APTLD80 Communique

The 80^th APTLD Members Meeting once again took place online, on 8 and 9 September 2021. Hosted by the University of South Pacific with the headquarters in Fiji, the .FJ ccTLD registry, the Meeting has become a truly breakthrough effort as it was co-located with the virtual Pacific IGF. Notably, APTLD promoted an alliance of I* organizations and spearheaded their collaborative effort, as well as became a principal sponsor of the Pacific IGF.

The joint event proved a real magnet for the multistakeholder community across the Pacific region as it drew over 600 registrations and blended the online mode with hub-based activities in 9 locations across the islands. Furthermore, the Pacific IGF organizers held an extra two days of sessions and awareness raising events on 6 and 7 September 2021 to celebrate the spirit of collaboration and unity in the region.

The joint event became the third virtual APTLD Meeting in a row and continued to develop the agenda and online events that contribute towards strengthening the community spirit in the pandemic era.

APTLD80 was traditionally preceded by 2 days of training. With the recent focus on a strong academic component and quality of training sessions, the APTLD Board has made an unprecedented decision to open the training sessions to all the registered participants in the joint event. The training sessions on marketing and cybersecurity were delivered by faculty of the University of Illinois and the Drexel University.

The joint event drew representatives of over 44 nations from across Asia Pacific, many of whom were first-timers. The Meeting was held in the traditional two-track mode boasting a total of over 40 sessions and over 100 panelists and presenters to cover the administrative, policy, technical, and security areas, as well as Internet Governance, including high-level panels featuring Pacific islands’ government representatives and a number of prominent international speakers. In order to promote broad participation, APTLD in collaboration with our partners, established participation hubs including in Papua New Guinea which enabled a broad range of members and stakeholders to participate.

Also, traditionally, in collaboration with the GoDaddy Registry’s team APTLD developed and sponsored trivia quizzes for the audience which were well received by the community.

APTLD would like to thank the UN-Internet Governance Forum Secretariat, the University of the South Pacific, Internet Society (ISOC), Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC), Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), InternetNZ, and volunteers from across the Pacific for co-sponsoring and promoting the unique joint event.