Leaders from ICANN and ISOC Lebanon meet with the President of Lebanon. From L to R: Gabriel Deek, Vice President of ISOC Lebanon; Rod Beckstrom, President & CEO, ICANN; Michel Suleiman, President of Lebanon; Akram Atallah, COO of ICANN and Lebanese citizen; Nabil Bukhalid, Chairman of ISOC Lebanon.
5 October 2011, Lebanon -- On a trip to Beirut to provide education about new gTLDs and updates on the ICANN multi-stakeholder model, ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom, with Chief Operations Officer Akram Atallah, met with the President of Lebanon, Michel Suleiman, along with leaders of the local ISOC chapter.
President Suleiman expressed considerable interest in the ICANN multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance and how ICANN operates. In the President's conference room is a golden sword with a glass blade. The glass blade symbolizes the importance of transparency for improving government. The group discussed how the Internet is a platform for increasing global transparency. The President also expressed interest in the social and political changes occurring globally because of the Internet, and discussed the importance of the world's youth as innovators.
The ISOC Lebanon chapter was founded just last year by Mr. Nabil Bukhalid and Mr. Gabriel Deek as well as by National ICT Policy Strategy Coordinator Salam Yamout and Therese Saliba Khairallah. The chapter organized a new gTLD education event, held on 5 October and attended by approximately 40 Internet community members. ICANN leaders spoke at the event as part of the campaign to raise worldwide awareness of the coming new generic top-level domains.