ICANN Engagement Center to Open in Latin America (Montevideo, Uruguay)

The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) today announced the opening of an engagement center in Montevideo, Uruguay.

“The opening of this regional engagement center is part or our growing effort to establish an ICANN presence in all parts of the globe,” said Fadi Chehadé. “We are not merely saying to people ‘come to us.’ We are going to them. We are reaching out to the Latin American/Caribbean region with representatives who will live and work in the area.”

The ICANN engagement center will be based in the House of the Internet, where several other Internet organizations are located, including: The Internet Society, the Latin American and Caribbean Network Information Centre (LANIC), The Latin American and Caribbean TLD Association (LACTLD) and the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Exchange Association (LAC-IX).

“ICANN´s decision to establish its Engagement Center for Latin America and the Caribbean at the House of the Internet makes us proud and at the same time confirms the value of this initiative that recently celebrated its first anniversary,” said Raúl Echeberría, CEO of LACNIC. “All of the organizations in the house will benefit and be strengthened in the achievement of their own objectives and in the joint work for the sake of the community in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

“I recently visited the House of the Internet,” said ICANN Board Chair, Dr. Stephen Crocker. “This is a fantastic model, where a number of different Internet organizations can coordinate their efforts and even share resources, working together for the benefit of Internet users across the region.”

The Latin American/Caribbean engagement center is the second announced in the last few weeks. During ICANN’s recently concluded public meeting in China, Fadi Chehadé announced that an engagement center would soon be opened in Beijing.

It was during the Beijing meeting that a Multi-stakeholder Steering Committee for the Latin American and Caribbean region presented a 3-year strategic plan aimed at strengthening the Internet critical infrastructure in the region. The committee is made up of regional representatives of Internet users groups, the technical community, the private sector and governments.