Update: 2020-03-25
Over the past few weeks, we have been monitoring the developments related to COVID-19. The health and safety of everyone participating in our community at this difficult time are important priorities to DNS-OARC. With this in mind, and as a precautionary measure to protect the health and safety of of the DNS-OARC community, we made the announcement last week that OARC 33 will no longer take place in Paris in May. ICANN also announced that its GDD and IDS events, co-located with OARC 33, would not be taking place in 2020, and that they would not be able to host OARC 33 for us as planned.
With the COVID-19 situation constantly and rapidly changing (and now considered a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization, causing much uncertainty for all concerned, at the same time as restrictions imposed on the majority of attendees including staff, we had no option except to not go ahead with the workshop in Paris.
The OARC Board explored various options, and decided to keep the next workshop as a physical meeting. Our alternative plan is to hold this just before the RIPE 81 meeting in Milan, Italy at the end of September (the date and location originally planned for OARC 34). We are also looking at hosting the CENTR-Tech meeting there. This effectively postpones the event by ~5 months, and returns us to 2 rather than 3 workshops during 2020. As we were exceptionally planning both OARC 33 and OARC 34 to be in Europe, we are hopeful this change will not significantly impact our attendees or speakers.
While this is our aim, we are at the mercy of the changing COVID-19 situation, however we will explore contingencies and keep the DNS-OARC community updated at all times.
Planned speakers
A strong slate of 18 abstracts was submitted for OARC 33, and we'd very much like to see these talks presented.
The Programme Committee will be working with the speakers of the currently submitted talks to see which of them can still be included in the re-scheduled workshop.
Registrations
Existing OARC 33 registrations will be cancelled in due course and everyone will be invited to register for the next physical meeting when registrations re-open.
We were able to offer free registration for OARC 33 as it was being hosted by ICANN. However, our next physical workshop will be run independently from ICANN, and registrations will be re-opened on the same paid basis as other OARC workshops.
Pre-booked accommodation
As a reminder, if you had booked to stay at the venue hotel using the OARC provided booking link, you must cancel before 22:59 UTC on March 26th to avoid any penalties.
Please refer to the Accommodation Page for access to the booking / cancellation link allowing you to cancel.
Update: 2020-03-18
In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the OARC 33 Workshop will no longer take place on the scheduled dates in Paris. Further arrangements for OARC's next workshop will be published by 26th March.
In the meantime, please cancel your travel bookings.
If you had booked to stay at the venue hotel using the OARC provided booking link, you must cancel before 22:59 UTC on March 26th to avoid any penalties.
Please refer to the Accommodation Page for access to the booking / cancellation link allowing you to cancel.
Update 2020-03-11
DNS-OARC is aware of the situation concerning the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and how this may impact attendance and travel arrangements for OARC33.
The health and safety of everyone participating in our global DNS community is an important priority to DNS-OARC, and we are closely monitoring the situation.
We regret but understand that some of our attendees may be unable to be at OARC33 due to this outbreak and related employer- and/or state-imposed travel restrictions. OARC has been exploring contingencies should we not be able to proceed as planned with OARC33. At this point in time, we are still working to our plans to have the workshop in Paris on 9/10 May, but the situation is very fluid and subject to change. OARC33 is being co-located with, and hosted by ICANN (in conjunction with their GDD, RoW and IDS events), whom we expect will be working with the local authorities in Paris, the venue, and professional sources of advice. We will be consulting and meeting with ICANN on their plans for the combined events during the second half of March.
Our contingencies for not being able to proceed with OARC33 include canceling the event and deferring the submitted content to OARC34 in Milan in October; or possibly to conduct a remote-only workshop. We ask all our speakers to please bear with the situation, and to be prepared if they are able to present in either of these alternative venues.
We believe an appropriate point to make a go/no-go decision on a physical workshop for OARC33 will be around the 1st April, and the OARC Board has scheduled a meeting shortly before that to make this decision, should events not overtake matters meantime. We will communicate that decision no later than 2nd April.
We recommend that all OARC33 attendees remain alert, monitor the situation and their own health, and consult information from official sources in their home country. Official information on COVID-19 from The European Union Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and World Health Organization (WHO), are available at:
Please seek professional medical advice if you have concerns about the potential impact of this on your own health condition(s), and of course do not travel if you exhibit symptoms or feel unwell.
If you are unable to travel to OARC33 for any reason related to COVID-19, please let us know via <admin@dns-oarc.net>, and we'll do our best to facilitate your participation in OARC33 remotely and/or an alternative future workshop.
DNS-OARC will continue to monitor the COVID-19 situation and update this statement as needed.
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