Candidate Statement 2016

Dear NCUC members,

Please find below my candidate statement. Thank you for taking the time to read it! If you have any further questions, I would be happy to answer either via email or on the call tomorrow.

===Candidate Statement, Tatiana Tropina, nomination: NCUC EC European seat======

Name: Tatiana Tropina, Region of residence: Europe, Gender: Female, Employment: Senior Researcher, Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law, Freiburg, Germany. 

Conflict of interest: No. 

1    Why do you want to serve on the EC?
I want to contribute to the engagement of NCUC members into the ICANN processes and to the administrative functioning of the NCUC; and further effective governance at the NCUC. I believe that for strong representation of the non-commercial users at ICANN we need to ensure NCUC’s transparency, visibility and credibility. I have been actively engaged in NCUC’s activities in the past year, so I believe that the EC position is the next logical level to strengthen my involvement in serving the non-commercial interests.  I would also like to ensure that NCUC members are getting informed about and engaged in ICANN policy processes. 
 
2    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 a lawyer by training. I got my legal degree (and later a PhD degree with the thesis on cybercrime) from the Far-Eastern Federal University in Vladivostok, Russia. I also have a master’s degree in ICT policy and management from Strathclyde University Business School in Glasgow, UK. I have been living and working in several countries: Russia, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Germany, and my work experience includes private industry – I worked as a telecom lawyer for several companies in Russia, I have experience in academia, international organisations and private consultancy. I am currently based in Freiburg, Germany and work for Max-Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law. In this capacity, I am involved in different cybersecurity projects, but my interests are much wider because I am trying to approach the issues from a broader perspective of Internet Governance. 

Apart from my main work, I am engaged in different IG-related activities, many of them are on a voluntary basis. I have been involved as a focal point in EuroDIG and SEEDIG processes, I have been a faculty member of the European Summer School on Internet Governance since 2011. I am participate as a trainer in different capacity building programs. I carried out various projects for international organisations such as Word Bank, UNODC, ITU and others. Last but not least, I am actively engaged in some of the ICANN processes: I participated in the CCWG-Accountability Workstream 1 (and currently – WS2), CCWP for Human Rights; I am currently a member of the NCUC Policy Committee. 


3    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.

In the past year, I have been already able to demonstrate my commitment  to NCUC, I work at least several hours a week to fulfil my voluntary commitments to the CCWG-accountablity and other processes. I clearly understand that the EC position will require time and I am willing to make such a commitment, including travelling to the ICANN meetings. I have a flexible work schedule, and my current job allows me to take voluntary obligations. Furthermore, I travel a lot for work and I am very well connected at different IG-related fora in Europe: this will perfectly allow me to carry out the necessary outreach and give NCUC more visibility.  

4    Communication with the membership is critical. How would you keep members apprised of your EC-related activities?
This is an easy question because I don’t have to suggest anything extremely innovative but rather continue the efforts that have been made: the current EC representative for Europe, Farzaneh, established (in my opinion) great channels and patterns for communications with the NCUC members. I will try to further strengthen this: the members can expect quarterly regional reports and reports from the events that NCUC took part in. Furthermore, I will inform NCUC members about different calls for proposals and funding for the European and other IG-related events so we can have more presence and engagement outside of ICANN, too. 

5    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.

In the last couple of years NCUC and its membership have been able to contribute a lot (and substantively!) to different ICANN policy-development processes and also in the process of transition. We have to leverage these achievements, build upon them and strengthen both NCUC “from within” (outreach, transparency, effective governance and more involvement of the current membership in the policy-making) and also in the ICANN and IG context: visibility, credibility, representation of the non-commercial interests at the ICANN. The latter, in my opinion, should focus “policy-wise” on privacy issues, human rights and their consideration in any PDP processes “by default” and the new challenges of the shadow content regulation. Last but not least, I believe NCUC can further contribute into the diversity, gender balance and the greater representation of non-commercial users in ICANN processes. 

Warm regards

Tanya 

I am telling you this, because this is pretty much all I do these days. Being a pirate and fighting for human rights makes me happier than anything I've ever done in my life. That is why I am in the NCUC. Why else would one be here? 

Dear NCUC members,

Candidate Statement for the NCUC EC Africa

Name: Benjamin Akinmoyeje - Region: Africa - Gender: Male- Affiliation: Management Sciences for Health

COI: I have no conflict of interest.

1         Why do you want to serve on the EC?

I have chosen to serve on the EC as Africa representative because of the following reasons:

• Strengthen Outreach strategies to African Academic Institutions, civil societies, non-commercial users, etc. 
• Simplify policies development process participation for new members
• Facilitate a workable mentorship programme for existing African non-active/engaging members and new African newcomers.
• Leverage on all existing Internet Governance opportunities/ platforms/ events to champion the cause NCUC visions and missions within and outside of Africa.
• Finally I want to serve in order to learn, participate more actively in the NCUC.

2      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 an IT & ICTD Manager for a non- profit public health organization based in  Nigeria. I work to provide electronic medical record for health facilities supporting people living with HIV/AIDS in low resource communities, NCUC member since ICANN 47

• member ISOC Nigeria 
• AFRINIC 19 Fellow
• ICANN 49 Fellowship Alumni,
• Member and Alumni Diplo Foundation 
• CPRSouth 2015 Young Scholar. 
• Participated in the NetMundial Meeting, Netmundial Initiative in Sao Paolo in 2014. 
• I am regular participant and stakeholder in the Nigeria Internet Governance forum deliberations and meetings.
• Alumni of First Summer school of African Internet Governance - AFRISIG
• I have co-proposed accepted Internet Governance Forum in IGF 2015 and IGF 2016.
• A member of different ICT for Development academic and research group CPRSOUTH, ICTD Researchers in Africa Network, ICT for Social Innovation (www.ict4si.org[ict4si.org])

My professional and personal work consistently encourage me seek out ways to look to get the benefit of the Internet to individual users as a tool of development such as education, health, innovation and empowerment. I user open source application to support public health facilities, I carry out research to support ICT for development,  I train health workers and elderly citizens on the use of technologies to achieve more, I advocate for open and transparent pricing and affordable broadband access for all. Recently being an NCUC member on these working groups

• Membership Engagement Team (NCUC group) 
• CCWG Accountability
• GNSO Next-Gen RDS PDP WG

3  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.

As a member of the NCUC EC Africa representative: I can give an average of 4 hours a week. I do not have any limitations to attend only meetings if elected to represent Africa in the EC .

As an individual  I am committed to attending EC and ICANN Meetings as I have shown in the past even with or without travel support, I have full or partial funded my travels to ICANN meetings.

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

As a member EC representing the African region, I will identify the critical  policy issues which are on the table for discussion and simplify it for the understanding of my African audience and newcomers with available channels of communications such as  emails, newsletters, blogs, targeted social media platforms like twitter, Facebook and google hangout. Also working with existing NCUC communications strategies and members reach to advance the work I am doing in the NCUC EC. I hope to drive engagement by linking my activities EC to some of the real life issues and benefits of NCUC activities to the African users , especially on the issues of  Human Rights, Development, Privacy,  and Multilingual Internet.

5        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.

The statements should be relatively concise, e.g. a couple paragraphs per question

Personally, I  see  NCUC’s  function eveolving in the future, as we bring more participation of academia, non-commercial users from developing countries on board. As we connect the next billion to the Internet and NCUC as the home of the non-commercial users ;  needs to attract more members and become stronger advocate for the issues of concerns to the constituent (civil societies communities and individual users) in ICANN policy development and the trending Internet Governance issues. In the face of changing governments and technologies, NCUC roles to protect the interest of the  individual users will certainly have to change and be dynamic especially with the issues of privacy - Africa is seeing the rising cases of revenge porn, government's clamp down on social media, National Internet blackouts, cyber attacks, social media influence in elections, etc. in order to get participation of the silent majority, NCUC must also move to champion education about domain name rights, freedom of speech, etc  of civil societies and other bodies with common interests. NCUC within ICANN will have to form seek collaborations of ICANN constituents who have common goals on different policy issues for the purpose of impact. NCUC with ICANN must support those UN SDG goals that coincides with NCUC mission.

It is with excitement I look forward to serving the NCUC community to engender participation of all diverse groups especially those from developing countries and newcomers to ICANN.

Thank you,

Benjamin Akinmoyeje

Conflict of interest: No. 
e-mail : dafalla@yahoo.com

Hello,

My Name is João Carlos Rebello Caribé, I'm from Brazil, LAC Region, Male and I'm a Campaign Manager and founder of Movimento Mega and also independent consultant.  You can check my professional history at LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/caribe[linkedin.com] 

I declare that I don't has any conflict of Interest.

1. Why do you want to serve on the EC?

I want to serve the NCUC in this next and last term to improve their communication, support to new members and accountability. Many hours are invested in debates by discussion groups, webinars, ICANN meetings and other forums and little is recorded and shared to the general public. I intend to understand this process and propose improvements with stakeholders. Also the LAC region has been hampered by having had three meetings recently transferred because of the Zika epidemic, this significantly affects  local engagement, and no matter how good the ICANN compensation program is, it does not replace the intensity and timeliness of a local event . For this reason, I intend to continue working in partnership with the Africa Executive Board, in defense of the interests of the global South, which have different priorities from the other regions, and always in the prioritization of decisions that affect our region.

I want to share my experience in grassroot activism and coordination and motivation of large workgroups and debates as I did in the past when I coordinated a group of 13,000 users of Macromedia, and also as activist and communication professional.

2. 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 the campaign manager and the founder of Movimento Mega <http://movimentomega.org.br/[movimentomega.org.br]>, a Brazilian collective dedicated to internet policy issues at both national and global levels, Counselor representing Latin America & Caribe Civil Society on NETmundial initiative and creator of Terceira Social Crowdvertasing, a crowdsourced advertising and marketing agency to help small NGOs to spread their word.

Formerly self-called "Movimento Mega Não", the Movimento Mega was created to face the crescent internet freedom menaces as well the civil rights and human rights violations in Brazil through authoritarian bill projects in the Brazilian Parliament. In 2009 the “Mega Não” become a powerful platform for mobilization and information against threats to internet freedom, working from public hearings, lectures, interviews, flash mobs to blogging collective.

It was the one of coordinator for the Brazilian Blackout against SOPA on January 18, achieving membership of over 400 sites in Brazil. In 2011, "Mega Não" won the Frida Prize, in "freedoms" category, as a project with a prominent activity in the public and political level to avoid censorship of the Internet. Prize offered by LACNIC, ISOC and IDRC and delivered during the LACNIC XVI in Buenos Aires <http://programafrida.net/libertades2011[programafrida.net]>. Movimento Mega is also member of ISOC Brazil, The Internet Defense League, Red Latam, Dynamic Coalition on Network Neutrality and the NCSG at ICANN.

My background is in engineering and marketing, currently I work as independent innovation consulting to private sector and on internet policy processes at national and global levels, with special attention on how decisions taken at international arenas such as UN affect national legislation as well everyday people lives. In the last year both myself and my organization have been working on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and ICANN, particularly in relation to the non commercial users perspective of the ICANN issues. My duties focuses the following activities: to coordinate the overall Movimento Mega's activities; to coordinate the political analyses and online content; to coordinate public hearings and mobilizations; to deliver presentations on internet policy, security, openness and privacy issues at academic and non academic events, congress and meetings. I am also member of Diplo Internet Governance Community.

3. 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  will continued to dedicate at least six hours a week, and more when needed to carry out EC tasks. I'm free to join the calls and/or in person meetings of the EC, when needed. Usually I don't have limitations to attend online or in person, when these are scheduled in timely manner.

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

I intend to use the default channel of communication with members trough regular posts on the lists. Also reaching out to members of NCUC to get their inputs and feedbacks. I participate in multiple lists that discuss IG and policy making, including some of LAC and Brazil region, that I must use to share information and captivate the interest to participate at NCUC. Finally using social media, through private and public spaces, to build interest and capacity building for new actors that has affinity with our constituency agenda.

5. 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?  

Networking is the key issue to continue strengthening the NCUC, a civil society stakeholder inside ICANN's complex structure, once important strengths of the civil society are directed related to the quantity and quality of capacity building of the citizens in the subjects of our agenda.

Inside the ICANN policy we have to work beyond gTLD's and IANA transition debates too, once the operation of gTLD become ICANN the richest "I"star member and IANA function the most powerful, and is important to discuss now policies and warranties about the use of this budget to forest Internet development focused in principles and objectives which respect the Internet ecosystem and the social development, and specially on LAC region.  

--

João Carlos R. Caribé

Transdisciplinary Consultant - Wazushi

NETmundial Initiative Counselor

ICANN NCUC Executive Committee member

http://about.me/caribe[about.me]

Skype joaocaribe

+55(021) 9 8761 1967

Hi everyone

As a candidate to NCUC Executive Council for Latin America, I'm sending my statement to the group.

Questions or comments are welcome through the list or to me at raquino@gmail.com

* Candidate Statement *

* Name, declared region of residence, gender and employment; Any conflicts of interest;

Renata Aquino Ribeiro
Resident at LAC, Brazil, Northeast, Ceará, Fortaleza
Female
Researcher - E. I. Collective

No conflicts of interest previously declared. I will hold the commitment to be transparent and declare any which could arise at any occasion.

* Questions:
1 Why do you want to serve on the EC?

Regional engagement of LAC and developing countries underserved and underepresented stakeholders is a basic need for ICANN and NCUC can do it along the tasks of its executive council.

Serving at NCUC will provide an opportunity to help bring these unengaged communities to decision roles in internet governance and tackle gaps in the policy-making process.

2 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.

All my work, lectures and articles can be found in my blog: http://bit.ly/renataineng

I am an independent researcher and professor at E.I. Collective. We build collaborative books, papers and capacity building projects mainly aimed at teachers in public education and NGOs. I am part of the IGF 2016 MAG – Multistakeholder Advisory Group in the Internet Governance Forum promoted by the United Nations, representing Civil Society. At Internet Freedom Festival 2017, a fellow in the Regions and Groups track. I am a collaborator and was a professor of Federal University of Ceara (UFCE). For the last decade, followed the internet governance debates such as regional IGFs, Brazilian Internet School of Governance 2014 fellow, South School of Internet Governance 2015 fellow and LACRALO ALS Nexti participant 2015 and NCUC participant in ICANN. I am ISOC Brasil contributing member since nov 2015, APC individual member and IETF observer.

I do not currently have any conflict of interests but will hold the commitment to be transparent and disclose any which could arise.

3 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'm available to commit to NCUC EC at least 1hr during business days, 5h weekly. My schedule is flexible so should the need arise to dedicate more time to pre-meeting preparations or other activities, it can also be done. Connectivity is an issue in my region but with a minimum amount of planning I can attend the online meetings as I've done in previous occasions.

My participation in ICANN meetings has been very constant. Since engaging 1st as a fellow in ICANN53, I was also grateful to have partial support from NCUC to ICANN55 and attended as a fellow in ICANN57.

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

My plan for communication with members involves a timely newsletter about actions the regional EC rep is doing can be shared to members. Monthly editions could be the first plan.

Also social media use to share information and showcase members achievements is another path which the group can try. Diagnostics and analysis of comms tools will help improve this work.

5 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.

Civil society in internet governance faces increasingly more challenges and NCUC action encapsulates most of them.

The growth of NCUC membership in LAC can be exponential. Planning this growth and how these members can be more actively engaged are the next steps.

Therefore, outreach, capacity building and improving communications are a few concrete actions to be taken at once. Diagnostics and analysis will again play a part in improving these aspects.

NCUC can improve its links also to civil society organizations and be an increasingly important decisional player in ICANN's global policy development processes. Ideas on how to do this can be discussed with members.

Whichever roads the NCUC collectively decides to follow in PDPs I believe the EC will be ever more supportive and I plan to act on that direction.