ICANN 81 Preview

What’s Coming Up at the Annual General Meeting?

The ICANN 81 Annual General Meeting will take place between Saturday 9 November and Thursday 14 November at the Istanbul Congress Center. The Annual General Meeting is where new members of the ICANN Board take their seats, along with most other community leaders, at the end of the week. Throughout the week, the ICANN Board will also meet with community groups. The incoming ICANN CEO, Kurt Lindqvist, is expected to attend some of the meeting ahead of him officially assuming the role on 5 December 2024.

In addition to leadership changes, Istanbul will be a busy meeting for work on the next round of new gTLDs. There are five dedicated working sessions to preparing for the opening of the next round during the week, and numerous other sessions focused around being ready for the launch of the next round and the opportunities it presents.

In addition to work on the next round, DNS Abuse and domain name registration data will continue to be worked on across the community. There will also a number of internet governance sessions during the week, reflecting on the Global Digital Compact and Summit for the Future as lead up to WSIS+20 next year.

If you do plan to attend in person, it is essential that you register by 8 November. Virtual attendees will also need to register before they can access the schedule and the links to participate in sessions but can do so right through to the end of the meeting. Please note that ICANN will again be using Sched for the meeting schedule, which is not integrated into ICANN’s meeting page. You can find details of all sessions on the ICANN 81 schedule.