[Comments-o-com-single-char-10may18] My personal comment on O.com proposed release

[Mary Uduma]

These comments are submitted in my personal capacity and are based on my experience and understanding of ICANN. I am a long time participant in ICANN processes, in many roles, including long standing engagement in the GAC, ccNSO and  in the broader community; and as a member and participant in  various  CCWGs  including  the CCWG- IG and CCWG-AP. 

I only highlighted  my experience in order to mention that I have a broad understanding of ICANN, its mission and core values, moreover its importance to the developing countries engagement as an informed and active participants. 

When I attended my firs ICANN Public meeting not many years from when it was founded, there were very few African participants on the Internet. Today, the Africans still have much progress to make, but I can see  there is such a strong commitment in all African countries to engage fully, getting  informed and  advancing the growth of the Internet. In Africa, we understand and support ICANN's role and we want to see more engagement supported from across our entire region, and of course, other least developed countries, in being able to engage in ICANN, 

As I reviewed the posted comment, I note some areas that I can personally support:

1. Progress with the single letters in .com, just as all the other earlier gTLDs have already done, like .info and .biz and .org.

2. The commitment of VeriSign to not take the auction funds for themselves, or to give them to ICANN, but to make sure that they are available to support the broader Internet community.

I wish to note the challenges of travel costs to attend technical training at national, or regional levels, or to attend the ICANN meetings for many from developing countries who really need the expertise to help to keep the Internet secure. This is a real barrier, and funds from the O.COM auction could support such participation from developing countries. 

As an advocate of child online protection in Nigeria, I can see these funds helping developing countries to develop programs that address child online protection -- awareness and education of teachers, guardians and parents, creation of help and advocacy centres, stakeholders engagements  --  a vitally important area for many of the developing countries. 

Utilising these funds for capacity building is brilliant, it could support national level engagement in sessions where ICANN community and technical resource come together to address technical skills, as well as policy issues that affect the Internet, and  by extension, the ICANN. 

The National Regional Initiates, (NRIs) where I spend a good deal of my time are a convening mechanism both nationally and sub-regionally and supporting participation by the disconnected internet communities   in such events could be a very cost-effective use of auction funds. 

I therefore support the trial release of O.COM as proposed, and I hope that a broad definition of  capacity building can be acknowledged.

I also hope that if the trial is successful, then further single letters in .com will follow this model and contribute to benefit the broader ICANN and Internet communities. This is much needed support and can help to achieve access for all of those who are not yet connected to the Internet. 

BR

Mary Uduma




Sent from Mail for Windows 10

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-o-com-single-char-10may18/attachments/20180618/a66670a2/attachment.html>