[governance] Workshop Proposal on Access to Local Culture and Language

[YJ Park]

Hi all,

This is a work-in-progess IGF workshop proposal on Multilingualizing
Internet Gateways on the Internet for your consideration and feedback.

Thank you,
YJ

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1.      Name of proposed workshop: Access to Local Culture and Language
(ALCL)

2.      Provide a concise description of the proposed workshop theme
including its importance and relevance to the IGF.

The global Internet as of today recognizes only ASCII addresses as domain
names. But we are in a transition to Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).
This transition has evolved into a series of political challenges such as
creating IDNs associated with Country Code Top Level Domain Names
("ccTLDs"), developing policies on IDN dispute resolution, IDN whois
records, and competition among incumbent registries. Who sets the standards?
How many IDNs should be allocated for each country? Should incumbent
registries get the same top level domain ("TLD") in new scripts?

This workshop explores how to resolve such political challenges. The concept
of multilingual road signs on the global Internet was first proposed to
ICANN in 2000. ICANN is about to implement the IDNs. Why did it take so long
to reach a global consensus on multilingual domain names?

Those who believe in the principle of global compatibility of the Internet
were afraid that the Internet would become a tower of Babel. They resisted
multilingual gateways to protect global compatibility on the Internet. Those
who believe in the principle of access to local culture and language on the
Internet kept fighting to build multilingual gateways. Tensions also arise
among those who use same language and character sets when it comes to a
decision-making process for the specific language and character sets. The
Government of China believes it has a sole authority to decide matters about
Chinese gateways on the global Internet, whilst stakeholders of Chinese are
all around the world. India has another challenge. The Government of India
recognizes 23 official languages including Hindi and English. Everybody
struggles at this stage how to handle this complicated challenge ahead.

3.      Provide the names and affiliations of the panellists you are
planning to invite. Describe the main actors in the field and whether you
have approached them about their willingness to participate in proposed
workshop.

   - Tinwee Tan (Civil Society, National University of Singapore, MINC)
   -- Singapore (Confirmed)
   - ____________ (Civil Society, WFEO CIC) -- Tunisia (under
   consultation)
   - China government (Gov't) -- China (under consultation)
   - Vasil'ev Vladimir Mikhailovich,Head of Department, Ministry for
   Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation
   (Gov't) -- Russia (Confirmed)
   - Yoav Keren... (Private Sector, GNSO/ICANN) -- Israel  --- Domain the
   Net, Member of ICANN President's Advisory Commitee on IDN, Member of the
   ICANN GNSO IDN Policy Working Group, Israel Ministry of Communications
   Representative on IDN to ICANN (Confirmed)
   - ____________ (International Organization, ICANN or ISOC) -- USA
   (under consultation)
   - Subbiah (Private Sector, i-DNS.net) -- Singapore/USA (Confirmed)

4.      Provide the name of the organizer(s) of the workshop and their
affiliation to various stakeholder groups. Describe how you will take steps
to adhere to the multi-stakeholder principle, geographical diversity and
gender balance.

   - Tinwee Tan (National University of Signapore, Multilingual Internet
   Names Consortium)  Civil Society, Singapore, Asia
   - Tijani Ben Jamma (WFEO Committee on Information Communication,
   Vice-Chair) Civil Society, Tunisia, Africa
   - Subbiah (i-DNS.net) Private Sector, Singapore/USA, Asia/North
   America

5.      Does the proposed workshop provide different perspectives on the
issues under discussion?

Yes. Visions on multilingualization on the Internet will be explored to
provide a comprehensive coverage of the challenges in materializing "Access
to Local Culture and Language" on the Global Internet.

6.      Please explain how the workshop will address issues relating to
Internet governance and describe how the workshop conforms with the Tunis
Agenda in terms of substance and the mandate of the IGF.

The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, adopted at the Tunis Phase of
WSIS, highlights the importance of multilingualism for bridging the digital
divide.

   - WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C2
   - WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C3
   - WSIS Tunis Agenda Action Line C8

7.      List similar events you and/or any other IGF workshops you have
organized in the past.

Not applicable. We would like to urge IGF secretariat to pay more attention
to the proposals from newly participating members of the forum.

8.      Were you part of organizing a workshop last year? Which one? Did you
submit a workshop report?

Not applicable.

9.      Under which of the five IGF themes does the proposal fall under ?

   - Multiligualization
   - Critical Internet Resources
   - Managing the Internet (Using the Internet)
   - Arrangements for Internet Governance

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