Open Forum #36 Challenges & Opportunities for a Multilingual Internet

Summary

This discussion focused on the importance of multilingualism on the internet and the challenges of implementing universal acceptance (UA) of internationalized domain names (IDNs) and email addresses. Government representatives from India, Egypt, and the UK presented case studies on their efforts to promote multilingualism online. Key themes included the technical readiness but slow uptake of IDNs, the need for greater awareness and confidence among users, and the critical role of universal acceptance in enabling a truly multilingual internet experience.

Speakers highlighted that while technical solutions for IDNs exist, challenges remain in widespread implementation and user adoption. The discussion emphasized that universal acceptance is essential for digital inclusion, as it allows people to navigate the internet in their native languages. Participants noted that governments can play a crucial role by leading by example, incorporating UA readiness into procurement processes, and promoting awareness.

The conversation expanded to include the importance of accessibility for people with disabilities and the need to consider sign languages in multilingual internet discussions. Experts stressed that the issue has evolved from a purely technical problem to a social policy challenge requiring collaboration across sectors. The discussion highlighted the roles of various stakeholders, including governments, big tech companies, universities, and DNS participants, in advancing universal acceptance.

Participants agreed that framing the issue in terms of digital inclusion could help broaden understanding and support. The discussion concluded with calls for continued collaboration, capacity building, and integration of internationalization concepts into educational curricula to equip future professionals with necessary skills for implementing a truly multilingual internet.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of multilingualism and internationalized domain names (IDNs) for digital inclusion and reaching the next billion internet users

– Technical challenges around universal acceptance of IDNs and internationalized email addresses

– The need for governments to promote and implement multilingual internet services

– The role of various stakeholders (governments, tech companies, universities, etc.) in advancing universal acceptance

– Moving beyond technical solutions to address policy, awareness, and implementation challenges

Overall purpose/goal:

The discussion aimed to highlight government efforts to promote multilingualism on the internet, share case studies, and explore ways to advance universal acceptance of internationalized domain names and email addresses to create a more inclusive internet.

Tone:

The tone was collaborative and solution-oriented throughout. Participants shared challenges but focused on opportunities and ways different stakeholders could work together to make progress. There was a sense of urgency about the importance of the issue, balanced with recognition of the complexity and need for sustained effort from multiple parties.

Speakers

– Owen Fletcher: Moderator

– Jaisha Wray: Associate Administrator, Office of International Affairs at NTIA

– Pradeep Kumar Verma: Scientist D, Government of India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT

– Nigel Hickson: Senior Advisor on Internet Governance and the Domain Name System, UK Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology

– Manal Ismail: Chief Expert for Internet Policies, National Telecom Regulatory Authority, Egypt

Additional speakers:

– Teresa: Representative from ICANN

– Keith Drazek: Representative from Verisign

– Sabina: From the dynamic coalition of accessibility and disability, Mexico

– Sadhvi Saran: Representative from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

– Ram Mohan: Chief Strategy Officer at Identity Digital

– Anil Kumar-Jain: Chair of USG in ICANN

– Jen Chung: Representative from DotAsia organization

– Sarmad: Role not specified, likely associated with ICANN

Multilingualism and Universal Acceptance on the Internet: A Comprehensive Discussion

This report summarizes a discussion on the importance of multilingualism on the internet and the challenges of implementing universal acceptance (UA) of internationalized domain names (IDNs) and email addresses. Government representatives from India, Egypt, and the UK presented case studies on their efforts to promote multilingualism online, while other stakeholders contributed insights on technical, policy, and social aspects of the issue.

Key Themes and Agreements

1. Importance of Multilingualism for Digital Inclusion

Speakers strongly agreed on the critical role of multilingualism in achieving digital inclusion and enabling meaningful internet access for diverse populations. Jaisha Wray, Associate Administrator at NTIA, emphasized that multilingualism is essential for digital inclusion and meaningful connectivity. Ram Mohan, Chief Strategy Officer at Identity Digital, argued that language is a fundamental requirement for internet access and digital services. Manal Ismail, from Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority, highlighted that a multilingual internet provides a gateway for the next billion users.

2. Technical Progress and Implementation Challenges

While technical solutions for IDNs exist, challenges remain in widespread implementation and user adoption. IDNs are functionally operational at the DNS level, but there is a need to focus on the application layer for full UA implementation. Ram Mohan emphasized that the focus should shift from technical issues to social policy and implementation aspects of UA.

3. Government Initiatives and Role

Multiple speakers highlighted government-led initiatives to promote multilingualism and universal acceptance in their respective countries. Governments can play a crucial role by leading by example, incorporating UA readiness into procurement processes, and promoting awareness.

4. Multi-stakeholder Collaboration

Participants emphasized the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in UA implementation, including governments, big tech companies, universities, and DNS participants such as registries and registrars. Jaisha Wray highlighted the necessity of multi-stakeholder collaboration for policy development.

5. Education and Capacity Building

Speakers agreed on the importance of integrating UA concepts into education and professional development. There was a call for better integration of internationalization concepts in university curricula and the inclusion of UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts.

Case Studies

1. India: Pradeep Kumar Verma from India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT discussed the launch of the Bhasanet portal to promote multilingual internet. He also mentioned the MGMD project, which aims to create multilingual domain names for government websites.

2. Egypt: Manal Ismail shared Egypt’s experiences with IDN ccTLD and their work on UA deployment in government projects. She highlighted the challenges faced with right-to-left scripts like Arabic and the importance of UA for digital inclusion.

3. United Kingdom: Nigel Hickson from the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology discussed the country’s recognition of the importance of providing government services in multiple languages. He also mentioned the UK’s experiences with IDNs in Wales.

Thought-Provoking Insights

1. Ram Mohan suggested reframing UA and IDN discussions in terms of digital inclusion to increase understanding and adoption. He also called for toolkits to help policymakers implement language services.

2. Nigel Hickson emphasized the role of governments in ensuring equitable access to public services across languages.

3. Sarmad identified a gap in university education regarding internationalization in software development and called for capacity development in this area.

4. Sabina from Mexico highlighted the importance of including sign language and considerations for people with disabilities in the multilingual internet discussion.

5. Sadhvi from the ITU shared information about their work on multilingualization of IDNs.

6. Anil Kumar-Jain emphasized the role of big tech companies, universities, and DNS participants in implementing UA.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the complex interplay of technical, policy, and social factors in achieving a truly multilingual internet. While progress has been made in technical solutions, the focus is shifting towards implementation, policy development, and user adoption. Multi-stakeholder collaboration, government leadership, and integration of UA concepts into education emerged as key strategies for advancing universal acceptance and creating a more inclusive digital world.

As the internet continues to evolve, addressing these challenges will be crucial for ensuring that the next billion users can access and navigate the digital landscape in their own languages, thereby fostering greater digital inclusion and equitable access to information and services worldwide.

Owen Fletcher: from Jayshia Ray, our Associate Administrator within my office, the Office of International Affairs at NTIA. Thank you. We’ve co-organized this Open Forum with our colleagues from the governments of Egypt, India, and the United Kingdom. I will be moderating and introducing our speakers. We are going to start with opening remarks from Jayshia ray, our Associate Administrator within my office, the Office of International Affairs at NTIA. Thank you.

Jaisha Wray: Thank you for that introduction, Owen, and thank you all for joining us either in person or as a part of our online audience. Also thank you to our host, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and to the IGF Secretariat for supporting today’s event. Everyone online deserves access to a digital sphere that is diverse, inclusive, and that serves their needs. In order to create this digital sphere and enable meaningful connectivity, we must acknowledge the fundamental role that language plays on the internet. We also know that additional work to improve multilingualism on the internet is critically needed. There are over 7,000 languages and dialects used globally, but only about 10 of those languages have any substantial online presence. The multi-stakeholder community has developed technical solutions to enable a more multilingual internet. One goal of our discussion today is to highlight that governments can do more to advance the implementation of those solutions. Now a number of challenges must be addressed in order to reach our goal of a truly multilingual internet. An important place to start is ensuring that everyone can navigate the internet in their own language. But to do this, we need domain names in all languages, and we need those domain names to work in the same way that English domain names do now. This means software applications must treat all top-level domains equally, regardless of the script they are in, and this is really the basis of the term universal acceptance. The multi-stakeholder internet community must work together to build policy that encourages the universal acceptance of all domain names and email addresses, namely those that are not based in the Latin alphabet character set. In addition to the issue of universal acceptance, we need a better understanding of the market dynamics impacting the uptake of internationalized domain names, or IDNs. As we continue to pursue progress towards a multilingual internet, we must consider where the technical solutions are succeeding and where more work is needed. Finally, local language content, the delivery of which is enabled by IDNs and universal acceptance, is also a key element of the multilingual internet and requires its own policy interventions. During today’s Open Forum, government representatives from India, Egypt, and the United Kingdom will present on their activities to promote multilingualism on the internet, including through efforts to promote universal acceptance, the uptake of internationalized domain names, and local content development. During last year’s IGF in Kyoto, NTIA held a workshop on digital inclusion and multilingualism on the internet. We recognized the important role of domain names in promoting linguistic diversity online, the connection between meaningful connectivity and multilingualism, and that universal acceptance is really a foundational requirement for a multilingual internet. This year, by focusing on the role that governments can play in the pursuit of internet multilingualism, our intent is that this Open Forum continues to build momentum and raise awareness of this critical issue. We aim to highlight the lessons learned so far and look ahead to next steps. We’d also like to recognize the significant and ongoing work of industry, relevant technical and international organizations, and the TLD operator community in advancing IDNs and universal acceptance. I’ll also note that many of the folks working on these issues are with us here today. We are very pleased that you are here and actively contributing to the discussions, and we’d really encourage you to engage in the discussion following the presentations because we are interested in your reflections on government efforts to raise awareness and accelerate adoption. Through the efforts of all of us and all stakeholders, improved multilingualism on the internet will provide a gateway to the next billion of internet users. With that, I will turn it back to Owen Fletcher, our moderator today, who will introduce our case study presenters. Thank you. Owen Fletcher Thank you, Jaysha. I’m hitting the next slide button. We will have three case studies presented. Our first one is from Mr. Pradeep Kumar Verma, Scientist D from the Government of India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT. Pradeep, please go ahead. Pradeep Kumar Verma Thank you, Owen.

Pradeep Kumar Verma: I think I’m audible. So I will be presenting two case studies from India. So one is on the Bhasanet portal, and one is Mera Gaon and Mera Dharohar, known as MGMD. So first of all, I will say about India’s linguistic and cultural heritage and strength So India has a 22 scheduled official languages that covers 15 IDNs, CCTLD, which is under 11 scripts. And the thing is, all the domain names in IDNs have been started for all these 22 official languages. So first of all, I would like to say that under these 22 scheduled languages, they follow one-to-many and many-to-many relations. That means one script may cover eight languages, even one language may cover two scripts. So that is the diversity and the strength of the Indian languages. So just I will take a tour on the Global Universal Acceptance Day. So in 2023, India took a lead in official launching of Global UADA on March 28. After that, on regional UADA during 2024, India has launched Bhasanet portal. So this portal basically promotes the multilingual internet and enhances the UA acceptability in India. So this initiative basically equips the developers and the other technical communities with the necessary tools and the processes, documents, and how this would go with the universal acceptance. So these are some highlights of the Bhasanet portal. So this portal covers all 22 languages. This portal itself covers all 22 domain names. And so the content part of this portal covers all 22 scheduled languages. So basically, this portal covers the SOPs for the technical communities, for the startups, frequently asked questions, the UA code samples that is basically in the Java, Python, and other languages. And we also provide the ticketing system for the support if anyone wants to come and develop their portal in their native language for their IDN. So he can just raise a ticket and one-to-one he can communicate with the linguistic expert and the expert who is working in the IDN field. So this is a snapshot of the portal. Next I will come to the Mera Gaon Meri Dharohar, MGMD. So it’s My Village and My Heritage. So under this project and with the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, we have provided 0.6 million villages with their digital identities. So each village has their digital identity, their domain name in .in as well as .bharat. So this is covered under the zone mgmt.in and mgmt.bharat and their respective languages. So this is the important parameters. So each domain name will have under .in and .bharat. So this is an interactive village, culture, village, tourism, all the things will be displayed under this portal. So this covers significantly the inclusivity from the diverse society of India. So this also bridge the linguistic barrier. So this is an example of the IDN domains we have formed basically for the government website. So what the government services are there in the displayed in the government website. So one can browse with their Hindi IDN domain names.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you. Thank you very much. Now I’m disconnecting. No. OK, thank you, Pradeep. Our next case study will be presented by Ms. Manal Ismail from the government of Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority, where she is the chief expert for internet policies. Please go ahead, Manal. Thank you. Sorry, Manal, please hold. We can’t hear you. We’re trying to fix it. Manal, try saying something maybe. I still don’t hear Manal, no. Sorry, everyone could hear Nigel, right? No? OK. We can’t hear Nigel. Nigel is muted now. Oh, Nigel’s muted now. Nigel, can you try saying something for me? No? No, OK. Working on it, sorry. Nigel and Manal, could you try speaking again? Still no. No. OK. Thank you for your patience. Our tech support is still working on it. Please try again, Manal and Nigel. Not hearing Manal. Nigel, can you try, too, just in case? Also no. So I think we’re going. Can I make a few remarks? So while we wait for tech support to, thanks, everyone. So tech support will keep trying to resolve this. Manal and Nigel, we will come back to you. We’re going out of order just because we don’t want everyone waiting too long. So we can start with some other people. Can you hear me? No? Try saying something again? Hello? OK, Nigel, could you mute for me? Owen, can you hear me? Yes, and now with one of you muted and one of you not, I think we’re on track. Thank you for everyone’s patience. We’ll go back to our normal program. And Manal, I think we’re ready for you. Thank you. Great.

Manal Ismail: Thank you very much, Owen. I was just saying that I regret not being able to join you in person. But thanks for the opportunity to speak. And thanks to Saudi Arabia for hosting this year’s IGF and availing remote participation. So with one third of the world population still being offline, we need to think about the reasons and how to make sure that technology is really serving humanity in that respect. One important reason for this is language being an access barrier to those who can only communicate in their mother tongue. And with digital inclusion being a top priority, a truly multilingual internet becomes a necessity to have the next billion internet users connect meaningfully to the internet. To enable multilingual access to the internet, we have to work on all its components equally. So namely, the multilingual local content, internationalized domain names, email address internationalization, and universal acceptance, as Jaisha already mentioned in her opening remarks as well. So universal acceptance is the missing piece of the puzzle needed to complement ongoing efforts on IDN delegations and creation of multilingual online content. It’s needed to ensure a smooth, seamless, end-to-end multilingual experience on the internet that allows users around the world to navigate the internet entirely in their local languages. Universal acceptance aims at making all valid domain names and email addresses work seamlessly in all internet applications, devices, and systems, irrespective of their script, language, or length. And by work here, we mean that internet applications and systems must accept, validate, store, process, and display all domain names in a predictable and consistent manner. We have now more than 1,200 new GTLDs, around 100 of which are IDNs. And we have around 60 IDN country code top-level domains. We have mailboxes now that are no longer just an ASCII. And we have another round of new GTLDs on its way. This makes universal acceptance a fundamental requirement for unleashing the full potential of IDNs and internationalized email addresses and providing a truly multilingual and digitally inclusive internet. I would like to start by providing quick highlights from the recently published URID IDN world. report 2024, which provides insights into the status and trends of the global market of IDNs. An estimated 85% of ccTLDs and an estimated 41% of gTLDs currently support IDN registrations. Yet, while a significant number of ccTLDs, 85%, offer IDN registrations, the actual number of IDN registrations remains relatively low at 1.2% of the global domain name market, highlighting the limited penetration of IDNs. Additionally, they are also concentrated among only a handful of ccTLDs. Moreover, despite the apparent availability of IDN registrations and how they seem to be supported, well supported, the actual uptake of IDNs has been remarkably slow over the years. In fact, per the URED report, only three ccTLDs witnessed notable growth in their IDN registrations over the past year, while the majority of ccTLDs experienced minimal or no growth at all, with 19 ccTLDs reporting contraction in their total IDN registrations. Moving to our case in Egypt, and from our experience with Egypt’s IDN ccTLD, it really aligns with the findings of the URED report. So, Egypt IDN ccTLD.Masr was among the first batch of IDN delegations in 2010, along with Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Russia. And upon launch, we reached around 40 or 50% of the .eg registrations in just a few weeks. Yet, over the years, we suffered very low renewal rates, resulting in significant reduction in the number of registered domain names under the IDN ccTLD, and we currently stand at 1 tenth the number we started with in 2010. The main reason for this very low renewal rate under Egypt IDN ccTLD was identified to be the malfunctioning of internationalized email addresses, which is attributed to the lack of wide deployment of universal acceptance. So, even if users successfully register an IDN, they may encounter issues when attempting to use that domain name in email addresses, some web browsers, or other online services, leading to frustration and confusion of end users. It’s also related to compatibility issues with many existing software application systems, which were designed with the assumption that domain names would only contain ASCII characters, and sometimes even with the assumption of certain lengths. Consequently, users may opt for ASCII domain names to avoid potential compatibility issues, even if an IDN would better represent their language or culture identity. Regarding the wide deployment of universal acceptance, there are, of course, challenges, and this includes the need to aware and convince both the supply and the demand sides at the same time. There is no appealing product to attract demand, and there is no pressing demand to trigger supply. So, it’s a really unique situation. Also, universal acceptance needs to be very widely deployed before it starts to bear its fruits. And another reason could be that users with no language barrier finds that everything is working fine, and those who are offline because of language barrier, they are taking it for granted and they are not aware there is a solution to this problem. Another thing could be that the business model itself may not be pressing or that appealing today, but of course the counter argument to this is that the deployment is straightforward, it’s future-proof, it provides a market edge, and is expected to trigger demand and open up a new market. And finally, it’s a multi-stakeholder issue, so it has technical, strategic, commercial, and cultural dimensions, and hence it needs the buy-in of all the relevant stakeholders. Focusing more on why governments should care on working on universal acceptance, readiness, and internet multilingualism, this of course serves the government’s efforts and objectives on digital transformation, as well as digital and social inclusion, preserving culture, and advancing digital identity, ensuring government online services are reaching citizens nationwide, stimulating growth of local IDNs market and online multilingual content by increasing competition and fostering innovation, providing more customer choice, availing internationalized email addresses which have been hindering the uptake of IDNs for some time now, and driving the use of local IDN domains and email addresses as opposed to ASCII ones hosted off borders. It also serves government efforts in increasing internet penetration and bridging the digital divide, promoting digital literacy and facilitating meaningful access to the internet, and last but not least, acquiring future proof systems and applications. So in Egypt, we’ve been trying to promote awareness on universal acceptance and work on its deployment. We have started with the government as key stakeholder and main driver for government digital transformation projects. We are trying to align with the governmental projects and initiatives, reaching out to software companies to get them involved, setting pilots for proof of concept, and also working with academia on graduation projects, conducting hackathons on universal acceptance, and holding hands-on and technical training also on deployment of internationalized email addresses. We’re also trying to reach out to survey, identify, and prioritize platforms and tools that are most commonly used in order to assess their UA readiness, and accordingly organize engagement activities with the relevant stakeholders. Beyond that, it’s great to see multilingualism, universality, and meaningful access to the internet on global agendas, including the UN SDGs, Sustainable Development Goals, ITU, UNESCO, and most recently, the Pact of the Future and Global Digital Contact. So we look forward to working with everyone on availing a truly multilingual internet experience as we owe it to those who need it. Apologies if I exceeded the 10 minutes, and I’ll leave it at this and pass the floor back to you, Owen, and look forward to the rest of our discussion. Thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you, Manal. I think we’ve had two very interesting presentations so far with lots of ideas that we can dig into in the discussion session. Before that, let’s have our third case study coming from Nigel Hickson of the United Kingdom, where he is Senior Advisor on Internet Governance and the Domain Name System for the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology. Nigel, go ahead. Yes, yes, and good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you, Owen. Can you hear me? I

Nigel Hickson: suppose I ought to ask that, given the earlier problems. It’s all good. Well, it’s an absolute delight to take part in this session. I would like Manal to apologise for not being there. I very much wanted to be in Riyadh, but unfortunately not on this occasion. I’ve been a great advocate and fan, if you like, of the UNIGF, and I’m delighted it’s in Saudi Arabia. It’s such an important year for the UNIGF, and I hope everyone is having a great time. I’m sure you are. I’ve managed to listen to a number of sessions, and there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm. enthusiasm in the hallways, so to speak, and thank you also to the US NTIA for putting on this session. I think it’s incredibly timely. And as Manal said, this is an issue that is, if you like, rising up the international agenda and has become, if you like, more prominent as it should be than perhaps it was a few years ago. And perhaps in our discussions to follow this session, we can reflect on what more can be done to promote the importance of multilingualism on the internet and the problems of universal acceptance. So I’m going to be fairly short in my presentation on behalf of the UK government. The UK has always, if you like, recognised the importance of multilingualism. We have a very diverse multilingual population in the UK and in terms of citizens and residents applying for government services, we recognise the importance of providing not only government services in very many languages so people can understand what they’re applying for and what they’re entitled for in terms of public benefits and schooling and hospitalisation and lots of other things connected with the health service, but also that they can use their own scripts. And so it is very important, and I believe it’s important for all countries. And therefore, you know, in addition to the technical work that we have to do to ensure that we can use international domain names and scripts in non-Latin characters, we also have to ensure that our citizens and residents and other people know that they can use different languages and different scripts in their communication with government. I’ll come on to that in a second, but I think that is an area where we really do need to concentrate. In the UK, it’s been a very much of an incremental approach in terms of ensuring that for government services there is universal acceptance, that people can use their own characters and they can use international domain names. This has been a, if you like, responsibility of our UK Cabinet Office who are responsible, who have a large team responsible for gov.uk. Gov.uk in the UK is the single portal that people go to to access government services. And by and large, efforts are made to ensure that all the communications on gov.uk can accept IDNs without having to, if you like, convert the email addresses and the content back to the underlying ASCII equivalent scripts, which is the way that it’s still done in some areas, but that obviously is not the ideal way forward. But that leads me on to the second point, because as well as the, if you like, the technical approaches that are being taken and have been taken in many areas already to ensure this acceptability issue, we also have to ensure that people understand that they can do this. And I was struck by Manal’s example, that the use of the CCTLD, the IDN CCTLD, the usage has gone down to 10% of what it was when it launched or in the early days. And to an extent, I think this comes down to lack of confidence. When I was doing a bit of research for this presentation this morning and talking to some people responsible for our own services in the UK, they said that many users would not know how to use an IDN, if you like. Although, if you like, an IDN in various Indian scripts or other scripts might be a much better way for them to communicate because it would be easier for them. They would not necessarily have the confidence or the knowledge to do that and therefore, you know, tend to go back to the Latin script alternative, perhaps using a mixture of their own scripts and Latin scripts. So, I think we do have a lot to do in this area to ensure that users understand the availability of the systems to other scripts. I have an example from Wales, which is a part of the UK, which is a fairly large region in the UK. And it has its own .wales, which is a Latin-based generic top-level domain. But in the use of that domain, we only have 15 examples of where advantage has been taken of the ability to use Welsh diacritics. So, you know, we do have a problem in promoting this ability of people to or promoting the ability of people to use IDNs. So, I see, you know, and I hope we can go further on this in discussion. I see three critical challenges, if you like, for us. The first is, is the lack of confidence that people necessarily have perhaps to use international domain names and we need to do more to promote them that they can be used. We know there are problems, of course, with universal acceptance, but it is a bit of a chicken and egg situation in that if public authorities and if other institutions feel that there is no real use of these international domain names and they’re not seeing a problem, then they might not be taking the steps to ensure that they can be used on their systems. Secondly, the criticality of universal acceptance ahead of the next round for generic top-level domains. I mean, Manal and I and others and Santosh are involved in much of the ICANN work. ICANN has done some incredible work on multilingualism on the internet through the Universal Acceptance Steering Group and the UA Day that has been institutionalised. But going into the next round of generic top-level domains where we’re going to hopefully have more and more applications for IDNs, we must indeed do all we can to ensure that there is this further work so that they are accepted. And we must be honest with our applicants for generic top-level domains that there are still issues with universal acceptance. So, and the third point which I think I’ve covered to a large extent is that governments can do a lot more. We’re not suggesting we all should go out and regulate or pass laws or make regulation or, you know, sort of bang, you know, it’s not a case of discipline, it’s not necessarily a case of passing legislation. But what it is, it’s a case of working with the private sector, it’s a case of working with local authorities, it’s a case of working with educational institutions so people can understand what they can do already. Because if we’re going to really have multilingualism on the internet, people need to be confident to use their own languages and not to, if you like, have to use the English language as a substitution. Far too often we read case studies where people that have come to the UK and understandably are still, you know, trying to understand the English work on things are too worried to go online and instead get their relations and friends to apply for government services for them and that’s something we want to stop. I’ve talked for too long but this is really important work that we’re discussing here. Thank you. Okay, Nigel and all of our speakers, thank you. Nobody spoke for too long. I think that was all very useful and I’m hitting the slide button to officially enter the discussion phase. So during our brief delay earlier, I already spoke to a couple of people who I know have comments and there are a lot of stakeholders in the room, physically, hopefully also on Zoom, who are very actively engaged on this issue. So I’m going to invite Teresa or anyone else from ICANN who might like to speak first as we were talking about it earlier, I’ll bring in the microphone. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Wow. It’s a privilege to be here and also to hear the speakers and thank you very much for organizing this event. The power to be able to engage on the Internet in your own language or script is incredibly important and something I think we often don’t appreciate. We like to speak in our own language, we like to read in our own language, we like to communicate in our own language and we should be able to do that on the Internet as well. And we should have a choice of the extensions to the right of the dot or to the left of the dot and how that works. So with that sort of bridging of internationalized domain names and universal acceptance, from our perspective and from ICANN’s limited mandate and mission, we play our part in trying to ensure a truly inclusive Internet on all levels. And to achieve this digital inclusivity, it takes more than just getting the people online and the speakers in their case studies observed this. It requires addressing some of the unique barriers such as the geographical or linguistical diversity. And so with that, the internationalized domain names and the technical aspect and the coding aspect of that can play a role in breaking down the barriers. You can fully unlock the IDN part, but unless you can actually communicate on that, hence the universal acceptance, that has to be a priority. And while we don’t have a mission in that, we certainly play a role in trying to help with that, around that. And with that, it means to ensure that all valid domain names and email addresses, regardless of script, can work seamlessly across the Internet on any device. And that’s WhatsApp, whatever it might be that you’re using that day of the week. There’s been a lot of work around this. My colleagues, Sarmad, Pitanan, and Seda, are online. They’re the versed experts on this. So if anybody has a question beyond my bandwidth or knowledge, please, let’s bring them in. But progress has been made, but we have a lot of gaps. So for instance, if we look at any of the testing right now, it shows that only about 11% of the top 1,000 global websites can accept internationalized email addresses, and just 22.2 of email servers can support them. That’s not a lot, not given the world population and the numbers of languages and scripts and dimensions to the right or to the left of the dot. And so these challenges highlight the urgent need for universal acceptance to become a technical and operational reality that platform providers, that other providers, whether it’s tech organizations, content management systems, email tools, web hosting tools, can enable this. But it’s not just a technical requirement. It’s essential, really, for the expansion and to provide a gateway for the next billion Internet users to navigate the Internet in a meaningful way. IDNs are already being used in diverse sectors, including government services. We’ve been hearing some presentations here, health, tourism, business. As open source software and big tech applications begin to embrace local languages. But we still have a lot to do. In the context of ICANN, we’re also looking at this as we look to open the next round. We anticipate or we would hope that we get interest for people to have their identity, whether it’s a visible identity or a source that they go to through an application, to have that ability to be in the language or the script or in the extension to the right or the left of the dot in the way they want. So in partnership with others, we have a lot of work to do. And some of it is just showing how somebody can code something. And other things are, you know, creating awareness at university levels and various other programs that are there. But the partnerships are important. And thank you for taking the initiative on the awareness here.

Owen Fletcher: Keith from Verisign also, I think, has a comment ready. Thank you very much, Owen. Can you hear me? Okay. So, hi. I’m Keith from Verisign.

Speaker 2: Just wanted to give a little bit of Verisign’s history and experience with IDNs. Verisign first launched IDNs at the second level, and .com would have remained ASCII back in the year 2000. I can say that my current boss, Patrick Kane, who is now a senior vice president in the company, started out as an IDN project manager or product manager. So Verisign has a long history of engagement with IDNs. During the 2012 round of new GTLDs, Verisign applied for 12 versions of .com and .net, nine in .com and three in .net. The transliteration would be, for example, in Cyrillic, K-O-M, the characters for com, the way that it sounds in a number of different scripts. And so Verisign’s very much committed to supporting and promoting IDNs. And in fact, about two-and-a-half weeks ago, we had an event that commits Verisign to continuing the development and uptake of multilingual characters, IDNs, within the ICANN process. So we’re committed to helping promote the multilingualism and the uptake of IDNs on the Internet. I do want to just… Is that better? Okay. So, sorry about that. I hope you got some of that. I won’t repeat myself. But I think it’s important to underscore what’s been said by a few others in that the registration and the resolution of IDNs works, right? It’s functionally operational. The challenge right now in… So at the DNS level, IDNs are functional. The challenge is at the level of the… Further up the stack, if you will, where the application layer, we have a real challenge where the application, such as email services or browsers or other services that rely on the DNS, is where the conflict exists. And I think that’s where we have quite a bit more work to do in terms of the universal acceptance aspect. And a member of my team has been a member of the universal acceptance steering group. We continue to see value in that initiative. So more work to be done. There’s more policy work and implementation work going on in ICANN right now around the topic of IDN variants, for example. But functionally, they work at the DNS level. It’s a question of making sure that they’re operational at the application layer. So thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you. Now, I see hands up. Thank you. So we’re going to have a good discussion. I wanted to go to a chat question that I think we had in Zoom first, and I’ll open it up. Okay. We have a question for Manal that came in online. And the question is, would you be able to elaborate more about the challenges that are specific for right-to-left languages like Arabic and Farsi?

Manal Ismail: Thank you, Batool, for the question. And as Teresa mentioned, and also others, there are even more challenges with the right-to-left scripts than the usual left-to-right scripts. I’m not a technical expert, but I have one of my colleagues in the room. So if you don’t mind, we can pass this question to Abdelmonem. He’s currently in person in the room and maybe in a better position to answer this technical question. Yeah, please. Yeah, thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you, Manal.

Audience: This is Abdelmonem Ghalila for The Record. I am working for the Telecom Regulator of Egypt to maintain and operate the IDN-CST LED of Egypt, which is IDN-1, which is an Arabic one. Actually, there are a lot of issues related to the Arabic language, especially the first one is related to the context. When you write a domain name inside your browser, there is a protocol, which is English, HTTP or HTTPS, then slash slash dot semicolon is the Arabic name. If you copy that and add it inside the world, it will be reflected. So how could you read it? You could read it from the left side or the right side. And this is one of the issues. This is one of the display issues. Yeah, assume that you have an email address that has a domain name in Arabic and the mailbox name itself in English. How could the application, how could you as a human read this email address from right or from left? If you read it from right, you will see that the domain name at this moment is the actual mailbox name and the left side is the domain name. If you read it from left to right, you will have the first part to be the mailbox and the second part is the domain name. This is one of the issues. The time you are trying to write the dot. inside your keyboard which you have the context of the keyboard in right to left it will differ from the other one when you press the dot which is left to right context at your keyboard. This is not limited for the issues for Arabic script. Another one which affects the security is related to the homograph attacks. There are some letters inside Arabic script that could be several different code points for the same shape of the letter. So if me for example use one of the domain names that have one of the letters which with one of this you know code letter and ignore the others could be some kind of homograph attack. Maybe someone will go and register the other domain name maybe in Urdu language. So it is one of the security issues that’s related to some of the issues or some of the issues or related to a right to left script. This is another one I would like to highlight here that universal acceptance is not limited for domain names and email addresses that are inside the mailbox that are inside the mail application or inside the browser. There are a large segment of the population who couldn’t even write their own local language. For example assume that for Arabic language I couldn’t write Arabic language and I couldn’t I don’t know English as well. How could I go online? There is another opportunity to handle this. There are a plenity of application iOS application and Android application that they could use open the mic and I say that I wanna go google.com I wanna go something in Arabic dot something in Arabic but the issues will be here that there are different accents for different people. So universal acceptance plays a critical role here in order to make such application you already as well in order to handle the largest segment of people who couldn’t write their own local language or even English. Thank you. Comment over here. Hello everyone my name is Sabina I’m from Mexico and I’m from the dynamic coalition of accessibility and disability. I think that one of the big challenges of the multilingual internet it’s how to include people with disabilities. I think about the sign language that it’s recognized as a language for the deaf community but I don’t see that it’s even mentioned in any of this of this forums or so I think we should be thinking how to include people with all kind of disabilities in these discussions and how to include other languages like the sign languages on the discussion. Thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Yes so while we’re at it I’m also going to invite questions for our our speaker first I think we’re good for our next commenter go ahead. Hello I’m Sadhvi from

Audience: the International Telecommunication Union or the ITU. Thank you for this very important discussion. Multilingualization of IDNs is something that the ITU has been looking at for several years as well as a fundamental driver of universal connectivity as we’ve heard but also for building digital skills and literacy around the world. We received a mandate from our 193 member states now now 194 through our plenipotentiary conference several years ago and that continues to be renewed at the last one in 2022 to focus on this topic particularly looking at it from the lens of technical solutions but also capacity development. It’s something that we also look at under the WSIS framework under Action Line C8 I believe on cultural and linguistic diversity and local content and through that work closely with other UN system entities as well including UNESCO but also outside the system with with ICANN and I thank Teresa for her for her great remarks earlier today. I wanted to highlight that we have what we call a council working group on international internet related public policy issues. It’s a bit of a mouthful but CWG Internet for short and actually Mr. Nigel Hickson who who spoke to us earlier today is a vice chair of that group as well. We’ve released or opened up a public consultation in October which is going to be running until the 11th of January on the topic of the role of public policy on the multilingualization of the internet. I warmly welcome all of you to take a look at our website and encourage you know organizations and stakeholders that you know who might be interested to contribute to that conversation and also present their contributions to the member states of the CWG Internet at our meeting. It’s a hybrid meeting in February. Thank you. Ram can you raise your hand so Andrew. Thank you. I’m Ram Mohan. I’m the chief strategy officer at Identity Digital and I worked in this area for a little while so I wanted to focus my energy on governments and some of the things that that governments ought to be thinking about. Governments want to provide services to their populations. That’s fundamentally one of the things they want to do and they want to and they’re moving to provide these services you know online to to make a lot of their services accessible online. Now connectivity and even meaningful connectivity requires language to become a core component of design and planning. Often when governments plan services and plan rollout of services you find that the the language component is sometimes in the design phase but often you’ll find that when they it’s only when it comes to the rollout that they recognize that language is now what excludes their populations from having agency online right. So I think that the important thing here in addition to universal acceptance and having internationalized domain names we need to understand that accessibility in your own language to services and the ability to navigate the internet in your own language is really a crucial table stakes kind of a basic requirement. The internet has become a significant utility in the world. When you when you have people in the global south but anywhere in the world when when people have money in addition to food and other essentials they absolutely subscribe to having internet access right. But what use internet access if you cannot have that access convert to meaningfulness in your own language right. So the language accessibility is really where I think we need to have the next stage of development. The the problems that the panel and all of you have been talking about on universal acceptance and internationalized domain names they are no longer technical problems. The technical problems are long solved they are long done. The real problems have to do with policymakers not just having the will or the intent but actually getting a toolkit that allows them to say I do have an intent to deploy language and deploy language services but how do I go about doing that right. So I think the creation of toolkits the creation of methods that allow for the tool providers and the service providers as well as governments who want to make those services accessible we need something that pulls all of these folks together right. Because you have silos you have you know the Unicode consortium knows how to take any language and or any script and make it accessible online. But how does somebody in the United States how does a Cherokee know how to take the Cherokee language and get that converted to Unicode right. And that you need to have that communication in Cherokee to that local population right. And that’s the kind of thing that governments ought to be starting to think about. Thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you. So as the conversation goes on we’re getting more and more interesting aspects of this complicated situation. Jan I see your hand up I’ll go to you in a second. I wanted to ask Pradeep and Manal or Nigel if you’d like to comment to about content generation for domain or for you know websites using the IDNs that you’ve spoken about. So it sounds like provision of government services is a common theme. But in addition or the other types of content available on the existing IDNs that you’ve spoken about.

Pradeep Kumar Verma: Thank you. I’d like to highlight that in India we have 22 official languages, but there are many other dialects and many accents spoken throughout India, maybe in the numbers of 500. And if you ask about the content generation, most of the information today in the social media is absorbed by their content in their native language. So government services and websites, already the content in their local language has been already being generated. And we have already developed some tools, even in the Digital India Bhasini program, where we are providing support in the AI-based model, so that even local people can generate their content, even they use the open AI, and there are many tools developed within this program, so that it can even convert text to speech, speech to text, and other methods, they are more comfortable. Thank you.

Owen Fletcher: Manohar and Nigel, did you have anything? It’s optional. Yes, if I may, just very briefly to just to emphasize, I think the importance of what

Nigel Hickson: Ram was saying about, you know, that this has moved on from just being a sort of technical issue to a social policy issue, and, you know, as I put in the chat, I think we just need to do more as governments to ensure that citizens in our countries that are challenged with the native language can access public services on an equitable basis to those that use the native language. I mean, we have to ensure equality, what comes back to me, you know, having been around this game for, you know, too long, to an extent, was when we first had online services at all, was the requirements that we put in place, which are still there, although they are being eroded to an extent where people accessing or wanting public services shouldn’t have to. It shouldn’t be assumed that everyone has a smartphone. It shouldn’t be assumed that everyone has a form of internet access. We have to ensure that, you know, our marginalized communities can still have the benefit of being able to apply for grants or benefits or whatever the application is on an equitable basis. So I think we need to do more to ensure that people can know that they can use their own scripts and their own dialects. Thank you. Let’s go to Manal and then I see another hand up online.

Manal Ismail: Thank you, Owen, and just to agree with what has been said so far and also to echo what has been indicated from the floor that also accessibility issues need to be taken into consideration. Definitely, if we’re saying no one should be left behind, then we really should mean no one should be left behind. I fully agree that governments can do more. I have already went through a long list of strategic objectives. But in addition to that, governments could also work with other stakeholders on conducting awareness activities, organizing workshops, hackathons, trainings, train-the-trainer activities, setting proof-of-concept pilots, assist in stock-taking efforts, provide incentives to vendors and favor systems, applications and platforms that are UA-ready in tenders or purchase orders, add a requirement for UA readiness where applicable in relevant licenses or contracts, and add a requirement for creating local presence or web pages or platforms or portals in local languages under the relevant ID and CCTLD for national projects, initiatives and events, and of course, lead by example in that respect. And I would even add promoting the topic in relevant curricula and graduation projects. I leave it at this. Thank you. And one last thing is that it is indeed a win-win for all stakeholders. So for governments, we have already went through the strategic objectives. For business, it’s a market edge and market growth and addresses customer satisfaction. For the end user, it’s definitely enhanced user experience and a seamless end-to-end multilingual experience. And globally, as was also mentioned through the ITU, it caters for the needs of the next billion, bridging the digital divide, allows us to be more inclusive, addresses an aspect of human rights and contributes to achieving the global agendas we’ve already mentioned earlier. I leave it at this.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you, Owen. Back to you. Thank you. I’d like to go to Anil Kumar-Jain, if I’m saying your name correctly from the Zoom. Then I actually would like to go back to Jen, like I said, and then on to Sarmad. Thanks. I’m not hearing anything, though. And the Zoom disappeared from the screen. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

Audience: Anil Kumar-Jain, for the record. I am chair of USG in ICANN. I’m patiently listening to the panelists and the contributors after the panel discussion. Thank you very much. I think it is a wonderful discussion. Now, the awareness about universal acceptance is catching up, and not within ICANN, but in United Nations, ITU, and other organizations. Now, the discussion which was being discussed is that the role of the government in implementing the universal acceptance. First of all, I would like to thank Teresa and Ram, affirming that the technical issues in implementing UA is already completed. So now the universal acceptance as a problem is implementable. It is available. It is workable. Now, in addition to the government, what USG has recognized is that there are roles of other. Second one next to government is the big techs, big techs like social media platforms, Google, Meta, and big techs like Apple, who are able to reach to a majority of the population. So if they are able to do that, I think acceptance of universal acceptance becomes a reality. And I am happy that Google, Meta, they have implementation of universal acceptance in their strategic plan. The third is the universities. They are the young population. They are training the young population. In USG, we have defined a UA academic curricula, which is of two grades. One is the basic one, and second is the advanced one. Universities can start introduction of UA in their existing IT program and then subsequently develop this as a module and maybe as a course in future. This will help the future generation to adopt the UA and understand the importance of UA. The fourth aspect, which is the DNS participant. Who are the DNS participants? As has been explained by Manal, that 85% of the CCTLDs and 41% of GTLDs are UA ready. It means that the registries have adopted UA and made the system available. But what about the registrars and the sub-registrars? What about the ISPs who are providing the connectivity? I think they also are required to be UA ready, and they have to make their system UA ready. It is important that all the players are required to be there. I understand that the awareness about UA is well-coordinated and conducted by the UA day program, which we are running for the last two years. At the same time, what Nigel has said is the lack of confidence. I think it is important. Thank you, Nigel, for bringing up this issue. We have to remove the fear that in case we are using a local language domain, either in browser or in email, we are able to reach to the right side. That is important. Good that a lot of information has come to us. And I can assure the audience that UASG will take all appropriate steps to ensure that UA should be able to reach to maximum population and next 1 billion internet users should come from non-English speaking population. Thank you.

Owen Fletcher: From the room, thanks.

Audience: Thanks so and this is Jen Chung from DotAsia organization. I look around the room both in person and online I see many faces that have been engaged deeply in this universal acceptance and internationalized domain names issues for many, many years. I think Ram has spoken earlier, he really undersold himself, he says he’s been in this for a little bit, no he’s been in this for almost since the very, very beginning. For DotAsia of course we absolutely support all the efforts to achieve universal acceptance, achieve EAI, achieve more uptake of internationalized domain names. I think really when you’re talking about the technical part of it, Ram has also stressed earlier it has been solved but the real problem right now is getting these toolkits, getting these tools that the UASG which Anil has very, very kindly, very in depth told us what they were trying to do and what materials they’re providing for everyone to use to the people who can use them, to the different companies, service providers, ISPs. As a registry operator we also have to do more as well. I know that Keith has mentioned the many, many things that VeriSign has done and also supported throughout the years. I think Edmund and Pat were on the same IDN group almost 25 years ago now. Maybe I’m aging them. I’m not really sure. But really when you’re talking to people who don’t really understand what universal acceptance or IDN is, you have to couch it in words that they already do understand. It is under the umbrella of digital inclusion and I think if you say the words digital inclusion everybody understands. Big corporations, governments, they all have different budgets, different teams looking at digital inclusion and a multilingual internet is an essential foundation for digital inclusion. The next billion coming online do not have English as their native language, may not even have it as their second, third or even fourth language. So really that’s the foundation of that. And without universal acceptance, I guess people who don’t speak English as a first language will forever remain second class citizens. It’s not as bleak as I just mentioned here. There is so much work that has been done already and so much work that I did come in a little late to this session. But it is really encouraging to see the governments of the U.S., U.K., Egypt and India already showing all the good work and the case studies both of successes and things that we can learn from that we can build upon. And I think the key message here also is it requires so many different stakeholders, cross sectoral and especially with government as a key driver. I’m going to stress for my last point is I think Manal put it really brilliantly, requiring that as part of the government procurement services, the tendering, leading by example, that is the biggest thing that the governments can do to lead this and then of course private sector industry will absolutely be like right on the heels of providing that service and providing all those benefits that we can all see. So that’s just my two cents on that.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you, Jen. Great comments. So on the screen, I’m only seeing Anil’s hand up, but I assume Sarmad’s hand is still up. We have about eight or nine minutes left. Let’s go to Sarmad. Still there. Right. If you would like to speak, Sarmad, please go ahead and unmute. I’m sorry, Owen. Sarmad is saying in the chat that he’s unable to unmute. All right. Well, let’s go to any other questions or comments for now. All right. Looking around the room. Ram, go ahead. I’ll bring you this mic. It’s working well. Thank you, Owen. I hope you can hear me with this microphone. Okay. Great. This is Ram again. I wanted to just briefly amplify and echo what Jen was just saying a few minutes ago. The future forward and the future opportunity for a multilingual Internet is to start speaking about this, to have governments, to have industry, to have civil society, academia, start speaking about this problem no longer as a problem, but as an opportunity for greater digital inclusion. Language is at the base of digital inclusion, and you have to have language as a core component of digital inclusion. We ought to start thinking about universal acceptance, internationalized domain names, these terms that in many ways actually do not translate well into many other languages. Try saying universal acceptance in Arabic. Try saying universal acceptance in Chinese. It doesn’t translate well. I think we really also ought to start thinking about transforming the semantics of what we’re talking about and starting to change this into a semantics based on digital inclusion that has language as a core component. Thanks. Thank you. All right. Sarmad, if you’re able to unmute at this point, please go ahead. Otherwise, do we have any other hands up in Zoom or comments from the room? Hello.

Audience: This is Sarmad. Can you hear me? Yes, we hear you. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you very much. I actually wanted to follow up. Anil actually raised good points. One of the key, I guess, challenges which need to be addressed is also capacity development. Internationalization for, I guess, in software development, which is sort of a key component on which internationalized domain names and internationalized email addresses are based, is still not something which is taught in universities. And so students or professionals which are coming out of the universities, for example, this is still not a very comfortable skill. So as Anil also shared, one of the things we are working on is actually developing or integrating curriculum which integrates internationalization, internationalized domain names, and internationalized email concepts into the curriculum so that once when the professionals, young professionals which come out, they are aware of not only these concepts, but they are also equipped with the skills to make sure that these are implemented in the technology.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you. Thank you. So I haven’t seen anybody else raise their hand on Zoom or in the room. If anyone has a final one-minute comment, now is your chance. Otherwise, I’m going to conclude for us by, first of all, thanking our presenters of case studies again, which provided the foundation, I think, for a very interesting discussion. I think it’s clear that everyone here recognizes the importance of making the Internet more multilingual and the value that will bring and the relevance of this issue to digital inclusion, among other important priorities. It’s also clear, I think, that there is not a silver bullet single solution, and therefore I’m glad to see the active participation from this group because it’s obvious that a lot of stakeholders will need to continue to work together to help advance us toward the end goals here. So thank you, everybody, for coming. I’m hoping that this leads to further discussions. We’ll see you next time. Wait, wait, wait. Huh? Oh, sure. Pradeep, Nigel, Manal, before closing, did you want to say anything in conclusion as well? Thank you, Owen.

Manal Ismail: Just to thank you, thank the host, and as mentioned earlier, we need to work collaboratively to achieve this as we owe it to everyone who needs it.

Owen Fletcher: Thank you. Just to echo that and thank you, Owen, for organizing this, but also for the great discussion we’ve had on the chat and what people in the room have brought to this. I think I’ve made several notes, and I think we’ve all got work to do. Thank you. That’s the real end. Thank you, everyone.

Agreement Points

Importance of multilingualism for digital inclusion

Jaisha Wray

Ram Mohan

Manal Ismail

Nigel Hickson

Multilingualism is essential for digital inclusion and meaningful connectivity

Language is a fundamental requirement for internet access and digital services

Multilingual internet provides a gateway for the next billion users

Governments should ensure equitable access to online services in different languages

All speakers emphasized the critical role of multilingualism in achieving digital inclusion and enabling meaningful internet access for diverse populations.

Need for government initiatives to promote multilingualism

Manal Ismail

Nigel Hickson

Pradeep Kumar Verma

Egypt working on universal acceptance deployment in government projects

UK recognizing importance of providing government services in multiple languages

India launched Bhasanet portal to promote multilingual internet

Multiple speakers highlighted government-led initiatives to promote multilingualism and universal acceptance in their respective countries.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers argue that the technical foundations for IDNs and UA are in place, and the focus should now shift to implementation at the application layer and addressing social policy issues.

Ram Mohan

Speaker 2

Shift focus from technical issues to social policy and implementation

Need to focus on application layer for full UA implementation

These speakers emphasize the importance of involving multiple stakeholders, including governments, big tech companies, and DNS participants, in implementing universal acceptance.

Manal Ismail

Audience

Governments can include UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts

Big tech companies play a crucial role in implementing UA

DNS participants like registries and registrars need to be UA ready

Unexpected Consensus

Integration of UA in education

Audience

Manal Ismail

Need for better integration of internationalization concepts in university curricula

Governments can include UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts

While most discussions focused on technical and policy aspects, there was an unexpected consensus on the importance of integrating UA concepts into education and professional development, suggesting a long-term approach to addressing the challenge.

Overall Assessment

Summary

There was strong agreement on the importance of multilingualism for digital inclusion, the need for government initiatives to promote UA, and the shift from technical solutions to implementation and policy challenges. Speakers also agreed on the importance of involving multiple stakeholders in UA implementation.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on core issues, with speakers from different countries and organizations sharing similar viewpoints. This suggests a unified understanding of the challenges and potential solutions for promoting multilingualism on the internet, which could facilitate coordinated efforts to address these issues globally.

Different Viewpoints

Focus of efforts for universal acceptance implementation

Ram Mohan

Speaker 2

Shift focus from technical issues to social policy and implementation

Need to focus on application layer for full UA implementation

While Ram Mohan argues for shifting focus to social policy and implementation, Speaker 2 emphasizes the need to focus on the application layer for full UA implementation.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the focus of efforts for implementing universal acceptance and the specific roles of different stakeholders in promoting multilingualism.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the importance of multilingualism and universal acceptance, with minor differences in their proposed approaches or areas of focus. These differences do not significantly impede the overall goal of promoting a multilingual internet, but rather offer diverse perspectives on how to achieve it.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the importance of government involvement in promoting multilingualism, but they propose different approaches. Manal Ismail suggests including UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts, while Nigel Hickson focuses on providing government services in multiple languages.

Manal Ismail

Nigel Hickson

Governments can include UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts

UK recognizing importance of providing government services in multiple languages

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers argue that the technical foundations for IDNs and UA are in place, and the focus should now shift to implementation at the application layer and addressing social policy issues.

Ram Mohan

Speaker 2

Shift focus from technical issues to social policy and implementation

Need to focus on application layer for full UA implementation

These speakers emphasize the importance of involving multiple stakeholders, including governments, big tech companies, and DNS participants, in implementing universal acceptance.

Manal Ismail

Audience

Governments can include UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts

Big tech companies play a crucial role in implementing UA

DNS participants like registries and registrars need to be UA ready

Key Takeaways

Multilingualism on the internet is crucial for digital inclusion and meaningful connectivity

Universal Acceptance (UA) of internationalized domain names and email addresses remains a significant challenge

Governments play a key role in promoting multilingualism and UA through policies and initiatives

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is necessary to advance UA and internationalized domain names (IDNs)

Technical solutions for IDNs exist, but implementation at the application layer is still lacking

Framing UA and IDNs as part of broader digital inclusion efforts may help increase adoption

Resolutions and Action Items

Governments to consider including UA readiness requirements in tenders and contracts

Universities to introduce UA concepts in IT curricula

Stakeholders to continue awareness-raising activities like UA Day

UASG to take steps to ensure UA reaches maximum population and next 1 billion internet users

Unresolved Issues

How to increase user confidence in using IDNs and local scripts

Addressing specific challenges for right-to-left scripts like Arabic

Improving uptake of IDNs, which remains low despite technical availability

Integrating accessibility considerations for people with disabilities into multilingual internet efforts

Suggested Compromises

Shifting focus from technical issues to social policy and implementation aspects of UA

Reframing UA and IDN discussions in terms of digital inclusion to increase understanding and adoption

We have now more than 1,200 new GTLDs, around 100 of which are IDNs. And we have around 60 IDN country code top-level domains. We have mailboxes now that are no longer just an ASCII. And we have another round of new GTLDs on its way. This makes universal acceptance a fundamental requirement for unleashing the full potential of IDNs and internationalized email addresses and providing a truly multilingual and digitally inclusive internet.

speaker

Manal Ismail

reason

This comment provides important context on the current state of internationalized domain names (IDNs) and highlights why universal acceptance is crucial for digital inclusion.

impact

It set the stage for much of the subsequent discussion by emphasizing the urgency and importance of universal acceptance for a multilingual internet.

The problems that the panel and all of you have been talking about on universal acceptance and internationalized domain names they are no longer technical problems. The technical problems are long solved they are long done. The real problems have to do with policymakers not just having the will or the intent but actually getting a toolkit that allows them to say I do have an intent to deploy language and deploy language services but how do I go about doing that right.

speaker

Ram Mohan

reason

This comment shifts the focus from technical challenges to policy and implementation challenges, highlighting a key barrier to progress.

impact

It redirected the conversation towards practical steps for implementation and the need for toolkits and guidance for policymakers.

Language is at the base of digital inclusion, and you have to have language as a core component of digital inclusion. We ought to start thinking about universal acceptance, internationalized domain names, these terms that in many ways actually do not translate well into many other languages.

speaker

Ram Mohan

reason

This comment reframes the discussion of universal acceptance and IDNs in terms of digital inclusion, making it more accessible and relevant to a broader audience.

impact

It encouraged participants to think about how to communicate these concepts more effectively across languages and cultures.

I think we just need to do more as governments to ensure that citizens in our countries that are challenged with the native language can access public services on an equitable basis to those that use the native language.

speaker

Nigel Hickson

reason

This comment highlights the role of governments in ensuring equitable access to public services across languages.

impact

It sparked discussion about specific actions governments can take to promote linguistic inclusivity in public services.

Internationalization for, I guess, in software development, which is sort of a key component on which internationalized domain names and internationalized email addresses are based, is still not something which is taught in universities.

speaker

Sarmad

reason

This comment identifies a gap in education and training that is hindering progress on universal acceptance and IDNs.

impact

It led to discussion about the need for curriculum development and capacity building in the field of internationalization.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by shifting focus from technical challenges to policy, implementation, and education barriers. They emphasized the importance of framing the issue in terms of digital inclusion, highlighted the crucial role of governments, and identified specific areas for action such as developing toolkits for policymakers and integrating internationalization into university curricula. The discussion evolved from a technical conversation about IDNs and universal acceptance to a broader dialogue about digital inclusion, policy implementation, and capacity building.

How can sign languages be included in discussions about multilingual internet?

speaker

Sabina from Mexico

explanation

Including sign languages is important for ensuring accessibility for the deaf community in multilingual internet efforts

How can governments create toolkits to help deploy language services online?

speaker

Ram Mohan

explanation

Toolkits would help policymakers and service providers implement language accessibility in online government services

How can fear and lack of confidence in using local language domains be addressed?

speaker

Nigel Hickson and Anil Kumar-Jain

explanation

Overcoming this barrier is crucial for increasing adoption of internationalized domain names

How can internationalization and IDN concepts be better integrated into university curricula?

speaker

Sarmad

explanation

This would help equip new professionals with skills to implement multilingual technologies

How can the semantics around universal acceptance and IDNs be reframed in terms of digital inclusion?

speaker

Ram Mohan

explanation

Changing the language used could help communicate the importance of these issues more effectively across languages and cultures