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ccNSO Testimonial - Alejandra Reynoso
Testimonial: Louise Marie Hurel
I am grateful to be a part of the Community Onboarding Program. Over the past few months, I have been able to experience one of the most welcoming cross-constituency working space; full of energy, dedication and people who, despite their different backgrounds, have found a place where they can learn, share and develop ways of: (i) critically assessing in-reach and (ii) enhancing outreach with a particular structure that is suited to communicating with their respective members (and potential members).
During our last meeting in Johannesburg, Janice talked about the "newcomer journey” and the importance of understanding that each person has a unique path of engagement. I would like to take part of this testimonial to share my personal experience in this program.
I myself am trailing this not-yet-drawn path, and as a newcomer that has started understanding ICANN through the onboarding Program I have to highlight its relevance to the effective engagement of individuals in their respective constituencies. Prior to the program, my vision was restricted to what I could follow on the mailing lists or through my successive attempts to understand the topics being discussed in monthly policy calls. Working with, and learning from, the Onboarding Program resulted in two main lessons. Firstly, it broadened my understanding of ICANN. The “bite-sized pieces” approach spearheaded by Kathy Kleiman and Ayden Férdeline places NCUC “in perspective”, helping newcomers to rapidly connect with the main policy processes and how interconstituency dynamics work. Secondly, as soon as I joined the team, I saw that I was also able to contribute with my reactions and perspectives to the material being developed. On the other hand, I was positively challenged to “walk the talk” and put this experience into practice as I became more involved in GNSO Working Groups.
These lessons do not come uncoupled from the fact that I am thrilled and privileged to take part in such a qualified team as the one that I’m in. Both Kathy Kleiman and Ayden Férdeline have been mentors down this road, helping me find my way of meaningfully contributing to the NCUC and the broader ICANN community. Navigating ICANN can sometimes feel like "peeling off an onion"; one goes through layers and layers of knowledge, skill-building, time, dedication and processes. The program has taught me to value my experience and to be more confident, knowing that it takes one step at a time to find my own voice within this ecosystem.
Testimonial: Esteban Lescano, August 2017
I have taken part in the Community Onboarding Pilot Program since ICANN56 in Helsinki, continuing the work and participating in both ICANN58 in Copenhagen and ICANN59 in Johannesburg.
The program was very useful for me because it has forced me to get a better understanding of ISPCP constituency, its members, its leadership and the main topics under discussion.
Moreover, the program was a wonderful opportunity to collaborate and to build bridges with people from other constituencies inside ICANN’s ecosystem through our worksessions held before each of the ICANN Meetings that I was able to attend.
In some way, I felt that the Program was a “neutral” arena for people coming from different constituencies and in same cases with opposite agendas to work together for the ICANN community common benefit.
During the program, I worked with Osama Tamimi, from Palestine and an ICANN fellow alumni like me. We drafted the Onboarding document together, summarizing all the relevant information about ISPCP for newcomers and following the guidelines developed in each Onboarding work session.
I believe that the Program is trying to fill the “information gap” that exists when a newcomer starts to participate in the ISPCP constituency and is a good tool to provide the materials needed to allow a “soft landing” into everyday ISPC’s activity inside ICANN, because is not easy to understand ISPCP and its role inside ICANN when you are a newcomer. I remember my first approach to ICANN in Buenos Aires ICANN48, before my first fellowship and how hard was to understand the topic under discussion in ISPCP public meeting.
The dialect, the issues and the way in which they are treated need a better explanation when is your first or second ICANN meeting.
From that point of view the Onboarding Program is a great idea as a “think tank” for each community to develop new tools to lead the onboarding process when a newcomer arrives.
ICANN’s complexity needs a better explanation and more effective tools to promote engagement, beginning with each constituency, Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee.
It is important to mention that during the process, Osama and I worked in connection with ISPCP Leadership, Wolf Ulrich Knoben and Tony Holmes, who read and reviewed the document as it was being drafted.
I hope to continue working on the Program during 2018 and finally, I want to thank Janice Douma Lange and her team for the opportunity of continuing learning about ISPs inside ICANN ecosystem, in collaboration with colleagues from other constituencies and taking part in the process of helping newcomers to engage with ICANN.
IPC’s Participation in the ICANN Onboarding Pilot Program, July 2017
The Intellectual Property Constituency participates in the ICANN Outreach Pilot Program from the start of the program in 2016. The IPC is represented by Mr. Dusan Popovic and Mr. Aleksandar Icokaev, members of the IPC Outreach and Engagement Task Force.
The IPC was represented at all Onboarding meetings by at least one of its representatives. Further to Onboarding meetings held during the ICANN forums, three times a year, the IPC representatives participated in all conference calls held in between the meetings.
So far, the IPC representatives drafted the following Onboarding documents:
- Welcome letter
- Comprehensive guide to the IPC
- Follow-up questionnaire.
The IPC representatives in the Onboarding Program regularly inform the IPC president and other members of the IPC Outreach and Engagement Task Force of the progress made within the program. The Comprehensive guide to the IPC, developed within the program, was approved by the IPC president and then shared with other members of the Onboarding Program at ICANNwiki.
The Comprehensive guide to the IPC, the main document developed within the program, contains information relevant to newcomers and directs the readers to other available sources, especially to ICANN Learn courses of a certain level (beginners, intermediate, advanced).
The activities undertaken within the Onboarding Program correspond well to the IPC 2017 Outreach and Engagement Strategic Plan, which prescribes as a specific objective to “(…) improve engagement (…) by providing easier access to knowledge (…) and by providing more guidance and support to newcomers”. The tools developed within the Onboarding Program would address this problem specifically.
NPOC Testimonial of the Community Mentorship Program
Agustina Callegari and Martin Silva
“The Community Mentorship Program aims to welcome and retain new community members in order to integrate them into meaningful work at ICANN. It seeks to lower the entry cost of engagement at the new comer stage by offering fast track of capacity building, information, orientation and community integration.
The Non-for-profit Operational Concerns Constituency (NPOC), as part of the GNSO, gives a space to an specific stakeholder to develop policy for the Generic Top Level Domains. NPOC has yet a lot of challenges to accomplish, one of them is to incorporate, retain and meaningful engage new members in order to fully fulfill its mandate.
Since NPOC deals with a very specific issue and with a very diverse stakeholder, usually under-prepared, unfunded and already overworked, having a proper way to welcome newcomers to make their engagement easier is crucial. The Program address this by understanding the stakeholder journey and helping each constituency to create the due process and materials of their own that will increase newcomers engagement. It was community asked for, community maned, community driven and their content, result and success will remain in the community itself.
For NPOC, the welcoming letter, toolkit and other materials developed here can make a big difference to a newcomer, as they are meaningful and immediately applicable communication pieces. However, it’s not just the materials that make this such a valuable resource; it is the expertise behind them. This Program brings many diverse community members together across the complex ICANN's structure to break silos and build upon sharing experiences, knowledge and tools. The most exciting part is that the group formed is truly committed to ensure success for their communities to engage newcomers.
For the first stage of the program, Janice's consultative and collaborative approach was crucial in ensuring it's growing. We are confident that this Program will have a lasting impact on our community and on ICANN itself.”
GAC Testimonial
Rapid SUN was selected to attend ICANN 54 in Dublin. He was coordinator of Khmer Generation Panel for Khmer Script Root Zone LGR proposal (IDN Program). After the ICANN meeting, he had worked to get Cambodia representative in the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN at ICANN 55 in Marrakech.
As GAC’s new member, He was selected to be mentee of the Pilot Community Onboarding Program which Mr. Tracy Hackshaw served as mentor. The program is to assist ICANN communities through a pilot Mentor/Mentee initiative to assist newcomers to the ICANN meetings.
Through the mentorship program, He is able to learn about the GAC structure, how it is operated and other communities within ICANN in a short period. He coordinated with ICANN regional office to organize ICANN engagement workshop and some trainings in Cambodia.
He has worked with his mentor to develop a newcomers toolkit for new GAC members to help with their learning and understanding of the GAC. The GAC Underserved Region Working Group (USR WG) will continue working with him on the document and will be working with the website team in order to have it available on the new website and ICANN Learn portal by ICANN 60.
Ms. Pua Hunter, Co-Chair of USR WG, echoes the great need of such program due to lack of participation of GAC members from the Underserved regions in policy development processes and other GAC activities and appreciate the Mentor/Mentee initiative.
