I'm excited to announce that our Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional Plan Report for fiscal year 2023 (FY23) has been published. The report covers the contributions of the APAC regional office to ICANN's Strategic Plan and I'm delighted to share a few highlights of our achievements.
Before I do, I'd like to thank you, our community, for your steadfast support and continuous collaboration not just during the past fiscal year, but throughout the last decade. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the ICANN APAC office in Singapore, which we opened on 1 August 2013. The APAC regional team has since grown to almost 30 staff. Likewise, the APAC community in ICANN has also grown, with many active members from the APAC region contributing to ICANN policymaking and stepping forward to take on leadership roles.
Our successful work over the past decade provides a solid building block for the significant work that lies ahead of us, such as delivering Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and promoting the adoption of Universal Acceptance (UA). As part of the Next Round of New Generic Top-Level Domains, IDNs and UA will contribute to connecting the next billion Internet users, many of whom do not use English and will be from our region.
We look forward to working together with you on this and many other projects listed in the APAC Regional Plan.
APAC's Regional Plan Report
Here are some highlights from the APAC Regional Plan Report:
- We've reached some 3,000 stakeholders on key projects related to ICANN's technical remit such as Knowledge-sharing and Instantiating Norms for DNS and Naming Security, Domain Name System Security Extensions, and Domain Name System Security. We achieved this through awareness campaigns and capacity-building workshops. To carry out these activities, we partnered with relevant regional organizations, including country code top-level domains, Network Operators Groups, government agencies, and intergovernmental organizations such as the International Telecommunication Union.
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On building a stronger community network to participate in ICANN:
- Since 2023, the APAC Space has renewed its focus on in-person networking. Do join us for APAC Space at ICANN78 in Hamburg!
- The APAC Governmental Advisory Committee members launched a regional network and held three sessions to exchange information and perspectives.
- The APAC DNS Forum held its first in-person event in Hong Kong in July 2023. The event drew close to 400 in-person and 170 virtual attendees. We plan to use the APAC DNS Forum as a platform to further broaden and deepen our community network.
- The Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy resumed its in-person program in August 2022.
- In FY23, 10 APAC community members took on new leadership roles. I'd like to recognize our new leaders by name and appointment at the end of this blog.
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On UA:
- Our UA Local Initiatives in China, India, and Thailand were active throughout FY23. In addition, a new UA Local Initiative was launched in Sri Lanka.
- Our regional community threw their full support behind the inaugural UA Day, contributing to many events. It paid off: More than 509 media articles on UA were published in the APAC region as a result of various awareness-raising activities.
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List of new APAC leaders in alphabetical order (appointed in FY23):
- Chris Chapman, ICANN Board Member
- Nicole Chan, ASO Address Council Vice Chair
- Amrita Choudhury, APRALO Chair
- Haixin Duan, UASG Vice Chair
- Sebastian Ducos, GNSO Council Chair
- Aris Ignacio, APRALO Vice Chair
- Anil Kumar Jain, UASG Chair
- Wang Lang, GAC Vice Chair
- Sajid Rahman, ICANN Board Member
- Nitin Walia, UASG Vice Chair
