ICANN 31st International Public Meeting in New Delhi Next Week India, Asia represent future of the changing face of the Internet 7 February 2008 NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will open its 31st International Public Meeting on 11 February 2008 in New Delhi, India, a country and a region certain to be a the forefront of the waves of changes coming to the Internet. "India and Asia are at the heart of the Internet's future — a future that ICANN is working on as we speak," said Peter Dengate Thrush, ICANN's Board Chairman. "Internet penetration in India is at just over five percent and growing fast — considering that one per cent is 11 million people coming online. ICANN's work on Internationalized Domain Names and new top-level domains has the potential to reach out to rest of India and begin remaking the Internet as people connect in their own languages and scripts." Some highlights of the 31 st ICANN Meeting include: A Public Discussion of the Midterm Review of ICANN's Joint Project Agreement with the U.S. Government and ICANN's goal of continued transition of its role to the private sector; A Workshop on Progress on the Fast-Track Process to find a way to represent territory identifications in local languages as country-code top-level domains as quickly as possible in the areas of highest need; A workshop on ICANN's planning for what happens if a Registrar were to cease operating; A workshop on the pioneering work being done on IDNs in Indian Languages and Scripts; The signing of the fifth and final Regional At-Large Organization memorandum of understanding — this one for the Asia-Pacific Region — creating the formal structure for ICANN to obtain input into its policy processes from Internet users; An open and public ICANN Board Meeting. "It's fitting and exciting for ICANN to hold this meeting in India. This nation is the fastest growing IT hub in the world and at the foundation is the single, globally interoperable Internet coordinated by ICANN," added Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN's President and CEO. "ICANN and the Internet Community will be discussing the issues that will help the Internet expand to the next billion users — new top level domains and the ability to use scripts like Devanagari and Tamil after the dot in a domain name." These international public meetings are the ICANN model in action — bottom-up, consensus-driven discussions that help ensure the domain name system is coordinated rather than controlled. The New Delhi meeting is the first of the three public ICANN meetings in 2008. These meetings are crucial because ICANN's polices are created through a bottom-up, transparent process involving Internet Community. The complete schedule for ICANN's 31st meeting, as well as links to webcast sessions and our public participation website, can be found at: http://delhi.icann.org/ -30- About ICANN: ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org <http://www.icann.org/> . Media Contacts: Jason Keenan Media Adviser, ICANN Ph: +1 310 382 4004 E: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> International: Andrew Robertson Edelman ( London) Ph: +44 7921 588 770 E: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ---