[EURO-Discuss] Feedback from Swiss New gTLD Event, 28 Nov. in Bern

[Wolf Ludwig]

Dear all, 

this is just a short feedback on the New gTLD Event last Monday in Bern/Switzerland (as announced before): 
http://www.new-gtld.ch/agenda.php

This Swiss event organized by OFCOM, the registry SWITCH, the Swiss business association EconomieSuisse and EURALO can be considered as a plain success with more than 150 participants from all parts of the country. The only weak point was the evident under-representation of civil society and net-focused groups. The program offered an intro/overview on ICANN, TLD and gTLD basics with subsequent sessions about chances and risks of this new gTLD generation approved by ICANN in June 2011 in Singapore, as well as its launch and application process early next year.

The presentations and video recordings from the event are available at the website now. This new gTLD info day was an extraordinary national outreach opportunity for EURALO to make us known among the different stakeholder groups (federal offices, reps. from cities and cantons, specialised business segments, law firms etc.). Events like this offer some potential to represent EURALO on national levels and comparable opportunities like national IGFs etc. (as it was the case twice already at the Ukrainian IGFs, EuroDIG etc.).

As a key conclusion from the recent Swiss event can be drawn: Several private and business projects seem to be well prepared for the first application round early next year (January – April 2012). But as it was mentioned by Sandra at our last monthly call (referring to the German event early November in Berlin), most of the public entities are not aware about these new gTLD options and cannot submit projects in time for the first – and narrow – application round, besides the few and well-known city/community projects like .Berlin, .Paris, .London etc. In the public sector there is still a lot of awareness raising and consultation needed to convince the decision makers about these new opportunities.

Thanks for your attention and
kind regards,
Wolf


P. S. @Heidi/At-Large Staff: Can you please forward this feedback to interested parties at ICANN – Thanks!

EuroDIG Secretariat
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EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation
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