Comments for 2008 Board Elections

Comment on Q11: Chapters and organizational members by Alejandro

Alejandro — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:46:58 +0000

Chapters: we need to continue to intensify the links among Chapters. These have to be concrete, with the undertaking of common projects, the sharing of educational and lobbying materials esp. in languages other than English, shared participation in each others’s events and conferences, and other bottom-up and “horizontal” initiatives and collaboration among Chapters.

Chapters-ISOC. A continuation of the Chapter Development Program, with more involvement of chapters and recognition ot how gradual a transtiion will be to full compliance, as well as of the Sphere projeect, will be welcome by Chapters. The project funding program is a good component of the ISOC-Chapters interaction. The regional meetings and teleconferences need higher participation by chapters. Some of this is contingent on funding, some in continuing to develop the value equation for Chapters.

Chapers-Organizational members. We need to start in 2008 to sort out a new, more intense relationship between chapters and organizational members, with long-term views developed, and short-term value aggregated in a rapid manner simultaneously. We need to explore in detail what Chapters and organizational members share as goals and where we differ. A realistic analysis will enrich ISOC and help avoid unpleasant surprises down the road.

Individual members. Individual members must be given, and must give, more ways to interact with both Chapters (making it attractive to join ISOC through a chapter but not precluding pure individual membership) and organizational members, as well as with staff projects.

The progress made in wikis and other “social” infrastructures in English should be measured by mid-year or 3Q 2008 in order to decide whether ISOC staff should put in more effort into English-only or into several collaboration projects in different languages. Chapters, organizational members, and individual members who share a language would do well to start some of these collaboration projects on their own, with minimal but clear rules that allow for transparent support from others and from staff, and can provide examples for the way forward. This should happen in 2008 and be measured in 2009 for deciding the further course.

Comment on Q8: ISOC and PIR by Ganesh

Ganesh — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:56:21 +0000

In developing countries the major business challenge is capacity building. For eg in India, the industry forums like Nasscom and CII are taking active interest to align industry. This alignment is of great interest for global community particularly of Internet community as majority of IT related workforce is now residing in developing countries.

Comment on Q6: Public Policy Issues by Ganesh

Ganesh — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:49:00 +0000

I congratualte ISOC for starting regional bureaus. It is a formidable step towards ensuring ‘enhanced’ participation from the stakeholders.

Education & Governance are two broad areas of public policy I would recommend to focus during my tenure. The organizational members and chapter members should use the broader areas to address regional/local issues like ICT4D, industry-academia-government interaction etc.

Comment on Q12: Other perspectives by Laina

Laina — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:29:29 +0000

. It has taken awhile for the telecom world to come to grips with IP as the key to convergence. However, we are still not quite there, and efforts to create walled gardens and closed networks will close the way for users from truly benefiting from the true value of the Internet. The coming together of the different worlds of telecom operators, broadcasters, Internet service providers, content providers, P2P networks providers, free municipal networks, etc provides unique challenges that we have never faced before. These are interesting times for ISOC and how it positions and focuses its activities over the next few years, will have great impacts to its usefulness and success in the years to come. I do hope to be given an opportunity to be a part of the organization as it holds its ground in this new communications world.

Comment on Q10: ISOC’s involvement in the IGF by Laina

Laina — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:28:26 +0000

Focus should continue to focus on ISOC’s key priority areas and achieving concrete deliverables that truly make a difference for the development of the Internet over the next 5-10 years. Given the urgency of certain issues such as cybercrimes, it is important that ISOC in its endeavour to position itself as a key player in Internet Governance, does not dilute its efforts by spreading itself too thin.

Comment on Q7: ISOC and the IETF by Laina

Laina — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:27:53 +0000

I agree with Daniel that relying on income from IETF physical meetings as its primary source of funding, is not sustainable. IETF serves a very fundamental service to the Internet community, and ISOC should increase its funding to ensure its success. As IP becomes the core of the next generation networks, IETF activities will becomes even more crucial to the scalability and success of the Internet.

Comment on Q2: Internet Challenges by Laina

Laina — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 03:27:13 +0000

Meanwhile, the traditional telecommunications world has finally embraced IP as the key to the convergence they have been talking about for so many years. Convergence is decidedly IPNGN and they are rapidly consolidating their networks over IP. However, they are now realizing that they have not quite figured out sustainable business models. Hence, one of the greatest challenges will be the clash of business cultures and models, leading to debates about Net Neutrality, drive to “walled gardens�?, emerging cybercriminal economies, commoditizing access, reemergence of monopolies, etc. These economic challenges will have great impact on end users, who themselves are being redefined, often being providers and economic drivers themselves. The redefinition of the “Internet�? and “end users�? will also be one of the major challenges to ISOC’s vision that the “Internet is for everyone�?.

ISOC having been on the forefront of the Internet, can serve as a forum for dialogue and consultation.

Comment on Q5: Projects Funding Initiative by Laina

Laina — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:21:56 +0000

Given the critical nature of the operational and technical issues of IPNGN, funding should be focused on achieving priority areas on the key initiative areas and on concrete deliverables.

Comment on Q4: Education activities by Laina

Laina — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:20:39 +0000

With the increasing commercialization of the Internet, many of the fundamental concepts and principals that made the Internet a success is often lost. In ISOC�?s educational efforts, whether on its own or with other organizations, it would be good to have ISOC ensure that these principals and concepts are expressly taught. Having many of the pioneers of the Internet associated with ISOC who can be available for these educational efforts, gives ISOC a unique edge over other commercial educational efforts.

Meanwhile, I have witnessed the developing country workshops that ISOC has conducted in the past and seen the impact it has had on the next generation leaders of the Internet in various countries. I would definitely hope to see many of these educational efforts continued. If any, I think it should focus on emerging countries and least developed countries and focus on operational and technical issues.

Comment on Q3: Geographic and language Diversity for ISOC by Laina

Laina — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:19:28 +0000

Yes I do think this is an important issue and I am happy to see that the Elections Committee has taken pains to ensure geographic and language diversity in the nominees. ISOC should continue to widely publicise and canvass for nominees to ensure such diversity, and the global process of open elections should help ensure such diversity as reflected in the membership is continued.

Comment on Q2: Internet Challenges by Laina

Laina — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:17:57 +0000

The Internet has no real border and this is a real handicap for prosecutors to take criminals through successful prosecution. There is thus no societal check on cybercrime per se. Today, the cybercriminal economy is one of the greatest challenges on the Internet. It is a thriving economy and perpetuates fraud, pornography, slavery, and so many other serious crimes. There is a real need for a cross border society to put a check to this. ISOC can serve as a forum of dialogue between governments, private sector, and even academia to have an effective “society�? to put a stop to cybercrimes. Working on cybersecurity without working on cybercriminal economy is after all futile.

Comment on Q1: Priorities by Laina

Laina — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:15:40 +0000

ISOC’s priority should continue to be “to promote the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world�? (as stated in the Strategic Operating Plan 2005).

ISOC should focus on how to keep the fundamental principles that made the Internet different from all other protocols and communications technologies, such as scalable open networks with an end to end principle, survive the next 5-10 years to come. In this regard, I am actually happy to see the 2008-2010 initiatives to focus on Enabling Access, InterNetworks, and Trust and Identity. These are very concrete deliverables and with focus, ISOC can definitely work to fulfilling its primary mission.

Comment on Q11: Chapters and organizational members by Ganesh

Ganesh — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 07:37:07 +0000

- Create a global online community of chapters/members/organizations
- Member Exchange programmes between different chapters
- Chapter level awards/functions/conference to enable grass root level participation