[governance] FW: Request to Suspend Technical and Academic Stakeholder Nomination Process for WG on Enhanced Cooperation

[michael gurstein]

-----Original Message-----
From: michael gurstein [mailto:gurstein at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, March 15, 2013 10:43 AM
To: mjpalomino at rree.gob.pe
Subject: Request to Suspend Technical and Academic Stakeholder Nomination
Process for WG on Enhanced Cooperation

Dear Ambassador Palomino de la Gala,

As I believe you know, I have submitted my name for possible nomination to
the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation through the Technical and
Academic (T/A) stakeholder group.  By explanation, while I have been active
within the CS component of both the IGF and the WSIS processes, my "day
job"/professional activities are within the area of Community Informatics
(and previously Information Systems) and specifically I have been concerned
as an academic and researcher/practitioner with extending the benefits of
Internet access and use to the widest range of potential users -- in
marginalized areas of Canada, among Indigenous Peoples and within LDC's.

On that basis it was my feeling and those of my Community Informatics
colleagues that my most appropriate designation in areas concerned with such
matters as "Enhanced Cooperation" should be through my professional and
academic knowledge and experience rather than through my normative positions
as would be the case in seeking nomination through the Civil Society
stakeholder group.

I have thus submitted my name as above to the T/A group. However, I
understand that I have not been recommended for this role by them, not
because of a lack of qualification but rather because it was felt that I
didn't fall within the defining "criteria" of the T/A group which initially
was presented as
- Gender and geographic balance
- Familiarity with the WSIS process
- Ability to travel (no funding available)
- Willingness and ability to dedicate some time to the working group
- Representing the technical and academic communities

Having indicated how I could be deemed suitable under each of the above
categories I was then told that I did not meet the criteria of "having
contributed to the building of the Internet".  

Some 20+ of my colleagues including computer scientists, International
officials, academics, researchers most from LDC's provided written
confirmation and support from the 1500 members of the Community Informatics
Research Networks, indicated how in their opinion I had in fact, through my
some 20 years of work making the Internet accessible and usable by the
widest range of possible users, "contributed to building the Internet" (if
we understand the Internet to include the "users" as well as the "wires").

At that point the criteria was further redefined as an "interpretation
(where) the technical and academic community includes individuals who have
technically built the Internet".

Subject of course to correction, my understanding is that there is no such
formal available definition of the composition of the T/A stakeholder group.


I fully recognize that the selection of the composition of the CSTD WG on
Enhanced Cooperation is at the complete discretion of yourself, the Chair,
in consultation with others within the CSTD and associated UN officials (as
I'm presuming also is the formal definition of the composition of the T/A
stakeholder group).

All of the above has been communicated on several occasions with Ms.
Constance Bommelaer the T/A focal point along with a request for an
articulation of the formal procedures being followed in their adjudication
processes in this area including an explanation, clarification and formal
justification for the criteria used in the nomination process by the T/A
stakeholder group in anticipation of the WG on EC.

Although additional information was promised to me by Ms. Bommelaer I have
not as yet received this and in that instance and given the urgency with
which I understand this process is being undertaken, I would formally ask
that you not accept nominations from the T/A stakeholder group until
clarification as above has been formally circulated and until such time as
my own nomination has been reviewed and assessed within the context of those
procedures and in the light of publicly accessible and generally confirmed
selection criteria.

Sincerely,

Michael Gurstein

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
Executive Director: Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development
and Training (CCIRDT) Vancouver, BC CANADA

Adjunct Professor: School of Library, Archival and Information Studies
University of British Columbia

Editor in Chief: Journal of Community Informatics
web: http://ci-journal.net

Research Fellow: Institute of Advanced Systems Russian Academy of Sciences

Honorary Fellow: Institute of Social Informatics and Technological
Innovations University of Malaysia, Kuching

Focal point: BRICS Research Collaborative on Digital Inclusion -- (Brazil,
China, India, Russia, South Africa)

Research Associate: IT Innovation in Remote First Nations in Canada

Lead Consultant: Community Informatics and Policy Development: NEPAD/African
Union

tel/fax: +1-604-602-0624
email: gurstein at gmail.com
web: http://communityinformatics.net
blog: http://gurstein.wordpress.com
twitter: #michaelgurstein 



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