Candidate Statement 2019

Why do you want to serve on the EC?

I believe my participation in NCUC EC will create another alternative for community members to participate and get more involved within NCUC and NCSG activities and committees, especially newcomers and followers who are not yet active.

Personally, I have participated and engaged the NCUC and ICANN Africa regional strategy since 2016, during my first ICANN meeting in Hyderabad. I hope the NCUC members will give me another opportunity to further contribute to activities NCUC and serve the African region as I also intend to intensify engagement with and among NCSG constituencies, committees and NCUC itself in order to enable mainstreaming of regional members within NCUC, NCSG and ICANN activities. I have always incorporated leadership and administrative capabilities in every task I undertake.

I plan to contribute to enhancing up capacity building initiatives to also encompass research and analysis with drafting skills, as there are currently few penholders within NCUC who can see a public comment to completion.

Provide a brief biography of recent experience, associations, and affiliations relevant to serving on the Executive Committee. Describe the relevance of your personal and professional experience to serve on the NCUC Executive Committee, and identify any conflicts of interests you might have.

I am not conflicted and I have experience in financial administration, policy development, research, analysis, project management and advocacy skills and experienced acquired over 15 years of my professional span. I have co-founded multiple organisations which are operational, worked with global companies, civil society and collaborated with governments before engaging the digital space, which started in 2010. My role as the current ISOC South Africa Gauteng Chapter President and member of South African Multistakeholder Committee on Internet Governance does not affect my plans for NCUC as all is inline and complements the work of the Chapters and the local IG fora.

2.1 Other activities within ICANN

In 2017, I also helped managed the NCUC stall during the Global IGF in Geneva, over 2 days, at differentiated time slots. I was also involved in the coordination and moderation of NCUC outreach in Johannesburg, pre ICANN59, 2017, which was a success.

During 2018, I worked with NCSG FC and community members, to finalise the FC Operational Procedures which was a serious exercise, especially with limited number of volunteers. The work of the FC was faced with challenges due to diverse views of community and committee members in regard to functions, autonomy and purpose of the FC within NCSG and how it collaborates and consults with constituencies. The FC during the said term, worked on ABR analysis, ICANN and IANA/PTI comments, and started developing reference document like action plans and summaries of ABRs. I have also participated in outreach during ICANN meetings, specifically, ICANN 62 and ICANN64.

Now in 2019, since ICANN64, I am currently coordinating with the current NCUC EC Africa representative and the regional mailing list members and volunteers to find a way to improve regional participation and contribution within ICANN, NCSG and constituency activities. I started engaging the ICANN Africa office as from early 2018 to figure or map out ways on how to improve regional participation and contributions within ICANN and regional activities before setting up a meeting during ICANN64.

I am also a member of CCWG on New gTLD AP proceeds and am currently participating in a community comment on mainstreaming organisational reviews next steps, I also continue following up on ICANN 5-year and annual plans and budget sessions by ICANN finance online and onsite where possible.

2.2 Other activities within the Internet Governance space

I have participated and set on panel of different global, regional and local events like the 2017 ION conference in Durban, South African IGF 2014 -2019, 2016 - 2017 Community Networks Summit and the 2016 African IGF, as a member of the South African Multistakeholder Committee on Internet Governance, representing civil society, we will also been facilitating local IGFs in the past 2 years and this year will also be facilitating the 1^st South African School on Internet Governance. I am the South African coordinator of ACSIS – African Civil Society on Information Society and member of the Africa Community Network Summit Program Committee. I have been active in the internet space since 2010 developing community networks in South Africa’s townships and rural areas and promoting policies for an open, affordable and stable internet.

During my career and professional span, I have received various distinctions, fellowships and awards, the most recent:

1. August 2015: Nunnovation African Innovator of the month accolade
2. 2015 IVLP (International Visitors Leadership Program) by the US Government focussing on innovation, entrepreneurship and small business development in 4 states
3. ICANN57, 62 and 64 Fellowship
4. 2016 AFRISIG (African School on Internet Governance) fellowship
5. 2018 Eduweek award [educationweek.co.za] Inspiration award

I have actively participated in national, regional and international levels also worked with local registries, registrars, working groups formed by ISOC, local state Department of Postal Services and Telecommunications, World Economic Forum and other local businesses, foundations and institutions.

The EC performs several functional responsibilities for the Constituency. What level of time commitment can you bring to your EC role on a weekly and overall basis? Describe any concerns or limitations on your ability to attend online meetings of the Executive Committee and ICANN Meetings in person.
I normally have time for attending meetings online and onsite and I am already spending 10 -20 hours per week on working groups, community comments, NCUC, NCSG and communities’ regional activities.

Communication with the membership is critical. How would you keep members apprised of your EC-related activities?

I normally share reports and updates as I have previously done while engaged in NCSG FC, I provided NCUC EC and NCUC Africa webinars with reports on Financial activities, plans and updates. I also learned the community communication practice within ICANN communities and plan to improve or sustain my communication with the mailing list. With the help of the NCSG FC, I have also coordinated online meetings with NCSG FC committee members, started to develop the FC document repository, attended NCSG and NCUC monthly calls and normally giving report on the FC activities, although the last 4 months have been challenging due other reasons.

 

ICANN as a global policy driven institution with community-driven processes, it is expected that internal politics will arise from time to time since we all come from different backgrounds with different challenges, not all views will be agreed upon all the time but I believe that in an environment of enhanced accountability, impartiality, trust, and transparency, it is less likely to encounter significant disagreements and clash of views. The politics that take place within ICANN and communities cannot be given a blind-eye because those who are denied opportunity and support will never participate and contribute at expected levels. So, it is my goal to understand the decision-making process that takes place at NCUC EC as it is good to have battles on principles and avoid personal fights, for instance, I believe opportunities should be shared not amongst membership not earmarked for specific few members or committees, for whatever reasons, community ABRs should be more open for regional and membership applications and so should CROP.

I normally discuss issues and collaborate and normally avoid conflicts and confrontations but I feel that an environment needs to be created for newcomers and inactive members to anticipate without fear of being judged for lacking skills, experience or fluent in a particular language since there is a thin line, IMO, based on personal perception between being assertive and being disrespectful and being weak against being humble. Threading around this dynamic will lead to effectiveness and tolerance of diversity within the community.

Improvement in communication methods at all levels to facilitate more dialogue between the constituencies, NCSG and the GNSO is paramount, so I look forward to promoting the bottom-up approach to policy development and community consultation and engagement to ensure that pertinent issues are tabled before the NCUC EC.

How do you foresee NCUC’s function, scale, or role changing in the future? What areas of ICANN policy, if any, need more attention and why? Incumbent candidates should answer in a manner that is both backward and forward-looking, i.e. taking note of their contributions and work in the previous year.

Within NCUC, I have also mentored newcomers in order to fast track their participation within ICANN and constituency activities, through the NCUC buddy program, which I believe, need to be revived as it was a very good program that gets members active and broadens participation.

Now with a change in my role within the FC, now being an observer member, my participation in NCUC EC will provide me another opportunity to serve NCUC in a different capacity, especially when it comes to exploring how AFRALO is organised to work with ICANN AFRICA GSE office collaborating on regional events and activities. I believe that NCUC must consider ways of ow to strengthen its regional efforts by exploring feasibility of adopting regional structures to steer qualitative growth of community and membership efforts.

Besides my administration, financial and project management background, I am also experienced in research, analyses and policy development, I intend to use all this to contribute to community activities and ensure that voices of the global south and underrepresented regions are brought to the table during discussions. I believe that the ground needs to be leveled and the use of degrading, intimidating comments and  language needs to be guarded against with vigor in order for inactive members and newcomers to start participating and contributing to activities because it seems currently like voices from developed countries/global north normally dominate the ICANN and community policy discourse within ICANN communities, activities and related decision-making processes, IMO, leaving the affected at the mercy of the empowered, so cross-regional community collaborations can also be a link to such issues and for addressing capacity shortages, challenges in certain secluded regions or members.

I am certain that the work of NCUC will have a strong impact on the development and evolution of DNS space and respective PDPs, which is the reason why representation in this role will require collaboration and taking into account your proposals and contributions of members.

IMO, policy areas needing attention include:

-       Organisational reviews

-       Right Protection Mechanisms

-       Expedited Policy Development Process

-       Open Data Initiative

               -     Universal Acceptance

-       New TLD subsequent procedures

 

Conclusion

As much as I am a direct person, sometimes mistaken as being disrespectful, I am normally expressive and vocal on critical issues, I believe the policy development environment needs vocal members who can represent the interest of the underrepresented in a meaningful way since a regions such as Africa is still lagging behind in terms of representation in ICANN meetings and organising itself, furthermore in our region we do not yet have collaborative spaces like Internet Houses where RALOs, RIR and other communities can collaborate on ICANN topical issues unlike other regions like LACNIC.

I appreciate and have worked and collaborated well with different members of NCUC in the past, like Farzaneh and Ayden during plenary of NCUC before ICANN 59, with Renata, Remmy and Joan of NPOC on NCSG FC activities during FY18. Renata has also been my mentor and I still respect her contributions for making NCUC more inclusive and enabling newcomers using innovative programs, her contributions have been very helpful to date.

Regionally, I am currently working with NCUC regional members to improve participation and contribution to the ICANN regional strategy. I intend to represent the African region within the NCUC EC to present her concerns during discussion and deliberation in the Committee meetings. I want to be a voice that stands for what is important and just right for NCUC and Africa. 

I believe Africa’s NCUC quantitative membership growth will impact on regional contributions within ICANN and hard decisions must be made to enhance transparency, fairness and equitable and consistent decision making. I intend to attempt changing the narrative that Africans cannot do anything by themselves because I do not and will never subscribe to that notion. I intend to continue collaborating and working with regional members to tackle regional issues and challenges, irrespective of the outcome of NCUC elections because only a few regional members are able to contribute and participate in community activities. Your vote will be appreciated to enabling development and execution of alternative strategies for the benefit of NCUC and the African region, including respective community and regional demands, thank you.

Thato Mfikwe

Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/in/royden-thato-mfikwe-97498746 [linkedin.com]