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UA Day 2025: Call for Proposals
by Seda Akbulut Aug. 28, 2024

Aug. 28, 2024

Dear all, Call for proposals for UA Day 2025 has been opened. Please see the announcement and call for proposal details below. • Call for proposals for UA Day 2025: https://universalacceptance.day/ • Announcement: https://uasg.tech/2024/08/global-internet-community-encouraged-to-submit-ev… Feel free to share with your network. Thanks and regards, Seda Akbulut UA Program Manager Global Domains and Strategy Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

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UA Day 2025 - Call for Proposals
by Nitin Walia Aug. 26, 2024

Aug. 26, 2024

https://uasg.tech/2024/08/global-internet-community-encouraged-to-submit-ev… Event proposals are now being accepted for the third annual Universal Acceptance (UA) Day, to be held on or around 28 March 2025 (between 1 March and 30 May 2025). UA Day, held annually, is an opportunity to rally local, national, regional, and global communities and organizations to spread UA awareness and to promote UA adoption with key stakeholders.UA is a technical best practice that ensures all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script, language or character length, can be equally used by all Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems. Co-organized by the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), UA Day 2025 will consist of various virtual and in-person events held by the UASG, ICANN, global partners, and regional and local organizations between 1 March and 30 May 2025. UA Day 2025 builds on the success of UA Day 2024 and the inaugural UA Day in 2023. Together, the 2023 and 2024 events attracted approximately 15,000 participants worldwide across dozens of countries. These milestone events have helped mobilize technical and language communities, companies, governments and Domain Name System (DNS) industry stakeholders to champion UA on a global scale.Those interested in organizing a UA Day event must complete the UA Day Event Proposal Form by 11 October 2024. ICANN will provide limited support for proposed UA Day events based on this group’s recommendations.The following types of events are eligible for support:UA Awareness: Provide a high-level overview of UA and Email Address Internationalization (EAI), the benefits of being UA-ready, basic technical concepts related to UA and next steps for becoming UA-ready.UA Technical Training: Provide in-depth training on becoming EAI-ready for email system administrators and on becoming UA-ready for software developers.UA Academic Curricula: Work with academic faculty members and experts to integrate Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) and UA-related topics into existing technical curricula and design a roadmap.UA Adoption: Conduct a UA adoption exercise and share challenges and solutions to becoming UA-ready, and document your experience. Please note that advance preparatory work and review are required in order to qualify for a UA Adoption event.UA Regional Strategy: Discuss appropriate mechanisms for promoting UA adoption at the local, regional, and national levels.Proposals will be considered from all relevant organizations, including international, regional and local organizations, technology organizations and companies, open-source communities, standards bodies, email service providers, academia, industry groups, and language communities. UA is considered a foundational requirement for the continued expansion of the Internet. Since 2009, the landscape for domain names has changed markedly – in overall number of top-level domain names (TLDs) available, TLD character length and scripts available. However, the checks used by many software applications to validate domain names and email addresses often use rules that do not fully support Universal Acceptance. Achieving UA ensures everybody has the ability to experience the full social and economic power of the Internet using their chosen domain name and email address that best aligns with their interests, business, culture, language, and script.Questions about UA Day 2025 can be directed to UAProgram(a)icann.org. A full UA Day event calendar will be published in due course. In the meantime, interact with the UASG on social media (X, Facebook and LinkedIn) using the hashtag #Internet4All.RegardsNitin Walia(Vice Chair) UASG

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UASG
by anil Jain Aug. 22, 2024

Aug. 22, 2024

Dear UASG members, It is sometime since we interacted with each other. UA activities in ICANN are growing at unprecedented pace. In addition to UASG, ccNSO,GAC, gNSO and ALAC have taken up UA related activities in an aggressive way, helping UASG in achieving its objective. I may not be fulfilling my duty without mentioning UA WG of ICANN which is a strong UA pillar for all of us. UASG since last six months is into two major processes in addition to normal activities; i.e; drafting 5 years strategic plans and modifications in Its Governance policies. I am happy to inform you that discussions on 5 years strategic plans are completed within all chartered Working groups of UASG and we are ready to share the same with you shortly to seek your comments and feedback. As far as UASG Governance issues are concerned, we have already taken decision and implemented SOI ( Statement of Interest) process within UASG. ICANN staff supporting UASG is in the process of final implementation and issuance of final guidelines. UASG Coordination Working group is in final stages of concluding discussions and its recommendations of all governance issues referred to us thru ICANN staff. This outcome is likely to be shared with all of you for your comments and feedback, hopefully by September 2024. ICANN at present is having financial crunch, due to which they have decided to reduce expenditure and staff. SOs/ACs are advised to reduce their budget & expenditure, so UASG. We are informed that now onwards, UASG will only get support of ICANN staff for conducting seven one hourly meetings per month. ICANN staff have suggested some infrastructure changes in UASG organisational structure to make it possible. For making suggested infrastructure changes, UASG leadership have sought guidance from ICANN legal team whether UASG charter require changes for these fundamental changes or not. We are expecting to receive soughted legal advice by end of current week. Pending these changes, Seda, Sr Manager ICANN has kindly drafted schedule for conducting meetings of Coordination WG, Tech WG, Measurement WG and EAI working group till December 2024. Members of these WGs might have received the schedule by now. You are requested to contact Seda for any inconvenience in presented scheduling if any. Second Edition of UA Day celebration was a grand success. UASG received almost 50% higher response than last year. It was reported that more organisations and large number of individuals have participated in UA day activities from March24 to May2024. Thank You all for making this a biggest event of ICANN. 3rd Edition of UA Day is likely to be announced on 15th August,2024. I urge prominent countries/ organisations to be ready to forward your willingness/ nominations for the Global/Regional/National and Local UA Day events. All Working Groups are very active in their activities. Participation have gone up significantly in their regular meetings. To mention few, Tech WG have completed a survey on reasons of adoption/ No adoption of UA , analysis of response so received is in progress, EAI WG have taken out a “ Self Testing tool Guidelines of E-mail Servers/ applications, Measurement WG have drafted a out of box curriculum for UA related teaching courses in academia. Communication WG have taken out 3rd Edition of UASG News letter. With implementation of 5 years strategic plans, we hope we all shall be working on filling up remaining gaps in UA Adoption, which is latest plan of UASG in addition to UA awareness. Local Initiatives and UA Ambassadors are our UA soldiers on field, who have volunteered themselves to carry UA policies and guidelines for Internet practitioners for awareness, training, workshop and adoption. I must salute the spirit and special efforts taken by our field HEROs. Lastly I must say that Every Day is a challenge for us. We must be ready to welcome new gTLD round and face possible challenges of IDN rich gTLD demand in 2026. With Best Wishes, Anil Kumar Jain Chair, UASG

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Fw : [ME ICANN] UA Day 2024 Report Highlights Strong Interest in Universal Acceptance Adoption
by Nitin Walia Aug. 16, 2024

Aug. 16, 2024

Hello Sharing this email as its good information our our community members, it covers " UA Day 2024 Report Highlights Strong Interest in Universal Acceptance Adoption" Warm Regards Nitin Walia | DirectorData Xgen Technologies (P) LimitedTel: +91-141-2554970Fax: +91-141-2554972LinkedIn Twitternitin(a)xgenplus.com | नितिन(a)xn--v1bmv2ck2cxbe5k8bf.xn--h2brj9c | https://xgenplus.comVC: https://bridge01.videomeet.in - room: nitin pwd: 10000भाषाकीआजादी - Bridging the Digital Divide, Getting Next billion online From: Fahd Batayneh via Middle-East MailId : [143052541]To: ICANN Middle East Subject: [ME ICANN] UA Day 2024 Report Highlights Strong Interest in Universal Acceptance AdoptionDate: 15 Aug 2024 04:00:31 PM Attachments: smime.p7s https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/ua-day-2024-report-highlights-strong… The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) have published the Universal Acceptance (UA) Day 2024 Report, which provides a comprehensive overview of participation numbers, types of sessions held, and promotional efforts for the second annual UA Day. UA Day 2024 attracted participation from thousands of members in the global Internet community and garnered nearly 50 percent more session proposals than the inaugural 2023 event . Universal Acceptance ensures that all domain names and email addresses, regardless of language or script, work in Internet-enabled applications, devices, and systems. UA is key to enabling a more digitally inclusive and multilingual Internet . UA Day was established in 2023 as an opportunity to engage and mobilize technical and language communities, companies, governments, and Domain Name System (DNS) industry stakeholders to better understand the benefits of UA. Following the success of UA Day 2023, the second annual UA Day was organized in 2024, consisting of multiple types of events focused on creating UA awareness, capacity, and strategy. UA Day events were held between March and May 2024 to allow flexibility for local organizers, with most events taking place on or around 28 March. The call for proposals continued to include the event types from UA Day 2023, including UA awareness, technical training, and strategy sessions . In addition to those three categories, two new event types were introduced this year, including UA academic curricula sessions, focused on integrating Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) and UA-related topics into existing technical curricula. Event organizers also held UA adoption sessions, in which participants conducted a UA adoption exercise and shared challenges and solutions around becoming UA-ready. The two new event types comprised nearly a third of the 52 events held this year, with three UA academic curricula sessions and 12 UA adoption sessions. UA adoption events, in particular, are very important because they not only build technical capacity, but also demonstrate real-world adoption, encouraging others to be UA-ready . UA Day 2024 Participation Highlights: Total participants: 6,544 Proposals received: 133 Events held: 52 Countries/territories represented: 47 Languages represented: 23 (Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Bangla, Bemba, Burmese, Chinese, English, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Korean, Lao, Macedonian, Nyanja, Portuguese, Serbian, Sesotho, Sinhala, Spanish, Swahili, Tamil, and Thai) UA Day events were held by regional and local organizations, the UASG, global partners, and ICANN. This year`s keystone UA Day event was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 28 March in partnership with the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry Foundation (RNIDS) . Thanks to all who organized, participated, and helped make this year`s event a success. For more information about UA Day 2024, read the full recap report. For a gallery of photos from UA Day events worldwide, visit ICANN`s Flickr page. To learn more about UA, visit icann.org/ua and uasg.tech, and follow the hashtag #Internet4All on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X . _______________________________________________Middle-East mailing list -- middle-east(a)icann.orgTo unsubscribe send an email to middle-east-leave(a)icann.org_______________________________________________By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos) You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.Do not Remove:[HID]20240815160031831[-HID]

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Happy birthday to a super hero: DOCTOR DATA!!!!
by Don Hollander Aug. 14, 2024

Aug. 14, 2024

Caution: A Very Nerdy Post (VNP – not VPN) Today celebrates the birth of a fellow who lives to his own values and has given significant time to institutions that we’ve both been involved in – me professionally and he quite voluntarily. Dr Ajay Data has marched to his own drum beat and has worked to make the Internet a more inclusive space. For those that don’t know, the Internet is very much at its core English Centric. Regional and global gatherings are conducted in English. And the underlying code and parameters are also English (or ASCII for those who want to be pedantic) based. More than a decade ago, the parameters that are more visible to the eye (domain names and email addresses) began to cater for non-English languages. Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Hebrew, a dozen different scripts used in India, Māori, Russian, Thai and more. [Arabic and Hebrew are not only different scripts, they read right to left which adds additional complexity!] Ajay heard about this and thought that he saw an opportunity. He set his programming team to the development of some software that would support these scripts in the Internet. He started with email and went on to other email adjacent utilities. There were a few others who were also pursuing this prize – one in China, another in Taiwan, another in Thailand. But none made it as far as Ajay’s team. He had a commercial product that he was able to adjust for every language and script and it was accessible at a relatively reasonable price. But it wasn’t flying off the shelf, so to speak. There was a group called the Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) that was working to encourage all developers to make adjustments to their own software to support all domains and all email addresses. But it was for many years only Ajay’s XgenPlus that was readily available. So, he decided to join and participate with this UASG group. He was quite active, he supported his staff being active, and he went on to become The Chair – a position he held for four years. Progress in getting other applications to support all these new scripts has been surprisingly (to me anyway) slow – even Glacially (pre climate change) slow. Ajay has retired from the UASG – he was term limited – and moved on to other things. But we see him popping up at a lot of events in India that will encourage young people to get involved, to become entrepreneurial. Ajay and I had different strategies for achieving the UASG objectives. I thought we should just raise awareness of the issues to CIOs or their counterparts around the world and problem would be solved lickity-split. Though raising awareness was hard enough, when we did reach people they told us there was no real world demand and they had plenty of other tasks to work on. Ajay’s strategy was to generate demand by going to large countries where English is not so endemic and get their governments to include UA capabilities in their own purchasing criteria. While this worked at a state level in India, not wider – because there were too few suppliers who could meet the requirements. And these governments had plenty of other things to pursue. For the people who care about the plumbing of the Internet, this is another quixotic objective. They have been working on IPv6 and DNSSEC for even longer – and still with limited success other than places where there is one or two very influential people who have effectively mandated success – Sweden, Sri Lanka and the Netherlands come to mind. But this is a note to recognise Dr Ajay Data (great name for an IT guy) and his birthday and to thank him for his efforts, his achievements, and his friendship. Sent from my iPad

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Advancing a Multilingual Internet: ICANN Publishes 2024 IDN Report
by Nitin Walia Aug. 8, 2024

Aug. 8, 2024

Hello AllI`m sharing the information I received today that I thought could be useful to our community. https://www.icann.org/en/announcements/details/advancing-a-multilingual-int… Today, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers \(ICANN\) published the IDN Report June 2024. The report provides an overview of the status of Internationalized Domain Names \(IDNs\) at the top and second levels of the Domain Name System \(DNS\), as well as the IDN-related work done by the ICANN organization \(ICANN org\) and ICANN community from January 2023 to June 2024. The full report is available here . IDNs enable people, businesses, and governments around the world to use domain names in local languages and scripts, and are key to enabling a more digitally inclusive, multilingual Internet. In pursuit of the current ICANN Strategic Plan`s goal to encourage IDNs and Universal Acceptance \(UA\), ICANN org has been working with the community to make the DNS accessible in local languages for a linguistically diverse global population, while maintaining the stability and security of the DNS . ICANN org publishes the IDN Report annually to help track the status of IDNs and highlight ongoing IDN work. The June 2024 edition of the report continues to cover four main areas: delegation and registration statistics, IDN policy being developed by the ICANN community, IDN-related projects at ICANN org, and IDN implementation and operations at ICANN org . The highlights of this reporting period include the latest statistics for IDN top-level domain name delegations and second-level domain name registrations, as well as progress on policy development work by Generic Names Supporting Organization \(GNSO\) and the Country Code Names Supporting Organization \(ccNSO\). The report also includes information about ICANN org`s multiple projects to support these policies and work related to assist with IDN implementation efforts . For more information on IDNs and ICANN org`s IDN Program, visit the IDN homepage . Warm Regards Nitin Walia | DirectorData Ingenious Global LimitedTel: +91-141-2554970Fax: +91-141-2554972LinkedIn Twitternitin(a)data.in | नितिन(a)xn--c2bd1gb.xn--h2brj9c | https://dil.inVC: https://bridge01.videomeet.in - room: nitin pwd: 10000Get email id like me in your own language, download DATAMAIL app from your iOS or android play store. भाषाकीआजादी - Bridging the Digital Divide, Getting Next billion online [HID]2024080814054935[-HID] [XGENFOOTER] [-XGENFOOTER]

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Important: Preliminary Issue Report on Latin Script Diacritics
by Mark Datysgeld July 22, 2024

July 22, 2024

UA community, please add your thoughts to this critical matter that just got released for Public Comment: "the circumstance where a base ASCII generic top-level domain (gTLD) and the Latin script diacritic version of the gTLD are not variants of each other, and where currently no mechanism exists that allows a single registry operator to simultaneously operate both gTLDs." This is something that I have been leading in the GNSO Council for several months, but it's out of our hands and into the community's hands now. The issue we are trying to address is that, for example, the city of São Paulo cannot own both ".saopaulo" and ".sãopaulo" and manage them in a coherent way. For Latin speakers this doesn't make sense, as while functionally they are not variants, it's still the way the city's name got written in ASCII throughout the Internet's history so far due to a lack of UA. In other words, if we want to see Latin language geos and words actually try moving to their UA versions, we need a policy that allows them to have the safety of an ASCII fallback while also being able to innovate. Otherwise, it's such a risky proposition for them that we will repeat what happened last time, in which ".quebec" only applied for their ASCII while actively desiring to own and operate ".québec". Find it here and make sure to socialize it to relevant allies: https://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/proceeding/preliminary-issue-report… Best, -- Mark W. Datysgeld Director at Governance Primer [governanceprimer.com <https://governanceprimer.com>] ICANN GNSO Councilor

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ICANN Org’s Universal Acceptance Readiness Blog
by Nitin Walia July 18, 2024

July 18, 2024

Hi allJust sharing NEW: ICANN Org’s Universal Acceptance Readiness Blog https://www.icann.org/en/blogs/details/icann-orgs-universal-acceptance-read… Advancing UA-readiness remains a priority for ICANN internally and externally.RegardsNitin WaliaDirector Data Ingenious Global Limited Sent from Xgenplus Mobile app.

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UNESCO Consultation 27 June: Internet Universality Indicators
by Raymond Mamattah June 25, 2024

June 25, 2024

Hi all, I just found this related to UA. Interesting. Raymond Mamattah [image: linkedin] <https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-selorm-mamattah/> [image: facebook] <https://www.facebook.com/selorm.mamattah> [image: twitter] <https://twitter.com/RMamattah> Accra, Ghana ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: IGF Secretariat <igf(a)un.org> Date: Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 1:54 PM Subject: [DC] UNESCO Consultation 27 June: Internet Universality Indicators To: dc(a)intgovforum.org <dc(a)intgovforum.org> *UNESCO invites you to join its consultation to help shape the Second Generation of the Internet Universality Indicators <https://www.unesco.org/en/internet-universality-indicators>* *▫▫▫* The UNESCO Indicators follow the R.O.A.M principles that the Internet should be human Rights-based, Open, Accessible to all and nurtured by Multi-stakeholder participation. The updated Indicators need your inputs! *▫▫▫* Join during the IGF 2024 Second Open Consultations & Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) Meeting <https://intgovforum.org/en/content/igf-2024-second-open-consultations-and-m…>, alongside Members of the MAG and National, Subregional, Regional & Youth Initiatives (NRIs), this *Thursday, 27 June at 12:00 UTC (14:00 CEST) onsite in Geneva or online* *REGISTER HERE <https://indico.un.org/event/1010751/> * _______________________________________________ DC mailing list DC(a)intgovforum.org To unsubscribe or manage your options please go to http://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/dc_intgovforum.org

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Re: [UA-discuss] UNESCO Consultation 27 June: Internet Universality Indicators
by Nitin Walia June 25, 2024

June 25, 2024

Thanks for sharing Raymond Warm Regards Nitin Walia | DirectorData Ingenious Global LimitedTel: +91-141-2554970Fax: +91-141-2554972LinkedIn Twitternitin(a)data.in | नितिन(a)xn--c2bd1gb.xn--h2brj9c | https://dil.inVC: https://bridge01.videomeet.in - room: nitin pwd: 10000Get email id like me in your own language, download DATAMAIL app from your iOS or android play store. भाषाकीआजादी - Bridging the Digital Divide, Getting Next billion online >From: Raymond Mamattah via UA-discuss MailId : [142078934]To: Jeffrey Joseph via UA-discuss Subject: [UA-discuss] UNESCO Consultation 27 June: Internet Universality IndicatorsDate: 24 Jun 2024 07:26:46 PM Hi all, I just found this related to UA. Interesting . Raymond Mamattah Accra, Ghana ---------- Forwarded message ---------From: IGF Secretariat igf(a)un.org>Date: Mon, Jun 24, 2024 at 1:54 PMSubject: [DC] UNESCO Consultation 27 June: Internet Universality IndicatorsTo: dc(a)intgovforum.org dc(a)intgovforum.org> UNESCO invites you to join its consultation to help shape the Second Generation of the Internet Universality Indicators ▫▫▫ The UNESCO Indicators follow the R.O.A.M principles that the Internet should be human Rights-based, Open, Accessible to all and nurtured by Multi-stakeholder participation. The updated Indicators need your inputs! ▫▫▫ Join during the IGF 2024 Second Open Consultations &amp Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) Meeting, alongside Members of the MAG and National, Subregional, Regional &amp Youth Initiatives (NRIs), this Thursday, 27 June at 12:00 UTC (14:00 CEST) onsite in Geneva or online REGISTER HERE _______________________________________________ DC mailing list DC(a)intgovforum.org To unsubscribe or manage your options please go to http://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/dc_intgovforum.org _______________________________________________UA-discuss mailing listUA-discuss@icann.orghttps://mm.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/ua-discuss_______________________________________________By submitting your personal data, you consent to the processing of your personal data for purposes of subscribing to this mailing list accordance with the ICANN Privacy Policy (https://www.icann.org/privacy/policy) and the website Terms of Service (https://www.icann.org/privacy/tos) You can visit the Mailman link above to change your membership status or configuration, including unsubscribing, setting digest-style delivery or disabling delivery altogether (e.g., for a vacation), and so on.Do not Remove:[HID]20240624192646160[-HID] [XGENFOOTER] [-XGENFOOTER]

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