TTIGF2025 CTU Session: Accelerating the involvement of Caribbean ccTLDs within the global ccTLD community
7:27PM Jan 31, 2025
Speakers:
Pablo Rodriguez
Keywords:
Caribbean ccTLDs
global ccTLD community
diversity
regional collaboration
ICANN
CCNSO
domain name registrations
governance models
technical capabilities
knowledge sharing
resilience network
collaboration challenges
policy issues
advocacy.
New sense, use the.
next session is a session that will be led and moderated by the wind Telecommunications Union and Rodney Taylor, the Secretary General the CTU, will introduce the topic. Thank you very much. Jacqueline, good afternoon. Welcome back to the last session, closing off the TT IGF. 2025 I'm Rodney Taylor, the Secretary General of the CTU and a supporter of the partner of the TT IGF. We are pleased that we been able to have this session facilitated by the TT IGF, and we think it's a very important session with respect to how we can accelerate the involvement of Caribbean ccTLD is country code top level domains in the global ccTLD community, and we have this is broken down into three sessions. First one, I'll be moderating diversity in the Caribbean and Latin America, and we'll have presentations and discussions from the CCNSO country code name supporting organization, ICANN, and guidelines review committee chair, as well as Dr Pablo Rodriguez, who is the vice president of Gauss research and also a GRC member. Session Two will look at building a strong a stronger regional community, and that will be rated by His Excellency. Patrick was saying, by the way, congratulations on receiving the highest order of award of Trinidad and Tobago. Thing is, we really ought to celebrate that it's a tremendous achievement. So congrats. Congratulations from CTU, and I'm sure from the Trinidad and Tobago IT community. We have a few of the ccTLD managers in in the Caribbean. We have a representative from Anguilla, as you know.ai, is one of the hottest domains now with the growth and development of artificial intelligence systems. So we we're going to be hearing from them. I believe we have Barbados as well. One or two did not confirm. So I hope I have the up to date list. And the last session will be a future collaboration and next steps, chaired by Mr. Tracy Haq Shaw from the TT mag, and Albert Daniels will also be contributing to that discussion on next steps. The whole idea is to promote cooperation between the ccTLD community and how helping us to understand how we can leverage the resources within ICANN and how we can build a stronger relationships on the network within the region for the benefit of our collective benefit. So without further ado, I'm going to invite Mr. Pablo Rodriguez to kick the discussion off with a short presentation to give you further context. He's online joining us from Puerto Rico. Pablo, over to you please.
Thank you so much. It is a pleasure and an honor to be with you. Tremendous pleasure to see so many familiar faces in the audience in Trinidad. Big hug from from me in Puerto Rico. And also, I'd like to recognize the presence of our CCNSO chair, Alejandra Reynoso, who is based in Spain, she will introduce herself later. I want to take the opportunity to share with you a number of slides, but before we do that, I'd like to also get your feedback. So next slide, please. Let's take out our mobile phones and point our cameras to that QR code. And we would like to know
where are you from.
So let's take a couple of minutes to do that. Now, not a couple of minutes, 2030 seconds to Do that. And I
wow. I can see a number of places already, Trinidad, Corona in Spain, San Juan, Vancouver, curaca, Brazil, Port au Prince, fantastic, fantastic. Great. So as you can see, we come from a number of different places. Perhaps move on to the next slide. Thank you. Thank you. As you can see in this in this slide, ccTLDs represent about 1/3 of the total domain name registrations. However, you take out that comment, that net out of the equation, you can see that seven out of 10 of the largest CC seven out of 10 of the largest TLDs in the in the world are ccTLDs, and there's a list of them. So we are quite important, quite important when it comes to domain name registrations. Next slide please. So what makes us different? Let me tell you what makes us equal. What makes us equal or similar? The one thing that we have is that we all register domain names in the two in to the two character domain names. That's what makes us equal. What makes us different is that we have, we have we are based or associated to different ICANN regions, that we have different governance models, different registry models, the number of domain names. Some of us have a few domain names. Others will have many, many domain names, especially that AI and number of employees, that makes us different, right? So that also affects other areas. Next slide, please. So let's just bring home to our region. Our region, the Caribbean region, is comprised of 33 ccTLDs, of which three of them are unassigned. 30 of those, 30 of those TLDs are directly related to government. Nine are academia and 11 are private entities. 18 out of those 30 Caribbean ccTLDs use back end providers. 18 out of 30 of these Caribbean TLDs are members of the CCNs. So 12 out of 30 of the Caribbean ccTLDs are members of lac TLD and they vary in a wide range of numbers of registrations, as I mentioned earlier, next slide, please.
Next slide. Thank you.
So in this pictorial representation, you can see that the Caribbean TLDs are associated to three distinct ICANN regions out of the five ICANN regions, look at this.
Two
TLDs, Caribbean TLDs are based in the in the North American ICANN region. 20 are associated to the ICANN Latin American and Caribbean region, and 11 of them are associated to the European ICANN region. Note please that those that the names of the countries that are in bold are members of the CCNs. So with that in mind and Next slide, please. I will leave you with the CCNSO chair. Alejandra Reynoso,
thank you very much, Pablo. And Hi everyone. It's a pleasure to be here remotely with you and joining you, as Pablo said, my name is Alejandra Reynoso. I am originally from Guatemala, but I do reside in Spain at the moment, so well the cnso, it's a platform by ccTLDs for ccTLDs, where we develop global policies, we engage with other stakeholders, and mainly we cooperate and learn from each other. So what your peers worldwide are discussing at the moment are the topics that you see right now on your screen, how to combat DNS abuse, what's going on in Internet governance environment, universal acceptance and how to make all the systems be compatible with all the TLDs we are looking into the IANA function, policy gaps that are still pending, operational practices, security and stability. These are just a few of the things that are being discussed right now. Next slide please to participate in the CCNs so we have different levels. It can be either remotely or on site during ICANN meetings. You can use the CCNs libraries or the mailing list, which are topic based, so you can if you're interested, let's say in DNS abuse, there's a library, there's a mailing list, and you can get a hold of that information right now. One of the most important ones is this TLD ops mailing list, which serves as a way of having a backup plan. If, when things go wrong, you can participate in the meetings, ask questions, answer surveys, spread the word, even chair a session, present, join the council. And if you are CCNSO members, you can actually vote in in our processes. And with this, please next slide.
Right now,
I would like to make a call to all of you to please take note that next week, we are having an event, question and answer session with our board seat 12 candidates. This is to elect the board member that it's one of the two that we assigned in the ICANN Board. So this is to all you members. It's an opportunity for you to participate, to make your voice heard. As as Pablo mentioned, there 18 out of the 30 ccTLDs of the Caribbean who are members of the CCNA. So it's your right to to be active and to make this process happen. If there are any questions regarding the vote in itself, we will share these slides with you so you can have them ready. But there's the email of our nomination process manager is yoke Brecon, and what will happen is that you will receive an email from tally@icann.org the ballot for you to cast your vote. The votes
are
anonymous, but we will be tracking who is voting, not what the vote is about, but we will actually be displaying this information, as you can see in the chat.
So with that,
let's move on to Sean Copeland, who is the chair of the guidelines review committee, to continue with the conversation.
Thank you, Alejandra, and Good day, everyone. Next slide, please. So earlier, Pablo, had you test out Mehdi meter, and we're going to continue with that, if you don't mind. So pull out your phones, and what we are looking for is, how can we at the CCNSO assist you. We want your involvement, and we know for your involvement we need to also give you value. So please take a minute and enter in your thoughts on how we can help out your ccTLD.
So with technical assistant, that's actually a really good one, the TLD ops mailing list, if you're not a member of it, is an excellent source as a gateway to to information and help you get you get best practices, actually, from from people, different different operators around the world. And it's a really, really useful resource for you, and again, training and knowledge and sharing, also, we'd love to give that to you, so please reach out.
Okay, another maybe 10 seconds training, yet we can do training in a certain, maybe a little bit different way. It's how we share information. We have this thing called Tech Day that happens on the first Monday of a session. It's not so much training as much as sharing, but it's interactive and can be very valuable to you.
So
think we will finish with this question. If that is okay, could we go to the next question? And then this is really important to us, because we know that there's a number of people in the Caribbean, in the ccTLD world, that haven't participated in the CCNSO, and we'd like to know what's holding you back. And we'd like to figure out how we can facilitate you becoming members. Lack of awareness. That's a great thing. It's one of the reasons that Pablo brought our attention to this meeting, for us to be here. So we are making an effort, and for those of you that are participating, we thank you very much.
Understand the distance and finance questions. Those are those are real
and valuable.
Okay, give it another 10 seconds. If you have any more thoughts, time schedule, that's fair, too. So what we're going to do is we are going to take all this information that you've given us, we're going to share it back with you, and we're also going to look at it and we're going to see how we can improve our interaction with you and hopefully bring more of you into the CCsO. So thank you very much for this next slide. So you were talking about information resources. Here are some really good ones for you. Again, you're going to get a slide on it. There is a link for the TV, PLD, ops group, DNS abuse, which is a significant issue for us, for you to look at, both the library and the mailing list, and the universal acceptance also really important. And the one that I like, and I think it actually kind of ties into what I've heard today a little bit, is the internet governance Liaison Committee, what we do there. So take a look at all of that. We would love to have you in the CCNSO, speaking on behalf of Alejandra, myself and everyone else in the CCNSO. So with that next slide, officially, thank you so much for listening to us, and I look forward to seeing you hopefully in Seattle, virtually or in person. Thank you.
Thank you very much to our panelists for setting the stage and for those excellent the excellent provision of information. We trust that the slides can be made available for us to share with the participants. So based on what you said and what you've seen in your various capacities, what do you think are the biggest hurdles? Well, you did the poll, and you did have some suggestions on why there was a there are some of the hindrances to participation. How do you think? And I know you'll go back and give that some thought. But what from your own observations, are the biggest challenges preventing us in the Caribbean, and are you, are you satisfied with the level of participation that you've seen? And this can go to either of the panelists with the in the global communities thus far. And can you point to some of those that are most active, not necessarily to name and shame, but say what has been working, what has been working well, and what has not been so? Yes, who would like to tackle that?
Perhaps Sean
Sure. Okay, I'll give it I'll give it a shot. We'll see how it goes. AJ, is my boss, so if she corrects me, it's all good. The people that have been involved in in the ccTLD or the CCNA, so world space tend to have been involved for a while. So there's a bit of camaraderie. There friendships, relationships that go on, networking that goes on and, you know, that's kept people in and kept people involved, we know, like this group, and there's other other groups that go on that, you know, helping networking. But we, we, there's a gap there, and and we want to, we want to bridge that gap, and we want to understand what it is to encourage
people to join us.
Andre you wanted to respond as well?
Yes. Thank you so much. I would like to tackle it from the other side. As in, how can you participate? Instead of, what are it's preventing you? I can tell you of the ways that it's easy for you to participate. In the sense of we have the resources available online, which you can look at and at your own pace and time, the mailing list as well, the working groups as well. When we have the sessions you can join remotely. Yes, I know time zones are difficult, but sometimes it will be closer to you as it will be now in Seattle, so the time zone will be more favorable so and there is actually no costs associated with participating in the CNS. Oh, so I would like to emphasize that the difference level is low, as in, you just need to start to get connected and follow the topics. And eventually you will get hooked, and you will be helping us in the panel next time. Thank you.
Kim and Pablo, did you also want to say a word on that from your own participation? Thank
you. Thank you so much. First and foremost, I want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, Tracy Haq show and the rest of the team for coordinating this event. And this is the type of event that gives us the opportunity to reach out to our Caribbean community and to collaborate in the various ways that we can, and we know how this is a fantastic opportunity to let our entire Caribbean community know that your opinion matters. It doesn't matter if you have many, many domain name registration so only a handful of them. Your opinion is just as important. You belong here. You we need you. We like you to be part of this, because the word that this is CNS, so does, represents the entire world in the measure that the world participates, and the Caribbean region is just as important as any other region. So that said, and I don't want to keep you from your social event, but that said, we would like to participate. We would like to get invited more often to this type of events in the measure that they get done, we would like to be able to help out and produce more of this type of events are extremely valuable to the entire community. Thank you. Thank
you very much as well. Do we have any questions from the audience this first session sets the stage. We really want to hear from the ccTLD managers themselves as well, and we'll have an opportunity in the session to brainstorm and some of the next steps to help build this community. You heard that about the networking which helped, was helping to bring sort of the familiar faces back to participate, but we want to grow that network. Yes, any questions from the audience, any questions in the room or online? Hey, no. So then, without further ado, we'll move to session two. Thank you all very much on the first panel, and please stick around for the rest
for the discussion.
So I will hand over now to Professor Patrick Hosein of the TT mag to tell us about building, to moderate the panel on building a stronger regional community.
Thanks. Thanks, Rodney. Before I start the you know, I'm a ccTLD manager and and we've been a member of the CCNs, so for several years now, I don't know, maybe 15 years, I guess. So I would, would encourage other
ccti,
ccTLD managers within the Caribbean to join it. It's, it's definitely worth it. So let me get to this panel the because of time. What I'll do is I'm going to read out the topics that we want to want to cover this panel, and then I'll ask each of the panelists to give their views on each of these topics. I'll give them about three minutes afterwards, I will give some of my views, and then we can, we can answer some questions. So this is, this panel is on building a stronger regional community. And you know, talking mostly about the Caribbean first challenges and opportunities with Caribbean ccTLDs, exploring opportunities for knowledge sharing and mentorship. We could share knowledge among ourselves. We've done some of this in the past, but it has been as much as we should, collaborating with regional and international organizations to access training resources. You know, for instance, from from ICANN, have you know, again, there's a need to make better use of the resources they provide. And Albert will talk more about what they provide in terms of advocacy and policy, discussing common policy challenges and opportunities, developing a unified regional voice on key policy issues, and finally, collaborating with regional organizations to advocate for the interests of Caribbean cctles, and I think this is the most important one we need to, you know, it's several of us in the in the Caribbean. We need to coordinate our efforts, collaborate and have a bigger voice in the international domain,
international space.
Do mean as well,
because we could have a bigger voice, but we need to collaborate more, and this collaboration, over the years, we've had different efforts to form some sort of Caribbean TLD type group, and I think there's something we need to pursue more but before you know, I have more to say, but let me give the other panelists an opportunity to respond or give their views on each of these topics. I'm not sure who's online, but I'll go according to the list I have. Yes, let's start with Mr. Clifford bosick, if you could introduce yourself, you know, give some of your background, and then give your views on the topics I mentioned just now. Okay, so let's, let's go to dot.ai. Mr. Damien Harrigan,
speaking, Damien, are you there?
Okay, so, so Damien, what we'll do is, you know, test your audio. We'll come back to you in a minute.
How about Mr. Indiretl from Curacao,
Hi, I'm here. Thank you for the invitation and to participate in such a important forum. I was a bit a little bit surprised by the presentation, especially on the numbers of members that are associated with the CCNSO, also the last PLD, which is Latin American and Caribbean top level domain organization as well. One of the points that I had noted is that's very important to for us as let's say Caribbean island. And in our case, it's, I also heard it in the previous presentation. It's very interesting, our position as Curacao being part of the Dutch kingdom, so you're in the Caribbean, but you know, seen as being part of Europe. But it also puts on it in a special position. But my main thing is, it's important to be part at least the mailing list that was mentioned for the season and so, but also for the other ones, like being part of the last LACNIC, which is also a Latin American and Caribbean, and making this guy, in this case, it's important for we are looking for information about knowledge training. There are several opportunities in there for training, especially if you want some technical things on, let's say IP six or whatever. There are trainings that you can as manager or your team can follow for free. And so when you're talking about sharing knowledge, that is one of the possibilities. So I believe one of the things is to start with, you know, be part of a mailing list and try to become members, because, as you also mentioned, Mr. Was saying, Our ccTLD is member of the CC NSO, I think also around 1415, years, and you are, you know, you will be held on top of development and will be able to participate also. So, yeah, just to be short for now, I think that it's very important to belong to something of one of these organizations. The other thing I was thinking about, and that would be like, just as the CCNSO, as part of the ICANN, maybe we should think also maybe an organization that that really has the Caribbean island as TLD, and, you know, and work together in a smaller group, like being part of La TLD, For instance, and to to work out things that matter, especially in our region. So that is one idea I would like to share for now.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Pengel, so the next let's hear from Mr. Charles Noir from sin Martin. You
so can everyone hear me? Yes, hello, everyone. My name is Charles Nora. I'm actually from CIRA, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Maybe. Is there a confusion in is there another Charles noir in the in the group. No, okay, I'll share some some ideas that have come to mind. Obviously, coming from Canada, our view has tended to be focused on being the.ca operator. So some of what I'll share is experience as the as the.ca operator, essentially what I'd like to bring your, your your attention to, in addition to what folks have covered in terms of lac, TLD and a number of organizations canada.ca, sorry, CIRA has done a lot of work Over the past year and a half on something called a technical community coalition for multi stakeholderism. It's TCM, dot global. And what this is is a number of technical operators from across the globe. So registries, top level domain regional groups, registrars, registries for Internet numbers and other service providers at the heart of the internet and the technical community coming together to participate in and advocate for policy related to the WIS plus 20 review that's underway In the United Nations. For those of you, you're likely aware, folks on the on the call, I won't get into too much of the history, but why we have an Internet Governance Forum, for example, and and how that was created is related to two processes, number of processes, but two in particular, in 2003 and five. It was reviewed in 2010 and is now coming up for review again in 2025 and I'd say in terms of sharing knowledge or collaborating in this space, in the policy space, in the international policy space, that community itself is something that's available for critical internet infrastructure operators to join and meet the group that we were talking about earlier in terms of CCS, GS and registries and start and registrars. And I would say that's an opportunity, really, to leverage that community to begin that expansion that you might be thinking about in terms of making connections into the broader international network that is working, I think, quite well to represent the needs that we have as domain registrars, as managers of ctlds, obviously the ICANN work At the beginning, the discussion about the CCNSO is very important, and that's a certainly a place to do so. Just offering folks to have a look at the tccm dot global. Take a look at our statement. You'll get a sense of our mission and purpose within the context of the wishes plus 20. We are looking to defend and advocate for multi stakeholderism And to be heard as a technical community. We do have representation across every region globally, and some good friends that are on the call right here. I know Dr Rodriguez and.pr are on board, and you'll see some other folks there. If you go to the website, TCM dot global, that could be, certainly something to think about on a more practical level, if you're looking to engage in this international process, they can often feel quite overwhelming. And if we're coming in, if we're coming together, we can share information positions and have a more concentrated, louder voice within that context. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks. Charles,
next, Mr.
Max. Henry, Max and I go back several years now. Didn't realize he's still around.
Go ahead. Max, yeah, that's when we are getting very hot, very old. Sorry. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. And Congratulations, Dr Olsen for your award, and glad to see so familiar faces. My name is Max LAN wi I'm the technical contact of.ht since its redelegation back in 2004 so a long time ago. I have also to mention that we have been a member of the CCNSO for for a long time, more than more than 10 years, and what we do appreciate by being a member of CCNSO is being part of of this network whenever, whenever we we face some challenges, we know that we can, you know, take our phone and and drop An email or or call someone to discuss about some issues, and also the knowledge sharing is very, very important, as well as the shared service infrastructure that we typically do between between members. So regarding the topics at hand, I will first of all talk about the knowledge sharing between ccTLD from the ccTLD from the Caribbean region. In the Caribbean context, I think ccTLD can benefit from deeper, stronger collaboration with more established ones through participation in knowledge sharing programs, they can improve their technical and operational capacity and contribute to regional growth. For example, we have seen significant growth in the number of internet exchange point in the Caribbean due to collaboration between various organizations, CTU, COVID, nog, other content delivery networks, associations, civil society organizations such as Internet Society chapters, also ariina, TLD, LACNIC and two ml system order approach. So based on these successful, successful results, it's safe to believe that similar collaborations in the ccTLD space would yield comparable, if not greater results join initiatives such as hosting copies of food servers at local internet exchange points, seeing ccTLD servers within these IX piece hosting Secondary DNS service for ccTLD can have profound impact on both Internet access and the overall quality of internet infrastructure and services within our region. These initiatives not only improve network resilience, but also can contribute to the development of more robust and reliable internet within the Caribbean region. Thank you.
Thanks. Max is is Mr. Clip it Bostick on now.
Okay, let's How about Mr. Damian Harrigan. We able to sort out your audio.
Can you hear me now? Yes, apologies
for the technical mishap. Audio, thank you so much for letting me join this esteem panel this afternoon. Damian Harrigan from Anguilla comes really later us with that AI Angulo being, you know, one of the smaller Caribbean islands is it was difficult for us to have to dedicate Human Resources managing the ccTLD, especially since it wasn't really generating much revenues at the time. So we would have attracted the management and administration up to third parties, hence probably explain why we're not as active in the region, CCNs, so and so forth. But I was a little surprised just know to see the graphic from from Pablo which align Angular with Europe, when, in reality, we, because of our position, we are mostly aligned with Latin America and Latin America. So we, we do receive correspondences from Latin regularly. So I would want to think that that's where we are located. I guess we have to look into that. But us, what we found to be lacking in our space is just the knowledge in the capabilities, the technical capabilities, and after sitting on a couple of meetings with CTU and and so forth. You see how you really learn a lot from regional sharing. And I too, would like to see, you know, something happening on a smaller scale, Caribbean wise, where we can share and get more involved. Again, I get charisma, since we'll be like me, but that is so big. Usually we have a big Latin American countries involved and so forth. So forth. So you kind of get lost in there. So be nice to have a conversation in the region to just, you know, we can align and see, see where we can take, where we can take this. And of course, I'm pretty sure most of countries in region have the same issues the right end policies with regards to the internet, to DNS and so forth, where we don't have a lot of experience in that space. So I can definitely see where, you know, collaboration in the region can, can, can help a lot.
Thanks. Thanks. Damian
is Clifford on
Okay, so, yeah, I'm not sure how we're doing on time, but let me just give my views on things. Yeah, definitely. We need to collaborate more. We need to have a more international voice from the Caribbean region. And the question is, why haven't we been able to do it? Over the years, I've been the ccTLD manager for.tt for the last 30 plus years. And, you know, I've seen changes within the Caribbean, but we haven't been able to collaborate. One of the reasons, I think, is, if you look at Trinidad and you know, I'm blown my own horn here. The reason we were able to have a TT mag, and for TT mag to sponsor or organize TT IGF, is because TT Nick, see all the TTS. Yeah, right, you see TT Nick went ahead, you know, about 10 years ago to form the group and and support it financially. We hope is for them to be self sustaining, but hopefully we get to that. But for events, events like this, they do get quite a bit of assistance. But you know, Fi teen Nick has to top it up right now, if the other islands did something similarly, where the ccTLDs support, maybe a mag, a local mag, or some organization, and then these organizations could then cooperate or collaborate among themselves within the region, because if you have multiple contacts within an island, it's difficult to do any kind of collaboration. If you have a single point of contact, some sort of mag, then it becomes a little bit easier, and then you could take it. From there, you get the regional collaboration, and from that now you have a big, bigger international voice. So that is what I'm hoping we can do. We can have that. I know there's lack TLD, but I believe we should have a Caribbean TLD as well to be able to better organize ourselves. In addition, you know, what I would like to see is, is the things you know, gene does as well could be done in the other islands, and we are willing to help them, things like providing websites and domains for all educational institutions. I mean, we do that pro bono. Hopefully someday the government takes it over. But so far, we do it, and we sponsor quite a bit of research as well. So you saw the by Letitia, that's part of our lab, TT lab, and that some of that funding, you know, for Titan conferences, etc, comes from TT Nick as well. So what I'm trying to say is that we are very willing to assist other islands, other ccTLDs, in not only forming a mag but using resources to help the island in various
ways. Uh, thanks. So yeah, thank
you. I'm going to invite Tracy to come up in the interest of time, to give the wrap up session, to bring everything home. Thank you very much. Patrick Albert is going to come up as well, because he's part of this next steps discussion. And thank you very much for your leadership on the TT Nick, and for the the continued support of the TT mag, and certainly, example, yeah, oh, sorry, there's a question online. Okay, please, let's take the question online and then move to Session Three. Please, go ahead.
Blow Go ahead, please.
Thanks, Mr. Secretary, Thanks Patrick, for a great session. And it is fantastic to see so many friendly faces. Damien lander, Max and so many of you, Tracy and so on. Damien, I want you to know that you're right. We need to come together and know more about each other and help out each other. Patrick, absolutely, there is a lack. TLD is fantastic, and it does a lot of help, but it is great also, if the Caribbean TLD community comes together and works together, and the more the merrier. If we can bring people like Maureen Heller from the other side of the world, according to our perspective, she could be great help, and she's an Islander, too. She's got plenty of similar stories to share with us, as well as each one of us, remember what I said. The one thing that we have in common is that we register two character domain names. After that we have different registry models, different governance models. We do what works for us. I will not come here to preach to you that my way of doing business is better than yours, and you should adapt to the way I do business. I have some particular, some particularities of my ecosystems that allows me to do certain things. You need to look into your external and internal ecosystems and see what works for you. But you know our strength is based on how many of us can come together. We can liberate each other, we can help each other. I may not know how to solve the problem that you may have, but I may know someone who does so in the in we can use each other to collaborate and to find information and to network in places such as Leonard mentioned Tech Day, such as Max also mentioned Tech Day, the subscribing to the email is subscribing to the newsletters, participating in all of these events, in participating in all of These organizations, whether it's Latin our own Caribbean Association. I the various isa chapters and as well as the CCNSO and other places, Let's Participate everywhere. Let our voice be heard. Our opinion is important. Our opinion enriches what all these other associations are trying to do, and they will not be able to achieve their objectives to their maximum potential if we're not there. So I invite every one of us to collaborate with each other, to engage more with each other. I think the CTU is a fantastic place that could be a repository where we can all come together. So more power to us. You know, good stuff for the Caribbean region. And this is a great start. Thank you all
alright. Thank you too, Patrick. So we'll go straight to session three, which is max as well. Okay, Max, we'll have to close with Max.
Sorry about that. It will be a very short one, just to mention that we can spend a lot of time discussing about all the challenges that we are facing as Caribbean islands. But what we can do is really to leverage what we already have. I remember during the last ICANN meeting in Puerto Rico, we had a very interesting meeting between small islands. Remember that I can see a lot of you guys, like more than 10 in this meeting that was part of this meeting. So what we can do is to leverage existing meetings, like when we go to to ICANN, to CCNs, so meetings. Also every year there is a Caribbean block meeting. We can leverage those meetings to meet as ccTLD ecosystem in the Caribbean and then discuss about our issues and how we can collaborate together and make our voice.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. You also have a home in the Caribbean. IGF, the longest standing IGF globally. We'd be happy to give you a space there as well. So Tracy, what's next? You're the action man.
Alright, it's not, I'm glad he said that. See, you know the crew like to talk plenty, right? We'll talk in talk, talk, talk, talk, talk today. Talk. 2007 2018 I think 2014 talking, 2025 talking. Didn't see anything happening yet, right? So let me ask a question in this room. You of those who have websites, do you have your company website or your or personal etc? How many are using a ccTLD,
right? Good. So that's
three,
three, right line. Good,
good. So this is the, let's call this head room, right? The key is, how do we get this message out to everybody else. So in terms of not just ccTLDs exist, but what they can do for country and the Caribbean, etc, but in terms of things like resilience working as some sort of national asset funding, identification, you want to call it, some of the things that we can do to get that going and maybe utilizing the the mind share that's in this room virtual otherwise, to help with that. So only things I want to start proposing is that we find a way to, you know, we can talk as well. We like to talk. But let's put our wrap our minds around some activity and work together on that. So I would pose, you know, not wanting to to the the first step, necessarily. But how do we promote our top level, our ccTLDs in our countries to become what I see happening in other countries, like Germany, Canada, business, Switzerland, North Switzerland, China, where the ccTLD seems to be the dominant website extension, the top level domain. Why is that not happening in the Caribbean? Right? So we have Canada online, so maybe they can explain why.ca is so popular in Canada. Maybe they can help with that. Not, not now I'm seeing in a, in a in a section that we could talk about that together. Let's find some action points to work around. So Patrick actually said, let's find a way to work together on doing things that raise the profile of the cttl in your own country. So in your country, you have things like you can do, like a multi stakeholder group, like what we do here. You can do an IGF. You can do something a conference. What else can we do to raise your profile that you exist, you're here, you're also here to help your country. What can we do to do things like around that, throwing a couple ideas for us to to chat about. Also, what is missing? What do you think is missing from all this talking we've been doing? Been talking a lot, but why is it not gelling? Why when Patrick come and says we've talked a lot for 30 years, but we're not working together. And finally, I wanted to throw out, if I handle to Albert, the issue about the back end registries and and the software that's running it, Is there discussion to to be had about working together as a region to try and find a solution that's fit for purpose, for what we can do. So you are running, I guess, a multi million dollar registry, okay, maybe you want to use something that costs multi millions of dollars. But maybe you're running something very small. You want to use something that's homegrown. You want to do something that's, you know, more fit for purpose, most at scale, and that's built in your in your in your built with your people in the Caribbean, what about things like that, looking at products like that, and seeing how we can work together to drive innovation and drive some level of, you know, utilizing the what we have as a as an asset, and taking beyond the fact that it's just a website extension, and using it to move beyond that. So having said that, I'll just hand over to Albert now for some thoughts. Albert is from ICANN, and he has the the wherewithal I would imagine to help us drive this so Albert, over to you to thank you very much. Thank
you very much. Full disclosure, first of all, maybe about 1112, years ago, I may have been up as one of the ccTLD managers as well, because I used to manage.lc which is a ccTLD for Saint Lucia, and it's very interesting to have seen situation from the side of a ccTLD manager, and now to be seeing it from the other side, which is from the Internet Corporation for sign names and numbers. It's useful to understand some of what has gone before. And as Tracy started mentioning, there have been several efforts to get the ccTLD managers across the Caribbean to collaborate with each other. And I think, to make a long story short, two key words, we need to focus on our community collaboration. And as you heard from several speakers, the ccTLD managers is a community that it very is very willing to help each other. Once you join that community, start meeting, start collaborating, you find and particularly Damian would be happy to hear this, that all of the managers want to help other managers. And let's see what happened back and Pablo has a lot to be thanked for with regard to the first opportunity that the ccTLD managers had to get together in 2007 at ICANN 29 there was a special meeting of all of the ccTLD managers at that meeting from the Caribbean, and you had presentations by people like Doctor Patrick Lee, who runs the.ag for Antigua. And what did they speak about? He spoke about the different ways that you manage your ccTLD, the different models that could be used, a commercial model, the education model, whether it's open and allowing persons from all over the world to register, whether it's only local entities that are registered. And happened at the end of that meeting. I mean, I was one of the ccTLD managers. We all exchange business cards, the usual thing, and we promised, and we committed to stay in touch and to work together. That happened maybe for the first three weeks after the ICANN meeting. And then the usual thing, we stopped talking to each other. Nothing more happened again in 2014 the CTU ICANN collaborated with at the Bahamas at the cigf. We brought a few ccTLD managers there. Same thing. We did some capacity building. We spoke about how we could work together, exchange all the business cards, had some drinks, promised to stay in contact. Few weeks later, everything went went, went dead again. And actually in 2019 in Puerto Rico, ICANN had an event, which was at DNS forum, and we actually paid to bring some of the Caribbean CC team managers there. Same thing for a third time. We spent some time, did some capacity building, exchange the business cards, and nothing happened. So all of that to say, it really takes some strong commitment, some identification of what is important to the ccTLD managers. Icann's role is to facilitate. We have the CCNSO within the ICANN ecosystem, and a lot happens there. There was a question asked earlier, you know, which are the Caribbean countries that have been participating more in the CCNs, and who do you have? You have countries like Belize St Kitts has been participating, Antigua Dr Patrick Lee has been there. The Dominican Republic. The Cayman Islands is an interesting group. When the Cayman Islands goes to an ICANN meeting. They have one or two people in the CCNSO. They have one in the GAC. They have some the gap. These are just different areas of ICANN which represent the different communities. So the point here again, is collaboration. You go with a large group, or you go does not necessarily with a large country group, but with a large Caribbean group, and then you can cover different areas, you know, and participate in what's going on, also in the CCNs. So you've had Grenada, Barbados, Guyana, and, of course, Puerto Rico and Haiti. And even at a higher level, you've had Dr Patrick to Patrick. So Patrick hosne has been a member of the governing body of the CCNSO, the CCNSO Council. And also from Haiti, we've had Christelle Vall in leadership positions on the CCNs so very influential positions, opportunities for the Caribbean's voice to be heard. So one of the big recommendations that I would make is to see how we can collaborate more. I say we, as a Caribbean you know, if you're going to an ICANN meeting, if you in a an event where there are other Caribbean ccTLD managers, let's see how we can work together. The let's see how we can make connections. Let's see how we can help each other. And perhaps I will pause at this point, maybe to hear a little bit more from the others, but, but it's very important for us to collaborate as a Caribbean community when it comes to the ccTLD management,
right? So let's take some feedback from our audience, online and on the floor. So seeing any hands Yes? Is it that? Is that Steven's hand up? Damien,
yes, just to add to what was saying in Angulo, the problem we have is, you know, there's no one person assigned to the role. It's just a function that's attached to someone who already has a million other functions. Um, so you may see us popping into a meeting and we get we exchange business cards and so forth. But when we go back to country, then you know, you might not get the opportunity to interact again, because, you know that that might drop on in somebody's else who's available at the time. So we definitely need to do some work in country, and, you know, establishing a proper, a proper unit
to deal with this.
So let's take a blue and then land at Pan.
Thank you, Tracy, and look actually, Tracy, you touch on several you identify several important points that I completely believe that should be part of the agenda in the next set of events that I hopefully will have soon. And one of them has to do with
who are we? I
continue to to to hammer on the one thing that we have in common is what we register two character domain names, but what the type of governance model that you have, if your government, if you're academia or you're a private entity, will dictate the way that you do business. So a one size fits all does not work for the ccTLD operators. We need to find those points in which we can come together and help out each other. But how can we improve the number of domain name registrations that is driven by the governance model and by other things that obviously we will discuss in that coming soon meeting. So let's keep that in mind and one another thing that that I want to touch upon is that for those of us that have looked for ICANN providers, I'm a small I'm a small ccTLD and so don't, don't be shy. Explore, explore all your opportunities. There are opportunities for home ground, CC field, the operations. There are opportunities for back end providers, opportunities for everyone. You need to look at your external environment, your internal environment, and see what works. But all of these things, we can discuss that too. That should be another topic that we should have in that coming soon event and have that discussion too. Thank you.
Alright. Thank you everyone. We're looking for concrete actions. So thank you, Pablo, for that suggestion. Maybe you can find a way to host us in some sort of event going forward, I have two more hands up. I have learned that spangle and Cooper Shaw, so let's take lender spangel.
I was, I will make it very short. It's just something as a reaction to what Damien was experiencing. We as academia, do the administration. We are registry for CW. However, it's important to have partnerships like we have now with the tier four data center, which is very knowledge profiling now in the in the Caribbean, with the blue nave America, and especially on the technical issues they support us in that we have a collaboration, but also internationally, being part of Dutch Kingdom makes brings us also an opportunity to work together with SI Jean, which is the large, let's say, Data Center, also for The Netherlands, but has a very large multicast network, of which we can also we are making use of DNS services for our secondary and primary so I think you know you cannot have everything, Maybe in your own team, but working with whatever opportunity of our options that you have locally, as we also have with the with the local telco, for for internet connect connectivity. You know, that's a way of going to with, with collaboration. So, so that's what I wanted to say. It's not always that you have you have the option as a as a city TLD manager, to have all the skills that you require, or to make at least the technical people in in your organization. However, you can make use of what is available on the island or international. And you will see that there are a lot of people that would like to support you as a conflict of level domain. Thank
you very much. Curacao, again, looking at the copy to action, so hopefully you can help with that through Pasha. Thank
you, Tracy, and thank you to TT mag and Mr. Rodney Taylor for inviting me here. For those of you who don't know, my name is Krupa, and I am with identity digital. We support our 450 TLDs globally, but we are a registry services provider for many TLDs in the Caribbean, including.pr.ag.lc and.ai amongst others, I've you know, I'm here to share some observations based on what I've heard so far. And I've heard some comments about having a reliable network in the Caribbean, more collaboration, maybe a need for some international voices, etc. The Caribbean has its own unique challenges when we talk about resilience and collaboration and resource allocation, as we've heard some of the other speakers here say, and in the future, perhaps a session that we can come together on is building a resilience network in the Caribbean of operators who can actually rely on each other and how they can rely on each other in times of distress. So when a hearken slams your country and say, takes power down for hours, if not days, are your websites or emails or domain names that are behind your government services, banks, utilities, etc, will they keep working though the world in general, people in these countries in general expect these critical services, this infrastructure, to simply just work 100% of the time. And so resiliency in general is a key component to the continued operation of the internet, the Caribbean included. And I think, and my recommendation is that we think about resilience, and what does a resilience network mean for countries in the Caribbean? This, perhaps, is a workshop for a future session, but in my opinion, is going to be required nevertheless. Thank you. Thank
you very much. Krupa, maybe there's a way we could combine all of the ideas that have just come out. I'm seeing Albert taking up the the mantle for doing exactly that. So that pastor, Albert, who will actually summarize series point all of those ideas, and we're fast asking ICANN maybe, to maybe take the lead and so coordinating this effort. Sorry about that? Sorry
to disappoint you. Tracy, I'm adding another idea. Well, I was waiting to see if somebody else would mention it. Jaclyn knows what I'm about to say. In the Latin American Caribbean region, there is another organization called lac TLD. And lac TLD is established. It was established in 1998 essentially to help the ccTLDs in Latin America and the Caribbean. And I think one of the key points that has come out this afternoon is that we need to perhaps go a little bit deeper than Latin which is covering Latin America and the broad Caribbean, and focus on an organization or the Caribbean, specifically, at our at our level, in the Caribbean, effort has been made in that in the past, we tried, I know Jacqueline put in a serious amount of effort into getting a mailing list started and so on. I think last night we were talking, I don't think we had WhatsApp yet, all right, otherwise we would have had a WhatsApp group. But perhaps that is one additional area that we can look at, one additional idea. I don't know that it is the rule of the ICANN organization to push this. I think this is something that really needs to be driven by the stakeholders. The ccTLD managers have to decide for themselves that they want this and that they are willing to put in the effort on a consistent basis to actually maintain it. ICANN will be there to support I mean, as we are doing now with the ICANN ecosystem, you have a space, and ICANN will continue to provide that. And from my perspective, as stakeholder engagement manager in the Caribbean, I'll do everything that I can to see how we can gel the Caribbean together at our ICANN public meetings. Typically, I try to get the Caribbean groups together. You know this, you've been there at most of those sessions where we try, from a social standpoint, to develop the relationships amongst all those not just the ccTLD managers who are there from the Caribbean, but I think it's something that has to be led by the ccTLD managers in the Caribbean. They have to stand up and move forward and say, we want this, and we are going to move forward with it,
right? So I heard from Alba that he is the next step is that he's going to help us with supporting, coordinating, the next step going forward, even though it's coming from us that there's going to be some catalyzing element from Albert Daniels of
ICANN, absolutely, I'll continue to do that, and that's what I've been doing for years With the Caribbean, trying to bring us together. Brilliant.
Yes, yes. Thanks very much. Tracy. Devo, sign, Titi, mag, um, you know, Tracy has made a point that I want some things that work right. One of my favorite mantras is that you will achieve what you've never achieved before, only when you do what you've never done before. Detailer said that several conferences that went and recorded years exchange the cards. I've also exchanged many call cards. I came back home with a pilot call cards went in an old wallet, and eventually I tour with the old wallet and the call my new strategy now is to develop. I have, if I go to a conference, I have, I
it's what I have. Well, yes, what I have, a QR code, my V card, what I do? I ask the person to scan it, call me. I get their number on time. Do not use call cards anymore. It seems on something, and it saves on the efficiency. And if you are the person who is the manager of a whatsapp chat or whatever, as you get the person information, add them to the group one time they hate to be doing something twice that is getting somebody information sometime,
anywhere. Okay? It says my time. My time is my life. Thank you very much. Thank you, Deb, so I heard you're volunteering to create QR codes for everyone. That's what I heard, right?
So if you want me to, you asked me do Tracy, I do it too
brilliant. So with that, of course, you know, I'm just no not joking, actually. But you know it is so Albert helping, motivating, catalyzing. Fg, driving some technology with that, I think we've, we're getting somewhere good. So I'm going to toss back to SG Taylor to kind of give us maybe another step forward in this wrap up. Thank
you very much. Now I would, I would simply put the offer on the table that the CTO can help the organization if the ccTLD, managers believe that it will be helpful to have a carb. TLD, we can help by providing Secretariat services, by helping you to organize the meeting. We don't need to be all in your space, but we're saying we can help facilitate you. Can come together, maybe elect a chair or our president, whatever you want to call that person who can help in terms of the coordination, the technical cooperation, and we would simply convene the meetings for you on your own schedule, on your own time if you want to meet four times a year, virtually once or out of those four times, maybe once in person at a cigf or TT IGF, or one of the IGFs in the region, we would support as best we can, have a Youth Network. Maybe we can get one of the young persons to help to coordinate that and bring or bring the resources that you need to help organize that meeting. So I put that offer on the table. We can help until it's at the point of viability where you don't need us at all. You can organize and and call the meetings and collaborate on your own. And of course, when we meet at ICANN, or when we meet at it, or any of these other spaces, we are happy to help coordinate and support your work there as well. So let me end by expressing my appreciation to the TT Mike and TT IGF for giving us the space in the first IGF in the world, right? I don't think there's anyone before this one the calendar. That's my understanding. It's the first for the year, good for the year. Yes, for the year. We're the longest standing, I know, but that's all right. But thank you very much. It's been good, and I'm happy that we're able to get such distinguished panelists together, so please give everyone a round of applause. And who am I handing over for the final, final wrap up of the TT IGF,
that'd be, I believe that's difficult. I'm Chair elect of the TT mark, great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Dev cosign
from the arrow here.
It's not that delighted. The room is very bright, but these only tested sheets that I have right now. So alright, good afternoon, everyone. And we have had a really, very, very impressive two days. And making this possible was our partners, and I would hope that I would like to believe that they are our life partners. Um, I would first like to recognize the Network Information Center Titi, Nick been awesome, the telecommunications, telecommunications authority of Trinidad and Tobago. Tat, Latin American and Caribbean. Network Information Center, latnic, Caribbean Telecommunications Union, CTU, the internet operation of assign teams and numbers ICANN are Ram, Jon, EV IT Services Limited. Thank you for Ah, awesome Internet. Society, Trinidad and Tobago, charter, subty and air link communications, they are the persons who pump the blood into our veins. Without them, would be dead eternity. You. Literally. I would like to now express profound gratitude the persons who we have spent hours listening to last couple of days, and these people are we'd like to a special express special gratitude to mister Corey belfon, Permanent Secretary the ministry of digital transformation, spoke on behalf of the Minister of Education, his his noble mister minister, Bacas, we like to express gratitude again to Miss Sally Wentworth, president and chief executive officer Internet Society of society of Internet Society Foundation, Mister John Aldridge, who has graced us with his presence on several presentations. Here he's the Chief Executive Officer and Tobago International Finance Center, Mister Javed Sajad, artificial intelligence, legal and policy consultant black. Then we had later in that morning, Doctor Andrew hunt, Chairman National Institute of the high tech education, research, Science and Technology near host, Dr Lev neck, Chief Information Officer of the Arizona State University. And I was very impressed. So some really, really interested. Now, the other presentation didn't have anything that interested me, but this one stood out in terms of because it's new technology, and of course, introducing the AI in some of the things that do it. And then we went on to see a Star Boy by name of Ajmal dajar, who single handedly ran a presentation on cyber security intra and Tobago. And trust me, it was lot of information. AJ, you were impressive. Takes a lot to impress me. Yeah. And then this morning, we had a youth session on it's actually on bullying in the cyber Age. I would want to give a big shout out to RSC, restore a sense of ICANN, they outdid themselves this morning. It was a session. We had over 100 students at about 40 or 50 something schools in attendance this. I should mention that the schools already notified about this less than 24 hours ago. Okay, participation was phenomenal. And they use AI. They presented it using avatars. They even had breakout sessions where the students go and they could interact with the avatars themselves. There's truly an impressive but I was Asham could have left believe, a permanent remembrance of today's activity. Then this afternoon I'll start again. AJ, as I always call him, had a presentation this morning with mister John. Outreach again, Ian T Alin and Shiva bisasa Um John again, is the Chief Executive Officer of TT IFC, Ian Allen, founder of pay wise. And Shiva, is the managing director of Pinaka consulting limited. And then this afternoon, of course, you're all here for that city. Room full up now because of the snacks oligolita, I don't know. I just you know. I glad to see all you. We are the moderator, Julie, our very own Julie David, and presenter, Letitia Addison and congratulation and Galatians on your accomplishments. And it's a wonderful presentation. Have much more to talk about later. She's the adjunct lecturer of the School of Science computing and artificial intelligence at UE. Then I must give some appreciation to the coffee break. Don't take anything for granted here. And then we had another session by the CTU. And then I shook a knee's hand because, because of his benevolence, we are here at CTU today. So give my dear brother Charles a round of applause. I'm accelerating this involvement of Caribbean ccTLDs within the global CCL CT ccTLD communities as a Tom twist away. And we had Rodney again. Thank you very much for your participation, and you always have a passion for activities, right? First, when you first met in Barbados, many years ago. Then we had Dr Pablo Rodriguez, Pablo, I could see your passion in what you're delivering. The He's the Executive Vice President of Gauss Research Laboratory incorporated and GRC member, but the Ruiz was also a member of CCNSO. Alejandro, Alejandro, Alejandra, renusa. She gave a very good perspective. And of course, our very own doctor, Patrick Hussein, panelist, Mister Clifford Bostic, well, I think he was absent. Damian Harrigan, Linda pengel and Max Larson and, of course, our very own always here from ICANN Alba, Daniel. Thank you very much for your usual support. I know I could count you always look forward to meeting you at all these IGFs and all these other in international meetings and whatnot. So again, I am DeVos sign. I just want to wish, more importantly, all of you, all our participants, because all of this would have gone to zero if you all weren't here, wouldn't participate in wouldn't contribute. Let me ask you to save the date. Don't know the date, but I'll give you the formula as you forget numbers. Okay. Formula is January 2026, last Friday and the last Thursday. Okay, account for notice about TT IGF, 2026, thank you all very much. You have been a wonderful audience. Truth is why I'm going to do something about it now. Have a good evening. You
Hey, Carol, it's great to see you.
Bye, oh Bye, bye. Everyone online.
Thank you guys, bye,
bye, bye, thank you bye, the next time bye, bye bye,