ICANN 55 in Marrakech, Morocco takes place from 5-10 March 2016. A lot has happened since ICANN 54 in Dublin. With important issues such as the IANA Transition and ICANN Accountability nearing the finish line, ICANN 55 looks to be a historic meeting. Additionally, it marks the final meeting for Fadi Chehadé as President and CEO of ICANN.

If you want to catch up on recent developments or learn more about the important issues currently being addressed, this primer will serve as your go to guide for ICANN 55. If you have further questions or want further background, our site has approximately 6,000 articles on the people, organizations, terms and topics within the ICANN Community. You will find this Primer is well-linked to our relevant articles and anything articles that are not linked can be accessed by searching our site.

ICANN 55 - Meeting Details

The Venue

Edit-a-Thon

Join the ICANNWiki team this Monday and Tuesday, March 7th and 8th at 1:00-2:30 to learn how to edit and write for your community! Take what you learn at the conference and share it with those without the big picture--people around the world who either couldn't attend, or other conference goers who attended other sessions. We want a free, accessible resource foranyone interested in ICANN and Internet governance. Join us to support this mission! All attendees who make meaningful edits will be invited to our celebratory Reception held on the conference grounds Tuesday evening. We'll offer food and raffle prizes provided by Amazon. Have fun and see you in Marrakech!

Key Topics

IANA Transition

In March 2014, the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced its intention to transition the oversight role of the IANA Functions to the global multistakeholder community on 30 September 2015 (later extended to 30 September 2016). The announcement asked ICANN to initiate a multistakeholder process to develop a proposal to be submitted to the NTIA for approval. The proposal requires broad support and follows the following principles:

Support and enhance the multistakeholder model
Maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet DNS
Meet the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the IANA services
Maintain the openness of the Internet

In response, ICANN formed the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG), made up of 30 members from 13 constituencies, to develop the structure and timeline for finalising the proposal, which requires proposals from the communities directly affected by the IANA functions. Each of these communities developed their own working groups to develop their proposal:

The Numbering Resources Community, comprised of the Numbers Resources Organization (NRO), the Address Supporting Organization (ASO) and the five Regional Internet Registries (RIR) formed the Consolidated RIR IANA Stewardship Proposal Team (CRISP Team) to develop their proposal.
The Protocol Parameters community, comprised of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), formed the IANAPLAN Working Goup.
The Domain Names community, developed two working groups the CWG-Stewardship and the CCWG-Accountability.

On 29 October 2015, the ICG announced that it had finalised all of the proposals from the community, except for the one from the CCWG-Accountability, which is currently in its final stages. If everything proceeds as planned the community will submit the final proposal to take over stewardship of the IANA functions on 10 March 2016, the last day of ICANN 55.

ICANN 55 Quick Guide

ICANN 55 - Meeting Details

Edit-a-Thon

Key Topics

IANA Transition

Schedule

Acronyms

Resources