The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2017 Second Open Consultations and MAG Meeting from 12 to 14 June 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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13 JUNE 2017 15:00
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming back on time from lunch as we have quite a lot on the schedule to get through. I will turn it over to our chair, Lynn St. Amour, to start.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Chengetai.
One quick administrative question I had over the lunch break, we are using the electronic speaking queue. There are one or two individuals that cannot use it and they are in the room here. When their flag goes up, I slot them into the speaking queue at the end of the current electronic speaking queue. Just so everybody both in the room and remotely understands that we are operating the fair, rotating speaking queue.
Just before lunch, we had agreed a process in terms of proceeding with the workshops where we were going to look at a number of workshops for further review to see if they should be pulled into the formal program. Specifically, we were going to look at workshops that were proposed by governments. And that list was sent around by the secretariat this morning and tend to start with that list in a moment.
But I ask the secretariat also if they would put the criteria up here because the criteria by which we judge these workshops should be the same as the criteria by which we judged the previous workshops.
If, in fact, they're found wanting against some of those criteria, this is our opportunity to say, we can address that and this is how we're going to address that. But the judgment should be against the same set of criteria.
The secretariat also expanded the wildcard list that was sent out last night to include those workshops that were suggested from the conversation here in the room.
We're hopeful that we caught everything. Eleonora and I did this over lunch, but we may not have. So in particular, we went and looked through the geographic distribution, the IPv6 -- I'm forgetting what some of the others were. But we think we have captured that now in an updated wildcard list. Is that wildcard list still in the Google doc and does the MAG have the link to the updated doc?
>> ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI: Can you hear me? The microphone is working? Okay, great. So we have updated the wildcard list, and we will share it with you shortly. We have it in two formats. It's in that Google sheet which I think Lynn shared last night with all MAG members. And on request of some other members, we also have an Excel version of the wildcard list which is now updated and we will share both versions shortly.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And I think a new standard operating procedure ought to be if we are going to do Google docs we're also need to do some other format. I think there are some MAG members behind firewalls and things can't access them.
So up on the slide here in the room and should be projected in the Adobe Connect room as well, we actually have the criteria by which we were actually meant to evaluate the workshops. I will just remind everybody again. There was the relevance, relevance to Internet governance and the IGF main theme for this year. Content: Is the proposal well thought out? And does it cover enough aspects of the issue of interest? And is the main Internet governance issue clearly spelled out? Background papers with the aim of informing content are welcomed but are not a screening requirement. Workshop proposer and speaker diversity: Are the proposers first-time proposers? Do they come from a developing country or an underrepresented region? Is the list of speaker diverse in terms of gender, geography, stakeholder group, policy perspective, and/or persons with disabilities? Are the speakers qualified to tackle the topic? Are there speakers from developing countries? And are the speakers organizers who are first-time proposers? And the final criteria was the format: Is the session description consistent with the format listed? And I think we were also hopeful that we would get some variety in the formats as well, not just workshops and roundtables and panel sessions.
We have one person in the queue. I ma going to ask Eleonora in the background to actually put up the list with the government proposals because that's the one we will start going through in a substantive manner.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair.
I have to put out in this morning I have never agreed to discuss on the basis of the current top 72 proposals and going to the specific discussion of specific wildcards directly.
If we have any chance for wildcard, this wildcard, a chance of 20, should be given to those regions which is extremely disadvantaged rather than from particular groups like government or wildcards proposed by MAG members. For me, these proposals are irrelevant. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Ji.
In fact, we did take forward that requirement and on the expanded wildcard list, in other words, working from the starter document last night, we did pull in proposals from underrepresented regions. In particular, we went in and pulled forward proposals from Asia. There were not any specific proposals which had been put forward here in the room. But working with the secretariat, we went forward and pulled those through.
So those should be on the expanded wildcard list.
Now, I haven't had a chance to look at that document yet because I have just been in several meetings over the lunch period. But if there are some more that you think need to be reflected there, very happy to put them there. But we would request that we have the specific workshop proposal numbers so we can pull them in quickly and easily.
So, Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: I need some help from the secretariat. Can the secretariat give me a list of the proposals from Asia-Pacific and among them which has been selected and which aren't so I can work on that? Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes. One of the things -- I'll ask Eleonora to take the floor in a moment. But I actually asked you to go through and create a sort of all those proposals that had Asia-Pacific as the region of the proposer and to pull those together into a separate document or a separate sort specifically so we could look at that. Eleonora?
>>ELEONORA MAZZUCHI: Hi, yes. What Lynn is saying is correct. We did pull out all the proposals from the Asia-Pacific region and in particular highlighted in an updated wildcard list the next top five graded proposals from Asia-Pacific and indicating which of those also were coming from first-time proposers. As a general principle, we also want to bolster submissions from people who have not proposed before. So you will find that in the updated wildcard list. And separately we also have a document with all the Asia-Pacific proposals just to review for reference.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Eleonora.
Does that meet your need, Ji? That one that's up there is just the government list, I believe. Yes. The list you are actually looking for is elsewhere in mail. Is it on the MAG list? You should have a email sent to the MAG list that has the information that Eleonora just looked like.
>>JI HAOJUN: When was that mail sent?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Within the last hour. Actually, within the last 10, 15 minutes Chengetai is saying but certainly within the last hour.
>>JI HAOJUN: I deeply appreciate that.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Great, thank you.
Aida, you have the floor.
>>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC: Just to add, I would like to suggest mergers. I already suggested a wildcard but now that I just rechecked, Number 162, Geneva Digital Convention, was my wildcard, but I would like to suggest a merger with Number 34, which is A Digital Geneva Convention to Protect Cyberspace. As I saw them both, I think they similarly meet criteria, and while the Number 34 is ranked pretty high, 162 is very low, so I think these two could go together very well.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. That's a useful comment.
I'm trying to figure out how we note those. Of course the transcript helps immensely, in terms of going back and capturing them, so if people can make sure, when they make a comment like that, that the workshop numbers are captured correctly in the transcript. Failing that --
>>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC: So 162 to merge with 34.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. And we'll determine, when we come back and look at some of the -- that one may actually come through in the wildcard process because one was on the wildcard.
>>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC: Sure. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So let's move now to the government proposals that were here. Again, there were a number of comments this morning with concerns about the fact that governments were underrepresented.
And if I may make one comment as well.
The one we weren't clear on was whether or not there were any proposals that should be forward -- pulled forward for review from the African region, so maybe if I could ask those of you that are from the African region, if there are some proposals you'd like pulled forward, if you could inform the secretariat. We heard from many other people this morning -- Asia and MENA and eastern Europe and that sort of thing -- and we did manage to track a lot of those people down over the lunch hour and make sure we had captured their submissions correctly, but I don't feel that we did that adequately for any of the proposals that had the African region as a stakeholder.
So if there are some that should be on the wildcard list, then please let us know. And some of them may be here in the government as well, but...
So I'm just having a hard time seeing this.
Is there somebody in the room who could actually speak to the first --
And I think the way we've done this in past years is we -- you know, this goes forward if there's somebody to represent it in the room. That doesn't mean champion or lobby. It simply means represent the discussion in the room. So quickly to introduce it and argue for why you think it should go forward, I think it would be helpful.
We have the ranking number. Maybe if the secretariat could also just tell us what the -- not so much for 75 because that's obviously a very highly rated proposal but for some of the other numbers, if we also understood what the rankings were for them as well, that would help, and any comments that were submitted, as well, from the reviewers.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Sorry. Just to check, have you all received the email? Because sometimes I --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Nobody?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: With the Excel file and link.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yeah. So I just sent it again. Yeah.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. Okay.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: And then the latest one, you should have received just now.
So -- but also, if you do have the main sheet with all the rankings, you can just easily -- just do a quick sort with the tabs.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. Exactly. You can just do the same thing, if you know how to do it.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, no. That's fine. So does everybody have the correct document in front of them?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I know, I know. Right now we're just working from the government list that was a document that was sent out mid-morning today.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Sorry.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Hi, Lynn. Sorry. Can you just give us time to delete all the rest and just pull this one up before you start working on it?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think we can probably start with the government list. That list came out mid-morning.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: The first one, yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: That one came out mid-morning. It's shown up here on the screen. So the first one that we're actually going to look at is ID Number 57 was ranked 75. It's The Playbook of Gender Equality, How to Harness the Power of Digital Media and Emerging Technologies.
And who was the proposer?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Is there anybody --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: I think we should not waste more time with that because it's 75. It's from Canada and South Africa. The -- it has diversity in the speakers. Also from the proposer because he's from Canada, the main one, but it's South Africa, so it's two. And the subject is a subject that is also of interest, of the content, so I suggest to approve that without further delay and then go to the next one.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Juan. You actually always break the ice in this sort of situation, I think.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: But, again, my screen hadn't refreshed. We have Liesyl in the queue and then I'll actually see if there's support for that or not. Liesyl, you have the floor.
>>LIESYL FRANZ: Thank you, Chair. I also would support that proposal moving forward, Number 57, not only because it is the top of the list and basically almost makes the cut anyway, but also for the comments that Juan just made.
I would also -- I think you may be going through each of them, but just to limit my intervention, I guess my next one, based on -- if I may just say it now, if I were to put forward another one, going with the goal of regional diversity, in my own view, it might also have some balance if we have some more technically based workshops on the technologies. I would put forward Number 202 which is put forward by Egypt. Sorry if I've messed up your procedure but --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, no, I don't think you did. So let me just -- we'll go one by one. But I think we're going to do this on the issue of, are there any objections. And I do want to try and keep a careful watch for the speaking queue for electronic. And again, there's a 30-second delay. But right now we have a -- support for including ID Workshop Number 57 in, and we've had two levels of support, but what I'm not looking for is not 55 comments on support but whether or not there's a strong objection.
So we're going forward with 57 moved into the workshop.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I have Jac in the queue and then Flavio and then Pablo.
>>JAC SM KEE: Hand down. Just support.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. Thank you. So, Flavio you're next in the queue.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Just to be clear about the procedure we are following now, so because if we do this exercise, maybe we will end up with more than eight proposals that are worthwhile to be included in the program.
So are we already definitely approving those proposals or just putting them on a separate list?
If this list is too big, then we have to make a second round and go through the list and decide which ones we are really keeping.
I would propose to do it in two steps.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: In two steps or could we do it in one step? I mean, the Proposal Number 57 was ranked 75. It's two governments. It's got great diversity both on the panel and the -- is that one we would say we would definitively rule in? Because that -- otherwise, we're going to go through the same whole list again and I don't -- so I would like, maybe if we could -- if you will, accept a slight modification on your --
Some of them we definitely rule. Others we actually put in a second pot.
In the queue, I have Pablo and then Sala.
Pablo has taken himself out of the queue. Sala?
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Hi. I'd like to submit the 214 as my wildcard.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Can you -- that's not the process we're in at the moment.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: I'm Sorry. What process are we in? I'm confused because I've opened so many spreadsheets and --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: The only one you need to open right now is the one that was the government proposals that were sent mid-morning this morning and are the ones that are displayed in the Adobe Connect chat room. And then if you are adding another wildcard proposal, we can do that in a second step when we come.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. Okay. Sorry, I thought you were adding another wildcard. So let's be -- this is just a government list.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I must remember to thank the person who proposed wildcards separately.
[ Laughter ]
>> (Off microphone.)
>>LIESYL FRANZ: Regardless of what you called it, this would still be happening. Sorry.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. I think that's true. I think that's true.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: So --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So, okay, let's go from the list, which is 214. Thanks, Sala.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Thank you, Madam Chair. Workshop 214 was proposed by the government of Netherlands. I also note that the technical community is represented there. I know in the analytics where the (indiscernible) was gathered, the technical community was underrepresented. So RIPE NCC in terms of the regional Internet registry are represented here. And I think this topic would be -- would be good in terms of adding some level of diversity to the current thematic area.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So any further substantive reflections on the proposal? Nothing to rule it in or rule it out? Am I speaking to --
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Just one quick addition. Noting that if (saying name) is not mentioned, it's something we can easily suggest for them to include.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So are there -- again, sorry my speaking queue just disappeared. I need to pull it back up. It froze or something. Are there any strong objections to moving forward with Workshop Number 214? Again, until I get my speaking queue back up -- I saw Renata and Sumon, I think.
Okay.
>> It is Jac I think.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Renata, you have the floor.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: Again, I agree with Flavio that we have to be careful because we have only eight slots and we can't put all governments' proposal in the eight slots. So I am fine with 57 and 163 from the government list, developing countries being represented.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So, Renata, you said you're fine with -- what were the two numbers again? I'm sorry. My computer is acting up.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: 57.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Which we have already agreed.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: And 163.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And 163 which we will come to in a moment.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: It also has support on the chat.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: The call right now in front of the room is for 214. I think we agreed we were going to go through them one by one. So proposal 214 which is the second one in the list was ranked for 132. There is a proposal to put that on the second list. Okay. Let's put that one there.
Just one second. We need to find a different way to manage the queue here because my computer acted up and I still get the error.
Chengetai can still use the electronic speaking queue by, I will have to defer to Chengetai to help me drive it here.
So we have Jac, Flavio, Miguel, and Renata in the queue.
So, Jac, you have the floor, please, on 214.
>>JAC sm KEE: I think mine was from the previous hand up, which I have already taken down.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Flavio. Miguel.
>> Nacho Estrada is next.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes, Miguel, you have the floor.
>>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA: Can you hear me? Sorry. I just wanted to support 214. (indiscernible) technical community.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Miguel, I'm sorry, we can't hear you. Is it possible for you to type your comments in?
Miguel, we will wait for you to type your comments in and in the meantime move to Renata.
She's done.
So we have Juan Fernandez in the queue.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: I just want to say why don't we go a little bit faster because we will need more time for the other list. I think that here these are the only nine from governments. I think that here only those that are really with the big objections we should take it out.
For instance, this one. I saw it for the first time. It's an interesting topic even for private sector because it's about techniques that is reusing IPv4 addresses instead of going to the full installation of IPv6. And that's one of the topics that the community is asking us to review when the IPv4 was exhausted. So I think we should move faster.
If somebody can find out that the speaker is not diverse enough so that we should do some actions, you know, try to get some other speakers, to do so but go with the will, with the will of including it. And if it's not enough how it is proposed, how to fix it. Go with that projection because we will need more time for the wildcard, for the Asia-Pacific list, that is a bigger list. And otherwise, Chair, we will not have time. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, thank you, Juan. I think that's good -- good advice.
In the queue, we have France.
>> FRANCE: Yes. Can you hear me? I'm Frederic. I'm jumping in to try to save the rank 265, "Diversity in the Internet," maybe "on the Internet." But I still trying to figure out. It's a proposal proposed by the French government with Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. We have speakers from Africa -- a speaker from Africa, a speaker from France. The issue is diversity on the Internet on Africa but also diversity for the Internet governance.
And my cue here is we are part of the IGF, Internet Governance Forum. I know that many organizations like the ITU have working groups on how to boost ip6 and very technical issues. And I was wondering if within the Internet Governance Forum we should not focus on governance. And our proposal is to boost diversity within the Internet governance and with some case in point from Africa. And I can also tell that this workshop could be -- could be made in French or in English.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. Following Juan Fernandez's --
>>JAC sm KEE: Sorry, I think it's just not removing me from the queue.
>> It's Julian.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Could we maybe clean the queue up. Miguel we couldn't hear. I think he's going to send in his comment in writing. We should remove him. And then I have Julian and Raquel. Juan's is old.
Julian, we are at you.
>>JULIAN CASABUENAS: Thank you. Just comment on 214 proposal. It's a first-time proposer. If it is selected, it is encouraged to gender balance in the panel and to include stakeholders from other regions not represented. That are on the comments already of that. Maybe it's a good idea to put the comments from the MAG members, and then we can just look quickly at them and no need to ask for the floor.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Julian, I heard you supporting 214. I think there's already a request on the floor to put 214 on the "maybe/possibly" list. So we'll move forward with that.
We're also suggesting that we just move to look at the comments of the proposals instead of the individual introductions. I think that's a good idea.
I'll let Eleonora try and pull that together. The good news is I have my computer restarted and my speaking queue back up but trying to follow now the next number in the workshop.
182: What are future scenarios for the global cooperation in cybersecurity field? And the comments were, if we can move over, to reaction to this workshop proposal is very inward looking at the processes of Internet governance rather than the issues of Internet governance. Looking at the tools for Internet governance like remote participation and multilingualism is important, but it seems like that could be a median concern of people in the community rather than a workshop in the IGF. Varying content. Appears there's a wide variety of questions. So much, could be interesting questions but they don't seem to be well-structured for a workshop outline.
There was kind of a question on diversity, saying that there are no new voices that they can ascertain. And another comment that says it lacks diversity and need to hear new voices on the issues.
So without somebody arguing further for that workshop, again, the workshop was number 182, ranked 146. And the title was, "What are future scenarios for the global cooperation in the cybersecurity field?"
Is there a move from the floor to keep? Jorge, you have the floor.
>>JORGE CANCIO: May I proceed? Thank you. Thank you very much for giving me the floor.
I tried to use the electronic system, but it didn't seem to work.
Just to explain as this is a proposal put forward by the Swiss government that it is intended to cover, we think, a very important topic which is the work of the U.N. GGE, which is the U.N. Governmental Group of Experts, which is dealing with cybersecurity issues on state-to-state relations, that there was -- if I don't remember incorrectly, there was a first workshop in Joao Pessoa -- no, in Jalisco where this topic was first tackled in the IGF environment. It's a discussion which is going on within the U.N. on a very intergovernmental level, and this proposal was intended to bring this discussion also to the multistakeholder environment of the IGF and that at least inform about the latest developments of the U.N. GGE which are foreseen to be concluded in the present configuration of this working group in September of 2017.
Maybe there are some issues with the presentation as such of the workshop proposal, perhaps it was too sketchy or perhaps the diversity of speakers could have been developed more. But bearing in mind how delicate this issue is, it was quite difficult to really shape it and to give it the right focus. And that's why perhaps our colleagues from foreign affairs department came a little bit late with the proposal.
But, nonetheless, we think that the substance basically of this workshop is something that at this level is not covered by other workshop proposals in the roster we have.
There may be, of course, overlaps. I don't exclude, of course, that there could be mergers or synergies with other workshop proposals where there is some talk about the process of the U.N. GGE, but in this level of centrality, I don't think that this is tackled and it is, of course, one of the most important developments within the U.N. framework in this field and it would be perhaps a loss and sad to not cover this in the multistakeholder dialogue environment that only the IGF can give at this level. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jorge. I think you made a -- quite a number of really good points. I also heard agreement to work and perhaps address some of the shortcomings which were noted in the comments in the proposal.
Given both the subject matter, which is something Flavio had suggested we keep in mind as well going forward, and the lack of government representation, I'm going to try putting something forward to the floor which says: Is there a strong objection to including this worship, with Jorge's or the Swiss governments approval to, again, address some of the noted deficiencies?
Now, let me just figure -- I'm trying to figure out, we actually have an electronic queue with four speaking members and some people in the room who are wanting to jump in immediately on this question.
I think that's the question in front of us, so if you're in the queue, I really would like you to address that question. So let me go through the four that are in, identify whether or not you want to address that question or if you were in for a different comment, and see if we can close this particular workshop.
So in the queue, I had Raquel? Out. That's an old one?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: A new one? And then I had Jorge, which I think you just spoke, right?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Juan?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Yes. I strongly support what Jorge just said, and I am really, really grateful that a government that is a member of the GGE -- in this case, Switzerland -- is open to share with the rest of the stakeholders what has happened there.
As he said, last year in Guadalajara we had a very interesting workshop around this, and I'm taking the time explaining this because we were not only the wedding planners, we also are persons related with the Internet and this is good for everybody to know.
As you know, cybersecurity has been handled only in governments-only scenarios, and without the rest of the stakeholders' interaction, and as a matter of fact, there's a big discussion, what is the role for the rest of the stakeholders. That is why it was so welcomed, the initiative of Microsoft regarding that, because it's another stakeholder that is jumping into the arena on this.
So I think this workshop proposal by the government of Switzerland is -- it's very interesting, very welcome, I think very useful, but I would recommend that the list that Flavio said is the list of the -- not conditional. I will put that the list, in the case of the government thing, of the one that needs improvement. I think that this will need to be improved in terms of the speakers. Maybe some other speakers from other governments, members of GGE -- as you know, there are 25 countries there -- could be approached in order to have diversity in the views. Not only the view from the Swiss government but from -- of some other governments that are there and maybe even some other stakeholders. But I think this should be for the government to talk to the rest of the stakeholders and to have some sort of dialogue of what has been the result there.
I think it's very useful. Cancio explained it very well and I think it's a very useful thing with that caveat, that the list of speakers should be wider and, you know, there's many countries there. Even Cuba is there, so --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think, Juan, your suggestion was that it not be put in the definite category, that it be put in the maybe category but they address --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes, yes.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Exactly.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Got it.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: And some that needs improvement. Put it in needs improvement.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes. That's exactly where it is, in the conditional acceptance.
So I want to put forward and then just look to see whether or not there are any strong objections.
It's a little hard to manage within the context of this queue because people are probably in the queue for others, but again, let's be clear that that workshop, the proposal in front of the floor right now, is that that be accepted, conditional acceptance, upon addressing some of the noted shortcomings.
So I see one or two hands here in the room. I don't know, maybe in the Adobe Connect chat room or something, we can ask those folks that are participating remotely if they want to come in on this particular question to indicate that way, because otherwise I can't tell in the queue who's in the queue because of a new topic and who's in the queue on this particular item.
But right now I have Flavio wants to come in on this specifically and Elizabeth who wants to come in specifically, and if there's anybody participating remotely who wants to come in specifically, please note that in the chat room, and Luis maybe you can monitor the chat room for me. Thank you. Flavio you have the floor.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Yeah. Thank you, Lynn.
Yeah, two issues. One is already covered by Juan that we need more diversity in the speakers. Not only other governments but also other regions, not only Europe. And also other stakeholder groups. So diversity must be improved a lot.
And another issue that -- one of the criteria I have suggested this morning is that we try to avoid subjects that are already very well represented among the top 72 and this is the case with cybersecurity. So if we --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Conditional?
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Keep this on the maybe list, yeah. And even in the comments from the evaluators, there is a suggestion that this proposal could be merged with 224, 31, 108, so there are other workshops that also cover more or less the same issue. So this could be also kept for future reference, yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. That's a good comment, Flavio. Elizabeth, do you still want to come in on this? Okay.
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: I'd like to support -- yes. I'd like to support what Flavio just said. I also wonder, we talked about having the criteria up at the same time, and I'm thinking that would be very useful because I have a feeling that we're go -- undertaking a balancing act and we've kind of forgotten how some of these ended up with really low scores, is one comment.
And then the other one specifically to this -- this item is, as much as I can appreciate the compelling argument and support for it, I'm very concerned that if we do that with these items and we pick ones out because they've been well argued, we'll actually end up not balancing. What of the criteria, what of the gaps that we're trying to fill will this one address? And I don't see that at this moment. I see that it's a compelling subject and interesting, you know, it has a strong argument behind it from a person, but we can do that with every single one, and so this isn't moving us one step towards the balancing act unless if we put it in that second basket, the solution to that would be that the way it would have acceptance on the -- you know, the first list would be that it added or included other components that would make it be a contributor to filling the gap to -- that it would have regional and other diversity that's missing and that kind of thing.
So that would be my suggestion.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think the gap it's clearly filling is governments. That's what this list is with the government gap. Let me --
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: But it's -- with all respect to Switzerland, I'm so glad they're hosting, they have a lot of influence over the substance and that. I think if we are going to preference a few governments and we can't preference the whole list, we should choose governments that aren't already as well integrated and reflect their interests and goals reflected in the agenda. With -- I mean, and that's not against -- whatever the host country was, I would feel that well.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Wait a minute. No, I don't know that we need to jump in. First of all, we're not -- there are eight governments which we are considering. We spent a considerable amount of time this morning saying that governments were underrepresented.
I think right now it's clear what the proposal is. The proposal is that it's in the second category, that it needs to address some of the shortcomings, and diversity was clearly one of those. So right now -- and I'm going to look to see if there's strong objection to moving forward with it in the second category because of the long discussion we had this morning on underrepresentation by governments. Otherwise, we go forward and it's in the second list and it's not in the automatically accepted.
I see a lot of unhappy faces around the room but I don't know how to process this differently. Arnold wants to come in on that and then Juan.
>>ARNOLD VAN RHIJN: Thank you, Lynn. Arnold van Rhijn speaking on behalf of the Dutch government.
Just very shortly, I fully support this proposal and I also agree with Juan that it needs improvement. I remember that last year during the IGF in Mexico, I informed the IGF community -- I think it was a dynamic coalition -- about the existence of this group, U.N. group, which is doing tremendous good work, and especially if you're talking about standards. And the Netherlands has put forward a proposal, one specific standard, which says how to protect the core of the Internet against unwarranted state influence, and this standard is being discussed in the U.N. GEE, so a very fundamental issue, so I applaud Switzerland for coming forward with this proposal and, well, hope it to be on the first list. If not, then the second list. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Arnold. Juan?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: I'm sorry to go against Elizabeth. You know, we are always in agreement in many things, but here she was the first who said that sometimes the overall -- that we have to get into the inside of the workshop in order to get some of these criteria, and I think that's part of the work that we have to do.
If we put here more governments, as Flavio said, from different areas in this workshop, we -- it's not only Switzerland, it will be more governments from that group because it's 25 countries there. Brazil is one of the countries there.
Kenya is one of the countries there. There are many countries. Egypt is one of the countries there.
So if we could have experts from those countries to be in this workshop, if this proposer can reach to them to help in this country -- even two as part of those countries that can be there as well -- then we have what you said. It's not only Switzerland, it's many countries. And this is the work that we as MAG can do, improving the workshops. We should not be passive. I'm always saying that. We should not be passive in the workshops that needs improvement. Those are very good? Okay. We'll leave it right there. But the rest, that's our responsibility. We can talk to the proposer, "Yeah, you have to put for more countries" and if he doesn't put it, it doesn't go in. That's -- we can do that, and we will then steer the workshops in that direction. The direction is to have governments. With that, we can have four or five governments in one blow because we would have four or five speakers from different governments in only one. That's the thing that we -- we can -- we have to do. We have to be proactive in this, not only reacting to what is proposed.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I'd like for propose that we keep it in the maybe category, we ask the proposers to -- and we can put it and come back at the end of the process, if we want to assess how many governments we've put in and what -- I don't see enough support for putting it in with a conditional acceptance and I don't see enough support for taking it out entirely.
So can we put it in that maybe list and work with the proposers to improve it along the lines of the discussion here and revisit it later?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. So there's yeses and heads nodding in the room, and Luis, are you going to help me with the on line?
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: Yes. There is some reaction. There are some reactions on the online participation room. For example, Virginia Paque says she's not supporting this one. I'm not sure if -- okay.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ginger Paque, a MAG member, said that she wasn't supporting it. And is there a rationale for not. supporting it? And is she not supporting it as a -- at all or could she live -- could those that are participating on line live with putting it in the maybe bucket pending improvement along the lines we've discussed and possibly subsequent review.
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: She is on the phone. She can talk.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ginger, you have the floor.
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: Thank you very much. Thank you, Luis. Thank you, Chair. Really appreciate it.
My (indiscernible) was: Absolutely not. I don't support this workshop. (indiscernible) voice (indiscernible) we are having a (indiscernible) in the chat room about the fact that we are unable to voice our opinions or even have our (indiscernible) so what I was suggesting in the chat (indiscernible) like even on a graph, could be shown for plus 1s (indiscernible) plus 2 for 168, minus 2 for 214. All we're asking for is a voice. All we're asking is to have our voice to be counted. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yeah. And we very much want you to have a voice. We really are trying to figure out how to do that within, you know, a process that's just very -- very fluid here. You know, I -- I could --
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: (indiscernible) .
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think the substantive -- the substantive information comes through kind of the voice, frankly.
I wonder -- I wonder if -- when it --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Sorry? I wonder if when I put a question like that to the room, if we wait a moment and we ask the folks that are participating on line in the Adobe Connect room to say yes or no you could support going forward and maybe that's what you mean with the plus 1, minus 1, et cetera, with the proposal as it's supported and that's a way to get the feel for the folks that are participating on line.
Would that work? Ginger?
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: If I can be heard now, I'm going to say that, yes, we've been trying to work out some kind of function like that, and I know you have been trying as well in suggesting Luis. Well, we know he has many tasks. We would appreciate someone (indiscernible) our plus 1s, our minus 1s, and giving our count to you.
Luis has already agreed that he will work on some kind of formal system for this for our next meeting and I think it would be brilliant, that whereas people both in the room and in the chat could simply put a plus 1 and don't have to ask for the floor. (indiscernible) questions (indiscernible) some kind of simple poll system and are able to just put in an electronic plus 1 without having to take the floor, that would be very helpful. I know Luis is hearing us and I know we're working on it, so we'll try to be patient this meeting and hope for the -- for improvements in the near future. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. And we can definitely work on that so that we get the benefit of your heads nodding, if your head's nodding, which would be the equivalent of what's here in the room. At the same time of voting, voting, which is a long-standing principle here within the Internet governance space and particularly within the MAG space.
So the proposal we have in front of us for this particular workshop was that it -- and I'm just going to state it again and see if I can figure out where we are as a room here -- was that it actually went to the maybe; category; that Switzerland was going to go away and address some of the shortcomings that were noted in both the comments and in the discussion here in the room; and we would look at that as a workshop that might be pulled forward in the future.
So the only other -- there's not enough support in the room to put it in the definite category. If people don't support that as a proposal in the maybe category, then we're now entering a discussion which is take it out altogether and I have to admit just for the people here that I can see in the room and while I wait for the online ones to come on, there's -- I don't believe there would be support for taking it out entirely. But are people okay going forward with the maybe category?
So on line, we will look for your comments in the chat room and, in the meantime, Ji has asked for the floor.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair. I think the U.N. GGE on information security is the most important thing in this area. And I support -- propose that we put it in the definitely yes category rather than the "maybe" type.
Where are we now? We have finished discussion of 57 and 214? And which category are they in?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: 57 is in definitely and 214 is in the conditional "maybe" category.
>>JI HAOJUN: I think I suggest both of them in "maybe" category and 182 be in definitely yes.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: That was not the consensus of the room, though, at the time on 214.
>>JI HAOJUN: When we talk about consensus, what constitutes consensus? When I'm disagreeing, there's no consensus on 57. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We operate under rough consensus here.
>>JI HAOJUN: How rough is rough?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Depends which MAG meeting, I would say.
[ Laughter ]
>>JI HAOJUN: Minus one is rough or minus two?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Rough consensus -- judging consensus is kind of an art as a science. It has to be because of a reasonable, significant objection. That's the things that tend to rule. It can be one person that can rule it out, it can be ten that rule it out, but it has to be on a substantive rationale.
None of these are ruled out. The conditional, you know, quite likely are pulled in. Right now we have 214 in the conditional. We can revisit that afterwards. But I'd really like to if we can, please, with your support stay on 182 and complete the negotiations on that.
>>JI HAOJUN: I have strong reservation with gender equality. I don't think gender is something has anything to do with Internet governance. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you for your comments. It's well noted. And that one I think the clear consensus of the room was that it was definitely in. So appreciate the comments, and we will stay with the previous position from the MAG.
We are back on 182. Was there anything in the chatroom with respect to those folks that are online to the proposal that that stay in the conditional category, pending improvements and subsequent review? Luis is shaking his head no. That means the people participating online are okay with that as an approach? Luis, I will give you a moment to see if you can cull that from within the room there and give the floor to Juan and then Carlos.
Juan?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: I'm sorry. Chair, I think we're complicating our work here because in this particular case of government, the second list we should not call it "conditional" because we have to work to put it in because we have to fill this either with -- move it to upper forum or for the (indiscernible). So I would put the second list -- we have to work for all those nine there to be accepted. One list is accepted as it is and the other is that it needs improvement. Improve it either in the proposal, either in the subject, either in the title, or even in the diversity of the speakers. But I think that's really -- we talk about conditional. Conditional for what? We are fooling ourselves.
What we are trying to do is to improve it to have it in because we are trying to get more governments into the workshop.
When we get to the wildcards, then we can get into the conditional capacity because what Wagner says, the number will be greater, that we could not put everyone in a lump. So we will then maybe have to do two passes to put some conditional up and then to see the other one.
Here, it's not conditional. Here the idea is to try to put all in, except maybe -- except if one of them are so bad or the theme is so bad that it can -- but maybe we can get to that. First look, it all seems okay with some working. Some of the titles there are horrible. For instance, the 163 title is crazy. But we could change that.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So, Juan, thank you for your comments. I actually think your perspective is a little bit different than other people in the room. We had not decided that we were going to automatically rule in all these proposals from governments and we're just going to go away and figure out how we fix them. That wasn't what was agreed.
I think we are looking at these in the same way we looked at the others, which is against the criteria. With a good wind behind their back, they're probably in. But the other factor we're trying to bring into play is really understanding the amount of slots we have to play with and people not wanting to give up the eight we had in the first eight which had government approval. And I think that's what we agreed earlier.
I think Flavio has asked for --
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Just for a particular reason, Juan, we have nine proposals. If we accept six or seven of them, even if they need some further improvements, then we have no space anymore for all other wildcards. So we cannot accept just these eight proposals. If we do this, then the meeting is over, we don't have room for the other wildcards. We also need to increase balance for other reasons, not only governments but also because some regions are underrepresented or some subjects are missing and so on. That's the reason why we have the wildcard.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Flavio.
I think what we had agreed in the room was that 182 stayed in the "maybe." There was some suggestions possibly about some mergers. I'm clear on kind of the position -- consensus position here in the room. I was just trying to understand whether or not there was any strong dissenting opinion from those that are participating online. Unfortunately, I'm not in the Adobe Connect chatroom.
>> We are not sure if we are using the electronic queue at the moment or because we have to refer to the specific workshop we are discussing that anyone can jump in at the moment.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: My preference would be to use the queue. But then that means you need to get in the queue to address this specific issue. And if your comment isn't to that specific issue that's open, then you should step out of the queue and come back in later. And I think we had a mixture before, which is why I was trying to figure out who was in the queue to address this specific question that was in front of the floor. The specific question that's in front of the floor right now, specifically the online floor, is whether or not they can support workshop 182 being in the "maybe" category pending the proposers addressing some of the concerns addressed in the room here and in the comments.
Okay. So Anja is typing in support for 182. I see a couple of no comments. At this point, let's continue figuring out how we actually work the queue online and maybe we could ask Anja, since you are managing a number of other things, Anja, to put the specific question into the chatroom when we are actually looking for a go-ahead on some specific question that's in front of the floor and try and manage it that way.
>> Just a very short comment. Everyone is also able to hand down the hand when they are in the queue and hand up again. Maybe this is the first time we use this. So we have to give an opportunity when someone is to hand, we understand. But it also helps the scribes. It helps the online participants, too. But we all understand that we have to adapt because, for example, at some point it needs to be discussed. It's not always easy. For example, we could be what to be discussed next to the queue, et cetera, et cetera.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We're very, very grateful for all of your efforts and certainly grateful for all your vision as you try and figure out how to improve this processing this online. Much, much appreciated. And this is already a huge improvement forward. This part of the process is never smooth sailing.
So I'm going to close then on 182 going into the "maybe" category. And move to the fourth one in the government workshop, which is item number -- ID 163 which was rated 153rd. And the title is, Multicultural, multistakeholder, face-to-face and remote capacity building." 90-minute debate. And the comments were -- I have to thank Chengetai here for his masterful -- it lacks diversity and need to hear new voices on the issue. For people who have been within IGF circles and presented numerous IGF workshops, they could have accessed more diversity of voices and gotten representation from across sphere.
Is there anybody who wants to propose that that should go forward?
Ji, you have your hand up and then Raquel.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair. I tend to agree with Flavio that we need -- we should not take all these government proposals into the final list. Maybe we can, you know, select two or three from this governmental part and leave the other chances to -- for the sake of addressing the regional imbalance. For example, choose two or three from this group, this category. We give five or ten slots for Asia-Pacific specifically. That would be more fair. Thank you.
And for this particular proposal, I don't think it's good -- I don't understand what this means, so I don't agree to it. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Ji.
We have Raquel in the queue. Raquel.
>>RAQUEL GATTO: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. First before going to my substantive comment, just to make a procedure comment. It's been a little bit confusing. I also appreciate a lot the work that has been done. I thought I was good at multitasking, but it has been a challenge to follow all the chats and here in the room.
So just to be aware that we need to be clear when we are in the queue or when to intervene. I'm fine with dropping from the list and coming back again. But just being aware of it.
So let's go to the meat of the discussion. Hopefully I'm doing a proposal to be helpful on going forward. What I see -- I evaluated one of those proposals. And I see 163, 168, and 176 has a bottom line which are promoting more content and capacity building on local language and bringing in local actors.
So I think there is a potential -- a strong potential to merge those. 163 and 168 are both presented by Argentina and are two very similar topics. And then 176 proposed by France, Francophonie, is also about diversity. Honestly, I was just checking them here, and they seem to be tackling the same issue. The problem they want to solve is the same.
I have some -- sorry.
And so I think that's what I want to put forward as a suggestion to merge them and then have one strong government proposal with diversity, also in the geographical balance.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Raquel.
Before we comment on that, we have two more people in the queue on this matter. So we have Segun.
Segun, you have the floor. Nope? You turn the floor down.
And, Ji, are you in the queue or was that from earlier?
>>JI HAOJUN: That was from earlier.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. What we have on the floor is a proposal from Raquel to merge -- to work with the proposers to see if we can get one merged proposal across 163, 168, and 176. I'd like comments specifically on that. And I have in the floor German and Renata.
>>GERMAN VALDEZ: Thank you, Madam Chair. I strongly support Raquel's proposal. I think it will help to in some way include this proposal from government. I found kind of difficult to defend proposal 176. This was ranked very last in the rank. But I think the option proposed by Raquel is a good way to include this government proposal. I think it makes sense, and I would like to pass to Raquel's idea.
If I am also allowed to not deviate too much in the comments at all from the floor, I would like to for the record state that the gender balance is an intrinsic, integral component of the Internet governance discussion. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, German.
France, I will come to you. Normally this part of the meeting is reserved for MAG members. It's a MAG process, but I will allow you to speak on the proposal. You will be second in the queue after Cheryl.
>>CHERYL MILLER: Thank you. I'm all for mergers, but I just think merging three might be a bit much. It's going to be a little bit challenging. So I think we would need to work out exactly how to do that.
Also, the topics are similar but they are sort of going in different directions and it's a 90-minute session. It's not a longer session. And so those would be the challenges of the merger. But, you know, I agree that on its own, 163, there was a real lack of diversity on a couple of different levels. And a lot of the speakers among all the proposals, you know, they're all us, right? So I would like to see maybe some new voices in there as well, even with the merger. Thanks.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cheryl.
France, you have the floor.
>>FRANCE: Yes, just representing the people who wrote, surely the proposal 176 could be vetted in many ways. I'm not absolutely against a merger. But the topics that we are trying to propose is two ways: Diversity on the Internet, how can you express -- how diversity is expressed on the Internet. But also diversity on the governance, within the governance of the Internet, which are different subjects.
So I'm not at all against a discussion to merge one or two proposals but just to make sure that diversity -- our proposal would be to define diversity on the Internet first. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you thank you, Frederic.
We have Ji. And let me just check the queue here. I think those are all still the old hands. So Ji, Carlos, and Renata.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Very briefly, I just want to support the merger of the three mentioned. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Ji.
Carlos.
>>CARLOS FONSECA: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to support the idea, especially 163, 168, I think they're in the same level so to speak. And 168 talks about bottom-up inclusion. So even though the subject is governance, there is a lot about inclusion. And both being from Argentina, I think it makes it easier perhaps for them to organize between them. So definitely 163, 168. And it's also very good for our region, so, so much the better.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Carlos.
Renata and then Michael.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: Support the merger. But also would like to remember working group new session format and the possibility that they can pick up sessions that fit the merger.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: That's a good reminder. Thank you, Renata.
Michael and then Jac.
>> MICHAEL ILISHEBO: When you say "merger," to me it means automatic inclusion. It means you accepted the sessions to be part of the IGF 2017. Is that the case?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Not necessarily. The secretariat goes away and I think in past years, a MAG member has been part of that process as well to go work with the parties to see if they can agree to a merger and pull together an appropriate proposal. And if those things happen, then it is given a slot in the program.
If not -- and quite often it doesn't work because it is too difficult to merge two different groups, then there is no slot awarded.
Does that answer your question?
>>MICHAEL ILISHEBO: Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: You're welcome, Michael.
Jac, you have the floor.
>>JAC SM KEE: Thank you, Chair and I apologize for raising my hand. It doesn't seem to be working. At one point my hand doesn't come down, at one point my hand doesn't come up, so I'm very confused as well. I'm very sorry about this, especially for the remote participants.
In relation to the merger, I would actually like to actually echo Cheryl's concerns. Three mergers are complicated to begin with. It's good that 163 and 168 share some characteristics, so that might be more possible, but when they are vastly different in terms of also objectives and stuff, that doesn't always work, so just, I guess, a word of caution around that.
And the other is maybe also to give some recommendations around format that could make this work easier. For example, roundtable, when it's properly roundtable, that's fine.
And this -- the other thing I wanted to get some clarity around is around process, I suppose. So just to confirm that I'm getting it right, that there are two lists. One is -- one list is very -- it's a definite in with -- that has no associated conditions and so forth, and then the second one is recommendations for improvements which will be in the maybe list.
And is there a third list which is "Yes, you're going in but with recommendations for improvement" or not or is that complicating things too much, let's just stick with two?
And then the other clarity around process that I'm asking for is: Are we going to go through every single proposal in the government proposed list or will we go through the wildcard list of proposals as well to see how we can look at addressing some of the diversity imbalances from there?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Let me -- we're backwards, I think. Yes, we are going through the eight proposals here that were on the government list simply because that list had been created this morning, sent out separately. Secondly, we're going to go through the expanded wildcard list, which builds on the wildcards that have been submitted by MAG members over the last week or so, and further expanded, taking into account the imbalances conversation we had this morning where we identified, as a MAG, imbalances such as the IPv6, subregional balances, and that sort of thing. That's now in a second spreadsheet which was sent to the MAG at about 3:00 Geneva time. That's the second part of this exercise.
So let me see if you have a follow-up question on that, and then we'll go to the other questions.
>>JAC SM KEE: If you don't mind, can I just recommend rather than going through every single proposal in the government list, that we revert back to the process that we seem to have begun with at the beginning of this conversation which is to see if there is anybody who can represent any of the proposals and sort of come up with a good case for it?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think we're going through the process we agreed and we've already done seven of the eight.
>>JAC SM KEE: Okay. Ignore me.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, no. We're almost done with the government list and we'll go on to the wildcard list in a moment.
I'm not sure I understood your question on the different categorizations. I think that we have is: Definitely goes forward but there may be things that we're expecting them to address as well; there's a conditional, which needs to be -- the proposals need to be revisited in light of the comments that were made here in the room and/or came through the evolution, and right now, we have two in that category. 214 and 182.
And that's usually the -- that has historically been left up to the secretariat in their discretion to determine whether or not the appropriate comments were taken into account, has diversity been addressed, does the format meet, et cetera, and then determine whether or not there is space in the program for them as well.
So those sort of fine-tunings at the -- at the very end.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Anja, you have the floor.
>>ANJA GENGO: Thank you. Yes. Just to pass a record from Alejandra that she supports Raquel's suggestion to merge 163, 168, and 176, and also, Ginger supports the 163. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you very much. Thank you, Alejandra and Ginger. So we'll go forward that way.
Raquel has stepped out of the room, which is a little unfortunate, because I was going to ask her, since it was her idea, if she wanted to be the MAG member that would actually run point on the merger, so maybe we can ask her when she comes back in. I know Raquel, I'm sure her answer will be yes, but...
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Very -- no, it's never smart to leave the room in the middle of something you suggested.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We are now on 95, which is on the seventh line there, How is Digitation Affecting Democracy, Trust, and Public Opinion? And it's a roundtable 90 minutes. It was ranked 189.
The comments were that "The session proposal is not very complete, with only a sentence or two description and notes itself that the agenda is still under development. Several speakers only listed as notional."
Was that one from Switzerland as well? I recognize the "digitization."
Jorge, do you want to speak to that? I know this is a topic that Switzerland brings up very, very often, so...
>>JORGE CANCIO: Thank you so much, and excuse me for taking the floor again in this MAG meeting, but thank you very much.
The intention of this workshop proposal was, of course, to bring up this issue within the -- within the IGF. After the discussions we had with different stakeholders, with -- also with MAG members, we came to the conclusion that it made sense to propose this session as a kind of broader session, so that's why we circulated it as a main session proposal two or three weeks ago.
We will see tomorrow how that discussion goes forward and whether this has to be a formal main session or it might receive another format.
So provided that we may bring this back again tomorrow as a main session proposal or as another kind of session proposal, we think that in principle we could skip it for the time being because it would be covered in a different part of the program. I hope this helps and speeds up -- speeds up the process a little bit. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jorge.
So Switzerland was the proposer of that workshop and they're suggesting we put that to the side until we complete the main session discussions tomorrow because the two are so heavily related, and I think that makes eminent sense, so we will go forward with that.
That is, ID Number 95 is put to the side for potentially subsequent review.
The next one -- we're down to the last two -- ID 36, ranked 204, Ever-Changing Digital Reality, Governments can Face this Challenge and Survive, Poland's Success Story.
And then that's actually a flash session. I think I just saw that flash by.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It is a flash session for 30 minutes. Is there anybody who has any comments or views?
And then just briefly, the comment is "This proposal is a flash session and not a workshop. The subject is quite vague, not specifically related to Internet governance. It focuses more on the readiness of government institutions, like internal coordination mechanisms for the digital economy and SDGs."
Is there anybody who wants to comment on that? My speaking queue is reloading, so --
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: I don't know if Mamadou Lo was still beforehand in the queue.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. Mamadou Lo.
>>MAMADOU LO: Thank you, Chair. It was just for supporting Proposal 176, but to agree to merge because (indiscernible) are linked to (indiscernible). Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. There is something seriously irritating happening with my computer. I'm getting one error after the over, and it must be overheated or something, which accounts for the speaking queue --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, I do think it's mine as well, so apologies for some of the choppiness here with respect to my ability to actually see and manage the queue.
So again, we're on this flash session, Ever-Changing Realities. I have Cheryl and Ji in the queue and Sala.
>>CHERYL MILLER: Thank you. I would support -- I would support giving this one a chance. It's a 30-minute flash session. They clearly have a success story and that could be very interesting to hear, some of the things that they've worked through, and so yeah, I would support it.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cheryl. Ji?
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Poland is a very friendly country, a friendly country of China -- friend of China. I hate to disagree, but, you know, in this world we have more than 180, 90 countries and there are many success stories. If -- if each and every country give the chance to show their success story, next year we will be choosing among around 200 success stories, so we have to be very careful in creating such precedence, because the theme of this proposal is -- is not so outstanding. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Ji. Sala?
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Thank you, Chair. I'm only going to take the mic once in relation to what Raquel had sort of suggested in relation to the merger.
I support what Lo said and also to keep the diversity in the Internet, particularly Workshop 176, which France proposed separate but for it to be a flash session. And the rationale for it is currently according to the IGF secretariat analytics, the flash session is at 4%, so there's room to keep the modality. I mean, to use that modality.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I'm actually wondering if we can move it to the new session discussion, the new session formats, and ask Miguel and his work there to evaluate this and pull it in with the other possible flash sessions when they actually get to that piece of work.
Would that be a reasonable holding position?
So I see some yeses, some nos, and again, Anja, if there's any input from the online participants, strongly, one way or the other -- I'll give you a moment to hear from them and pull it in.
So I have Juan -- I have a queue. I have Juan and then we have a few more.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Thank you, Chair. Now that I'm going by -- not by the rules that I thought -- or was being lenient with, but now that we're being objective and critical, I think 36 doesn't make the grade because of the subject.
As a matter of fact, I wanted to merge 36 with 95, the one from Switzerland, because it has some relationship, if you read the proposal.
Now that 95 is still pending, or whatever, I think that 36 does not have enough substance to be in at all, whatever -- regardless of the -- of the modality or the format. So I don't think that.
The only way is to merge with some other, like 95, because it has some points of contact that you read, but I don't think -- if we -- if we are being now like that. Because the same happened with 136, 33, and, maybe merged, would have enough substance for standing in the field I think 36 is not if we're doing this criteria.
You can -- I don't want to get into detail, but you can read the proposal and you can see that it -- it's -- it deservedly got 204. It needs a lot of improvement and I think that is not the path we're going now, so I want -- I think that we should move through it.
And as a matter of fact, what happened with 167 that was before that? We jumped 167. You jump it. We're going back to 167?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We'll come back to 167.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Thank you. I will talk in 167.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. I think the proposal in front of us with 36 is given it was a flash session, that we actually set it aside and ask the working group on new session formats --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Sorry?
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It -- well, but if we have a lot of flash sessions, 80 becomes 84 because the flash sessions are 30 minutes, not 60 or 90.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Maybe another one, not this one, but we have a working group that's actually addressing the new session formats and last year what they did was they looked at some of those that had been wait listed but not approved and they actually went and said, "Would you like to take advantage of a 30 -- one of these new session formats or something?"
My proposal is that we do the same thing with this one and make that ultimate review a part of that working group.
If everybody's okay -- I see heads nodding in the room. If somebody wants to object strongly to that, then please let me know either on line or in the room.
Flavio has a short comment.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Yeah. Just to agree with Juan that this proposal has many problems and should be strongly improved if we should take it.
It's not clear which is the mechanism that shall be presented. They speak about a multistakeholder mechanism, but all people invited are from government, not really a multistakeholder session, so there will be a lot -- even if we take it as -- in the new session format or a flash session, we should give this message that they -- they need to improve the session.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Agree very much with giving that. And moving it to the working group on new sessions for us doesn't mean it's guaranteed a slot. It needs to go through that process with them ultimately.
So Anja, is there anything in the online chat room, or Luis?
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: Shita, I think, in the room.
>>SHITA LAKSMI: I think I would like to support this proposal, though it might not be too strong, but because it is first-time proposal and I remember that the flash session was designed to give space for the first-time proposers, which is usually in the trend they are really focusing on their own experience. Yeah. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Shita.
So I still hear support for kind of putting it in into the flash session and working there to build improvement and determine whether or not it goes forward as a part of the flash session, new session, activities. New session, yes.
Okay. So moving back up one to the one that I inadvertently skipped, which is ID Number 167, ranked 201, Internet Governance in Times of the Digital Economy, that's also a flash session --
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: (Off microphone.).
>>CARLOS FONSECA: Oh, roundtable, 90 minutes, Latin America. The comment was it's unclear what is the aim of the workshop.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It's the one above it, I think. "Unclear what is the aim of the workshop. Too little information about the format, proposed outcome, and added value to the discussion. We've had many similar discussions in the past so it would be good to see what are the new expected contributions and the format could be more participatory.
Question of whether or not it was possible to merge with other proposals as not certain what that workshop aimed to achieve."
There was another comment which said, "Very interesting proposal. Would benefit from more diversity in speakers and possible merger with a similar proposal."
Is there anybody who would like to make a comment for or not? Juan, you had a comment earlier. Juan?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Yeah. This was one of the 53 proposals that I revised, and I gave it favorable scores, but I don't think it's for 90 minutes. I think it should be -- 60 minutes would be more than enough because it's a subject that has been treated before, and the other comments that you said there are valid, so I think this should go, but with those two -- those will be my recommendations. To put it into 60 minutes. That leaves some space. And also to -- the other comments that you mentioned, the diversity of the speakers. The speakers has to be improved, the speaker -- the category of speakers, you know. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Juan.
I have Cheryl an Ji in the queue.
>>CHERYL MILLER: I just wanted to make a very brief comment just generally on flash sessions because I know in the past I've been to flash sessions where there's only been one organization presenting, and so with a 30-minute time slot, it is very hard to get, you know, the full five or six panel, you know, normal set up, full diversity or what -- however you want to describe it.
So I do think we should think about the flash sessions just generally in terms of being able to especially include some of the newer voices and let people sort of -- if they have new ideas or new things, this would be the type of space where that could be presented, as opposed to some of the other roundtables, et cetera. Thanks.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cheryl.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair. Given the comments you have shown us, can we ask the proposer to merge this one with other, you know, proposals in the short list which, you know -- which is also touched -- which also touches on the digital economy, et cetera?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think that's a good comment, Ji. Thank you. We would need a suggestion of the other workshops that it might be considered as a merge candidate for, but there were a couple of comments supporting that. Julian, you have the floor.
>>JULIAN CASASBUENAS: Thank you, Lynn. This proposal is coming from Colombia, a country I came from, and I can imagine why digital economy is there as a thematic tag because we are discussing a lot at local level.
I agree with Juan's comments. I think the proposal has a lot to improve, but I will recommend to keep it on the list, but with all the comments, of course, that has been addressed here. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Julian. So, yes, Moedjiono, you have the floor.
>>MOEDJIONO SARDJOENI: Yes. In principle, I agree with the comments. It can be merged with another topic that almost the same thing.
I think the comment is right. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. I assume that was with respect you thought it was for a merger candidate, which was an earlier comment and not Julian's and Juan's.
Jac, you have the floor.
>>JAC SM KEE: So this is really more of support for the previous flash session to go to the -- to Miguel's working group to look through, but also to raise a question around are we -- do we still have the lightning -- lightning talks? And what would the difference be between the purpose of a lightning talk and a flash session in terms of providing a space for new and interesting voices and perspectives to a topic?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Let me see. Is Miguel on the call? I know he was speaking earlier. We had difficulty hearing him but if he is, he would be the best person to respond to that.
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: Yeah, he's in the call.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Miguel, could you respond to Jac's question?
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: It seems that he's not connected to audio for some reason. He has to type.
>>JAC SM KEE: If I may --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Go ahead, Jac.
>>JAC sm KEE: If I may, I would just like to support the lightning talk as a format. I think it was really a fantastic space to provide more spaces for different kinds of point of view that isn't (indiscernible) appropriate or needs the length of time for a flash session or a workshop, that I would fully support that if there is scope for that.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I do think he's intending to put that forward to the working group. But we can verify that later.
Cheryl, you're on the floor.
>>CHERYL MILLER: I would just briefly agree with Jac. I think -- I thought that they were a good format as well.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So the question in front of us is for workshop, ID Number 167, Internet governance -- I think we have had two proposals. One it's a candidate for a merger. I think agreement that there is a need for increased diversity, suggest that it be 60-minute, not a 90-minute panel.
>> (off microphone).
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: You're looking for the floor again? You're not in my queue, but please, go ahead.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Yes. I think that I agree with you that this is a merger candidate. But when we say "merger candidate," we should not be looking to merge with the top one because the top ones are already good as it is. I think this is a merger candidate with the new ones that we're going to review from now on, on the rest of the day. I will suggest that, just to have -- yes, I agree. Maybe if in the new one that we will see, there's some about digital economy, then this is a merge candidate for that and then we will bring those two in only one slot. That's my recommendation.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. So I think we're coming to a point of agreement which says that this workshop would go under the conditional accepted, might be a candidate for a merger. Certainly needs some areas of improvement. Might be 60 minutes, not versus 90 minutes. But we will put that under the conditional acceptance.
On to our last one on the government list before we start the so-called wildcard list, so we have ID Number 202, Internet of Things: Supportive role of smart solutions in the decision-making process. Was ranked 243. It's a roundtable of 60 minutes put in by the African -- within the African group. And some of the comments are: The aims of the workshop are unclear. Although a discussion surrounding Internet of Things and the decision-making process is important, it's unclear how the discussion would contribute to the development of an appropriate agenda. Limited information on diversity and format which indicates that the substance of the submission is not thought through but it's an important topic.
Need greater speaker diversity, et cetera.
>> The same as before.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: The same as before meaning see if we can work to improve it?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Candidate of merger with another.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Is there anybody who wants to speak differently to that particular workshop? Zeina?
>>ZEINA BOU HARB: Yes, because maybe this workshop because I was reviewing the workshop that I evaluated. I think there is a workshop similar to this one. It's Number 48. Maybe we can try to merge both. 48.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It sounds like this workshop is in the same category as the discussion we just had, which is we put it in as a "maybe." We examine. And all these would have secretariat support. And I think we need to identify a MAG member to help us work that as well. And we can go work that offline to either improve it along the lines of some of the reviewers and/or possible merge candidate.
So with that, we have completed the government list. Unless -- Frederic?
>>FRANCE: I just saw quickly on the screen the comments made saying that there are no speakers from -- actually one of the two speakers we propose is from Africa, is from Bannow, works with the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie. But diversity is on the panel already. Needs to be fixed. It's already on the panel.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay, thank you. We'll take that forward when we contact the proposers for the other areas of improvement. Thank you.
Christina?
>>CHRISTINA ARIDA: Sorry to come in very quickly because Zeina was mentioning the proposal Number 48 that has the title "Internet of Things." Looking quickly at the proposal, although the speakers -- I think the evaluation process is that the diversity of speakers is not right. But then I see there are speakers from the MENA region and from governments. So I think there might be a technical problem. So while we are looking at mergers, maybe we should relook at 48's evaluation. Maybe something technically happened wrong. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you. Thank you, Zeina, too. We will have the secretariat look at that.
So that actually completes the review of the governments again which was one of the areas of imbalance that everybody felt quite strongly about through this morning's discussion.
Mamadou, I'm sorry, did you want the floor? No, okay.
We would now go to the wildcard process which was the list that the MAG has put forward on the basis of, again, the imbalances discussion we had this morning.
So that document is the document that Chengetai circulated at about 3:00 this afternoon as well as in a Google Doc format as well as an Excel spreadsheet.
Sala, you have the floor.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Thank you, Chair. Now I'm able to make this comment and offer this particular wildcard because the analytics have further aggregated the subregionals. And I want to thank the IGF secretariat. I can see the SIDS and the MENA and AP are newcomer blocks.
So I'd like to propose workshop 4 which scored 3.777 and ranked 160. It's a SIDS, small island developing states, proposal.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It's there. You jump to line 14, right, in the spreadsheet, the one that's showing in the room there? "Small island developing dates, roundtable, are we running out of resources and bandwidth?" What we tried to do was take the wildcard list again which came out of the MAG's process over the last week or so, which was initially used to identify those workshops that the reviewers thought deserved a closer look.
We added to it over the lunch period.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Wonderful.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We added -- with the imbalances that the room had identified, the secretariat and I went back and pulled out the workshops that specifically had been referred to here in the room. And that's what's now in the spreadsheet.
>>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Fantastic. I'm happy. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Excellent.
How many are on that spreadsheet, by the way? 23? Well, we just did ten and the first ten are always harder than the others.
I mean, at this point -- Aida, I will come to you in a moment.
I know there have been conversations in the chatroom, but I haven't been able to follow it.
I would suggest we stay with the same process and, again, categorizing them according to the categorizations we've been using. We have not actually filled up a significant number of slots. And, in fact, I think the secretariat said earlier we have a few additional slots given some of the flash sessions that were in, in the accepted proposals of 72, not conversation in the last two hours. So I actually think we're doing quite well here.
I think we need to find a way to speed the process up a little bit, if at all possible, without obviously short circuiting the discussion. That means we would go up to the first item, which is ID 6 ranked 140.
>>ZEINA BOU HARB: They are repeated. The same workshops are repeated on the list.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Excellent.
[ Laughter ]
Excellent!
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: And 182 is here.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. Why don't we just take one moment and let the secretariat clean those out and then we'll see more easily what we're dealing with.
I can let you do that in the background, Eleonora, without everybody staring at you.
Wisdom, you have the floor.
>>WISDOM DONKOR: Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
This workshop, workshop 200, I see this workshop to be very interesting. Is there reason why this particular workshop didn't make it to the 70 -- the list -- the top list? This particular workshop seeks to address the issue -- yeah, I mean, it seeks to address the issues of electricity and Internet access.
And taking into consideration the developing countries, we can't -- I think these two items, electricity and connectivity, I mean, they go alongside -- they go together. And some of the view that we should consider this workshop because it falls in line with Connecting the Next Billion.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So let's take -- while Eleonora cleans the list up, let's start with -- and we'll go back up to the top in a moment. Let's start with ID Proposal Number 200, the one that Wisdom just introduced, which was ranked 97. It's, "Two networks will shape your digital future." It's a roundtable of 60 minutes. And we're pulling up the comments here in a moment.
Let me just finish the comments so everybody who is participating in these various chatrooms and things -- just a second, Segun. The comments we received as part of the evaluation is: One of the dimensions of IoT, it could be merged with others in a more general approach or could be a new format session. Another one said it's well-organized and interesting. It would be better if you could include one or more speakers from the technical community.
So with that we're either looking for support for the proposal to go forward or any suggestions for changes to the process.
So, Segun, you have the floor. I think the queue is still empty.
>>SEGUN OLUGBILE: Okay. Thank you so much, Chair.
First and foremost, I was truly surprised that this particular workshop is not taken as part of the workshop that should have really been taken. Probably because from the point of view of the fact that the proposer came from the U.S. But, really, if we are talking about Connecting the Next Billion policy options, in Africa, one of the things that -- the challenges that we have is electricity.
Number two, when I look at the content, especially the speakers that have been invited here, I am somewhat (indiscernible) I can see a fusion of a private sector and the government working together to talk about these issues under this proposal.
Then let me give an example. I have someone like Ms. (saying name) who has been one of the few (indiscernible) in Africa that is spearheading the investment on undersea cable in Nigeria and the whole of Africa.
And at our own national level, I'm talking about Internet governance -- Nigerian Internet Governance Forum. We have done a lot to bring people like this into the discussion dialogue mechanism of what we are doing.
When we see people like this coming to the Internet Governance Forum, we are motivated. Why? Because these guys are talking about issues -- the fundamental issues that has to do with development in Africa. So I want to push strongly that this workshop should be considered. And I think I will consider it on fear on the part of whoever evaluated this part of proposal in the first instance without considering the fact that the impact of this workshop has a lot to do with the policy options on Connecting the Next Billion in Africa. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Segun.
Wisdom, you want to come in on the same topic? No. Okay.
We have Flavio and then Ji.
Flavio, you have the floor.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Thank you. It's not a comment on this particular workshop but, again, on the procedure we are following, just to be sure. So we have a list of 20, 22 proposals there. And our exercise now is to see which of those are good proposals, of course, support from the MAG members but they help compensate the gaps we see in underrepresented regions, non-WEOG, or subjects that are important and missing among the top 72 and things like that.
I would say when we go through the proposals, if the proposal definitely compensates for some of those gaps, then we can put it on the definite list. If not -- if it is a very good proposal, on the "maybe" list. But we should really stick to the criteria we have for analyzing those proposals there. Not just because they are good. There are lots of other good proposals that are not there.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I agree with that, Flavio, and we should be okay because that's how this list was created was out of the imbalance discussion we had this morning.
So I'm -- my working assumption is that it's on this list because somebody actually said, in the context of the discussion, that it was an imbalance.
Most of these actually come through the regional imbalance and then we, of course, had the IPv6 one which is, I assume, up there somewhere as well.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: So I would say that, well, then MAG members who give their support for those proposals, that they explain how they correct those imbalances that we have.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Right. So when somebody argues for a proposal in here, you're suggesting that they need to comment specifically on the imbalance that it's addressing.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Yeah. Yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think that will be a fairly easy argument because I think most of them were, again, from the regional discussion we had this morning but I think that's a good point.
We have Ji in the queue and then Jac.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair.
I would like to propose several wildcards for selection from the perspective of Asia-Pacific. The first one I would propose is original Number 12.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So Ji, just -- sorry. Just so we don't get lost --
>>JI HAOJUN: Yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: -- that's ID Number 12? And are they already on this list or are they beyond this list?
>>JI HAOJUN: No, no, they're not -- this one not on the list. It's very close to the bottom of the list, which is original Number 12, but the current selection, it's 77. Current number is 77.
Do you find? It's -- the theme is Social Responsibility and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, East/West Dialogue.
This topic is really important. As Professor Hawking once said, that if we cannot handle this issue properly, one day the human society may be erased by machines. And we people in the arms control and disarmament field, we have been working on this for many years, particularly on the conventional -- certain conventional weapons. We have set -- have been setting up for government expert groups to discuss this and we were -- for two times, and we will have another session of governmental groups on this topic again at the end of this year.
So I want -- and I hope that colleagues can attach high importance to this, and it's just -- this topic certainly deserves respect and importance. And the screening results is also not so bad. It's close. So I hope this one could be a good candidate, be treated as priority.
The second I would like propose --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ji, could we stay with that one so we can close on it? It actually was on the list. So it on the list of wildcards that's in front of us. It's in Row 18 there in the Excel spreadsheet. And if we can just -- you did a good job introducing it, so if we can just close on it, then we can move to the next one.
>>JI HAOJUN: So can I come back to the next proposals later on?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes.
>>JI HAOJUN: Okay. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Absolutely. So the proposal we're actually evaluating right now is on Line 18 in the Excel spreadsheet. It was ranked 77, as Ji said, Social Responsibility and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, an East/West Dialogue, and -- and he pointed out it's ranked quite highly. 77 when our cutoff was 72.
Is there anybody who wants to speak to that particular proposal? Again, we are trying to place them in one of our previously agreed categories.
I saw heads nodding in the back of the room that said it was a good proposal when Ji was speaking.
Apologies to those that are on line because I obviously can't see your heads nodding but I'm trying to get some discussion going here.
Jac was in the queue. Jac, did you have a comment on this proposal or something else? If it's something else, I'll come back to you after.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. So we have -- I see some thumbs-up in the back of the room as well. Are people comfortable going forward with this as a definite? I see lots of head nodding. Let me give a chance to those in the online queue to see if there's any strong objection to moving forward.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: What number is it? It was ranked 77 and the proposal number is 12. It was Asia-Pacific. It was a newcomer. If I were to use Juan's earlier words, I'd say it was a no-brainer, but...
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: All right. So I see support for going forward with that one.
We're jumping around the list a little bit which can make it hard to follow which one we're actually talking to, but Ji, could you just do us a quick favor and just tell us the numbers of the other proposal you want to put it forward so we can see if it's on there? If not, we'll add it to the list so we can all look at the same.
>>JI HAOJUN: Okay. The first -- the second one is original Number 42 -- not 42. Original Number 79, which is (indiscernible) 2.0, the Rise and the Challenge of Platform Economy.
And the next one is -- the next one is original Number 42, Internet of Things for Smart City, Green and Sustainable Development -- Sustainability.
And another one is Governance Innovation in the Age of Sharing Economy.
Which one? I forgot the -- the number. Oh, it's original 133. The current numbering is 104.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ranking was 104?
>>JI HAOJUN: Yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: 133 is the proposal number?
>>JI HAOJUN: Yes.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Let's -- I mean, I think it's helpful that Ji is putting those in because in this morning's discussion, most of the other folks that spoke on regional imbalances actually gave us specific proposal numbers.
We didn't actually get that from Asia, so Eleonora and I went through and just went down through the next big block and said those that are ranked highly should be here on the list to get us started in the Asian context.
So we will add those to the list, and then if -- I'll let you come in, Flavio, in a moment. And then I would actually suggest we go back up to the top and work our way through one at a time, just so we can all keep track of which ones we've done or not. So Flavio.
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: The proposal that is on the top there, the Proposal Number 75, which is ranked 58, which is a mistake. It's already on the top 72. We don't need it there.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: But we'll go away and look at that one and make sure that both the ranking and the proposal number is --
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: The ranking is 58 here. It's already selected here.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: All right. So we'll go -- yay! Another one done.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Little steps, little steps.
So we had Jac in the queue and then I'd like to suggest that we go back up to the top. We'll add those workshops in that you just mentioned, Ji, but we'll just work our way through the top so we can -- everybody -- it will be much easier for people to follow if we're actually working consistently through this.
Jac, you have the floor.
>>JAC SM KEE: Thanks, Lynn.
I guess just a suggestion on maybe process because we seem to be sort of running up and down a little bit, in that if you -- if the aim is really to address imbalances, which we've already identified, one is governmental participation which we've dealt with, the other is around regional participation, which we seem to be dealing with, and then the other is around topical as well, maybe we can just do it like chunk by chunk.
So then now we're sort of looking at really trying to respond to the regional imbalance, and the regional imbalance -- the two regions that were specifically mentioned earlier -- actually three that were specifically mentioned earlier with quite a lot of agreement was around Africa, eastern Europe, MENA, and then to some degree Asia-Pacific. So just to make sure that we're not losing those as well. And -- and maybe also according to priority of actually regions that has quite a lot of disparity.
And then I really support Flavio's suggestion in that the person who is recommending it to really begin from there, that this is what we're trying to respond to, and that there's also two or three other imbalances that this can also support.
And then to move to topical address, you might sort of get lost a little bit in the process.
And then finally I guess it's about putting forward wildcards to also be quite -- I think there's been some forwarding of wildcards in the email list as well as yesterday and today, and there's also been quite a lot of restraint in the sense of trying to think through what's the best to address some of these. So to bear that mind as we're proposing this. Yeah.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. Let me comment. I actually think that is what we're doing here. I have one question for the secretariat. I think we haven't possibly said, "Okay, these are the ones from MENA, for instance, so let's go look at MENA."
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think addressing them chunk by chunk would be a good improvement. But just to be clear in terms of what's in the list, we actually did go to eastern Europe and we went to MENA, we went to the folks that commented in the room, to try and fill out this spreadsheet. I mentioned earlier we didn't actually manage to get anybody from Africa during the lunch hour to say whether or not there were any additional proposals you wanted considered from the African region, and that offer is still very much open in terms of are there some additional proposals. And it was a similar conversation with Asia as well. Because, you know, while we had quite a discussion on the fact that Asia wasn't adequately represented, there had not been any specific suggested workshops. So Eleonora and I went away and did a process to try and pull some in.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think we've now had a few more from Ji that we can put on the list. The ones which came through the MAG wildcard process are in that list as well, as I understand it, right, Eleonora?
>>ELEONORA MAZZUCCHI: Yes, I can confirm that.
So just to make the list a little clearer for people, everything that's on the top and that doesn't have a parenthetical notation were the suggestions that came through the MAG list and up until this morning.
And then everything below that are some things that we added in for -- to bring in some potential regional diversity, and they -- you know, that's why they have the regional note in front of you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And then you will add in the three additional ones that just came in from Asia afterwards.
>>JAC SM KEE: Also the -- oh, microphone. Sorry. Also that the wildcard process in the beginning was not meant to address some of these deficiencies, right? It was really interesting sessions that we thought we should support. So then that's also useful to say then. "We're still supporting these wildcards because it's still responding to XYZ," in some sense.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We can choose to go through the top 10 up there which came through the wildcard process and then move through the regional or vice versa.
Start at the top and work our way through? Let's do that, then.
So start with the first proposal that's up there, which was ID Number 6, ranked 140, Collaborative Community Development Program Learn internet Governance, Promoting Youth on the table.
If it's up in that top list, it's because a MAG member actually said, "This is worthy of another look," so we need that MAG member to introduce it or represent it here and, then again, to decide its disposition.
So who -- who suggested that workshop?
Was that Renata? Renata, you have the floor. Could you please introduce it?
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: Yes. I suggested that proposal. Asia is quite a big place, so you have there eight countries represented. Three has confirmed presenters, two co-organizers. So I think also when we're talking about regional representation, let's include Asia workshops. I'm all for it. But how many countries in Asia?
So this is an incredibly diverse proposal. It has -- it is by youth proposers, by new proposers, mostly, and it has a few -- probably a few problems in writing, but it should -- it should make it just for the sake of the complexity of the proposal itself.
And I would leave another thought for the MAG. The diversity feud on the forum, I noted in one of my (indiscernible) about the validation that this forum received a lot of letter of intentions, "We will have this, we will have that." This is a proposal that doesn't have a huge number of confirmed speakers. However, the number that it has is quite varied and the number of speakers to be confirmed is very specific, very detailed and also varied.
So I think this is something the MAG should evaluate as well, because clearly this was well thought, with eight Asia countries, Asian countries.
So it's incredible to have this amount of diversity. And stakeholder groups, too.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Any comments, reflections from the MAG?
Again, if they're up here on this wildcard list, it's because they were below the cutoff point which we'd established. That may or may not mean they had some deficiencies in terms of the criteria we were looking for, but there was a request from a MAG member -- there were only 9 or 10 of them -- that we take a harder look at this. I note also that I think it was a newcomers proposal as well. Is that right? I think I saw that. Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think Number 6 and Number 16 have something in common. They're all talking about youth. But access to cyberspace for youth is a -- is a dilemma for the adult to -- adults and the whole society, and firstly, we have to consider which age is good for them to access or use the computers, and, in the meantime, we have to do our best that the kids make good use of the -- their computers and smartphones for education, for career, et cetera.
So I think these two topics can very much marry each other. Let them talk to each other to see -- you know, to be an interesting session. In the meantime, at the same time that we have to manage the use of Internet and smartphones and computers by the youth, on the other hand, we have to encourage them to use it in a responsible and valuable way. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Ji. Any comments? Anybody online?
>>ANJA GENGO: Yes. Ginger would like to speak.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ginger, you have the floor.
Ginger, you have the floor.
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: Sorry. Apparently my mic doesn't work. I should see it now. Yes, thank you very much. I was speaking to myself.
Thank you, everyone.
I had put myself in the electronic queue a bit earlier, so unfortunately this comment comes up a little bit late when we were talking about regional divisions and I wanted to mention that I think the SIDS workshop should be considered as a geographical diversity workshop. I know that Jac mentioned two different areas. I would like to include SIDS as a geographical region. This is the only SIDS workshop and I think it's important that we consider that area like we do MENA or --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Ginger, you're breaking up a lot. We're not able to understand -- understand you here, and I'm not certain if the scribes captured it appropriately. Now, is it possible for you to type --
Did it?
Is it possible for you to type it?
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: Where can I type it in? Unfortunately we're not managing to really cover our management today, so I can write an email. I can post it to the list (indiscernible) I think (indiscernible) --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Are you in the Adobe Connect room? If you could type it there or even if you have someone on the -- I myself am challenged with my computer today here, but if you're in the Adobe Connect room, if you can type it in there, we can read it out.
So Ginger is actually typing that the SIDS Workshop Number 4 should be considered as a geographical group, and you're still actually right on point, Ginger, because we hadn't actually closed on that item.
I don't know if there's anything further you wanted to say.
And then she's also saying that the biometric one should also be considered for geographical diversity and a topic that has no other workshop or reference.
Can you give us the workshop number for that one? I guess I can tell by the title, but...
282. Which is on there. It's Item Number 9.
Okay. Thank you, Ginger, and apologies to everybody for, you know, the various complexities here in the systems. Really appreciate everybody working with it and I know I can testify that we're all trying our best and really appreciate the -- you know, the patience and the support.
Thank you, Ginger. Apologies to everybody for the various complexities here in the system. I really appreciate everybody working with it. And, you know, I can testify that we're all trying our best and really appreciate the patience and the support.
Again, Elizabeth is next in the queue. I will come to Elizabeth in a moment. The item that we were -- actually, he was speaking to Item 4.
We were actually on Item 6, collaborative community development program. So we will keep your comments for ID Number 4 when we get there again, Ginger.
If we can close on 6. So far we've had support for six moving forward. We had one suggestion that 6 and 16 be merged. I don't feel any consensus. In fact, I'm not feeling a lot of enthusiasm in the room for either one of those two proposals. And we need to move forward.
So, Elizabeth, was your comment on that proposal or to a different point? If it was to a different point, I would ask you to wait. If it was to that, please.
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: I was going to say I thought the proposal put forward was lacking in clarity on some of the substance, but that it is a proposal that could be improved. And there is, I think, a lot of effort that's gone into actually have all of these different people from the region engage and for youths to be interested in this topic and to work together on a capacity-building approach. So I actually want to support 6.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And would that be a definitely in or conditional once it addresses --
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: From my point of view, it definitely needs someone to help coach and develop it further to improve. And maybe there are other comments more specifically. But -- so I think for it to be -- to realize its potential, it needs a little bit of coaching. But beyond that, I think it's got so much merit that we should consider it.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Elizabeth.
Kenta, you have the floor.
>>KENT MOCHIZUKI: Thank you, Chair. Sorry for not using the electronic queue because the Number 60 is a proposal from my company, my corporation. And due to the conflict of interest, you know, I cannot -- I don't want to evaluate this session. But actually the organization is a first-time proposer, and also this session is from the business sector. This is the only one proposal.
And actually the merger of Proposal Number 6 and also 16, I can totally accept that merger because of the similarity of the content and also the similarity of the diversity of the speakers.
So I totally accept that in merger.
And I have one procedure question from the merger of Number 6 and Number 16. I thought that each MAG member could propose only one proposal for the wildcard. But so far some of the MAG members are proposing -- some proposals were wildcard. I would question whether this is consensus or not. I would appreciate it if you could clarify this point. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think we are -- I think that's a good point. I think we're kind of conflating two processes. We had the wildcard process which the MAG members were meant to keep track as they went through their evaluations, whether or not they thought some workshops which didn't meet the criteria and they weren't ranking highly. Still, therefore, for other reasons deserved a subsequent review by the MAG.
That's a different exercise than the exercise we went through this morning which said are there some imbalances that we specifically want to address, which is where the second half of the list and the government proposals that we just went through came from. So they are slightly different, even though I think we're tending to call them all kind of a wildcard list. I hope that was clear.
>>KENT MOCHIZUKI: Okay, thank you very much. That's clear.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And then to the comment on 6 and 16, Renata has a question and we'll come back and see if we can close on those.
Renata, you have the floor.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: Yes, some of the proposers are even the same in 6 and 16. However, the theme is very different. Youth and children, two different topics. But I think proposals can work together and there can be a merger. I will still remember how -- I think it's important we don't force proposers because we do have the possibility of the new session format. So if it can't be done, it just can't be done. But I agree there could be a merger.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So what we have had in the room here, I think, is support for 6 standalone, being accepted conditionally with improvements, and a couple of comments that perhaps it should be considered for merger with 16.
You know, when I look at the two, I actually think they seem quite different and I think mergers really are difficult to drive. I don't know if we want to take a moment and think about 16 and see whether or not we think 16 could stand alone with support.
Otherwise, we're talking about supporting 6 alone or suggesting 6 and 16 merge. I think those are the two choices in front of us with respect to 6. Is there anybody who wants to speak directly to 16 with respect to whether or not it should be considered as a standalone? Alternatively, we could suggest to those proposers for 6 that they go away and look at some of the content in 16 and some of the proposers and see if there's anything they want to pull in to their workshop.
It's a good example why mergers are quite difficult to drive. Easy to suggest, difficult to drive and to manage.
Any strong positions one way or the other? Flavio?
>>FLAVIO WAGNER: Again, the fact that we are preparing two types of lists, one was a definite accepted workshops and the other one with the "maybe" ones because I would support 6 not -- okay, the subject is, of course, relevant. But they also add to the regional balance because it comes from Asia. Many countries in Asia are represented there.
But I just wanted to point out the fact that below we have many other proposals that also come from Asian countries and that are very (indiscernible) ranked than this one. So I would not put this proposal 6 on the final list yet.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Elizabeth, you have the floor.
Thank you, Flavio.
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: Thank you. I'm not going to disagree with the rationale for what Flavio just said. I think it makes a lot of sense. I wanted to make the comment as we go through the wildcards, since we're doing them first, when we add a wildcard, can we note when there's a regional or something gap that's being addressed by that particular one? Because I do know that some of the ones you found lower down were plucked out sort of in a search to add that and they hadn't already been pulled out in the wildcard process. And I know it's becoming confusing.
But I think that might also help us in terms of how are we faring in terms of progressing along that goal.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Just to be clear, the ones that we added from Asia, we literally just dropped down below the 72 and then looked through the next -- I'm not sure what the full bucket was -- and grabbed those what were higher ranking and put them up just so we had something to work with.
>>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD: I guess my point is to say if, for example, we find in the wildcards and we put three Asia ones in the bucket, it's good for us to remember that so we actually realize we might not need to add five others and vice versa.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think the suggestion by Flavio was that we put six in the conditional acceptance/"maybe" bucket. And I think there was support for that in the room. I'm not sure what to do with 16 because the only conversation we had on 16 was that it was a merger for 6. And I think Renata is sort of questioning whether or not that's appropriate or it's going too far.
Why don't we just put that to the side for a moment. And when we come back and revisit 6, take 16 at the same time. Does that work? Unless there's support for moving quickly on our discussion on 16. Tells me something when nobody wants to stand up and support it even though it was a wildcard that came from this group.
Juan, you have the floor.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Why are we seeing it in that order? Could it be ordered by rank in order to avoid what Flavio just said? Maybe we should sort it. You can click there and sort it and we do it by rank. We avoid what Flavio just said.
Are people okay with doing that? And did we add the three that Ji put in?
She is still adding those, Ji. We will add them, and then we will rerank.
She's just adding the three that were suggested by Ji and putting the appropriate links into the spreadsheet. We can go forward without those at the moment, and those will be in shortly.
If we can actually work from the spreadsheet at the same time as Eleonora is updating the spreadsheet.
Continuing with the process here then, the rank is 73. The ID was 184. It's surveillance from the margins. That is newcomers and Asia-Pacific region. I mean, is there anybody who wants discussion on that. Again, our cutoff was 72. This is 73. Is it, to use Juan's words, a no-brainer?
I want to allow time for those that are on line as well to see if there's anybody who wants to come in on this. Otherwise, given our previous logic on similar discussions, I would say that we pull this in as a definite.
Pablo, did you --
>> The link is not working.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Yes, I had a problem. You can have the PDF open, have it indexed in the bookmark. It's even better than having the link. My suggestion.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So you mean the link -- "Surveillance from the Margins" is the link that's not working.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: You can have the PDF of all the proposals, the big one, open. Two ways.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Arnold, you have the floor.
>>ARNOLD van RHIJN: Thank you, Lynn. To make it much faster, can you please tell us what the comments were on this proposal. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Again, so it's "Surveillance from the Margins." It was ranked 73. It's Asia-Pacific proposal. And it's newcomers.
Are those the comments right there?
The comments were: This seems to be a civil society-only panel. It would be recommendable to include more stakeholders from other groups such as government, business, and technical communities given the surveillance issue involves all stakeholder groups.
Despite that, it was still ranked 73. If there's support for the proposal going forward, I think that's one that we could even make conditional upon addressing some of the diversity issues.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Madam. I'm a bit confused because this proposal, the proposer is from the United States. And all the speakers looks like Chinese. So I don't know whether this proposal come from Asia-Pacific. 73.
[ Multiple speakers ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: It's ID number 184, ranked 73.
>>JI HAOJUN: It's from Pakistan? Okay.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.
Michael, did you have a comment?
>>MICHAEL ILISHEBO: No, it's fine. It's been clarified. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Still following our previous logic, if we rule this in, we definitely go back to the proposers and suggest that they pay attention to some diversity issues on the panel. All right.
The next one we're reviewing was ID number 12.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: It's already in.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: You're right. Excellent. And we decided it was in.
So the next one is rank 84, ID number 108. ID number 108, Asia-Pacific region, "Hybrid Cyber Warfare and Changing Cybersecurity Narrative." It's a roundtable. 90 minutes. And the comments were: This proposal could be merged with 224, 31, 182. They're all about the same issues. They can be together under the 224 or integrated in the main session about cybersecurity.
It comes from -- it was an Asia-Pacific region noted up there, Asia-Pacific group.
Do we have somebody who can pull the proposal up directly?
Juan, you have the floor.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: You can do many things with this workshop but not merge with 182 that we discussed, remember, the Swiss one, because this has nothing to do with the Swiss one. Maybe merge with the other ones but not 182. I read the comment and I don't agree in merging with 182. You could put it in the conditional list or whatever. It has interesting, you know -- I don't know if these speakers are confirmed. Milton Mueller is there. He's interesting. He's a good speaker. No, it's not Asia-Pacific. I don't know why it's there.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Just looking at now, that is a U.S. and Germany.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: I think it is a mistake.
>> (off microphone).
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay. So we'll -- maybe just italicize that at the moment since that's not addressing any of the imbalances we identified earlier. In fact, it would feed an overbalance.
[ Laughter ]
>> (off microphone).
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Renata, you have a comment on this?
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: Paula (saying name) from Venezuela, she -- I am also pointing out that Tatiana Tropina from Russia is one of the organizers of the session. But they're listed as speakers. So that's why it don't have the regions represented.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think, Renata -- it was inappropriately classified. Right now we are meant to be reviewing those proposals that were brought to the list because of perceived imbalances.
I think it's pretty clear that a proposal coming from WEOG, particularly U.S. and Germany, is really not addressing the imbalance issue.
>>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO: May I just continue to point out, Chair, this is a group of cybersecurity. Specifically, Tatiana Tropina is a specialist on cybersecurity. It says the same thing Omar mentioned, the first proposer ended up putting this proposer as WEOG.
Again, I would point out that there's also on the team Mike Cogia (phonetic). But I would leave this, of course, for the consideration of the MAG. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think we have Miguel in the queue now. I will come to Miguel, and then I have a proposal.
Miguel, you have the floor.
>>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA: Can you hear me, Lynn?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Just barely. You are fairly faint. But I can hear you, maybe the scribes can hear you.
>>MIGUEL IGNACIO ESTRADA: Okay. I just was telling lightning sessions -- I'm sorry I had to leave for a while, so I'm back. The criteria when you select -- when you do the top-rated workshops that didn't make it to the cut, what we could do this year is include this short list of workshops and then go to the usual criteria, if that's okay for everyone.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think that answered the earlier question on lightning sessions. We will get Jac to look at that and then come back, Miguel.
What I would like to make as a proposal is that we wait list this, if you recall the wait list discussion. I mean, it's ranked fairly highly. It is WEOG, which is not one of the underrepresented or one of the imbalance areas we're trying to address. If, in fact, we find there's space or we find cybersecurity is underrepresented, it would be nice to have this sort of in the wings, if you will. But that wait listed does not mean that it's necessarily going forward. We can come back and review the wait list later.
But I think, Renata, there's just not enough support in the room to put it on given this exercise is meant to address the imbalances.
Renata is shaking her head yes. Thank you, Renata.
So the next one is ID Number 8, ranked 86, from the Asia-Pacific region, Open Source, Defending Freedoms in the Digital Future. It's a breakout group discussion, 90 minutes, difficult to do in the venue, and the comments are, "The discussion can gain in richness and depth through incorporation of both the technical community and government."
And is that it or is that part?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. "The topic" --
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And then, "The topics proposed are very wide and varied, so much so that the session lacks focus. It has no stakeholder diversity but does have gender balance and developing country representation. How will breakout groups support online inclusion?"
Any reactions from the MAG? Any argument for pulling that forward based on any of the imbalance discussions we had this morning?
My speaking queue is still updating if there's somebody else in the queue online, let me know.
>>LUIS BOBO GARCIA: Yes. Ms. Carolyn.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Carolyn? Oh. I'm, like, Carolyn's in the room.
>>CAROLYN NGUYEN: Hi. Thank you so much. I actually had a comment about an earlier workshop, so apologies. It was actually about Workshop Number 12, and -- which was on ethics and social services in AI, or something to that effect.
And my comment really was if it would be possible to incorporate a private sector member who is actually implementing the AI, because I think that would be -- that would give -- enhance the richness of the conversation as well.
So that was a -- I'm sorry for the lateness in terms --
With respect to Workshop 8, because you were looking for comments on Workshop Proposal 8, I think the -- the issue that I have with this particular workshop was that it was -- it felt like it was an advocacy forum than a true multistakeholder conversation.
So if there are -- you know, if it's possible to add or, you know, consider additional stakeholders and make it truly a conversation and a dialogue, I think that that would be great.
And then one other suggestion, if I may, to add to the list, actually, is Workshop Number 15, which is on -- sorry. I'm moving around a little bit so apologies here.
-- which is on learnings from multistakeholder collaborations in cybersecurity response and capacity building. The proposers are from Asia, as well as Africa, and it talks about really practical learnings in terms of implementing cybersecurity. So just wanted to put that up there as well for consideration.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Carolyn. Certainly the title is interesting, as are the proposers. We'll take your note on Item 12. That was -- on ID 12. That was one that was accepted and we'll simply make sure that that's passed on to the proposer.
With respect to ID Number 8, we had two people in the queue. We had Juan an Ji.
So Juan, you have the floor.
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Yes. I have reviewed this before. It was not in my -- my group but it caught my attention because of the open source, but if you read the proposal, this is a mini-IGF in itself, because it has all the topics, almost, and I think that the -- that the comment that somebody said that it needs focus is an understatement.
I think this needs extensive rework in order --
The topics are interesting, but I think it's too -- too wide. If you can take the time to read the proposal, it's really lengthy and interesting but it's too wide. I think it -- and the relationship with open source is really tenuous. It's -- I don't know. It's -- it needs a lot of work to be kept in but maybe that can be done if the secretariat contacts the proposers and they have a second chance in order to get more coherent in this.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I'll come to Ji and then see if we can close on this and then also determine how we want to move forward for the rest of the day today and tomorrow because we're nearly at the top of our time.
Ji, you have the floor.
>>JI HAOJUN: Thank you, Chair. Internet, you know, security, cybersecurity is really a very important issue, so I'm quite interested in the proposal on how to bridge cyber-warfare and change cybersecurity.
Earlier when we discussed the proposals made by governments, they also proposed on cybersecurity, so I'm thinking whether we can ask them to merge all these important, very important, proposals to make it into a main session. Cyber-warfare, possible Geneva convention in cyberspace, all these things. Peace and security, and together with development are the two -- are the major themes of the time, and such important topics deserve a main session. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think that's a proposal for -- two proposals for cybersecurity main sessions and that will be discussed tomorrow. Maybe we can bring those comments forward. I mean, I think it's --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: 108 which --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes. I know you were talking about 8. We were all talking about 8. And then Ji went back and revisited 108. I agree, but it --
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Absolutely not the same.
So I think with 108 we've already made a determination on that, and I think to your point on cybersecurity main sessions, we can -- we'll have that session -- that discussion tomorrow.
I'm only laughing because Chengetai and I were trying to figure out what we should do with the scheduling and he just slipped me a note that said we could stay here until 8:00 to finish.
[ Laughter ]
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We should think about what we're going to do tonight and how late we want to go and then tomorrow, but let's finish with 8 first.
So ID Number 8, Open Source, Defending Freedoms, there was not a lot of support in the room for it, and in fact, it made the list because we simply looked through -- the secretariat and I at lunchtime looked through the ranking to try and bring some regional workshops forward.
Given the comments which were here which said it was mostly in advocacy and very, very, very broad, and the comments in the chat room, I would suggest we put that to the side, but I see Jac has her hand up, so I want to give Jac the floor to see if there's an opposing view.
>>JAC SM KEE: Yeah. I actually think it brings a very interesting point of view to -- I realize that the way that it's described is really broad but what it's trying to look -- what it's trying to get at, as I understand it, is to really untangle the infrastructure that enables the proliferation of content that is problematic, so it is quite an innovative perspective. It does require work to kind of make it sharper, but if it does go through in terms of its intent, it's actually a pretty good session, so, yeah, I would sort of provisionally support it.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: And would you also agree to champion that with the proposers to get it into a shape that was acceptable to the MAG? Because the comments were pretty -- pretty strong with respect to there's some significant shortcomings.
>>JAC SM KEE: I'm happy to.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Then I think we would move that to conditional acceptance, and that's one that we really would take a hard look at once it comes back in. Is everybody okay with that? And okay on line?
Then -- I guess some things stop at 6:00 because the screen just went dark here in front of me. Just that one screen. Thank you.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Does this work? Oh, no, it works, I guess. I've taken the floor just to say that I think we really have to stop this discussion because at 6:00 there's a reception in the CACG, which is just up the stairs, out the door, and then -- so -- offered by (Speaking in a non-English language), plus it's also important to mention -- it's very complicated in Switzerland -- by the Swiss authorities, of course. Thank you.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.
>>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: Or should we defer it to the next round?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Well, let's just see where we are here.
We have roughly -- I haven't -- can't see the full screen. Probably another 15 proposals to go through.
Is that a fair statement?
To date, by my account, just getting close, we probably have definitively agreed, I don't know, maybe four or six workshops in. Maybe four. We can get those specific counts afterwards. Which means we still have a fair amount of room in terms of the rough cap at 80 with the workshops that are in front of us and we also have the ability to wait list some and possibly roll some more workshop proposals in, depending on the open forms that come in, and the durations of those sessions are accepted.
We can stop here and ask everybody to go forward and look at the remaining items that are on that list. Please come prepared tomorrow with your positions, succinct positions of support or not, and a rationale why, and hopefully we can get through -- Ji is smiling -- hopefully we can actually get through that portion fairly quickly.
We did have, if I recall, tomorrow morning an hour and a half to continue the workshop selection and then we were to move at 11:30 to 1:00 for the main focus sessions and then in the afternoon there was follow-up as needed based on status updates from the open consultations and that's where we would look at working groups, best practice forums, C&B, NRIs, DC, et cetera. So I think we do have time tomorrow to come back and revisit those and pay appropriate respects to our Swiss hosts.
Juan, you have the floor, and is there anybody online as well?
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Thank you, Chairman. At what time are you convening us tomorrow? At 10:00?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I would say 10:00 tomorrow, still. I know there's some --
>>JUAN FERNANDEZ: Can we come at -- because also a lot of workshops begin earlier here. Can we start at 9:00, maybe, and gain an hour for this? Why not?
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: No, I'm -- so Aida has her hand up but there's somebody in the queue, the online queue first, Aida.
>>VIRGINIA PAQUE: Hello. This is Ginger. I'm assuming you can hear me because I've improved my mic. Thank you, everyone.
I'm hoping this will quickly resolve everything that's remaining. I suggest that since those of us who are on line will not be able to attend the wonderful reception tonight, we will continue working on line while you guys go to your social gathering and we'll finish up the workshops and then you guys can just catch up with it tomorrow. We'll send you an update. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: This is the benefit of global distributed time zones, processes, et cetera.
Aida, you have the floor.
>>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC: Otherwise, I would gladly agree to start earlier, but I know that a couple of us -- or even more of people that I don't know -- are staying actually in France and we don't have options because the bus leaves at a certain time, so it will not be physically possible to come here. Otherwise, I'm fine.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: So I think with that, it's not appropriate then to start earlier without the MAG -- some portion of the MAG not here.
I think what would help us move along tomorrow is if people do look at those remaining workshops that are on the list.
Can we maybe send out an updated list, Excel form, to the MAG with the additional workshops from Ji and the one that came in from Carolyn? And then that is the list we will work from. Maybe we can even identify those that we've closed on clearly in the -- in the Excel spreadsheet.
>> (Off microphone.)
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Right. So that's -- so -- and I'll come to you in a moment. So what we're going to do is you will get a new Excel spreadsheet. It will include -- I think it probably includes the three from Ji, the one that Carolyn suggested, and it will clearly identify the ones we have clearly taken a decision on from this group. But if you'd look through those remaining open items and come, you know, in your mind with a clear position of support or not support, it will help us move forward much more quickly. It would be great if we could get those done in an hour and a half tomorrow and then leave time for some of the other discussions. Arnold, you have the floor.
>>ARNOLD VAN RHIJN: Thank you, Lynn.
Very shortly, I was going to raise another issue, a kind request to the MAG, to add one more workshop to this wildcard list, and this is Number 107. It has a high grade, 4.02, a variance -- low variance, and it's received no comments from MAG members. It is ranked Number 81 but it's Workshop Number 107 and it deals with minimizing and controlling the impact and scale of online harassment based on non-consensual distribution of sexual images. It is a continuation of the discussion we had last year. It was a workshop I attended and it was a lively debate without -- well, with conclusions but also with a strong wish of the participants to continue this debate, and now they will focus on the -- the social technical solution to this problem.
Just a kind request to add it on the list and we can discuss it tomorrow, if possible.
>>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I -- I mean, I would just like to, so, you know, be open to what you accept and I would like to just add it to the list. It was ranked highly, I think it is an important topic, and it may even be one of the other represented topics as well.
So let's add it on the list, close the list there, and then we will go forward tomorrow morning and start with that list.
Thank you, everybody, for all the support here.
If we can make some improvements -- I'll talk to Luis. If we can make some improvements in terms of, you know, online and this kind of quick voting we're trying to do which works well for people that are in the room but not so well if you're participating remotely, we'll see if we can address that. But I really want to thank everybody sincerely on line particularly, but in the room as well, for helping to work through some of these participation trials. Thank you.
>>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: And thank you. And again, I will have to immediately go over, so please come along too. Otherwise, you will miss my speech and this will be huge. It will be terrific. It will be the best ever. It will make Geneva great again.
[ Laughter ]
>>THOMAS SCHNEIDER: So join me.