The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has unveiled a platform with the objective of fostering innovation, experimentation and increasing community engagement levels.
ICANNLabs will enable the ICANN community to engage in a transparent process consistent with its stakeholder model with anyone free to sign up to receive updates and provide feedback.
The organisation will launch prototypes focussed on four areas: Communication, Education, Conversation and Discovery and Personalisation.
“ICANNLabs will give us an experimental digital space where we can showcase beta versions of proposed digital tools and assets and then seek community feedback,” said Sally Costerton, senior advisor to ICANN president on global stakeholder engagement.
“Using that feedback we will improve, or perhaps abandon certain tools then re-introduce improved versions and continue in that cycle until we have new and useful tools.”
Under Communication, the organisation will seek to understand how it can drive increased awareness and participation in internet policy discussion by exploring new models for content creation, growth and distribution.
On Education, ICANN wants to find ways of leveraging on new online learning models to increase knowledge about the organisation, its processes and its constituents.
Conversation will assess ways to facilitate deeper discussion and collaboration around policy development, which could extend to ICANN’s public comment process.
Discovery and Personalisation will focus more on the community where ICANN will find ways to satisfy diverse interests and needs of the people and recommend relevant policy news, discussion and education resources.
ICANNLabs will also look at tools which frame issues around digital conversations, on social media, on education and on discovery.
