The following ICC BASIS interventions and those of fellow business representatives are extracted from the real-time captioning taken during the 15 May 2012 open consultations of the IGF. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete, or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
MORNING SESSION
Intervention
Delivered by Ayesha
Hassan, ICC BASIS
Thank
you, Chair. Ayesha Hassan from the International Chamber of Commerce and its
BASIS initiative. I would like to follow up on the comments regarding the
ministerial events.
We
were pleased to participate in the ministerial event held by the host country
of Kenya last year before the IGF began, and we found that it was an important
opportunity for engaging and discussing among not only governments of ministers
but governments and business and civil society and the technical community. So
as you consider how to shape the ministerial event, we would certainly
emphasize that the exchange across stakeholder groups at that level was
productive.
Just
wanted to make one other comment and possibility it is a question. You’ve
mentioned that you're working on the visa issues, and we greatly appreciate the
exchanges we've had in the past on that matter. We are reaching the summer
months very quickly. So I just wanted to highlight that it would be really
helpful for stakeholders to understand when you think you will have that visa
process clarified and posted. I know for many of us, the moment you hit
September, the passport needs several different stamps in it and you can't give
up your passport very long to have those things done, especially our colleagues
from certain countries face more challenges than others.
So
if you could give us a time frame, that would be very helpful. Thank you.
AFTERNOON SESSION
Intervention 1
Delivered by Jeff
Brueggeman, AT&T
Jeff
Brueggeman for AT&T also speaking for ICC-BASIS.
I
would like to support the comments made by Janis Karklins. I think that builds
on the work that's already been done to try to capture the national and
regional IGF experiences that are
emerging
throughout the year and this would be taking a broader perspective of other
types of multistakeholder dialogues and decisions and outcomes that we can
point to that really are an outgrowth of the IGF process. I think it is a
natural continuation of what's been an ongoing effort at the IGF.
Also
wanted to make a comment about the workshop process. About the criteria of the
workshop, that strikes me it could be sent out to the workshop organizers along
with any speak feedback that has come from the rule from adding diversity to
the panelists or that there may be a couple of workshops where there is a merged
opportunity and give the workshop organizers a certain window to update their
proposals and come back to see if they can get up to the higher criteria. I
think there has been a mixture of people not having time and perhaps some
confusion, but the criteriaof things like the cosponsor allowing a window of
opportunity to address a way to crystallize, a way to organize the workshop
Intervention 2
Delivered byAyesha Hassan, ICC BASIS
We should apply the criteria to all workshop
proposals. Many proposals have been submitted by the same entity. To give more
people an opportunity to have workshops we should use a flexible assessment and
ask those who submitted more than 3 or 4 to choose.
In addition, it would be helpful to provide
those organizers time, with a possible appropriate cut off deadline, to
finalize those proposals. In the spirit of the IGF for allowing all stakeholder
engagement, the publication of all proposals enables the opportunity for those
interested in the topics but not aware of the workshop to be part, thereby
strengthening the opportunity for new participation and panel suggestions.
The open forum proposals have not been
submitted yet. Some workshops may be better as open forums. Also, many
proposals come from single entities and the principle of multistakeholder
organizers has not been taken into account in many proposals. Many proposals do
not have a balanced set of views and stakeholders as speakers.
Finally, there is a lack of business experts identified in many workshop
proposals. We would be happy to provide business expertise to balance these
workshop proposals, and encourage organizers to get in touch with ICC BASIS and
our members to help identify business speakers.
Intervention 3
Delivered by Ayesha
Hassan, ICC BASIS
Ayesha
Hassan from ICC-BASIS.
A
couple of points to perhaps help us in reducing and consolidating the workshops
that are selected. First of all, I just
want to be clear that we do support having a schedule that is balanced. We have
to remember, not only are there workshops and open forums, but there are also
the main sessions, that we want to make sure what we hope will be a very strong
participation in Baku will not be torn in too many directions at any one time.
We also support the emphasis on capacity-building. We should keep that as a
focus both in the workshops as well as the main sessions.
And then I also wanted to point out that in some
workshop proposals, there's more reference to information and communication
technologies and the emphasis seems to be on ICTs. And I think either the
workshop proposers who focus on ICTs should be asked to focus on Internet Governance
angles, -- we're at the Internet Governance forum -- and we should remain
focused in that regard. Thank you.
Intervention 4
Delivered by Jeff
Brueggeman, AT&T
Jeff
Brueggeman, again, AT&T. A couple of comments about the workshop readings.
One
pointed I wanted to mention is that there are also positive incentives that
have been created for workshop organizers. One is being identified as a feeder
workshop. I think the other can be looking at time slots. I would say probably
morecomfortable focusing on how to reward the good workshops and make sure that
they get the preferred good treatment rather than judging those and getting
into the concerns that others have expressed.
And,
again, I also agree with the points that have been made that focusing on the
diversity and the participation is a safer area to be judging on as opposed to
specific content or the perceived value of the workshop. Thank you.
Intervention 5
Delivered by Marilyn
Cade, mCADE
LLC
I
welcome the opportunity to note on the amount of workshops with appreciation
some of the earlier comments have been made. I am not a MAG member and I do
notice that the MAG members, both old and new, have been very active today and
I look forward to hearing more from them tomorrow. But as a non-MAG member, i
would like to take this opportunity to encourage others who aren't MAG members
to look at the next 30 minutes as also an opportunity to provide more feedback
on this particular topic.
My
thought about this is we will have a number of newcomers to the IGF in
Azerbaijan as we have at all of the IGFs. And we've been talking about the
importance of making workshops interactive and participatory.
I act as the chief catalyst of the IGF USA. And our workshops range from 120
people to 90 people to 15 people on purpose because 15 people can be very, very
interactive. So the number, I would say, should be guided by as much as we can
assess, not just trying to fill a room but by -- for a workshop but by trying
to ensure that the format and the interaction around -- and the subject match
each other.
Secondly,
I will note again that actually once we add in open forums, I'm sure there will
be some very interesting open forums that will be added by governments and
IGOs, etc. I'm not so sure we can have all of the workshops, and we can't
predict right now how many open forum applications we may get or submissions or
nominations.
So i will wrap up by saying at each of the meetings, i speak in support of
having as many sessions as possible to enable as many participants as possible
and as much diversity. Thank you.