NextGen@ICANN - Presentations and Board Welcome
ICANN 86 - Seville, Spain – 9-10 June 2026
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The NextGen@ICANN 86 presentations brought together emerging researchers and practitioners examining Internet governance through perspectives spanning multilingualism, cybersecurity, AI, DNS resilience, privacy, consensus-building, and digital inclusion. Across the program, presenters repeatedly emphasized the importance of resilient infrastructure, meaningful participation, multilingual accessibility, and governance models capable of balancing security, accountability, and human rights.
Presenters: Salsabil Yakoubi - KU Leuven Public Governance Institute; Maria Pericàs Riera - Technical University of Munich; Kristina Ivanova - Óbuda University; Amaan Ali - University College London; Diana Kozlovska - Kyiv Aviation Institute; Omran Adam - Kristiania University; Haoua Annour Nassir - Lille University; Hümay Zehra Özer - University of Bern; Rym Badran - Dublin City University; Ariba Aleem - University of Bonn; Hugo Ramirez - Queen Mary University of London
Recognized Online: Universal Acceptance and Multilingual Inclusion
Salsabil Yakoubi framed Universal Acceptance (UA) as a core issue of digital inclusion, arguing that participation online depends not only on translation or connectivity, but on whether systems can properly recognize multilingual users through their names, email addresses, and domain names. Using the Mediterranean region as a case study, she highlighted how migration, script diversity, and growing reliance on digital public services expose persistent gaps in Internet infrastructure. Yakoubi stressed that platforms may be translated while still excluding users if they cannot correctly process non-Latin identifiers.
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Are We Heading Toward a Splinternet? The Future of Internet Governance
Maria Pericàs Riera examined the growing risk of Internet fragmentation driven by geopolitical conflict, diverging regulatory regimes, platform consolidation, and competing national approaches to digital sovereignty. She explored how differing governance models between regions such as the European Union, United States, China, and Russia could gradually undermine the universality and interoperability that historically defined the Internet. While fragmentation may sometimes emerge from legitimate concerns around security, privacy, or national control, she warned that a “splinternet” could weaken global collaboration, restrict information flows, and reduce the openness of the Internet ecosystem.
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Agentic AI Methods to Support Reasoning and Consensus in ICANN Policy Deliberations
Kristina Ivanova proposed using agentic AI systems to support transparency, reasoning, and consensus-building in ICANN policy processes. Using Label Generation Rules proceedings as an example, she argued that ICANN deliberations increasingly require participants to navigate large volumes of technical documentation, procedural records, public comments, and multilingual materials simultaneously. Her proposed workflow would use AI to retrieve evidence, organize structured outputs, identify ambiguities, and track changes over time while preserving full human oversight.
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Reimagining Privacy in Domain Name Governance: ICANN’s Registration Data Policies in the Post-GDPR Era
Amaan Ali explored how GDPR transformed registration data governance and accelerated the transition from WHOIS to RDAP. He argued that Internet governance must move beyond framing privacy and accountability as opposing values and instead build systems capable of balancing both through structured tiered-access models. Ali sharply criticized ICANN’s Registration Data Request Service (RDRS), describing it as a discretionary request system rather than meaningful differentiated access, and proposed mandatory participation, automated accreditation systems, and faster response procedures for verified cybersecurity incidents.
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Cyber Threats in Domain Infrastructure: A Case Study and Takeaways
Diana Kozlovska focused on DNS spoofing, cache poisoning, and DNSSEC deployment as central issues in Internet infrastructure security. Drawing heavily on Ukraine’s wartime cyber experience, she argued that DNSSEC has evolved from a purely technical mechanism into a matter of national resilience and strategic cybersecurity. Kozlovska emphasized that successful DNSSEC deployment depends not only on technical maturity but also on governance, institutional cooperation, incentives, and operational support.
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AI, Internet Access, and Peacebuilding: How Digital Governance Can Support Fragile Communities
Omran Adam connected AI governance directly to peacebuilding, inclusion, and infrastructure access in fragile and conflict-affected communities. Drawing on experiences across Sudan, Norway, Ukraine, India, and elsewhere, he argued that AI can only support vulnerable populations when built on secure, multilingual, accessible, and trusted Internet infrastructure. Adam outlined applications for AI in healthcare, education, humanitarian coordination, translation, accessibility, and misinformation detection, while positioning ICANN’s work on DNS coordination, Universal Acceptance, interoperability, and secure identifiers as foundational to broader AI ecosystems.
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Bridging the Digital Divide: Internet Governance, DNS, and Access Challenges in Chad
Haoua Annour Nassir examined Internet inequality and digital inclusion challenges in Chad, arguing that the digital divide remains both a technological and social issue shaped by weak infrastructure, affordability barriers, and lack of digital education. Contrasting the capital city of N’Djamena with rural regions such as Fianga, Nassir described how expensive and unstable connectivity limits access to education, business opportunities, and digital participation. She proposed community DNS hubs and Internet governance laboratories in schools and universities to strengthen local technical capacity and awareness.
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Quantifying DNS Resilience: A Statistical Reliability Framework for Global Internet Infrastructure
Hümay Zehra Özer proposed a statistical framework for predicting DNS resilience and infrastructure risks before failures occur. Applying reliability engineering and stochastic modeling principles, she argued that DNS governance should move from reactive outage response toward proactive resilience estimation. Using examples such as the Dyn DNS outage, Özer showed how localized failures can cascade globally across interconnected infrastructure.
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DNS Abuse Mitigation as Internet Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Europe and the Middle East
Rym Badran examined DNS abuse mitigation as both a cybersecurity and governance issue, comparing Europe’s highly regulated environment with more state-centered approaches in the Middle East and North Africa region. She argued that DNS abuse often intersects directly with censorship, surveillance, political conflict, and human rights concerns. Using the Sea Turtle DNS hijacking campaign as a case study, Badran showed how politically motivated attacks have targeted governments, NGOs, media organizations, and minority groups.
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Implementing Universal Acceptance in Europe: A Change Management Perspective on Building a Multilingual Internet
Ariba Aleem argued that Universal Acceptance is now primarily an organizational and governance challenge rather than a technical one. Focusing on Europe’s multilingual environment, she connected UA directly to digital sovereignty, minority-language inclusion, and the EU Digital Decade agenda. Applying Kotter’s change-management framework, Aleem proposed coordinated action involving governments, registries, academia, civil society, and the private sector to transform UA from an optional best practice into a mainstream operational requirement.
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Conversational Dynamics and Consensus in Technical Environments
Hugo Ramirez presented large-scale research into how consensus forms within technical governance communities, analyzing eighteen years of IETF mailing-list discussions. Examining approximately 2.5 million emails associated with 11,000 technical drafts, he explored how timing and sentiment patterns correlate with successful publication outcomes. Ramirez found that the IETF increasingly favors concentrated late-stage discussions and more neutral conversational styles over highly emotional exchanges.
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ICANN Board Welcomes Fellowship and NextGen@ICANN Programs Participants
Speakers: Tripti Sinha - ICANN Board Chair; León Sánchez - ICANN Board; James Galvin - SSAC Liaison to the ICANN Board; Greg DiBiase - ICANN Board; David Lawrence - IETF Liaison to the ICANN Board; Raúl Echeberría - ICANN Board; Catherine Adeya - ICANN Board; Miriam Sapiro - ICANN Board; ICANN Fellows and NextGen Participants
Moderator: Siranush Vardanyan - ICANN Fellowship Program Manager
The concluding interactive session brought together ICANN Board members, fellows, and NextGen participants for a wide-ranging discussion on the future of the multistakeholder model, AI, cybersecurity, accessibility, consensus-building, and leadership within the ICANN ecosystem. Board members emphasized the importance of globally diverse participation, compromise within multistakeholder processes, and continued engagement by younger generations. Discussion topics ranged from AI-assisted DNS abuse and Internet fragmentation to visa accessibility challenges and the resilience of DNS infrastructure. Participants also explored how ICANN can remain adaptable amid rapid technological change while preserving a single open and interoperable Internet.
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RESOURCES
NextGen@ICANN86 Participants Announcement — ICANN’s official listing of the selected presenters
ICANN86 Meeting — Seville, 9–10 June 2026 public meeting hub