IGF 2018 First Open Consultations and MAG Meeting Day 3 Afternoon

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let's start the final session of the MAG meeting.

 We have lots of things to decide and also the calendar, so I will hand it over to our chair.  Lynn, to start.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  This is when hopes run high and people are already looking at their plane flights back home and things.

 But earlier this morning we looked at a series of things we actually wanted to go through today. 

 What I'd like to do is to go through a couple of those quite quickly and get sort of the overall concepts of the other pieces of work that are in front of the MAG and some ideas, a rough timetable we're looking at.  That will change, but only slightly because there are some certain constraints that we're working around.  And then come back and report out from the subworking group, which I think made some really good progress beforehand. 

 Eleonora is going to put up the timetable that was sent out roughly a week ago and is in the reference documents. 

 At this point in the process, we do always try and agree when our second face-to-face meeting is.  Because it's, obviously, important that people block the time and also that we find appropriate facilities as well.

 I'm having a hard time getting into the room. 

 So we talked the other day on the assumption that the physical meeting is actually sometime -- held any time between mid September to early December.

 Doesn't matter when it is within that window.  When you back it up, it always requires the workshop proposal selection process to have been completed by, normally, mid-July. 

 Again, the end of July and August are really heavy holiday periods in the northern hemisphere.  If you leave it until that period clears, then that's just far too late for people to actually organize and manage to the workshop proposals.

 So by default that means the second meeting, which again follows one day of open community consultation, two days of MAG meetings, happens sometimes in usually like the second week of July I think is probably when it's been the last few years.

 The schedule that's up there. You can look at either one of them.  The categories are the same in blue in terms of the activity.  We start with -- the historical process is started with an open call for workshops, which would start  in either one of those scenarios, either very beginning of April or the second week of April and stays open roughly for six and a half to seven weeks.  Then there's a week in there for the secretariat to organize and send the proposals to the MAG for evaluation.  The MAG gets three weeks for the workshop evaluation.

 The secretariat gets another week on the end to do an evaluation which actually supports the MAG doing a thorough review of were there any overbalances or imbalances that need to be addressed against a whole host of diversity criteria. 

 And we review the results of that analysis normally for a week to seven or eight days.

 And then that culminates just before we actually physically meet to actually do the final ratification of that work and analysis.

 So, I mean, I put that up there.  We'll come back to it in a little bit after we actually hear the proposals that's coming from the working group.  But I just wanted people to understand sort of criteria.

 Give you maybe one other thing to think about.  I think the working group is going to propose that we quite quickly could launch a call for issues against some sort of themes.  Leave that open for two or three weeks.  That comes back and would ultimately feed the call for workshops.

 So we get some MAG -- we get some community input into kind of the issues which might support main sessions, might support a couple of thematic tracks, would give the MAG some additional insight into the topics that are of interest to the community.  And that could be used to reflect the final call for workshop proposals.  The question is still open for the MAG, of course, apart from is that something we want to do.  Assuming it's something we wanted to do, what would we expect to come out of any of those issues that were actually identified from that process?  So I think the only takeaway here is that pulling that process in, I think, talking to the secretariat -- and from what I understand from the working group, fits within the macro level timeline we actually have here, which I think was one of the questions we had earlier.  Normally, the MAG meetings are here in Geneva.  It's where the secretariat is located.  It's where there's lots of support.

 We did have it in New York once.  It's a little more involved, I guess, is probably the right way to say it.  It was actually on the U.N. premises.

 There is a potential proposal, which I'll let Chengetai talk to, to maybe have it back in New York again perhaps alongside the high-level political forum, HLPF.  If you want to talk to us what that would mean in terms of the dates.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Just getting my notes.

 So, potentially, we have to get this okay'd with New York.  But, potentially, we could have the second MAG meeting, as Lynn said, close to just after or at the same time as the high level political forum so we could take advantage of that and do some outreach as well. 

 So the high-level political forum is 9 to 18 of July.  So those are the potential dates we can look at.  We can either have it during or just after, like 18-20 July.  That's a Wednesday to Friday.

 Again, as we said, as Lynn has said, it's a little bit more involved.  We have the visa issues.  They're much more stricter than in Switzerland.  But it's up to the MAG to make a recommendation, and New York can look at it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  My favorite complexity of New York is that, if you don't have a U.N. badge, you pick it up on the street corner.  Every single time I have to do it, I think it's hysterical.  Come rain or shine, pick it up on a street corner, literally.  I have pictures.

 When we -- so we'll look at those dates.  And I don't know if there's anything else we can check with New York in between now and then to see if it's even possible.  Okay.  Yeah

 Okay.  Thank you, Armin.

 >>ARMIN PLUM:  We can try to get badges not at the street corner for you, Lynn.  We can try to get you a badge not at the street corner this time.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  We'll come back to this finally when we actually look at the proposal that comes from the working group.  Because we should leave here today with a schedule.  So what you've probably all been doing is checking your calendars to see what it looks like in terms of that particular week with the physical MAG meeting.

 Coming back to the list of remaining work today, just so we have a sense of where we're going from here.  I'm going to invite -- going to say a few words about BPFs and invite Markus Kummer to talk about the BPS a little bit.  Because the BPF activities are chartered by the MAG.  We need to determine -- assuming we do want the BPFs, which BPF -- best practice forums -- might go forward. 

 We've had a major intersessional policy initiative going on for three years and three phases called Connecting and Enabling the Next Billions.  The folks that are behind leading that are going to give you a short intro to what we've done in the first three phases.  And then we've got thoughts on what a possible fourth phase might be. 

 The question that will be in front of the MAG -- and it's up to us to decide whether or not we have enough information to make that decision today or need more time -- is whether or not we want to go forward with the continued development of a fourth phase, or do we want some time to think about whether or not maybe there's another topic or another item that we would take forward. 

 I think we can probably only -- the reason it's happening in the community -- support one major intersessional policy program.  If people think we have appetites across the community for something more, that's fine with me.  But from what I hear, it's probably only one.  That's a decision we need to make quite soon. 

 I want to talk quickly about the working groups we had in front of us last year.  Some of them would like to continue going forward.  We'll talk about that a little bit.

 And what we're calling this workshop approval process or whatever, we'll come back and look at that pitch.

 And then just a couple of -- we need to agree a virtual call schedule and the timetable before we close up. 

 Actually, I need to restart my computer. 

 Maybe, Markus, would you mind saying a few words about the BPFs?  And, since there are so many new people, about why and how they came about as well for context.  Thank you,

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:  Yes, thank you.  Happy to, yes.  Markus Kummer speaking. 

 I was the cofacilitator for the BPF on cyber security.  But I was involved when we started proposing that back in 2014.  Sort of an effort to pick up on something we had tried very early on.  Already in 2007 we had best practice forums.  But that didn't really work.  And also there was lack of secretariat support to produce coherent outcome.  And it was used mainly -- we did tell people we don't want to have beauty contests, but we want to hear what worked and what rests well.  And sometimes you learn more from what you would have done differently with hindsight having come through all the experience.  But it ended up as a collective beauty contest, and then we stopped it. 

 But, when we restarted the best practice forums, it was in a more structured way and with proper Secretariat support. 

 And the idea is precisely to lead towards some outcome that is not normative but restrictive of issues that works.

 Some issues that were chosen were very narrow and clearly defined such as IPv6 salvation or how to set up a CSIRT.  And they all produced a useful outcome document. 

 Speaking about last year, what we felt with the other facilitators, the decision came rather late by the MAG on which BPFs should go forward, which led then to further clays for the recruitment of consultants who provide secretariat support.  And, collectively, we do feel -- I would also invite the other facilitators or the other best practice forums, if you feel that you really would gain in terms of substance and quality if a decision is made early.

 And, if you allow, I can speak for the more in detail on the best practice forum on cyber security. 

 That was a follow-up best practice forum on two separate ones, which had held to it. CSIRTs and policy communication. And we felt it was a need to go a bit broader.  And it was conceived as a multi-year project right from the beginning.  The first year some time was spent on identifying common problem areas in cooperation and group best practices for doing so. 

 Then last year, we looked at how it relates to recommendations coming out of the Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion.

 And there was a lot of substance coming out of that.  It was, I think, very good and then enriching work.

 And we then we looked at what could be done going forward with a long list of issues to deal with.  But most of them have failed to be maybe too specific such as securing the mobile Internet or protecting against potential abuse by authorities.

 IOT was a favorite for some, but at the same time we felt it may be a bit too broad and there's also dynamic coalition dealing with IOTs, and there were two broad themes that that's our most support.  One of them was cultural norms and values inside of the security and the other one was then the digital security divide, and horizontally it was felt that more should be done for bringing in governments.  We felt the absence of governments in the exercise, and also corporations, and at the same time we should also have better engagement with the NRIs as it was felt that this was an issue of importance in particular to developing countries.

 And we settled for cultural norms and values as the most likely theme to go forward.  The BPF could start its work by identifying non-authority established by other forums documenting and debating them.  And again, the sweet spot of the IGF is its true multistakeholder character.  These issues, cultural norms and values, are debated in many other areas, arenas, but none of them is as multistakeholder as the IGF.  Or as open and inclusive as the IGF.  And by doing so there would also be a direct link to the issue of the digital security divide.  There's no real universal implementation of a norm than developing countries could be left behind, and that would enhance this digital security divide.  So there is in that sense a link between these two issues, the norms and values and culture of cybersecurity as well as the digital security divide.  And there obviously the NRIs could play a very important role on bringing in the perspective of developing countries into this discussion.

 And the last word on the work of governments, we had -- at the IGF itself we had a stock-taking session and since had a couple of calls and the most interesting, while some felt well yes, we understand governments are reluctant to participate because security is a sensitive issue, there are government representatives who said, there are many issues below the security and the confidentiality threshold that would benefit from multistakeholder discussions.  In particular a discussion on cultural norms and values would benefit from a multistakeholder discussion.  Also from a government perspective.  So we felt that this might also be an issue -- a theme that could bring in governments more -- more collective participation of governments. 

 With this, and yes obviously on behalf of the BPF I would express my hope that the MAG can approve this going forward so the process of hiring secretariat support can get started soon.  And I would also need, as my co-facilitator was MAG member Segun who has now moved out of the MAG, I would need a new co-facilitator among the MAG members to help me with this process.  But it's a good group of experts who have done excellent work last year.  And we had excellent support from Wim, who's also present here.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Markus.  That topic is obviously of high interest and it's also one of the frontier issues in the U.N. as well.  I think we should quickly cover the other BPFs as well and possibly put this question to the list.  But I do absolutely agree with the need to do it quite quickly.  If there are -- this would allow all the new members to get familiar with what our BPF approval process is and what's expected.  Once we understand which BPF's we're likely to go forward with, it would be easier for you to volunteer to support some of those efforts or to be co-chairs or co-organizers as well.  So we'll get those requests formally out on the list.  And there is a process for doing so, so I'm sure Markus will write up a short description and provide any other information.  We usually have diversity characteristics and that sort of thing in the chairs as well.  But he can help process that forward so we get a formal request in front of the MAG.  You have a question, Markus?  No.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay.  All right.  I thought you probably could.  The two BPFs we had last year, one of them was local content which Miguel and Raquel were the co-leaders of, so I'll ask -- I'll ask Raquel to speak to that.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Sorry about that.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, no, that's fine, Raquel.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Yes, so Nacho -- sorry.  Nacho Estrada and I were the co-coordinators for the BPF, the best practice forum, on local content supported by Wim.  I don't know where Wim is.  Right there.  Right over there.  So just a quick overview. 

 We did have the problem -- the same problem with the consultants came in a little bit later, but the outcomes were surprisingly good.  We received a good pickup from the community and some of the examples going forward.  One of the interesting experiences that I -- I really should highlight was the merge with a similar workshop proposal.  So the BPF really integrated with -- with the community, and we were able to expand our discussions.  Not only the outcomes.  We invited some of the contributors to be in the room, but also we heard from the -- the workshop that was set already.  But again, I think because of the short time that we had to work with the -- the BPF, there was a really sense in the room that we should continue.  And Nacho just suggested in the MAG list, he sent a brief proposal on how this continued version of the BPF would be like.  And we're really looking on the development part, there was some of the MAG members also present.  If they want to jump in on what was this -- this last discussion in the IGF in December.  But the idea is -- well first, when we're talking about local content, it's also an access issue.  It's not only a problem of getting people connected, but when they are connected, what they are going to get there.  And how we are going to look, especially in developing countries, how this content is developed and how the services are provided, so it's really taking the demand from the users up to what can be done and what is been doing by multiple tracks.  And I think I don't know if -- Nacho, if you were online, if you want to add something to the proposal?  I can't see the --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I don't think he's online at the moment.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Okay.  Okay.  And then perhaps, if I can -- you want to add something or then we close?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Adding something about the forward-looking one, yes.  If it helps to put some context, then we can do that briefly, and again we'll take that decision to the next virtual meeting as well.

 >>WIM DEGEZELLE:  I had put my hand up basically to -- because Nacho also had discussed with Raquel and me just before lunch that he would send out a proposal.  So I wanted to flag that part so that he did it in the meantime.  I think interesting to note is that the proposal comes -- or is based on the discussion that was held at the IGF meeting during the workshop and tries to combine both the local people, at the local level, that wants to start building up kind of economy around local conference and economically viable model together with on the other side, there were also people from larger international content providers in the room, talking to people from developing areas saying yeah, we would like to be active in your countries, but there are so many rules, regulations that just make it not interesting for us or we don't have IP laws in your country that we can count on.  So the current proposal tries to combine those two and is based on that discussion.  But everything, I think Nacho will send out in email, so you can find it there.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  And thank you to Nacho and to Raquel and yourself and everybody else who participated in that.  Again, we'll do the same thing there as the other proposal for the cybersecurity BPF, put it to the MAG list, we'll evaluate it.  We have one more BPF from last year to hear from as well.  I think we're running a couple of processes in parallel because if, in fact, we all have been -- stated some months ago we could have -- one  could even imagine have done the call for issues ahead of time which would actually help give some additional indication as to what areas might actually be really worthy of a BPF, based on some of the issues that actually come in.  We'll figure out when we actually take the decision on BPFs and how much information we can get in hand beforehand to support that process.  So these are -- the MAG should consider these two and I suspect there's probably a third one as well, as potential requests for support for the MAG to support a BPF.  And we should figure out if those are -- three is probably about the limit we can actually support in terms of the community and then supporting it with consultants and out of the secretariat.  So if there are more requests than that that come in, then we need to make some trade-offs.  But that's a decision we'll take a bit downstream.

 The third BPF last year was gender and access.  And Jackson Key (phonetic) was the one who had just driven all that work, just really excellently over the last couple of years, with support in different years, and I don't know which year Raquel one year and Renata another year.  I don't know if the BPF has had any discussion as to whether or not they have another work related to that theme that they think should carry forward.  Trying to see if there's anything -- maybe we can reach out to -- to the BPF -- do you know something, Raquel, about this particular request?

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Well, I can -- I can jump in.  Not only the BPF but the main session that we organized, it was the first -- the first time we had a main session only on gender.  Usually it was diluted into other topics.  And it was really successful.  It's not because I was involved and we had Jack from APC leading this effort.  So I think it -- it's worth to be continued and also to make further linkage.  I think we're going to get there for the CENB but we had this pickup on that SDG 5 and how we can really push the 2030 agenda and the SDG's implementations and the Internet.  The BPF, the last year, was focused on access also, but with some specific communities, so refugees, indigenous communities, and on access leadership and I think it was skills.  I don't want to wonder about it.  And so I would support the continuation of this -- of this BPF, and perhaps reach out.  I didn't see -- well, Julian is here from APC, if there is any interest to formulate a proposal going forward and circulate with the MAG, the written proposal.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's excellent.  Thank you, Raquel.

 If there are any other requests for BPFs or any other topics you think are important or if somebody's ready, not just a bullet point or I'd like a BPFs, something that has some thought on relevance to the topics that seem to be emerging to the top of our list, we can certainly put forward -- I'm not actually sure what -- maybe Markus can help me here -- the requirements.  I know the BPFs are chartered by the MAG.  I don't know if the process actually calls for them to be put forward by a MAG member or if it can be put forward by anybody in the community and then debated and approved by a MAG.  If you can help me with that -- Markus?

 >>MARKUS KUMMER:  There are no hard and fast rules.  The first BPFs were chosen as a result of a MAG discussion and without any written -- written proposals developed afterwards after a broad theme was selected by the MAG.  Last year or two it became a little bit more formalized by asking for written submissions.  But there were no hard and fast rules to begin with.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think there's two reasons for having a BPF.  Either it supports some work which is seen to be very important and pretty substantive in the IGF ecosystem, which, of course, to make that determination just now when we're ahead of the call for issues and the call for workshop proposals is a little difficult and also because we don't yet have -- because of some of the same reasons -- themes and subthemes established.  I saw a couple of hands go up.  I have Jeremy in the queue, too.  I don't know if it's on this particular item or not.  But, if we could have some brief suggestions of topics, there are a couple MAG members waiting to speak.  And we'll take that now, because this is a good time to go to community consultation.  But I really would like to move through it pretty quickly. 

 So first Concettina and then Ji.  And Jeremy, I'll check.  But, if you're wanting to come in on this particular topic ---

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Jeremy, we can't hear you at all.  It's like static only.  Maybe we can ask in the background to work to if that can be improved.  If not, maybe you can type your comments in.  Thank you. Concettina.

 >>CONCETTINA CASSA:  I suggest a BPF on artificial intelligence, if it is possible.  I think it could be useful.  Because there are big topics that we are focusing on (indiscernible) have a committee task force on artificial intelligence.  So I think it could be useful to have one of these topics.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  If you could, with yourself or with friends, write up something and be a little more substantive about the sorts of areas we might accomplish and the purpose of BPF.  There's some good samples, I think, online.  Or Markus could help you with that.

 >>CONCETTINA CASSA:  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Wout, you had the floor.

 >>WOUT de NATRIS:  Thank you.  There is sort of a ghost BPF hanging from last year.  The report came out of it.  The work has been done.  So the recommendation from the people who participated was not to do a BPF on cooperation, strength of cooperation.  Basically, you  have all the results in front of you.  If you think that is a topic to pursue anyway, then the MAG is free to do so. 

 One of the recommendations was to do a pilot.  And I ditched that yesterday.

 If there's some time to discuss that, I'll be happy to do that.  But, please, before 4:45.  Because then I have to go for the plane.  So whenever is your choice to do so, I'm available.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think -- I appreciate the clarification on the, as you said, the ghost is the BPF that was there.  And the report is really interesting.  And I would encourage everybody to look at it.  I think it was posted to the MAG list.  If not, we should do that again.  I don't think we'll come to that topic today.  I think it would be interesting to maybe pick that up after we -- assuming we have a call for issues to see if some of the call for issues to see if there's a natural -- in any case, I think we would need to have the MAG members read through the fairly lengthy report before we could actually have a substantive discussion.  Maybe at a future call. 

 Ji, you have the floor.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Regarding BPFs, the theme of the BPFs, I'm just wondering whether we can this year have a BPFs session on protection of youth.

 Protect our kids from child pornography, online gaming addiction, and all that sort of bad things.  It's related to MAG agenda or not, girls or boys, the future generation is most important.  Enhance the connection to the Internet, lead to the -- you know, the destruction of the next-generation.  Such connection is totally negative and worthless.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Those are very important issues, Ji.  You said, though, a session.  The BPFs is actually a stream of ongoing work with experts that actually debate the topic, pull in a lot, and write a fairly substantive paper at the end.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  I know that.  At the end of the year in the main session, we could have such a BPF main session maybe in addition to the whole process.

 And --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let's just talk off -- it's a really important issue.  I think we just need to figure out whether or not we're talking about a session or a track or maybe a BPF set of activities.  Let's figure out what you have in mind and figure out where we slot it into the conversation.  Thank you.

 So Jeremy was in the queue.  I can read out his comments right here.

 You said, "So in earlier discussions there was a lot of agreement on the need to be bold and innovative in a way that the IGF meetings from previous years have been conducted.  But I'm not sure that the program for today leaves any space for that.

 The agenda going forward doesn't leave space for discussion of the session that can pilot a new innovative format perhaps for multistakeholder deliberation on a single specific policy question on which we could produce a short and concrete output.  Admittedly, the exact shape of that hasn't yet been presented to the MAG.  But there are already interested partners and resources available to do something a little more ambitious at the next IGF.  However, the workshop approval process is consuming all the oxygen again.  I would like to know are we giving up on that already or ruling it out?  Or is it going to be subsumed with BPF or main sessions or Day Zero or some other agenda item?  Or are we going to leave it until 2019?"

 I don't think we've gone by that discussion yet, Jeremy.  I think the discussions we've been having on the overall program are more, to some extent, I think how proactive or active the MAG wants to be in pulling together a cohesive workshop, a cohesive program that reduces redundancy, reduces sessions that are either streamed or threaded or thoughtfully put together such that we actually advance some significant topics.  I think there's absolutely room for us to have the discussion you're talking about.  I think we need to make sure that everybody in the room has had a chance to read the paper and the document and that we're kind of set up to have that discussion.  And I would simply suggest that we put it on one of the next few virtual calls.  I think that's almost a separate topic, you know, with respect to kind of a piloted stream.  And certainly related to this discussion.  But this discussion does not negate having that discussion or even having that pilot.

 Chengetai is saying yes, absolutely.  There's still room for it.

 And what Jeremy is referring to is a drafting option.  There was a working group, a multi-year strategic work program.  And there was a drafting team which put together an options paper, which has been sent to the MAG as well.

 And, if we're going to do as said, is collect all the topics here, look at the work in front of us, plan out the virtual meetings with topics and make sure that all the substantive papers that are required to get people up to speed are there as well so that we can have really good substantive discussions with people that are informed on the topics in front of us.  And I know this is just a lot to take on if you're just coming into the MAG just now.  And some of these are really important discussions and I think really deserve kind of an informed discussion and an appropriate time for them.  This isn't to take anything away from that at all, Jeremy.

 I think Markus and Wim were old hands, I'm assuming, in the best possible way.

 Sumon, you have the floor.

 >>SUMON AHMED SABIR:  Thank you, Chair.  Actually, there are quite a few new ideas about BPFs. I like the ideas.  (Indiscernible.)  Ji proposed that (indiscernible)  And I like to point to another idea actually coming forward for an IG issue and can have a BPF.  There is popularity of cloud services and big data analytics.  And that's really impacting on privacy, on security, and we can see that there's also -- in particular, also it is impact (indiscernible) the government thinking whether they should put that in the cloud and not a person -- what they're doing.  Organization should be putting data to somebody else in some other country or not.  That's going to be a big challenge in the near future.  So I can see a BPF on cloud service or big data analysis can be a very good choice this year or maybe next year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So I think that's another interesting area as well, Sumon.  I encourage you again to write up a BPF to send to the list so we can have a discussion in the MAG.  I think they need to be broadly and well-supported by the MAG, because, again, we will be limited by --

 I'm also going to close the queue after Ji here again and kind of wrap up what the next steps are in BPFs and go to the next topic. 

 Unfortunately, we're going to need to really keep pushing ahead here.  And with your forbearance I'll do so.  Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn. Ben Wallis.  Just a quick comment on BPFs.  So I'm new. I don't know to what extent there's already a format to submitting proposals.

 I think it would be very helpful for the MAG's decision making to -- for BPF proposals to include information such as timelines, objectives, and resources needed, and the extent to which there's already kind of commitments from different parts of the community.

 I think that would be helpful not just for evaluating whether it should be chosen this year and whether it will have broad participation.  It would also be helpful to be able to measure progress in that first year if a BPF wants to continue.  So did they meet those targets that they set?  That's another indication of whether they should continue.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think those are very good points.  It's good to have another set of eyes on it.  I could ask you, maybe, to actually impose on Markus a little bit.  Because I know this is so close to his heart.  Either, if the two of you can get together and help refresh what exists and either refresh it briefly.  And then, if we feel there's a substantive piece of work to come forward, we'll bring it back in the MAG and find somebody to do it.

 I'm not trying to assign you both a lot of work.  But, if you could take a quick look at what's there and figure out whether or not we're talking about a little bit of refreshing or a major revision, then we can resource it appropriately.  But those are all really good comments.  Thank you.

 Raquel.  You have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you very much, Lynn.

 Actually, I'm going to introduce an idea and then ask Walt to follow-up on the content. 

 We were struggling a little bit about BPF or it should be innovative intersessional work, but let me introduce what it means.  It's about a new Internet protocol that has been discussed within the technical community by IETF, Internet Engineering Task Force, which is in our DNA.  And so the idea is to introduce where the parameters that this business protocol is being developed and integrated into the community.  I'm going to take an example that perhaps makes it easier.  I'm not an engineer either.  But probably you heard about IPv6 or the need for migration for IPv6, which is also the new IT protocol.  And so imagine if about 10 years ago, when it was developed, you could have a sense of what it means and translating to human language and the inputs you could prepare from that.

 And that is what is meant with this proposal.  Perhaps it's best practice dialogue intersessional work.  But that's the -- and it's also an opportunity to integrate two communities or to -- from the ecosystem.  Walt is -- if you want to develop more on HTTP/2 and how it would be useful for the --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yeah.  I think that's probably more information than what we need just now.  We have put the request back into Alissa Cooper who is the chair of the Internet Architecture Board.  And it was actually Alissa at the IGF meeting that suggested this in a session that Walt was driving.  So there's a way to think about whether or not there's something they could usefully do to inform their efforts here by partly engaging with the IGF. 

 So I think maybe we could follow up with Alissa and see what their thoughts are.  Because they're the starting point.  If they think there's value -- or you convince them there's value to bring into this, fine.  But without their active engagement, we're not so --

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Right.  So Alissa Cooper, the chair of the IETF, has presented her support to follow up.  But we can follow up in the MAG and mailing list and just -- yeah, throwing the idea on this moment.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's right.  Alissa is actually the IETF chair.  She was on IAB when I was working with her.  She said there was support bringing forward?

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Yeah.  She gave support from the IETF leadership.  And now we need to understand how we're going to move forward with the translation part.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  This is a pretty technical topic.  Maybe we could actually prepare a draft and a BPF submission and bring that forward.  And, if we think we need a primer in the background for people with respect to why it's important and what it is, we can prepare that as well.  I think that's good.  I know that excited a lot of people that were hearing about it before. 

 Ji, you have the floor.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Madam Chair, did I ask for the floor?  [ Laughter ]

 Maybe I made a mistake.  But Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  If you didn't, that's okay, too.  If you didn't, that's okay.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Generally, regarding the whole intersessional process of the works, I feel that maybe we need to focus on the facts of technological progress, new technologies, disruptive effects.  I don't know which specific area we should focus on.  But we should work -- you know, in that direction. 

 And regarding BPF and just mention about protection of youth, this suggests a food for thought for all other colleagues.  Because I myself have so many meetings to cover. And for the whole year, 365 days, I have to in the meeting rooms on assignment, like, more than 200 days.  So I really don't have time and also enough expertise to lead such effort.  But just for your -- you know, for your consideration.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Thank you, Ji.

 I think these are all discussions we need to take forward.

 What I think I'd like to do with the BPFs is we've had a couple suggestions for some new BPFs and continuation of some current BPFs. 

 I really am appreciative with some of the comments made with respect to how we can continue to advance the process a little bit, particularly as last year and this year there were more BPFs requested than we can support.  And that requires us to do more due diligence than the ones that are most appropriate and most helpful at large.  So I appreciate that offer from Ben and Markus, even if it was a little arm twisting there.

 So we'll schedule the next discussion on the BPFs at one of the next few calls.  As we heard, we need to do it quite soon so we can get the work started and resource.  And, that's, obviously, a critical requirement.

 What I'd like to do now is to ask the CENB, the Connecting and Enabling the Next Billions, which is a major policy initiative, take the next five or six minutes and talk us through quickly the first few phases.  It's all on the Web site.  A little bit what the proposal is going forward.  And then my suggestion would be we let people go away and think about -- look at the first three phases.  Sure, it's a lot of new information.  Think about the potential fourth phase.  And probably look at the -- do a call for issues to try to validate whether or not that's the right investment for this next major policy initiative or whether there are other candidates.  Again, I think that's one I think you need to familiarize yourself with what's happening there and get some introduction, so we know what we're dealing with.  But then the next topic I'd like to go through at the top of the hour is kind of the program frame workshop proposal process,  you know, the discussion we've been having mostly today and yesterday.

 See if we can close on that.  Raquel.  CENB. 

 Ji, you're on the mic.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Oh, sorry.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  Raquel, go ahead, please.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Okay.  Thank you, Lynn, again.

 So of all, the

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Thank you, Lynn, again.  So first of all, the CENB, the connecting and enabling and next billion, arrived with third phase.  It was co-coordinated by myself, Constance Bommelaer, former MAG member from Internet Society, by Christopher Yoo from Penn University, but also Sharada who -- and Mili who were the consultants and helped with this.  We received -- so let me start with the connecting the next billion efforts.  I started four years ago now, by putting out the policy, identifying the policy options for connecting the next billion.  And then the second phase was also focused on the policy part, identifying policies for advancing the sustainable development goals.  And the idea for this third phase was to pick on those policy options and bringing to more concrete ground by identifying and looking into concrete cases and local experiences.  We were really successful in gathering nearly 50 case studies in two rounds and the outcome document is already published.  The focus -- because we couldn't tackle all the SDGs and look into these case studies and these concrete examples into all the SDGs, that would be wonderful, but it's a lot of work.  So the MAG has decided to focus last year into three of them which are the sustainable development goal 4, related to education, the sustainable development goal 5 related to gender equality, and the sustainable development 9 which is infrastructure but has a specific target on Internet for infrastructure development. 

 So within that we -- those were the -- let's say the cases that we gather that are really using the Internet to be a game changer and putting us closer into achieving those -- those goals.

 And picking up on the MAG discussions also last year, we saw there was an interest in going for other SDGs.  So our suggestion is we still have work to do, especially related to SDG 9 and perhaps frame a continuation of the process under this -- this one, then adding others that were suggested last year and that they continue to be valuable the sustainable development 17 which is about partnership for the goals.  It's about revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development and it has a close line to the multistakeholder approach and what we are doing to the IGF per se and how we bring together all these stakeholder groups into developing the -- the Internet policy discussions.

 And then it was suggested by our co-coordinators who were also willing to continue in their role to work on sustainable development goal 8 which is about distant work and economic growth.  The goal is about promoting (indiscernible) and sustainable economic growth, employment and distant work for all, and it's really tackling the future of the jobs in the digital economy environment.  I'm sorry, I've been talking so much, I need water.  But it's really helping us link with what is being discussed in other international policy forums, G20 just having a rollover digital economy and the future of jobs and education, and I think it was trained the IGF and the outreach of the IGF by talking and bringing those cases and integrating with the policy discussion. 

 So again, I just want to make a shout out for our co-coordinators who were -- and the consultant who were really instrumental to make the work last year.  And I hope we can continue.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Raquel.  Is the proposal for the phase 4 written up anywhere?

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: A bit of multi-tasking, but it will be in the MAG list.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, I appreciate it, and I also appreciate you stepping up and giving me updates on a number of items here as well.  I guess it's a reward for actually being physically present. 

 Are there any sort of quick questions Raquel?  The first three reports are up and published and, you know, we'll expect the kind of written requests for what a fourth phase might be.  And then my suggestion would be, again just since we're all sort of overloaded here, that we spend some time thinking about what we're starting to hear as issues coming back from the community and make a call shortly but not today on what major intersessional policy initiative we might want to move forward with.  You know, and as much as that work is appreciated and as valuable as it's been, people shouldn't assume there's no room for another proposal.  So if we think -- you know, this is always about fresh ideas, and Raquel's nodding her head enthusiastic.  It's always about fresh ideas and, you know, new ground and trying to be ahead of some of those things that are the most challenging for us.  So if there are suggestions for a new major intersessional policy initiative, then all you need to do is to write something concrete up to explain kind of its value and again some of the objectives and timelines and things and then share it with the MAG, and we'll make that decision and move forward.  Raquel.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Just wanted to -- following your lead, Lynn, please do comment and do make your suggestion, and especially for the new MAG members, we need more volunteers.  So jump in for those efforts, if you want.  Bring your ideas.  It's really, really important.  Sometimes it looks -- it's a red frame, but it's just because it's easier.  I was the newcomer last year, so I understand.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: A great role model for how much you can do when you just jump in and apply hours to it.  Thank you, Raquel.  So this is a time when I'd like to come back and pick up the discussion we were having this morning, which is again building on some of the comments we've had about, you know, the MAG recognizing that there have been calls for improvements in the IGF program, both to be more cohesive, less duplicative, less parallel tracks, try to find ways to get more outputs and some of that were the Geneva messages sorts of things that came about this year.  Another effort a while ago which came out of the CSG working group on improvements was to really try and be much more specific about the policy questions any individual session was going to address.  The more specific we are about what we're trying to get out of a session on the front end, the easier it will be to get out of the back-end which we can actually use to advance the work and certainly communicate more broadly.  So all those things are important.

 A small group of people -- not so small at the end to have day.  I think it was sort of eight or nine people, kind of met to try and block out what they thought was possible on the basis of the discussions we've had here over the course of the year.  And I'm not quite sure who was nominated to talk, but I have my guess.  But whoever was nominated to talk to the output of that working group, please, you have the floor. 

 Mary, first, before you, I see -- did you want to come in on something before that?  The CENB.  Okay.  Let's take the CENB.  And Wisdom, if yours is to the CENB, as well, we'll take that.  Hopefully brief topics both, and then we'll go to this topic.

 >>MARY UDUMA: Thank you.  Mary for the record from Nigeria and technical community.  Since I'm a new MAG member, I need to know as clarification, what pressure and workload the BPF or BPFs will have on the secretariat?  What facilitates?  Do we have the resources?  Calling for more, calling for new ones?  And I've heard people mentioning new intercession work, intercessional work.  So I don't know whether you -- we have in mind of hiring consultants to be able to help the secretariat.  When Markus was making his presentation, I know he alluded to the fact that there were shortages of resources to be able to handle all that work we're to do.  And building on that, I want to see, is it possible to collapse some?  So many suggestions we had heard about the new protocol, we've heard about new technologies.  Somebody is saying about Internet of -- the Internet of Things or -- somebody said something about -- artificial intelligence and all of that.  So if we're going to take all of this, how would that -- with the meager resources that we have within the secretariat.  And if we're going to take up all of that, would it be better for us to have consultant to be able to help out at the secretariat. 

 So these are things that I want to talk about if we are to suggest all these new intersessional work.  Thank you.  And for the -- the CB -- what do you call it?  CENB, I like the fact that the working on the -- on the SDGs and it will be nice to continue work on SDGs as it effects especially those of us from the developing country.  We want to have that know-how.  We could also achieve SDGs from the point of the view of the IGF.  Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Mary.  So what the secretariat has done in the past is that we have hired a subject area expert or somebody who's very familiar with the subject area for the best practice forums, et cetera.  And you're quite right about the resources.  As you may have heard, all of you, from Armin's presentation is that the amount of funds available is not actually increasing, and if you look at it in real terms, we are actually operating in a deficit as such. 

 I would say that it would be best not to increase the number.  I mean, we can maintain what we had last year but not increase it.  And we should also take into account that this year we may have fewer sessions than we had last year.  So if -- if you want to increase the best practice forum that means you have to subtract somewhere else.  And I would be -- I think that the way we should look at it is that as far as the expenses are concerned, we should not do anything that increases expenses.  We either do something that either maintains them or we can reduce the expenses.  I mean, the best thing to do is to reduce the expenses.  So if we add something, we should delete something somewhere else.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Actually, friendly amendment, the best thing is for all of us to work harder to bring in more money.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So we can increase expenses and do more.  And that is a task that we need to take on probably through a working group here.  Also I just want to point out quickly that we did work with the U.N. last year to get approval for a process that would actually allow kind of interns or secondments or that sort of thing for some of the activities, and we need to be thoughtful about what they are because we need to make sure that they're actually being resourced appropriately and not, you know, being, I don't know, creatively used to advance some own purpose or something, something like that.  But that is -- Armin's nodding his head in the background there.  That is still a -- a vehicle that's available to us.  And I think last year we were thinking we might pilot it somewhere, but I think it kind of came out late in the middle of everything.  And while we had posted them, we didn't get any interest, and I think that is an avenue we can perhaps try and do a bit more with again this year.  But the more important thing I think is that we all start talking at the IGF, outreaching.  If you have people that you want to be approached for funds, let, you know, Chengetai or I know and really get some efforts going to bring in some additional funds. 

 Wisdom, is yours on the CENB?  Okay, if you can, and if we can be as brief as we can, then we can go to the other topics.

 >>WISDOM DONKOR: Thank you, Madam Chair.  For the record, my name is Wisdom Donkor.  I'm looking at the other side of -- at this.  We're all talking about connecting and enabling the next billion.  And that includes gender and access to education and all that.  I'm also thinking that clean energy is also another area that we have to look at.  An example is in Ghana, for example, the rural communities are facing problems with energy, lack of electricity and all that, and if we are talking about access, Internet access, and for us to be able to take access to those areas who need energy.  So if possible we can also include clean energy to it so we can attract the energy companies and all that to IGF.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Wisdom.  There are some really significant sectors we could definitely reach out to more.  Let's go back to the workshop proposal.  Were you going to speak to that, Raquel?  Again, if we remind everybody, this was before lunch we broke up and asked a small working group had volunteered to try and put together the various discussions we had had and suggest a possible path forward.  So Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Thanks, Lynn.  But not only the ones in the room, we also had some virtual discussion with the ones that are remotely that reached out, so Alejandra, Nacho, and others.  Let me introduce, and please jump in, other ones that were in the group, if you need to make any amendments.  This is the three steps approach for the -- the program shaping of this year IGF.  The first step is a call for issues.  The second step is a call for workshop proposals.  And the third is an evaluation by clustering.  That's the idea of being more thematic, more cohesive, into the program shaping of the IGF.

 Let me introduce per category or per step that we were talking here.  The first one would be -- and I think we started this exercise already about having the subthemes and issues driving from this that we could put out for the community inputs.  That's the model of the EuroDIG that we already sent earlier.  And it would be implicating on the MAG review of those what would be the subthemes and those initial description of the clustering to put out for the community that could be done very quickly and it could lead to a -- perhaps a three weeks consultations with the inputs and then the evaluation by the MAG and the efforts from the secretariat to aggregate all of those suggestions and really finding out the clusters.

 But let me give you -- I couldn't draw to be presented right now.  Liesyl will probably draw better than I, but give a visual of where we are talking here.  Subtheme, for example, imagine media content as one of the subthemes, and then you would have the issues and the description of fake news, freedom of expression or perhaps the intersessional work of the BPF on local content would be here.  So you would be self -- the community first would say what are their topics that they're interested in discussing and giving a little bit of the framework under that.  And I was looking into the EuroDIG form that was presented and it could be as simple as that one to be out.  So you would be asking the name, the organization, the stakeholder group, the region, perhaps country or a little tweak here to get the -- the geographical balance.  And then the category, which is the subtheme that we're talking, and then the suggested issue with a little bit of this exercise of explaining.  But that would be the first phase.  The first step.

 Then the second step would be the call for workshop proposals.  That would go out when we agree on the -- on the MAG agree on the clustering or the subthemes.  And then the -- basically the call for the workshops would follow the model that we have been following, the methodology that was adopted last year seems pretty good.  The only tweak would be to add this self-tagging to the clusters and justifying on that. 

 And possibly I think, if we are congregating the intersessional work, the CENB, the NRIs, and the DCs into this clustering, that would have an effort here also to make it happen. 

 Looking at the timelines, e could do in four weeks for the community inputs.  And then given three weeks for the MAG evaluation.

 If we think about four weeks for the community inputs for giving the workshop proposals and then adding the fact that they would already be mobilized on the last one, it would be total seven weeks of reaching out to the community, which could be an interesting period to mobilize and get the proposals and giving time also for the community outreach.

 And the third phase would be the program shaping or the end of evaluation.  Sorry.  It's evaluation by the clustering by the MAG.  And then following again the methodology that was adopted, we had the random MAG group to evaluate the African number of proposals.  That could be done again.  And (indiscernible) and Russia can speak better.  She's the lead on that.  This random MAG group was formed by -- for evaluation was formed with certain criteria for geographical stakeholder groups balance and gender balance.

 But, again, instead of having the proposals -- the proposals then submitted to the MAG members, we'd randomly select a group one of the MAG, for example.  And this group would be in charge of one of the clusters.

 Why that?  Because then it would help to get the over review of the proposals under one certain topic and make it more coherent, cohesive, bring the different angles, avoid repetition, and also to help to make fewer sanctions related to the program of the IGF.  And I think it's about that.  If we forget something or any questions, please jump in.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me see first if there's anybody else from the group here in the room or online.  And thank you again for all those people who participate online.  It's not easy. 

 Anything you want to add to Raquel's report out?  Let's use the queue and start to look for, I guess, reactions, questions, concerns. 

 I don't know if it's possible to maybe go back and break it out a little bit into the people understand the 1, 2, 3 step process?  And are we comfortable with that?  You know, so what I'm looking for is, ultimately, at the end of the day, are we from the group -- are we willing to go forward with proposal as put forward by the group?  And, if not, if you could help us understand have other suggestions or concerns.  We have Ji in the floor, in the queue.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Thank you.  Just looking at the two proposals. And, unfortunately, both, you know, at the end of the day either we have the final decision in June or in July.  I myself would be on vacation.

 So I hate to choose between these two options.  I hope that we can have this meeting in August so that I can come back from my hometown and make sure that Asian and African countries can have more workshops.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ji.  I'm sure we all have our preferences to the week.  We need to find a week that works for the bulk of the group here.  And it's okay to laugh.  On the other hand, I also want to recognize -- which is why I'm so clear that we are just saying six weeks out of the year are out because the northern hemispheres is our summer vacation.  We don't say that about other regions or other times of the year, so we have a little sensitivity to that.  At the same time, we have to find dates that are given the intended timeline of the IGF itself. 

 Israel, you have the floor.

 >>ISRAEL ROSAS:  Israel Rosas, for the record.  Thank you.  I was one the people involved in that idea.

 I think that it's also a good option to hear and think about reducing duplicate sessions and also to try to fit the intersessional work into the clusters or themes or whatever we are calling it. 

 The importance of the BPFs, the dynamic coalitions, the analysis sessions.  And perhaps this could be a very good approach, a mixed approach, in order to create the conditions for the community to keep participating and shaping the program, the digital program.  But also to boost the participation in the

 intersessional activities.  We could also promote that participation and encourage it with a communications effort saying that it is important to participate because this time the program will be participating in this way, trying to engage the community from all the stakeholders to be involved intersessionally not only seeking to present a workshop or an open forum or a silo.  I mean, thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Israel. 

 Rasha, it looks like you were next in the queue.

 >>RASHA ABDULLA:  Thank you, Lynn.  We, obviously, need some time to think this over.  It's not an easy decision to make.   Just off the top of my mind,  I'm wondering are we going to propose a list for people to vote on?  Or are we going to leave it open as an open question?  If we leave it as an open question, then how many are we going to choose?  How many issues -- how do we agree on that?  We need to iron out a bit of these details.  I'm also trying to decide whether assigning one group of reviewers to an issue is good or not.  Because, hypothetically, if you know, a couple of people in this group happens to be not much in favor of the issue or don't think too highly of the issue, then that could just bring the whole cluster down.  The idea last year was to randomly assign the viewers so that it's not a bulk of -- it's not like a group of people.  It's not the same group of people who end up reviewing a particular number of merchants.  So I think we need to think about these a little bit.  And I think we're going to have to think about merging workshops as well, because what that does is, ultimately, increase the number of participants on a workshop.  And, if we're trying to limit the speakers, I would think a maximum of five or six is -- top.  More than six just gets really out of hand. 

 Are we going to allow workshops, or are we going to just reject the lesser quality workshops?  And while thinking about all this, we need to think about how do we encourage more newer members of the community to try to submit proposals if, obviously, people with experience are going to have an edge at getting the proposals in.  So let me -- I'm probably going to ask some of the members of the working group to come in.  Because I think -- I think we're trying to take this whole exercise and shove it all into an evaluation process where a significant piece of what I think we're doing won't go through that type of process, which is a bulk of what your questions were.  I also want to be clear on the timeline we're working here today.  If we don't agree a different way to go forward with respect to the proposal, by default we will be back to last year's process, which is something I think the community and a lot of people have said,  you know, falls short of expectations, particularly as you look forward.  So really are trying to find some ways to innovate in this here. 

 But I think the issues are paragraphs, two paragraphs or something.  What's really good about them is it reduces the barrier of people that aren't particularly familiar with the IGF and maybe aren't comfortable in English and don't know how to write full proposals don't have to get their issues considered for here, for the IGF.  But the process that I'm understanding would be in place for the issue submissions would be one that is more hands on, if you will, by a group of people that would actually help kind of nurture the ultimate development of either some sessions and/or, I think Israel has said before, maybe even a thematic track or something.  So there's certainly -- there certainly is a worthwhile requirement on the MAG, but it's a different sort of workload.  I think the proposals that come into the workshop proposal process should go through the same process they've always gone through and would be pulled forward on their merit, looked for imbalances or overbalances and adjusted.  And that will have to be, of course, what that cohesively or holistically with the sessions, main sessions, other sessions or thematic tracks that come out the issue process.

 Is that a fair -- is that what the -- some group is thinking or proposing?  Just before we -- because if it's wrong, somebody should say it's wrong so we're having a discussion about the right stuff.

 Israel.

 >>ISRAEL ROSAS:  Israel Rosas, for the record.  That's exactly the idea.  (Indiscernible) it's not unlike having community feedback about the popularity of each issue, each topic.  With that in mind, the MAG can even decide how many times they're going to allocate to each track or activity.  I mean, they call for workshops.  They're thinking on having the same process as before.  The innovation in the process could be the definition of the culture, the culture issues.  And we believe that that could lead us to have perhaps like a heat (sic) map or something like that about issues in order to better allocate the time, the activities to create more dynamic meeting with less parallellizations and duplicate sessions and seeing the same speakers talking about the same issue in one, two, three sessions.  I mean, it's more like trying to innovate in the format.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Israel. 

 Did you have a short follow-up, Rasha?

 >>RASHA ABDULLA:  Yes.  I think it's a good idea to have the issues come from the community.  My point is, if we present them with a list and ask people to vote on it, then we just need to keep in mind that other issues that might be of interest to the community that will not be on that initial list will be less recognized by the community.

 So that's just something we need to think about.  And then we need to think about which issues are we actually going to choose?  Are we going to choose them -- are we going to allocate time maybe in proportion to the importance that people have voted the issues in?  Or are we going to choose a number of issues and that would be it? 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think we're still missing -- I don't think it's a voting in a certain issue.  And my understanding is that there would be -- I don't know -- eight, or nine, something categories.  And I can tell you what the EuroDIGs are just because I have them in front of me.  LACNIC has a different set.  And there's an "other" as well if somebody wants to write something in.  But I think it's in the kind of -- it's not just a vote or a numerical exercise.  It's going to be, when we look at the individual issues that come in by basket or bucket or top level now.  And I think probably a judgment by the MAG -- also we see what the workshop proposals are, which ones really are the more relevant and interesting.  Which ones would actually make an attract topical cohesive program.  That would be the response to the MAG all together.  I think Raquel wants to come in and say something, and then we'll go to the next person in the queue.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you very much.  It's just a follow-up.  Rasha and I think Israel already clarified and Lynn.  The process is really simple.  They just asked category, which is main sub-theme.  And then issues.  And then it's an exercise of clustering them and making perhaps eight.  I think it's a good number.  But we can discuss later on that.

 And just on the -- the other point on the methodology, I don't think we need to change the methodology that was adopted last year.  It was really efficient by all means.  And so it's just a small tweak to make it the clustering to make it adaptable to the clustering.  But, even with the renovation of the MAG, I mean, I remember it was assigned a number of issues. Some of them I'm more familiar with than the others.  And that's okay.  But the idea of making the random selection and then by cluster putting the specific group by cluster, it gives you an overview under a certain topic.  And, if someone is really not comfortable or is really not able to evaluate, perhaps it can changed.  And I think there was some number of change that could be made last year to swap with another proposal or another cluster.

 So I don't really see the big difference in terms of the last year process.  I hope that clarifies.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I just want to make sure I understand.  My understanding was that we're going to ask people to recommend issues.  And then we're going to decide on the issues.  And then we're going to have a call for workshop proposals. 

 Is that correct.  Or are they interchangeable?

 >> No, it's one after the other.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Yes.  I'm sure we covered a lot of that this morning.  And I know you had another commitment elsewhere, which is one of the reasons I think we need to rethink having these meetings parallel.

 The next in the queue, Jutta, Thank you for your patience.

 >>JUTTA CROLL:  Thank you for giving me the floor again.  I do think that the two phases of the program setting or the three phases of a program setting have now been made quite clear.  And the main benefit I see from this step is that we would have more community involvement from the beginning.  So, when people are considering which issues might be of purpose for the next IGF, then that's -- that first step to go on to a workshop proposal.

 And we heard yesterday some concerns about bad quality of workshop proposals the MAG received in the last years.  So anything we can do to improve the quality of workshop proposals would be good.  And I think the community involvement from the beginning will have to improve.

 The quality, on the one hand, and also will maybe save us from some of these called yesterday last minute proposals that were sent in on a very short-term and elaborated. 

 So I think that's just a very good step forward.  And, with regard to Russia's concerns, I also think that, if we have in mind that the EuroDIG procedure space on the specific expertise of people that look on these issues that are sent in -- so I think we need to have that in mind when the MAG is looking at the issues that we get and that overall themes, that is also related to the areas of expertise we all have.  And then -- so that we don't slip one of the proposals or issues just because maybe we got that randomly.  And we do not have the expertise to assess it properly.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Those are all good points.  They're good points no matter what process we use on the front end.

 Nebojsa, you have the floor.

 >>NEBOJSA REGOJE:  Thank you, Chair.  Nebojsa Regoje,  government. 

 I completely support this, let's say, EuroDIG approach.  Especially since I personally know how it functions. However, what is not clear to me in these two scenarios that are presented on the slide in the beginning, there is only call for workshops. 

 In this timeline there is no time period allocated for call for proposal.  If you go chronologically, as EuroDIG does, we need first to have a certain period of time allocated to one phase, phase one issues, and then phase two proposals for the workshops.

 When I -- okay.  You give some explanation of that.  I completely understand that these categories have to be decided.  And my question is:  Are we going to decide on the categories -- I don't know.  Data, privacy, security, today -- or is it going to be left for the one of the next workshop meetings? 

 And not to bother you again with my opinion about the workshops, I completely support the idea of having as many as possible workshops.

 I think that's the beauty of IGF to have a variety of things covered that everybody can find something that she or he is interested in. 

 However, I really think that this practice of -- I don't know how serious it is.  But duplicate sessions can and should be eliminated.

 And speaking about panels and panelists, I also support, I think Rasha mentioned that idea of reducing or limiting the number of panelists so that we can give more time to the participants, more time for discussions, and I would say that should apply both for workshops and for the main -- main sessions.

 Speaking about main sessions, I think this combination of some -- some kind of speeches and discussions should be considered, especially as high-level guests, VIPs, not only from governments, not only ministers but from academia, from companies, really need to have time to say what they -- what they have to say. 

 Maybe it's not the time, but I will mention that anyway, I also support and I already talked to Andrea about this accessibility issue within Bosnia Herzegovinia for -- we had so far three national IGFs and we had all three covered with the sign language translation, so I fully support that idea for global IGF.  I also support participation of women as much as it's possible and I would go into one affirmative discrimination so that we have more women than -- female than male.

 And last point from me, when national and digital initiatives are in question, I think we should strongly support that I think that we should continue to cooperate without coming into situations so that they think that we are trying to -- to boss them around.  But really to be partners, really to give them floor, give them space, give them time for IGF.  Thank you, and I expect there will be some information about this timeline for the three phases.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Nebojsa.  I mean, there were two levels of comments.  One that was specific to the kind of discussion that's in front of us just now which I will respond to.  A lot of the others were good suggestions.  We should take them up at the appropriate time in the planning cycle.  But I want to ask just in the background here, is I don't know if the team or if Eleonora or a combination of the team and Eleonora have or could pull together an updated timeline.  It's really, I think, the front end, probably just adding another day and splitting something apart.  So maybe we can do that in the background and come back.  I think from conversations I heard the subteam having there's enough time in there, we just need to break it out into two separate pieces.  I also think -- and again, I left the conversation early and came back, but I also think that the expectation was that the call for issues goes out really soon.  Like Monday.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Call -- huh?  No, if we go forward with this process, that the call for issues would have to go out Monday.  And then coming Monday, Tuesday, I mean, sometime quite soon, if we want to give a reasonable time for people to do that.  And again, this is not a huge list on any of them individually, right?  I mean, it's a couple of paragraphs or describing an issue they think would be topical. 

 To come to the second part of your question on the themes, if we're going to put out a small number -- eight-ish seems to be the number that everybody keeps coming to -- themes, and yes, we do need to determine that before Monday.  I had asked the group before they left if they thought it was worthwhile to take what was in a EuroDIG list and the LACNIC list and SEEDIG list or something and compare them and see if there was something that just jumped out as, you know, there's high overlap in six or seven areas and one or two we need to discuss.  I don't know if that happened or if there's another proposal coming forward.  But, I mean, again, I think with a relatively small number and another -- and if I look at the EuroDIG as a list, it was pretty complete.  There may be some missing, in which case we should add one or two, but, I mean, I don't think that needs to be a huge exercise.  And I would hope we could table something today and maybe look at it over the next couple of days on the mailing list.  Sorina, you're dying to get in and say something.  If it's that issue, then we'll let you come in now.

 >>SORINA TELEANU:  Thank you.  I'm sorry for stepping over the queue because it is exactly related to the list of issues.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, no, it will help us move forward more quickly.

 >>SORINA TELEANU:  Thank you.  And I hope I'm not overstepping my role as a MAG member, but at Diplo you probably all know -- or most of you know about our digital watch observatory.  We have several baskets for issues.  And it's not only something that we use at Diplo.  It's being used by the (indiscernible) as well European Commission, and it has been used by the CSTD as well.  So I kindly invite you to have a look and maybe that's something we could start with when we talk about the categories or themes or whatever we call them.  We have seven large buckets.  I can read them quickly.  Infrastructure, security, human rights, legal, economics --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Wait, wait.  Not so quickly that they can't catch them in the transcript, because that would be helpful.

 >>SORINA TELEANU:  Infrastructure, security, human rights, legal, economics, development, and social/cultural.  And each of these baskets has a couple of, we call them issues.  I just wanted to suggest this for everyone to take a look, maybe that's something where we can start the discussion from.  It's a bit more encompassing, I think, than the EuroDIG list.  Only for that reason.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sorina.  We have Miguel in the queue.  Miguel, you have the floor.  He's online as well, so you'll need to headphones or transcription.

 >>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA:  Can you hear me?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We can, yes.

 >>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA:  Okay.  First of all, I want to do some quick clarification.  I heard a couple of you saying LACNIC instead of LAC IGF.  The LAC IGF is a Latin America and Caribbean IGF process, so I ask for the transcript to be changed in order to not bring confusion to the discussion.

 What I want to publicly -- because I already did it in private -- support Raquel's proposal.  I also support Israel's comments on including the BPF and DCs into the clusters.  I wanted also to stress on the idea of reducing the number of workshops and parallel track.  And maybe a good way to start is merging workshops and/or asking non-approved proposals to join the BPFs and DCs.  I also merge them with another workshop, related workshops.  And also I want to support the idea of limiting the number of panels.  Maybe we could try to, as we do with regional diversity and gender diversity, we could do it with formats also inside the clusters.  Maybe limiting the number of panels, or limiting the number of certain class of -- of formats that we don't want anymore to be there because they are not interactive, they are not -- they do not bring participation.  Maybe we could do as I think Rasha said, limit this number of panels within the clusters.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Miguel.  Ben, you have the floor.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Thank you, Lynn.  Ben Wallis.  Yeah, I support this innovation for the MAG to provide more of a framework for the annual meeting.  I like how this kind of call for inputs would increase community involvement and setting the program, as Jutta just said.  I also think it's a good idea to do this exercise to help us reduce the number of workshops and to merge proposals.  I particularly like the idea that we take some of the separate workshop proposals and then bring proponents together and ask them to do a single workshop because there you're kind of pushing the multistakeholder collaboration back into the organization of the workshops before they even get to the meeting.  So I did want to generally offer my support and thank the group for their work over lunch.

 The concern that caused me to raise my hand, and your comments just now, Lynn, are some way to assuage that, but I envisaged that the first step would be to put out an open call and I was worried that I was hearing -- and then the MAG would draw on that input to then do the framing.  And I was worried I was hearing we'd first do a categorization step and then we'd call and then do another categorization.  It seems like you're saying it's ready to go, we can get out Monday, and if that's the case, then I'm -- I'm reassured.  But that was my concern, is it was too complicated that we didn't -- it wasn't necessary and we didn't have the time to kind of have this additional first step.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I have full confidence we can complicate anything.

 [ Laughter ]

 We are talking about doing it sequentially, and, I mean, I think -- look we would all have preferred we started this discussion a month or so ago and had more leisurely time and we're trying to do too many things -- well, a lot of things in parallel.  But I do think there's a lot of running code, to use a technical term, whether it's from the Diplo work, which as they said has been picked up by the European Commission, CSTD, so there's some community there, or it's EuroDIG, and frankly from a quick summary, there's a lot of commonality between the two, slightly different titles.  We can compare that with the LAC IGF -- and thank you, Miguel, for correcting that.  I think I was the one who got it wrong several times.  Not wrong.  I know very well the difference and just tired.  So I -- I think, you know, even if we just simply put those -- we could certainly look at the Diplo and see if that worked.  We could look quickly at the EuroDIG.  We could put the two of them in a chart, send them out.  Honestly with those sorts of things I would say we could start to rely on the secretariat to take the input back and complete on that with the -- not in the absence of input from the MAG, but if we've got these two lists and there's high overlap, we all know what we do when we get lists like that.  If you want to submit a new paragraph issue description, you're going to look at which one fits and put it in.  And you're not really going to be horribly swayed one way or the other when you look at the topic.  So again, I think, you know, the enemy of the good, something like that. 

 I think what -- we'll come to the -- the queue is getting longer and longer.  We'll come to the potential timeline in a moment so we can make sure everybody is clear on what the timeline would look like if we go for this.  And then, I want to close the list where it is now, even earlier if we could, and really we need to get a call in the room here -- sorry, I don't mean in the room here.  Amongst the MAG members, physically and online, to see if they are supportive of this process as described by this subteam and subgroup.  And I think we also -- we need to call on that.  And then, of course, we can go away and continue fleshing out some of the pieces.  So we need to make sure we all kind of understand those steps well enough or have enough confidence that any sort of questions we might have are not insurmountable and that we've got time to sort them out over the next couple of months and decide to move forward.  So with that, Ji, you have the floor.  And if people could just speak quickly at this point to, do you support the proposal.  Yes.  If it's just yes, that would be fine.  Yes, you have some questions, yes you have reservation or no.  But just be really clear on what your kind of reservation or question is so we can continue driving for some clarity and a decision.  Thank you.  Ji.

 >>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Madam Chair.  I'm very confused, you know.  During the, you know, the past one hour in the discussion I have an impression that just like we have already agreed on having -- you know, calling for issues and, you know, curate themes and set up a framework for the incoming proposals.  As I said this morning, that that may not be a good idea, and I do not agree with it.  And many other colleagues also expressed the same sentiment. 

 If we are going to call for issues or set of views from general public, I just have one question for the secretariat.  Does the secretariat have enough resources and the capability to analyze all the views and the comments from all over the world in different language, at least in six U.N. official language?  Are we --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ji, let me just stop you.  You know full well that we do our work in English.  We do not do things that call for issues and proposals unfortunately in six U.N. languages.

 >>JI HAOJUN: Most Chinese people speak Chinese only.  Most Indians -- many Indians don't speak English, although English is supposed to be official language of India.  And we should not see this wrote from English speech perspective only.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Totally agree.  Wish we could do something different.  But we can't do something different.  And EuroDIG is, in fact, in English, despite the fact -- I think, despite the fact that they actually have many languages as first language (indiscernible).

 >>JI HAOJUN: Excuse me, Chair, can you let me finish, first.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: If you stick to the point and the question that's in front of the room.

 >>JI HAOJUN: Yeah.  In European Union, most people and especially young generation, they are supposed to speak English, German, French, or at least three or four languages.  That's the reality of Europe.  That's totally different from China and the Africa and Latin America and many other countries.  And we have to see this whole picture.  That's why I said that what works for Europe doesn't work for the whole world.  EuroDIG, Europe -- you know --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We understand the point now.  And I sympathize fully with language issues for all of us in here.  Fully.

 >>JI HAOJUN: And I fully --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ji.

 >>JI HAOJUN: And I fully disagree with this approach.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We heard you, Ji.  Now, with respect to the language issue, that's not actually a decision that's in front of this room at this point in time.  We're operating to rules that were established a long time ago that have to do with the way we're doing the work here and, frankly, the way it's done in many similar forums. 

 What I would love is for you to go away and think about how we could actually help those that speak Chinese participate in this.  I don't know if there's some translation facilities or something you can do, but if you have a suggestion for how we actually make that an -- an easier exercise and we would love to hear --

 >>JI HAOJUN: Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We are not -- Ji, please, for a moment.  We are not going to change our process here in the 11th hour to try and support other languages, and I don't think it's fair to actually say no to a process on that basis.

 >>JI HAOJUN: I'm not asking for all the information be translated into Chinese or translated Chinese into English.  I'm just saying that this approach doesn't work simply because of the language problem.  That's it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I -- this problem is no different than in our traditional workshop proposal process.  So I understand your point, but I think we really need to have a specific suggestion for how you suspect -- how you would suggest --

 >>JI HAOJUN: My suggestion that we -- we don't do this so-called calling for issues.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Which is actually a much lower hurdle than a workshop proposal.

 >>JI HAOJUN: No, I don't agree.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So the call for issues is name, country, region, stakeholder, paragraph on what your issue is.  A workshop proposal is significantly more advanced, significantly more work, significantly more substantive than that.  In fact, this actually should enable -- one of the things I liked about it was that it lowered the bar to participation from those people who either haven't participated in process like this, haven't written a lot of proposals, and who -- who aren't comfortable writing in English.

 >>JI HAOJUN: And I don't think to set up a framework for the incoming proposal is a good idea.  It is just like you don't know the human body size of the people and you make the clothes first.  That's ridiculous.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think -- what we're -- what we're doing right now is no different than what we've done before.  If we didn't have this call for issues, we'd be talking about a process that actually looked for a call for workshop proposals which is going to require a lot more information, that's going to have the same sort of concerns you have about this call for issues.

 >>JI HAOJUN: In my view this process is totally unnecessary.  When the proposals come in, their categories are self-evident.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay.  Your point's been heard.  Really look forward to some more creative -- if you could turn your mic off, that would be excellent as well.  And we'll move to the next person in the queue.  Israel.

 >>ISRAEL ROSAS: Yes.  Thank you, Chair.  Israel Rosas, for the record.  I just saw the email sent by Jorge to the mailing list.  I totally agree with that grouping of topics, baskets or whatever, and also, I think that we -- I just want to stress that we could promote a communication effort if we take this approach or even the traditional one.  We -- some members of the Latin American and Caribbean region, we promote webinars during the past years in order to do some outreach about the workshop proposals.  Not all in English but also in Spanish in order to better publicize the information.  So perhaps we could also build on that -- on that effort in order to better communicate the actual process of Thomas, trying to reach more people.  I'd be happy to help with that if that's the case.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Israel. 

 In just a few minutes we're going to -- this is the list that Sorina spoke about earlier.  We'll come back to that in a moment after we take the call on whether or not we're going down this path, which really needs to take quite quickly here. 

 So, Sandra, you have the floor.  Sandra?

 >>SANDRA HOFERICHTER:  Hello. Madam Chair, can you hear me?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yes, we can hear you now.  Thank you.

 >>SANDRA HOFERICHTER:  I'm sorry.  There's always a delay of getting unmuted and you giving me the floor.  So this makes it difficult.

 I have to apologize that I am again raising some objections. But what I hear at the moment from this really interesting discussion is that you're going to do both approaches.  The traditional way of electing and selecting workshops.  And, on the other hand, trying out how far the MAG and IGF could go with this call for issue as it is conducted at the EuroDIG and the MAG IGF and also the SEEDIG.

 I would raise my concerns because I think, from my experience, it is difficult enough to explain how the calls for proposals work and how you actually merge and cluster all these things. 

 The process itself is quite clear and not difficult.  And it's also not very time consuming.  Because I heard that's a concern about some MAG members.  But, to explain how this process works, explain it to the submitters and to the people who want to participate in the IGF, this is going to be a little bit of a challenge.

 And what I see here is, if you follow both approaches, first of all, the MAG has to manage both approaches -- the traditional way of looking at our workshops plus the clustering and merging work of what comes in via the call for issues. 

 Secondly, at some point you have to somehow bring these two processes together.  And I think that even makes it more difficult because on which points you say okay, to what extent the results from the call for proposals are relevant also to what we select as a workshop.  And, thirdly, I think it's really going to be hard to communicate to the community please first submit something via an open call for issues, something.  And this is just for us to get some more ideas.  But, if you actually want to have a workshop or if you want to participate in a main session, you have to go through a traditional way. 

 I think at the end this will only more confuse the people.  So what I would propose that I know this will probably not be or will not get a majority in this MAG. 

 But I would propose separating the two things.  Handle the plenaries or the main session in the traditional way and open up all the workshops for this new approach selecting input via the call for issues and then merge into incoming things.  Because otherwise, from my experience, it was hard enough at EuroDIG to get this process explained. Meanwhile, our community understood it.  But I really think doing both approaches is ending up in a very, very big confusion.  And I would actually not recommend to do this.  Thank you very much.  And sorry for being again, very -- or delivering only obstacles here.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  It's okay.  Thank you, Sandra.

 One or two points, just to clarify things.  And I think we'll go through the rest of the folks on the queue first and then ask the members of the working team to come in and comment. 

 By the way, the main sessions go through a process that looks pretty similar to what we're talking about now.  The main sections haven't come through the traditional workshop process.  That is either a deliberation by the MAG or sometimes they're a kind of really soft call for what are the things we should be doing in the main sessions.  And the MAG develops those main sessions.  So one way or another you could say this is developing more of those sorts of sessions or maybe a track around it or something.  But I just wanted to make sure that kind of misunderstanding didn't get continued forward.

 Let me -- if I can just again ask the subtheme members to kind of note the things coming in and let's see if we can go through the rest of the people in the cue and come back and hear from the subtheme members.  And then we need to put the call in front of the group and ask everybody to help me please with respect to the time and work in front of us.  It's not comfortable for anybody, but we just need to keep moving forward as quickly as we can. 

 Makane, you have the floor.

 Yes.  We can, yes.

 We can yes.  But, evidently, you can't hear us. 

 Anja, can you make sure he understands?

 >>MAKANE FAYE:  Okay.  Then I'm speaking -- (indiscernible).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Makane.  It was a terrible connection here.  I could make out some of the words you're saying.  And I gather you're actually reading out the comment that you put in the WebEx earlier, which says that, "For the main" -- not everybody is in the WebEx. 

 "For the main theme and subthemes, they voted for the African IGF last year and involved all the stakeholders. They're going to do the same this year.  For the West African IGF they also voted last year and this year also will involve members of the planning committee in which each country in West Africa is represented by several stakeholder groups.  For the IGF workshops I suggest that we use the same procedures as last year or ask proposers to stick on the main theme and subthemes or use a hybrid method.  We'll have some workshops on the agreed theme and other workshops."  I guess I'm open for emerging topics or something. 

 Thank you, Makane.  I'm sorry the connection was so terrible, but I think the note was really useful.  Thank you. 

 Zeina.

 >>ZEINA BOU HARB:  Thank you, Chair.  I agree with the proposed procedure as long as we -- the MAG team can evaluate the priorities that will be sent by your community.  Each region has different priorities depending on the level of development in each region of the world.  For example, in the Arab countries, we have designed something called the Arab Roadmap for Internet governance. We set seven priorities.  By order of priorities we set seven themes.  For the sake of time, I will send them by email to all the groups.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Zeina.  Julian?

 >>JULIAN CASASBUENAS:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I am Julian Casasbuenas, civil society.  I agree to the proposal presented by Raquel and also on the comments Miguel made regarding the proposals limiting the number of panels. 

 I will recommend also to think about ensure that agenda response to issue that matter to underrepresented groups who often have existing capacity in relation to these areas and can share their knowledge with the IGF community.

 The IETF can focus on building their capacity, integrating IGF more closely into their existing priorities, including, for instance, people with disabilities, people living in rural areas without sufficient infrastructure, people from small island states, and indigenous people. 

 Also taking in the balance -- taking into account the priorities and particularities of different regions while continuing to address global issues and also ensuring that that they're composed with gender balance.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  These are all very important points, Julian.  Thank you. 

 Wisdom.

 >>WISDOM DONKOR:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

 I have one page to read out my case, message.  But then Omar also has some points to make, if I can transfer this to --

 >>OMAR MANSOOR ANSARI:  Thank you so much.  I have problems connecting asking for the floor online. Thank you very much, Wisdom.

 Madam Chair, there are a few issues I'd like to raise.  Number one, proposed issues, you know, when it comes to developing world versus the developed world or countries.

 Sometimes it happens that certain issues are proposed by countries who are not very well-developed are not considered important by the MAG members who possibly are from the developed world.  Because they might think these are issues which are not a priority for those countries.

 But those issues are actually priorities that might be like very basic issues but are a priority for the developing countries. 

 My proposal, while evaluating the workshop proposals by the MAG members, they should consider this matter to see whether the issues important for developing country.  If it's not, for example, if the MAG member is coming from a certain country and it's not an issue of importance in that country, they should consider, you know, the other countries and economies.

 Number 3 is the mix of the two processes traditionally in EuroDIG's proposed processes, I agree with the colleague who spoke online.  It's going to be confusing for both the MAG members as well as proposals if we adopt both. 

 So my suggestion would be we're adopting one process.  So that is not very confusing for -- proposals on the MAG members, the evaluators. 

 Another issue I'd like to discuss is a little bit of a technical problem when it comes to workshop.  There are certain proposals who would have a mix of teams from different regions -- a country in Europe, a country in America, and a country, let's say, in Asia.

 The Asian country is the main proposer.  But they have appointed somebody from Europe to help them him set up their workshop.  If their name appears on the workshop proposal, it automatically depicts that person's country as the proposing country.  So, if in the form, we have a specific question about the proposing country so that, whoever fills the form can fill that country first.  So it's not confused with the people or individuals involved in the team.  Same goes for the stakeholder group.  There should be a specific drop down list of who the proposing stakeholder group is, whether private sector, civil society, or government.  So that's all very clear in the form or the system when they're confused.  The last point I have is with the next location for the next meeting. 

 New York is a little bit -- due to travel complications, especially for some countries, it's going to be a little hard.

 I propose Geneva for the next meeting, if that is given a priority.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Omar.  I'll let the team speak to your first set of comments.  Your second set of comments were issues that we saw last year in the workshop proposal process. And I hope that they are adjusted in the process going forward.  If you can make sure that the MAG has those in front of them, we'll find a way to do it.  The working group is not constituted at the moment.  But we'll need to get a small team there to fix and to continue to evolve the workshop proposal process under any model going forward here. 

 And then we'll come to the location of the next MAG meeting in a few minutes. 

 Sylvia.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Thank you, Madam Chair, Sylvia Cadena with the APNIC community. 

 First, I am very confused about the workload of what the process will actually imply. 

 I appreciate Raquel and others who worked on that proposal.  We can briefly send something to the mailing list so that we can read it through and make sure that we understand the actual flow.  Because I think it has several implications or iterations and changes that might affect how people actually -- how the message is communicated and the process will change. 

 So I support change.  I said that in the beginning of the session yesterday.  But I think we need to understand the implications, especially in how the steps are communicated to the community. 

 The application process is already or was already complicated enough.

 And the issues that Omar mentioned about who is the person that actually summits the form also affects how it all kind of looks like.  And that affects the selection this way. So I think that we need to make a little bit of effort of trying to understand the workflow and how that information will be explained to the community and also to guide us to what is expectation in each one of the steps. 

 I also wanted to endorse the comments that Julian made about the focus of our work with discrimination and include underserved regions that may have -- full representation in particular from the Asia Pacific is a big concern from us.  If we talk about numbers and population, they will never be considered anywhere.

 So I hope that can be considered.

 I also would like to suggest that whatever that workflow looks like, either having the issues on one side and work on the other side or only one of the two, trying to look for what it is compatible or what can be preserved from previous processes in terms of the tags that were used or baskets or something -- something that creates also to build a repository of information in the process of how the IGF evolves.  If everything goes completely disconnected, it is very difficult to search and find information after.  It will be good to have some sort of idea about how that will look like.

 And then, finally, my last point is that, if we go with either/or or both, the issues or the proposals, I think that one element that could guide the deliberations from the MAG also could be to -- I think that was included in some work.  I can't remember exactly which year of IGF.  But given priority, as the proponent to give of the workshop or issue to give themselves, to give priority to what -- or decide what is the priority that they will give to their own issue to see, okay, I think cyber security is one that -- yes, the MAG can deliberate.  But there's also input from the community on how they see those priorities reflected.  Because.  If the priorities are only assigned based on how many proposals are submitted on one issue, to be honest, cyber security will, you know, break the roof, let's say. And I don't think that's broadly indication of all the concerns that I -- so I think that's still there.  Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, those are all very good points, and I think, you know, that's why the human part of this process and the oversight by the MAG to -- to kind of make sure that we can correct or address any of the imbalances we see, other points in the process or outcomes are important.  Rasha, have you the floor.

 >>RASHA ABDULLA: Thank you, Lynn.  I think I do understand what we're talking about.  I think it is confusing, though.  I think we're --

 [ Laughter ]

 I think the process at EuroDIG is aimed at a much smaller number of workshops and therefore the issues forum, the way it is right now, works for them.  I think we need to go back a little bit and think of what -- what is the purpose that we're doing this for for the IGF?  Do we aim to add focus through suggestion -- suggesting a few issues that are of importance to the community or do we want to make the issues as comprehensive as possible, which is what I see, for example, on the digital watch list.  Because that list is very comprehensive.  Any topic would fall under that.  So what is it exactly that we want to do?

 I thought our discussions during the last couple of days meant that we wanted to add more focus and to basically choose a few issues that then we can basically have the community target their workshop proposals towards these issues.  So my suggestion is, if this is the purpose that we want, if we want to add more focus, then my suggestion is we provide a list of issues and we have people just vote on them, just, you know, very quickly, very quantitative kind of thing, and we see where the priorities lie within these issues.  If that's not the point, then how is that any different from just having them do a workshop proposal and then just adding hashtags and then we can work from the hashtags, and then we don't need another stage.  I think we need to go back to the purpose of why we're doing this.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think those are good points.  I think you outlined largely the purpose we're doing this.  I'm going to continue doing a reset a few moments ago and collect all the questions.  I closed the queue after Liesyl and then I wanted Israel and Raquel or whoever else from the subteam to come back and comment on all the comments they've had.  So if we can stay with that for the moment so we can figure out how we're going to go forward, which means, Carlos, you're in the -- in the queue.  And if everybody could just speak directly to the question which is support, not concerns.

 >>CARLOS FONSECA:  Just to express my support and another word concerning those themes or clusters, whatever.  Just to remind that some intergovernmental fora has been working on that for quite a while and particularly I think the G20 has been working on a roadmap with 11 priority areas and it's a very -- very comprehensive but very well organized, and so maybe we could also use this as a contribution.  So I can send further information by email.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Carlos.  I forgot who was next.  Was it Liesyl that was next in the queue?

 >> Rasha.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Rasha's gone.  And then -- and then Carlos went and then -- Liesyl.  You're up, Liesyl.

 >>LIESYL FRANZ: Thank you.  I certainly wasn't going to throw it in there.  But yes, so thank you.  I thought I was understanding this, and now I'm confused again.

 [ Laughter ]

 So let me -- let me try to unpack it a little bit.  I thought that we had come to some general understanding of a -- what I'll call a hybrid process, and maybe this is the way I walked away from the little cluster that we -- discussion that we had just before the lunch break.  Oh, I'm glad Raquel came back in the room so she can help with this.  Which I thought was sort of a -- a mushed process of the regional IGF baskets of issues that would go out as a call for issues to be put forward under that -- that set of categories, the eight baskets categories, clusters that we've been talking about.  And then from that we would divine some way to put out the call for proposals for workshops.  So in a sense it was a hybrid of the two regional IGF processes or -- and that -- but I'm hearing now that that's maybe not the case.  So I'm a little bit confused about -- about what we're actually debating.  So what I'd like to -- as I wonder, am I wrong about that?  Is that what the flow of work to Sylvia's question is?  Is that what the flow of work is and that if so, then do we need to get to that category of eight, that set of eight categories by 6:00 today so that the call for issues can go out on Monday?  Am I following that flow right?  And if so, then I would like to just make a comment that I'm -- I'm a little bit -- I'm not sure I'm on board fully with the basket of issues put forward by Diplo, only because I think they're, as Rasha pointed out, very broad and unless you really explain that these should be focused on Internet issues, Internet governance, Internet public policy issues, then it could -- it could, as Rasha pointed out, become, you know -- it won't focus it at all.  I think the categories that are in the EuroDIG framework and the LAC IGF maybe are a little bit more direct -- helpful in that direction.  But if we are to come to some decision -- if my flow, the way I'm understanding it, is correct, then we probably need to come to that basket of issues.

 I do think that there may be a way to preserve both in another process in using the issues process, as I mentioned earlier, sort of the issue -- basket issue process for the main sessions and use what we have for the existing process for workshop proposals but making sure that they're related somehow.  Whatever process we have, we're still trying to get to a more cohesive program.  And I'm not sure we're there yet. 

 So I guess there's a lot of questions in there.  I apologize for that, but I hope they help get some answers from those that are ruminating this discussion and maybe from you, Lynn, about where we need to get to by -- by 6:00 so we know what we're talking about for the next step.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Actually, just for even more fun, where we need to get to in, say, the next 15 minutes so we can get to the other things we need to get to by 6:00.

 [ Laughter ]

 >> Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I'm going to turn it over, as we said we would, to Raquel and Israel and any of the other working group members to try and kind of respond to the series of questions we have here.  I'm thinking that it might be helpful first to just say again quickly what the steps one, two, three, are to make sure that we understand what they are and then how they might feed.  And then we sort of -- if you could, Raquel.  Thank you.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Yes.  Thank you very much, Lynn.  And I'm sorry to have (indiscernible).  There is still need -- we're hungry and et cetera, so here is coffee for jet lag.  I come from Brazil, so I'm a little jet-lagged these days.  But just to -- before I go into the three steps, I just want to contextualize a little bit what I heard, and I think we are between two options, right?  Remaining with what we had last year, doing the call for workshops and then discussing a separate track within the main sessions and the -- how the MAG is driving that.  But, I mean, we heard that from the community from this stock taking, from the open consultations two days ago, that there is a need for having a better program, a more cohesive program.  And so that's where this new approach -- or it's not even a disruptive approach.  We're following the methodology, but we are just making sure that we put that into a thematic approach.  And now let me go through that.  Just pointing out, I think it's important we have two options.  We can remain as we are, but we are not listening to community inputs and ask for a new program or for a new way to shape the program into a more cohesive approach.  Or we just -- we try to figure out and find a common agreement on moving that forward.

 So what we came out, let me say, and I think the rest of me is understanding, there are three steps that we're going to follow.  One after the other.  They're not, let's say, parallel processes. 

 Step one, we are doing the call for issues.  Step two, we are doing the call for the workshop proposals.  Step three, we are doing the evaluation by the clustering approach, and that's the program shaping that we are seeing.  The call for issues -- and I think we heard also from -- from several opinions, we could do that quickly.  We can agree on the main subthemes as it is the approach, the simplest approach of the EuroDIG and ask the community to say in which of the categories they are in.  And that's for the MAG to decide those broad categories, and we can color that with some of the options.  To give an example, which has nothing to do with any position but the one that we used in the group this -- during the lunch break, we have the subtitle content media content, for example, and then the issue that the people would be, for example, sending inputs in, I want to talk about fake news because this is affecting, I don't know, my country or I want to talk about fake news.  I want to talk about freedom of expression.  I want to talk -- or the BPF on local content would fit into this category.  And that's the cluster we are talking about.  And it would be nice if we can get out of this today with an idea of what these subthemes and those clusters would look like, so we can make the call as soon as possible.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Raquel, just for a moment.  I just want to ask you to clarify something, which I think a couple of questions I heard earlier.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So step one, call for issues.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Yes.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We would do that against some small number, eight categories or so and another line.  When we get those back in, they would, of course, be aggregated and grouped by topic.  I think you had said before that we would actually use those to support maybe some more definition around the actual call for workshop proposals.  Whatever input we get from that call for issues could be used to support main sessions.  I think Israel keeps saying they could also be used to support maybe a more thematic track, if we find, either in terms of sheer interest, the kind of substantiveness of the topic, that sort of thing, that maybe more than just a main session was important, that the MAG has the opportunity -- last year we actually kept some space open for emerging topics and things because it was so much time.  You know, so if they decided that, you know, the -- there was some particular issue or issues that came up and they wanted a couple of -- use an old term "supportive workshops" or something and that also a main session at the MAG would actually have the ability to shape a more thematic, threaded discussion around a particular topic.  So I think some of the questions come when you talk about now we launch the call for workshop proposals.  And we could launch a call for workshop proposals, it would have been informed by the call for issues, what we saw come in for the call for issues.  Are we -- are we then saying that all the rest of the program now is filled by what comes to the workshop proposal but this call for issue process is more a census taking, if you will, across the issues, maybe a main session, maybe a few additional sessions or main session or maybe, you know, it makes a track?  But that would lead people to say that some relatively small number of sessions would be developed out of this issues process with the bulk of them coming through the workshop process.  But the workshop selection process would somehow have this kind of census taking through the issues to help figure out what was the right structure.  I think Jorge put a comment in the chat room that said, "One of the purposes is to focus on the issues that are the most relevant instead of focusing from the very start on specific workshop proposals, which can create a tendency for duplication and possibly excessive ownership in some cases."  So, I mean, I'm just trying to use Liesyl words.  I just pulled it apart a little more to make sure we understand what happens after each one of those processes.  Because one of them -- if we took it to its barest minimum and its simplest, this initial call for issues is a census taking.  What is of interest?  What are the issues?  Help us think about it.  We're going to use that to develop a main session and maybe we'll even use it to develop a couple of other emerging topics or something if we're -- or -- and then we have the workshop proposal process, which I -- you know, I don't -- I guess I'm not seeing where the confusion comes between that first sensing process and the workshop process.  Particularly if we explain that the first one is kind of a sensing kind of activity.  So I -- I think I'm going to leave it there for a moment and see if there's a couple of slides up but just see if there's any other points quickly that Raquel or Israel want to come to from some of the earlier comments we heard and then we'll come back and see where we are with some --

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: I can take a few other comments.  Yes, I think we -- I think it's important to leave some room also to go beyond.  I mean, the proposal from the subthemes coming out of the MAG are those issues as a proposal and it's the sense -- and sensing the community.  I think Lynn put that straightaway.  But just after, also, I mean, when we go out for the call for workshops and we see the sense of -- the number of workshops we're receiving in a particular thematic area will help us shape the agenda and give us the certain time that is needed, right?  And so that's going to -- I believe this is going to be really, really helpful with the stock taking.

 From the other notes that I have here regarding the language issue, I just want to say that coming from Brazil, speaking Portuguese, almost nobody does, it's really important but it's also our effort to outreach that the community -- and Israel mentioned the efforts that we did with translating and helping our regional community to bring that up.  And I would really invite other MAG members to do this effort and outreach.  We could use some translator tools, but I really think that it's our -- our responsibility to move that forward.  And I don't know, Israel, if you were in the room, if you want to take the next ones.  Yeah.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Miguel is trying to get in the queue as well.  It's quite difficult for him being remote though.  You want to go, Israel, and maybe in the background we can get Miguel unmuted so we can do it more seamlessly?

 >>ISRAEL ROSAS: Thank you.  Israel Rosas, for the record.  In fact, I had a conversation with Nacho, a chat.  We are both in the group we are thinking -- we know that we are proposing a new -- a new process for today or -- (indiscernible) to the MAG.  But it has a reason.  We believe, we firmly believe, that the call for issues could lead us to know, to sense the feedback from the community about each specific basket.  I mean, in general terms.  Once we -- once we define or decide or listen to the community about a specific interest in each basket and different issues, we could also be more creative about the activities around each basket.  I mean, we could create tracks, we could create a main session for every basket, or we can -- well, of course, we are going to leave the -- to launch the call for workshops but we will know which basket or which category will have more interest of -- by the community.  And we could be more concrete in the development of the program, taking into account that we have several work from the BPF, from the dynamic coalitions, for analyst.

 And we could try to have, as I said, main sessions and, of course, the community workshops.  And it could be also more tangible for us to know which workshops we could manage among each other and trying to coordinate the effort, taking into account the feelings from community for the call for issues.  It's not just only to go about tasks or specific (indiscernible) -- in particular.  It's not like anything in the interest informant community on the appetite on the specific categories and issues.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Israel. 

 Miguel?

 >>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA:  Can you hear me?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Yes, we can.

 >>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA:  Following what Israel just said, the main objective would be -- the main goal, sorry, for this is to have a sense on what the issues -- what issues are of interest of the community.  And then focus them.  Because in the usual process, we're just waiting and maybe asking for some (indiscernible)

 But every issue has the same weight, and that's not real.  Maybe there's an issue that had really good rated proposals, and they're not coming.  And maybe it's not one of the issues that gets the most interest from the community. 

 So the thing is try to define the weight of each issue and then reflect it on the program. 

 So, if this year's interests, for example, is more on (indiscernible) -- it must have lots of -- and if the interest is in -- I don't know what.  I don't want to mention any issue in particular -- but in light bulbs, we shouldn't be speaking a lot about light bulbs, no matter how many good graded workshop proposals are light bulbs, we shouldn't be giving them more space than needed.  That is, I think, the main goal of this proposal.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Miguel. 

 I'm going to propose something to the floor here.  And we'll come to the people that are in the queue in a moment.  For those here to speak, I'd really like you to speak to, specifically, for reports going ahead.  I'm going to outline what that is in a moment.  Yes or no.  If no, then kind of what your concerns are.  And then we really need to -- after the list of folks that are there is make a decision on how we move forward with this again.  None of us like to be in this position, and I certainly don't like to be here either.  But we need to make decisions. 

 One level at its very simplest, what I understand, even if we did this issue against some set of criteria and all we did was look at it and say, huh, that's really interesting and it informs X, Y, Z, that's already a big step for me in that it is a really substantive polling, if you will, of the community broadly with a low threshold to know what the issues are of interest in them.  And it beats a hallway conversation or a bullet or two lines in an email,

 which, frankly, is, you know, what kind of came into most of our main session discussions in the past. And MAG deliberated among themselves for many sessions.  But that would enrich this piece of the program even if we didn't do any more with it.  Okay.  Fine.  That was helpful.  That's fine. 

 Now we're going to go back to the traditional workshop process. 

 If, in fact, we can use that sensing process up front to better inform the call for workshops, to maybe have some more thoughtful criteria as we determine the call for workshops again, that also is really helpful.  If we say maybe there is some emerging topics here or things we should look on threading a little bit.  Or we look at the workshops and the workshops totally miss something that had a lot of hits and issues, that's something we could try to fix.  And we could try to fix that by creating another workshop or session in some of these kind of emerging topics or spaces.  To me, I think it's just a facility that allows us to shape the program a little more the way we've all said.  Again, even if we do nothing more than use it to influence the main sessions, I think we've still gained a lot. And I don't think we've overly confused the process or constrained it going forward.  I see some heads nodding and some looking more confused. 

 Let me go to the queue here quickly again. 

 I think what we're saying is step one we would put out a call for issues against some list of probably eight categories, which I probably don't think would be a huge exercise, not for today, but a huge exercise to get agreement on.  Myself, I also prefer the EuroDIG ones, because I think they speak more to the community and topics and things.  And we could certainly craft a note that would say to the community we're actually driving the sensing process.  We are searching for ways to further invigorate and shape the program so it's more conducive or something.  And we'll keep you apprised as we develop the process more going forward. 

 At least we have that sensing done.  And I think it could usefully inform the rest of the process.  If we were to continue going to the first, second, and third step, we would do as the team has outlined, of course, is use what we've learned from the issues, submission to influence the call for workshops, both as we send the call out and then as we evaluate them on the back end for whether some reasonable way to kind of shape the program. 

 At one level, I said earlier, I think we can overcomplicate anything.  And I think somehow we're up and down and up and down in details and overcomplicating things.  And I think we actually have the ability to do steps and, frankly, stop after step one if we think we've lost the community or we've lost the MAG and we can't move forward and still have had a useful stand-alone exercise.  I will stop there this time now. 

 And I'm going to go through the queue now and close it after Liesyl and determine where we are. 

 Ji, you have the floor.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I have been on the waiting list for a long time.  Regarding the reduction of number of workshops, I have an impression that this year, last year we have quite a big number of workshops, but it's organized well.  I don't see that much necessity to reduce the number of workshops.  So long as maybe we have room for improvement.  For example, we can avoid arranging parallel meetings. Some of the workshops they have similar or even the same topic.  They've been on to the same category.  People are interested specializing in certain areas.  They would like to cover all these meetings.  We do avoid a parallel arrangement.  We do it in a linear way.  And that would be a big -- you know, a parallel improvement.  And considering the factors of balancing the agenda, geographic things, you know, we do need certain big numbers of workshops. 

 Anyway, this is a global carnival.  And it's not a European meeting.  It's a global meeting.  That's about number.

 About the quality of issues, I still have strong (indiscernible) feeling about it. 

 If we put up hand up for

 ten people, this bus ticket is for eggs.  This one is for vegetables.  Or some things above tomato, you can call it vegetable or it's a fruit.

 And sometimes, you know, some people may have an interesting topic that have little bit of everything.  It makes it into all the cake.

 So I hope that such -- if people doing this are going forward to do this issues, it took -- it's going to be okay if it's just a sense taking or it's just to, you know, just for reference for all the stakeholders, that's okay.  But, if such exercise are intended to set up certain kind of straightjacket type of framework, that will limit the possibility of incoming proposals, I would continue to oppose.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think this actually has quite the opposite in terms of restricting and limiting.  In fact, to encourage people to step up and be clear on what the issue is and not have to go through the hurdle of a full workshop proposal.  I think we're actually addressing a lot of your concerns.  And I think there's no agreement in the room with respect to taking the duplication out of the program.  So -- and I think that's part of what we call the shaping. 

 Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:  Thank you, Chair. My name is Mary Uduma for the record from Nigeria. 

 I will support the 3-steps approach.

 I needed clarification from -- (indiscernible) before and it worked for us.  I'm supporting the views from before and it worked for us.  Will the call be limited within the MAG, or the whole community or the whole world.  Or will it be just limited with the MAG.  Because you have issues -- when you do it to everybody, you have the issue of streamlining.  And that's in the issues out.

 So -- but the good thing is that some of them might be educative work another person has said, so you close that.  And then you come up with one good issue that goes from the session or the substance that would now cover the workshops.

 And I need to clarify, is it limited -- will it be limited to only MAG members or everybody?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  No.  It's everybody.  It's open.

 >>MARY UDUMA:  Open.  Okay.  Now you have over 100 issues.  So what happens?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think, if we've got eight topics or so -- if we had a couple hundred inputs, that's probably good.  I don't imagine we're going to get a lot more than that.  And they're going to be grouped under the eight clusters. 

 The reason I don't is because of the numbers I've heard from the other regional efforts and things.

 It's going to be some number under each one of the eight.  And I think we could actually divide the MAG up and have them look at a couple of those so everybody doesn't have to look at 200 paragraphs.  On the other hand, it's not 200 proposals.  It's 200 paragraphs.  And we can do some preprocessing in the secretarial that would help some of that.  Even Chengetai has not even said yes.  I think he just wants to go home.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>MARY UDUMA:  Okay.  Now, it's clarified that this is from the community.  Anybody can come up with any issue.  And then we streamline.  So there would be two-step evaluations.  The self-evaluation would be the issues.  And then you have the second evaluation when you now call for workshop issues and then workshop proposals.

 I know the issues can be three sentences, four sentences, but can we have all that.  The wherewithal, the time, and resources to do that?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think Israel is asking to come in with a short one.  And Thomas as well directly to that response.  But, if you've actually sat through any discussions trying to realize what the main session theme should be, you realize you are reading 200 paragraphs or 400 paragraphs, there's probably still a faster exercise. 

 You're both asking for quick responses to Mary's question.  So, please.

 >>ISRAEL ROSAS:  Israel Rosas, for the record.  Just quick clarification.  The issue would just be a phrase, not a paragraph.  I mean, like, community network.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thomas, you were next.  And then Raquel, if you need.

 >>THOMAS SCHNEIDER:  Yes.  Thank you.  Just to tell you how EuroDIG did it.  They gave 200 characters for an answer.  So what you get is one liners or two liners.  There were 261 response this year.  So you can easily copy this into one not too long Excel spreadsheet.  Just to give you a few examples of how this looks like. 

 The Issues that people brought up is citizenship, education, policies and practices, digital skills and inclusion, digital education policy to more empowered community, parental awareness to children online protection, digital agency as a necessity on education, 

 These are all things that people put in the basket of access and literacy.  So you see clearly there's quite a number that are very similar.  So it doesn't take you years to go through these.  You just put them into the clusters, compare them.  And see we have about 10 digital skills.  We have five about access in rural areas and so on and so forth. 

 You just need to clearly frame it that this is a temperature sensing, priority finding exercise.  That's one thing.  And the other thing that's been mentioned.  It's also an awareness raising exercise that people know okay.  I can claim or I can ask these issues to be discussed and that may also influence them the later course of the things.  And it allows you -- and that's a fair advantage.  It allows you to see okay.  Where do these proposals come from?  Do they have a problem that they're not enough -- there's not interest from a particular stakeholder or from a particular geographic region.  It gives you also an alert about the distribution of efforts of involvement that you can strengthen outreach in a particular region or with particular stakeholders.  Actually it gives you a lot of information. 

 And, to answer Ji's concern, it doesn't find you in anything.  It just gives you a mirror of okay, what do people want?  And who is maybe missing?  It is really a useful exercise.  It does not take too much time to write 200 characters.  It doesn't take you weeks.  You just need to know that you can do this.  So we need to communicate it, explain it very simply, and say this is what you can do with it.  And this is how the process then will follow.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I haven't even thought of that broader fencing, but that's an interesting one. 

 Michael, you have the floor.  And thank you for being so patient.

 >>MICHAEL ILISHEBO:  Thank you. Good afternoon.  This is Michael from Gambia, stakeholder for the record. 

 I'm trying to find a balance here.  Because I'm looking at the time frame.  So far we've lost a lot of time because normally that meeting takes place at the end of February, but we said the meeting is probably in the middle of March.  So I'm look at time frame where this on a train to adopt. (indiscernible)

 After work of submission of proposals and workshop proposals, are we not going to lose a lot of time if we adopt this three-step system considering that we haven't agreed the venue of the next MAG face-to-face meeting would take place.  And, depending on who hosts the IGF -- suppose the host says, we're ready to host, but it would be in October?  What would happen?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Even in October the schedule would still support October.  It was actually built with a view to, frankly, even if we had to do September.  It would still support October as well.  In any one of the scenarios we might put going forward, it actually has the selection of workshops happening either late June or before the mid-July.  That gives people end of July, August, September.  If it was on the very first week of September or October.

 Thomas, did you have any more comments?  Thomas is out of the queue too. 

 Rasha?

 >>RASHA ABDULLA:  Thank you.  I'd like some clarification. Actually, that makes things a lot better.  I thought a couple of paragraphs would be a nightmare.  And definitely two rounds of evaluation would be a huge nightmare.  I don't think we have time for that.

 My suggestion -- and, again, I'll repose it.  I think we should maybe provide a list of issues and provide an "other" option and provide an optional space for a two-line comment, like some said maybe 200 characters.  And the comment would even be optional.  That would help them give us insight on what the community's salient topics are.  But I think we need to use that because we don't really have space for 8-man sessions.  So we won't be able to dedicate a main session for each category.  But I think that would help us either figure out the less important issues.  And those would be without main sessions or maybe a structure of the program later, if we find a lot of input on one particular topic that would take a bigger proportion of the program, something of the sort.

 We can agree on that later.  But I would propose that we just have people basically voting on issues so that the evaluation of that first poll, as you put it, would be quick and painless.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I'm going to be really clear, no voting on issues.  That gets us into a whole host of problems.  I mean, this has got to be a thoughtful -- and I would also say if we're going to do this sensing exercise, it's not optional, the 200 characters.  You know, otherwise, we're just voting for a big category, but it's not informing us in any sort of sense of the way.  There is a form that was -- that was used for a couple of the different regional ones that have come so it's literally stakeholder group name, organization, country, and 200 characters.  But I just think voting is a dangerous place to go in here for a whole host of reasons.  Liesyl, you have the floor.

 >>LIESYL FRANZ: Thank you, Chair.  I have two points.  One is things that I'd like to see or not see, and the second is an attempt at a proposal for the group that I think tries to capture much of what we're hearing.

 First, one thing that we have heard and I think is driving a lot of this conversation is that more -- more cohesion in the program and more of a connection between the main -- main sessions, or thematic sessions, and the rest of the program into -- in some way, whether it's by category, whether it's by topic of the day.  Honestly, I think there's probably a couple ways to address that.

 The second thing is I -- I don't feel like what we would want out of this process is a set of workshops that are created by the MAG out of the pro -- out of the process that we come to, either through, you know, the regional processes that we're grappling with now and rather have the workshop -- whatever number it is, the workshop be made up by the proposals that come in.  I think there was a little bit of confusion about that earlier today, so I just wanted to clarify that, and Lynn, something that you said subsequently about creating new workshops to address something in the issue area made me also wonder if we hadn't put that to bed.  So those are two sort of desires or principles that I have with regard to the process, with regard to the outcome of the process. 

 With regard to the proposal, I think it -- we -- there is some general consensus, it appears, to have a sensing and guiding of categories and issues that will help inform the program at the end.  That's okay.  That's okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Your last point was --

 >>LIESYL FRANZ: It seems as though there's general -- it seems there's a lot of support for a sensing process, utilizing the categorization and the baskets, however we want to use that as themes.  And I -- and I agree with that.  I think that's useful.  I said earlier, I love the idea of trying to get a call for issues out there.  I was a little bit confused between a basket and an issue, but I think I'm okay now.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So can we just take a moment then before you continue and see?  Is everybody -- that's a statement I've been trying to get to.  Are we supportive of -- my earlier comments of this sensing process, which will inform our -- even if we do nothing more with it than look at it, it will inform what we do in a call for workshop proposals and guide or main session activities and as Thomas said, identify where we're getting no traction, no submissions, no anything, in which case we ought to pick up outreach effort.  At one level that to me is, you know, probably the biggest new piece of this.  Are we okay going forward with that?  Maybe the way to say that is, and I will look for responses from those that are online as well, is there anybody that objects significantly to it?  Okay.  And looking online as well.  Okay.  So sorry.  Thank you, Liesyl.  Please, go on.

 >>LIESYL FRANZ: Okay, great.  So then, that will inform much I think going forward.  It should inform the calls for workshop proposals, so that there's cohesion eventually whatever we do with the information, the mining of the information that Thomas just outlined.  So we would have that -- those -- that information for thematic approach or clustering.  And then using our existing process that we have for the workshop proposals, albeit perhaps with a refined workshop proposal form to capture the categories and the issues that have come in, that would be my proposal.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And I think -- I mean, I've sort of been taking that as kind of a given because I think that is the way we actually get to the rest of the program.  I do want to come back to your one item though.  The main sessions.  Historically we've had discussions in the MAG on what do we think the main sessions ought to be and then we've gone away and developed those programs with a subset of MAG.  I think that happens the same way, informed by the sensing.  But there was one other point as well which is last year we all agreed that we would leave some workshop space for emerging topics because if we choose the -- the program in mid-July and our conference is in December, as many people have said, and Miguel was one of the most adamant, there may be one or two workshops that the MAG actually wants to nurture or support or develop and put into the workshop because it's so topical.  I mean, it is the topical things that will actually pull other people in and bring them in.  So I -- I mean, I think there's still desire in the MAG for an emerging topics slot, and to me it's a small step to say, if we've seen X in the sensing and we think there's a big gap in the workshop proposals that come in, is there room -- and I don't think we need to make this call now -- is there room for the MAG to actually say, you know, one or two more workshops would actually help round out this overall program and align it better with the shaping, with the sensing we did?  I don't think that's anything we need to decide now.  I think we can decide it when we see what the sensing and workshop proposals looks like, but I just want to make sure that to me the answers wasn't no, we just use sensing and it feeds main sessions.  I think the purpose is to make sure that there's, you know, a reasonable shaping and a reasonable alignment between the program that we build through our normal workshop process and what the sensing poll does.  Please.

 >>LIESYL FRANZ: Yeah, Lynn, thanks for bringing that up because I certainly don't want anything in my proposal to be misunderstood as not wanting to capture topical things or things that come up between, you know, July and December or whenever.  Because I think that is one of the values.  I always have thought that's one of the big values of the IGF, even when the pointy end of that spear was perhaps on me or my country.  But the -- the -- so I -- I don't mean to say that that isn't something that we could accommodate.  And I think we should.  I think the wiggle room helps with that program management balancing effort that we've talked about so many times that I think we still want to give ourself that room to do it.  You know, whether it's a main session or a couple of workshops, the only thing I would say is that that also needs to be fed by the community, even if it's -- even if the tray is served up by the MAG, just to follow the food analogy.  But yeah, I think an emerging topic is good, and where it falls we can decide as we go.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Liesyl.  Mary.

 >>MARY UDUMA: Thank you, Chair.  Mary here.  I'm sorry that something I forgot to ask.  Can a submission be made in any of the six U.N. languages because some will say, you know, they want to make their own.  Will we be able to accommodate that?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think Chengetai is saying no.  I don't know if maybe there's room for a community mechanism which might actually -- no, no, no, no.  If there was a -- we're not asking the secretariat to do this in terms of -- but, I mean, to do a community mechanism that might do a translation or -- Thomas.

 >>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Just to very quickly pick up on this, I think we have all of the six U.N. languages represented here in the MAG and if we get a few one or two-liners we should be able to cope with this, I would say.  Shouldn't we? 

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  And I strongly support Thomas?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Are you going to stop it there or are you going to have workshop proposals in --

 >>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: I'll do my best to help with French and Spanish but, of course, there are better people than me in these two languages but I'm willing to translate a few, as well.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  If we can start with the issues, that's good.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Sorry, I --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, it's very difficult.  We had problems translating from Spanish in a governance and we had huge debates, what they mean.

 >>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Can we make the disclaimer that this is the best effort?  Also, you need to translate the baskets, of course, and there may not be exact wordings but, I mean -- inclusivity has a price, and I'm willing to pay my share.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I could actually go along with -- and this is going to sound silly probably -- not translating the baskets in terms of the timing we're talking about here and work for the secretariat, but I could support allowing the context field to have one of the six U.N. languages and the best efforts translation with a lot of clarity around the fact that as Sylvia is saying, this is dangerous because it's basically opening the door.  But as a first pass and with disclaimers.  If there's great discomfort from that in the room, we won't do that.  But again, this isn't six languages, six separate forms for issues.  If you choose to type in in the context box in one of the six U.N. languages, that we would have someone review it.  Are there people -- can I -- a big aye for that or big nay for that.  And in the chat room as well, put aye!  Okay.  Well, we're all running out of steam here, but I tell you what, it's a heck of a lot more painful to this online and over a virtual call.  So if we can just, another maybe 15 minutes, if we can get continued support from ITU for all of this infrastructure and the transcription, that would be really helpful.  I'll take that off of the secretariat then and get back, but people have any strong points on that issue, send them in.

 So could we put the timetable back up quickly?  The one thing -- and again, I want to see if we can close on one or two other things while we're all here because those who have done this before you know when we leave this room, it takes another week to get everybody's attention and then you don't get everybody's attention and you end up closing on things that are important to people without the level of participation you'd like.  So if we can stay with it for just a few more minutes, that would be great.  What's showing up here is the proposed timetable that now has an extra step.  Let's split out the two steps.  So it has the open call inviting suggestions for issues.  Both of those assume that that open call goes out Monday.  I don't even know if we need to leave three or four weeks for the open call.  If, in fact, it would buy us something more in the schedule.  What I would propose we do with this is make sure that people understand the steps here and are kind of roughly comfortable with it, and then I think we just need to back into when is our next meeting so that we can secure appropriate premises.  You know, if we -- if we choose to -- the call goes out Monday.  If we leave it open for two and a half weeks, three weeks or four weeks, it affects some of the other stages, but I think those are not all that consequential, given the time frames we have for all of them subsequently.  I think the ones that really pinch a little bit are the ones at the back-end when we're talking about when we're going to hold our meeting and when the MAG would have to actually evaluate the workshop proposals that come in.  And those two dates would be -- in the first one, the workshop evaluation, that's probably the most significant piece of work the MAG has in front of them.  And the first block happens from 21st of May to the 8th of June, so basically last week and a half of May, first week of June.  And in the second one, it's 4 through 22 June.  The difficulty, of course, for that second schedule and later one is it starts to flirt with July, which is important to some people.  I'm totally agnostic about all holidays, by the way, so this is not -- not me.  I assume there are rooms available for both of those sets of days with respect to the MAG, right?

 >> (off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And are we -- which one of these, does one of these actually align us with the HLPF?  The second one?  So the -- when is the HLPF?  I don't want to pull my calendar up.  Okay.  So it actually overlaps with it.  So I think the -- I mean, is there -- everybody individually needs to look at the dates in the middle of each one of those timelines, right?  I mean, the call is launched on Monday, it's -- unless there's something wrong with the middle of the dates on the first block, I don't know why we wouldn't give ourselves a little more time and go to the second block.  That means, however, that obviously the bulk of the work for the MAG in terms of workshop evaluation happens the first three weeks of June and it means that the MAG would be reviewing the analysis that's come forward out of the secretariat review from the (indiscernible) to the 11 July, and the MAG meeting would be held 9 to 11 July and the choice there is either in Geneva or it's in New York in parallel with the HLPF.  We can but then everybody needs to commit to doing that because otherwise we end up making a decision and we get nine responses in the doodle poll, which is even less fair.  Maybe -- so let's do a hybrid then, a feel of the room.  And I mean that the online room as well.  So we have that and if we feel strongly that we need to go to a doodle poll we can.  And I think the question is just, who would support the timeline around the first block?  One, two, and I am looking online, if any of the MAG members want to put in the aye or nay there.  So that was two.  And then -- okay, so that was one more for the first block.  Now if we go to the second block.  That's pretty -- certainly overwhelming here in the room.  I mean, by quick count there was probably, I don't know, 15 or 20.  And then we're -- Renata was on the second scenario as well, and Natasa was the first scenario.  Any -- just one second, if I can, Ji.  I'll come back.  Any sensing of New York versus Geneva?

 >> Lynn, before you move on on the -- sorry, I think Renata also wants to say a word, but I was saying there are those that doesn't mind, either June or July.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay.  Well, let me just see.  There are a couple hands up in the room.  Arnold and then Ji.  Arnold.

 >>ARNOLD van RHIJN: Thank you, Chair.  I have a strong preference for scenario 1 to have the second physical MAG meeting as early as possible.  I heard some members who said well, if we have to go to New York, it will require difficult not for financial -- perhaps for financial reasons but also for other reasons.  Personally, it's -- will be the third time for me that I cannot exercise my voting rights to select the workshops, final workshops when it is held in the beginning of July since I'm not available at that time.  I cannot participate remotely, so it will be a very disappointed if I cannot be part of that process.  So strongly I would like to have the second scenario to meet and the 22 -- 22nd of June, if possible.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Arnold.  Ji, and then Michael, and then we'll move on quickly.  Quickly, everybody.

 >>JI HAOJUN: You are saying that we will have our meeting, the second MAG open consultation, New York?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, that was a -- just a question to the room, is there a preference to Geneva versus New York.  There was a suggestion made that we could hold it in New York alongside the high-level political forum which would allow people to participate in both.

 >>JI HAOJUN: Although I will be absent anyway, but I think most colleagues would choose the meeting to be in Geneva.  And it saves money and it's more convenient for most colleagues.  And regards --

 Strongly, I'd like the second scenario to meet in the 22nd of June, if possible.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Arnold.  Ji and then Michael.  And then we'll move on quickly.  Quickly, everybody.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  You're saying that we will have our meeting on the second MAG open consultation in Europe.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  No.  That was just a question to the room.  Is there a preference to Geneva versus New York?  There was a suggestion made that we could hold it in New York alongside the high-level political forum which that would allow people to participate in both.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  Although I will be absent anyway, but I think most colleagues would choose the meeting to be in Geneva.

 And it saves money and is more convenient for most colleagues.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  All right. Thanks.

 >>JI HAOJUN:  And regarding -- thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I started to ask and a bunch of hands went up which I assume the hands were to week 1, week 2 as blocks.  So that's the question that's in front of everybody now.  Are there people in the room --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Sorry.  We also have to take into context, I think the ICANN meeting is in June.  So we have to take that into account.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay, so that's another input that we'd actually say the first block is not convenient for a significant portion.  I only want comments now on block 1 versus block 2.  Not location.  So Michael, you've your flag up for a bit.

 >>MICHAEL ILISHEBO:  I'm supporting the first block because basically to those who attend ICANN, I feel it is much easier to fly from New York to Panama than you go back home, then a week later you fly back to Panama.  In my case -- yeah.

 In my case I have to get permission from which to come here.  So it would be a little bit difficult if you go to New York or Geneva, day after you go back home, again you fly out.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  But for the high-level -- keep forgetting the last two things.  The political forum.  So in June we might as well have it here in Geneva because the high-level political forum is only happening in July.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So let me just -- with what Chengetai just said then, ask, again, for another reading on would people support block 1 with meeting here in Geneva?

 >> Are you asking for opinion or voting?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I'm -- we're trying to get a sense of the room so we don't have to rely on a doodle poll which history will show us 9, 10, 11 people will respond out of 55, and that is not a better way to process this, as painful as this is.  So yes, now is there -- I'm trying to gauge again what level of support there is for option 1 based on what we just talked about.  Okay.  Omar, quickly.

 >>OMAR MANSOOR ANSARI:  Option 1.  Meeting in June.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Okay.  For those of you that are online, we have to leave the room here.  Apparently it's booked and coming in.  This is a difficult way to leave the call here.  So let me say that -- one quick -- Chengetai is asking us to do one more quick poll.  What level of support is there for block 1 meeting dates with the meeting being held here in Geneva?  Option 1.  So in the room here there's five.  And I'm guessing there's one more in the online queue here.

 For the first one.  Okay.

 >> Madam Chair, I think there isn't still -- Madam Chair, the group is not yet clear.  I think everybody would need to check schedules, you know, other meetings and all.   You know, it's kind of going to take a little time.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I appreciate that.  On the other hand, that was the reason the schedule was sent out a week ago.  The reason I mentioned every single day of this meeting that this was a decision we had to take at the end of the meeting here.  We need to leave.  I will record, for purpose of our meeting here, that there were six people in the room plus Helani who were supportive of option 1 and one online.  I'm assuming everybody else is still where they were before with respect to option 2.  But we're obviously going to have to -- we're obviously going to have to look at the availability of rooms, which is still a question from Chengetai.  We'll look at availability of rooms and then get back to everybody here.

 >> I think we don't need a Doodle because we only have two options and it wouldn't --

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much, everybody.  Have a good trip back.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  We will -- apologies to everybody.  Could I please thank everybody here in the room for -- with this process.  Write your local member states and insure we actually get the MAG earlier next year.  That would make this process a hell of a lot saner.  We will follow up.  We weren't able to close.  And I want to thank the transcriptionists and ITU for their support here.  Thank you.

 [ Applause ]