What actually happened? Score a big win for the ICANN community and remote participants. Several policy issues moved forward at the meeting. For example:

• The GNSO Council approved a charter for the Vertical Integration Working Group, which can now pursue the PDP launched in January. (As of this writing, 65 participants have signed up and are already engaged in substantive discussions.)
• The Registration Abuse Policies (RAP) Working Group conducted a successful information session on their Initial Report. The group’s Chair led the session remotely, and the ensuing discussion blended questions and comments from both local and remote participants.
• The ccNSO and members of the ccTLD community engaged fully in discussing the idea of an ICANN DNS-CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team). The substantive discussion considered how the existing ccNSO Incident Response Working Group would interact with (or incorporate into its mandate) the DNS-CERT initiative.
• At-Large held 11 formal and 4 informal Working Group meetings, with solid representation from all 5 Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs). They moved efficiently through several issues, which included submitting their list of endorsed candidates to the Affirmation of Commitments Review Team and endorsing the members of the At-Large Board Candidate Evaluation Committee.
• Related to SSAC, the Zone File Access Ad-hoc Group used remote participation uniquely: only one member was physically present, with 4 other members co-presenting from remote locations, and the session went well.
• The ICANN Board passed a resolution adopting new trademark-related solutions for the new gTLDs, including a Trademark Clearinghouse and a Uniform Rapid Suspension Procedure.

In fact, the whole community delivered robust engagement in all Nairobi meetings.

Thanks to a terrific effort from the Meetings Team, Nick Ashton-Hart and the Public Participation committee ahead of the meeting, Rob Hoggarth at the meeting, ICANN’s ICT staff, and many others, remote participation worked. Credit also goes to the many Chairs and meeting moderators who bent over backwards to consistently include input from members observing sessions from thousands of miles away. Kudos also to volunteers many time-zones removed from Kenya, who cared enough about ICANN policy work to turn their sleep habits upside-down in order to participate.

This kind of innovative effort demonstrates once again that ICANN’s multi-stakeholder, consensus-driven policy approach works. Remote participation technologies enable it. But it’s the heart and enthusiasm of the ICANN community that empowers it.

If you are organising such a gathering and provide us with a bit of information (see below) we will:

• Post it at http://nbo.icann.org/remote-hubs so everyone will be able to see where around the world groups of stakeholders are getting together.
• Provide a technical contact to help technical personnel at the meeting venue understand what they can do in-room to help ensure the best remote participant experience.

If you provide details on what sessions you will be following, we will ensure that information reaches the session organiser and the assigned staff chat attendant for those sessions.

Please send the following information to rp-nairobi@icann.org:

• Host(s) organisation(s) if applicable
• organiser’s name (person) email and telephone contact details
• Address and name of the location where your gathering will take place
• If relevant, what stakeholder groups you are hosting.
• A rough idea of how many people you think will be gathering at your location
• The sessions you are going to be following (if you know)

We look forward to hearing from you!