The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, afternoon, and evening. Welcome to our MAG 19. The meeting is being recorded and a summary report will be produced at -- by the end of the week for you. And please if you would ask you to try and use the speaking queue. If you are unable to use the speaking queue, then yes, of course you can raise your hand in the room and then we will get your names and put them in the queue. With that, then we just give the floor to our Chair of the MAG, Anriette Esterhuysen to say a few words.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Chengetai. I will disable my camera. Just greetings toern. For everyone. Welcome this. As Chengetai said our MAG meetings are going on and on. And this is the -- which one is this? 19th. And so firstly welcome to the MAG members. Thanks for all your work on the preparatory engagement and engagement phase. Welcome to our observers and the captioner and to the Secretariat and last but not least the host country representative. Today's MAG meeting is covering updates. We have updates from the host. And that will include updates on important matters that you have been asking about, such as vaccine approvals. We will have an update from the Secretariat on registration and on the call that was just released yesterday for nominations for the MHLB which is now known as the leadership panel. We will also get an update on the 2022 hosting. And the mission that has gone to Addis Ababa from the Secretariat last week. We will also look at action items. I'm sure that we will have time to look at that in-depth. But it is worth reviewing. Just to make sure we are staying on track with the tasks that we have committed to. We will focus on a debrief on the main sessions last week and with a view to extracting what we have learned from those sessions so we can channel that in it the final planning and execution of the main sessions during the annual Forum in December. There will be feedback on the registration process. If you have notes or experiences that you have heard of or gone through yourself, please note them down and share them under item No. 5.
We will have an update on the Guidelines for session organizers which is linked to the training session for organizers. Which has started already. One took place last week and another one is scheduled for this week. Finally we will look at the status of main session preparations. We don't need MAG members to present the proposals. We can use item No. 7 for MAG members to share progress and help. Ask for help. Specifically if they need assistance with identifying speakers. We will look at IGF 15th anniversary plans. On 13th of know it will be the 15 years since the first IGF and then item 9 any other business. A long agenda but I think many of the items won't take too long.
On this note I'm going to hand over to Chengetai who can give the floor to Chemg. I have to leave in the course of this meeting. I will be away and hopefully return. But Chengetai will Chair for us today to avoid disruption. Welcome. Wishing us a good meeting and over to you Chengetai.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. As Anriette has said the first order of business we will hand the floor over to the host country just to give us an update from the host country.
>> Good morning, good afternoon and evening everyone. Welcome from the host country. Thank you very much, Chengetai and Madam Chair for giving me the floor. I will be very brief. Regarding the vaccine approvals, and the issues regarding the quarantine to enter Poland, we are currently finalizing the last amendment to our regulation on this issue. So we will be -- we are looking forward to having it enter in to course this week. So we will be more than happy to update you as soon as possible as soon as this amendment has been entered in to force.
We are aiming at preparing a special confirmation for the IGF 2021 participants based on these amendments. In order to allow people to come without being put under quarantine and to allow them to freely enter Poland. Whereas for the vaccinations, we are currently making final arrangements. First of all, the UNDESA and the IGF Secretariat also on this but also internal ones with our medical appointments. We would like to be first of all, for you, so that you would feel safe, and secure. So that's our general and main aim is for our dearest participants to feel secure.
And second thing is that we would have helped arranged and not to miss anything. Therefore, I will be more than happy to update you also on this as soon as possible hopefully by the end of this week.
So thank you very much for now. This is Typiak speaking for the record. I am handing over to you, Chengetai. Thank you very much. Have a nice meting.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Typiak. So the next item on the agenda is update from the Secretariat.
As far as the registration numbers are concerned, we've got 3365 registrations at this moment. And of which 1878 of them say that they will -- they are intending to be on site. So that is quite a large number. And if -- I mean preCOVID we would say that 80% of those would show up. So that's still quite a large number and I think it is the making of a very good and engaging meeting.
The next thing that you may have seen that I -- we did send a message out to the MAG list and also through all our channels, to Facebook, et cetera, about the announcement of the nomination process of the leadership panel, which was the high level multi-stakeholder body that we've been talking about. And this is a result of the consultations that we had. So the Secretary-General has instructed us to post the nomination process. And it is open until the 29th of November. So please it is there. It is on website. Please read it. Please share it with your constituencies and post the link in your mailing lists as well that you are a part of.
So that we have a good response and that the Secretary-General's office can select a good leadership panel.
And the last thing I would speak about is last week the Secretariat went on an assessment mission to Addis Ababa and we saw the venue which is going to be the conference center at the ECA which is in the heart of Addis Ababa. It is currently going under some renovations. And we did have our ICT chief, if you want to call it that, Eduardo, he was worked in Addis Ababa as well. So he knows the venue. And he knows the place. And he is quite confident that can host a hybrid meeting.
We also met with the Government and the Governments are very eager and they have made a multi-stakeholder Committee as well to help with the -- with the planning of the meeting and the setting up of the meeting.
And we also met with representatives from the African Union, and also some aid organizations within Addis Ababa. And it is very, very pleasing. Everyone is eager. They do know what the IGF is. And they are eager to have it and you you know one of the points that they were pointing out there is 25 million youth and they count youth as these people between 15 and 29 years of age in Addis Ababa. Addis Ababa is the second post populous state in Africa. We have a lot of will to hold the meeting there. And we will see how that goes.
Yeah, while we were there there were these -- the news that came on about some fighting that was going on near the city. We ourselves did not witness anything. And the -- there wasn't really any real heighten tension as such in the city. People said we will see what happens. They are watching the situation closely. As far as we are concerned for our level the meeting dynamics, the stakeholder group involvement I think has been satisfied. We check the access for people with accessibility, Braille, ramps for wheelchairs, that's all been in there, in the ECA.
The other considerations we are going to leave that to the Secretary-General's office because that's an UN wide decision. One point to note is that the ITU is also holding a conference next year in June as well at the ECA. And which is also very good for us because, of course, there are basically six months' head of us. And they have sort of paved the way so to speak for UN requirements. We will be watching them as well to see how they handle things, and we will keep you updated.
Before I open up the floor to any questions, I just want to ask the Secretariat team if there is anything I have left out from the update from the Secretariat. Luis, Elanora, Soria, Wim, anything? I take that as a no. Okay.
Is there any questions that either for the Secretariat or for the host country, and --
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, just jumping in, in case anyone who not following the chat there was a question in the chat for Typiak about availability of testing for those participants who will require a PCR test for their return. And Typiak responded they are working on making testing sites available and testing affordable or at least making information available to IGF Delegates on how and where to get tested easily. So that was an important question. But addressed by Typiak in the chat. I just wanted to note it for the record and voice.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. Thank you very much. If there is no further questions, then we'll go to agenda item No. 3, which is reviewing action items.
So let me just go to the our summary report from our last meeting, which was on the 19th of October. Action items and main steps, this is available on website and I think somebody's going to put the link in to the chat so you could follow. So for the main sessions, we did say that speakers need to be confirmed by the end of October. Each session should have a brief description, two to three sentences to be added to the schedule, which can be used to promote these sessions. I would just like to ask Eleanora, this has been done, the brief descriptions or some missing?
>> Sorry. I was liking for my mute button. The sessions have been published. They are published with their full descriptions for now as I think this notion of having brief descriptions was more applicable when we had a different format for the interactive schedule. I think as everyone starts to explore our current interactive schedule they will see that it is integrated with the sessions as they were submitted. But we can try to find a creative way to maybe represent some of the session information and then link to longer descriptions. But just to note that the interactive schedule this year is not in the same format as it was last year where it made more sense and it was just sort of more natural to put these brief descriptions. But we'll try to figure something out there.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Next item, there should be diversity among speakers, the teams are encouraged to be more ambitious in terms of speakers and reach out. So I take it this that has happened but we will get an update from the session organizers if they have any problems in that respect in the agenda item No. 6.
And same goes for Moderators and also for the Rapporteurs. So if any session organizer is having any issues, we can have an update on agenda item No. 6. For the hybrid IGF, Secretariat to share plans of the training sessions with the MAG, I will just get Luis to respond to that.
>> LUIS BOBO: Thank you, Chengetai. I hope you can hear me well. Okay. Yes. So we had our first session that was very much successful with a lot of answered questions and it is being recorded and distributed last Thursday. And there is another one, just a repetition tomorrow. So more than 400 people have been invited. We received like more than 100 and a half last week which is our regular number. There are two sessions and not all the people joined. And yes, so we covered all the aspects about the different technical tools and best practices for a successful hybrid meetings. Having onboard the session organizers, speakers and also participants that I want to have an important role in IPT. Remote hubs may intervene and also host volunteers. I think that's all. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: All right. Thank you. And any comment on the next two items, Secretariat to ensure all information used in the training sessions also made available in writing, in form of guide and the third one Secretariat to contact session organizers before the training sessions? I think a yes, or a no is sufficient.
Luis.
>> LUIS BOBO: I'm sorry. I was lagging. I'm here. But together with this we already distributed all the material. So actually for the one for tomorrow I have distributed all the material again. So to be read before, during and after the sessions. There is recordings will be all time from now until the IGF included in listening of people having any kind of doubts and any kind of request as well because you know there could be different hybrid possibilities that have been actually proposed to the hybrid webinar. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. For the engagement phase, MAG members to encouraged to join the sessions. We will have a review of what we learned there. The MAG team members, that has been done as well. MAG Working Groups, the Working Group on strategy will share the full MAG draft letter proposed to be addressed by the MAG to the UN Secretariat general with comments on our common agenda report. Is there anybody from the Working Group on strategy? Otherwise I will pick on somebody.
I will pick on Amrita, if she can answer that one.
>> Amrita: The letter is ready. If it is not shared yet I will have it ready by today or tomorrow. We have a call on Thursday. We were taking comments from the Working Group itself on the letter but we will have it shared by this week.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. Thank you very much. Any other business? MAG members and IGF community are invited to review the reports on the sessions and that's until 14th November. It is still an ongoing process. I will ask Sorina if she has anything to add to that at all?
>> Sorina: Thank you. Hello. Just a kind reminder to make a look at the report and submit comments. So far we haven't received anything. And also a quick note most likely at the end of next week we will host a public session to discuss any comments we may receive by the report. As soon this is said we will send a note to the MAG and everyone who is kindly invited to join. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you. MAG members are invited to share suggestions how to mark the IGF's 15th anniversary. I did see some. And we will be discussing that under agenda item 8. We will pass that. And then MAG members are encouraged to navigate the new IGF website and alert the IGF Secretariat if they observe glitches or any comments. I have seen some suggestions that have went sent to Luis. Thank you for those suggestions that the MAG members have pointed out.
Thanks. I think that's all the action items. I will just pause here just to see if there is any questions.
And if not, I will go to the next agenda item. Lessons learned from last week's IGF 2021 planning and engagement phase and how to apply these lessons in the main sessions during the Katowice annual Forum. I do think this is very, very important that we do refine our processes as we go towards Katowice and this was basically the first real set of activities. I mean we've had some previously but this was the real set of activities that we've had.
So I mean as the Secretariat we are very eager to hear what you may have found, you may have noted and any suggestions that you may have. So I will pause here and see if somebody wants to start the process, and just give a comment.
>> Amrita: Chengetai may I speak? In most of the sessions that I attended the quality of discussions were very good. However, the number -- the concern was the number of participants were less. Perhaps our outreach needs to be looked at as to perhaps we are not reaching out properly. And the other thing was since they were back to back 90-minute sessions, perhaps next time one of the lessons is we have one session per day. People attend one and they don't get in to the other one. Mostly the second sessions had lesser people than the earlier one. And so these were the things which I observed but overall the quality was very good of the discussions.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. So once a session per day which will hopefully keep that attendance rate up. Anybody else who wants to have a comment? There is nobody in the speaking queue. We would want somebody to try out the speaking queue. This is the first time that we are using the updated speaking queue. But if not, Courtney, please.
>> Courtney: Thank you. Sorry. Yes. Looking for the mute button like everyone else.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. I always do as well, yes.
>> Courtney: So this is Courtney Radsch. I felt like this was a good exercise. But I think that we need to start planning much earlier and probably in conjunction with the main session so that there is clarity on how this will feed in. I know that we face challenges with kind of coordinating around the group and understanding I think when there is consensus and how to move forward needs to be figured out at the outset. And I found it very challenging doing things by e-mail because there would be many different threads. Some with the full group. And I think sometimes it is hard to talk it out, panelists and things like that in an e-mail. Because there are various considerations this you might want to be taking but you don't necessarily want worded in consideration because it -- people might not understand in writing what some of the considerations are. So I think that next year if we take this kind of Intersessional approach as well, when we are talking about the main session we should be looking at the presession and the main session together.
So thinking about the eight panelists or whatever that we need for this issue for (inaudible). And I think specifically we should be inviting and expecting that the people invited for the main session will attend the preparatory phase for that specific session so that they will be able to build on that. And that we need to make sure that, you know, there are robust repertoire reports that get at some of the meat that will provide a pathway for the next discussion.
Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. You say that the e-mail wasn't a very good tool for communication. Would you recommend something else? Is it --
>> Courtney: Well, I found it very challenging because the mailing list for the group but then there was a core group that was kind of doing the work and then there were, you know, people who, you know, volunteered to do outreach and then, you know, to draft e-mail invitations, et cetera. And there ended up being a lot of different threads which made it difficult for us to funnel through and kind of get out there in a timely manner. And understand who was doing what. And so I think we need, you know, maybe more support from the Secretariat with the invitation themselves just so that, you know, the consensus building process around who is going to draft an invite and put that in to a format, we can do that.
I don't know really what the --
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Would you recommend something like a Slack type of interface or Teams so that you can have several threads running?
>> Courtney: I think that could be helpful because if you are -- if some -- sometimes there were threads that started with say five members of the team and then one member of Secretariat, and then there would be another thread that someone starts with different people on it and then it was hard to track. So I wonder if there is a way that instead of e-mail which I guess there is probably somewhere, some e-mails are recorded but others aren't. It is harder to jump in later to that. So I just think, thinking about how to do this planning in a way that allows it to be clear where the decisions are being made and who is doing what and how to stay on that timeline would be really helpful.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Courtney, for those suggestions. Very helpful.
Anybody else wants to come in? We did receive actually an e-mail from Joyce who had basically -- I don't know if Joyce -- did Joyce manage to be on or no? Okay. Yes.
She was mentioning that there seems to be an overlap with the main session somewhat in the way the sessions were conducted. And the discussions were not often newcomer friendly. She also made an observation about the participants, that we need more new people to come in in these prep sessions. And yes, and she also made a comment about it's quite dense with back to backs sessions notwithstanding the time zone issues. So yes, I mean that is a repeated observation. So we'll note that, especially for next year, that one session per day may be the best way to go about it.
>> June: Hello. Good morning. I want to intervene. This is June Parris. I want to add to Courtney's statement. The thing is what I find is that new MAG members need to, what should I say, need to get more involved and chat and talk a lot to those who were there for three years or two years. There was lots of problem with communication, I have to agree with that.
What I think also -- what I want to say without offending anyone is that there was not a lot of response to my e-mails. I sent e-mails and people just didn't respond. Another thing I want to bring up is that it is up to the group to find ways of communication. Okay?
Now if e-mails are not working, try WhatsApp, try Skype, try whatever. Other groups have got Skype chats. And, you know, information is there immediately. But some members just don't respond. I mean they just ignore you. So it was a bit of a challenge for me from the outside. I'm not even a MAG member. So I'm just -- I just want to say that perhaps there should be some sort of training for new MAG members at the beginning to let them know how things work, how to do things. How to be a team. How to communicate better.
What the -- again with the chat, with the documents, the document is there. Everyone has access to it. Anyone can edit. Some of the threads didn't include everyone because there didn't actually have like some of the threads would include the like the people who are the main planners would go to the group. So but if you find that the thread isn't working, just start a new thread. Anyone can do it. Anyone in the group can do it. Anyone can change the thread and start a new thread and sent to the members and see how it goes from there.
It doesn't have to be one person. It is a team -- it is teamwork. So one person is not responsible for everything to share the work. And we have to share communication and we have to share everything. It can be very challenging, especially for me. I'm not even a MAG member and I'm involved with lots of other things. So I just want to say that I think at the beginning, the Secretariat, when you choose new MAG members, you should have a session just for them. Because things are different within the MAG. And a lot of people don't really understand how it is done. If you are used to working alone, you are not used to a team, it is very difficult to understand just how a team works.
I think I have said everything I wanted to say. So that's me for the morning.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, June. Well noted. Adam.
>> Adam: Hello. Hi. Sorry for joining late. I'm actually going to have to leave early as well. Sorry for bad scheduling. Just following up on something that Chengetai, you mentioned Joyce had said. We for the -- the preparation of the prep sessions, I don't think we contacted the organizers of workshops and other types of sessions that were in that particular issue area which is something that we should have done. I don't think that we did. Certainly the number of participants in the sessions suggested we didn't because it would have been good to have the session organizers and their speakers if possible attending those as we're basically preparing for work that they would be involved in in Katowice.
So that was -- that's one thing for next year. And make sure that that happens. And I don't know, during the sessions the main sessions is there a way to communicate more easily during the session with the speakers and so on. Rights con was also used for note taking. Rights con this year had a Google doc for every session. So a new Google doc was opened for each session. And these were used for people to take notes, to add comments, not requests for the floor, but to add comments as a sort of rolling reporting process. I -- might be overly complicated to set up at the moment.
But something -- that might be worth thinking about for future. Thanks very much. And sorry for joining late.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. It doesn't matter if you joined late. At least you joined. That's important. Courtney, is it a new hand?
>> Courtney: Yeah, I wanted to also to build on what June said and I'm not sure whether it is about new MAG members or just kind of the way that the MAG works. It would be helpful to understand in this kind of volunteer multi-stakeholder approach that we have, where we have issue teams that actually alluded to, there are people who are the main people doing the work. But the issue team is bigger than that. It would be helpful both for new members but also for all members to understand what does it mean for us to do things by consensus if people aren't responding. At what point are you able to move forward if some people who have, you know, elected to be in that group aren't responsive. And so, you know, certainly it is trying to figure out how to navigate a volunteer consensus led approach to getting things done while at the same time making sure that you are getting things done. I think that is something that would be helpful for new MAG members but also to have an expectation for MAG -- for members of each group to understand how are decisions going to be made and what are kind of the deadlines that need to happen. In our group we were inviting people the night before to make sure we had people in our sessions. That's not ideal for getting participants, for making sure that it is aligned with the objectives.
So I think that it is important for us to understand the modalities and how to do that in a way that works with the MAG way of doing things. But at the same time you don't want to have a session that doesn't have any speakers. So, you know, more I think guidance on that and understanding maybe from people about their expectations for involvement I guess would be helpful. Because think she is right. There were, you know, people who are doing the work and then understanding how that gets translated in to actually, you know, the session being organized would be helpful.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. Thank you very much. So we have to take another look at the onboarding process for new MAG members. Underline especially how decisions are made. And how they are expected to participate during the year.
So yes, we will add that on. And we will make sure that we review and take another look at the initial onboarding process for a new MAG members. Thanks.
Do we have any other input? We received very good inputs so far. So if anybody's got anything else, please do. Yes, there is -- I'm looking at the chat. Yes, mentoring is a very good way. And we will -- next year, for next year for the 2022 MAG we will also look in to that. And just make sure this we reinforce this mentoring model as well.
>> Maria Paz: I'm very sorry that I'm not able to raise the hand in the queue but I did it in Zoom. This is Maria Paz for the record. MAG member, third year. I just want to make in voice, in loud voice, my comment in the chat regarding two points, that adds on top of what June and Courtney were pointing out about coordination, Internet coordination inside the Working Groups.
I think that beyond the issue of new or older MAG members it is very relevant to have more clarity about who is taking on and which responsibilities inside the Working Groups.
I think that as I was stressing in my comment in the chat, it is very relevant that the ones that take on the responsibility to be facilitators in the Working Groups are able to keep the pace in providing updated information in to the rest of the members in the group what are the steps. It is not intended that they carry out all the work. The idea has a focal point, the responsibility to highlight what is pending, what type of help is required from the other members. So I think that a little bit more of organization on that it would be helpful in order also to avoid this confusions with the threads.
And in the same way very domestic issue but relevant if for any reason either the facilitators or the Working Group members that have take on in a specific responsibility are not longer available because they are on vacation or they are sick or whatever reason, it is very human and everyone is affected to unavoidable circumstances, it should be a good communication of those circumstances to the rest of the group because many times people just assume that things are working on and waiting for responses. And sometimes the problem is that the person is no longer available. So I think that in several locations, not even in one of the Working Groups, I saw that after a couple of days, weeks someone apologized who has not been able. That's good. It would be better if we can do that in advance so the people can continue carrying on the work in the meantime. That will be my contribution. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. Those are useful. And we will include that in the discussion that we'll have.
Anybody else has got any comment on that? And also remember this is also reflecting on last week also seeing if anything should be changed or underlined for the -- for Katowice the way that we are doing things for Katowice, if you find anything. Yes, I have seen some things. But if you think that there is some other things that are relevant, please, just raise your hand. And if not, I'll just give it the sixth count before going to the next agenda item. But I have taken notes. And we will, of course, see how we can do to reinforce these good habits that you have mentioned Maria and other people.
Okay. So the next agenda item is feedback on the registration process. And website for the IGF 2021. And this also includes the host country website. So please if anybody has got any comment I'll start off simple with the registration process. If you have any comments you would like to make on the registration process, please do so now. Your feedback is very important. And also I mean don't feel that you can't give feedback because it is negative feedback. We know that yes, it is important for us to hear what can be improved or what is an issue rather than hearing everything is good.
Because we are in this continual improvement process and we really do want to improve. And even if we can't fix it for this year, we can take note of it because for next year we really do start in January even for the registration processes. So if you want to say anything, please do say so now. But then again there will also be many more opportunities for you to give feedback on the processes.
I will give it another six count. And also really please can somebody also try the speaking queue to see if they can use it. Because as I said it is a new iteration of the speaking queue that we have had. And if you can't, please tell us what issues you had. And that's also very useful as well. Amrita you tried and what happened?
>> Amrita: I think there is a lag. It showed you are in the queue. But it took some time to show in the Zoom room. So there is a lag out there. Else it was absolutely okay.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. All right. Thank you very much, Amrita. I will --
>> Yeah, just on that Chengetai, why are we introducing a second speaking queue when Zoom has a speaking queue built in to it? Isn't that a layer of confusions with people? Some people will press hand up, whatever it is in Zoom and some will be in the speaking queue. I don't understand why there is two. It shows the order that things came in, et cetera, et cetera. Thanks. (Adam).
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Adam. That's also a very good question. When we did start this Zoom hand up system at least when we were using it, when I was using it at the beginning of the year it didn't have things in order, et cetera. I'm not too sure what order it used. So it wasn't really a first come first serve sort of thing.
And now we -- yeah.
>> Adam: Now you are going to get basically two lines, aren't you, which is even more confusing I imagine because you will see some people in the one speaking queue and that will be 1, 2, 3, 4 and then --
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Oh, no we should only use one speaking queue, especially for Katowice. We are not going to be using two. There will either be the decision just to use this app that we have, with the hands up, or to use the internal Google speaking queue. But we are not going to have these two. This is basically just the changeover process. And we can also change our minds in the changeover process. We can say if the Zoom queue is good enough then we can use the Zoom queue. But if our queue, the in-house queue is also good, because it keeps records of who has access to the floor, et cetera, and that's also very good for us to see is, you know, is there something else we can do if we find out that it is only one stakeholder group that keeps on taking the floor. And there is another stakeholder group that has never taken the floor then we can look in to it and see what we need to change to encourage that stakeholder group or to encourage that region.
And that is not -- so that's why we get richer metrics from our in-house thing but then again, we really have to look at the ease of use. So that's one thing that we are going to look at. So yeah. Thanks.
>> Adam: One of the sort of principles that we have mentioned and decided on in the hybrid arrangements is that we shouldn't be requiring people to use external apps. So it is nice if there is an app that adds functionality. But to require people to use it, which means a download, which means, you know, you got to actually prepare for things, et cetera, rather than, you know, on the somewhere during the first day when you joined, suddenly realizing that you have got to download something is not ease of access. So my -- not knowing how the app works I would go towards using Zoom. And people will probably -- people will be more familiar with it because more people will have used Zoom than the app. That's just a thought. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for bringing that up, because yes, we should question what we are doing. And sometimes the question, the reason that was valid in, you know, July last year is not valid this year. But we will take another look at it. And we will see. Yeah.
Do we have any other comments or -- okay. Nothing. And please, anybody else from the Secretariat want to jump in, please feel free to. Okay. So we've done agenda item No. 5. I will just declare that closed.
And then agenda item No. 6, update on the Guidelines for session organizers in the context of the hybrid 2021 meeting. Who would like to take that? I can either give it to Adam or I can give it to Luis or Eleanora.
>> Adam: I wasn't able to join that session. So I can't help you there. Thanks.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay.
>> LUIS BOBO: Thank you Chengetai. I'm happy to talk. I think I already said most of the things before, but maybe if you want, I enter a little more in to the dial, keeping it short. I say that we explain two main things, nontechnical and technical, but easy-to-use app. So in the nontechnical part, the best practices about how to smoothly run a hybrid meeting. So we train it many session organizers to understand that it could be people in the room, people outside, especially actually about this unique single floor system accessible for everyone to use. And that they could use that -- they should use that. And also that a second Moderator is expected to also be online and seeing what is happening in the discussion online.
Apart from that the typical recommendations about the etiquette in giving the floor, et cetera. That's for the new ones, nontechnical features. For technical part we just name it a little bit how to -- what we just cited, all the parts with enough depth but keeping it simple. So the -- the different possibilities that everyone had to interact in a hybrid meeting. So they have the chat in the session.
How they could access the live transcription and interpretation when it is available. So outside and online participants. How people could easily share content. For example, if they were online they could easily share the Zoom. But on site they could share Zoom if they were connected or share in the room. That would be in any case visualized or shared with everyone on site or online.
What else? We talked about the different other aspects like how they would work the breakout groups next to keep the breakout groups online or outside separated. The different possibilities of sharing apps within Zoom as well. And things in this -- I think that's all. Basically the full process and just give some hints about other things that help in hybrid individuals during the IGF. So, for example, just to cite two of them. The virtual platform we are putting in place for people to access the rooms and to navigate their rooms and to have a networking space. Or that's one thing.
Or the other thing is yes, the possibility, for example, for thinking 24 Hour World IGF the possibility of sending questions or something feedback with the session organizers before or after the sessions as well.
I don't know, maybe there were more details. But we try to make it fruitful and fun as well. So just enjoy all the new features that we are going to have together with the mobile app, if I'm -- if I remember well. And all these other accessibility alignments. So interpretation, transcription and also, you know, there could be sign interpretation in the opening and closing ceremonies and joint sessions.
I don't know, Teresa you have requested the floor to add something. That's all from my side for now. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Luis.
>> Tereza: Thank you. Thank you for giving me the floor. I was present for just about half an hour of the training or the session that Luis provided last week. Thank you for that. What I would suggest for the one coming up tomorrow I had a feeling that we kind of overwhelmed the participants, session organizers with the technical information and missed the opportunity of explaining a little bit more the philosophy behind why hoo hybrid, what we expect and why. It seemed to be at times you need to do this this. This is how you do this. This is how you do that. We are kind of missing the opportunity of really sharing what is the rationale behind all of this.
That I think would make sense to do it as an intro to this session. What I also think that we missed on a little bit and I don't know maybe you got to it later, is to encourage these interactive elements in the sessions. So that participants are encouraged to experiment and to play a little bit without, you know, making it rocket science because to share a screen and use a tool is not a rocket science. But then also I have to say that to be honest, after being in and out in some of the prep sessions last week, that were MAG organized, I had a feeling even us as MAG members were actually not ready and willing to play a little bit more to experiment, to kind of lead by example on what is interactive hybrid session can look like. So that led me to some doubts whether we are there in terms of preparing a different type of meeting, very interactive meeting, blended type of meeting, playing with the interplay between onsite and online participants. I don't have all the answers but this would be some of my reflections, thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much. And we've taken note. And I think that Luis has also taken note of it. Yes, as for your last statement, yes, I don't think that we can ever be 100% ready as such. But we can try and get as close to that ideal and we will be thinking about it and since you are in the group as well, yeah. That's something to reflect on to see what we can do. Thank you.
Do we have any other interventions anybody wants to say anything on this topic? If not I will go to the agenda item No. 7 which is checking in on the status of main session preparations.
And as Anriette says we don't want a readout where everyone in the group is. This is just generally if a group has a question, needs some help in some way, has a suggestion, when they found out that they have been doing things of a better -- a better way of doing things. Please, now is the time. Just raise your hand and share. So the floor is open. If not, we will assume that you have all your speakers they are regionally balanced, gender balanced, stakeholder balanced. There is no input that you would want to require. Okay. Amrita, please.
>> Amrita: For our trust session I need a speaker who is from cybercrime. Initially we were told from the Secretariat about a person but unfortunately Eleanora has not been able to reach him. In case there is some alternative, if you suggest, I will write to Eleanora once again. That would be helpful.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you. If any other MAG member has a suggestion of a name of a cybersecurity expert, please just contact Amrita. IGF Secretariat.
>> Hi Chengetai. It is Eleanora. I wanted to respond. The good news is I just got a response from this person. So I will be connecting you in a matter of, you know, hours, minutes.
>> Amrita: Thank you so much.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: See what happens. Amrita states a problem and it is fixed in a couple of seconds. Anybody else? The floor is open. And remember it is not just for help. If you have an idea or a suggestion, please feel free to speak out. Otherwise we assume that everything is fine.
Okay. I will do the six count and move to the next agenda item, which is IGF 15th anniversary plans.
I do realize that there were some -- there were some discussion on the -- on the Skype channel about the 15th anniversary plans. Unfortunately, I must confess that I was not paying particular attention to that communication, especially last week. So if somebody would like to give an overview, that would be great. Courtney, thank you.
>> Courtney: Sure. Thanks. So we had some ideas from the communications team about what we might be able to do for the 15th year anniversary which is going to come up on November 30th. We thought of doing something interactive and something that could get lots of people to participate, no matter how long they have been involved in IGF or if they are not involved in IGF. Some of those ideas included creating a graphic that the IGF but also like the NRIs and supporting institutions on November 30th would be willing to post on their home pages, or change their profile pictures to or something very simple that would essentially just be like a kind of happy birthday IGF, 15 years of the Internet Governance Forum just to raise awareness and be able to click through to something on website. And then to do an event on November 30th that would be hopefully very interactive in terms of inviting people who have been present at different times and parts of the IGF. So, for example, if we could identify a like three or four different speakers. Somebody who was there at the conception and then maybe at each point during the renewal of its mandate.
And then we could have them kind of put together either themselves or with our help some question -- like some trivia questions which would then allow everyone who is attending to either participate in the chat, open-ended. Or we could create polls four questions each, that people could answer. For example, you know, what was -- when was the biggest IGF held. Who was the first Secretary-General to attend the IGF in person. When was the first youth representative on a high level panel. Like how many Heads of State have spoken at IGF. Just a hand full of things. And we can come up with questions that are more recent for newcomers. But kind -- we could come up with a whole list of questions. And that way people would be like a trivia, interactive trivia event with different people leading each kind of portion as a way to get people involved, and interested. So, you know, that would be say 60 to 90 minutes online. So instead of asking people to like share ten minutes of your thoughts about IGF, this would be a really different format. And then -- we could also suggest that people send in -- this might be too much. I think we really like ideas from people. But we could invite our community, you know, at large to send in brief 30 second to one minute videos about why they are involved in IGF and what they hope for the next 15 years or why they are involved in IGF.
And then create a video about that. Or just use all of those different videos on social channels to amplify, you know, awareness about that 15-year anniversary. And yeah, I think that was basically the main -- those were the main ideas that we had for the anniversary.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Courtney. Those all seem to be very good ideas. And I would not -- I would not not do the call for the videos. And I don't know, I mean we could also have some sort of prize. It doesn't have to be big. It could be a T-shirt or something with -- especially made T-shirt or all the -- yeah, I mean we will have to think about it but we can have some sort of token prize. Just one-off item that that person can have. We can have sort of a draw there as well. For the graphic, how would you make that? Would you need any -- do you have a person? Would you need some help from the Secretariat? I don't know.
>> Courtney: I think -- Eleanora replied that the Secretariat could create a simple graphic. It would need simple if it is going to be used for profiles. It sounds like there is that capacity.
>> Chengetai, I think it would be also important if you can help us to find somebody participating at the first block which will be more let's say institutional perspective of how IGF has been -- has been successful in terms of the first, second and third mandate that it has already gotten. Somebody who can give an overview on the very first mandate. If you can have somebody speaking about that one, two, three minutes and then somebody for the next five years. If you consider to have a block where UNDESA high level representatives can give a word about what does it mean 15 years of IGF.
Thanks. (Amado).
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Sure. That's a good idea. We can contact in (inaudible) would like to say a few words on the first block, for instance. I don't see why not. We will work together on that and see what we can come up with. I think those are all, you know, very good ideas.
Do we have any other comments or otherwise, this was our last agenda item other than any other business. So my question is do we have any other comments on the 15th anniversary? And yes, as far as the Secretariat is concerned, Eleanora is the point person on this. We will see what we can do together. And the floor is open for any other comments or any other business, somebody wants to bring up.
>> It is June Parri again. Bring up an issue of funding. Because I have involved in other things. I have had people applied for funding. They are still waiting to hear if they are going to receive funding or not. I know in the past a rejection letter was sent out and there is two letters that come out, rejection, acceptance. Some of them are really stressed out waiting to find out what to do, if they should apply for Visas, that sort of thing. They have been contacting me and I'm beginning to file it. I wonder if you are going to send a rejection letter out to those who don't accept it.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I will hand over to the Anja.
>> Anja: Yes, we will inform everyone on the status of their application. We are working in the first stages. The first stage is we provided support to a large number of applications received. They have been informed. And now we are in the second stage where we are looking really at if we can provide more support to some other colleagues. And that's the only reason we still didn't follow up. I believe our deadline, if I'm not correct, my colleague will correct me, is late this week. So that means that in this week everyone will hear from us with a final information on what's the status of their application. Thank you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Anja. June, I hope this answers the question.
>> June: Yes. I can now give them a definite answer because I was sort of like trying to like not say anything definitely. So no, I can say yes, you will hear.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. All right. Thank you, June. Any other issues, questions? The floor is open. Anything that comes to mind that is concerning the IGF? If not, we will announce that the next meeting should be on the 23rd of November. Which is actually -- would be one of our last meetings, the last meeting before the Katowice IGF.
There is a question here, Mark, end of November deadline, seems very tight. The process -- Mark, you don't feel like saying this loud speaking? You can take the floor if you want. Okay. The process will require explaining what the two year commitment is to the Ministers and COO level people who are not experts on the IGF and the roadmap, and then securing the agreement to be nominated. So a lot to do in such a short window for the call.
Is it -- is it the aim to select and appoint the members in Katowice? Also why the change of name? Which sounds topdown rather than strategic advisory advocacy role that I had expected.
Thank you, Mark, for those concerns. We will relay these concerns to the executive office of the Secretary-General about the tight deadline, et cetera.
This process, we are -- I mean the IGF Secretariat is not in charge of the process. We are just carrying out the instructions. But we will relay your concerns and I'm sure you are not the only one who has them about the tight deadline, et cetera. And we will get back to you on that.
Thanks.
I think that's all. And if there isn't anything else, I will close this meeting early. But I will just give it the six count first. Okay. Thank you very much. And we'll see each other again on the 23rd in the MAG virtual call No. 20, on the 23rd of November. Thank you all for participating.
>> Thank you. Bye-bye.
>> Thank you very much. Bye-bye.
>> Bye-bye.