About the Internet Society 

Board of Trustees

2004 Board Election

Candidates

Alan Greenberg, Chapters Candidate

I have been professionally active in computing and communications for over 35 years. I worked for McGill University in Montreal for the majority of my career, serving as Director of Computing and Communications for the University for the last 13 years. My years at McGill not only provided technical and administrative challenges, but also included the creation and marketing of several very successful software products. Several years ago, on leave from McGill, I held the position of Visiting Scientist at IBM's Watson Research Center working on computer inter-networking. Following my retirement from McGill, I have been a consultant, working with developing countries to help them benefit from and expand the use of ICT in their countries.

I have been involved in network-related activities for my entire career. I began building and managing wide-area networks (Internet pre-cursors) in 1984. In the late 1980s, I was responsible for one of only two Internet connections in Canada. I was the first chair of RISQ - Réseau d'informations scientifiques du Québec (Quebec scientific information network); I was part of the small group that built CA*Net, Canada's first national Internet-based network; and I was a charter member of CANARIE, Canada's education and research public/private networking initiative that now is a world-leader in extremely high-bandwidth optical networks.

I joined the Internet Society in 1995, when I began working on the Society's workshops training people from developing countries how to build, manage and use the Internet in their countries. Ultimately, these workshops and several of their spin-offs provided the expertise to bring the Internet to virtually all countries that connected after 1993/4. I was responsible for all logistics for the workshop at INET 96 in Montreal.

After the successful INET 96 Conference and Workshop, I devoted substantial time to the succeeding workshops and at the same time, began my involvement in helping developing countries to realize the benefits of Internet connectivity. I continued my involvement with the workshops in the capacity of Workshop Director, taking responsibility for all aspects of their delivery from 1997 until the last one in 2001. Overall, the workshops trained over 1000 people from almost all developing countries, and spin-off workshops, run by people we trained, still operate today and have trained another 1500-2000 people.

I was elected to the ISOC Board of Trustees in 2001, and I have been one of the more active Trustees since that time. I took a lead role in revising ISOC's governance model which now allows its constituents (such as Chapters) to directly elect Trustees, and I was responsible for modifying the ISOC Election procedures and overseeing the last two elections as chair of the Elections Committee. Although I supported the creation of a new free global class of membership, I took a strong position against the abolition of paid individual members, and I was instrumental in ensuring that this class of membership be re-instated (as it will be this year). I was an early and strong supporter of ISOC's ultimately successful bid to manage the .ORG registry, and it is this project that is now injecting much-needed funds into ISOC.

There are several areas where I feel that ISOC is not fulfilling its full potential.

• ISOC Chapters were created to allow them to work locally to meet ISOC's global mission. The idea has always had merit, but in practice, there have been many chapters that have not met this goal. There are many reasons, but certainly the lack of central ISOC support and coordination has been a major one. Although it is clear that some chapters have done superb work, I have argued that other chapters need additional support from ISOC, at the very least in the form of targeted, implementable programs and methods for sharing best-practices to reduce local isolation.
• ISOC, through its network training workshops, was instrumental in helping the Internet to reach all developing countries. Although the time for these centrally managed workshops teaching basic skills has passed, there is still abundant need for ISOC to be a leader in ensuring that both technical and policy-related knowledge is available throughout the developed and developing world. I intend to be actively involved in moving ISOC to a position where it can play its rightful role in this domain.
• ISOC, through its soon-to-be reinstated professional individual membership, has the potential to be the membership organization bringing together all of the people who truly care about the Internet. I intend to work to ensure that this happens.

The recent influx of .ORG registry funds is giving us the opportunity to invest in realizing these goals and if re-elected, I will work towards addressing these issues. I believe in the Society's motto, "The Internet is for Everyone." I have worked to make it so, and with your assistance I will carry on doing so as a continuing member of the Board of ISOC.

My track record over the past nine years proves that I am willing and able to make significant contributions to ISOC and the Internet world. I look forward to continuing to represent you on the ISOC Board of Trustees and to continue to help making the Internet better serve us all. I would be delighted to discuss these or any issues with you - you can reach me at alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca.