Board Liaison Nominee - Alan Greenberg

2009 Election Call for Board Liaison - Level of Commitment and Information on Nominee

Level of Commitment of Board Liaison

1. Acceptance of the Nomination to the position.

I accept the NARALO nomination to serve as the ALAC Liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors.

I explicitly agree to perform the duties of the Liaison as outlined in Board Liaisons Election 2009 Commitment of Board Liaison .

2. Biography

Education

Education: I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics, and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science.

Professional Experience

From 1967-2000, I was employed by McGill University in Montreal, Canada. McGill is a large multi-disciplinary research-intensive university. During my employment, I took on a range of responsibilities including operating system and applications design and implementation, user interface design, staff management and budget management. In addition to the internal university responsibilities, I managed a very successful for-profit software subsidiary and a successful computer store. Just prior to leaving the university, I held the position of Director of Computing and Telecommunications responsible for all centrally managed campus computing and telecommunications systems with a staff of about 100 people and budgets totaling about $18m. Universities are challenging places to work, where technical and managerial skills must be melded with the ability to work collegially and yet still make crucial decisions in a timely manner. During 1980/81, during a leave of absence from the university, I was a Visiting Scientist at IBM’s T.J.Watson Research Laboratory.

Over and above the formal university responsibilities, I was a lecturer in the McGill School of Computer Science for over 25 years. Starting in 1983, I was heavily involved in building and managing inter-university networks and was one of the handful of people that brought the Internet to Canada.

In 1995, I started working with the Internet Society (ISOC) Developing Country Network Training Workshops and soon took over the general management of the Workshops. Held in conjunction with the ISOC annual conferences, over the nine-year life of these workshops (1993-2001), over 1000 people from 150 countries were trained. Virtually all developing countries that connected to the Internet during this period did so with the help of people trained in these workshops or in one of the Latin American of French spin-off workshops.

Since taking early retirement from McGill, I have been working as an independent consultant focusing on the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) in developing countries. I have worked for a number of European governments and UN agencies with a variety of assignments including:

post-project evaluations of development projects
national ICT surveys identifying a country’s strength and weaknesses, and what needs to be done to better use technology;
an early study investigating how technology can be used effectively in support of poverty alleviation, and what must be done to ensure such successful use;
studies related to the effectiveness of donor support of ICT including recommendations on whether such support should continue, and if so, strategy formulation of how such support should be structured in the future.
a draft national position paper on the used of ICT for Development for a large European Union country.
a post-WSIS "report card" for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD)

In support of these activities, I have worked in a number of African, Latin American, Asian and European countries.

ICANN and Board Experience

My first involvement with ICANN was in 2000 as one of the many At-Large members. I was appointed to the ALAC by the Nominating Committee in 2006 and again in 2008. Since I started on the ALAC, I have also been acting as the ALAC Liaison to the GNSO.

I have served on a number of Boards, primarily not-for-profit, starting in 1983. These included a large computer user organization, various boards related to Internet and pre-Internet networks, and most recently the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society (elected by Individual ISOC Members – the last such election that ISOC held).

I have effectively worked on and chaired committees of varying sizes and compositions for several decades.

3. Statement of Interest

I would welcome the opportunity to serve At-large and ALAC as their Liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors.

The ALAC and At-Large are in a quite different position to where they were when I began my active ICANN involvement in 2006. There are RALOs and RALO-appointed ALAC members. We held the At-Large Summit which was both productive and impressed many non-At-Large people within ICANN. We are now generally viewed with a reasonable level of credibility, a situation that was not true several years ago. And perhaps most important, we are actually impacting what ICANN does. ICANN has just recently released the results of the Domain Tasting policy that was initiated by the ALAC, and we are now starting a new policy development initiative aimed at ensuring that registrants do not inadvertently lose their domain names. I believe that in relation to policy initiatives my efforts have been a significant part of our success.

Experience

I have served on a number of Boards and similar bodies for over twenty five year, most in a not-for-profit environment. In particular, I served on the Internet Society Board of Trustees, elected by individual ISOC members, from 2001 to 2004. This has given me wide experience working in a collaborative mode and I have gained an understanding of the issues that confront a board such as ICANN’s. At the same time, I have a very strong understanding of the constraints and requirements that ICANN’s Board must face.

My Board experiences coupled with those at the university have given me a deep appreciation of the importance of balancing technical, social and political issues to allow progress to be made.

These experiences have taught me a lot. Perhaps at the top of the list is the need to listen carefully to people and to understand all aspects of an issue. It is only by understanding other people’s views that you may have a real opportunity to convince them of the merits of your position.

I have extensive experience in the management of staff at all levels (both paid and volunteer), and have generally been deemed to be a “good boss”. Although the position of Board Liaison involves no staff management, I have found that the experience has served me well in relating to issues that do involve the cooperation and support of staff (and regardless of whether we think it good or bad, ICANN now has a rather large number of employers and contractors). I also have a wide range of experience in budget management at all levels.

At-Large

I am a Nominating Committee appointee to the ALAC. I was appointed in 2006 and again in 2008. Presumably the reappointment meant that I was deemed to have contributed sufficiently to At-Large and to ICANN to warrant bringing me back.

Although I am not an ALS member, I am an individual member of the NARALO, and have been very active within the NARALO. My relatively short history in ICANN has served my well in this case, since I did not have any allegiances to other ICANN bodies or to the older Interim ALAC.

My track record is clear. I have put very significant time and energy into my role within the ALAC. I have initiated (with help) two requests for Issues Reports both of which have resulted in GNSO Policy Development Processes (PDP). When I started on the ALAC, the issue of domain tasting had already been discussed for quite some time. But for whatever reason, no one had followed the By-law mandated process required to start a PDP. In fact, it was not even clear exactly what that process was. I took it upon myself to determine the correct path and pushed to make sure it happened. We have recently had the first formal report that domain tasting through use of the Add Grace Period has effectively been eliminated. I am currently working on a new PDP attempting to ensure that registrants do not accidentally lose domain names at expiration time.

For the last year, I have held the position of Rapporteur. In this capacity, I am overseeing the creation of a position description for ALAC members and Liaisons, and hopefully by Seoul will have a draft policy helping us to ensure good performance.

For my entire period on the ALAC, I have held the role of Liaison to the GNSO. Learning about ICANN, ALAC, At-Large and the GNSO all in parallel was not an easy task, but I took it on and I believe that I have served At-Large well. In particular, I have represented At-Large and ALAC on the GNSO Council. Although the ALAC is not a formal GNSO “constituency”, we are now given many of the privileges and specifically those associated with participating in the policy development processes. Although I have no vote, I am extremely active in GNSO meetings and its various working groups and drafting teams, and I have earned the respect of many GSNO participants.

The role of GNSO Liaison has been particularly challenging during the last two years due to the ongoing reorganization of the GNSO. In particular, the process entered into last summer which created the new GNSO bicameral structure was quite painful and our involvement in “internal GNSO matters” was not appreciated by some participants. But I believe that I adhered to the position of representing ALAC views and not necessarily my own, and that I served At-Large well in that process.

And I have no doubt that I can continue to serve At-Large and ALAC well as your Liaison to the Board.

ICANN

I have developed excellent working relationships with people in virtually all groups within ICANN. Specifically, I have established my credibility with many people and particularly within the GNSO, the GAC and the Board.

I specifically have a good understanding of and feeling for the various parts of ICANN and the politics that interconnects them.

Both of these, I feel, are absolutely necessary to take on the role of Board Liaison.

Technical Issues

It is several decades since I could honestly describe myself as a “techie”. But I maintain a strong connection to the technical aspects of the Internet. I have the ability to assimilate technical issues quickly, and understand how they relate to the larger environment. I believe that this capability has served me well and allows me to act as a bridge between technical people and those in administrative roles.

In particular, I have spent a large part of my career working to make technology accessible to “users”.

World-wide Representation

For the last fourteen years, much of my time and energy has been focused on developing countries. I began working with the ISOC Developing Country Network Training workshops in 1995 and for the last several years of their existence, I was largely responsible for their overall management. The responsibilities included local arrangements, participant and trainer travel, accommodations and food, technical set-up, sponsorship and fundraising. Dealing with people coming from over 150 countries, and of course a wide range of cultures was a challenging learning experience, but one that has served me well to this day.

Since 2002, I have been working as an independent consultant on the use of technology in developing countries. My biography above gives additional details of some of my assignments, but the critical issue is that I have a broad and deep understanding of issues surrounding the use of and spread of technology in developing countries including the least developed countries. I was born, grew up and live in Canada, but I cannot think about technology without thinking about how it works and can work in the rest of the world.

4. Conflict of Interest Statement

Disclosing any conflicts as provided at *

http://www.icann.org/en/committees/coi/coi-policy-04mar99.htm*

. Where the referenced uses the term 'Director' this shall be understood as meaning Liaison; it is further understood that Section 4 in that document is not applicable, as a liaison does not have a vote.

I have read and understand ICANN Conflict of Interest Policy.

I certify that I have no conflicts as described in the above document. Specifically, I certify that I have no arrangements of any sort that could be construed as having a financial interest, employment or other contractual relationship with ICANN or its contractors. Similarly, I have no tangible interest in any of the matters that come under the purview of ICANN.

Questions from Community Members

Q.1 Question: Apart from assuming the heavy workload on the Board, would the liaison commit to keep in close contact with the at-large community, such as attending ALAC meetings as far as possible and participating the policy discussions online and offline? (Question submitted by Hong Xue, APRALO)