Next week I’ll be attending both a registrar training event and Domain Pulse in Munich, Germany. It makes sense to colocate multiple events, so ICANN are holding a registrar event in the same venue as the bigger Domain Pulse to capitalise on attendance.
While Domain Pulse is running Thursday and Friday a few of us will also be involved in the registrar event the day before.
The seminar is aimed at both prospective registrars as well as new ones, or their newer staff members. Speakers throughout the day will include ICANN Staff as well as registrars and registries. While this is the first event of its kind in Europe ICANN might hold other ones in the future. A few of us have been working with ICANN’s local staff to make the event’s themes relevant and practical for attendees, so hopefully it’ll all pan out.
Topics being covered will include:
- What is ICANN?
- How to get involved in policy work
- What is the Registrar Stakeholder Group?
- Some of the challenges of switching from being a reseller to being a registrar
- Dealing with ICANN Compliance
- Universal acceptance ie. making all domains work everywhere
- Data protection and GDPR
Full details here.
Of course the main reason I’m heading to Munich is for Domain Pulse itself. The event is held every year and is organised by the ccTLD administrators of Austria (.at), Germany (.de) and Switzerland (.ch) who rotate the event between them every year. This year it’s Germany’s turn so they’ve chosen the home of BMW as the venue. So if nothing else I’ll hopefully get to see some cool cars!
Joking aside, the topics on the programme for Domain Pulse cover a range of topics, several of which are technology related but not totally domain focussed. Personally I think that’s a good thing, as a lot of domain events involve navel gazing, which isn’t particularly helpful. We need to look at technology in a much broader sense and consider how it impacts our daily lives and businesses, so topics like autonomous vehicles, IoT and the impact of terrorism on the state’s approach to digital are important and relevant.