IGF 2019 Second Open Consultations and MAG Meeting Day 3 Morning

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.  Veni.

 [ Laughter ]

 Well, good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Thank you for sticking through.  This is the third day of our meetings, second day of the MAG meeting.  As you know, we had the open consultations yesterday.  The first day of the MAG meeting on Tuesday.  So this is the second day of the MAG meeting.

 We did send out a revised agenda yesterday, and I hope all of you received it.  And, of course, it's also being displayed on the screen.  And with that -- and we are still using the speaking queue, so please log on.  And if you want to make an intervention, please use the speaking queue.

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

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  Good morning, everybody.  Thank you for coming back and coming back so promptly as well.  We do have quite a bit to get through today.

 The first thing I want to do is put the agenda up and have everybody look through it and talk through what we actually think we are going to get through today before I call for approval of it.  Because as Chengetai said, it was posted last night.  It's pretty straightforward.  After a few opening remarks, we will actually move to a session which actually looks at a strategic discussion on what we want to get from the IGF 2019 program.  So I think we should start by reviewing some of the assumptions, such as a cohesive program, three tracks, et cetera.  I'm just taking those as a given because some of them have been in place for a few years, including a robust MAG process at the early part of the year that supported that.

 And then we would ask -- so this is a heads-up for those of you that were very deeply engaged in the narrative descriptions, I think it would be helpful if we actually pulled the narrative descriptions up, ask people from those ad hoc working groups to talk to them because they were fairly, I guess, descriptive or definitive in terms of what they were hoping to get out of these tracks.  And I think we need to make sure we understand that, we're on board with that, and that our processes as we work through the workshop evaluation process is going to support that.  That may mean we need to add some additional steps or think about that a bit differently.  We will start there.

 And then I think if we get some clarity on what we want to do with those three tracks with those narratives, I think the discussions around the main sessions and what's in place and what we might do with high-level, et cetera, will fall out more naturally.

 So that would be the session we would come to immediately after lunch.  I think we have a good amount of time slotted for that, an hour and a half or so.

 Daniela is going to kind of share some thoughts having listened to the discussion over the last couple days on the meeting titles and themes, see if we can close on that today.

 And in the last sort of 45 minutes or an hour, we were just asking the secretariat to give us kind of a brief on the state of the preparations.  That may take even less time than that.  I think you are probably all aware that we extended the deadline from tomorrow until Sunday, 2359 UTC to be exact.  There is always confusion about what time zone we meant to close it in.  Was somebody in before or after?  The secretariat started to be quite concrete with that.

 So that's kind of the work we would like to get through today.  Are there any suggestions, AO business -- AOB, any other points of clarity before I call for approval of the agenda?

 Not seeing any, I will call for approval of the agenda then.

 Again, wait a few moments for people participating online to get in the queue here.  

 Not seeing any objections, we will call the agenda approved.  The first item are just some brief opening statements from myself, host country co-chair, and Deniz from DESA.

 The first thing I actually want to do is to thank Jovan yesterday for his time with us and his presentation on the U.N.  They have been very, very generous, I think, with respect to addressing the IGF.  In fact, first thing in the morning the day after the -- he goes with us for a full hour.  We have had their engagement at every successive MAG meeting since them.  I really appreciate them.  And I think it's a good recognition of the importance of the IGF but also what they can learn and take away.  So I really want to thank and formally kind of recognize both formally both Ambassador Gill, Jovan, and their team.  I think they have been very generous with their time and supportive.  So appreciate it.

 So coming now to -- I will wait and do this because I gave you all the heads-up for the narratives and the ad hoc working groups.  (Audio difficulty)

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP:  It was very helpful to have the High-Level Panel.  I think we all have to reflect a little bit on those outcomes.  It should be a point of our agenda next time in June in Berlin.

 Based on my notes when I did them last night, the impression was there was a lot of support for more focus in the program and a lot of support for the three themes.  So thanks again also for those who worked on the narratives.  I think they're really very well done.  

 As Lynn said, I think we should stick to that.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Daniela.  We should also recognize, I think, the German government's effort to work with us in terms of some kind of the desired areas of improvement while being flexible and creative at the same time and very much trying to reach out to other communities such as various senior policy makers as well as the private sector as well.  So appreciate it.  I think we have an excellent, excellent partner.

 Deniz, is there anything you would like to say?

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:  Good morning, everyone.  There is one thing that I can update the group about the MAG renewal.  We have gotten some kind of indication from Undersecretary-General to start the MAG renewal latest 1st of May, published a call for MAG renewal 1st of May, and keep the call open for eight weeks until the end of June.  So that's an update from my side.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Deniz.  Very much appreciate doing that.  

 Any time I speak to someone in DESA or the USG's office when they say "what can we do to help," I say the first thing you can do is the timely appointment of the MAG and the MAG chair.  That's how this work gets done.  It's really critically important.  It's hard to emphasize how important that is.  So really appreciate that.  It seems to have been fully taken on board.

 Over the last few days, we've covered quite a number of areas, some quite concrete, some more open and brainstorming, which was the whole purpose of this session, was to see if we could get some fresh ideas, any sort of reframing of that sort of thing.  So I think all those discussions will serve our discussion here today very, very well.

 What we previously said and agreed, and, of course, was based on very clear and strong signal -- some for several years -- on areas needing improvement was that we were going to work on building a more cohesive, focused program.  Last year the MAG actually agreed to reduce the number of parallel sessions.  In fact, we didn't do that because we had a reduced IGF.  In fact, we had three days, not four days, and we didn't have a day zero.  So we thought that was too big a drop in terms of workshops and sessions in total.

 This year I assume we're still committed to the same thing because it's still a strong request.  So that would mean we are working on building a more cohesive, focused program, reducing the number of parallel sessions.  And in line with both of those, we move to three tracks.  

 And we developed narratives.  Those narratives were intended to help the community and us focus on making concrete advancement in a small number, very important, very consequential topics and improving the outputs from these tracks.

 And I think if we were -- when we stay with that strong focus, I think that actually provides a really good vehicle for outreach to other activities as well because we have a short, concise story we can tell people.  And we should be able to start reaching out to other groups.  We had a meeting the other morning with the vice chair from the European regulators, who was very interested in working with the IGF and look to see if there's something we might structure or do or pull them in.

 So, you know, I would encourage all of us as we're going through the narratives here in a few moments to think about what are the other groups or the other players or the other actors we can reach out to.  Again, they ought to recall the Secretary-General's words that we need to increase the outreach both in terms of kind of disciplines, multidisciplinary.  Again, his examples were anthropologists, social scientists, and philosophers.  And also the U.N. and its continuing focus, and it's been our focus since day one, in terms of reaching out to those people that aren't connected, so developing countries, the South, marginalized communities et cetera.  That's always been a focus of everything we have done, and I think we need to keep that front and center as well.

 What I would suggest in looking for comments from the MAG is that we start with individual views of each of the three narratives so that we ask for volunteers from -- presumably from those ad hoc working groups to speak through that narrative, open it up for questions to the MAG in terms of what was the group thinking, what were they expecting in terms of the output from that.  

 We need to all be on board with that.  We all need to understand it because that has to be central and top of our minds when we actually go through our workshop reviews.  I think that's all I would say that.  

 Again, next step is individual reviews of each one of the narratives of the three tracks.  And the goal is to ensure that we all understand what the ad hoc working group was looking for, that we all support that, that we're all clear on what that means, we need to keep in mind when we go through the reviews.  

 And I think as a secondary discussion, does that mean we need to add a step to our workshop review process or a secondary review when we look at what has come through each one of those tracks or what.  

 I'm really looking to a couple of the individuals that are still here with respect to the working group on workshop evaluation and prep because there might be a piece of additional brainstorming work that we actually need from that group.

 So it's open for the floor now.  Are there any suggestions, comments, alternative views of how we should approach the next section -- session?

 Just trying to give everybody a moment to think about it.  And then in a minute, I'll ask if we're ready to proceed along those lines.

 So I see some heads nodding yes in the room, with apologies to those participating online because obviously can't see heads nodding.  But I don't see anything in the chatroom that would indicate a different view.  So then with that, I guess the next step is to ask who is going to be the first volunteer to walk through one of the narratives.  

 People know where to find the narratives?  You can go to the workshop submission process and there are direct links to each one of them there.  That would be great.  Luis is actually going to put them up here on the screen.

 A volunteer to go first, or do we just start first with whoever is listed on the website?  

 Paul, you actually had your hand up first.  And if I remember correctly, you actually triggered this last time, too, so it seems right.  Thank you, Paul.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  I think they (indiscernible).

 [ Laughter ]

 I'm assuming that everybody has read through anyway.  I'm guessing everyone has a fundamental understanding of what was captured under digital inclusion.  I think what's important is that when you read through digital inclusion, you realize how it touches on so many of the SDGs.  I think it's really cross-cutting and really addresses a lot of the Internet governance challenges.  

 I don't think we really want to read through it here.  Do we?  Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  If anything, it will give time for people to really absorb and think through it.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY:  Okay.  What we captured -- (echoing).  There's an echo.

 Okay.  So digital inclusion is term that encompasses a broad sector of key Internet governance issues.  IGF 2019 digital inclusion track aims to provide a framework for assessing and considering the various elements and policies which can improve access to equitable opportunities in the digital age.  Digital inclusion is about both identifying those with less or no access to the Internet, (e.g., underserved communities, marginalized communities, the minorities, people with disabilities, or people lacking digital literacy) and it is about activities related to the achievement of an inclusive information society.  

 Inclusion also means bringing everybody to the discussion table and ensuring everyone's voice is heard and treated equally in the decision-making process.  Digital inclusion is about having the right access, skills, motivation, and trust and confidence to go online.  Furthermore, fostering digital inclusion contributes to a stronger economy and enhanced economic development through the shared wealth, shared employment, and equal opportunity for all.  Yeah, that's our synopsis.

 As I mentioned, what I find interesting is when you start looking at attaching it to issues and the issues we picked up is access, accessibility, affordability, infrastructure, Internet security, digital literacy, digital divide, outreach, poverty eradication, economic development, emerging technologies, social inclusion, multilingual, meaningful connectivity, design for inclusion, and community networks.  We aligned it with the sustainable development goals 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 16.  

 And what it shows is without digital inclusion, we're not going to achieve the sustainable development goals.  We're not going to create an equal society, equal global society.  So, yeah, I'll put it to the floor.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you very much, Paul.

 So what I think we need to really get clear on here -- and the description, for instance, says "aims to provide a framework."  

 I think the metalevel question is given we're hosting this event with people from across the world, online and offline, and we all believe inclusion is -- inclusion is critically important.  It's one of the key themes we put.  What do we want to walk away from those four days with?  

 In the past, I think it's been sort of a collection of discussions on all these topics.  There's absolutely intent in every one of those discussions.  Sometimes it's about sharing information and exchanges and sometimes it's about advancing a program or sharing.  There is intent in every one of them.  But the one thing we keep hearing is that people are looking from more for this community.

 If we're serious about that, having spent four days talking about inclusion, what are the outputs?  What are we actually looking to impact or to effect?  Are we serious about providing a framework for some of these things?  Again, I'm trying to be a little provocative here, not much actually, I think in terms of some very clear signals we're getting about what's expected.  Helani, Helani, you have the floor.  And Helani is online.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA: Hello, can you hear me?  Hello?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Very faint.  Let's just give them one more -- we can't hear you very well here in the room.  The scribes -- excellent.  So we can revert to reading the transcription.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA: Okay.  I am also typing, if somebody can put this on the transcript. 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Perhaps they can just post it.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA: I was going to say, Chair, that we do need, at least, to walk away obviously with some of the questions that are here but also really understand what inclusion means.  It's -- I don't think everyone is talking about the same thing when we talk about inclusion.  Is it simply getting people to open up a computer?  Is it simply getting people to use Facebook?  Are we talking about more economic, emotionally meaningful connectivity that improves lives and makes people happier?  And I think that's a moving target over time, and we do need to recognize the changing nature of what inclusion means.  Is it a human rights, respecting freedom of expression, enabling type of inclusion?  Or what is it?  Is it just counting people who have ever used the Internet?  It's really also something policymakers, I think, would like to understand, certainly in the countries we work in.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Helani.  I think that's a very good point, and I think that echos Paul's point as well when he was pointing out the good variety and the tag (audio difficulties).

 We know this is hard and it is absolutely going to be a struggle, but if we -- I think we need to lean into it, as they used to say at digital equipment, and really figure out if we can identify a small number of areas that we think we can have a significant impact on through that annual meeting.  It's not the only thing the IGF ecosystem does all year.  We have NRIs and DCs and best practice forums and a host of other meetings that we all engage in.  So the annual meeting is not (indiscernible) the IGF is not (indiscernible) a significant mark of what we all do.  And that we all come together as a community once a year in that meeting to try and concretely advance issues.  And we can't advance every issue, and we've already admitted that.  We've already said we need to be more cohesive and more focused.  When the MAG goes away to evaluate their workshops, are they evaluating each one of them individually on the quality of each workshop, or are we actually trying to work toward some threaded discussion or threaded set of discussions with an objective on aim at the end?  Daniela?

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP: Thank you.  I think what is really helpful, the illustrative policy questions that are coming after the narrative.  I think they are really well designed and further cover a lot of (indiscernible) but in a very concrete manner.  For example, (indiscernible), what considered.  Or the second one, education, what do we want to have as educational measures.  Or, for example, very concrete questions on what tools could be developed to promote better Internet access.  So I think maybe we should also have in mind those questions when we are evaluating the workshops.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Daniela.  I'll go to Maria in a moment since we're illustrative and not necessarily directional.  And, I mean, it's a very good point actually that you just reminded us that (indiscernible), through the policy questions they're submitting.  That's why we see a very, very key piece of what our community thinks is important, the most (indiscernible) issues as well.  

 So maybe we need to think about this more kind of intent, what is the MAG's intent when they actually (indiscernible) small number of policy areas within each one of these and then what does that mean for our reviews and our process.  Maria, you have the floor.

 >>MARIA CANALES:  Thank you, Lynn.  (audio difficulties) what was mentioned there is that today (indiscernible) on how like traditional operational services go to the digital.  And that means here like to have more inclusive (audio difficulties) reach of people that before was not able to connect to this kind of services or (audio difficulties) being left behind because they're (audio difficulties) that we should look.  Maybe we need to handle this impact and exercise of social, economic, and cultural rights.  And in that sense like see how this input can interconnect with the work that Helani was mentioning yesterday.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Maria.  That's a very good and very helpful comment.  And maybe one of the additional processing steps we need is once we have the workshops in and the team of reviewers -- and again, it's going to be the same team, diverse team that's going to be reviewing all of the submissions under that particular track -- an opportunity for a conference call afterwards to try and sort of assess whether or not coming out of those submissions and the policy questions you can move it up to one or two metalevel questions and that that might actually suggest a structure for the few days?  You know, we're under inclusion.  This example, we see these, you know, two major categories of questions and we're going to -- maybe that's where we have an introductory session or, you know, the topping and tailing of these tracks.  We actually have one session which kind of does an introduction into that "higher" level meta question over the theme and then the workshops are structured underneath that and then we come back at the end and try and kind of draw conclusions or outcomes or, you know, directions or something from them.  Versus our (indiscernible) has been on workshops and they're all graded, everybody does it independently, they come back, they're all aggregated and we look at the top, you know -- if we -- just by way of reference, if we can take 80 workshops, you know, assume that the top 60 that scored highest are in and then we kind of need to address any kind of gaps or (audio difficulties).  

 What I think (indiscernible) look at here is a different process that actually looks at the workshops that have come in, looks at the policy questions, tries to assess where the community (audio difficulties) interest or concerns are, and that we drive a couple of metalevel sessions or policy questions around that, possibly with some topping and tailing of them so that we actually introduce them and then have a process to pull them back in terms of some -- some conclusions.

 Mary.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA:  Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  For me, inclusion, I would also be looking at -- or looking for the voices of those that you want to include.  In the workshop proposal, do we have people from the grassroots that would tell us exactly what they want?  So that should be one of the things we are looking our for.  We should include those that would tell us this is what I want and this is the type of gap that is -- this is for the community.  And anything that will bring that back and close the gap, that's what we want.  So that's the type of inclusion I would want also to be looking at.  Thank you.

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

 >>ANANDA RAJ KHANAL:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  The Economist Intelligence Unit in February has come up with what's known as the Inclusive Internet Index in February this year.  So it determines four domains of Internet inclusion or digital inclusion that we're talking about.

 The first is availability, which measures the quality and breadth of relevant infrastructure required for access and levels of Internet users.  

 The second one is affordability.  Talks about cost of access related to income and the level of competition in the Internet marketplace.

 Third one is relevance which measures the existence and extent of local language content and relevant content.

 The fourth one is readiness which is a measure of capacity to access the Internet, including schemes, cultural acceptance, and supporting policy.

 So I think this is a global survey made by the Economist Intelligence Unit.  And the policy questions that Daniela was talking about should revolve around these four domains which captures more or less the issues that we are dealing with digital inclusion.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ananda.  That obviously sounds like a good resource.  

 Putting both your comments and Mary's together, I mean, it sort of strikes me -- again, we have a little bit more time in the extended process this year.  That if we actually have the workshops chosen by the end of -- by the middle of June, if we had aggregated them up to a small number of higher-level policy issues, it gives us two options.  It allows us to bring people in if we're going to do an introductory session -- somebody from The Economist or somebody from any one of the other disciplines that we say we want to reach out to, with a specific -- a high-level invite and that we're asking them to be part of a kick-off session for this particular track or theme.

 It also might allow us to actually run some online surveys or some other processes with the community between mid June and October/November.  So to Mary's point, we can actually reach out more broadly than those people that come to you with some specific inputs or some specific requests.  

 So I think, you know, again, I think we found it hard to get broad participation and policymakers and private sector people in when we say, here's a workshop.  You look at the workshop and there's 11 different tracks.  It's hard to get a feeling for people from outside about why they should come and participate and what's of value.

 But if we actually are able to say here's a metalevel policy question we're going to address, we want a kickoff session that's going to open it up, we have got some other workshops underneath, here's where they are.  We can do a community survey before.  We can tail it at the end.  We can get some high-level people in to kick it off, that's a lot of fresh blood, hopefully fresh thinking, some creativity and meets the other objectives we have so often stated.  Again, this is not a lot of planning on my part.  I'm trying to piece together things I have been hearing and threads that have come together over the last couple of days.

 What I really hope we don't do is leave here having evaluated a whole bunch of workshops on an individual basis and the program looks and feels just like it did last year.  Because if so, I think we haven't listened to the community who says they are looking for something different.  By "the community," I don't mean the 2,000 people, the 3,000 people that participate regularly, all of us, these old home weeks.  It's everybody else we're supposed to be doing this for.  

 If we're really serious about reaching out and engaging and helping the world deal with a lot of these problems, we need to find a way to kick up our game, pick up our game here.  And I am open to any and all suggestions and would love to hear lots of other voices.  

 With that, I will go to Susan Chalmers who is in the queue.  Susan, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair. 

 I would just like to ask a clarifying question.  It seems what it being proposed is that we receive all the workshops, they're evaluated per theme, and then we develop each theme -- for each theme a few policy questions, metalevel questions.  And then from that, we develop an outcome that drives -- that responds or reacts to these metalevel policy questions.

 If that is the proposal, I agree that would be a more structured approach and it would build upon the work that we've already undertaken to drive a more focused program.  

 So I guess my question is, is that what we're discussing right now?  And if so, then the only thing from a process point of view that I would mention is that it kind of presumes that all of -- each MAG member -- sorry, for each theme we will have the same group of MAG members reviewing a theme.

 So if you split the MAG into (audio difficulties) -- one part reviewing inclusion, one part reviewing security, one part reviewing data governance, that presumes we'll all receive an equal number of proposals per theme.  It could be that you receive 80 proposals on digital inclusion and 20 proposals on security.

 So I think to have a holistic view of any one theme and to develop these metaquestions as proposed would require the same group of MAG members to review the same theme.

 So I guess I just wanted to ask for clarity on what we're trying to achieve, I guess.  And then if -- once we have that, then we can discuss how that -- the process might fulfill that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, and let me answer your one or two specific questions.  And then I will go to Helani.  

 I do think that outlines generally what we're trying to achieve.  There may be some specifics in the process we need to look at.  I'm not so much -- I wasn't thinking about equal number of because I don't suspect we'll get equal, but they need to be manageable.  

 Back when I was a MAG member I had to review 200-odd proposals.  That's what every MAG member (indiscernible) MAG member was reviewing every proposal that came in.  So if we expect we're going to have between 300 and 400 (indiscernible) distributions since every one of those tracks are of high interest to a great part of the community, I don't think it's going to be 80%, 10%, 10%.  So I think what it needs to be is that it needs to be manageable by track.  And maybe if one of them is really oversubscribed -- oversubscribed.  If one of them has a very, very, very, large number of proposals, perhaps we could even ask the secretariat to split them further apart by the tag given that (audio difficulties) groups under security (audio difficulties) to look at them because there's a great deal of proposals on tag A and another large number of proposals that are on tag B.  I think we can manage it so that it's manageable and still gets the same group of people reviewing the same theme, or if we have (audio difficulties) suggestion was that we look -- evaluate those proposals, and if we're going to have policy questions, it should have been submitted with every one of the proposals.  And, in fact, if they don't have policy questions, they will probably get quite a low score.  

 So we will have a good indication from the community what policy questions (audio difficulties) questions are in front of them and what they're concerned about.  And in my mind, it's more of an aggregate and a grouping and then I think the MAG can say well, sort of what the community is thinking.  

 You know, I would suggest there are some other documents we can go away and read and keep in mind.  I think the Sec-Gen's tech strategy is one of them.  You can (indiscernible) almost any one of his speeches and certainly his entry speech when he came in.  (Audio difficulties) have our own communities that we know what their interests are, and I think use that as well to kind of shape a high-level meta question.  Not moving away from the workshop proposals and the policy questions.  We're really trying to take (audio difficulties) really compelling as a topic that's actually going to (indiscernible) discussion and hopefully deliver something, you know, quite concrete.  Again, there was some discussions yesterday which said, you know, we pass reports on and they're kind of interesting but it's hard to say, you know, this is something you should really consider and go away and somehow that it's almost like it's interesting reading as opposed to something which is useful on a more a constructive way.  I think we need to make that little push.  Just me.  Helani.  Helani, you have the floor, and Helani is online.

 >>HELANI GALPAYA: Chair, for the record, Helani Galpaya.  Just a small thought listening to what Maria was saying about connecting with the high-level panel on the access team and what you were calling for which is how do we reach the people who don't come to the IGF and bring in those philosophers and, you know, everyone that was talked about yesterday.  If we have these three concrete themes and if we have a nice output document per theme at the end of the IGF, through whatever mechanism, stating, you know, the viewpoints, frameworks, or any kind of policy recommendations that were -- have been synthesized and so we also proactively send this as the MAG or as the Internet Governance Forum to those people and communities who (indiscernible).  So obviously we do this individually through our individual roles and to our stakeholder communities.  But I'm talking about something a little bit more explicit.  So the former connection with the high-level panel, although that won't be around by then.  Similarly a more formal communication about here are the key issues that were discussed on the data governance panel, the key ten stakeholders and that might be governments that are considering this, the European Union that's engaging with this.  This could be key thought leaders related to algorithm and data governance who don't always show up at the IGF.  And policy recommendations are only as useful as how well we identify who the policies can be acted on by.  So I think if we ask writers, the rapporteurs, to specify who can act on the policies that you now try to answer during your workshop, that would be a first step.

 Second, if we are collectively group of, you know, MAG members are writing the thematic summaries, we should explicitly have in mind who can act on these, who are these communities.  

 And, third, the secretariat does a job of reaching out thematically.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Helani.  That was very interesting comments.  Thank you.  And thank you for sticking with us and participating online as well.  

 Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Thank you, Lynn.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.

 Taking some of the comments from Susan about how we -- how we do this, right, seems to me that we might, if we go with separating and tagging and all of those, we might get into a problem with how we do the random allocation that we have been discussing before so that there is no -- MAG members will not self-decide, let's say, what sort of expertise they are supposed to have to be able to assess some -- a pool of the proposals.

 So I guess if I understand incorrectly where you are trying to lead us, my guess is that we would need -- besides checking on the -- our pool of proposals, we would probably need a separate time to go through not only the policy questions that we checked on our bucket of proposals, that might not be the whole bucket on that particular theme, and discuss with the other MAG members that assess the other groups to try to come up with those metaquestions that you mentioned, right?

 And then try to figure out what will be the mechanism to chair or tailor those discussions into one document, let's say.  It could be an output document on that theme or whatever.

 But what -- the part that I am not clear is, okay, we have from June to November, after we have finished the selection process and all of that to help the people that are actually going to get to Berlin to finalize, confirm speakers, support, mentor the ones that are going to be merged with each other.  There is a bunch of other things that are going to happen there.

 So when do you think all of that process of collation will happen if the actual sessions have not happened?  And there are changes at the actual event, right?  People submit proposals and then for whatever reason something else happens and then someone is not there or -- I don't know.  And then there are minor modifications to how a workshop proposal is actually displayed or presented at the actual event.

 This report, for example, for the Diplo folks that have been doing onsite reports, straight from the -- after every session has always been very useful.  But to go back and look at the 20, 30 or 50 proposals that are represented in one track and then come up with a policy review question, organize the metaquestion, and do an analysis and guide all those contributions, I'm wondering how the time line for that process will be.

 June explained yesterday how the APIGF does it with the synthesis document.  That might be a useful thing to look at.

 I'm just wondering how much commitment the MAG can actually take to do that job.  In my mind, that's a humongous amount of work if we really want to have an outcome document that actually reflects what happened at the meeting.  It can be done before.  We might set up the process now.  If it's in December, we might lose the momentum, right?  

 So I don't know.  I am just looking for some clarification of how we see the time line going and how can we, you know, contribute.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Sylvia.  I see the time line as tight as always.  Exciting because I hope we're going to be doing a lot of new things with it.  And I also see the ability to call in support from the community as well.  And I actually wasn't expecting there would be a final full document available on the last day of the meeting.  I think if we actually wrapped up each one of the themes with a workshop or a session, kind of debated what we thought we heard, what are some of the take-aways, what we might do with it so that we actually support a really good kind of concluding dialogue at the end, we can make the reports afterwards.  And we actually have a little bit more time and we can actually thread things and pull them together.  

 And maybe we have a report targeted from one theme which is targeted to policymakers and another one that is targeted to another sort of entity.  Some of the details I haven't really thought through yet, but it starts with getting to a small number of topics and, I think, threading the discussions.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA:  Just another point of clarification.  That sounds to me a lot like the taking-stock sessions that used to happen at the IGF a few years ago.  Is that what you have in mind?  If there is a taking-stock session planned, more or less a main session and then the MAG members or volunteers from the community appointed to track what's going on in different sessions and then you can put it together, we can go back and look at how the taking-stock sessions were organized and see what can we learn from that and how to improve it.  

 It seems to me that is what you are thinking or not?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  No, not really.  Those were more, to my mind, if I am recalling the same thing you are, kind of report-outs.  And Chengetai is shaking his head yes.  

 And I actually think something which is more of a discussion which is what have we just heard, what can we take away, who would it be helpful to, what else can we do with it, are there things we should consider for the work as we go forward.  It's a great opportunity to engage DCs and NRIs and things as well in terms of all the kind of work we do across the IGF ecosystem for kind of feeders, if you will, to the work of the next year.  Again, I'm making some of this up as we're all talking in terms of what the process would look like.  So jump in and help.  

 Veni, you have the floor.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  Thank you.  I wasn't waving at you.  I was waving at co-chair but she didn't pay attention and now she's wondering what's going on.

 Sylvia actually talked a little bit about what I was initially planning to talk, so I'll switch a little bit to two points.  

 So the first is the question to Daniela and fund that the German government has -- thanks to the members of the Parliament, I assume -- have allocated for the travel which is a extremely generous contribution to the budget for people from underserved regions, developing countries, et cetera, countries in transition.  Would that money be available for -- I mean -- I'll step back.  

 When people send applications, you know, workshops, et cetera, they put names of participants, speakers, et cetera.  Would that money be available for some of those speakers, or was it -- would it be on first-come, first-served basis?  I'm just asking because I got some questions like, We want to put this and this on a panel but we're not sure we can find funding for them to actually come.  And I think it may be important for people from countries with different experience than the one which is in the north part of the hemisphere have to come and share, especially with regards to how they deal with, let's say, dividing Internet access, dealing with cybersecurity, tackling hate speech, et cetera, et cetera.  That would be helpful.  But also to know exactly what they can use.  

 But, also, Chengetai, is the secretariat going to be able to work with the current resources that you have?  Because I remember the donors meeting the other day, you were saying there is a couple of, so to speak, empty slots, interns, you are looking for interns and a couple of other folks to help you.  

 Do you have the resources to actually work with this bigger amount of work that you will have.  Right?  So the people can share a little bit.  

 You were talking about the fact that we may have hundreds of them.  We just announced the extension of the deadline, thanks to my question apparently on Thursday (audio difficulties).

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Veni, for your questions.  So in the application process for the travel grant, (audio difficulties) if they have a function at the IGF because the purpose is to bring in people that will enrich the entire experience of the IGF.  So if they're panelists, if they're organizing a session, I mean, we are not just limiting it to that.  But they have to state for the application so we are considering that.  

 We are in a drive for interns and I think we will be able to manage.  I mean, these guys don't need sleep for about two weeks and then they'll be fine.  So yeah.  No

 [ Laughter ]

 We'll do it one way or another.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I was also told last night about a U.N. volunteers program where there's a couple of hundred volunteers that can be made around two- to three-month work, and the work is online.  It's not that people come physically.  I don't know if there's an opportunity for us to pull in a few people.  I mean, even a handful of people would be huge.  And there are people from all -- I think there are retirees and all sorts of -- all sorts of people.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yeah.  No, I mean, together with UN DESA we are looking at all of these options.  And we are going to have a Fellow coming in as well.  So that will help.  The applications, we are using the national and regional initiatives network to help us sort through those applications and prioritize the ones that we should look at.  So I think we do have a plan that will --

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I have full confidence in this ability -- this community's ability to be creative if what we can come up with is actually interesting enough and attractive enough and people are passionate enough about it.  We're not talking about a (indiscernible).  We're talking about a relatively time constrained exercise, pulling in people who are already deeply engaged in a lot of these topics, and therefore, any start-up curve should be short.  

 Carlos, you have the floor.

 >>CARLOS AFONSO: Yes, quickly.  It's just a justification.  I will have to leave the meeting in a few minutes because UNESCO is very interested in our best practices for local content and they are having a meeting in a few minutes to discuss this.  So I will leave the meeting for a while just to make sure that UNESCO doesn't leave us.  Thank you. 

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

 Timea, you have the floor.

 >>TIMEA SUTO: Oh, that was quick.  I just put my hand up.  Thank you, Chair.

 I'm not sure I'm understanding this exercise we're going to do correctly, so stop me if I'm going off on a tangent, please.  

 But I'm looking at what we have already on the table.  So we have the three themes.  We have the narratives.  And we have people in the world right now submitting their questions and their session proposals under those three.  And there's a lot of merit to what I think we are talking about now in trying to make sure that underneath those three buckets, we don't go into too much various details, that we make sense of the agenda afterwards, and then we can actually pull out sensible reporting from there that would actually draw everything together.  

 Still with me here?  

 So there are a couple of initiatives in various policy forums that are looking at -- so we're looking at these things vertically, that they're looking at it more from a horizontal point of view and looking at what are the policy dimensions around each of these issues, or all of the digital issues.  

 So the OECD has just launched their going digital framework.  They have seven of these horizontal areas.  ICC, we launched our own framework about two years ago.  We have four of these horizontal areas.  We're looking a piece of technology or all of technology, and looking at it how -- policies that effect from an economic perspective, from a social and cultural perspective, what are the technical dimensions, and what are the broader governance dimensions of each.  

 And I'm wondering if we could do this exercise under these three vertical pillars that we have, that we have some sort of a horizontal view and make in our selection process, that each of these three pillars that we have are considered and we have workshops, we have sessions that consider them from these various policy perspectives.  

 Because, generally, I think it happens at the IGF.  Somebody is feeling more strongly aligned with an economic view.  Somebody else is more strongly aligned with a technical view.  And I'm not saying these correspond to the communities.  Everybody can have other views, but maybe it would help us instead of considering each pillar and seeing what are the issues and trying to pick a few, seeing what comes up from the questions from the community when we have all the workshops and see if we can select them in a way that we make sure that we don't just consider data from an economic point of view but also from a social and from a governance point of view, from absolutely a technical point of view.  

 We consider, you know, inclusion, not just from a social perspective but also from an economic perspective.  

 I'm just wondering if we could have these horizontal tracks that would guide us through the issues that we're having in the three pillars.  Just an idea.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I don't shy from complexity in processes.

 [ Laughter ]

 And I have to say I think you just kicked it up half a notch.  I actually think it's an interesting idea.  And I'm wondering if we try and do that within the evaluation and program structuring process or if we actually allot a couple of sessions where maybe, you know, a MAG member or two and somebody from the OECD and somebody from ICC Basis or other organizations as well, come together and pull together two workshops on that horizontal policy, so do it as a -- kind of as a separate layer or an add-on above.  I'm okay with either one.  I think it's interesting thought to do that.  And I don't think it should be an either/or.  You know, everything becomes horizontal or certainly not that everything is vertical either.  

 So I think maybe a couple of workshops that actually looked at -- I think it would be really useful.  It would be really useful, probably I think, to feed into the HLPDC process as well in terms of some of the things they're considering.  So if nothing else, it would be an interesting kind of experiment or, you know, test case or something for some of the things I think they're imagining.  Timea.

 >>TIMEA SUTO: Sorry to jump back in the queue.  I'm sure there were others that want to speak.  

 We could, I think, explore that idea.  And also, I think this would be enriched in the reporting if we would pull out from the various sessions that are taking place, the messages, the summaries, other considerations.  So, you know, taking safety and security and think, okay, what were the messages and economic considerations around safety and security, what were the messages around social considerations.  So from the various workshops you would report back and have maybe a more broader setup than just trying to make sure, okay, you have 12 sessions and this -- this considered that and then just share that.  I don't know how that would actually look like.  That's just an idea that popped into my mind right now.  So I'm happy to work on flushing this out more with everybody, if there's interest.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think it's an interesting idea.  Thank you.  So let's actually keep that in front of everybody, and we'll just continue to move it forward.  

 Raquel.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you very much.  And thank you very much, Timea, for the wrapup for those, like me, that are kind of back-to-back meetings here at WSIS Forum.  It was super helpful.

 And I really enjoy your idea and I wanted to support.  I think beyond -- we usually set the frames within the criteria of stakeholder groups and other diverse balances.  And that's precisely what we talked about.  Let's make sure that we also have the different perspectives, and we should make sure this is in the evaluation process.

 And I'm not sure if I'm disserving too much the agenda.  But when we forward, it is also to ensure that this is in the main sessions, either if we decide do have the first -- the beginning and at the end.  We need to ensure that this is the narrative with the different policies, views, economic, social, and the technical dimensions that fit in.

 So that would be my suggestion to follow up on this idea because if we do this one workshop, it might be competing with all the others, right?  And the main sessions are precisely to put this together.

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

 We can sort of let this discussion sit for a moment and go through the other two narratives to see if there are any other points of clarification or additional information, then come back and figure out what we want to do.

 Maybe I could ask Chengetai in the background.  What I am sort of assuming at a high-level here is that come Monday morning Geneva time all the submissions are in.  What would be helpful to know is when we would know just by sheer number how many were in those three tracks, possibly how many were in sort of -- if one of them has a significantly high number, to start to look at the issues or the tags below that to see if there was a consolidation around some of the tags.  As soon as we do that, we know how many different MAG groups we need.  Do we need three or do we need four or something.  And I think it gives -- I think it would give people sort of a comfort.  Presumably, quite quickly we could -- we don't even need to know at that point who are the MAG members who are assigned to each one of the themes.  But if we actually had the workshop group, people could go in and start looking at the policy questions across those themes to just get a sense of what's there.  And I assume you need to know whether or not we're looking at three or four groups of MAG members to review the proposals before you can actually do the assignment.  

 But it would be helpful to know how quickly we could get just that top-level information together so the MAG members could start -- because the proposals are available, could start -- if they know they're going to be assigned to the data governance track, they could start to look at the policy questions or across the governance track.  Are there some other quick extracts we can do that would be helpful?  Maybe within any one track or subtheme, we capture all the policy questions to see if that makes an easy entry into the discussion.

 If that's too much to ask in terms of doing that in the background in the meeting here, I fully understand that.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yeah.  We can have those answers next week, but next week, Wednesday, Thursday.  We just have to have -- Monday we are fixing problems, (indiscernible), stuff like that.  Tuesday we're going through to find out whether or not all the workshops that have been submitted actually fit the criteria.  And then Wednesday we can do it because it's automatic -- so, yeah, we can tell you by, you know, Wednesday.  Being a programmer, make it Thursday.  But, yes, you'll get it by then.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  So we can think about what some of the background processes need to be in the background.  This is I think more about helping some of the MAG members understand some kind of the tools and different entry points and timings into the process would help.

 So we've exhausted the queue at the moment.  Is there somebody who wants to speak to either the data governance or the safety, security, stability, resilience?

 Ben?  Thank you.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  Hi.  So I was one of the people involved in data governance.  I know Helani who is on the phone was.  I think Natasa and Maria, who actually started off.  I only got involved once we left Geneva.  Then I was away when it got wrapped up.  I kind of left the development of the narrative framework.  I'm not sure if you would like me to read it out like we did before.

 But certainly, as a context, before I do that, I think I talked in Geneva one of the ways of getting more business there is making sure we look at issues from business perspectives and certainly seems like there's a big consensus and built into the workshop evaluation now that one of the things we need to look for is a diversity of policy perspectives in the workshop proposals.

 And that was very much front of mind when we drafted this narrative framework that brought in briefly ideas of how data can cause -- give right of concerns, right to privacy and how data is used and bias and algorithms but also that data can have a great role to play in bringing economic development and enabling digital transformation.

 So just to help people kind of absorb, I can just run through the three-paragraph description.

 The track would look for discussions on the fundamental challenge of ensuring the benefits of the data revolution that contribute to inclusive economic development while protecting the rights of people.

 The global nature of the Internet and the transfer of digital information across borders brings an international dimension to discussions around data.  The generation, collection, storage, transfer, and processing of data (including personally identifiable data) have enabled new social, cultural, and economic opportunities.  

 At the same time, the massive collection, transfer, and processing of data (in particular through the application of algorithms, AI, machine learning) by public as well as private entities pose challenges around privacy, freedom of expression, and the exercise of other human rights.

 So data governance track will, therefore, contribute to identifying best approaches to ensuring the development of human-centric data governance frameworks at national, regional, and international levels.  It will enable an exchange of views on how to support and operationalize the exercise of human rights and the empowerment of individuals in their digital identity in current uses and development of data-driven technologies.

 And it will consider how to create the conditions needed to facilitate data-driven innovation, to ensure competition, and to foster trust in the development of services and new technologies, including through the use of inclusive data and the fulfillment of the U.N.'s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

 You can see there's a lot of ideas and you could say a lot of perspectives or you could say two perspectives.  I certainly think of the three themes, the data governance theme is the one which potentially lends itself most to looking at things from one side or the other to being oppositional.  And that's why it's important to hopefully -- that the workshop applications and the policy questions are brought forward that look at different elements of data governance, allow for bringing those different perspectives and those different sides of the debate.  I don't know if that's helpful as an introduction.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think that was very helpful.  Thank you.  And I do think reading it through gives everybody time to think through and absorb it as well.

 As the speaking queue is empty, this actually says that the data governance track will contribute to identifying best approaches to ensure the development of human-centered data governance frameworks at national, regional and international levels.  

 We often talk about kind of outputs and recommendations.  And one of the biggest benefits I saw when I was dealing with policy issues or that I saw with interfacing with the technical community is the ability to actually break an issue down so that it can actually be addressed.

 Lots of these topics are all just conflated and they're not pulled apart.  And if they're just kind of aggregated highly, you don't know where to start and you don't know how to break it apart.  And you don't know who to pull in or bring in to help with the kind of problem resolution.

 One of the most important things I think we can get out a lot of activities, given we're multistakeholders we have the ability to look at it from all those different perspectives.  Given we're global so we have all the richness that that actually brings into the discussion.  To be able to help build frameworks or help people should think about these problems is enormously helpful.  

 We never said the IGF was "the" place for answers.  We said it was a place to facilitate debate, discussion, understanding, knowledge, and we expected policies to go back and be done at national, regional levels.  I think we also would hope that the corporate sector would pay attention to some of their concerns and build that into their policies and products as well.  But it was always to be done elsewhere, not there.

 So when we talk about recommendations, to my mind, it's that breaking apart and looking for the nuances and framing the problems and here's would be a helpful way to think about it.  Here's some considerations.  Here's who should be involved in these.  It's that kind of directional leadership set of activities that I think the IGF is so well-placed to do.

 So, I mean, I think that phrase just sort of really kind of captured it for me as well.  It wasn't to build a framework for the world to go away and look at every data governance issue.  I think the more we can pull it apart and place it on appropriate tables is very helpful.

 Speaking queue is still empty.  Anybody wants to come in?  Daniela, too, any time you want to come in, just jump in.  Nudge me.

 >>BEN WALLIS:  And Chenai was one of the others who was closely involved.  I would just think you might want to check before opening the floor generally whether any of the other main contributors wanted to chime in so it wasn't just me because just certainly I didn't do it all on my own.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: There's very little any of us do on our own these days but appreciate that.  Are there any other working group members, the ad hoc working group members, that want the add or -- Chenai.  Sorry.  You have the floor, Chenai.

 >>CHENAI CHAIR: Good morning, everyone.  Thank you very much for calling me to the floor.  So I've been listening to the first session and the process going on, and I can say as a first time MAG member, it's a bit overwhelming trying to actually assess what we're trying to do.  But I see that we're trying to have a tangible output as has been marked with initial conversations.  And so I was wondering -- also taking into account the not trying to put on extra work to what we already have.  So I was wondering if in all of this, I know it was set up as a working group to determine the tracks and to actually analyze what's going to happen, if perhaps there's some form of collaboration or cross working with the BPF on big data, AI, and governance because I do think that that track feeds very well into what we're trying to achieve by having that track and calling the community to contributed but maybe also, depending on what the discussion in terms of outputs and what we're trying to impact ends up being, but perhaps to also work with that group and to feed into their -- their main session or however many sessions they're going to have at the IGF to actually say, this is what came up from the sessions that was submitted.  These are the people that were identified as being put in to having in the room, and perhaps the taking stock that had been suggested earlier, also to say some of this is what the community feels about data governance that would feed into the BPF on AI.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think that's a very good input and to see if there was anything in particular that could be echoed, you know, in one direction or the other.  Thank you, Chenai.  Raquel Gatto.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Thank you, Lynn.  I also contributed at some parts of the narratives as much as I could at the last sprint before delivered.  I just wanted more on the (audio difficulties) discussions we were having and expectations around it, right?  I think one of the things we heard yesterday is there is this momentum where you see a lot of the -- you see an expectations that we need to do something.  And for me, this -- the three tracks actually are -- are in a very, very good place to bring this something that -- at least an idea of the something that can be done.  And as Ben was reading, also building on the experiences that exist.  So this narrative is precisely on data governance, wants to identify the best approaches that are going out there, but I also think we need to put what is the problem that we are trying to solve and then build with the experts and with our existing discussions.  So either the BPFs, the DCs that are involved in this topic.  

 Data is being collected.  We need to identify -- sorry?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Sorry about that.  Just confusing.  But anyway, I think it's important to identify all that the -- I mean the paths, so identify the problem, identify what is being done, and what are the gaps and what are we need to move forward.  And so keep that in mind.  We are not answering some abstract thinking.  We are trying really to achieve something here.  So, I hope that's helpful.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Raquel.  Daniela, did you want to come in now?

 >>DANIELA BRONSTRUP: Thanks, Lynn.  Yes, maybe just one reflection that came to my mind.  When we have discussed the first track, I think the main policy questions are how to achieve inclusion in different aspects.  Because the aim inclusion is clear and sharp to everyone.  And there we should come up with some kind of outcome, what kind of mechanisms are good to achieve inclusion, right?  Whereas for data governance, I think the topic is much more difficult in the sense that you have a lot of trade-offs here.  And maybe it could be helpful to address those trade-offs directly.  I mean, let's say, for example, if you talk about privacy and we talk about regulation on privacy, then on the other hand we will have also to take into account what that means for innovative processes, for example, right?  And if we have that in mind when looking over all those submissions, that could be helpful and could also be help to structure maybe the workshop sessions.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Daniela.  Are there any kind of comments or reactions to what's been said so far?  Generally on data governance.  Give everybody a moment.  If not, we'll walk through a similar exercise for security, stability, safety, and resilience.  Mix up the order every time just to keep it fresh.  And then we'll come back to what we -- what we want to get out of the three-track narrative process.  

 Still seeing no call for the floor, can I ask for a volunteer to walk through the security, safety, stability, resilience track?  Trying to think who was a member of that working group, ad hoc working group.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Who's not here?

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: But, I mean, it wasn't a group of one.

 [ Laughter ]

 Who else was in that ad hoc working group?  Okay.  Well, I can read it out, I guess, as well as anybody.  So let me pull it up and then we'll ask everybody to kind of react their comments on it.  

 So again, the narrative reads, "Security and safety are prerequisites to economic growth and a healthy digital environment beneficial to all.  While security, stability, and resilience refers to the systems, infrastructure, and devices, safety and resilience of the users are also of paramount importance.

 Under this theme, potential risks to security and safety will be discussed from various angles with due consideration to how stability and resilience can be achieved.  Strategies for protection of both systems and users will be addressed, taking into account a multi-disciplinary perspective to potential solutions and the importance of stakeholder collaboration for responding to the growing range of threats to the global Internet and its users."

 So I thought it was interesting with this one is that it actually says it's going to be discussed from angles but with consideration to how the stability and resilience can be achieved.  So I thought that was an interesting way, as opposed to, it's not four kind of equally separate tracks.  It was two of them that were actually feeding into a stability and resilience, potentially as one area of outcomes.  Any other reflections or comments on it?  Okay, I don't see anything in the chat room either.  I think we need -- it's time then to come back to say, having agreed on our desire for a cohesive, more focused IGF, less parallel tracks, three major themes, narratives that we were expecting would kind of help drive a set of workshops and discussions, focused through policy questions, trying to lead to some kind of concrete advancements here -- I'll come in a moment, Raquel -- lead to some concrete advancements here, what does that mean for the review process we're about to embark on as MAG members.  So I'll come back to that question specifically in a moment, but let me go to Raquel.  Raquel Gatto.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO: Thank you, Lynn.  And I'm sorry it took some time to (indiscernible) the button when you made the first question so I don't want to disrupt too much the discussions.  And, I mean, also I think the -- just back to the security and safety, resiliency track, this was one of the hardest to merge together because I think you have pretty clearly -- I mean, as an overarching theme as the trust, right?  The trust framework that everybody wants to put forward and then you have pretty heavily two components, the cybersecurity concerns and the safety concerns.  And that -- on the second one, I also would like to mention, I see a clear relation with the other tracks, right?  And all of them really, but if you think about the data governance one and while we were talking about how this path of collecting data, using data, the tradeoffs that are involved, they are also connected to the security that we want in those -- in those processes.  So at some point I also think we need to work.  And now going into your last question on what does it mean for our review process, is not only keeping that in mind, the single tracks that we -- we made but also the interdependence between them, which I think is going to create an even stronger outcome for the IGF.  We are telling a story here of we want people to be included.  We want people to be included, and once they are there, we want them to be safe and to have this whole framework of security and stability with the -- with the Internet governance ecosystem, let's say.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Raquel.  Let me -- so let me try again with what I think our metalevel objectives are for the program this year.  I want to draw a line under that and make sure we're all aligned, that that's what we're really trying to do.  And then maybe work towards a high-level descriptor of what the process could be.  

 I'm going to ask Chengetai, in the background, to just look and remind me when both the next MAG meeting is, when the -- I want a few dates.  When the next MAG meeting is, when does our timetable call for the MAG to actually get the proposals and begin their review so we figure out what kind of interim processing time we have.  If you can just pull up those dates, it would be helpful.

 In the meantime, let me go to Mary, Mary Uduma.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA: Thank you, Chair, for giving me the floor.  Mary, for the records.  And I'm in IGF.  I see linkages in the three -- three tracks, and just as we established in the first one, so it would be the same as the second and the third.  And what Timea said about getting -- getting in mind what each of the stakeholder groups will be expecting or what we expect them to take away and what they are expecting IGF to come up with, I think that should be at -- at that background (indiscernible) with this -- would the policy questions address the needs of each of these stakeholder groups, be it government, business, or the civil society.  And that would also help in the second one, the data governance, and as well as the cybersecurity or the security track.  

 And having said that for -- this is the first round for the technical community, what is it that we are looking for.  And that would also be -- be at our -- in the background as we do the evaluation and as we do the report.  While doing the report, since we are looking to giving the stakeholder groups some of the outcomes, so we'll be looking at those outcomes that will relate -- that will be of interest to the stakeholder groups.  That's my comment for now.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mary.  I do think that was an interesting suggestion from Timea.  So I think we should figure out how we weave it together.  Paul, Paul Rowney, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL ROWNEY: Yeah.  Thank you, Lynn.  Paul Rowney.  I don't know whether this is the right time to say this but I'm just capturing some stuff that's been said, and I think it's quite important that we encapsulate it.  And that is that when we -- when we run the tracks, it should be over the three days or whatever of the IGF.  So we shouldn't be trying to bundle them into one day per track.  And that we should top and tail these tracks with the main sessions, for want of a better word.  Basically where we're introducing the theme and we're enabling people to ask the questions and give some input about what they're expecting from those particular tracks and then, you know, end it with the stocktaking, et cetera.  But that when we get the workshops we should try to organize them to tell a story so that they're not jumbled up.  So that anyone that participates in the track, you know, they're taken through a process and it's a logical process that builds on the theme basically.  So when we get to the end, you know, it's not something like access, then infrastructure, digital skills, you know, sort of ending with policy possibly, but not necessarily in that order.  But just building that story as they come through which then leads into when we close off with the bringing it all together, what do we call that, taking stock of that particular track.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Paul.  And that was helpful and nice and concise.  Susan Chalmers, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Chair.  So I think that I -- I appreciate that we are now -- we're headed towards defining questions for each of the -- the themes, the policy questions, and I do think that will be helpful in terms of cohering the program.  I just do want, for the sake of -- for the sake of process, I want to recall that during our first meeting I -- if I recall correctly, we decided against defining the policy questions for the workshop proposers to react to.  I just want us all to recall that we -- I think that found consensus.  So I think it would be useful to hear from MAG members on the process for coming together and based upon the policy questions that were submitted during the process to -- to discuss what those policy questions are, based upon what has been submitted bottom-up from the community.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Susan.  And I don't think anybody's suggesting that we kind of move away from that consensus at the first MAG meeting.  This is more about -- I think Paul used the words "tell the story."  So I wasn't suggesting we come up with brand new policy questions, but more that we figure out how we tie together what the community tells us they're interested in through their submissions, which include a policy question, to try and frame those discussions or thread that discussion.  Some people are using the word "story," but that we actually at the end of the day I think make some concrete advancement in a small number of areas.  And the only reason I say small number of areas, because we go to a large number of areas and I think we're just back to the same process we had last year.

 And, I mean, I'll come back to the fact that, I mean, I think we have heard repeatedly for years now that people are looking for more useful outputs, more concrete focused outputs out of the IGF.  And we saw yesterday that, you know, the Secretary-General, who presumably is listening to his member states and his committees and all sorts of other things, was concerned enough about what's being done in the world, whether inside or outside of the U.N. system with respect to digital cooperation and the ability to address kind of the implications of frontier technologies, felt strongly enough about it to convene a high-level panel.  That high-level panel appears to be considering three models.  Even the one model that had a place for the IGF in it, I would suggest if that goes forward is not the IGF we all know today.  It's probably not the MAG that's structured today.  There's probably something more directional on top of it.  There's probably some sort of superstructure on top of it.  It's not going to be just keep your kind of evolutionary path and keep doing what you're doing because I think we're getting a lot of clear signals that that's not enough for a lot of people.

 So what I'm really trying to encourage us to do is to listen to all those signals.  Because that's who we're here to support.  We're not here to make the MAG feel good, frankly.  You know, we're here to try and help advance all of these processes on the basis of what a lot of people tell us is important, from all the different multistakeholders.  

 So I'm just trying to figure out how we pick up our game and do some of that.  And it would be really nice if we had a significant display of what we can do in the community through bottom-up multistakeholder processes that actually advance concretely some of those issues before we're told there's some other process in the wings and, you know, thank you very much.  It was a great experiment, you know, but we're going to begin moving to something different.  And I think that's extremely likely, guys.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  I do too.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's why I'm trying to push us here.  I want to maintain the integrity of the process, and I absolutely want to stay within any expectations we set with the community.  And at the same time, I want us to push as much as we can to address some of those other things and work with the community to make sure that's okay with them and supportive.  Honestly, I think most of them want more utility and value and usefulness out of the IGF as well so they can walk away with things that they can say "this is where we made a difference, this is what we did, this is what I can share, this is what I can take here" because I think they will feel a lot more pride in what they're doing and will make more of an impact.

 So I'm not talking about changing something or moving away from a consensus.  I'm really just trying to kind of lean into all the great information and great knowledge and expertise we have, broaden that significantly because we hear repeatedly that, you know, we're not inclusive enough, that there were whole parts of the world that we're not engaging.  And we need to find a way to begin bringing them in truthfully.

 I mean, again, as I said, I think taking the HLPDC report to the IGF in Berlin is great and we should do that.  And at the same time, I also think it's not nearly enough because I don't know how that conversation feels any different than the conversation we have had in the few years because it's the same people.  We just need to look at the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation to know how those conversations will go.  If we really want to understand how we can make a difference and how we can bring some of these other communities, we need to find way to reach out to them ahead of time.  And it's going to be through different sort of online processes.  It will be feet on the ground as the NRIs have found as they tried to reach out to their national networks through lots of different processes.

 You know, I'm actually excited by all that and the opportunity.  And actually for the first time in a long time, I feel we've got enough attention -- not enough attention, we have significantly more attention to this process and the importance of the work than we've had in a long time.  And I think it's still far short of what it needs to be to be able to do the work effectively.  But I actually feel kind of the spotlight is on us.  We have the opportunity to really do something with this in the next six, seven months which actually shows its potential.  Or I think we'll will be -- honestly, I think probably very slowly we will be moved to less and less relevance.  And I think that's a huge, huge, huge loss.

 Susan.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Yeah, thank you.  And I appreciate that.  And I agree that we are moving forward and this is evolving.  I think that's undeniable.

 But I just want to remind that in terms of losing relevance that the IGF has actually drawn more people to attend in the past than it ever has.  Heads of state are now addressing.

 So I just -- as we are -- I'd just like for us to collectively remember we are getting more proposals than we have ever have.  We are being more inclusive than we ever have.  It's just -- I just want us to keep that in mind, and I don't want that to be lost as we go forward.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And I don't either, and I think all that's great.  I also think it's not enough and not as much as we can do.  I am really trying to be just as positive as well.  I think there's much, much more we can leverage out of all of this.  We have Raquel Gatto in the queue.  And then we'll continue going through.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thanks, Lynn.  While I raised my hand for one thing, but I guess to evolve the conversation, perhaps I can bring some of this -- also, I think it's not one or another, right?  I think both can be balanced.  We are not, as Lynn were saying -- and thanks so much, Lynn, for pushing us forward.  I share with you the same view.  And it's an optimist view.  We have this opportunity right now within the MAG.  This MAG can take on the responsibility and have the opportunity to bring some of the answers or at least the path for those answers that are out on the table and to bring this relevance back to the IGF.

 I also hear Susan, the concern that the IGF has grown based on this bottom-up, transparent processes, inclusive processes.  And this shouldn't be lost.  

 But there is a balance that we can do.  And one of the things, for example, back to a very concrete example that you said with the policy questions, the way I saw it, when we did the policy questions was kind of an exploration of the MAG, where do we see those issues going and what are the concerns.

 But then we're hearing through the community through the workshop processes -- for the workshop proposals what are their concerns.  And perhaps -- I mean, it's very hard to guess since I didn't see the workshop proposals yet.  But perhaps they fit into what we had in mind or perhaps not.  

 And then there is an analysis to see this check of is everything there, what is missing, where are the gaps and so on.

 But we need to be all in agreement that we are able to do that and that we are going to take this responsibility forward because if we keep moving back and forth, then we are going to lose much more.  That's my -- my impression. 

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Raquel.  Hana.  Hana AlHashmi, you have the floor.  I don't know, Veni -- I assume Veni did that consciously to move to the bottom of the queue.

 Hana, you have the floor.

 >>HANA ALHASHIMI:  Okay.  Well, thank you.  Good morning and thank you, Chair.

 I think -- I really want to thank you for the comments made just now because I think it's -- it's an important reality check.  So as a young female, first-time member of this group, I often ask myself why I'm here.

 [ Laughter ]

 And I think -- I think I'm here because I represented for a long time the voice of countries that don't feel a part of the IGF, that don't feel that the IGF responds to their needs, and don't necessarily participate in the community.  And I think it's important for me to be that devil's advocate, because they're not devils, right?  Actually, the majority of them are countries that arguably -- when we talk about "inclusivity" as a priority are arguably the audience we're catering to.

 So I think it's important to take note that when we talk about bottom-up approaches, that bottom is not necessarily the people that are contributing to -- the questions that are coming through is not necessarily representative of all the questions out there.

 So I thank Raquel for the dual approach.  I do think the two ideas are not mutually exclusive.  I think it's important to the spirit of the IGF that is unique within the U.N. system but also to find ways to bring in other perspectives.

 And when it comes to other perspectives, I feel like a broken record, but the other perspectives are looking for outcomes.  They're looking for something that they can use, that's pedestrian-friendly, that's digestible, that's something that helps policymakers.  

 It was the same question for the panel for that matter yesterday.  Like, if they're making recommendations, are there things that you can actually apply?  Or is it sort of general U.N. reports saying, "Well, cooperation is fantastic and we should do more of it "?  Is it actually sort of models you can take and work towards partnerships on, or what is it exactly?  

 So that's just one observation.  And I think I'll stop there, but just wanted to support that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Hana.

 On a lighter note, as an older female --

 [ Laughter ]

 -- I often ask myself why I'm here as well.

 To the really, really excellent serious point you made, though, again, a few people have quoted the terms of reference here over the last few days.  The MAG is appointed by the Secretary-General.  And the Secretary-General's mandate, of course, comes from the member states.  And at the same time, the IGF and the MAG is multistakeholder so that we bring in all those other perspectives and voices.  And it's really important to remember that, you know, of the people we're able to reach to, to submit workshop proposals and policy questions, that is not the sum total, as you said, of questions that are out there.  And, you know, I think an extra effort on our part to figure out what those other questions are or ought to be or should be or try and pull them in is an essential part of what we do.

 So, you know, the sum total of what we have to work with is not just what those people we can get to can submit.

 Again, we really want to respect those people that are deeply passionate about the work and are engaged and are here and are submitting.  And I know they would all be just as supportive as trying to reach out to those other voices that don't have that same access and get them in.  And we need to find a way to do that.  I think that was an excellent, excellent point.  Thank you.

 Veni.  You are moving around in the queue here, Veni.

 [ Laughter ]

 I'm not quite sure how you're managing to do that.  You were top, bottom, and now you're back up top.  And now you're bottom.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  It's not me, honestly.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>HANA ALHASHIMI:  He's bottom-up.  Bottom-up.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  I'm following the bottom-up process.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Don't hack the system.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Why don't we go to Roman Chukov then.

 >>ROMAN CHUKOV:  No, please, let's give the floor to Veni.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Roman, I think you were -- Veni, I guess.

 >>VENI MARKOVSKI:  Thank you.  No, thanks.  I actual did put my hand down and then put the MAG -- I forgot to put the "MAG member" flag so that's why it started moving around.

 So, I mean, I hear what you're saying, Lynn, and with regards to the High-Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, we actually don't know what's going to come out of it.  I mean, there are a lot of rumors about different ideas that are circulating.

 Yesterday, I think one of us -- and I'm blanking -- or the other day was quoting what the WSIS Tunis Agenda -- how it described Internet Governance Forum.  And I need to bring a little bit of that enthusiasm down to the rules and procedures that we follow here because at the end of the day, the IGF was set up by a different body, not by the U.N. Secretary-General.  And the High-Level Panel is going to publish -- not publish, sorry, send a report.  And I think Jovan yesterday said he hopes that it will not end up in the trash can but he doesn't know.

 And this report is just something that the Secretary-General may decide to share or may decide to use and convene other meetings or gatherings of some kind.  But at the end of the day, there will be some change to the IGF.  It cannot be done by the MAG.  It cannot be done by the Secretary-General.  It can be done in a different setting.  And we had such a setting three years ago, three years and a couple of months ago, at the end of 2015 at the WSIS+10 negotiations at the U.N. General Assembly.

 I was in New York during those negotiations.  And I -- they were pretty intense, and there was a lot of high-level officials, actually government representatives, to very high levels participating, not just the usual diplomats from the Second Committee of the General Assembly.  So there is interest among member states but also obviously among other stakeholders.

 And the IGF is the -- as it says in the WSIS Tunis Agenda -- in its working and function, multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic, and transparent.  So it is uniting all of the existing structures and ideas and interest, if you will.

 But to go to Hana's point about as she rightfully expressed coming from one of the countries a couple of years ago which needed outcomes, actually within the IGF, within many of the workshops, there are certain outcomes.  And while I cannot talk in general, I can give an example where The Internet Society of Bulgaria participated in the first several IGFs in 2006, '07 as I was back then chair of The Internet Society of Bulgaria.  We did a workshop with the World Bank, the Global Internet Policy Initiative, and a couple of other organizations like the Center for Democracy and Technology and others on legal frameworks on Internet governance.

 And there were pretty good outcomes suggesting -- and these outcomes were later followed up by, for example, Information Document Number 7 at the ITU plenipotentiary meeting in 2010 -- people can Google and find it and read it -- delivered by the government of Bulgaria.

 There was some outcomes for how the Internet could flourish in a country which is in transition, people don't have that much money, but the equipment is the same price as around the world.

 So did other countries use these outcomes?  That's a different question.

 So my point is sometimes outcomes are out there, but they would not necessarily be followed and they would not necessarily be followed because different countries have different cultures and have different interests and they may not necessarily follow through some outcome which may not be suitable for them.  

 And that brings me to what Roman yesterday send us, the outcome of the Russian IGF.  And I circulated around the MAG list the information that's on the website there.  And it's very interesting because it goes exactly into what I'm saying.  It's a quote from the deputy head of the administration of the Russian president, Mr. Kiriyenko who says, and I quote, Russia welcomes all global companies in its market under the condition that they work within Russian law to provide equal working environment for both Russian and foreign entities and respect the ethical and moral standards of Russia as well as its national traditions, culture, and religious diversity.

 So, clearly, some cultural and other differences have impact on the work of companies.  Clearly some outcomes may not be used even if they come from countries in the same level of development.  

 And going back to my own Bulgaria, the example that we gave to the European Union with how the deregulation of Internet market brought fast-speed, low price for the Internet usage was not really accepted by many of the European Union countries just because it's not possible to do it the way we did it in Bulgaria.

 So I think we have to be careful how we accept the other -- because it's not only the High-Level Panel, there is, like, Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace also in parallel working.  There will be the working groups that are happening at the U.N. General Assembly, the open-ended Working Group on Cybersecurity and the Governmental Group of Experts.

 And, by the way, some of you MAG members asked me whether "open-ended" means it is open to other participants.  No, it's about the end of it.  It's still governmental only and member states only. 

 So we have to watch what's happening, but I think we should focus on the IGF and try to make it as better as we can through the work and through the support of our host countries and all stakeholders and see, you know, what others are doing but not necessarily trying to adjust and influence -- and be influenced by other bodies, be that formal or informal, or multistakeholder in the case of the Global Commission on Stability in Cyberspace or not.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Veni.

 So I agree with that.  And I don't think anybody is trying to be directed too much by the HLPDC itself.  But that's just one of the more recent signals of the signals we've been receiving for many, many years where people are saying they want more out of the IGF.  That's really the message I'm trying to get to.  Some of us have used that as an example recently, but we're not intending to overfocus on that.

 But, as I said, we've all had many, many signals and specifically people are looking -- and, you know -- for more tangible outcomes.  

 Maybe we need to dive down a little bit more and figure out what that means.  I suspect it means very different things to -- depending on what the topic is and who the intended audience is.  So maybe we need to drill down a little bit to make that more -- more useful.

 Roman, Roman Chukov, you have the floor.

 >>ROMAN CHUKOV:  Thank you very much.  

 Dear colleagues, Roman from Russia.  And thank you so much, Veni, Lynn, and all previous speakers for bringing up really a crucial and interesting aspects.  

 I think that we all good enough know the Tunis declaration and the mandates of the IGF.  So if I can quote that, like, for instance, point 72(f):  Strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms.

 So, I mean, there is absolutely no restriction with regard to Tunis declaration to the mandate of the IGF.  It's vice versa.  It calls us to actually build upon the existing structures and move on with further mechanisms which will benefit the development of the Internet.  So I would like briefly to at least bring up the level of enthusiasm a bit more again.  

 And to reflect on what Lynn said, I really was thinking about this, that at first we will receive this high-level report.  Yes?  What we have?  We have this open-ended working group which will also start working in the summer.  So I think we must -- like, some of us should go there and participate and discuss there with the member states at the U.N. venue the results of this report.

 What we can also do, how actually since I formed this fear of like forums, summits, and so on and we usually really carefully work with moderators before the events, yes, to make sure that the content will be real interesting for participants.  

 So once we know all the workshop chairs, facilitators, and so on, we can invite them to our virtual MAG meeting and we can discuss with them what's our expectations with regard to the outcomes of their sessions.  What is real important for Russia is that we do not have simultaneously like 101 workshops with the same topic.  Like it was in the previous IGFs where I participated.  I literally didn't know how to split myself up to participate in several sessions with the same name.  And I knew that our friends from Permanent Mission also had the same problem.  They wanted to reflect on several aspects, but they didn't have a chance to be present in the same sessions simultaneously.  So let's put emphasis to quality.  Or maybe we can even advice to merge several workshops.  If we understand that we have selected the strongest one, we can kindly encourage the facilitators of this workshop to connect with those workshop organizers which proposes (indiscernible) and maybe invite them as speakers or co-chairs, co-hosts, I don't know.  But we can make -- actually make -- so our task is to make efficient discussion and actually to make all the voices heard, all the community representatives heard.  So coming back that we can gather our moderators online and discuss with them how they can structure their work and which type of outcomes we would like to welcome.  In this case, they will be prepared and they will provide us with the outcome.  Also, this is how we can -- if our German colleagues will provide (audio difficulties) or document like final statement or whatever.  So we can all together draft it on the final recommendations of each of the sessions.  Or we can have a final session where moderators will provide some feedback, and I don't know how but we can finalize it.  But I'm real enthusiastic because we have several platforms and several mechanisms, open-ended working group, this high-level report.  We can also circulate this report for the same like workshop moderators so that they can bring the issues from the report in their sessions.

 So I really think we're in the beginning of a real interesting process, and I hope that in this year we will see some positive change.  Thank you so much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Roman.  A very comprehensive (audio difficulties).  Mary Uduma.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA: Thank you.  I don't know what -- whether what I'm going to raise now would -- is the right time to raise it.  Chengetai said to us that the workshop submission has been extended to 14th.  And here we are also looking at (indiscernible), and now we're discussing about some of the things we will looking at when evaluating the workshops.  If there are changes that would happen (indiscernible) for the evaluation, I don't think for them to extending it more for people to be able to get the right thing and I don't know how many of webinar.  We were saying about webinar, for outreach to the communities and to our communities and those that would be proposing workshops.  I don't know (indiscernible) any except for the one that Anja did for ICANN64.  But I thought that the outreach group would have been doing that so that people -- you know, the narratives are there and the guidelines are there.  But if we have held any webinar, I think they would have helped those that will submit workshop to get more information and understand the way they should submit the website -- the workshops.  But I don't know whether that is at the wrong point I'm saying it or it's something to be considered.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No.  Thank you, Mary.  I mean, and just to be clear, (indiscernible) point to be saying it, we're not talking about changing the criteria by which people evaluate the workshops.  I think we're saying once we understand the workshops and what's come in and what we're looking at in terms of policy questions, what's the program structure we want to put together and I think that's a second level question.  And again, recalling the terms of references that we advise the Secretary-General on the program of the annual meeting of the IGF.  So I think that's what we're intending to do, is to build that program on the basis of advice and input we've gotten from the community, through all sorts of call for issues, through Open Consultation days, through the workshop submissions.  So we're -- just to be clear, we're not talking about changing the criteria.  And Chengetai does have the schedule, which he can pull up at an appropriate and kind of walk through if that helps people understand the next steps of the process.  But I'll finish going through the queue here first and we'll put that up at an appropriate time.  Next in the queue we have Paul Charlton.  Paul, you have the floor.

 >>PAUL CHARLTON: Oh, thank you, Lynn.  Paul Charlton from the government of Canada.  I just wanted to address a couple of points that have come up.  First of all, I think, you know, I agree with Susan and others who have pointed out that in addressing whatever criticisms that have come up of the IGF in recent years, we have to stay true to our fundamental nature of the bottom-up multistakeholder nature of this, of this body, and keep that constantly in mind.  I think that's -- I do think that's vitally important.  I do think it's possible to do that and address some of the criticisms that have come up.  And I -- I think that -- well, I hope that as we go through this process and we get to the meeting in November, coming out of that we'll have a good sense from the community whether we've gotten it right or not.  And that it is probably -- it's probably an iterative process where we try to address -- adjust our direction within our mandate year by year and we get feedback and we kind of adjust further.

 On the specific topic of outcomes, I realize that this has been a criticism from some quarters about having sufficient outcomes or sufficiently clear outcomes.  I think it's important to be -- to be realistic in the sense that it is that we can produce recommendations, for example, because we're not a hierarchical body and we're not a decision-making body or a voting body, I think we have to be measured in our expectations and in the community's expectations of what we can produce.  I agree we certainly have the way to be -- to be clear in terms of what comes out of the various events and certainly to communicate that better.  And we should aim for that, on both cases.  But I don't think we should put too much pressure on ourself or have unrealistic expectations as to what the outcomes are going to be, but as I said, we'd certainly work to improve them and improve how we communicate them.  MAG was about the high-level (audio difficulties), and I guess I would echo what Veni said and to some (indiscernible) what you said, Lynn, that when Jovan was giving his presentation views that they were looking at as they're putting together the report, one of them involved, specifically the IGF, and as you mentioned, even that one might not necessarily be 100% positive for the IGF or the IGF as we know it.  So I guess I'm a -- I would recommend exercising some caution as to how we deal with that report.  I know you mentioned that the talk was a bring it in to the IGF.  Maybe we've discussed that before.  I don't know if we've ever come to conclusion of what exactly we would do with it.  I think we couldn't really take any definitive decisions until we've actually seen the report.  I recall Jovan saying that he didn't expect the report would be finalized until -- at least until the end of May or beginning of June.  I hope we get to see it before our Berlin meeting.  But I think we would need to see it before we know exactly what we're going to do with it and how we're going to treat it.  And as I think Veni -- it's a separate process, and whatever it says about the IGF, the IGF still has its own mandate.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  I don't expect we're going to see the report before our Berlin meeting.  I would expect it to be out in mid June.  He thinks the first possible time it would be public would be at the EuroDIG meeting in terms of what he was suggesting as time, which is, I think, the week after our meeting.  But just -- totally agree, we should not be focusing our efforts or driving on that.  But as I said, it is, you know, just the most recent signal that some pretty significant sets of bodies, not talking about just the Secretary-General of the U.N. but member states behind that, are looking for some improvements, as we've all heard.

 And the other thing is recommendations don't need to be you go do X.  I mean, it's a framing and it's -- in this instance X has been found to be helpful or one should consider or pull -- you know, there's a lot of things we could do.  And I agree that a lot of that exists already.  But for some reason it's not accessible enough or findable enough or translatable enough or put in some context or something because we have heard repeatedly for years now, from virtually every stakeholder community that, you know, we need better outputs and better outcomes and we really need to understand what that is.  And in some cases it may just be kind of marketing and publicizing it and that sort of thing.  But -- so I think we're all in, you know, kind of robust agreement with -- with that.

 TT, you have the floor.

 >>CONCETTINA CASSA: Thank you, Lynn, for giving me the floor.  Very briefly.  I think that this year we actually have made out very, very important exercise, just trying to identify.  It was a very useful exercise.  But actually I found that some of them are quite huge as the last one, security, safety, resiliency, and so on.  It's quite huge.  So I think it's quite difficult to try to reduce (audio difficulties) or to find less themes to -- to have -- to the attention.  So I -- I know I can imagine that we are doing this path in order to -- to have more tangible outputs, but I think we need to do more on what we intend for tangible.  Do we intend something more, maybe foster some action, try to push for a common framework where several countries can apply (indiscernible) or something like that.  So I think it's important to focus on what we mean for -- we mean for tangible output.  I think it's important before maybe to continue this process.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, TT.  I think that was good -- good advice.  Sylvia Cadena.  Sylvia, you have the floor.

 >>SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you, Lynn.  Sylvia Cadena, technical community.  I would like to make my comments for the transcript and for my MAG colleagues here in the room on a few observations.  

 I made a -- I sent a message to the MAG list yesterday around how we package the outcomes that we have available.  And on that (indiscernible) highlighted a couple of words around ownership and responsibility.  Not only on the MAG and on the secretariat on how we do things, but also participate in a meeting, to actually take ownership and responsibility of planning their participation.  I think hand-holding and baby-sitting is very important.  Having tools to be able to organize your agenda, an app, a website, a this and a that, is important.  

 But it's also part of the preparation for attending an event to actually plan their participation.  If you go to the Mobile Congress, or if you go to the ITU telecom or you go to other large gatherings that have plenty of simultaneous sessions, concurrent sessions on the same issues that supposed to be -- everybody is supposed to be on everything -- well, organizations, governments, private companies, and more representatives or large delegations to cover more issues.

 We are talking about billions of people that are connected and not connected.  Having four sessions on one day, just because we don't want to have too many things in parallel, might not actually reflect the interest of that many people that we are trying to serve.  So I don't think we can have it both ways.  

 So there is an issue around yes, too many concurrent sessions.  But at least we are in the same building.  When I was in the Mobile World Congress, to move through the city from venue to venue, depending on what you wanted to see, was 100,000 participants attending.  So I don't think it's -- this is a unique challenge for the IGF.  I guess it's -- maybe we want to grab too much and then you can do more than you can chew.  

 So I think it's important also to try to figure out ways so we can help people track what are the sessions that they are more interested in and help them to follow.  I've seen people that are in one workshop connected to the transcripts, following workshops in other rooms, collecting Googles from different friends and collecting what is happening.  If you are interested and take ownership of the content, you make it work.  So I think it's also maybe important to try to outreach a working group and with the help of the secretariat to kind of turn the dialogue a little bit around, you make it -- you want it to be useful.  You make it useful for yourself.  We can't tell people what is useful for each and every individual attending the conference.  I think that is -- that is not -- not really conducive to anything and it's just -- we are just going to end up feeling super guilty about what we are doing.

 I think also I want to emphasize, I can't emphasize enough what Veni and Paul just mentioned about the -- the outcomes, the mapping of outcomes and the impact of the discussions that have happened at the -- at the IGF.  The contributions that the IGF has trickled down through the national and regional initiatives and in many cases in ways that are completely unexpected.  

 At the AP IGF in Vanuatu last year there was an impromptu meeting at the end of the conference where the Vanuatu organizers called in for kind of like an emergency meeting to figure out if they could come up with a national IGF to keep discussing the issues that were being discussed at the event.  The committee was formed, founded, was appointed.  They -- now they have two full staff people, office space, got support from the government, money from the regulator on their own, and their meeting meets in three weeks.  So, I mean, it is a super concrete outcome that they were going through all the motions of reviewing what is going on in Vanuatu after the arrival of the submarine cable and how all that influx of high-speed connectivity has changed their society and how that fits into their religious practices, their traditions, and interests, right?  

 So there is a body of outcomes and impact out there that we just haven't asked or people doesn't -- don't tell the secretariat.  

 You know, I went to the IGF in 2011, attended the taking stock session that Anriette Esterhuysen moderated on human rights and then after that, this happened on freedom of expression and privacy in my country.  We don't do that.  We don't -- so my questions on that email was about the survey that we could do to try to capture some of those outcomes, some of that impact, on a longer term.  Not necessarily only for Berlin but trying to figure out okay, can we do a survey?  Can we survey all the people that have attended the IGF over the years and try to figure out how useful has this been.  So we can have actually evidence to support the comments that I'm hearing in this room as if we haven't done anything, which is not true.

 The other part that I would like to highlight also is that there are question on multi-disciplinarian, how the IGF is not multi-disciplinarian.  I think on a similar token, we haven't asked the question.  If in the registration form there is a list of disciplines and you can say what your discipline is on that survey, for example, we can figure out how many philosophers and sociologists and industrial designers like me have attended the IGF.  It's not a meeting or lawyers and network engineers.  I -- from my professional network and my colleagues here in the room, I know that we have a musician.  I know that we have very talented people that have done -- we have philosophers.  We have all the professions, but we are not asking what your profession is.  

 So I don't think it's fair to say that we are not multi-disciplinary also.  So I think it's -- okay, we are going to criticize ourselves and try to move and change forward.  Can we get some evidence on how it is that we are faring against those questions before we jump into the water and say that we haven't?  Because it seems to me that is a very unfair approach, that the IGF has done tremendous amount of work and influenced a lot of policy, and I can -- we can try and dig for those examples.  But it's -- it's great to criticize ourselves, but it's -- I think that's the only way to get better, right?  But not to the point where we dismissed the impact that we have achieved.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sylvia.  So let me be really clear that I don't intend to dismiss anything we've done.  And I'm not criticizing anything we've done.  And I think we can self reflect all day long in terms of how good we feel about everything we've done, and that's really important to do.  And yes, we need to do a lot more to capture the outputs and the outcomes and things.  At the same time, we need to pay attention to the very clear comments we've been getting for some years now for improvements.  That's all I want us to do, is to focus on that.  You know, this is not trying to be a hammer over anybody's head.  It's really reflecting beyond the 2,000, 3,000 people that participate in this regularly.  So trying to kick our discussions and our thoughts out to address a broader community.  

 I think I made it very clear yesterday how much good stuff we're doing and how much the community has done it on their own backs.  And it's an incredible amount of work and extremely impressive, everything we have been able to do.  

 The good news is I think people are looking for more and expect us to do more, and we're just trying to find a way to do that.

 I think the mapping and that is important.  I think at the same time as we document what we have done, I think we also need to find a way to reach out to people who think we are not doing enough to find out why.  I do think the secretariat might actually add the discipline.  But I think we also need to be thoughtful if somebody is here, they're probably not here because they are a musician, they are probably here because they are interested in the work of the Internet or Internet governance.  

 So while I agree there are some additional disciplines here, I don't think we've -- to the point the Secretary-General is making, if you had a lot of philosophers in the room or a lot of political scientists, our discussions would have a fairly different flavor.  And I think we need to get more of that flavor in more broadly in some of them, not that we don't have some participation, some participation already.  

 Deniz.

 >>DENIZ SUSAR:  Just to add what Sylvia was saying and also Chengetai mentioned earlier, secretariat will publish this travel support form very soon.  And in that form, you will see that we have a section "post-meeting report."  So we will be using this in a way as an outcome of the IGF 2019 and we are asking those candidates who are funded what is the most important benefit they gained at the meeting and what inputs they plan to bring to their community from the meeting.  So basically we are asking a lot of questions to make sure we are funding the right person but also we are doing some follow-up after the meeting.  And I think those could be a good compilation of inputs in the capacity-building.

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

 I was just pointing out that for some reason -- I don't know, the screens are all just -- we missed -- yeah, we missed Deniz's comments entirely on the record, it appears.  There's no scribing that we can find.  Put a note in separately or something.

 Raquel Gatto, Raquel, you have the floor.

 >>RAQUEL GATTO:  Thank you very much, Lynn.  Sorry to pick the mic again.  I guess I got inspired by the discussions.  I really find this very useful and I think the first time we reached this level, and I'm very -- (audio difficulty).

 Version 4.0 is in the corner.

 So in this environment, I think we need to recall we've been there before.  I mean, it's just five years ago we had this big breakthrough with, well, some issues of a survey lens that brought us back to what we are doing, what we are committed to, and what can be done.

 And the MAG showed they could be responsive to that in terms of bringing the best practices.  That's when the whole intersessional -- (audio difficulty).  And I think we are at this moment again.  It's not because of what the high-level per se or other things.  We are at another breakthrough in which we need to make a decision.  

 The discussions that we are hearing, yes, we have everything -- we can't drop the ball in our program in shaping the program and our process is to be bottom-up, transparent, and so on.

 But we need to move this next layer of the MAG and go for the outcomes.  And, yes, we need to identify and we need to walk this talk and I'll start to identify what the outcomes are because I agree with Lynn and others who mentioned perhaps these outcomes are very different types.  And it will also depend on who is participating, and that's okay.  It will add some complexity, but I think we are up to the challenge and we can do it.  

 And I'm very -- I mean, we have exercises that we've done.  The Working Group on Improvements mapped all the -- some of those -- what is expected in terms of outcomes, outputs, and so on.  I think the multi-year program at some point identified the components of the IGF, where they are coming from, and where they are delivering and so on.  So let's get on this work and at least get a comprehensive list of outcomes and where it's possible and move from there.

 I think nothing would be perfect at the first attempt but at least we are doing something.  And it's not reacting to -- it's showing that it can be done.  Thank you.

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

 I'd like to hear Hana.  We will go through the speakers.  I will ask Chengetai to put up the high-level calendar and then see if we can actually talk to kind of the next steps and come back to some of the -- kind of how we're going to process ourselves through the evaluation piece.  If we can close on that before the lunch break.  

 So, Lucien, Lucien Castex, you have the floor.

 >>LUCIEN CASTEX:  Thank you, Lynn.  It's quite interesting as a new MAG member in the discussion, I'm quite in agreement with Raquel and what she said a bit ago.  We need a tangible outcome and there's a clear need to reach out to new circle, to new disciplines.  What we can do is to consolidate sessions by helping session proposer in order to enforce communities and to bring them together to help them understand what are the BPFs and the DCs.  Most of the session proposers have never heard of the best practice forums, which is too bad, really.  

 Also, very quick comment.  I think the national and regional initiative network could play a key role as it concerns dissemination and increasing the IGF impact.  Thank you.

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

 Michael, Michael Ilishebo, you have the floor.

 >>MICHAEL ILISHEBO:  Good morning.  I have two issues things to raise.  The first one is in regards to an extension of the time frame of submissions the workshop sessions in regards to in something that has been announced about the travel support.  

 Basically, if you look at the criteria on eligibility for those who will receive travel support, it states they must be from least developed countries but are not economically viable, meaning those citizens who cannot afford to come to the attend the event on their own.  However, now that the time for proposal submission has been extended by four days and coincidentally it has also been announced that people receive travel support, I'm asking, is it possible that we can consider extending the submission dates to at least a week?  

 Why am I saying a week?  Because many people, we are not able to submit proposals because they never knew if they receive funding.  Now that there is light at the end of the tunnel, I can assure now many people will show interest.  

 If we give them only three days to do it, I don't think we are going to get the right people to attend.  

 The second one is the issue of -- it's fine.  I'll end here.  It's okay.  I think this is one of the most important points I wanted to raise.  Thank you.

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

 I will ask Chengetai to respond.  Just to cover one point, so there's no confusion in the record, the current extension is just for two days from the end of the day Friday to the end of the day Sunday.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Let me just start, for the extension, I don't think we can really extend because it really messes up with the timetable.  

 As far as people submitting proposals because now they can access funding -- sorry, I'm trying to speak properly.

 [ Laughter ]

 I don't think that we should do that because as far as funding, the link between funding and workshops is not that strong because we only have a few seats.  I mean, we have about 80.  

 And also for -- we had announced that we were going to be doing some funding, so people knew that.  They may not have known the details as such, but they knew there was some funding that was going to be available.

 Also, there are also various organizations that do fund people to come to the IGF based on whether or not they have workshop proposals and stuff like that, if they make a strong enough case.

 And we need to do things on time.  So extending it for -- extending it at all, I don't think so.  I think the extension until Sunday was a good compromise.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  And we'll come to the timetable in just a moment, which I think will underline Chengetai's point with respect to the work ahead of us between now and June.

 June Parris, you have the floor.

 >>JUNE PARRIS:  Thank you, Chair.

 I'm not sure if I should actually say this.  But going back to Sylvia's comments, some people may feel the IGF doesn't offer them anything.  I have heard people saying it's technical, it's for technicians only; and that may put them off a bit.

 But we also -- but in going forward, we've started this year really good and efficiently and we've made lots of changes to our usual curriculum.

 The problem is to make the themes we decided on to be more effective, to outreach to our community and to be inclusive looking at data management and security and making it work, there's one question:  How can we attract participants and donors?  

 I am a user and believer in marketing techniques and use of research.  I think that is very important to the IGF, that we do go ahead with research and engage in with marketing techniques.  The use of technology and social media need to be, as mentioned, need, used with the social sciences and research sciences to attract these people.

 So how do we get the rest of the world to know about the global IGF?  I mean, this is very important to the IGF.  A lot of people still are not aware of the IGF, apart from thinking it's nothing to do with them because it's technical, how can we attract them?  I firmly believe in order to do so, we need to sort of come together, ISOC, NRIs, DCs, MAG, we need to use our techniques a bit more and join together to make it more effective.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, June.

 It's an interesting and important reminder and maybe something we can ask campaigns to do as well.  I met with a Polish regulator and they were talking about the campaigns we can do with children.  And one is "I Click Responsibly" and they have a whole series of tutorials that are reaching out to youth.  It was kind of a nice way to say, You need to be careful and thoughtful but in a positive way.  

 So, I mean -- I think we should -- it's not just about getting a marketing plan and marketing communications and -- I think we can do a lot more through social media and even one or two campaigns and just use them across the world.  

 Hana, you have the floor.

 >>HANA ALHASHIMI:  Thank you very much.  And I think this has been a pretty rich discussion, so I would like to thank everyone for their interventions.  

 Building again on specific outcomes -- and thanks to June for that call for action here -- I would first like to thank the secretariat and Germany for making sure there's a focus on funding for developing countries.  I haven't had a chance to raise that as something that's new and super important.  I want to really commend you on that.

 I'd also like to -- going back to the outcomes discussion, I think based on what I'm hearing on the floor, there's different -- there's not just different types of outcomes, there's also different levels of outcomes.  And perhaps the two can be considered.  

 So many thanks to Sylvia for the Vanuatu example.  I think there's a lot to be and there's a lot of benefit in looking at national perspectives or even individual experiences that come out of the IGF.  

 I also think there's space for us to foster more outcomes or facilitate more outcomes by supporting partnerships.  And that goes back to the point made by our Russian colleague.  

 So I share his view that a lot of the time it feels like you're looking at the program, there's a lot of sessions that have almost the same name and that cover very similar things.  And that doesn't mean that it's bad, that, yes, there absolutely can be space for larger delegations in some cases.  

 But, on the other hand, it's not necessarily the case that every stakeholder wants to have an individual event and doesn't want to partner.  It might be the case that they don't know that there's others that are interested in similar topics.  So I think as the MAG, there might be scope for us in reviewing workshops to look at similarities and at least let different stakeholders know that there are others interested in a similar topic.

 If we do that, then we might actually be fostering partnerships working together towards something that could be a more tangible outcome.  Whereas, if you're organizing something yourself with people you're always talking to, you're creating a series of echo chambers that doesn't necessarily lend itself to something new or useful.

 But I think that if we can start thinking in the review process of not just saying yes or no to each proposal but actually saying, well, this is similar to that, this isn't -- this isn't something unique to the IGF.  

 This is my secret, not-so-secret wish for everyone U.N. event, from the HLPF to Science Tech Innovation Forum, wherever it is, even from a member state perspective, we plan on doing things and we're going around looking for partners.  And on the day we find three other events on similar topics where we are like, okay, obviously there were people interested.  

 So that's -- you know, none of this is meant as something of a criticism but instead it's meant to really push the bar as many of us have said here.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Hana.

 So we have Jennifer and Helani.  I will take those two comments and then I want to go back to the process and the timetable and try to close on that before lunchtime.  

 Jennifer, you have the floor.

 >>JENNIFER CHUNG:  Thank you, Chair.  I wasn't sure if you closed the queue.  I just -- I'm very thankful for having the floor.

 I agree with a lot of things that the colleagues have said this morning.  I think we heard a lot on how to organize the selection.  From Timea we heard the suggestion from the cross-cutting theme, like a horizontal thing, how we can organize the program better, and that could shape possible outcomes which a lot of colleagues have been talking about.  Roman has talked about it.  Sylvia has talked about it.  And Hana just now has talked about it as well.

 I think a lot of things we need to remember which both Susan and Paul said that, you know, we need to remember that this is a bottom-up multistakeholder process.  We need to remember to listen to what the communities are saying to us, what our stakeholder communities are saying to us, and what the communities we're trying to bring into IGF are saying to us.

 So the small discussion around the policies questions are actually really good because these are the things that everybody who is submitting a workshop is saying, Hey, we want to talk about this.  This is what we would like to talk about.  This is what we would like to hear.  And perhaps this could give us good guidance on, I think -- later on in the afternoon when we were talking about main sessions on how we can organize and use this resource that we already have, this data that we will have and not to forget that we've asked the community to give us this and we should definitely respond.

 A little bit more about the outcomes.  I think a lot of us, including myself, have given examples on how different initiatives have done it this way.  I don't think it's a prescription for the IGF at all.  I think we really need to look at the very good work that we already have done, the outputs we've done throughout the year, last year, the intersessional works and all the BPFs, DCs, and the NRIs, how we can actually package that into a form that is digestible to these communities we're trying to attract.

 I think I'm repeating myself, so I'll be a bit more brief here.

 Lastly, I just wanted to touch on the point that June raised and I'm really interested to know and I never actually heard the IGF is too technical.  In fact, we're more -- we're trying to attract the technical community to come to the IGF to see there's value there.  So I want us to also react and listen very carefully to what the community are saying to us.  This is what will make the IGF useful for us.  And we already are doing it -- such a good job.  We need to package what we're doing right and saying -- and reacting this way instead of saying, Okay we're going to change everything.  At least I don't think that's what everybody is saying, and I don't think it's what we're hearing in this room.  

 We're doing a lot of things that are right.  We just need to package it better in a way that people say, "Oh, you have been doing this."  This is where I can see and find these things.  Hopefully that will be helpful for us to think about.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jennifer.  A lot of good points there.  Thank you.

 Helani, Helani Galpaya, you have the floor.  And Helani is online.  

 >>HELANI GALPAYA: Thank you, Chair.  For the record, Helani Galpaya for the civil society.  I think multi-disciplinary is a term that has now featured repeatedly yesterday and today, and I think there's broad consensus, from what I hear, that this is a very important thing.  And I think we have a like-minded group of people in the MAG, and I have no concerns when I hear the term.  

 But every other time I have heard the multi-disciplinary tag in terms of Internet governance is by people who do not believe in multistakeholderism.  So while it is absolutely true that we need to reach out to disciplines that are not represented, we also need to highlight what disciplines are represented so we can see the diversity of disciplines and therefore we need to do a good marketing job.  Both those things are true.  We need to keep in mind, I think, the danger of many people trying to replace -- and this has been overt as well as more secretive -- the term "multi-disciplinary" versus "multistakeholder."  And this is really, really core and fundamental in a U.N. system that is not at its heart multi-disciplinary.  

 I have sat on a million workshops, expert panels, and events that the U.N. and private sector have hosted that are multi-disciplinary but do not have diverse points of view.  It's very easy for a large company in the I.T. or Internet sector to bring ten disciplines into the room and spew the same point of view.  Ten philosophers can be there and have the same view, whether it's extremely liberal or extremely conservative or what have you.  

 Multi-disciplinary has to be preserved.  I'm not saying this group is valuing one over the other.  In fact, we are probably on the side of multistakeholder as opposed to multi-disciplinary.  It can be both, but we have to keep an eye out that one might win in the long run.  Thanks.

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

 Okay.  So at this point in the next 20 minutes I'd like to see if we can kind of close on how the MAG is actually going to approach the workshop evaluation process in terms of intent.  I'm going to again -- we started this morning with a discussion that said the MAG had previously agreed that we were going to work towards a cohesive, focused program.  I mean, that obviously evident in the fact that we have three tracks.  We agreed at our last face-to-face meeting to work through a narrative structure, and that was so that we could actually work towards building a story or a few themes that would actually concretely advance this smaller number of topics.  It was also hoped that it would actually be picked up through all the other intersessional activities as well as, where appropriate, national, regional, and youth IGF initiatives because that would actually help all kind of parties, you know, leverage, if you will -- leverage, if you will, the work and play off of each other.  

 So if, in fact, we want to stay with the narrative process and work towards the direction that was encompassed in the narrative process, I think we need to think about whether or not our historical evaluation process is -- and I mean the full process, the process of constructing the program, not the individual workshop reviews -- needs some additional staff person tweaking.  

 So what would normally happen is -- and the schedule is up there.  The call is now open until this Sunday night, UTC.  Normally the secretariat gets a week to screen out those proposals that aren't complete or don't meet a very kind of, I guess, low bar or something of criteria, and then they would set up the evaluation teams and that sort of thing.  And the MAG would start their evaluation process basically next Friday and have three weeks to do that, two weeks for the secretariat to analyze the reports which tends to look at sort of very -- various diversity characteristics, allocation across themes and sub-themes, and the MAG uses that to assess whether or not there are any sort of gaps.  

 It's kind of a really process-oriented view of how to construct the program, and I think what the MAG agreed they wanted to do at the last face-to-face meeting was really try and focus more on -- again, small number of thematic issues, kind of focused on the policy questions that are coming through the process, and build towards a sort of -- a cohesive agenda.  We didn't say a threaded agenda.  

 So we said earlier that -- and again, we're going to have the same group of people reviewing one set of workshops so that one group of people would see the totality of the workshops that were there in the data governance track so that they're comparing all of those like workshops.  It's not that half of them are data governance and half of what they are reviewing is security because that's hard to keep the -- that was actually intended to help us reduce some of the redundancy which a few people have said has been -- it needs to be improved.  

 We talked a little bit earlier about whether or not it was appropriate to take a view of all the policy questions that were coming in in each theme and try to see whether or not there was kind of another aggregation or maybe a way to tie this together to support the narrative, to support a story that comes -- that comes through.  We obviously don't know that until we actually see the workshop proposals that -- that come in.

 But if we assume that that's still a useful thing we want to do, and I guess the only thing we don't know is how many potential kind of meta policy aggregations there might be.  Again, I wouldn't expect that the workshops would be actually be rated very highly if they don't have a policy question or really -- something really concrete they're trying to do, because that was one of the key criteria.  

 We could -- again, so I think what we have in front of us is that the middle of next week, Wednesday or Thursday, Chengetai said the secretariat could have -- would have a list of how many workshops we'd actually see under each one of the big three themes.  We could have a view of how they were grouped with respect to the tags or issues underneath that would help us understand whether we needed sort of three or four MAG evaluation groups.  There was -- and maybe -- maybe a few people, few of us should go away over lunchtime and think about some of the background process pieces a little bit more, but if it was also possible really early in the week to actually get, this is a data governance track and be able to really quickly see these are all the policy questions that have come in.  If there's no policy question, that's fine.  It would be blank.  And if it was a bad one, that's fine, we would still see that as well, but at least we would then be able to have a few days to think through kind of the policy profile that we're actually seeing in each one of these tracks, which I think would facilitate then maybe kind of a -- a better understanding of the sort of process we want to run.  And it might actually also facilitate Timea's suggestion of looking horizontally as well.  

 So not look -- the individual workshop evaluation process will come starting on the 19th.  But to get a sense of the policy issues, the policy concerns, how they're aggregating up, is there a good horizontal thread there as well is something we could all actually begin looking at, I mean, hopefully maybe early next week.  I'm not quite sure how quickly it is to just extract the policy questions by data governance and throw them into an Excel spreadsheet or something.  I'm hoping quickly, and maybe I'll talk to Luis and Chengetai at lunchtime.  Because then what happens is the MAG has three weeks for their individual workshop evaluation.  And I think we need to -- and obviously they're going to evaluate it according to the criteria that have been, you know, published and agreed.  And I think the question is then, where and how does that narrative review, that threaded "storytelling" review, horizontal look at policy questions happen?  Are we expecting the MAG members that are evaluating those groups to do that as a second pass of their own evaluation?  Do they do it as a possible working group with the working group meeting towards the end of the meeting?  Do we do it in the period where there's a secretariat synthesis and analysis of workshops?  

 So to my mind, there's two reviews.  One is the quality of the workshops, and then the second one is, what's the program structure we're building.  And they obviously go hand-in-hand, but I don't think they need to go sequentially or serially.  

 So those are just some of the things I'm trying to kick off a little bit.  The intent was that the MAG -- and again, this was with the -- the kind of old process in mind, I think, where we would say -- and it's still a discussion we need to have -- we're going to have 80 workshops in total.  Historically the MAG would have said, okay then, 60 of those are so, we're going to assume the top 60 weighted proposals are the ones that are in and then we're going to look at the other 20 and fill in gaps.  I don't think that's always addressed the redundancy question well enough.  So I do think there's another sort of series of reviews we need to make sure to make sure that we haven't just put three of the same workshops in place because they were all really well done and really highly rated and that's the expense of some other areas.  That's what was -- that's what we try and do in the two-day MAG meeting, which is pretty painful and, you know, not pretty.  We put an extra two weeks in there so that -- in both of those processes, so that we actually had more thoughtful time at a content level rather than kind of filling workshop slot process approach.  

 So any -- in the like 15 minutes or so that we have here, any kind of thoughts on how we might want to process our way through that review?  Or I'm perfectly happy to go away and work with an ad hoc working group for a little bit over lunch to see if we can refine that and think that through a little bit more and bring something back after lunch.  Because there's obviously implications on the secretariat and what the secretariat can support.  Mary.  Mary, you have the floor.

 >>MARY UDUMA: Thank you for -- for giving me the floor, Chair.  Mary, again, for the records.  

 I agree with what the proposal you're putting forward, but I'm -- I want to ask whether we could develop a survey at the end of each workshop and get first-hand information from participants at the end of the workshop and then see whether we're getting something that is -- very short, just very short review of feedback at the end of the -- I don't know whether it's going to be online or it's going to be hard copy.

 Now, let me come back to say that the communication working group, I am not sure that we have been able to implement some of the things we agreed at the beginning of this MAG.  And I still have the concern that if -- if the type of thing Anja did in ICANN64 is done all over, whether those -- some of us are running with it in our -- in our communities for -- so that they know exactly what, I think the MAG as a whole, if we had -- if we are taking it in -- I mean, if we have done some webinars, it would have been more -- I don't know that we have the resources to do that, so I think it would have helped a lot for those proposing workshop, that they are clear on what that is expected of them.

 Having said that, I know, Chengetai, you have drawn the line, but think again.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So --

 >> ( Speaker off microphone. )

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Just a couple of quick points.  I mean, I think the ship has sailed on workshop webinars given it's supposed to close in sort of -- well, tomorrow and now Sunday.  But I do think as an improvement for next year, I think having the materials early, even maybe doing something up on YouTube as well as ensuring that the MAG members all have the materials means we could actually use them.  The NRIs could obviously use them.  The DCs could use them in their community.  So I think we could much earlier next year get some materials out and again possibly even a little YouTube video that would actually talk to, here's what the IGF is about in 2020 and here's some of the facts they're focusing on and here's what you do and whatever.  I think that would be very useful.  

 I mean, I really have to support Chengetai here in terms of not being able to extend the date a little bit.  If we look up there at the timetable, we have the meeting in June.  It was not possible to do the meeting later.  And if they do that much later, then we hit a heavy holiday period in some part of the world, but it also really extends, you know, when we get back to the people that have submitted the proposals and building the program.  If we take more time for the workshop submissions, the only thing we can do is take time away from the MAG evaluation and review process, and I think that's not -- not really the right -- the right trade-off.  

 The time they've had this time is no different than in past years.  So it's not as though that was an abbreviated time.  It really is, you know, the sort of expectation.  We can -- I think one of the other things we could learn from this year is with the MAG going to be appointed in November next -- this year, be ready really right out of the box to start putting some of these things together, these timetables, these webinars.  And it was kind of a new cycle for us.  We were all like, this is great.  Okay.  Well, you know, we need to get started.  But I think there's some things we can move up even further now that we have one year as kind of running (indiscernible) behind us.

 >> (Off microphone).

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And Chengetai is saying, it's a small rotation this year.  Some years we've had almost 40% of the MAG members rotate out for various reasons, but evidently it's going to be a small rotation out this year.  And I think that was your --

 >>MARY UDUMA: Excuse me.  Did you address the issue of having feedback at the end of the workshop?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I knew there was another one.  Thank you.  No, I actually really like the idea of a survey.  I like the idea of an online survey.  And last year I had actually moved it but it was quite late, specifically asking people on this particular topic, what are the things you think the MAG could -- or sorry, what are the things you think the IGF could kind of address in the next year so that we were actually, again, trying to get kind of more concrete in terms of results people were looking for, outputs, or whatever.  I think there's a whole series, small, of questions we can ask that would be really useful.  And that means we could actually get, you know, the 200 voices that are in a workshop, and not just the 10 people that actually, you know, managed to get up to the mic.  So I think it would be really -- plus all the online people.  I think it would be really, really important.  And it's not just, did the workshop meet your needs, you know.  Kind of, were you happy about it?  Did you -- I mean, I think it really needs to be on this topic.  What more could we have been dealt with, should we be considering and thinking.  I think that's a really good idea.  

 Arsene, you wanted the floor.

 >>ARSENE TUNGALI: Thank you very much, Chair.  I have a couple of comments, and I'll go very quickly.  The first one is about the -- I'm seeing the time frame on the screen.  With regards to the MAG workshop evaluation, I see the period which is of less than 20 days and I'm like -- well, this is my first year on the MAG so I'm wondering whether 20 days or less than 20 days will be sufficient.  I also know it depends on how many workshop proposal are in.  

 I would suggest probably to give more time for MAG members to work on this process.  And again, I may be -- I may be wrong because this will be my first exercise, but what if we could take a few days from, you know, the next item, like item 4, and add them on the item 3 to allow MAG members more time?  I know here I'm tapping on the secretariat's, but if we can have more -- more time for the MAG to evaluate workshop proposals, I think this would be helpful.

 I have -- I have just -- you know, I've just heard about the call for travel supports.  I didn't know it was already out.  So I -- it's only now that I just checked the website and see it has been posted.  I know as a member of the -- the working group on outreach and engagements there is a lot of needs in terms of support and collaboration between our working group and the -- the secretariat but as well as the other MAG members if we really need to see this working group help in terms of disseminating information.  Of course, we had a very productive meeting yesterday of the working group, and we are working on finalizing our charter.  And so we'll be having like a very good list of things that we'll be requesting to the secretariat but as well to the whole MAG members to support, you know, this effort of this working group.

 So and one of those is if -- if like these announcements, whenever they are put on the website, if they can be sent to the working group as well for like a quick dissemination, this would be -- would be very good.

 And my last point is with regard to the call for travel supports.  I just went through it like very quickly, and I've seen there is a lot of involvements which is good of NRIs, you know, into evaluating the workshop proposals.  But I was wondering what is the place of the MAG into this process because I'm sure MAG members will also be in a position, you know, to support like, of course, we know our communities and as much as the NRIs committees can help in identifying the best candidates, I believe MAG members should also be included somehow into the process of identifying suitable candidates for the supports.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I have to turn to Chengetai because that's something I'm not familiar with.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No.  Thank you for your questions.  Yes, we hadn't fully publicized the call yet because we were just waiting for -- it's a soft launch and then we were waiting for comments and then we're going to do the bigger launch -- the more publicized launch -- just to make sure there's no kinks, because it's easier to fix them now than fix them, you know, when we have the big launch.

 As far as the MAG is concerned in evaluating, we -- the MAG is, of course, free to suggest people and we will consider them, but we don't see it as a MAG process for selecting these candidates.  Also, apart from the fact that, you know, I mean, there's a lot of work already there for the MAG for the workshop proposals and et cetera, and I think as we see the -- the way that it was formulated, I think we have a very good involvement in a bottom-up involvement from the national/regional initiatives.  So it is not also -- the process is not confined to the national and regional initiatives.  We're just using them as a conduit to highlight people that we may need to sponsor.  So I hope that makes it clear.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I would like to support Chengetai and the sort of processes.  That is a traditional secretariat function.  I'm sure if they have a candidate and they're not sure and there's a MAG member that comes from that country or regional or organization they would reach out as part of their own vetting.  That is a traditional secretariat process.

 Arsene, with respect to the comment about the extra time for the MAG, it's just short of three weeks for the MAG to review.  And, I mean, I think past experience tells us if we shorten the subsequent periods, frankly, I think it potentially harms the overall program structure more.

 You know, I don't -- what did everybody have last year?  60-odd proposals or so to review?  I mean, there may be more this time if we're only into three working groups or so.

 You know, hopefully it's not a huge task.  

 I have to say, given the MAG I was on at 240, 60 feels -- and the tools weren't really quite so advanced, 60 feels quite manageable over a three-week period.

 One of the things we can do -- and I will go -- we're just a minute ahead of lunch.  I know there are other kind of meetings and commitments.  I would like to sit with Chengetai, if he doesn't have any other lunch commitments, and anybody else who is interested, and noodle through a little bit what the process might be.  

 Again, if we can get some of these kind of different views of what's come in -- so all the policy questions via track, for instance, and get that early, I think that would be a really useful piece of information to the MAG members.  

 So if you're reviewing data governance and you see there's a fairly significant concentration on policy issues in this particular, you know, you might want to think about is that something that really is worthy of kind of being called out in some sort of introductory comment.  Do we want to think about how we thread those together more?  

 And we're not going to know until we actually see them in front of us.  I actually think it would provide some kind of additional high-level kind of framing view that might be useful.

 And then we need to think about what some of the possibilities are for a process which says, once we actually have the individual workshops reviewed and we would come in, I think, and review the top ones by theme and maybe rather than just the top -- again, let's say with 80 workshops or 60 or something, instead of taking them across the entire portfolio of workshops, I think we need to determine an appropriate kind of weighted allocation by theme.  And if we had three times as many data governance proposals as everything else, then maybe they get a higher percentage of slots because that's a clear expression of the community's interest.  If it's all equal, then there's a fair.  But we then look within the top-rated ones within those individual themes.

 But I think maybe some of that hasn't been specified quite so much.  And maybe we can meet with some of the secretariat and Chengetai and try to flesh that out a little bit.

 But I think if we think about this in terms of themes and really stay with the themes, I think the MAG's exercise in the later part of the process becomes easier.

 You know, we're not trading off, I think, ultimately a data governance workshop for a security workshop if we already said these three themes are important and we want to make sure we have got an appropriate representation of them in the program.  So now it's how does this data governance workshop fit with this other data governance workshop?  Is it too redundant?

 So I actually think maybe the latter part of the process becomes a little bit easier.  But I would like a half-hour to sit down and think about it a little quietly.

 But are people in agreement with, you know, kind of the high-level process that's emerging?  And I can go away with anybody else who has the time or the interest at lunch and just see if we can noodle it a bit more and continue refining it.

 Which means when we come back after lunch, at some point, we could share that with everybody.  But I want to make sure we have enough time obviously for discussion on main sessions, which I know everybody is very keen to have as well, obviously the title, and probably get a quick reading from the secretariat in terms of how much there is to say here, in fact, on the last item which is a briefing on the state of preparations.

 So if everybody is okay with that as a plan for the rest of the session, I think I will just remind everybody that, in fact, there is a dynamic coalition on domain name system issues open working meeting at 1:30 to 2:30 here in this room.  

 So thank you, everybody.  Thank you very much for sticking with the discussion here, too.  I think it was a good -- good session.  Thank you.