Dear All CBWG, I am pleased to see our wiki space, and to start our adventure, to reach the big goal to build capacity in our regional End Users.

first of All want to say, we the people of AGEIA DENSI (founder LACRALO ALS ) are working on this matter since 2006 and in all countries of our region, in different scenarios like Universities, Professional Organizations, NGO`s, and participating in all Congresses, Seminars and Courses about this particular topic of the Internet Governance and its sub items like multistakeholder model, bottom up process etc.

We have a great number of our members participating on the Internet Governance Field y all of them have been my disciples, I can mention Andres Piazza today in charge of International Relations of LACNIC, Jose Arce cureent Chair of LACRALO and Fatima Cambronero mentioned in a first place to cover the MAG vacancy for this year by Caucus.

Our experience on this field is enormous and obviously we have some things to comment in relation with our expertise and I consider could be usefull to reach to our goal.

I Consider as Olivier said in his email, we need to achieve an strong engagement of people in our regions, and this goal only could be reached if people can participate, and people can participar only if they have knowledge.

If the people have knowledge they can discuss, if they are discussing is just because they have knowledge. seem a word game but it is the reality on this situation. It is a process.

For that we need focus on construct the capacity on our people, in our regions, and all around the world, to obtain the searched engagement .

I have certain experience on this matter in ICANN, and some years on this issue and I saw pass many people in charged of this subject, with no success.

Some time ago I chat with some Directors of the Board and with the ICANN Regional Vice President, about  wich were the keys of our success in the region, and with no more money than our assigned budget.

I am particularly convinced the first meeting should be face to face, the people need to have a first contact in person, they need to know how is the face of the speaker, is a psicologic matter, to get the attention of the audience and finally get their compromise.

We need to use our local resources, that we have. we have in our different regions many people with expertise and capacity to transmit this, and these people are volunteers, without fees to give some course or seminar in some place near his/her city  

Courses or Seminars could be on free places, without pay, like Universities Auditoriums, or something like that.

On the same sense, volunteers with commitment no need a five stars hotel, no need travel on plane, unless necessary to cover the distances and the time available.

And no less important, arrive with the message in the local tongue.

Finally, I completely  Agree, there are people who have not got an understanding of the process and we need  work locally, and that the Capacity Building of our ALSes and of At-Large members is more important than ever before.

I am convinced too, we have  different goals and objectives with ICANN Academy, or at least, should be.

Kind Regards.

Happy New Year everyone

I am a newbie on this group and am very happy to join my colleagues from APRALO and other regions who make up this important team. I very much agree with Carlos (and Sala  in other forums) with regards to the importance of raising the knowledge base of our current ALSes and finding ways in our regions to outreach and engage more participation from potential members globally in ICANN activities. But they aren't going to know what they don't know, unless we help them in this regard and to get them involved.

I am on the organising committee for the Beijing meeting in April, and have been tasked with helping Sala to gather together some data on ALS capacity building needs for a targeted training programme at the event. I will get an opportunity to talk to the ALS representatives who are actually coming to Beijing soon but I would appreciate some feedback from this team about any important CB issues that you believe must be included into the ALS capacity building programme, particularly for those who will be new to an ICANN meeting.  An introduction to members of the CBWG who can come to Beijing would have to be a "top of the list" item for the CB programme. Importantly too, it would be great if we could devise some strategy for continuing to engage these ALS participants post-ICANN meetings as well, for example give them a CB task and ask them to report feedback to the CBWG. 

I am sure that the Steering Committee would like to see lots of conversations among the working group members as to how we can help each other with capacity building issues. Don't forget, I'd like some ideas for Beijing as well

Regards

Maureen