Internet Society

On 12-21 February 2020, Internet Society NGO External Relations Manager Lianna Galstyan participated to APRICOT2020, DotAsia Board of Directors and Annual Meeting, as well as APTLD77 meetings taking place in Melbourne, Australia. Members of the organization Armen Muradyan and Tsovinar Grigoryan were also present at the APTLD77 meeting. On these meetings Ms. Galstyan made a presentation on .am/.հայ domain names market overview, marketing strategy and the work done.

On 14-16 January 2020 the first Open Consultations and MAG meeting took place in Geneva, Switzerland. Internet Society NGO External Relations Manager Lianna Galstyan participated to this meeting in her role as a MAG member. The meeting was planned to receive inputs from the community and stocktaking of the IGF 2019 and to discuss the process and upcoming work towards the IGF 2020 to be held in Katowice, Poland.  

The 14th Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF 2019) took place in Berlin, Germany, from 25 to 29 November 2019.At the opening ceremony of IGF2019 the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres and Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany delivered welcome speeches. During the course of five days of IGF2019, 3,679 delegates participated in-person in 200 sessions. Berlin welcomed participants from 161 different countries. 53% of these were the first-time comers. Approximately 3,000 people participated online. The IGF 2019 program featured 10 main thematic sessions; 64 workshops; 36 open forums; 4 best practice forum (BPF) sessions; 14 dynamic coalition (DC) sessions; 6 national, regional, and youth (NRIs) collaborative sessions; 16 sessions classified as “other”; 6 introductory & concluding sessions; as well as a dedicated track for legislators, for a total of 200 sessions in the overall program. The reduced number of sessions in the program compared to previous years is the result of the MAG’s new ‘program shaping approach’, which aimed at having more concrete, focused discussions, and fewer parallel or duplicate sessions, with a clear thematic orientation to three key themes.

Internet Society NGO Board Members Anna Karakhanyan, Arman Nesisyan and Armen Muradyan participated to Belarus IGF on November 13 in Minsk, Belarus. Organization member Vahan Hovsepyan was also present at the forum, representing RIPE NCC. You can find more details here: https://igf.by/en/

Internet Society NGO members participated to Georgian IGF and GeoNOG forums. Member of the organization Vahan Hovsepyan delivered an opening speech and the Board Member Kristine Gyonjyan spoke about the broadband development and about Armenian Broadband market facts and tendencies. The forums took place on November 13 in Tbilisi, Georgia. Watch video recordings here: http://geoigf.ge/en/

ICANN66 meeting took place on November 2-7, 2019 in Montreal, Canada. Internet Society NGO Board Members Lianna Galstyan, Siranush Vardanyan,Khristina Hakobyan and member of the organization Katarina Gevorgyan actively participated in this meeting. Details of ICANN66 are available online https://meetings.icann.org/en/montreal66

Internet Society NGO Board Members Lianna Galstyan, Kristina Hakobyan and organization member Katarina Gevorgyan on 31 October 2019 attended a two-day North American Internet Governance School in Montreal, Canada, where they had an opportunity to discuss Internet governance topics and share the Armenian experience. Speakers of the School included Andrew Sullivan, President and CEO of the Internet Society, 5 members of the ICANN Board of Directors, as well as senior representatives and experts from other global organizations.

On 11-12 September, 2019 the Coordination Center for TLD RU has hosted the 12th TLDCON, the International conference for ccTLD registries and registrars of CIS, Central and Eastern Europe in Vilnius, Lithuania. Anna Karakhanyan, .AM hostmaster, Internet Society NGO Board Member, participated to this event.

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) is one of the key regional initiatives on Internet governance. The 10th Asia Pacific Regional IGF was held in Vladivostok, Russia under the main theme “Enabling a Safe, Secure and Universal Internet for all in Asia Pacific”. After the DAY 0 - capacity building day for fellows and newcomers on July 17 was the opening session of the 10th APrIGF. The opening speeches were followed by a Plenary Session “Internet Governance in Asia Pacific: The State of Play and Outlook”. Lianna Galstyan, “Internet Society” NGO Board Member attended to the APrIGF and was a speaker of the Plenary Session as well as at the session about Universality, IDNs and industry developments. APrIGF was full of discussions on various IG issues.