 Welcome ICAN 68 attendees. I am Julia Charvolaine from the Policy Development Support Team at ICAN. I am here today at the Villa d'Homergue in Cannes, and thank you very much for hosting us. I am here today with Olivier Crepin-Leblanc, the 2020 recipient of the ICAN Community Excellence Award. Congratulations Olivier. Before we begin this interview, we do want everyone to know that we are two metres apart, six feet for our American viewers. Our video crew are wearing masks and are maintaining social distancing, and we are wearing masks too. Olivier, you served on the first three selection panels after the launch of this award. How does it feel to be the recipient this year? Thank you for this question. It's funny because I do feel a bit strange about it. Having been on the first three panels, I know the amount of work that goes behind actually choosing someone, and it's not just a case of picking somebody out of the lot and saying, right, you know, there you go, that's who we go for. There are a lot of nominations that come through. There's a first pass with, okay, some people not really being known across all of ICAN, and then afterwards there are quite a number of contenders still, and the discussions go pretty deeply. So I feel somehow, I guess, humbled or flattered that some people took the time to discuss things and decided that I would be the recipient this year. It's, yeah, it's strange, but it feels good. Right. So with this award, what does this award mean to you? To me, I think it means years and years of dedication to the multi-stakeholder cause. But in some way, I also feel like, you know, this year I'm the recipient of it, but there are so many people in the ICAN community that are worthy of receiving this award. So I kind of feel that I need to share it with others. I need to share it with the community that I've been most closely associated with, the at-large community and users. But at the same time, I also feel that perhaps someone else should have had this award rather than me, and I'm hoping maybe next year they'll get it. When I look at past recipients of the award, I feel certainly very honored because the past awardees are numerous, well, not that numerous, but what I mean is very varied from all parts of ICAN and they all have quite an illustrious career. So yeah, I'm pretty humbled about it. You've been part of the ICAN community for several years. So what or who inspired you to become involved in ICAN? Well, it's a long story, actually. Back in the late 90s, I participated in a process called the Internet Ad Hoc Committee, IAHC. And suddenly I read in the press or on the Internet, as one would do, I read some news that actually the running of the system identifiers, the Internet's identifiers, was going to be given over, transferred over to a new organization that was being created. And it kind of came without us really seeing it coming. It was a bit of a surprise. So I wasn't too pleased at the time, having spent some time on something and suddenly this thing turns up. But then when reading about it, I was a bit baffled because it was supposed to be a case of directors being selected by the community, big election system and multi-stakeholder, which I guess wasn't really a term that was used much back in those days. We thought there was a lot of people involved, but we didn't really think of it as being multi-stakeholder. The word hadn't really been coined as such. And then, of course, came the first set of elections and I campaigned back then for some candidates. So we're talking about 2000 or so, early 2000s. The election came out with some results that I hadn't foreseen. I was also taking part in the DNSO, the Domain Name Support Organization mailing list. That's the predecessor to everything else. And somehow got a little bit turned off by the robustness of the discussions that were over there, robustness as in it was very hot. Not as in hot like in Cannes, but hot as in pretty strong worded stuff. And I kind of veered away. And then in 2008, ICAN came to France and it was hosted in Paris. And I had by then developed a pretty strong obsessive compulsive disorder of wanting to go for IPv6 and push IPv6 everywhere. The problem, of course, is that I saw ICAN as being perhaps an organization that could really shepherd this process. And so I went to Paris and to meet with the different chairs of supporting organizations and advisory committees that I managed to hail in the corridors as I looked through the ICAN. There used to be a little booklet and the pictures of people and so on. I used to run after them and tell them, hey, I need to talk to you about IPv6. Many of those leaders sent me to a guy wearing a hat who was the chair of the ASO at the time, address supporting organization. And that's how I started, basically. And from there onwards, I got hooked. It's funny because one of the rooms that I stood in at the time was the at-large room. I had no idea what that was about. I sat down, I recognized a net demigod or net god, I don't know what you would call him, Jeff Houston, who is a real, you know, guy who knows everything about IPv6. And after having sat in the room for about half an hour or 20 minutes where the room was discussing developments in IPv6, the then chair, Cheryl Langdonor, turned around and said, well, I see some new people in the room. Let them introduce themselves and tell us what they think about our discussion. And that was hooked and that was it. All right. Why is staying part of the ICANN community important to you? I think it's important because for me personally, it's a way to show my support for the multi-stakeholder model. There are very few organizations that work like ICANN does in the world and that are able to make the decisions that affect millions, hundreds of millions, billions of people worldwide. And in general, those big decisions are made by governments, are made by maybe major corporations, but not by a group of people that volunteer to work together and to find a just middle in their discussions. And so the, you know, not being able to support this or not coming to an ICANN meeting, not attending, not going to the calls, not taking part for me would be a failure for me to have, I have a real, I have a passion for the multi-stakeholder model. I think it's extremely important, not only at ICANN, but in all walks of life. There are other processes that need a more integrated system of getting input from the population and so on. And going and, you know, sort of trying to sell the multi-stakeholder model out there without actually participating hands-on in one would be completely wrong, wrong of me. So it's very important to take part. It's very important to make sure that I can help others in taking part. And for me, it's a pleasure. It's time-consuming and it might not be great for my business because I do have a life outside of ICANN, but at the same time, it's something that I feel very honored to be able to carry out. About that, Olivier, you are well known for spending time helping newcomers at ICANN. Why is helping newcomers so important to you? Well, one of the things that we're not able to do in life, we can do a lot of things, but one thing we cannot do is to stop time, and that means we're all getting older. At some point, we're all going to be on the way out. We're all going to be pursuing other things, whereas fishing or whatever, you know, swimming, stamp collection, whatever it is that one does in their old age, others do parachuting or whatever, you know. But, you know, we all have to move on at some point and, of course, there needs to be a constant flow of new people that replace the people that leave. Second, I think that the complexity of the topics that we discussed at the moment is such that there is a need for more people to get involved. One small group of people is not able to do all the work that is there. The Internet today is, and because of COVID-19, we can see it's actually affecting more and more people. And the problems we have, our problematics, not really problems, but it's the challenges that we have, are sometimes so complex that there is no right or wrong answer. There is a middle answer that will satisfy most people. Now, that's the definition of consensus in some way. And so not having enough people doing that work means that you'll have more people rubber stamping it and only a handful, you know, trying to push it through. And that doesn't work as a sustainable model. So constantly we do need more people. And I'm not just saying more people for a specific part of the community. Yes, of course, I'd love to see more people at large, but more people in the different supporting organizations and the different constituency of the GNSO, for example, is really important. And for me, there's nothing more satisfying than being able to talk to young people a few years, you know, just a few hours during a meeting a few years earlier and find them later on in a position of authority, sometimes on the GAC, sometimes working for a registry or a registrar or in the NCSG or on the ALAC or, you know, in different parts where they've found their place that I can. And that's, you know, that's, it's great because you see that it's made a difference in their life and in turn they are making a difference in ICANN. Olivier, you talked about the COVID-19. The COVID-19 outbreak has meant that we need to, we've been, we switched to virtual meetings instead of physical ones. What advice do you have for the ICANN community on how to make the most out of these meetings? Yeah, we switched to these virtual meetings. And I guess for the environment, it's a great thing because we're, you know, you don't have this traveling roadshow of thousands of people going across the globe and taking flights. That being said, having looked at recent working groups and I'm talking here about the ones that do have some really significant issues that they need to resolve, it is difficult to resolve things only online because your window to the world is virtually just a little window, a little square box that's there. And so the lack of personal touch, this, you know, we're creatures that like interaction. We look at body language, we do all sorts of things that help us communicate better. And the breaks are the time, you know, in between meetings are the times when sometimes the differences that we have in the meeting can be resolved and that's something that's missing right now. I'd say that for attendees that are seasoned attendees, they should keep in touch with other participants outside the actual calls themselves as well. If only just for, you know, have a quick chat for a few minutes and, you know, you can do direct calls, the Skyping and all the other software that's out there. And I'd say that's one of the things that they should do. The other thing is don't try to get involved in too many things at the same time. I don't think you can stay for six hours in front of a screen and still remain in your head. I think that if you do stay in front of it, you're either superhuman. I know there are a handful of people like that in ICANN that can do this, or you're not really listening and you're kidding yourself that you're actually taking part and you're basically doing all sorts of other stuff. So I think that focusing on the sessions that really interest you so as to be able to take part fully in the session is important because you'll get a lot more out of it. On the other hand, trying to cover everything is probably even harder when you're doing it at home than when you're doing it in the room because you're not actually, you're totally disconnected than from the discussion that's taking place. Thank you Olivier for taking the time to speak with us. Stay safe and healthy and congratulations again. Well, thank you very much Julia and thanks to the ICANN community for this award. Thank you.