Strategic Plan

Strategic & Business Plan

For the Period

2007 – 2009

Introduction

APTLD (Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association) is a membership organization of ccTLD (Country-Code Top-Level Domain) managers in the Asia-Pacific (AP) region. Our geographic coverage stretches from the west coast of North and South America all the way west to the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

APTLD works as a forum for coordination and exchange of information for its Members. We focus on Best Practice for Members in the areas of Policy, Administration, Operations and Technology. We offer training at beginning and advanced levels. We provide a forum for our Members to learn of the latest technology issues specifically relevant to ccTLDs. We are also the interface for Asia Pacific ccTLDs to international Internet coordination bodies. APTLD fosters and promotes participation of our ccTLDs in these global fora, and acts in the interests of Members in global policy making. We also coordinate our activities with those of other regional ccTLD organisations around the world.

Our objectives are:

1. To promote skills development and information exchange among Members, related to Internet domain names and registry operations.

2. To provide a forum to discuss policy matters affecting Internet domain name related organisations.

3. To act as an interface with Internet coordination bodies and other bodies involved in the Internet domain name operation.

Vision and Mission

Our Vision is that all members of the APTLD have the skills and knowledge necessary to operate world class ccTLDs

Our Mission is to provide our members with the opportunities to share information and develop the skills necessary to operate the best ccTLD operation possible. We will also work to provide our members with the information that they need to do this and we will engage with Internet coordinating bodies to ensure that our members can achieve their objectives.

Our Values will be to be open and honest and very communicative.

Environmental Overview

The Internet domain name space is divided into two broad categories – General Top Level Domain Names (gTLDs) and Country Code Top Level Domain Names (ccTLDs). The ccTLDs are grouped into four distinct geographic regions – Europe (served by CENTR), Africa (served by AFTLD), Latin American and the Caribbean (served by LACTLD) and Asia-Pacific (served by APTLD).

ICANN deals with policy issues for the gTLDs but each individual ccTLD manager deals with the issues for their own ccTLD.

Within the Asia-Pacific region there are more than 75 ccTLDs who could join APTLD. These range from very small operations to fairly large. Organisationally the operations include Universities and Research Centres, Not-for-Profit organization, Government Departments, For Profit organizations and individuals.

The APTLD regional coverage is physically very large and consists of many, many different languages and scripts, cultures, and levels of technical and commercial knowledge.

Core Activities 2007

Promote skills development and information sharing

We will have three major meetings during the year
February 2007 in conjunction with the APRICOT technical Meeting in Bali, Indonesia	$10,000
May 2007 somewhere in the Middle-East	$10,000
October 2007 in conjunction with the ICANN meeting to be held in the Asia Pacific region	$10,000
We will also hold a smaller meeting focused on the Pacific	$5,000

(These smaller meetings will be to facilitate exchanges where the costs of travel would be otherwise prohibitive).

The meetings will run two days (or as needed) and will include:

A technical focus
An ‘commercial’ focus
An APTLD administrative component

We will facilitate an exchange of staff among members. Toward this end we will collate information about Areas of Interest and Areas of Expertise from members and publish the information on our web-site so that member with Interest can contact members with Expertise.

We will underwrite and facilitate two Technical Training sessions to be operated by AIT based in Bangkok. (These will be independent of our normal meetings) These sessions will cover: Introductory Technical Skills Advanced Technical Skills	$10,000
We will operate one non-technical training session that will be held in conjunction with our Middle-East meeting.	$5,000
We will provide a limited number of partial sponsorships for potential or new members to attend our meetings.	$10,000
We will undertake research and publish the findings on at least two areas of interest to members.	$10,000
We will operate e-mail listservers and a Wiki within the APTLD.org domain to allow members to raise questions, issues or answers.
We will publish an electronic newsletter four-times per year with material of interest to and about our members.	$1,000

Act as an Interface to Internet coordinating bodies

We will monitor activities within ICANN and actively engage with ICANN and the ccNSO by attending their meetings and participating in their discussions. These funds are to cover travel costs to ICANN and other TLD (CENTR, LACTLD, etc.).

$15,000

We will solicit our member’s views on issues through our discussion lists and on-line surveys.

We will offer reciprocal membership benefits and participation with the other ccTLD member organizations – CENTR, AFTLD and LACTLD. We will meet with them as opportunities arise.

Membership Growth

We will actively pursue potential members and share with them the value of APTLD membership. We will do this through e-mail, phone, and physical visits – both to individual ccTLDs and to meetings where ccTLD’s might otherwise be present.

$10,000

Organisational Support

We will engage a Secretariat to provide administrative, technical and financial services. This figure includes the Secretariat fee and the cost for an independent Audit.	$16,500
We will have a General Manager to lead APTLD’s activities. This figure includes salary and office support costs.	$58,000
We will have a provision for costs associated with supporting Board Committees.	$1,000

Notes to the Budget:

Travel for the General Manager is included in the activities.
Administration, bank, finance, audit and technical costs are included in the Secretariat
Office costs are included in the General Manager’s costs.

Organisational Structure

APTLD members will elect the Board in line with the Constitutions and By-Laws.

The Board will include several committees which can include non-Board members at the invitation of the Board. The committees will include:

Meeting Committee – Responsible for guiding the meetings.
Training Committee – Responsible for developing the Training Syllabus and program.
Technical Committee – Responsible for identifying technical issues and associated policies and actions.
Other Committees as appropriate.

Income

Income will come from:

Membership Fees from Members	$90,000
Associate Membership Fees	$5,000
Interest	$1,000
Other – Sponsorship, Meeting Fees	$5,000

Financial Summary

Total Income	$101,000
Promote skills development and information sharing	$71,000
Act as an Interface to Internet coordinating bodies	$15,000
Membership Growth	$10,000
Organisational Structure	$75,500
Net Surplus (Deficit)	-$68,000

Notes to the Financials:

This assumes no material additions to membership and that all existing members continue to contribute at their current committed level.
We are forecast to start the 2007 year with $125,000 in the bank.

APTLD

PO Box 11-881, Wellington, New Zealand

Phone +64-4-495-2113 | Fax +64-4-495-2115 | don@aptld.org