[council] Two-Week Countdown to Sydney!

[Glen de Saint Géry <Glen@xxxxxxxxx>]

[To: council[at]gnso.icann.org; liaison6c[at]gnso.icann.org]
[To: ga[at]gnso.icann.org; announce[at]gnso.icann.org]
[To: regional-liaisons[at]icann.org]

Two-Week Countdown to Sydney!

8 June 2009

ICANN's 35th International Public Meeting is just two weeks away. The 
conference will be held 21-26 June 2009 at the Hilton Sydney. 

A full schedule for the meeting, including a synopsis of each session being 
held throughout the week, is available on the ICANN Sydney Meeting website at 
http://syd.icann.org. 

Highlights 

Two main issues will likely dominate the conference: new generic 
Top-Level-Domains (gTLDs), and Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs). Workshops 
on the status of the new gTLD process, as well as the IDN Fast-Track process, 
will take place on Monday. 

A Joint AC/SO Meeting, in which representatives from ICANN's constituent groups 
will be discussing the roles and responsibilities of Advisory Committees, 
Supporting Organisations, Policy Staff and Board Members in ICANN's processes, 
is also on Monday's agenda . 

Other highlights include: the ccNSO Tech Day (Monday); an Improving 
Institutional Confidence Workshop (Wednesday); a forum on Abuse of the DNS 
(Thursday); and a public meeting of the Board's Public Participation Committee 
(Wednesday). 

Social events 

Two evenings of social events are also written into the calendar. Monday night 
will see a cocktail reception at the Hilton, followed by "restaurant night" on 
the waterfront in Sydney where several restaurants will offer a special 20% 
discount to ICANN Meeting attendees. 

On Wednesday, a Gala Event will be held at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal 
- where the world's luxury liners dock - with a spectacular view across Sydney 
harbour to the famous Opera House and Bridge. An after-party will be held at 
The Argyle bar. 

Remote participation 

Are you unable to attend in person, but still wish to follow events online? You 
will find extensive remote participation tools on the meeting website at 
http://syd.icann.org. Most sessions will have live, multilingual audio 
streaming, web chat rooms, and downloadable presentations. 

The main room and all ccNSO events will be broadcast live using Adobe's Connect 
software, which allows you to not only hear and see what is going on in the 
room but also see the presentations, a real-time text transcript, and interact 
in a chatroom at the same time. 

To access the interactive room you just need to go to a given meeting's webpage 
and a single link will launch it (please note: this system may not work with 
all Linux users). 

For sessions outside those two rooms, visit the session's specific webpage from 
the schedule and you will be able to choose from listening to audio feeds in 
multiple languages, to interacting in live web chatrooms and/or downloading 
speaker presentations. 

If you wish to ask a question in the public forum on Thursday, visit our online 
question box at http://syd.icann.org/public-forum. 

General information 

Other information regarding Sydney itself, including suggestions on things to 
do, travel and visa issues, transportation, and tourist advice are all 
available on the Sydney meeting website at http://syd.icann.org. 

We look forward to seeing you there. 

ICANN Staff

Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat
gnso.secretariat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://gnso.icann.org