[EURO-Discuss] WG: Board Seat 15 SOI for EURALO / Rinalia Abdul Rahim

[Wolf Ludwig]

As announced before, below please find another presentation from Rinalia Abdul Rahim, Board Seat 15 candidate, for your attention.

Best, Wolf


Rinalia Abdul Rahim wrote Sun, 9 Mar 2014:
>Dear Wolf,
>
>Thank you for the opportunity to present myself to the EURALO community.  It is indeed a privilege to be considered for the At-Large Board Director position.
>
>My full Expression of Interest (EOI) can be found here 
>https://community.icann.org/display/ABMS/2014+At-Large+Board+Candidate+-+Rinalia+Abdul+Rahim+-+Public+Information+on+EOI
>
>Below I present some highlights about myself, my priorities should I be selected as the At-Large Board Director, and past end-user advocacy work that I have done in ICANN for the region's consideration.
>
>
>*Highlights about myself:*
>
>- Citizen of Malaysia and the sole Board candidate from the developing world
>
>- Long-standing commitment to serve the public interest, both national and
>global
>
>- More than 15 years of experience dealing with ICT-related policies that
>include the Internet
>
>- More than a decade of international leadership and advocacy experience
>
>- Strong understanding of how ICT and the Internet support development
>efforts worldwide
>
>- Strong awareness and sensitivity to the needs of a broad and diverse
>range of Internet users, particularly those in developing regions
>
>- Augmented understanding of Internet end user needs and concerns through
>experience on the At-Large Advisory Committee
>
>- Experienced with multistakeholder engagement and collaboration
>
>- 12 years of board level experience (8 years with a global
>multistakeholder board).
>
>- Multilingual fluency in Malay, English and Chinese and user of multiple
>writing systems (Latin, Arabic and Han Chinese scripts).
>
>--- Early part of career focused on public policy, working to formulate ICT
>strategies and policies for my country, which served as a benchmark for
>other developing countries
>
>--- Later part of career focused on international development, leading the
>world's first global multistakeholder network of organizations that
>promoted the use of 'ICT for Development' worldwide for 8 years & co-led
>the organization of the 'ICT for Development Platform' at WSIS 2003
>
>--- Worked with communities and organizations in every region of the world,
>engaging governments (in both developed and developing countries),
>inter-governmental organizations (including 8 specialized UN agencies),
>regional development banks, businesses (MNCs and SMEs), NGOs and
>community-based organizations that provide services to the grassroots,
>academia and the media
>
>--- Established regional multistakeholder networks for sharing knowledge
>and building partnerships that leverage on ICT to improve lives, reduce
>poverty and empower people in Africa, Europe, Middle East and North Africa,
>Asia South, Asia East, Latin America and the Caribbean, North America and
>Oceania.
>
>
>
>
>
>*Priorities if selected as the At-Large Board Director:*
>
>
>
>*(1) Ensure a strong strategic position for ICANN by strengthening its
>legitimacy *
>
>
>
>Ensuring a strong strategic position for ICANN can be achieved by
>strengthening its legitimacy.  ICANN's legitimacy can be strengthened by
>ensuring that ICANN: (a) implements the recommendations of the
>Accountability and Transparency Review Team 2; (b) incorporates a strong
>end-user orientation in its decision-making; and (c) develops measures to
>address risks related to the possible take-over of its role with options
>that instill the greatest confidence across global Internet users,
>particularly end users.
>
>
>
>*(2) Ensure globalization of ICANN with emphasis on strengthening
>non-financial stakeholder participation that will enhance the
>multistakeholder model of engagement  *
>
>
>
>The global Internet community does not have equal access and opportunity to
>participate in ICANN.  There are clear imbalances of representation in
>decision-making structures as well as policy-making activities.  Despite
>the openness of ICANN, high participation barriers exist for stakeholders
>with no financial stakes, particularly those from developing countries.  In
>the urgency to globalize ICANN, which is another means of enhancing
>legitimacy, focus is required on ensuring the meaningful participation of
>stakeholders with no financial stakes from all parts of the world.  In
>particular, attention is needed to ensure that those from developing
>regions can participate meaningfully in ICANN's governance and
>policy-development activities.  This would necessitate (among others)
>ensuring that ICANN has effective outreach, engagement and
>capacity-building of stakeholders with appropriate language support as well
>as ensuring that policy development processes have a balanced
>representation of stakeholders before proceeding.  All of this will serve
>to strengthen ICANN's multistakeholder model of engagement.
>
>
>*(3) Advocate for a review of the new gTLD program and support continued
>efforts to enable Internationalized Domain Names and their universal
>acceptance.  *
>
>
>
>Before contemplating new gTLD program expansion or future rounds of
>applications, a thorough review of the program is needed to address and
>correct aspects that the At-Large community and other communities with no
>financial stakes feel have under-served the public-interest.  In addition,
>efforts to make Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and their variants
>available and usable for Internet users worldwide must be supported to
>serve the majority of the global population, who do not use the Latin
>script.
>
>
>
>
>
>*Highlights of past end-user advocacy work in ICANN:*
>
>- Co-authored the At-Large White Paper on Future Challenges: Making ICANN
>Relevant, Responsive and Respected.
>
>- Raised awareness regarding the weaknesses of ICANN's accountability and
>transparency mechanisms as well as concerns and constraints faced by
>At-Large volunteers that affect the organization's accountability and
>transparency via a comprehensive written submission to the Accountability
>and Transparency Review Team 2.
>
>- Enhanced the At-Large community's understanding regarding a wide range of
>new gTLD program-related consumer and public interest concerns by convening
>Multistakeholder Policy Roundtables during ICANN 46 (Beijing) and ICANN 47
>(Durban).  The concerns include consumer safety and trust, multilingual
>access to gTLDs via internationalized scripts, rights issues related to the
>protection of trademarks, non-registered marks and geographic names,
>barriers to program participation for stakeholders in the developing world,
>and compliance issues.  The multistakeholder policy discussion approach has
>since then been taken up by ICANN staff in organizing cross-community
>discussion sessions at ICANN meetings and the ALAC continues with the
>practice of organizing the At-Large Policy Roundtables.
>
>- Participated in the Development of the Procedure to Develop and Maintain
>Label Generation Rules for the Root Zone, which will benefit all
>internationalized script users worldwide.
>
>- Organized a ground-breaking workshop that involved a collaboration
>between ICANN and APRALO at the Internet Governance Forum in 2013 focusing
>on "Next in IDNs: Linguistic Diversity in the Internet Root", which
>featured an important discussion between representatives of language
>communities and the Internet's technical community.
>
>- Led the development of 18 ALAC policy statements (4 designated as ALAC
>Formal Advice to the ICANN Board) on a range of issues of concern to end
>users that include:
>
>(a) Advocacy for enhancing the Internet's multilingualism and prioritizing
>work on IDN variants and Universal Acceptance of IDN TLDs to serve the
>needs of the majority of the world's population that do not use Latin
>script.
>
>(b) Advocacy for the Trademark Clearinghouse to address IDN variants to
>correct a critical gap in its design that would allow for cybersquatting
>and to express the principle that, while the At-Large community does not
>support over-extensive trademark protection measures, it firmly believes
>that ICANN's Rights Protection Measures should treat trademarks in any
>language or character set equally so that Internet users in any language
>community can be equally protected against confusion.
>
>(c) Advocacy to urge the ICANN board to ensure that the questions posed in
>the GAC Safeguard Advice for new gTLDs are addressed urgently and that
>clarification on the enforceability of the Public Interest Commitments be
>relayed clearly and comprehensively to the ICANN community.
>
>(d) Advocacy to emphasize that *clarity on ccTLD revocation parameters and
>a clear and transparent process on the part of the IANA operator are
>crucial to ensure that any act of revocation is carried out with
>transparency, understanding, sensitivity and care, and does not in any way
>disrupt the continued name resolution for Internet users.*
>
>(e) Advocacy for ICANN to prioritize community applications in string
>contention with other types of new gTLD program applications and to ensure
>that there is sufficient community expertise in the panel that conducts the
>evaluation on community applications.  The At-Large community also provided
>comprehensive input on the community priority evaluation guidelines.
>
>
>
>Thank you for the consideration.
>
>
>Best regards,
>
>
>
>Rinalia
>

EuroDIG Secretariat
http://www.eurodig.org/
mobile +41 79 204 83 87
Skype: Wolf-Ludwig

EURALO - ICANN's Regional At-Large Organisation
http://euralo.org

Profile on LinkedIn
http://ch.linkedin.com/in/wolfludwig