Thank you.

Yes. We are planning for more in-person events, so looking forward to that.

Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to meet with us, and I’m grateful again for all your support. I hope that we continue to work with each other. I’ll see you at the other events we organize.

I’m also very grateful that you understand the constraints that we have as well. The multi-stakeholder platform is in some ways quite fragile. And if we can avoid for it to be politicized, it maintains the multi-stakeholder interests, and I think that’s also in Taiwan’s interest as well, to continue ...

I think you have a clear understanding of the landscape. As you mentioned, it’s more complicated in other…

That might be easier, to talk with the host. Because it’s at their invitation.

The first step really is with the host government. If the host government is OK with it, then it’s at the invitation of the host government.

Thank you. I think there’s a great suggestion. I will discuss with Kenny when we think about how to frame the various themes for the forum.

It’s a little bit more complex, but I think to be honest, sticking to TW might be a way… Maybe Kuo-Wei can give us some advice?

The TW context is little bit easier.

I think it will be a little bit complex. Because it’s also how it will be interpreted.

The participation invitation to the HLGM is from the host government. It’s the host government who will invite the participants to attend.

There are two questions from Vicky, the first is when will be next high-level government meeting. There is some current ongoing discussion at the GAC; it also depends on whether the host government for an ICANN meeting will want to host a high-level government meeting at the time.

Within the APAC region, it’s quite clear when people want to attend events, that networking aspect is key. We’re hoping that, with the APAC DNS forum, we are able to achieve that as well.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to a physical gathering as well. One of the things we all agree that Zoom meetings cannot replace is networking. It’s very hard to, it’s impossible to replicate that.

For now, we’re really looking for more partners to support and work with each other. I’m hoping within the group of partners, then we can start laying out who might be willing to host the DNS forum for the next few years. Then we’re pretty much set.

That helps us build the momentum, for each year, when we have an annual event. That would help us then throughout the year when we discuss issues, when we come together on a yearly basis, we can really focus on what are some outcomes we could try to achieve from ...

Any of the partners can host a discussion at any time.

We could have, say, in India, they have a particular interest in a particular topic and something came up. If we wanted to do a webinar discussion on it, we can do so. We will have a dedicated website for the APAC DNS forum that helps to host and post ...

Yes. We are actively looking for regional partners so that we can have a coalition of sorts, with a combination of different stakeholders. The idea is that, if there is a current topic that comes up, we don’t have to wait for the yearly event to discuss it.

If it’s the APAC DNS Forum, I can just decide.

We were talking about DNS forum as a whole, that governance as a topic would be one key pillar where we think about norm setting in the multistakeholder fashion and use that as the model to discuss how can we collaborate with each other within the region or globally.

Web3 is still like the Wild West. Nobody really knows what it is, how it should truly be governed. It will come back to how is the Internet being governed as the model for that area.

I think, going forward, there is a trend for governments all over the world that they feel they have to regulate. I’m not saying regulation is a bad thing, but this concept of regulation and governments are coming together as an important topic, especially when we talk about Web3.

Where are we sitting right now, is perhaps a crossroads of head-to-head of innovation with the need for some regulation.

The last decade is more innovation. We’re looking at innovation sitting atop Internet technology.

In fact, I was just chatting with Kenny this morning, and one of the current trends that we are seeing – and Kenny has this on a very nice PowerPoint slide. In the last few decades, with the advent of the Internet, a lot of focus is on infrastructure development.

Yeah, so blockchain domains can be discussed. Any new innovation that sits on DNS could potentially be discussed as well. It provides this avenue for us to have a discussion within the region. That can be a starting point for a more global conversation.

If we talk about DNS, it is slightly broader, then anything industry-related to that can be discussed as well.

I actually in fact asked Kenny if he’s willing to explore hosting one of the APAC DNS forum in the longer term. It’s basically a regional forum to discuss anything related to the DNS. Actually, if we just talk about ICANN only, the topics are very narrow, because we only ...

We are definitely open and happy to explore. There are two ways of hosting ICANN meetings. One is the actual ICANN public meeting, the global one. Another one is I have recently launched the APAC DNS forum. I launched that in this year. The first local host for the event ...

Thank you. That really broadly sums up the kind of collaboration we have with the Taiwan community. Again, seeking your support to find other ways for more community members to participate in ICANN.

As far as I can remember, the NCC has been participating. Then after that, under the Ministry of Transportation and Communication, Morris Lin has been participating actively. And we hope to secure your continued support for the GAC members to participate.

Now, of course, last but not least, not forgetting very strong participation from the GAC. Prior to the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, we have received very strong support all the way back for as long as ICANN has been established.

I think you also know Nicole Chan, who is formerly the NCC chair. She sits on the Address Supporting Organization, which is also an organization of ICANN. So, we have existing, a lot of strong participation, and I think there are a lot of avenues that we can partner to ...

With TWNIC, they’ve been a strong partner and they were the first country code top-level domain to participate in one of our health identifiers work. We also partner every year on ICANN APAC TWNIC Engagement Forum, of which you also graced us before. That also helped to build a strong ...

Also, we have a very strong partnership with TWNIC. A lot of it is in the technical area which is within the ICANN remit, and it’s thanks to Kenny, ever since he stepped up as CEO of TWNIC. Great appointment for Kenny.

She in fact has a long history with us. She’s one of the alumni of the program I run for youth leaders. After she went through that program, then eventually she continued to participate, and now she sits in a leadership position. We are super-proud of her, and very happy ...

We have leaders from Taiwan who sit on leadership positions in ICANN. For example, in the GNSO Council, the council is an important decision-making body that approves policy made by multi-stakeholders. On the GNSO Council, we’ve had former councillors who are from Taiwan, and one of the current councillor is ...

He continues to help facilitate a lot of very good important conversations on current issues. The recent TWIGF discussion on blockchain domains, that was very interesting. A big thank you to Kuo-Wei who has always been supporting and helping to grow the community in Taiwan as well.

Within ICANN, we see very strong support and participation from multi-stakeholders. For that, we are very grateful. I’ll take the opportunity to share some of the participation that’s already been at ICANN. For example, Kuo-Wei has been a long-standing board member of ICANN for a long time, until he eventually ...

Our mission is to maintain a single interoperable Internet. To do that, we need the participation and support of multi-stakeholders around the world. I’m very grateful for your support of the multistakeholder model.

Minister, you might already have been briefed by your team as to ICANN’s mission.

I can talk about our relationship if you agree minister.

I’m fine with either language, but we were discussing about the transcript. They were asking me do I prefer the transcript in English or Chinese. I was like, “If I have to choose a language, then the working language for me English as well.” That’s why I said, “OK, let’s ...

Yes, I already did.

Again, to build personal relationships and explore how we can further strengthen our working relationship going forward.

The other opportunity also is because with the establishment of your new ministry, and we have new GAC representatives on ICANN, I thought I’d also take this opportunity to come and meet with the representatives and to get to know one another.

I see. Thank you again, Minister, for taking the time to meet us. I wanted to take the opportunity, first of all, because during the whole pandemic, we haven’t had the opportunity to visit Taiwan for a long time. In fact, I feel that I’ve already known you because we’ve ...

There was no audio on, so I couldn’t tell what topic.