 Nick Weiner, a man who's often referred to as the father of the Internet for Africa. Nick, thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us. Let's start out in terms of ICANN and the way it is viewed and what it should be around the world. What are your perceptions of ICANN as a global entity? OK, ICANN, when it started around 98, did not have many Africans participating. And so we took it upon ourselves to actually try to increase the African participation. And one would consider that as the beginning of more global inclusion in ICANN's activities. Nick, when did you first start to become involved with ICANN? Around 97, when the Internet ad hoc committees work was going on. So it's very early stage? Very early stage. When it was founded? Yes, very early stage. Have you seen a difference from those early days to now? Have you seen a difference with the organization as regards its outreach to the rest of the world? There's been a big difference. Of course, it was gradual. The difference is that there's much more participation from Africa. And there's also much more activity of ICANN in Africa than before. And the participation is not only from the technical community, which was the case in the beginning, but you can see a wide spectrum of disciplines participating from legal to civil society to governments and so on. So on the whole, there has been an increased participation from the region and increased presence of ICANN in the region. Why is it important that there be global participation in this organization? Well, we view the Internet as for all and as an essential resource for development. And for such a public interest resource, participation is crucial because there may be some side effects in the development or adoption of the Internet and to ensure that the side effects are not so negative in impact. Participation must be strong, not only in numbers, but in the diversity of the participation. And from that point of view, I think it's a good thing that ICANN is doing. In the early days of ICANN, was there a legitimate effort to outreach to the global body? Or was it pretty much a token effort where ICANN said, yes, we're a global body, but there weren't a lot of efforts. There wasn't a lot of concentration on a variety of languages and translations. What was your sense between then and now? OK, from my point of view, ICANN has always been interested in global participation. It may have been that certain regions were not as prepared because we had very smaller, much smaller networks. And it's true that the initial participation was from the technical community. But there was always an open door. And in fact, that is the reason why we were able to increase the African participation in ICANN. So I believe that ICANN has always made an effort to commensurate with the stage of development for Africa to be involved. In fact, there were times that we could not even find sufficient Africans from the technical perspective to participate. But as we went along, the numbers increased, we made more demands of ICANN, and ICANN responded, and we made even more demands. And that is why you have the multilingual environment, and you also have lowering of barriers and so on to participation in general. At what stage, and maybe there wasn't a specific stage, did you see that ICANN had upped its game in terms of including stakeholders from not only Africa, but other global regions? Right from the very beginning, I remember there was some committee of sorts chaired by a board member, Conradys, at the time. And the objective was, in fact, to determine what it would take for more multistakeholder participation from the regions which were not adequately represented. And that effort did define a number of things that if maybe emphasized would result in increased participation. So it has always been a conscious concern, right from the very beginning, that there should be sufficient participation, especially from the underserved regions. I'm willing to bet that in the early days, when you would talk to your colleagues on continental Africa, and you were talking about ICANN, they would go, what the hell is ICANN? How has that changed? OK, there's much more knowledge about the internet in general and also about some of the resources that ICANN, one would say, administers or managers. And so there has been a significant improvement in the awareness of the role of ICANN. Some thought ICANN was something in the US, but now it's different. Now we see non-mess registries issues. We see domain names issues. We see, in general, public policy related issues. And people view ICANN as a significant player in that regard. And the government engagement has also been very constructive. So the viewpoint has changed. Of course, there's a lot more work to be done. But I'd like to point out that the work is commensurate with the state of our internet development. The faster Africa develops, the improved engagement and participation in ICANN. It's often said that Africa is the next growth center for all forms of telecom, but specifically internet expansion. Is that true? Oh, very true. Very, very true. Because now you're beginning to see governments come out with policies regarding internet and internet development. You see them talking about ICT and ICT planning and so on at all levels. You see governments trying to roll out their own networks using the same TCPIP internet things. You see governments moving into open data. All these things ride on the internet. And so I would say countries are beginning to come in not only from the government side, but from all the other groupings. You see groups pushing for inclusion, expressions, freedoms of expressions. You see groups pushing for protection of minors. All different types of stakeholders. Now it's very wide open. And I think that's a good thing. Does anything specific have to happen to increase the involvement to an even greater level? OK, for me, the first thing is education, because some of the challenges are capacity oriented, both in terms of engineering capacity, but as well as policy related capacities and prioritizing internet-related issues in the minds of the biggest players in our environments being governments. And the educational system needs to undergo some reforms to adopt more of the computing science technologies that underpin the internet. And we need to venture into some new areas that depend on the internet as well. So yeah, there's work to be done. But I think we're in progress. In the right direction. In the right, very right direction. How does the work of the panel on public responsibility framework relate to ICANN's goals in terms of global expansion? OK, public responsibility is extremely important so that we value the resources that have been given to us and use them in a responsible manner. I think the work of the public responsibility in ICANN made significant progress in the eyes of governments who see themselves as, you might say, custodians of public interest. So in that area, we did get a good match of ICANN focused interests and the interests of government. It was concurrent. That was very good. At the same time, it helped assure non-government oriented organizations that ICANN is acting in a responsible way. And ICANN itself had a definition of public responsibility, which was very effective. And it's been discussed in important forums like IGF and so on. So all these things I thought were helping in a good way. The IANA stewardship transition has now occurred successfully. Did you notice a difference? Was there a lot of discussion, resentment, argument about the US unique role in ICANN before the stewardship was accomplished? And if so, how has that changed now that the stewardship has occurred? Proud to the transition, at least in the African context, I recall that around 2011, there was a meeting in Senegal. And ministers in Dakar issued a communique asking for more inclusion in general in a variety of different ways. That was an indication that something was not right in the sense that governments from Africa were asking for more involvement. I know that it was underpinned by the US being perceived as a sole oversight. And it also occurred in many other international forums that I had been working at. However, from the transition and the play that we saw of multi-stakeholder activity at work, many governments began to feel at ease that not only is US being generous to give, quote unquote, oversight to a multi-stakeholder body, but ICANN was also going through a process of increasing participation and people appreciation of the multi-stakeholder processes. So that attended a lot of work in advancing the interest in that regard. And I'm sure you probably may have noticed more African participation in GARC from the government point of view and also in the other sectors as well. So it did a lot of good. That brings me to a question I'm interviewing right now. We're in Johannesburg. We're at ICANN 59. As I look around, I see many more African attendees than I've seen at previous ICANN meetings. Are they here trying to figure out what is ICANN? What's this about to see whether or not they want to be involved? Or are a large majority of the attendees, they know what ICANN is, and they're ready to start working in the organization? Give me a sense of it. OK, it's a mixture. Well, when ICANN comes to a region, the region gets mobilized to participate. And so you see a good number of new comments, new entrants, or people who are interested but have never had a chance. Because it's closer. That makes it different. But at the same time, you see a lot of the senior people view it as a place that they must be part of. And so you see a lot of the old folks who have moved. It cannot be ignored. They don't want to be left out of that as well. And so it creates a good atmosphere for exchange among the experienced and the new as well. Some governments would normally not go to Buenos Aires from Africa to participate. But when it is in Africa, they feel obligated to be present. So all these factors actually contribute to the mix of participants that you see here. Does anything specific have to happen to make that even greater, to make African participation in ICANN even greater? OK, I think we are doing it, but we need to do more of it. Presence of ICANN in Africa makes a big difference. Because we are looking to own something, own a piece of ICANN quote unquote. And so the more there is presence, the better the participation will improve. By presence, do you mean opening up more ICANN offices? We have an office now in Nairobi. Or do you mean have more meetings here? What are you talking about specifically? OK, I'm talking about more meetings, more leaders here, but more activities, more participation with us. No, as if there is some meeting that is important happening in Africa, we like to see ICANN present more. If, for instance, there is something going on with research and education networks, which is a major pillar of our work, we would like to see more ICANN presence. ICANN should be visible within the different caucuses that we are developing, whether it is in the names area that we are directly related to ICANN interest, or, for example, in the research and education networks area, which is not directly in ICANN's interest, but it's an important forum that is also advancing the internet. We like to see more ICANN presence. Of course, more offices makes a difference. Africa is very huge. And so it's good to have one in Kenya, but if we can do more, because there should be more. It will make a difference, because we have five, six subregions. And if it appears that only one subregion, then participation will not be as much as if you had two or three of them covered. So what I'm hearing you say is, ICANN's going in the right direction. It just needs to go further. Correct. Yeah, because engagement can't stop at the first step. You have to continue and do some more. You have to communicate. ICANN has to communicate that it is genuinely reaching out, both to governments and to different geographies and to different communities. And I think that helps. Nate Cwayner, considered the father of the internet in Africa, thank you again for taking the time to talk to us. It's been a pleasure.