Present:
Pierre Mootobe - Congo
Haja RAMBOASALAMA - Madagascar
Cyriaque Kouma - Gabon
Yann Kwok - Mauritius
Theo Kramer - South Africa
Tarek Kamel - Egypt
Andrew McLaughlin - USA
Nii Quaynor - Ghana
Alan Barrett - South Africa
Pierre Dandjinou - Benin
Charles Musisi - Uganda 1. INTRODUCTION
The members present introduced themselves and gave a
background of what they do professionally. Tarek started the
meeting by stating that we need concrete milestones, and
need to deliver, showing both the African and International
community that we're serious. He proposed to host the next
AfriNIC in Jan 2002 in Cairo, setting this date as a target by
which AfriNIC will be operational.
Andrew said that he would like to stay in close touch with
AfriNIC and offered to provide further assistance if required.
He hopes to see AfriNIC incorporated within a year, and getting
full support of the African continent. He shared some of his
experience with LAC-NIC so that we can avoid repeating the
same mistakes.
There are 12 people in the board to get the work done. We
should try to meet personally, set deadlines and focus on
spefic areas. The technical, structural and policy sections
should be separated, and we shouldn't let a delay in a specific
section affect the others.
He said that RIPE support comes with a pre-condition: that AfriNIC
needs to market upfront and early- making it easier for RIPE to
spend the funds from Africa. Thus we need to reach out more
towards the members (ie, the ISP's).
An update from LACNIC:
It has been incorporated in Uruguay as a non-profit association.
This country is seen as neutral, with favourable laws for
currency transactions and banking. The location of the operation
suggested is Sao Palo in Brazil. They got consensus to have
the operations centre in Brazil, with the technical training
in Mexico. The operations centre has been sponsored by the
Brazil NIC, a non-profit, well-marketed NIC in which the money
stays and is used for graduate fellows. Through this sponsorship,
LACNIC has a two-year window for funding.
Their mistakes:
LACNIC did not spend enough time with ISP's. They should
have got a list from ARIN, and communicated with a senior
person of the member organisation (not technical) to get them
to support and commit with LAC-NIC. They should have convinced
people that the level of service they'll get will be at least
as good as what they're getting currently.
2. ACTIVITY PLAN
2.1 Write letters to ISP (marketing)
2.2 Have a body of young, trained hostmasters - some staff
turnover should be expected, so a strong training programme
should be set up. This may benefit the ISP's as they will
get access to trained staff.
3. CRITICAL MILESTONES FOR ICANN
3.1 Submit a transition plan [leading to intermediate recognition
as a RIR]
3.2 After the transition, full recognition can then be seeked.
In essence, it is a confidence-building exercise
As far as location (bylaws and operations) is concerned,
Andrew suggested looking for legal expertise in the field,
such as a consultancy or legal firm to study the various countries
in the continent and suggest an appropriate one.
4. PARTICIPANTS' COMMENTS:
4.1 ALAN BARRETT
a) suggested the following milestones:
June 2001: get 50% of funding promised
July 2001: transition plan submitted to ICANN
Aug 2001: 2 engineers selected and sent to RIPE
b) stressed the need for a business manager, with better secretarial
support to:
- follow up outstanding tasks
- expand our support to ISP's
- be in touch with other RIR's
c) suggested the need for a budget and a business plan (what
to spend, how expense will be funded, what equipment needed,
etc)
d) AfriNIC should be incorporated properly - Ghana incorporation
is only interim. We need to research an appropriate jurisdiction
and this is needed before the engineers are sent to RIPE.
e) Alternatively, we can take two existing hostmasters from
RIPE to handle the AfriNIC work
4.2 PIERRE DANDJINOU
1) We need to document the transition plan, defining steps,
targets and responsibilities
2) We have a communication and outreach problem - we could
communicate more to the potential members and interested parties
3) There is no link between AFNOG and AFRINIC - so far they've
just co-located their events. This can be separated now.
4.3 CHARLES MUSISI
1) We need more communications amongst the BoT. Our
communications is "dis-jointed" at best. A clear assignment
task should be given
4.4 ANDREW
We're currently in a crisis-mode, and thus need a warplan.
He suggested to have the BoT broken down into separate sub-
committees, viz:
a) LIR Committee
For the outreach programme, contacting each RIR member, and
possibly organise a face-to-face meeting
b) Technical Committee
For planning the operations, transition and establish liasons
with the RIR's technical staff
c) Publication Committee
For the translations of documents and correspondence to the
community, publishing a status report every month. We should
have chairs for each committee and distribute the workload,
reporting monthly. It is essential that there is
regular communications to the community.
5. ASSIGNMENT OF RESPONSIBILITIES
Business/Finance:
a) Theo Kramer
b) Tarek Kamel
RIR Liason:
a) Alan Barrett [RIPE/ARIN]
b) Yann Kwok [APNIC]
LIR & Outreach:
a) Charles Musisi
b) Pierre Dandjinou
Technical:
a) Alan Barrett
b) Pierre Mootobe
Publications:
PierreDandjinou
Haja RAMBOASALAM
Meeting adjourned.
