ICANN coming to NZ
One of the things I have been involved with at InternetNZ, is being on a small working group which earlier this year bid to host the March 2006 ICANN meeting in Wellington, New Zealand.
We just found out today, that we have been successful. This will be a major challenge over the next 15 months, but hey the busier you are, the more efficient you get!
We have also bid to hold the Feb 2007 APRICOT meeting in Auckland. I am starting to get terrified that we may be sucessful with that one also 🙂
ICANN tends to be a mainly policy focused meeting, while APRICOT is much more technically focused.
The press release just put out by InternetNZ is below.
5 December 2004 – For immediate use
MAJOR INTERNET POLICY MEETING TO BE HELD IN WELLINGTON IN 2006
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has just announced that its March 2006 meeting will be held in Wellington, New Zealand.
ICANN, a private sector organisation, has responsibility for co-ordinating policy relating to Internet domain names and IP addresses.
A number of countries bid to host ICANN meetings, and InternetNZ, the .nz country code manager, was the successful bidder for the March 2006 meeting.
“We are delighted that we will be having this opportunity to host an ICANN meeting.” said Executive Director Pete Macaulay.
“It will provide a great opportunity for New Zealanders to attend, without the cost of overseas travel. It also will bring to New Zealand over 500 of the leading people involved with the Internet including ICANN Chairman and “Father of the Internet”, TCP/IP co-creator Vint Cerf.”
The meeting will be held from the 27th to the 31st of March 2006, and will primarily be at the Wellington Convention Centre and the Duxton Hotel.
InternetNZ President Keith Davidson, who chaired the bid committee, said “InternetNZ is looking forward to the challenge of organising this major event, which in fact is not just one meeting, but a collection of around 20 separate but related meetings for registries, registrars, country code managers, intellectual property lawyers, Internet users, and Government representatives.”
ENDS