[governance] Fadi Speech to ALAC, Brazil 2014 Meeting and need for IGC and civil society Liaisons

Sun Nov 17 23:12:24 EST 2013

Hi Sala, 

a matter of clarification please.

Are you suggesting that George be a point of liaison within the technical community for civil society, or that George be a civil society representative liaising with the technical community?

I am all in favour of the former, and admire George’s work, but I doubt whether George would be entirely comfortable with the latter role and even if he was I doubt that would be acceptable to many on this list. 

Ian Peter

From: Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro 
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2013 4:20 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org 
Cc: George Sadowsky 
Subject: [governance] Fadi Speech to ALAC, Brazil 2014 Meeting and need for IGC and civil society Liaisons

Dear IGC,

As you can imagine, since Bali and in light of the “multistakeholder” event that will be hosted by the Brazil on the future on Internet Governance called: "Global Multistakeholder 
Meeting on the Future on Internet Governance," it becomes inherently critical that we start preparing to shape the Agenda. Many thanks to Carlos and Hartmut for keeping us informed of what is happening within Brazil and for taking the time to translate from Portuguese to English when the need demands. Unfortunately, there were no live transcripts although transcripts will be provided unlike the live stream available to the GAC community (tongue in cheek).  To watch the vide of Fadi speaking: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glennmcknight/sets/72157637762195684

ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadi spoke about the manner in which ICANN is going to engage in what I thought was a very mature response symbolic of the desire to engage with communities.

 As you can imagine in the lead up to the preparations for 2014 we as global civil society need to consolidate to prepare.  There have been discussions going on offlist amongst the various facilitators of some of the core civil society groups about how this is to take place where it has centered on the possibilities of a joint framework for engagement of civil society including  Multistakeholder selection processes for some of the key positions. There was suggestion to experiment first with the combined NomCom for the MAG and I highlighted that this could be difficult in light of the pressing deadlines.  There may be room however for joint endorsements but I will leave this to the NomCom Chair. At this point, I do not want to burden our NomCom as they are working against a very narrow and tight deadline. Whilst we are waiting for the other groups to comment on coordinated and shared framework for engagement, I would like to propose the following to the IGC.

Given that we do not have time nor the resources, it has been by way of an ad hoc nature common for people who are involved in foras or diverse communities to provide feedback on what is happening randomly. This to a large extent happens but my sense is that we need to be better coordinated and have different people watch the different spaces they are in and liaise back with the IGC. I suggested that this could be done with and through combined civil society but I think we need to pick up the pace and start anyway whilst waiting.

To this extent, I would propose that in the spirit of enhanced cooperation that we use our own people within civil society who happen to wear multiple hats to act as liaisons, even if temporary at this point until such time where we can coordinate more permanent representation. I feel that the IGC should have liaisons in the following circles:

·       Technical Community 

·       Business Community

·       Governments

The liaisons role would be to be a bridge into these communities to channel developments of what is happening within these communities that are of relevance to civil society and also from time to time raise the issues of civil society or broker and facilitate the process through which these views can be heard. If there are people who feel they can function in these roles, we need volunteers. This is to ensure that we know what is happening at all times.

The IGC has two options, we can utilize a formal process and invite calls for nominations and have a NomCom make the selection. On another note, we can maintain the informal ad hoc liaison process that is currently in place. My personal preference is for the latter to allow for volunteers who are consistent and command the respect of the diverse communities.

Given the current deadlines and politics surrounding the 2014 Meeting in Brazil, I propose that we have George Sadowski to act as liaison for us to the technical community. I am of the view that we can have at least two to three liaisons as the Technical Community is diverse and spread out between the ETSI, W3C, ITU-T, IETF, ICANN, IAB, RIR etc.  For now the liaison function can be limited to the developments of the Rio engagement with room to evolve into identifying issues affecting global public interest that civil society might want to monitor in a consistent and cohesive manner. Whilst George is also a member of the ICANN Board, I am not asking him as an ICANN Board member but as a member of the IGC.

 If there are those that wish to join George in this role, there is nothing stopping a list of volunteers from being part of a team that condenses the issues in diverse stratas and feeds it back into the IGC in a consolidated manner.

As we engage in coming to the table to set the Agenda, we need to do so intelligently and cohesively and in a coordinated manner. This was one of the things raised in the meeting in Bali-

In the future as the IGC evolves, there is space to develop a working group to focus on technical and policy stratas that we may wish to organize our advocacies in. For a long while, advocacy has been happening via individuals or groups that have pet topics and issues. 

Kind Regards,
Sala
(In my personal capacity)

George Sadowski Profile and Biography
GEORGE SADOWSKY: BIOGRAPHY
George Sadowsky is currently a member of the Board of Directors of ICANN (Internet 
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and a consultant to, inter alia, the World Wide 
Web Foundation and NATO.
He received an A.B. degree with honors in Mathematics from Harvard College and M.A. and 
Ph.D. degrees in Economics from Yale University. After spending 1958-1962 as an applied 
mathematician and programmer, his career concentrated on applying computers to economic 
and social policy, leading academic computing and networking organizations, and making 
information and communication technologies (ICTs) useful throughout the world. In 1963-64 he 
introduced the use of microsimulation for tax analysis purposes in the U.S. Treasury Department. 
During 1966-1970 he founded and directed the Computer Center at the Brookings Institution in 
Washington; from 1970-73 he did economic research at the Urban Institute leading to his Ph.D, 
dissertation on the subject of micro-analytic simulation of the household sector.
During 1973-86 at the United Nations, he supported the transfer of information technology to 
developing countries. He has done work in more than 50 developing countries and continues to 
do so. Among other things, he introduced the use of microcomputers for census data processing 
in Africa in 1979, and he worked in China during 1982-1986 supporting the computing activities 
of their 1982 Census of Population and Housing.
>From 1986 to 2001, he directed academic computing and networking activities, first at 
Northwestern University and then at New York University. He has been a consultant to the U.S. 
Treasury Department, the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, UNDP, the Swiss Government, 
and a number of foundations. He was a Board member of AppliedTheory Corporation and was a 
Trustee of the Corporation for Research and Educational Networking (CREN) and the New York 
State Educational and Research Network (NYSERNet). He was actively involved in World 
Bank activities during 1996-2002 as a member and Coordinator of the Technical Advisory 
Panel for the infoDev program, as well as in UNDP and USAID activities. In 1994, he and Larry 
Landweber formulated USAID's Leland Initiative for providing initial Internet connectivity 
for 20 African countries. He was a member of the Internet Society Board of Trustees during
1996-1999 and 2000-2004 and served as Vice President for Conferences (1996-1998) and Vice-
President for Education (1998-2001). He headed a group of ISOC volunteers who defined and
conducted the ISOC Developing Country Network Training Workshops during 1993 -2001.
More recently, he was the Executive Director of the Global Internet Policy Initiative (GIPI)
from 2001-2006, which had active ongoing Internet policy reform projects in 17 countries. He 
also served as Senior Technical Adviser within USAID's dot-GOV program for the Internews 
Consortium, providing ICT policy assistance to the developing world. He has served as an 
expert witness for litigation in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was a special 
adviser to Nitin Desai, the Chair of the UN Secretary-General's Internet Governance Forum 
as well as to the Chair of UN G at ID. He has served as a member of the PIR (Public Internet 
Registry) Advisory Board, and he is currently a member of the ICANN (Internet Corporation for 
Assigned Names and Numbers) Board of Directors He has written and lectured extensively on 
Please refer to his web site, http://www.georgesadowsky.org/ as well as the GIPI web site, http://
www.internetpolicy.net, for additional information.

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