[Ws2-diversity] Draft 01 Diversity Report

[Malcolm Hutty]

On 23/02/2017 15:56, Mathieu Weill wrote:
> I certainly do not see any of the current recommendations as sexual or
> racial discrimination,

No, as I noted, the "hard quotas" idea is not part of the paper.
But I would like the paper to do more than not introduce a problem; it
should be making a positive commitment.

> and would happily support additional
> recommendations to enhance commitments against any such discrimination.

I would like to see a clear commitment that discrimination on the
grounds of race, sex, etc should not be tolerated at ICANN.


> I also would welcome your suggestions about how to enhance outreach in
> order for them to effectively increase diversity. Can you elaborate on
> these proposals ?

At this point I would just be throwing out random and unformed ideas,
completely untested for cost or feasibility. But here's two to be going
on with:

On travel:
* Enjoyable as it is to visit lots of different countries, this can
cause travel difficulties. Those may weigh most heavily on those for
whom travelling is already difficult, or simply those with furthest to
go. While I think the interests of fairness do demand that ICANN
meetings circulate amongst continents, it might be worth looking into
whether having more stable, repeat venues within each continent may make
it easier to
(i) choose venues that have better international travel connections from
a wider variety of places, (frankly, Singapore, Dubai and
London/Paris/Frankfurt are easier for more people than Jakarta, Muscat
or Brussels); and
(ii) to pick as our preferred venues places where visas require less
advance notice, are less likely to run into processing delays, and
involve less administrative overhead. Ideally, I would like ICANN to
seek to develop special relationships with visa authorities to make
special dispensations for or fast track conference visas. I know
bureaucracies are impossible, but if repeat visits were offered, perhaps
high level political intervention might be available to secure this for
ICANN's benefit? Even a pre-clearance regime would help some. Conference
visas with 5 year validity?

* Likewise, if we had a set of established venues for intercessional and
ad hoc meetings maybe we might have avoided some of the problems we
found some had in our own CCWG f2f.

On remote participation:
* Remote participation capabilities are essential, but when they break
down mid session the participant is effectively excluded, despite all
good intentions. How often have we seen that in questions to the Board,
where the remote questioner simply can't be heard, and all we get is an
embarrassed "we'll get back to you"? Could we investigate the
possibility of the remote participants also being offered the
opportunity to record and upload their question, so these problems with
live connections don't occur? And - I think this is essential - to be
able to record it up to even a moment or two before it is called, not
days in advance, so the remote participant is not disadvantaged compared
with someone standing in the queue in person.
Or perhaps an actual upload isn't needed: just video-calling software
that is not optimised for low latency, but has a 10 second buffer. In
the context of being called to the mic, 10 seconds latency is far
preferable to the call breaking up inaudibly.

I offer these not as well-formed proposals, but more as illustrative of
the kind of creative thinking and attempt at solving practical problems
on which I had hoped this subgroup would have focussed it attentions.

Malcolm.
-- 
            Malcolm Hutty | tel: +44 20 7645 3523
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