About the Internet Society 

Board of Trustees

2005 Board Election

Candidates Forum

From Veni Markovski

ANSWER TO QUESTION 1:

resume: ISOC needs a change, today. It must have a future, and the future is not being stuck in the standards only, but take the lead in the public policy. Together, we can do that.

Answer 1:
This is one of the most difficult questions. What a start!

ISOC has been changing, but my opinion is it has been changing slower than the events, and to less extent than needed. ISOC continues to live in an environment, where political side of public policy is considered a vulgar word.

We all need to change that, together - members, Trustees, leadership.
ISOC still has a pretty good set of principles, mission statement and goals, the main problem is that it is focusing primarily on only one of them - the Standards. There are seven more tasks , which do not occupy same amount of time as the technical one.

ISOC must focus on the rest 7 activities. That is, of course, if it wants to have a future, not only past.

ISOC has not been ready for any of the big issues on todays world agenda. It didn't expect the WSIS , it was caught in a surprise by the establishment of the WGIG . It is not leading the events, but following them.
We must change that.

ISOC should become once again, a leading organization in the Internet field. It should, but whether it could is a question, which depends on the outcome of the 2005 election.

The elections will give a sign if ISOC wants a change towards public policy work, or it will continue to be involved only in the technical standards world. The chapters which nominated me consider me as an revolutionary factor for the development of ISOC. I remember what was once the slogan of ISOC - the leader of the Internet Revolution . I consider myself as a product of this Internet revolution. And I want to make ISOC part of it, as it's the future.
If we leave ISOC where it is today, tomorrow it will be part of the past.

ISOC today lives on the money it gets from the PIR . And in the bid process, ISOC said they will not use the money from the .org domains to fund their expenses. They should be used for public policy projects. Not for salaries of staff, not for the IETF, but for public policy.

If we want ISOC to have a future, we all need to change the financing model of ISOC. We need to make it a better, stronger organization, that gets its funding from different sources - org members, donor organizations, by doing substantial work in the IT, etc.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 2:

ISOC has done, and continues to do great job in the Standards Pillar. It has, however, substantial lack of work in the Policy pillar.

ISOC has lost quite a lot of time in internal tuning shall it work in the Pubilc Policy arena, shall it be active or just observe what's happening. Some of the ISOC leadership wants it to be neutral. I think that in todays world neutral means to be between the hammer and the anvil. Neutral means that you don't want to be part of the solution, or part of the problem, but prefer to be part of the landscape.

I don't think ISOC members want this type of neutralitly. And I don't think ISOC chapters want that, too. Today more than ever we need an active ISOC, using its resources for the good of the Internet community, not only for one small portion of it. I expect that ISOC will start to live and do things in the 21st Century, and will not remain in the past.

On the Education, the work ISOC has done in the past, is great. Through the training ISOC provided, Internet was actually introduced in many countries. Today ISOC could focus on education of governments on the importance of self-management of the Internet. Or education of end-users on how to work safer on the Internet. ISOC could also train the trainers, i.e. prepare a huge team of people who will on their own do further training.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 3:

I can answer that question with one word: FREE(DOM).

What has been happening in the last few years is that more and more control is being introduced on the Internet. ISOC must stand for the grounding principles of why it was founded, and to ensure that not only the Internet is for everyone, but everyone should feel safe, outside of the control of the government, and in privacy.

FREEDOM also is related to using technologies that allow people to have real access to the Internet affordable, with free and open source software.

Why this? Because in the next 5 years, this will be the big battle between privacy people and control bodies, between citizens and law enforcement. ISOC may not be obliged to do anything there, but the educational and the public policy pillars may turn out to be empty, if there are no people to be educated, or if public policy has turned the Internet into a big dungeon.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 4:

Answer to the first part of the question:

The single greatest challenge is the lack of good relationship. The chapters speak, but they are not being heard by the Board. Those who speak, are being blamed for being noisy and self-serving. The function of the chapters is to speak, and the function of the Board is to hear them speak. Blaming chapters for being noisy shows disrespect towards chapters and lack of understanding of the importance of chapters for legitimacy of ISOC.

As a Trustee, I want to change this. The fact that there were attempts to shut even me down when I'd say unpleasant trues, shows that there's a need for a change within the Board. If I am granted the chapters trust for a new term, I will be in the best possible position to influence the Board processes, and make sure that the relationship with the chapters is build on a new, better, ground. My primary objective will be to change the Board attitude towards the chapters, and in 3 years I hope that no one on the Board would even think that when chapters speak out, that's bad. I hope to see chapters as equal partners of ISOC, as contributors to ISOC's work, and as natural bridge towards chapters.

Second part:

This is not quite true. Yes, US and European chapters speak and defend their right to speak to the Board, while chapters from Asia-Pacific, and Africa seem to be startled by the antagonism when they say things which are not pleasant for the ears of some of the Trustees. I want to make sure that no chapter regardless of where it comes from would ever feel threatened to speak. I want chapters to freely express their views, be allowed to defend their positions even if they are not in accordance with what I or any of the Trustees think.

Any chapter, and especially the chapters from the developing countries (and don't forget Bulgaria is still such a country!) are the vital engines of ISOC. Stop the chapters, don't allow them to speak, and you have ISOC's major advantage to other organizations cut.

I want a complete change in the attitude towards chapters. I want that Board would accept them as equally important as the organizational members. Today we have roughly 75 chapters and 75 org members. But the org members elect half of the Board, while chapters elect only 3 Trustees. This also needs change.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 5:

I think ISOC should support the CreativeCommons concept. It protects authors rights, and at the same time allows users to use authors work without breaking the laws. Just last month ISOC-Bulgaria has finished the Bulgarian version of the CC and we can share our experience with other chapters, but also with the Board.

This is extremely important with respect to developing countries and the fact that they can't afford many of the expensive information, which however, they need.

ISOC can also work with the OpenAccess initiatives of the Open Society Institute (OSI). OSI has been very supportive of ISOC's work in the past, and we must build relations again. OSI has also other initiatives on intellectual property rights (IPR), and we must focus on those, too.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 6:

Both me and ISOC-Bulgaria have been very active in the WSIS work. I've participated in several of the PrepComs in Geneva, at the WSIS itself, and as you can see I tried to fight for the free and open source movement there.

I have an in depth view on the work of the WSIS, WGIG and all activities around them. Of the Board members today, I am perhaps the only one who has been not only paying attention to what's going on there since the beginning, but also I am actively involved. ISOC has been accepted with mixed feelings on that conference the technical community believes ISOC did what was necessary. Civil Society accepts it as another of the US-centric organizations. I want this changed.

The second part of the question requires alone dozens of pages response, but I guess I have to be quick in responding:-)

I think ICANN needs restructuring. It must build on the Strategic Plan, and figure out what it will do after the MoU with the US Government is over next year.

The best outcome would be to continue the process to have more meetings, where government officials would be learning how the Internet works, what are the best practices (here chapters can help; ISOC-Bulgaria for sure will be leading that effort!) in managing DNS and IP addresses, etc. The worst outcome? I don't believe such is possible if we all do our best. And that's one of the tasks of every and each ISOC Trustee, including those elected by the org members, not only the ones elected by chapters. I see some allusion that org members seem not to be interested in the WSIS/WGIG work (ISOC has no representative on the WGIG), and that bothers me. It's better to overestimate a danger, than to underestimate it. ISOC lacks pro-active role within this environment. It needs a change. I am ready to positively contribute for such a change.

ANSWER TO QUESTION 7:

I think that ISOC needs to start working on fulfilling all promises given throughout the bid for the .org. That also includes promise not to spend any of the PIR money on funding ISOC expenses, but use them for public policy projects instead.

I think ISOC and PIR can do a lot to legitimize PIR's claim by allowing more and more public policy projects to take place, and by reaching out to developing countries, where registering a domain is still in the range of $ 50 and more per year.

ISOC believes that the renewal will be granted if the technical requirements are followed, but there's much more related to the .org, and it's the public interest. Public interest means also ways to improve the public policy on the Internet, not only the way .org is being managed.

Response to Comments on Veni response to Question 4

Alex,
While you make quite a few points about Africa, which of course you know
much better than me - a natural fact considering your involvement in the
Senegal and African ISOC chapters activities, I have a couple of comments:

1. To George: since you encourage us to make comments to other candidates statements, I hope we'll be able to do that as soon as the others start to send their responses. Otherwise it's a little bit unfair, as the ones who wrote the answers to the questions, have also the burdon to response to comments...

2. With respect to Alex's comments, I'd just point out that there was a question to my answer. The question was "Second, it appears to some ISOC's Board and ISOC's activities in general are predominantly skewed to Europe and US interests. Do you agree? If so, how would you address this issue and ensure that interests of Chapters in other areas of the world are considered?

and my response starts a little bit different, too:

"This is not quite true. Yes, US and European chapters speak and defend their right to speak to the Board, while chapters from Asia-Pacific, and Africa seem to be startled by the antagonism when they say things which are not pleasant for the ears of some of the Trustees. I want to make sure that no chapter v regardless of where it comes from v would ever feel threatened to speak. I want chapters to freely express their views, be allowed to defend their positions v even if they are not in accordance with what I or any of the Trustees think. "

Alex has taken away the first part of my response, and he also has misunderstood my point.

My point is related to the question by George - if ISOC's Board and ISOC's activites in general are predominantly skewed to Europe and US interests. We don't talk about ICANN here. We don't talk about the WSIS participation. We don't talk about "etc." - the question is only about the fact that to some "it appears"... "ISOC's Board and ISOC's activities in general are predominantly skewed to Europe and US interests." If I agree with that, the second part of the question is "how would you address this issue and ensure that interests of Chapters in other areas of the world are considered?" I've responded to this second part, too:"Any chapter, and especially the chapters from the developing countries (and don't forget v Bulgaria is still such a country!) are the vital engines of ISOC. Stop the chapters, don't allow them to speak, and you have ISOC's major advantage to other organizations cut. I want a complete change in the attitude towards chapters. I want that Board would accept them as equally important as the organizational members. Today we have roughly 75 chapters and 75 org members. But the org members elect half of the Board, while chapters elect only 3 Trustees. This also needs change."

When Alex says he doesn't agree with me, he actually says that it's because the [African chapters] don't believe that their concern are taken in charge by ISOC BoT and HQ. Well, my response actually addresses exactly this - "Stop the chapters, don't allow them to speak, and you have ISOC's major advantage to other organizations cut. I want a complete change in the attitude towards chapters. I want that Board would accept them as equally important as the organizational members. "

As for the language issue, both me and Patrick Vande Walle have pointed out to ISOC BoT that we need to have all documents translated at least in French and Spanish. My own statement about the elections is translated in French, Spanish, and Russian. I hope that I will see other candidates show not only theoretical concern about this issue, but also some practical steps. Translation of the initial statement in several languages, which are not your mother-language is a good beginning. Some of the other candidates, by the way, don't even have a statement, and I find it quite strange how are we going to vote for people who didn't even have the time to write why they want to run for the Board of Trustees.

I hope my response to Alex's comments brings more light to the discussion, and I am happy Alex raised that question, and actually supported my points, although starting with disagreement.

Answer to Question 8:

I believe we need to find a way for equal representation. Today out of 11 Trustees, only 3 are elected by chapters, the rest v by industry (org members and the IETF). That gives big corporations quite a good control over ISOC, and does not allow for the chapters, and therefore the individual members, to have real power on the ISOC governance. This needs to be addressed, and hopefully v changed. Perhaps it can be done via going back to the model where individual members voted, perhaps it can be done via chapters electing not 3, but 6 Trustees; in all cases this needs to be addressed, and reviewed in depth. I'd suggest a special Board committee to be formed to work on that, with equal participation, or if that's not achievable, ISOC may need to hire an external evaluator. In fact such an evaluation is needed even for the current model of governance, when management needs to be kept accountable, but that's still not quite possible. I'd put efforts in making sure that representation of members is better, and that all members can keep the management accountable for the way they lead the organization. I also think that there should be a process for better governance. We not only need to respond to this question here, but even the fact that this question shows up in the election campaign, but has not been reviewed so far, is something that worries me. Also, if chapters elect more trustees, that will give us the opportunity to have better geographical diversity. With 3 trustees, that's impossible.

Answer to Question 9:

That's a perfect question to show how the chapters can work with the ISOC v Reston and ISOC-Geneva office. Africa needs special attention of ISOC, and luckily there are chapters which are quite active. We need to support as much as we can them, and bring to them all the know-how they need. It's good that ISOC has done some work with some of the chapters; it's good that some of the ISOC Trustees also help African countries to bring the Internet to the people. We just need to focus, and I have also suggested that we go back to the Worldbank, the ISOC-UK chapter, and just look for support of ISOC's activities on the continent. The next few years there will be plenty of projects to help ICT development in Africa; ISOC must be part of these projects.

Education, considering the rich history which ISOC's George Sadowsky, Alan Greenberg, Larry Landweber and others have, is a natural tool for ISOC's work in Africa.

Let's just go for it and do it.