Official Opening of ICANN

I’m in at the official opening which is being done by David Cunliffe. One of the features of ICANN meetings is a real-time transcript is displayed on a huge screen for both those at the meeting and for those watching over the Internet. The staff are incredibly fast and accurate and deal with a lot of hard to spell technical terms.

I was amused that when David Cunliffe spoke briefly in Maori at the beginning, the transcript stopped and said “Speaking in Maori”. Only time I’ve seen them stumped 🙂

Cunliffe has given an excellent speech on the growth of the Internet in NZ, the importance of broadband, and the role of Governments in the Internet (involved but not controlling).

Also some great stuff on avoiding a two-tier constrained Internet (which has been at the heart of its growth to date). And some very strongs hints that there will be significant change to the telecommunications regulatory environment.

The transcribers made a valiant effort with the Maori words at the end and almost got it right with Tana Koto instead of Tena Koto. They do an amazing job managing to do a typed transcript in real-time at the speed of someone speaking. Well well over 100 words a minute I would say.