy algorithms, and transparency, of course, and most importantly, our human identity and human agency, so sovereignty.  And this is why I think you mentioned that it's not about just human rights but I think it has never been more about human rights than this time.

 So I think all -- everything that's what's happening on the Internet, in the digital world right now is really -- really in danger.  So I think our democracy is at danger.  So we need to bring everyone into the same direction.  And this is what happened with the unsustainable development goals years ago.  So even investments are steered into these directions right now.  Companies are measured, and this is what UNESCO mentioned yesterday:  We need to measure responsible actions.

 And, yeah, I just wanted to share these thoughts because all of you are now being able to -- to decide which kind of workshops will be part of the IGF this year.  And I'm very happy to see that it's happening in Africa because right now, we do have just the European view on all these topics.  And I'm also here because I want it hear the African view on all these topics and want to get involved in that because of course we need a global initiative.  I think we may be able to start with European values, but, yeah, we need to have a digital answer on everything that's going on right now from other parts of the world.

 And just wanted to share these thoughts, and I wish you all the best for getting this decision made.  But I wanted to share like you did some thoughts on the overall perspective.  And our credo, it's all about trust, and as a citizen I'm not able to understand who I can trust in the digital world.  I'm able to trust you if I looked you in the eye, but I'm not able to trust a digital solution.  So we need to have some KPIs behind and some -- some -- I need to know that someone is following some values and working on this.  And this is what we propose.  And, yeah, I think from my point of view, these are the topics that are really relevant.  So bring humans at the center.  This is -- actually, we're working with the European Commission and with the European Parliament, and they just proposed a human rights and digital human rights and principles, and they start with human -- people at the center and also have sustainability included.  And I think we have to make it as easy as possible to everyone to understand what it means to be part of the digital world.

 And this is just what I wanted to share.  Thank you so much.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Anyone else wish to speak?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Hi, Paul.  This is Joyce online.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Oh.  Thank you.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Sorry.  I had my hand up.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Go ahead.  Please.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Sorry for that.  Sorry.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   The Webex hand s very, very small.

 Two questions.  And thanks, Paul, for helping us to frame the discussion that we're having now.

 So following up from that, I do have two questions.  One would be in heading into the breakout groups, will we be looking at the themes that we are in with the numbers that have been proposed in the evaluation document?  Are we still following those numbers and preparing to determine based on those numbers?  That's the first question.

 The second question would be I think in the presentation by Eleonora where it talks about the other session proposals we see, I was wondering, because this is only the number of proposals we see for, like, town halls, open forums, et cetera, and we know so roughly we're looking at 75 workshops that will be in the -- in the main IGF program.  Do we have an indication of how many spots would be given to the other session proposals that, you know, are going to be considered?  Not by the MAG but, you know, that would eventually go into the program.  How many spots would be allocated to those other session proposals?  Because I understand that there will be a bit of a space limitation.  And so obviously I don't think anybody wants to have 52 open forums to attend, and so, you know, we probably have to think about those numbers.  But I think it would be nice to know how many other sessions really we're looking at.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   I'll answer the first question for you about whether or not -- whether we're sticking with the proposal for how the workshops were scored, et cetera, and the answer is I will short -- I will shortly -- at the end of this session I will ask for approval of the process that the working group has worked on.  And we will hopefully approve that and work through that.

 But at the same time, in the process, the goal is to take -- take account of all of the information that's coming in, not just the scoring factor.  So there are reasons you may, as a group, want to make some adjustments or not.  And I'm not going to presume what those are, but I am going to encourage you to take into account all of the information that you're hearing from colleagues, from secretariat, from me you can ignore -- just kidding -- and make your decisions in the most informed way, keeping in mind really that this is a stewardship effort, right?  We are stewards of the IGF in its 17th year, and that has a lot of meaning to people.

 So I'll turn it -- Chengetai to answer the second part.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Sorry.  The question is how many slots?  Then, as with Eleonora's presentation, we currently have 75 slots for the workshops.  Was that -- Did I answer the question you were asking?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Thanks, Chengetai.  So Joyce, just to answer your question.  No, so the number of slots are -- not slots but the number of spaces.  I don't know.  Because it won't be part of the workshop slots, obviously, but the number of spaces we're looking at to allocate the other sessions into the program, into the schedule.

 So I understand they would be filling up for lunches, for breaks, et cetera, et cetera, but how many of the received proposals for the other sessions we'd be looking to affect.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   I have to pass it on to Eleonora.  We don't have an exact.  We actually do waited for the workshop slots to be filled in, and then we fill in the rest.  That's usually how we do it because the workshops are actually the most important.  So that's how we do it.

 Eleonora, I don't know if you want to add anything else to that, but...

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:   No, nothing to add.  Thanks, Chengetai.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Any further thoughts from anyone?

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Sorry, I can't hear you.

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Oh, the process for the breakout?  It --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   I can --

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Yeah, go ahead.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   So as I understand it, there's four breakout groups.  Group one is connectivity and human rights.  Group two is AI.  Group three is security.  And group four is Data and Internet fragmentation.  There is a list of the groups, and I think Luis will share where those lists is with the group names.

 And, yes, there are members online who would be joining that group, and so we do ask you if one of you could use -- I mean, yes.  That's -- either use your -- get into the Webex room and then find a corner that doesn't disturb the other group, and then you can work, or you can all get into the Webex room and go your separate ways.  It really depends how you want to interact, but there are spaces around.  We weren't able to book four specific places, but if you wander around, you will be able to find some.

 Any addition that we want to make to those instructions?

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >> ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  So there are going to be four groups now.  So the Connecting and Rights group, which had been split for evaluation purposes to sort of equally distribute the labor of evaluating proposals, is going to recombine so the theme can be considered as a whole.

 >>TALANT SULTANOV:   Thank you, Chair.  Actually, I have a quick question.  In addition to selecting workshops, I think another question is how do they get assigned the time to present.  I presume that going first on the first day is maybe more popular than being last on the last day.  Is it random or how do we do the time assignments?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   I'm not sure on the mechanics of that myself.

 >> SORINA TELEANU:  Okay.  Yeah, if I got your question right, it's basically the secretariat putting everything into the schedule.  Can you hear me?

 So the secretariat then gets everything from the MAG and all the decisions and then feeds things into the schedule, but there is no criteria or anything like that.  It's basically trying to avoid overlaps among people and themes, but that's the main factor that we need to account.  And I don't think there is a competition between day one and day four and these kind of things.  We just want to make sure they don't overlap in that I criteria.  Thank you.

 >>TEREZA HOREJSOVA:   Thank you very much.  Tereza Horejsova, MAG member.

 Question:  I don't think we concluded in our discussion on the open forums.  I think we all understand the logic that if there are less open forum sessions, there might be more slots for workshops.  So I honestly did not totally understand the sequence that we now fill the 75 slots for workshop and then we see where we are with the open forums, yes?  Maybe it could be the other way round.  And I do understand.  Don't get me wrong, but it's important to accept the proposals from inter- -- you know, other agencies and similar.  Absolutely, yes, we should do that.  But for instance, like we identified with Adam that one organization which is not a, you know, international organization has submitted free open forum proposals.  Yes, I would argue in this case we might consider it as two more workshop slots.

 So, you know, just to be very clear about what is expected from us to bring back to the room after the breakout, if in my team I should have X number of workshops, you know, I would prefer to work with a different number in mind.  You know what I mean, yes?  This is an important piece of the puzzle.

 And then maybe some suggestions.  We will be working now together with participants who are online.  I think it's very important that the issue teams get together, you know, as a whole.  You know, really maybe the easiest way will be that we all log into Webex, to be frank.  Obviously still happy to have all the onsite together, you know, in one corner but just to make sure the online participants can participate in this discussion as kind of fully as we can hear.

 And then one more thing that I think wasn't explicitly said, I presume that this part of the discussion is only for MAG members.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Yes, you're correct.

 >> So (indiscernible).

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   So I guess, Tereza -- Amrita, MAG member, for the record.

 [ Echoing ]

 So just, I think, Tereza, in my personal capacity, we could park the proposals (indiscernible) if we think they are important and we want them there, and later kind of see probably -- you know, we can push them.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Chris?

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Yeah, thank you, Chris Buckridge.

 Yeah, I think going back to -- I think it's the first point I made today.  I think the really important thing here for each of these groups to do is have a sense of the numbers in their mind, but also go in looking at the proposals that they have and thinking, you know, does this cover, you know, the right perspectives, the different angles on this issue.  You know, do we -- do we have, for this theme, a good set of workshops that will really illustrate and speak to the challenges associated with that theme?  The reason that theme is in the Global Digital Compact.

 And I think, yeah, hopefully every group will come back, then, to the whole session here with a sense or with an argument of, you know, this is how we see this.  Maybe we've gone a little bit over the numbers that we had sort of initially said we would or maybe we've gone under, because I think quality needs to lead here.  I think we need to make -- you know, really be ensuring that we're bringing in quality workshops.  But if there is a need to argue we need a few more workshop sessions for this theme or that theme to really cover this in a valuable way and make sure the IGF is having a valuable input, then that's an argument for the team to make, I think.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Any last thoughts on this topic before we break ourselves into the breakout groups?

 >> Someone's mic is open.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Yes.

 Okay.  Stunned silence.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   I think it was Joyce.  Or somebody has told me.  Yes, her hand is up.  Joyce.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Joyce, are you wanting to talk?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Yes.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Sorry.  Yes. 

 I think there were also some people who were sending emails about this issue, which is what do we do about the proposals that we think that might fit better in another theme.  So that might also affect the proportion of proposals that we should be looking at.  

 And I don't know -- so during this breakout group, should we also address this issue at the time?  Or how do we communicate that if collectively as a group, we think this proposal is more suitable for another theme, that maybe we throw it over there?  How does this work?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  So I think, again, with the proviso that this is an advisory group, that's part of the advice delivery which is to figure out what recommendations you actually want to make and make them solidly.

 Tereza.

 >>TEREZA HOREJSOVA:  Sorry, one practical question.  Maybe to Luis.  

 Luis, will you create breakout groups in Webex?  Yeah?  That's how it's going to work?  Okay, cool.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Anyone want to have a last word before we do the breakouts?  Okay.

 Then, Luis is going to assign MAG members to the Webex room.  All of you onsite participants should join the online room.  You can also group physically in this room.  Rearrange yourselves appropriately to do that.

 And Luis will bring everybody back to the main room at 12:50.  So everybody will be -- go ahead.

 >>KARIM ATTOUMANI:  Karim Attoumani, MAG member.  Are there any documents for reporting?  I think that after the group working will have to report.  Are there any material that we will have to use, are going to be shared?  Because we need to designate a rapporteur per group.  How is this going to work?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  So the first thing we actually have to do is approve the workshop process report, right?  Because that defines how this is supposed to work.  And so I am remiss is not having actually asked for approval of that yet.  

 But I will ask for approval now before we split.  So anyone objecting to approving the workshop report as the process?  I see no objection so, therefore, that report becomes the guiding process.  And that should answer a collection of other questions.

 So is there anything the secretariat wants to add before we split?  No?

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Just in partial response to Karim's question, each group should assign a rapporteur so that when we reconvene, there is a clear reporting out from what was discussed.  We don't have any particular materials, but that should be clear from the outset.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  Eleonora, Amrita.  What Karim was actually trying to ask is, like, we have been given the sheets, the Excel sheet with the rankings.  So when we come back, do we have to translate that -- we have to show you the Excel spreadsheet of which proposals are being kind of -- or is it the numbers which would work?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  You should show them in green.  Then that would be great.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Color code, easy.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes, Roberto.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  Thank you.  Chair, if I may.  I think that's the suggestion.  Every group have received the sheets, so what we can do is to filter the themes that are inside our teams and report back based on that.  We can just have colored the proposals that are going to be in the three baskets.

 One thing I want to take advantage to mention is that you have to have a closer look to the proposals that have standard deviation which is higher than one, because in those cases, we have different views along the people that were evaluating those proposals.  

 In some cases, in those kind of proposals, there were very low qualifications and very high qualifications.  So it will be important for the group to discuss about that.  It's something we didn't mention before.  So that's another important thing.

 But at the end, the idea is to -- I mean, in a perfect world, about the allocated numbers, they should -- they would be assigned according to the numbers that were suggested, but that's not going to happen probably.

 And maybe just to have a base that are going to be allocated for the 50 proposals in total, and the other 25, they will be considering many other factors inside each of the teams.  So that's the idea in the end, to present when you are reporting back -- when we are reporting back, we will present which are the strongest suggestions that we have for the ones that we feel are going to be part of the program, so meaning the green basket.  Okay?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Then I think we're ready to break into groups.  I would just ask that you consider two additional questions.  One is -- especially considering the discussion we've had this morning, how many workshops do you think we really should have?  And then the second one is, are you proposing or do you think you should propose any mergers between workshops?  Then that should be part of your report-out.

 And with that, I think we'll split up, and Luis can make the rooms, the breakout rooms available.

 Inside the room, we've got -- we've got four corners.  I don't know if you want to divide up into four corners.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes, you can use this room.  You can go to the Serpentine Bar.  You can just poke your heads and see if there's an empty room but if you get kicked out, you get kicked out.  We don't have anything that's reserved, but there are plenty of spaces around here.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  So thank you in advance for your service which I'm sure is going to be excellent.  Looking forward to seeing you all back here at 12:50.

 [ Breakout group discussion ]

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to bring you back to session for just a moment.  I realize this is lunch hour, or lunch two hours, whatever it is.

 Do you want to keep the breakout rooms open during lunch or do you want to just do lunch?

 So if you want the breakout rooms to continue, can you indicate by waving or something?

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  No breakout rooms, but you want to continue the discussion.  All right.

 It's lunch on your own.  Discuss anywhere, and at 3:00, we'll reconvene.

 [ Lunch break ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen here, and good afternoon, evening, or morning those that are online.  We're about to start the meeting, so if we could please take our seats and finish off any conversation that we are having now so that we can start.

 Thank you very much.  Thank you very much.  I'll now hand it over to our chair, Paul Mitchell, to start the afternoon session.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you very much.  I'll start by knocking over my own "chair" sign.

 So it was suggested that a lot of people don't know each other, and something we didn't do yesterday is actually take the time to introduce each other.  So I'd like us to actually do that now in a very quick form.  It's especially important for the new people as well this year.  So just identify.  We'll start over here with Amrita, and we'll just go around the table.  If you can just identify your name and where you're from.  And one more housekeeping item before that starts is is there anybody here who feels that they need to have more time on the breakout groups?  One person?  Two persons.  Is that --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   One group.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Is that all one group?  One group.  Okay.  Whew.

 We will come back and we will accommodate the one group after we do the intros.  So Amrita, go.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Hi, everyone.  Amrita Choudhury, second year MAG member from India.

 >> KARIM ATTOUMANI MOHAMED:  Hello, everyone.  Karim Attoumani Mohamed, third year MAG member from Comoros.

 >> IOMBONANA ANDRIA:  Hi, everyone.  Yes.  Iombonana, second year MAG member from Madagascar.

 >> EVERTON RODRIGUEZ:  Hi, all.  Everton Rodriguez on behalf of Professor Hartmut Glaser, CGI.br, Brazil.

 >>BRUNA SANTOS:   Hi, everyone.  Bruna Santos first year MAG member from Brazil.

 >> Hi, everyone, Chris Buckridge, first year MAG member, coming from Amsterdam but from Australia originally, and technical community working with the RIPE NCC.

 >> TEREZA HOREJSOVA:  Hello.  Tereza Horejsova second year MAG member from the Czech Republic, civil society.

 >> ADAM PEAKE:  Adam Peake, second year MAG member, technical community.  I work for ICANN.  I live in The Hague, and I'm British.

 >> MAARIT PALOVIRTA:  Hello, everybody.  Maarit Palovirta, first year MAG member based in Brussels, but actually from Finland, and representing the European telcos; so, rather, private sector.  Thank you.

 >> MEELIS TIIGIMAE:  Hello.  I'm Meelis from Estonia, first year MAG member.

 >> CHRISTINE ARIDA:  Hello.  I'm Christine Arida, and I'm a former host member from Egypt, from Government of Egypt.

 >> DONNY UTOYO:  Hello, my name is Donny, and I'm representing the Indonesian government as the former host country (indiscernible), but I'm from civil society actually.  Thank you.

 >> JUTTA MEIER:  Hi, I'm Jutta, and I'm the founder and CEO of the nonprofit organization Identity Valley, and I'm from Germany.

 >> MARIELZA OLIVEIRA:  Hello, everyone.  Marielza Oliveira, observer from UNESCO.

 >> JOSEPHINE MILIZA:  Hello, everyone.  Josephine Miliza from Kenya, first year MAG member, civil society.

 >> ALHAGIE MBOW:  I'm Alhagie Mbow from The Gambia, first year MAG member.  I'm a member of parliament from The Gambia and the Pan African Parliament, AU.

 >> PEACE OLIVER AMUGE:  Hello, everyone.  My name is Peace Oliver Amuge, first year MAG member from the civil society, co-facilitator for the workshop (indiscernible).  Thank you.

 >> ROSALIND KENNYBIRCH:  Hello, I'm Ros KennyBirch.  I'm an observer from the United Kingdom, and this is my first time observing a MAG meeting.  Great to be here.

 >> ALAN RAMIREZ:  Hello, this is Alan Ramirez from Peru.  This is my first year as a MAG member.  Thank you.

 >> PAULA OTEGUY:  Hello, everyone.  My name is Paula Oteguy, first year MAG member.  I'm from Uruguay, and I work in LACNIC, Latin American and Caribbean Internet registry.

 >> CARINA BIRARDA:  Hello, everyone, my name is Carina Birarda from Argentina.  I am -- This is my first time like MAG member.  Nice to meet you.

 >> ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  Hello, everyone.  I'm Roberto Zambrana.  I am a third year MAG member.  I represent -- well, actually myself, but I am involved in the technical community as well and coordinating the Bolivian NRI.  Thank you.

 >> JUNKO KAWAUCHI:  Hi, my name is Junko Kawauchi, the first year MAG member from Japan.  I'm looking forward to seeing you in Tokyo next year.  Thank you.

 >> ROMAN CHUKOV:  Following the line of future hosts, Roman Chukov, former MAG member, currently representing the future host country.  Here as an observer, and hopefully we see you in Russia in 2025.

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:   Hello.  Markus Kummer.  I'm the chair of the IGF Support Association.  I used to head the IGF Secretariat and have remained involved ever since.  I am co-facilitator for the third dynamic coalition Coordination Group and also of the BPF on cybersecurity.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Hi, I'm Eleonora with the secretariat.  Nice to see you all in person.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Hi, everyone, this is Anja from the IGF secretariat.  Thank you.

 >>SORINA TELEANU:  Sorina, consultant to the Secretariat.

 >>JIM PRENDERGAST:  Hello, everyone.  Jim Prendergast from the Galway Strategy Group, habitual MAG observer, based just outside of Washington, D.C.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Luis.

 >>LUIS BOBO:  Luis Bobo.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  And?

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you very much for doing that and indulging me.  

 I note that many of you, probably the majority of you actually, if we counted this out, are speaking in a language that is not necessarily your first language.  So I wanted to recognize and appreciate that we are carrying on this meeting in English, and that is not necessarily representative of all the people that we are trying to reach.  So thank you very much for putting up with that.

 We had one group that wanted some extra time, approximately how much extra time do you want? 20 minutes?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Online.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Yes, we have some online people we need to introduce as well.  So my fault for that.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Anja, can you just announce the first times so they can start.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Yes.  Joyce.  Joyce Chen.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Hello.  Can you hear me?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Yes.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  We're doing introductions, yes.  So I'm Joyce Chen.  My organization is APNIC, Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre, which is a regional Internet registry for the Asia-Pacific region.  And I'm a second-year MAG member.  So hello, everybody.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  And also Carol is also online.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Carol, do you want to introduce yourself?

 >>CAROL ROACH:  My neighbor is having a yard day.  But, hi, Carol Roach, Bahamas.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  And where are you from?

 >>CAROL ROACH:  Bahamas.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Great.  Thank you.  Okay.  The group that wants 20 more minutes, can you take 20 more minutes in a different place?  Okay.  You will miss the vibrant discussion we'll have with the other groups but we'll put you -- we'll move your group to the last in the reporting order.

 And which group are you?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Access and human rights, whatever has got to do with access, connecting.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  20 minutes.  We'll see you later.

 Okay.  So now we're officially reconvened.  Hope you all had a good lunch.  Thank you for indulging the introductions.  And I hope you enjoyed the opportunity to spend all the time with your colleagues working on the evaluations.  And I'm very interested in your report-outs.  

 So our goal here is to give each group about 20 minutes or so and hear what your recommendations are for your particular group.  We will start with group 2 because group 1 asked for some extra time.  So group 2 is AI.  Is that right?

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  We're going to go to group 3.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  Just arrived.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  We're on group 2.  And I'd really like this, as much as possible, to be an interactive session.  So please allow the group to make its presentation but be prepared to ask questions or express concerns, if you have any.

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:  Thank you very much for the floor, Mr. Chairman.

 Our group was appointed to review the proposals related to new technologies and AI involved.  And we got 46 proposals to review from which we already mentioned, we really found a good level of presentations by the side of the proposers.

 That's why we got 17 which is around 40% of the proposals with the score above four.  And from those 17, we discussed today internally which papers should go into the green basket according to the consensus of the group.

 And we actually found from these 17, 11 which were -- we were fully agreed with the green basket and we reviewed another six to see which from them will also qualify to be part of it.

 The summary that we can -- and then when we finally came out with the set of 15 -- 14 proposals with the green -- totally green standard and another one with a green asterisk result which should be improved in terms of the organization that they are proposing right now which we considered can be improved a little bit, but certainly it has the qualifications to be part of it.  

 From this set of proposals, we have a wide range of topics coming from data hill, justice, women, into AI developments, how to protect children with AI and so on.  So that means it's a wide range of topics which are covering.  The level of speakers we found also very interesting and attractive for the sake of the event.

 We also found out that there are some papers -- or some proposals which have a relationship with UNESCO.  And we strongly recommend that if UNESCO has already proposed similar topics for open forums, that they have -- yes, they have to avoid to duplicate the content.  And they have to send a different -- deliver a different message at one level or another.  

 But certainly the presentations related to UNESCO topics are just great. And, of course, I think they can be also for a great value to the participants of the event.

 Yes, we do want to have some recommendations in one session in which we find that, yes, they can actually improve the way how they have presented the paper.

 But according to the experience of last year, the last year of IGF's edition, this kind of feedback should help really the proposers to improve.  We totally agree with this strategy.

 Amrita, please.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  Thank you.

 Apart from what Amado mentioned -- Amrita for the record -- there was a proposal where we feel that it has the potential if they ensure diversity of speakers and improve the hybrid nature of the workshop which could be possibly selected because the topic was interesting.  

 That's all for me.  Adam or Josephine, Iombonana, if you want to add anything to any of the sessions.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   Just to say I think it was 337 is the one we were talking about.  Is that correct?  337 is the one we were thinking that it would be worth doing a conditional and saying if you improve some diversity and so on it would be a good proposal, if anybody wants to double-check 337, but it's there if you need.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   So just to add we had 17 we had to short Lithuania but we are at 12.  Right, am math mad dough?  So if anyone wants to accommodate any more session.

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:  I think 13.  Actually 13.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   So there are four places.

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:    Three place.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Does anyone have questions or comments for the team?

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   We can perhaps share the list to all so they can review it.  Amado, do you want to share it with Eleonora?

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:   Okay.  

 >>  (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.

 >> MARIELZA OLIVEIRA:  I just wanted to thank you guys for the advice.  There's quite a lot of proponents that want to introduce UNESCO topics, and it ends up being a proliferation of sessions, indeed.  And so I would like to touch base with you to see, you know, what we do, you know, because it's in our best interest to consolidate date that, including UNESCO proposed sessions as well as those that proposed by our partners that touch on UNESCO topics that we need to really, you know, consolidate and streamline.  So if you don't mind after this meeting staying for a few, you know, minutes to get that done, I would appreciate that.  Thank you.

 M PAL?)

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Anyone else want to weigh in here?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Joyce.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Joyce?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Thank you.  Yes, I did have some questions.  Just looking at the list, does the group think that number 424 on data justice would be more suitable in the data governance as opposed to the one on advanced technologies?  I looked at the description very briefly, and it does seem to be looking more at data governance than advanced technologies, per se.  Not that we, you know, want to have more proposals in our themes because we already have overshot the number that was allocated to us, but just wanted to put the question up there.

 Another question I had for the group was whether you had also discussed and considered other advance technologies aside from AI, because the theme is on addressing advanced technologies including AI, not exclusive to AI.  And, you know, which are the sessions that you thought were just about AI?

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Sorry, I jumped in there and pressed my mic without meaning to.  Sorry, yeah.

 And just to follow-up on what Joyce was saying, we actually had one puzzle in the fragmentation theme which we thought would perhaps work with the AI and other emerging technologies along the lines of what Joyce was saying.  It's not about AI but it's about leapfrogging Internet technologies.  And not -- we didn't really see it as necessarily fitting into fragmentation but we thought it was also a strong proposal and it could work with that.  So we could swap you.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY: So, Joyce, to respond to your question, we did have something that was more than AI.  Like there was something on GI using IoT and blockchain, et cetera, on GI, but the issue was the concept is nice but there are a lot of things which were written there which we were not sure if the speakers could take into consideration, and the particular session you are talking about, 414, though it is also data governance but it is also speaking of using technology, if I recall based upon the comments which we have, as in the basic comments which I have in front of me.  So that is why we thought it is aligned with the group which we have been allotted.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thanks.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY: There is another session that was chosen on metaverse but it also uses AI as one of the tools, but other technologies, too.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Great.  Thanks very much.  I will --

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Sorry, Joyce speaking.  I just wanted to add to what Chris said from the group to find which (indiscernible) the same, and that is number 332 on leapfrogging into that technology in post pandemic era, and that's under the avoiding Internet fragmentation theme.  So that's number 332.  And thanks, Amrita, for the elaboration.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Thanks, Joyce.  I think we can accommodate if that is something on AI and you all feel it should be there in the, you know, workshops.  As, indeed, we do have, as we said, four places.  So we could definitely accommodate if you recommend it.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Sorry, I actually meant to put this down.  But, yeah, I'm not sure it's AI, but it's a question of how broad the theme is.  If it's going beyond AI, then this fits.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  Thank you.  Moving on to the next group, which is group three on security.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Yeah, thank you, chair.  Hello again to everyone.

 We started by selecting the initial ten top-scored proposals.  We agreed on most of them but we did have some comments that we need to make them available for the proposers in order to they improve their proposals.  It's not that they are bad, but in some cases they could be, like some other group said before, they could find room for improvement in terms of diversity, for instance.  So I think it's not a problem for them to maybe include some speaker that will improve this aspect regarding diversity.

 But in one particular case, there is a proposal that is talking about Ukraine situation.  So I think since this is a very sensitive issue, we consider that perhaps they will have make some adjustments in terms of wording.  And we consider that's important.  It's a good proposal, but still, we need to double-check with them this -- their approach about it.

 Then we moved to the -- the proposals that were ranked with the lower scores, and we started to eliminate most of them, around 20, among around 49 proposals we evaluated.  And we reached to continue -- we continued discarding the ones we felt didn't fit, couldn't fit to the pilot program.  And we decided to have 16 proposals in the green basket, and we kept, just in case we could find some room for any others, another five in our orange basket that maybe, again, if there are some other suggestions, we could include.

 So in summary, we have 16 proposals that made it to the -- to the green basket and another five in the orange basket.  So that's what we have so far.

 I would like to suggest, Chair, and to the secretary as well, to maybe we can -- I already did -- we already did as group send the result of this operation, not only the green ones but also the others, orange and red, so this will be available to the other members of the MAG.  So it would be good for some other suggestions that we may receive from today and tomorrow.  And I strongly suggest the other groups do the same as soon as possible so we can actually make some other comments, not only from our proposals that we're evaluating but from the others.  So that's another suggestion that I will like to be considered.

 Thank you very much.  I don't know, maybe Tereza would like to add something, or Adam?

 Okay.  That will be.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Anyone want to make a comment or question?

 That's good.  Then we go to group four.

 Who is -- Group four is data and Internet fragmentation.  We have Internet fragmentation right there.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   So Chris Buckridge speaking.  I think I was going to do the Internet fragmentation aspect here, and possibly someone else is doing the data governance.

 Yeah, Internet fragmentation.  So there were 22 proposals there, which is low -- well, certainly the least of the themes, but I think it's also quite an important topic and quite a broad topic.  So we were looking at what we can extend that to.

 So basically looking at our rankings and going from the work that Roberto had done, we had seven that would fit into that 50.  And I think those are pretty straightforward, quite clear.

 Then we had four more that we were interested in or thought seemed worthwhile trying to include.  One of those is leapfrogging Internet technologies roles in post-pandemic era proposal, which is number 332.  So that's what we discussed about perhaps moving to a different theme.  Then the others, there's one on resilient -- toward a resilient Internet, is cyber diplomacy 2.0, which I think is the only one looking at, yeah, what's going on in the U.N. system, OEWG, GGE, et cetera.

 There were a couple of proposals we saw on diverging platform regulation.  In the end, we've suggested one of those just because it had more of a -- a bit more of a diverse speaking line-up and is building on work that's going on in some other spaces as well, but it might be useful to talk to those other proposals -- proposers about whether there's a chance to merge or at least work together a little bit there.

 We had another one on splintering from the core up, fragmentation and standards, number 405, which is quite a technical issue looking at standards, but I think, again, that aspect of fragmentation, fragmentation is a quite technical layer, is an important one to make sure we're bringing into the discussion.

 I think even for the ones that we had been very certain about at the top, we did, and we mentioned this earlier, identify that there were a couple of speakers who popped up with quite -- across a few of them, and that's something I think we'd like to get back to the proposers about and say, look, one of these workshops could have any of these people but maybe we don't want to have multiple workshops with the same people who are likely to be making roughly the same points.  So I think there's an opportunity to work with the proposers there to just make sure that we're not seeing duplication across this.

 And we have this in an Excel format, so I think we're happy to share that with others.

 And I think now Joyce is going to do data governance.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   This is Joyce speaking for the record, and I'm going to talk about the governing data protection privacy theme.  But before that, just to summarize from Chris, for the Internet fragmentation, basically we have 12 sessions that we would like to allocate space for.  And out of the 12, one of which we are recommending would fit in the AI theme.  So that gives us actually 14 for the Internet fragmentation, just in case anybody is trying to keep track.

 For the governing data, protecting privacy, we basically landed with the top 12 that were allocated as, you know, quite -- we didn't really have to have a lot of discussion on it because we all agreed that they were very good proposals.  There was, however, one session that if there is still space included would be on protection of personal data and eGovernment projects.  And the reason for that being we thought that this was -- although not rated as highly as the top 12, it has a different perspective covering eGovernance, and a lot of the speakers in the session were from government, which we felt would do very well in terms of providing that diversity of perspective and speakers for the IGF as we typically do not see a lot of government-led sessions in the program.  And so we felt this one would fit quite well.  And so if there is still space, we might be able to squeeze this one in.  But if not, we will still just keep to the top 12 that was in our theme.

 .

 That's about it.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you very much.

 Does anyone in the room have questions or comments to make?

 Adam.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   Yeah.  From a sort of technical community perspective, what doesn't seem to have come through, and it's probably a reflection that there weren't proposals on the topic, is that the technical operational governance, the global multistakeholder governance of the technical area of the Internet where we do talk about fragmentation, where there is a major discussion about this.  There are regulations and legislation and activities in various multilateral fora that affect this, and it's not represented at all.  And, frankly, if you have a fragmented technical Internet, the rest of it doesn't really matter because you won't have an Internet.  It won't be an Internet.

 So I think obviously this is partly a function of the proposals received, but I think it's something to keep in mind when we look at a main session, because it is fundamental to Internet governance.  It is global.  I think goes right back to the founding reasons for the IGF, effectively.

 And I suppose -- yeah, I'll stop there.

 On the speakers, this is a very specific topic, and if there is an overlap of -- if you have the same speaker, they're not going to vary their topic as they bounce between different workshops.  So this is a very important thing to get right with the workshop proposers, because you're not going to suddenly take a different point of view on your point of view just because you're in a different workshop room.  And that just makes for, well, a bit of a silly program.  Maybe actually it would be interesting, but repetition.

 Thanks.

 >>BRUNA SANTOS:   Hi.  This is Bruna again for the record.  Just on the fragmentation part, I think just going back to what Adam was saying about the global environment, there is one session, 342, that's called Protecting the Global Internet in the Age of the Economic Sanctions that kind of like flirts with the idea of this at a more global level.  But I do agree that it might be something we could take into consideration, I don't know, maybe through the PN on Internet fragmentation session or at the main session on fragmentation.  That's one thing.

 The second thing I wanted to point out is maybe the need for increased coordination between this track within the Policy Network on Internet fragmentation, because we kind of want -- it would be nice for everything to work together and be well connected and also be acknowledging the intersessional work.

 So just I mention mainly a reminder for us to be able to try to coordinate.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Any other comments or suggestions?  Questions?

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   It's me again, and I'm so sorry I'm overtalking someone because I don't know who.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   That's Joyce.  Joyce, do you want to talk?  You go first.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   All right.  Thanks.  Sorry, Adam.

 I actually wanted to answer your question, sort of.  And that was that Chris had mentioned that one of the sessions that we were hoping to squeeze in, although it was not in the top list, but we did draw out the one on splintering from the core up, fragmentation and standards.  That was quite a technical proposal, and it does speak to exactly the Internet infrastructure, fragmentation at the technical layer.  So yes.

 Of course, I also do agree that it would be great to have in the main session also discussion on this area that is really a hot topic right now.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.

 Next.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Yeah, thanks, Joyce, and sorry for interrupting.  

 I just wanted to go back to actually something you said earlier, which is a bit more meta.  It's about workshops that we consider perhaps in the wrong category.  

 Going back to what you said, Joyce, about the AI grouping, because we have found that the top-ranked sessions tended to be about AI.  I actually thought there were three that I scored quite highly but actually were in the wrong category, the wrong batch.  I don't know what to do about that, because perhaps people scored them differently because they didn't feel they were on topic.

 You know, it's difficult to know what to do because you score for relevance.  And it may be a good workshop.  But if you don't think it's relevant to the topic, it depends on how the person approached this particular approach, their evaluations.

 So there are actually three there that personally I scored quite well, two pretty well.  Just don't know what to do.  Seeking your advice.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.  Okay.  We have one more group to report that has taken their 20 minutes but not returned.

 So let's give them a few more minutes.  And we can take a little coffee break, a short coffee break, with coffee you already have.

 [ Break ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  MAG private, please.  At this stage, you have a lot of lobbying.  Let's keep it at MAG private.  (Background noise).

 [ Break ]

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  This is Joyce speaking.  Since we are on break, I have a casual question to the secretariat.  If we have -- still have, like, the Skype group or something that we used to have in the previous year, is that still active?  Is there any group or something?

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  So, Joyce, we are kind of creating an informal MAG group just in case that would help.  But it is the MAG members.  Would that help?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Is that on Skype, or where is it?

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  It's on WhatsApp.  It's just work in progress.  I will add you in.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Oh, thanks.  Great.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  We can welcome back to the party the connectivity/human rights group.  And the floor is yours.

 >>PEACE OLIVER AMUGE:  Okay.  Thank you.  We're sorry that we had to complete our evaluation.  

 So in total, we have 23 sessions that we have selected.  And we've also recommended some for merging, some that we thought are very similar.  And actually, we've had two that had two same speakers appearing and having same titles and same ideas.  So those we proposed for merging.

 And so, yes, I think that's what we can report.  We have 23 that we have selected.

 And some we have merged.  You can add.

 >>KARIM ATTOUMANI:  Karim, MAG member.  

 We also noticed some proposals looks to be located in other groups, related with cybersecurity.  So we don't know if we need to recommend for consideration in other groups or if the work already done in other group.  So we will focus only focus on those we have selected.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Now that everybody has had benefits of the four reporting groups, this is an opportunity to discuss amongst the groups, make some informed changes perhaps.  And so I open up the floor for anyone who wants to drill down in any one of these areas a while.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  Thank you, Paul.  I wanted to make a comment about the possibility of the mergers.  

 I think it would be good to have them in second round, not at this stage, and to be extremely careful when we are proposing to have proposals to be merged, if they are -- one of them at least have a high score.  That's something that the group, I don't know which one of the proposals, of course, you selected to be merged.  

 But it would be good to take a look if one of those are highly ranked, because, of course, we all know that the proposers take too much effort in order to present the proposal.  And it will be maybe harmful if we ask them to receive another proposer to actually get together in only one proposal.  

 That's something that we need to take into account, right?  That's why the message is to have a second round to see which ones will be candidates to be merged.  Thank you.

 >>KARIM ATTOUMANI:  Thank you, Roberto.  

 We have two proposals.  The first is the second top high-ranked proposal, and the second is 12.  So based on the fact that we have two speakers in both of those proposals, we had to suggest to merge them or to suggest on the secretariat they have to make the schedule not to put them at the same time because if two speakers are located on both workshops, they need to be in a slot -- in different slots to allow them to attend both workshops.

 But the idea is the same regarding declaration for the future of the Internet, for the first one.  And the second one, the (indiscernible) declaration for future of the Internet.

 I don't know if at first time, they submit the first version and then edit it and submit it again.  But it's trying to have two speakers in both of the same title proposal.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  That makes total sense if they are the same organizer.  The two are?  Then yes, of course.  Those are the same organizers?  Yeah.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Other, comments, concerns, or questions for any of the teams?  Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Thanks.  Chris here.

 And I'm not sure it's exactly for the teams, although I think the teams are probably going to have a role here.  But I do think now is probably also the time we need to start thinking about the main sessions because I think the main sessions and who is speaking in those main sessions and what the focus of those main sessions are going to be within these five themes should have some bearing on the workshops included and how those are structured in the program.  So I'm not sure how -- what the sort of planning is on how we proceed with that or how we start to integrate that.  But if not now, certainly shortly I think we need to start thinking about that.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Yes, that's definitely something we need to get to.  

 Anyone else with comments or questions?

 Thank you.  I couldn't see your flag but please go ahead.

 >>ROSALIND KENNYBIRCH:  Thank you very much.  I just have a question as an observer.  Ros KennyBirch, United Kingdom.  

 First, I wanted to say thank you very much to the MAG members and groups for taking the time to complete a detailed evaluation of the workshop proposals.  

 I was curious for those that are not chosen, is there a potential for those groups to approach those that have been to request merging ideas?  

 Just a question as a first-timer.  Thanks very much.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  I don't think there's any formal process for that.  And I think it would open up a rather large can of worms in terms of -- you know, just governance issues around how we make these decisions.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I mean, we used to have three types of mergers.  Conditional merger, you merge and then you get accepted.  If you merge, you -- you are accepted and you can merge if you want with these recommended groups.  And if somebody's accepted -- I don't think we had a single instance of somebody willingly merging with somebody else.  So, yeah, I don't think we should even have it as an option.

 >>KARIM ATTOUMANI:  I think we can try to analyze the possibility with the discussion we had today regarding the hybrid and how we can ensure that, for example, a speaker who plans to attend and we can have a sort of pool of people who can from a certain position join a workshop and to be a panel.  Because merging or not, it's a huge (indiscernible).  But a speaker who planned for another workshop who could help others achieve the workshop would be a good thing, I think.

 So we can have a sort of pool of speakers that could join a workshop, that the speakers are not onsite, for example.  I don't know if it could help.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  Thank you.  Amrita for the record.

 This is a tricky thing, Karim, because we don't want the same set of speakers speaking in all sessions.  If, for example, some of the workshop proposers come back to and we find the diversity in the workshop in terms of speakers is not good or they want some help from us, which some of the proposers did mention in their proposals.  Come to us and ask us for help, we could suggest speakers.

 But having a pool would be the same set of people speaking in the stage, which I don't think any one of us wants to look at.

 >>BRUNA SANTOS:  Hi, Bruna again.  I guess it's on the same topic because when we were looking at the fragmentation ones, like, we often came across one or two three panelists that were throughout these kind of proposals as well.  

 So maybe we can either use this as a metrics for suggesting speakers for the main sessions on these topics because if somebody showed up enough times, in maybe one or two, that can be a sign that we can maybe invite this person.  But at the same time, we don't want this to become just a one person kind of show.  And specifically if you're talking fragmentation or data protection, these people, as some others mentioned, like, they won't change their perceptions at all from one workshop to another.  

 So it might be worth, like, considering how are we balancing this.  Or even if it's worth bringing up kind of like the workshop participation cap.  Like, should we have people on more than two or three panels, is it worth it?  Is it the case actually?  So kind of like some doubts but also concerns about not it becoming the same people everywhere.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Other concerns or questions?  So as a taking of the temperature kind of approach, I'd like to ask if there's support in the room for adopting those proposals that received consensus within their specific evaluation group?  That would basically be a way to whittle down to an actionable work on the remainder.

 So, Chris, you had your flag.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Just a question in those terms, is do we have a collated idea of how many proposals have been accepted by consensus by the groups?  Because I'm guessing we're not going to hit the 75 mark, but it's just a guess.  

 So do we perhaps to need first all send those approved ones to the secretariat to do a very quick collection of that?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Send them to us, yes, and then we can.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  In each of the report-outs, right, we basically got a message that said we had these, they look pretty good, we like them, and then we have these anomalies.  

 And so what I'm asking is:  Can we agree on the things that were essentially agreed on the group and then take the anomalies, for example, where people suggested, This would be good if it was done in a different way or had a different speaker.  Can we take those as a group within each of the four evaluation groups and work on those separately?  If that clarifies the question.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Yeah, I think that sounds fine.  

 My only concern -- sorry.  My only concern there is -- so when I was going through the Internet fragmentation ones and I listed out for -- which could have been interpreted as anomalies, I think we weren't seeing those as anomalies, rather ones that we had consensus on but exceeded the numbers that the ratio would have allowed for Internet fragmentation.  

 So I think the Internet fragmentation group at least, we're thinking of those as ones that have met with consensus of the group.  So if we're fine with that... I just don't want to... yeah.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Yeah, the way you just described it, I would be fine with it.  Yeah.

 >> Yeah, (indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Comments?  Thoughts?  Concerns?

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   What I --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   No, I mean -- Yes.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   So I guess as groups, I think we are the way we presented with our conditions.  If that is agreed by all, and we are happy to review the consolidated list with our conditions and suggestions, I think it should be good with all of us.

 Chris, are you okay with that?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   All groups okay?

 Any online people?

 >>JOYCE CHEN: Yes.  Joyce.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  Joyce, and then we'll come back to the flags that are in the room.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:   Thanks, Paul.  Yes, I do agree with what you said.  I think you can proceed with those proposals that gave consensus to move forward.

 I do want to point out probably just a process procedural concern, which is that at least for our group, we only had four of us basically having a discussion on and evaluation of the proposals.  And is that okay to be taken as consensus?  Because we did try our best to keep to the top evaluated ones, and then we had those that kind of, you know, we went into more detail for the content to be selected.

 But just bearing in mind that there are others in our group that did the evaluation but were not part of the discussion with us.  Do we have to -- do we have to include them somehow or is it okay for us to just proceed from here?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL: Okay, from my perspective, those that participated in the scoring and the evaluation -- in particular, that participated in scoring the proposals -- that work should count.  If we're talking about a situation where we had people who did not participate in the scoring and did not really participate in any of the review part, then I think it would be a situation where we need to open that up and have that properly reviewed with the same level of detail that the other proposals will have received by that point in time.

 Does that make sense?

 I think this is about making sure that we get very good results that are not subject to inappropriate challenge.  So I want everybody to be -- this is not about railroading anything through.  I want everybody to be very thoughtful.  But it seemed through the reports, the report outs, that there was substantive consensus among the members of each of the groups or the majority of the workshops that they were -- that they had recommended moving forward.  So I just want to clear those off the deck if we can identify them so that we can then have a discussion about what to do with the "on the fences."Does that make sense?  And anybody else?  I see there there's a flag, but I can't see who it is.  Is it Adam?

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   Sorry, there's me, Adam, and then...

 So I was just wondering about the maths.  If we -- accepting what everybody has said, because I think it's fair that people -- the groups have proposed their -- their accepted -- you know, the ones they recommend, how does the maths work out?  I heard sort of 17s and Chris's 13 or whatever it was because it was clear you wanted those extra -- you fell above the algorithmic sort of percentage we had earlier.  It's just those that were recommended, what's the number we end up at?  And -- because that means how many have we got left, essentially?  What are we playing with.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Can we take Fitch minutes and actually do the math?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Would that be okay?

 >> What I was going to say groups can announce the number they have, and mathematically we have the number we have.  Because for us we have 23.  So if every group can announce they have, we can put all together very quickly.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yeah, but let's just speak -- let Maarit speak because she's been waiting patiently.

 >>MAARIT PALOVIRTA:   Yeah.  Just a comment.  I was also in the connectivity group, and we had 87 proposals all in all.  And just because of the volume, we had this rush this morn -- I mean just now, because we weren't able to, as a group, go through them, especially as in the initial phase we were split into two groups, so not everybody had gone through all the proposals.  And we chose only 23 out of 87, which is quite a small percentage or proportion, but I think it's fair to say it's partially because of the time rush that we just had.

 So I'm not sure that this is, you know, okay with the connectivity and human rights, which is a traditional, I think, IGF theme.  So there's always a lot of proposals, but I think it would probably merit a little bit more looking into.  And especially, we were very much focusing on the substance and didn't look at some of the other criteria, such as the hybrid meeting thing, which some of us had looked at in the individual preparation phase, or, indeed, if the speakers are planning to attend in person or not.  

 So that's also one question.  But then also going back to our chair's point this morning, of course there's the other consideration that maybe there is room to be a bit more strategic and then focus on new topics or topics that will be, you know, the topics of the future and take a kind of conscious choice.  But, yeah.  So I'm not sure that I'm personally still very comfortable with our own group's work because of the time pressure.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE: Sorry.  I just -- I -- Because I'm coming back to Roberto's document here at the end there, so it -- and that's talking about 50 slots.  I'm not -- Maybe it's better if we just think about 75 and not worry too much about -- and I know our group has certainly gone over on the idea of having eight governing data and five avoiding fragmentation.  But that's also for the 50, so -- yeah.

 Yeah, I think we do just need to get a sense of the math at the moment.  Get a sense of what all the consensus agreements bring us to.  And if that's way over 75, then things are going to get ugly.

 >> I actually agree with Chris.  And I don't know what happened, but actually most of the groups actually get to the 75 person.  So -- so I think we're fine in that regard.

 But I think it would also be good to have a final round in each group, maybe for five minutes to define the final numbers.  To keep your suggestion to keep the initial green basket ones?

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  That's essentially the suggestion.

 >>  Right, but to have another time, a little bit to confirm if those are want to increase or decrease one.  That's (indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  I'm certainly open to giving you 10, 15 minutes to address this.  And maybe the four spokespeople could also complete amongst themselves the math.  So we could do a report.  We could have a mini virtual coffee break with the leads, the reporting leads working together.

 Does that work for everybody?

 So if there's not any objection, and I don't see an objection, then we'll take 15 minutes?  Take 15 minutes now, and with the goal to see if we can, you know, come back with agreement on the green basket, effectively.  So we can then think about what we do with the orange and red.  Red I think is easy, but...

 Okay?  Thank you.  So it is 4:10, so come back at 4:25, and on to breakouts.

 [ Break ]

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  We're back in session.

 And could we get a report out of the progress?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Group number one, can we please take our seats?  Thank you.

 Maarit, we are starting.

 I'm about to say your names.  I'm about to say your names.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  So let's see if we can get some consensus going.

 Chris, we'll start with you, just because.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Okay, yeah.  Whoops.

 Sorry, so, yeah.  What are we looking for here?  So we went through and we sent the 12 -- I think it's going to be 11.  I think we're going to remove one from the list that we sent to the secretariat, because there is -- in looking at our issues with the speakers and the overlaps there, I think we can bring that down to, yeah, 11 Internet fragmentation ones.

 We --

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   And then 12 for the governing data ones which have also been sent to the secretariat.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Who would like to go next?

 Don't all speak at once.

 Who would like to respond for group one?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Amrita has very kindly --

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   (Indiscernible).

 So it would be good to see all the things in the private MAG group list.  It will be easier.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Okay.  (Indiscernible) send them to --

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   We have, right?  Group two has sent it.  Would all the groups be able to send their lists to Eleonora?  Then we can all look at the same sheet.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   But the chair has asked group one to please --

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Group one, what did you just do for the last 15 minutes?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yeah, report that.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   This here.  So group one will send our 25 list of proposals that we've chosen.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   We have 25 from group one.  Okay.

 Group two.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Group two has the usual 14 plus one star, and from that group we get another one, so it would be 15.  But we are 13 plus one star.  14.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  And group -- group three.  Security.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: In our case we are reducing one to adapt to the slots that we had proportionally assigned.  So we will be sending in 15 proposals.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  Have we then achieved consensus within each of the groups on what's going forward?

 Just want to be clear.  This is the opportunity to identify if we don't have consensus, but I'm asking for consensus from each of the four groups on the proposals that are going to be sent forward.

 >> Group two has consensus.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.  Group two.  Group three.

 >> Yeah.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Now we're looking for one and four.

 >> We have consensus as well.

 >> Yes, group one has consensus, too.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.

 Thank you very much.  I think we achieved something there.

 Okay.  Now can we move on in the agenda?

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  I used to fail all my maths since school.  Was that 77?

 >> 78.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  See?

 >> By my count it was 78.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  For this next segment of our meeting -- for the next segment of our meeting, we're going to discuss the hybrid work, work that's gone on to this point to improve the hybrid situation.  And we're going to have three reports.  And we'll have the opportunity for a discussion and Q&A with each of the reporters.

 So, Adam, you're first on my list.

 Tereza.

 >>TEREZA HOREJSOVA:  Sorry.  I'm Adam.  We work as one, Adam and I, right, because we work together so closely.

 No.  So just a few points on hybrid, surprisingly.  So a few reflections.  You might have heard some of them before, but I'll just repeat them.  

 So while last year was the first time we did a truly hybrid IGF, when we use the word "hybrid," it was something new.  It was something, like, necessary, experimential, sexy topic.  But since then we have moved on, and hybrid elements to meetings have become a reality and an expectation.  So we shouldn't consider it as something too experimential.

 Yet, on many occasions as well as within the IGF context, we still hear voices that it is something strange, it is something scary, and it is a hassle.  So that's maybe something that I would like to discuss with you, why is this the case.  Because what can we do to approach it to make sure this is not a hassle?  This is just a little twist, a new reality to our meetings.

 Can we maybe try to look at the hybrid IGF and approach it from the point of view that this is just a little element to make the IGF meeting more inclusive, to make sure that the IGF is even dealing with Internet issues leads the way in using digital tools in organizing interactive meetings.  Can we help to demystify it a little bit?  That we are no longer scared of planning and implementing a hybrid IGF.

 So, you know, just a reminder -- and I've said it many times before, that hybrid is simply a little upgrade of remote participation that has been the reality of the IGF since it started.

 It's a way how we can get more people joined who maybe cannot travel because of disruptions, who maybe cannot afford it, who maybe cannot justify a trip overseas to their superiors.

 Can we rather see it as an opportunity to bring in voices, we keep talking about, that are missing at the IGF and who are unlikely to travel half the world for a five-day meeting.

 So, you know, just to take it back where I started, hybrid is not rocket science.  It should not be.  It should not be for us as organizers.  It should not be rocket science for organizers of the workshops.

 So just to share with you how I evaluated hybrid elements when going through the workshop proposals, it was very simple.  I wasn't looking for something extraordinary and revolutionary.  I was just looking at it from the point of view of the question:  Has the session organizer given some thought to the fact how the interaction between the online and onsite participants, how is it going to unfold?

 Have they ticked the box with the very quick fixes such as having an onsite moderator, online moderator.  Considered how they structured their session so that it's engaging enough for participants who are joining online and similar?

 Is it a warning I should stop or not?

 [ Laughter ]

 So that's basically it, you know?  

 And one last point I wanted to make before passing to Adam is that we are not discouraging anybody from traveling to the IGF.  Absolutely not, you know?  The connections as we experience, those lucky of us here in this room, that we can build in person, make these meetings valuable.  And this cannot be, even if we try, replicated fully online.  But let us also make sure that we are not totally selfish and that we do our best to provide as full as possible experience to those who might not have the justification to make the trip.

 Over to Adam to add, please.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  So I think that's a nice explanation of why and what we should be thinking of.  It's also we've got to look at what experience do we want in Addis, by that I mean both the online and offline participants.

 And I think if we look at what we've experienced so far over this day and a half, the answer is not this.  

 I don't know what Joyce would say about this experience of online participation.  This isn't hybrid.  This is not what we're aiming at.

 So there's technology to work on.  I would like to see Joyce, or whoever is speaking, on the screens there so that I know who I'm at.  I don't need to see that I'm pointing at me.  Hello.  It's not necessary.

 That is a transcript.  I want to see who's there.  We need cameras so that people -- I'm sorry, Joyce, to pick on you.  

 But thank you for staying up so late.  I mean, it's just amazing that you're doing it.  So call that out.  

 We want to see Joyce when she's speaking there.  And she wants to see us in different times when we're speaking, not necessarily me when I'm blathering on now but you as you're yawning.

 Thank you, Paul.  Chair's endorsement is always wonderful.

 [ Laughter ]

 I think the point from now is we're going to be talking to workshops.  We're going to be telling them they've been accepted, and we want to do some capacity-building.  

 Capacity-building isn't so much about using Zoom platforms.  Capacity-building is all what we are experiencing as we experience hybrid meetings.

 ICANN, the organization I work for, loves meetings.  We do all our policy work online.  Zoom is almost 24 hours a day, and then we meet.  We bring our community together to meet face-to-face and people online three times a year.  We've done one of those meetings so far.  We had about 800 people online, 800 people in person, and it worked very well.

 But there's things we're going to be learning from ICANN, from the RIPE meeting in Berlin.  We're going to be learning from this meeting.  We're going to be all going to meetings, large and small, that are hybrid.  So we should be having a discussion with the workshop organizers who are also going to be having those experiences, what works, what doesn't work.  

 What does a moderator need to be able to do their interaction online and onsite?  One thing they need is they need a monitor in front of them, because usually the Zoom is behind them, right?  That doesn't work.  You have to, if you are moderating, see what's before you.

 One thing -- I will give you some examples.  So we have got the example of this meeting right now.  I don't think this is working as a hybrid meeting, or not as well as it should.  So we've got to learn from that.

 At ICANN, the initial feedback -- we've only done one -- was that people will not join from their devices in the room.  Some will try, but you are bouncing from room to room.  You're walking in, sessions are starting, you're not going to start fiddling around getting into the specific Zoom room when you are sitting in a chair probably, not a desk.  So there's some little things we thought would happen but may not.  

 I'm not saying that we won't use our devices if we're in Addis.  But the indication -- only indication I have so far from the ICANN meeting is that it probably won't.  But that's just my guess.  Could be completely wrong.

 But that's why I think we need to get all the workshop organizers to actually commit to joining sessions, to commit, because if they don't join, perhaps they shouldn't have a workshop because we want it to work.

 Just a final advantage of doing that, if we actually talk to workshop organizers starting at the end of August, say, we can actually remind them to update their content.  How many of you have gone to an IGF meeting, if you've been to IGF meetings before, and the information you see before you when you're trying to understand what session to pick is actually the workshop proposal from March or April earlier in the year?  We have an opportunity for people to work on their workshop proposals and make them more attractive, just because we're talking to them, encouraging them to do so.

 Lastly, I would say that this has to apply to all the session organizers.  It's not just workshops.  It's open forums.  It's town halls.  It's main sessions in particular.  Making sure that everybody has an idea of what hybrid should do.  And basically we're learning all from each other, because we'll all be experiencing what works and doesn't work in the coming months because I think probably all of us participate in meetings.  So that's about it.

 But it does need the agreement of the secretariat, who I realize I am suggesting quite a lot of work for, with apologies and respect.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Just quickly, I mean, I agree with a lot of what Adam is saying.  And I think there is a need for capacity-building and maybe "capacity-building" isn't a strong enough word to ensure that workshop organizers really do commit to the hybrid thing.

 I think there is a lot to learn from ICANN's experience, other RIRs had their own meetings which have been hybrid for the last couple of years as well.  And I think there's lessons to learn there.

 I think the one point I wanted to open up a question or discussion about is what Adam says, that sort of places a lot on the shoulders of the secretariat and I wonder what can be placed on the shoulders of the MAG.

 I think MAG members themselves can be doing a lot of this outreach potentially to workshop organizers, once we've agreed on which workshops they are.

 I think saying that's all on the secretariat doesn't make any sense to me and probably is a recipe for not actually getting the kind of engagement that we want, just by virtue of scale.  The secretariat is only a relatively small outfit.

 But a lot of us MAG members do, by virtue of our position, know a lot of the people in these communities, a lot of the organizers.  So I think there is -- there is possibility for the MAG members to take an active role there.  So I think we probably need to be ready to commit ourselves to that to a certain extent.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.

 Now I will call on Amado to do a little report on the working group on outreach and communication.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  She wants to respond.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Go ahead.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:  Amrita for the record.

 Just to kind of add to what Chris said, perhaps if we have certain groupings done as MAG members, four groups, in case whatever workshops has been sub -- you know, short-listed or finalized and confirmed the same, we could perhaps take the responsibility.  We as a MAG could perhaps decide upon what are the important things that we need to tell the observers and speakers, and we would refer both the observers and speakers and we would refer both observers and speakers being in those capacity-building sessions, to understand what is required.  

 A technical overview is a different thing, but here we are basically talking about how they basically invite the hybrid spirit and how they can make their sessions meaningful.  It's a win-win for all of us, for the IGF as well as the session proposers.  

 So if we could structure something and then carry it out, perhaps we would be able to take a bit of the load away from MAG -- from the secretariat.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Good point.

 Go ahead.

 HARINIOMBONANA ANDRIAMAMPIONONA: Iombonana, MAG member.  

 I just want to remind us that in addition to onsite and online participants, we have also the remote hubs.  That needs to be taken into account when we are managing the workshops.  Sometimes they are joining a specific workshop, but it's -- I don't know if it's now enough earlier so that the moderators can manage the onsite, online, and the hub -- remote hub participation.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.  Moving on.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Sorry.  Joyce.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Hi, Joyce.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Thanks, Paul.  Just hearing all the comments and been following the discussions on hybrid IGF for the past two years or so, and my reflection after evaluating the proposals as well was I wonder if -- it's good to emphasize, especially to session organizers, that their sessions should be hybrid in format and they should form their session in such a way that it works onsite and online as well.

 But I think because of the focus on how is your session going to be hybrid, some of the proposals have somehow lost that element of engaging the audience and interaction with the audience, which I think for the IGF, especially at the evaluation stage, has always been something that's very important.  

 And I feel that because of this focus on the hybrid format and everything, we're losing a little bit of this emphasis on getting session moderators and organizers to be mindful about how they built in engagement with the participants and the audience in their session as opposed to just talking about the hybrid thing.

 So I just wanted to put it back, you know, into our minds.  We should really be thinking more holistically.  It's not just about the hybrid format for the sake of being hybrid but that it's continuing to be engaging the audience the way that the sessions are being run.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Can we move to the outreach report.  Amado?

 >> Not here, Chair.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.  Let's move to the working group on IGF strategy.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  I think that's me.  Sorry.  Just going to open the presentation here.  We have some slides, but I'm not sure -- maybe it's just easier for me to speak through them and we'll send them to the list as a PDF afterwards for everyone's perusal.

 Basically, I'm here to give a quick update on the working group on IGF strengthening and strategy.  So this was established in 2020 by the MAG.  Objective being to develop proposals of actions implementable in the short and medium term, including strengthening the IGF and strategically positioning the IGF in the evolving digital cooperation landscape.  There is a charter online.

 We've got around 90 subscribed members, and we have meetings around once a month on Zoom.  Usually around 15, 40 people on those calls, depending on the topic of the day.

 And that includes -- we have regular participation there from the Office of the Tech Envoy as well as the secretariat and also providing regular updates on youth IGF, NRI initiatives, parliamentary track, et cetera.

 So a lot of issues that are being discussed in the MAG as well and that we're discussing here today, but this is a sort of opportunity to keep a running look on that.

 In 2022, what we've done so far -- this year I've joined as a co-facilitator along with Titti and Amrita and Roman as well.  So Amrita and I are the MAG members.  Titti and Roman both former MAG members.  But this is a working group that includes both MAG and non-MAG, so that's a very important balance that we have there.

 We have drafted and shared an input document with the MAG that went to the EGM, the Expert Group Meeting.  That was something that was agreed within the group.  We also compiled and shared with the MAG a synthesis of key take-aways from the synthesis document of the IGF 2021.  That's helping the MAG and the secretariat to prioritize activities.

 We recently shared with the MAG an activity plan for the working group in 2022 which the MAG approved, thank you, with three priorities identified there, first being foster linkages to the Tech Envoy and the Tech Envoy's office.  And the second being to facilitate input to the Global Digital Compact and Our Common Agenda plans.  And the third being the IGF multiyear plan.  And in subsequent discussions, we've actually prioritized particularly points one and two three.

 We've also, and this is moving on to the most recent activities, shared with the MAG draft communication from the MAG regarding the Global Digital Compact and the outreach and survey that's currently being conducted by the Office of the Tech Envoy.  So that's actually a very strong reminder to the MAG.  You currently have that draft, and we're not going to move forward with it without consensus agreement from the MAG, but it is quite an important communication from the MAG to really ensure that our voice is heard and that there is a clear understanding of the role of the IGF, the role of the MAG, and the ways that we can and expect to be able to input to the Global Digital Compact and help to shape that in the next 12 months.

 We also have a second activity in relation to the Global Digital Compact which comes with a couple of stars next to it, because we don't have anyone with the pen at the moment, but that was a second communication from the MAG, input to that survey detailing some of the IGF evolution that has actually been happening over the last few years in response and in relation to the Secretary-General's call for evolution of the IGF.  I think with that call from the Secretary-General forming a really important part of Our Common Agenda and the discussions around the Global Digital Compact, it's going to be really important for the IGF to substantiate that this is already happening.  We are actually already seeing the IGF evolve and develop, so we need to make that -- make sure that that's input to the survey.  So that will be another communication which we hope to put in front of the MAG for consensus approval in the next few weeks.

 And then finally, we've requested the NRIs and the dynamic coalitions to update on an ongoing basis the mapping exercise which it -- mapping document for the Secretary-General's Roadmap for Digital Cooperation and IGF activities.

 So I think at this point I'm going to skip to the sort of sales pitch, which is to really say it would be great to have more members of the MAG, and more non-MAG members, involved in this working group.  And there is a lot coming through in relation to the relationship between the IGF and the other aspects and elements of the U.N. and Internet governance structures.  And that has kind of become a significant focus of this working group.  Strengthening of the role of the IGF means establishing the IGF in a strong position in relation to what is now happening elsewhere in the U.N., the movement that's happening in regard to the Global Digital Compact, in relation to WSIS+20, in relation to, yeah, various other things, OEWG, Cybercrime Convention, et cetera, et cetera.  We haven't really spoken so much about those last two, but there is a lot of activity happening here, and I think there is a really strong understanding in the working group, at least, that for the IGF to maintain relevance and maintain influence, we need to be very active in our engagement and strategic placement in relation to that.  And that's hopefully something that this working group can help lead on, but we do need the active involvement of MAG members and other members of the IGF community.  

 So please do get involved.  It's not a huge amount of time, but hopefully it's interesting work, and we would very much welcome you.

 So thank you, and we'll send those slides around.

 >>AMADO ESPINOSA:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I'm Amado Espinosa, MAG member, very, very briefly reporting on activities of the working group on outreach, engagement, and communication.

 This is a working group which has been very active in terms of how to improve the capabilities of the IGF in order to approach different groups which are seeking or are looking after the consolidation of a global hub on Internet governance.

 Our -- The main strategy that we have already suggested to the MAG community on the first place is to put into use a specific database classified according to the different stakeholders which can be considered part of the communication strategy for the IGF.  And, well, we have already gotten some input from different participants, and we encourage the rest of you to join this effort to put this database in place, which actually what it is looking for is to -- to have the -- a -- kind of a repository of the different relationships that all you members of the MAG can have in terms of the different organizations and institutions which are related to the MAG and that you have relationship to them, and that we can approach them with the specific message related to the academic, institutional, or industrial message that can be meaningful for them to join the IGF.

 And on the second stage, and also looking for how to be part of the IGF main goals in order to communicate their message, we are discussing or we want to start a collaboration with the hybrid working group -- with the working group of the hybrid sessions in order to help them to prepare a toolkit which can be convenient for the organizers of the different sessions that we are going to have in Addis Ababa in order for us to help them to communicate and to invite more participants to join their sessions.  And this toolkit should serve, of course, as a ground, commonplace for to improve our database that I have already mentioned about, and also how to be able to prepare a inclusive strategy to approach different organizations.

 And last but not least, I would like to introduce my colleague Junko Kawauchi from Japan who will be joining our working group as a co-facilitator in order for us to share with her and with the Japanese colleagues the strategies that we are actually using for the communication and that we can synergize with them for the best methodology strategy that will be held in Japan for the -- what is also very, very important IGF that we are going to have next year.

 Mr. Chairman, that's pretty much my report.  Thanks.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Tulio Andrade.

 >> TULIO ANDRADE:  Thank you, Chair.  It's a pleasure to join you here remotely from Brasilia and Brazil.  I take the opportunity also to introduce myself.  I'm Tulio Andrade and the deputy head for Digital Affairs here at the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  And it would be a pleasure to be representing Brazil on behalf of the -- on behalf of the ministry in the standing seat, in the Brazilian standing seat.

 I would like first of all to thank very much Chris for the report on the work of the working group on strategy and strengthening, and, secondly, for his current invitation for members of the group to get more involved with the work that is going on, especially related to the call, the various calls by the U.N. Secretary-General.

 On our side, we look very much forward to getting more involved in the work of the group on the various themes and topics that were raised by Chris; in particular, relation to the intense work that we have had on the Global Digital Compact but also Our Common Agenda and the WSIS+20.  But also, in addition to our (indiscernible) participating all of the meetings of the working group from now on.  Since we -- this is going to be a designation that we have, but we also acknowledge that we were not that present in previous meetings, we would like to ask for the kindness of Chris and also all those involved to actually give us some -- some support in terms of the previous documentations and materials and also including the communications that have been put forward to the broader MAG membership so that we can contribute to the best way possible from now on with a view to building on the work that...  

 [ No audio ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Sorry; we can't hear you anymore.

 >> TULIO ANDRADE:  And I think that I'm back.  So sorry for that.  Yeah, I think I'm back.  So sorry for that.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes, you are.  Continue.

 >> TULIO ANDRADE:  Thank you.  Apologies.

 So first of all, I would like to introduce myself and it would be a pleasure to be working with you in the future.  And, secondly, also to signal our willingness to contribute to the work of the group on strategy and strengthening more closely.  And, thirdly, also to ask for support of the secretariat, Chris, and other MAG members to allow for our soft landing in this work since we have not been so closely involved previously.

 So both (indiscernible) to future meetings, we will Zoom, but also the material and the communications that have already been the business of the work of the group.

 Thank you so much.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.  Appreciate it.

 Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Sorry.  Thank you, Chair.  Just a brief response.  I just want to say, thanks, Tulio.  It's very good to meet you online.  And absolutely, I think it's a real role of the co-facilitators to make sure that -- yeah, you're certainly not the only one who maybe hasn't been involved in the past and hopefully wants to be more involved.  So certainly the slide deck that we will share to the MAG public list should include some reference to past documents and past work.  So hopefully that helps you to get up to speed.

 And, yeah, I think we absolutely need to make sure that we're communicating as clearly as possible the work that we're doing and the significance of it in relation to what's going on.  So, yeah.  Hopefully you'll hear more from us very soon.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Amrita?

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Tulio, just for your information, if you go to the website and you go to where the information about the working group - strategy is, most of the recordings of our meetings as well as minutes are posted online, as well as when the next meeting is.  So you can just register and participate.

 Any information you require you are not getting, Chris, me or any one of the co-facilitators would be happy to share.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Okay.  Now we have an opportunity for a general discussion on this work, the reports, those three reports we've heard.  And it would be nice if we could have a fairly interactive discussion, really touching on the idea of concrete recommendations, concrete changes, very specific ideas that you may have to improve the situation as a whole.  Recommendations that you would like to provide essentially to -- to the IGF as an institution.

 So the floor is open.

 Amrita.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Thank you.  I think from the working group - strategy, what we would be interested in, we normally send out documents which we think that the MAG would be interested in, but in case the MAG feels that there are certain things which the working group could help in -- help the MAG with, we would be happy to do so.  Specifically now, the one which Chris has sent out a week or two earlier about what the MAG could send as a communication to the community to -- on the Global Digital Compact and why people should be responding to it, we feel it's important.  I know all of you have been busy, but if you could go through the document, and if you have some comments on it, it would be good.

 Also, while we have shared our plans for this year, just in case any of you think some things need to be tweaked, added, deleted, we'd be happy to hear from you.  And even if you don't join the working list, you can always drop into our meetings.  And I personally found it very beneficial when I joined this group because you get to know a lot more things which is not discussed in the MAG meetings.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Next?  Chris.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:   Sorry.  I'm kind of mentioning something here that Mark Carvell brought up in the chat which is in regard to the multiyear plan.  And I was -- I was remiss in not saying that that actually was discussed in the working group - strategy calls but was pushed back to September just in terms of priorities and timeliness of the Global Digital Compact work.  But it is a really important issue, and I think it's something that the MAG as a whole is going to have to engage with.  So it definitely does need to be on the table.

 So, yeah, thank you, Mark, for reminding us of that in the chat here.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.  Wout?  Wout, you're up.

 >>WOUT DE NATRIS:   Yes.  Thank you, Paul.  Wout de Natris, non-MAG member, but listening to the discussion so far and everything Chris has said.  And I have been a member of the strategy working group in 2017, '18 and '19, and we have come up with several recommendations, then, which I think some of would be very relevant to perhaps look at again now this discussion is developing as we do.

 I think the comments you made this morning, Paul, were extremely relevant.  Is the IGF going to be relevant or irrelevant, you put.  And I think that the processes that were just mentioned by Chris need extra attention in one way or another.

 One of the recommendations we made in 2018 was that some MAG members become a liaison to other organizations.  And perhaps that is the way to become very relevant, because the messages will go up and down very fast.  And that would mean that everybody has completely clear what is needed from the IGF, from the discussions that we -- that you have in these other organizations, these other fora.  And we can deliver next this sort of information to them.

 So the suggestion is to discuss whether it would be valuable to have MAG liaisons within -- for these processes, and specifically for these processes.

 So thank you for that, Paul.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you, appreciate it.  Other comments?  Adam.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Thank you.  Adam speaking yet again.  

 Responding to Wout's comment, while we already -- I think that liaison role is one that is envisaged for the leadership panel which, of course, will be -- we'll know more about next week.

 [ Laughter ]

 Sorry.  I couldn't resist it.

 We already have -- I mean, frankly I don't have any more time to devote to working with other groups.  We're already as MAG members meant to be coordinating with our respective stakeholders.  We have liaisons to NRIs.  We have liaisons to dynamic coalitions.  We have a lot of work to do.

 So I think really while it's an interesting idea, we simply -- I don't think anybody has the time to do it properly.  To do that -- it's a very valid request, you know, to have liaisons to IGOs, to talk to intergovernmental agencies of all different types and U.N. agencies.  Would take a significant amount of coordination if we're to do it correctly and accurately and with consensus from the MAG.

 So I think it's really a good idea but is actually just beyond our remit and beyond our capability.  

 And let's hope the leadership panel appears soon.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.  

 Any thoughts in the room?  Anybody else online with ideas?

 Then switching topics, I would like to the opportunity to do a check-in on all we all feel this is going at this point.  What are your views on the meeting?  What are we doing right?  What are we doing wrong?  Any other ideas, comments you want to put on the table?

 Feels like the after-lunch snooze.  Okay.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Sorry.  Chris again.  I'm going to stop talking soon.

 I think the main meeting feels like it's going well and I think we have had some really good, productive discussions today about the workshops.

 As I've mentioned already, the relation of those workshops to the other sessions, to the main sessions particularly, I guess I'd be interested in thinking a little about what tomorrow's plan looks like in terms of are we going to be in a position to start to think a little bit more holistically about the plan and the program of the event and maybe what areas of focus or kinds of focus we want to have in those main sessions and how that might reflect the workshops and how they sit in the program.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Down at the end.

 >>TALANT SULTANOV:  Thanks so much, Chair.  I would like to thank the secretariat for putting together this event, the hard work.  It's my face-to-face participation in the MAG meeting, and I have not met all of the secretariat colleagues.  So if possible, if we do a quick introductions.  And they don't have name tags on their tables, too.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  It's only amusing because we did a round of introductions already today.  But, secretariat, would you like to introduce yourselves.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Hi, I'm sorry.  The prescription on my glasses is really out of date.  So I'm guessing from here, this is Talant.

 >>TALANT SULTANOV:  Talant, Yes.

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Hi, Talant. I'm Eleonora.  Nice to meet you.

 >>ANJA GENGO:  Hi, Talant.  This is Anja.  Nice to meet you.

 >>SORINA TELEANU:  Sorina, consultant.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Check that piece of business off.

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Okay.

 >>TALANT SULTANOV:  Great to put names on the faces.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Coming back to our scheduled programming, this is our opportunity to sort of have an interactive dialogue on what -- on how this is going, what we want to do going forward.  

 The question about tomorrow's agenda, the expectation on tomorrow's agenda would be we talk about sessions, allocation of workshops and themes, parallel track issues.  We'll theoretically finalize our selections from the different breakout groups.  But we did a pretty healthy set of that work already today so we have some flexibility for topics.

 And it provides the opportunity for the group here to be really thoughtful about how you want to take things forward, where you see the opportunity to improve the operations of the MAG itself and how we can be most efficient and most effective at the same time.

 Anybody have any thoughts?

 >> (off microphone).

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  It's Adam quite again.  I'm quite surprised Chengetai hasn't organized drinks for all of us, which don't have to be alcohol because we should be inclusive of all.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I'll get back to you on that one.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  I suppose, the MAG, I think most of us who were here, would prefer there were more people here, understanding not everybody can travel.  

 But, again, I'm astonished that Joyce is still awake, given she's in Australia.  We have known about this meeting for a very long time and I think we've probably noticed that there are MAG members who are not participating.  It would be better if they did, because it's a lot of work.  And it means the quality of work is better if more people are reviewing workshops, which people have spent a lot of time submitting.  So we took on the task.  

 So I don't know how that can be fixed.  And I don't mean to -- I have missed MAG meetings because we all have other things we have got to do.  But we have kind of known about this for quite a long time.  So to people who have traveled a long way and people have spent hours online, real gratitude.  But there should be a little bit more from others.  

 I'm sorry, this is quite a hard thing to say and I don't mean to be rude.  But it's something that UN DESA has to consider, I think.  That would be one point.

 The MAG has to be effective.  The meeting in New York, the retreat, did discuss looking at the MAG terms of reference.  I don't know if that work is starting or considered to be starting.  But it would be -- it's quite important that it does start because at some point, not too many months away, there will be a call for new MAG members.  And so it would be good to see.

 Sorry, that's quite serious and not a very friendly thing to have said.  And I apologize a little bit for that.

 More specifically, I suppose, on the work that we've done today -- no, let's leave that for tomorrow.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thank you.

 Just on the terms of reference, I have been working with a small team, to draw from the MAG, on a revision of the terms of reference.  And my hope was that we would be close enough to something to show -- to actually deliver a draft for everybody here at this meeting.  

 But we're very close.  Actually, at this point in time, I would say that if the small group of people is okay with the latest draft, then I can circulate that as soon as that group of people says, okay, we all agree.

 And structurally, the idea behind the changes, reviewing the terms of reference, was to just take advantage of the fact that we know a lot more now than we did when the terms of reference for the IGF and the MAG came together years ago.

 And so to put some priority -- a little bit more clarity as to what the foundational principles are that the MAG works to or will work to and what its deliverables really are, everything we have done in this meeting is well in accord with what the proposed revisions are.

 I will see -- if I get several emails tonight, I will have something to share with everybody tomorrow.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  May I?

 And to your first point about MAG members and the attendance, yes, I mean, we do realize that life events do occur.  And some MAG members may not be able to attend a particular part of the year, but we do expect them to attend in the other parts of the year.

 We have made a list of those ones that did not participate in the evaluation, and we are looking at other indicators as well.  As I say, some people, for some reason, this was an unfortunate time for them so they couldn't attend.

 But for others who, you know, didn't give us any excuses or have been no-shows for the past year, we will be reviewing them.  And we are going to be announcing the MAG renewal process next week, I promise.  And this is also going to be taken into consideration when the renewal is looked over by UN DESA and the SG's office.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  I think my third question was about the drink actually.  

 [Laughter]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I answered that one.  I said I would get back to you.  That was my first answer, is I will get back to you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Anyone have anything they want to get off their chest, share with the group?

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Joyce?

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Thanks, Paul.

 I'm quite proud of us having gone through the exercise today with surprisingly little sort of unhappiness involved.  You're all very friendly and very good about compromising and all that.  So I think that's great.  Hopefully we will carry on that spirit tomorrow.

 I do have an observation, which is that I think in terms of managing remote participation using Webex, I don't know, is it because Webex as a tool is a bit unfamiliar compared to, say, Zoom, and then, of course, previous other tools.  But remote participation has sort of digressed a little bit.  

 We could have our hand up -- when I say "we," I actually just mean I for a better part of today.  I'm sorry.

 I'm not sure, are we still using the raise hand on the IGF website page or raising hand in Webex?  What is the right way to get involved?  I think more can be done in this area.

 And the question I have is:  Are we using Webex for the IGF itself?  Is that why we're using it here instead of Zoom?  Because if that's the case, I think we probably need to have --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Okay.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  The reasoning why we're using Webex is that's what UNOG uses.  That's the offices in Geneva.  And since the meeting is in the Palais, we have to use what the office provides.  But the IGF itself is still using Zoom.

 And we are using the built-in hand up.  As you've correctly mentioned, we usually use Zoom for our meetings and that's what our participants are familiar with.  And the hand up in Zoom works very well.  Everything is ordered.  If you put your hand up, you go up in the queue and the moderator can clearly see the order of the hand up, et cetera.

 Webex, I think we mentioned -- we spoke -- we mentioned it a little bit between ourselves, is that the hand is not very visible and it's not well implemented in this instance as it is in Zoom.

 But we do not use the hand up from the IGF website anymore since the hand up in Zoom has improved so much.

 >>JOYCE CHEN:  Okay.  Thanks very much for clarifying, Chengetai, so I can expect to know when I'm using Webex.

 [ Laughter ]

 And, yes, Adam, I am still awake.  Thank you for recognizing I'm alive.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Thanks, Joyce.  Appreciate it.

 Other comments, concerns?  We don't have to run out the clock.  And if you want the time back, we can give you the time back.  But I want to make sure everyone has the opportunity to say anything they want to say before we do.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE:  Sorry.  I would be interested to hear from the secretariat do you have what you need from us in terms of a next step or sort of helping us to take next steps tomorrow?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I feel like we do, but we'll give it to Eleonora as well since she's...

 >>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI:  Sorry.  Just a very minor note, that a couple of groups still haven't sent me their final list of workshops.  And it would be good to have them consolidated and to be able to circulate them to you all.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Sorry.  This is Adam, of course.

 This is actually what I stopped myself saying before but it now follows on.

 So if you're satisfied, except for not having received all the recommended workshops or selected workshops, what happens next?  You contact them with an email saying you've been selected?  Could we sort of think about what we think that email should say, such as emphasizing hybrid?  

 I'm not saying we should start a drafting session but perhaps have a conversation on the MAG list, if that fits with your envisaged timing, because there are some things we want to convey to those workshop organizers that may be a little bit different from last year.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Do you want to have it be the full MAG, or should we hand it back to the workshop evaluation group since --

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Then you potentially end up with four or five different letters, so I would suggest -- 

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  I mean the group.  I mean Roberto, the group --

 >>ADAM PEAKE:  Oh, I see.  Oh, why not?  Because he may not want to do more.

 [ Laughter ]

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:  Go ahead.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  I was just looking at the schedule for tomorrow.  Perhaps what we can do is discuss a little bit about it, because it's really important what's going to be the messages for the different proposals.

 Since we have this time, maybe that schedule could be rearranged for tomorrow, because we were supposed to have 45 minutes discussing the final results.  But I think we did already today.  So I think this is important and this time could be better used tomorrow for this particular matter.  And then, of course, we can work because we have some other aspects that we need to discuss regarding the possible improvement of some workshops as we discussed before.

 So it actually combines together very well.  So I think tomorrow could be a way to go.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >> MAARIT PALOVIRTA:  We were just saying here that, indeed, there were some workshops which had a lot of promise, but there could be some, let's say, tailored messages in some parts on the content.  If there were, for example, two workshops with very well -- well, nearly similar scope, that we could ask them to -- to work with each other to, let's say, distinguish the workshop, to find a different angle, for example.  But I don't know if these messages, then, they probably wouldn't go on the first letter of acceptance or how do you do the tailored approach as a second step, or I don't know how this would work as I haven't had a -- well, of course, an opportunity to work on this before.  But I think it would be good to, if there was an opportunity, especially on those -- for those workshops with a lot of promise, but maybe with some issues in terms of duplication or hybrid meeting, to have an opportunity to put forward some specific points.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Thank you.

 Others?  Roberto.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:   Sorry.  I was saying that this may give the opportunity to elaborate a little bit more on the proposal that I think Chris and Amrita mentioned before about how important it will be to give this message and how to take out a little bit of the weight that the secretariat will have regarding to contact the proposals.

 I think finally tomorrow we will confirm if actually we will have the 78 slots allocated.  There will be a final approval tomorrow.  And if so, then we will be having these 78 proposals, and most of them, if not all, have different aspects to be improved.  I mean, at least as comments, as basic comments.

 What I could suggest is that we could, from the secretariat, have the formal response to the proposers to make them know that they were selected, but members of the MAG are going to approach to them and actually provide them with the feedback and the suggestions, concrete suggestions, for the -- for their proposals.

 In some cases, they are going to be minor, but in some others, like in the hybrid approach that they need to have, then it would be important to have a very strong message that they need to improve that.

 And perhaps a good idea, maybe as a voluntary work, because, yeah, as Adam mentioned, it really difficult to count on everyone on the MAG, perhaps some of the members are having difficulty to be engaged in this process, but if we do it as a voluntary work, I think we could take each member's -- each member could take maybe four or five proposals and to take care about them in order to contact the organizers and tell the organizers you need to work on this, this, this, which is going to be based on the different comments that we already made.

 So I think that would be more effective.  We didn't do this in the past, and I think it could be a good way to be more engaging as MAG members, more involved in this particular part of the process.  And to get the different proposers a better shape.

 That's the suggestion.

 .

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes, so just to get this clear, that you would want to go through the workshop proposals, assign a MAG member basically five workshop proposals, and they would contact the organizers and get them to have some comments.  And then you would give them a deadline to change whatever it is, whatever aspect it is?  And then -- because they'll need to be -- if you give them, then there will need to be some sort of verification that they have changed it.  So then will that individual MAG member be responsible for --

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:   Following up.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   -- verifying those changes?

 So basically you're saying that we send them a conditional acceptance or is it an acceptance?

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:   Not necessarily a conditional acceptance, because in a formal way, we're accepting the 78 proposal.  Let's say saying that those are 78.  But it is also following up the suggestion that was made by Adam that it's important for them to have updated.  I mean, the proposals need to be updated.

 And we can all think about the timeline.  I mean, the deadline, sorry, and to ask them to.  And that deadline, I don't know, something we can discuss about, because --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes because --

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:   -- they have to present an updated version for the final.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Luis may correct me because things change year by year, but once they have accepted, they do have a chance to change it into a proper format, you know, with the agenda and stuff like that.

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:  For hybrid approach?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yes.  There has been in the past also a way that the workshop -- MAG members can put in comments, and in then those comments are sent to the workshop proposers.  So these are the comments.

 From what I'm hearing from you is that your workshop has been accepted, but here are a few pointers that you may or may not want to change in your workshop to improve it.  This is just the advice from the MAG.

 If that's the case, then I think -- again, I don't want to spoil Luis's sum-up, but I think this can be done in a way that -- just the same way as you've evaluated it.  You have a field which you can put in comments, and then those comments are automatically sent to the thing.  But if you want a back and forth between MAG members, that's also fine.  I'm just trying to find it.

 And, Luis, please feel free to come in and say that was five years ago, I'm not going to do that now.

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   I recognize myself first.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   The (indiscernible) section is still there in the workshop proposal where MAG members can send feedback.  But personally, before Luis comes in, I would say that it may be more uniform for the secretariat to send the mail because there will be confusion.  We can give these suggestions of the proposals that these are the comments per proposal.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Yeah, the comments in the work- -- in the forms.

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Yes, in the form.  

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Then they can just --  

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   But MAG members sending mails, I don't agree.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Especially in their own personal email addresses, and the U.N. -- Where if we sent them, it's going to have our intgovforum or the U.N. thing.  So instead of email or --

 >>AMRITA CHOUDHURY:   Yeah.  We can follow-up later, but I think the communication should go from the secretariat.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   But I would really like feedback from Luis because he would be the one doing all of this.

 >>LUIS BOBO:   Thank you, Chengetai.  I think it is 95% as you said it.  So if you remember, there was a field in the evaluation form specific for the feedback for the proposer.  And this field is in all the sheets that have been distributed to you.  So this is not closed.  MAG members can still fill this field or change and update.  And this is what's going to be sent individually to all workshop proposers.  This is done every year.  So we basically do a mail merge and send to all the workshop proposers, here is the response by the MAG.

 So this has not been sent yet.  And you have the content, so I propose that the evaluation groups can still update this field in the Excel file.  And this is what's going to be sent to the -- to the workshop organizers.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   I think -- I think that work fine.

 The one -- the one proviso I think we need to be careful of is that we're not setting ourselves up to mandate specific content or to do -- provide comment that could be interpreted as requiring a certain set of content.  Because the -- the material that comes from the proposers needs to be able to be as -- as close to what they proposed as possible within -- within their execution.

 It's just a matter of making sure that we're not trying to push people editorially.  That would be my concern about the execution.  That we shouldn't have people feel that they got their -- they got their proposal approved in there, that's great, but then it's, oh, if you don't do it this way, it's unapproved.  I think we have to be very careful in how we communicate what we're asking them to do and what the consequences are or are not if they don't do it.

 >>ADAM PEAKE:   Just if I can follow-up on that, that is -- I mean, the intention was to -- we're talking about the workshops have been accepted, so it's not the others, and some had some very specific asks.  But I think what Luis just answered just there was the general comments to everybody who was accepted.

 I wonder how you would collate with column H supporting comments from multiple Excel sheets returning back with multiple rows.  If we're going to edit that column on an Excel sheet, I suggest it's put as a shared Google doc; otherwise, someone is going to have to collate multiple different forms, and that will be extraordinarily painful and, yeah, risky to failure, basically.  So I wouldn't do it as individual Excel forms.

 If we're going to do it, and I don't know that it's really necessary anyway, do it as a shared Google doc sheet, not as individual, because it's just asking for --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:   Maybe if Luis could clarify.  Are you talking about the Excel sheet or are you talking about the web form, right?  They do it online.

 Excel sheet.  Okay.  Then Adam is correct, yeah.

 >> ALHAGIE MBOW:  Thank you very much.  I think although we would like to do it, I think we need to be really very careful because communication is key, and we all know people have put a lot of work in the preparation of these workshops.  And especially for those who are not accepted, we need to be careful not to discourage them in the future.  So I think there needs to be a lot of consistency in the messages being sent out.

 You know, the good thing about it, there is some feedback on the forms that actually, you know, gives a really -- a decision of why your score was very low or why you need to have improvement.  And I think we need to -- my opinion is to maybe group them in terms of hybrid.  You know you have some that have some issue with hybrid.  Some had issues with diversity, and some had issues with the outcome of the workshops.

 So if we can put those together that have hybrid issues, then you could have one consistent message dealing with hybrid issues.  And, likewise, those with issues with diversity and stuff like that.  So that when the message goes out, at least there's some kind of consistency, instead of some sent this way, some sent another way.  And in that case, you're going to see that in the future when the same proposals, you know, they will have the zero, and, you know, to back again, you know, to correct whatever was missing for future IGFs.

 >>BRUNA SANTOS:   So it's kind of on the same line as the previous comment, because I was wondering that since we convened the groups, it would be worth doing like a joint feedback for each and every one of them.  Like we can do it in more general terms for the ones that are being refused, but for the ones that are being accepted, maybe the groups can convene like just one small paragraph on what could be improved in terms of like just the fine lines that we wanted to solve to make it even better.

 But I mean, it's fine if we think it's not okay as well, but just a suggestion.

 >>BRAM FUDZULANI:   Thanks, Chair.  So for me, I don't know, maybe this point was already addressed but I feel like going back to the consistency of the communication is key, but I wanted to also highlight an important point.  I don't know, it was flagged yesterday, that has to do with those proposals or workshop proposals that have been -- have not been successful.

 In terms of the MAG members building capacity to the community, are we looking at working with, you know, those session proposers and try to, you know, build capacity around them so that next year we could have diverse community?  Because if you look at most of the successive proposals from those that were responding, you know, we've had this is our tenth or number five proposal at the international IGF.  So they have experience.  But what about those community that are trying to come up with relevant content?  Are we looking at not from the secretariat but maybe from the MAG point of view to work with them and say these are the areas that you should improve and we're willing to work with you so you can actually improve, and next year we'll have diverse, you know, participation from other community members.

 Thank you.

 >> (Indiscernible).

 >>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA:   Thank you, Paul.  

 Maybe to get a final consensus, I think as some of the colleagues said before, the group of the one that are not being part of the program should be receiving the general messages that we all evaluators did in the platform.  But I also concur with the colleagues that said before that it will be important to have just one message, and if the way is using a shared document, then that should be a way.  But the idea is to -- they receive -- because the other thing is we updated in some cases the idea of the messages we wanted to send once we worked in evaluation groups together today.  And it's better to have a concrete suggestion for those that are already accepted to expect their improvement in their proposal, like in the hybrid approach, which is one of the most important parts.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR MITCHELL:   Any more calls for the floor?

 Anybody left online?

 Okay.  Then in just a minute we'll close the meeting.  I'd like to thank all of you for your very energetic participation for the most part and very effective participation in terms of being through one of the largest parts and the biggest challenges of the meeting we have.

 Thanks to the scribes.  Thanks to this whole secretariat for making sure that this event has gone very well and we're achieving our business expeditiously.  So that's all thanks to you.  I really appreciate the collegiality and the effort.

 And we should give our secretariat and scribes a big hand of applause.

 [ Applause ]

 And if there's no other business for today, then I will close the meeting.

 Going once, going twice.  You're released.