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Fellowships to Ensure Global Voices Heard at ICANN | Program builds on the successful pilot program run at San Juan meeting

2 August 2007

MARINA DEL REY, Calif.: More voices from across the globe will be heard at ICANN's 30th International Public Meeting in Los Angeles later this year thanks to the global fellowships program being launched today.

"ICANN has a global mandate and it’s important that we do what we can to support participation from every corner of the world. This program makes sure we have involvement from individuals from developing and least developed nations who otherwise may be unable to attend," said Theresa Swinehart, ICANN's Vice President, Global and Strategic Partnerships. "The pilot of the fellowship program at our San Juan meeting was a success and has helped us refine the program for the upcoming ICANN meeting in Los Angeles."

The 33 fellows from 24 countries who played an active role at the San Juan meeting were chosen from 125 applications received — and 65 per cent of the fellows and 68 per cent of applicants had never attended an ICANN meeting.

Priority will be given to applicants who are current residents of developing and least developed nations who are interested in participating in ICANN and its supporting organizations, such as the Governmental Advisory Committee, the Country Code Names Supporting Organization, and the Generic Names Supporting Organization. The fellowship will assist in covering airfare, hotel and a stipend. Recipients will be expected to actively participate in and contribute to ICANN processes. As always, registration for ICANN’s meetings is free for anyone wanting to attend. The Los Angeles meeting will be held from 29 October to 2 November 2007.

"ICANN is working on major efforts with internationalized domain names and new top-level domains — efforts that represent some of the biggest changes to the Internet since it was invented," Swinehart added. “ICANN wants as much input and global engagement as possible on issues like IDNs and top-level domains — and the fellowship program has a key role in helping us accomplish that goal.”

Applications will be accepted from now until 1200 PDT (UTC -7) on Friday 24 August 2007. More information, as well as a link to the application for a fellowship, is available online at: http://www.icann.org/fellowships/

About ICANN:

ICANN is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .uk) and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability. ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company. For more information please visit: www.icann.org.

Media Contacts:

Jason Keenan
Media Adviser, ICANN (USA)
Ph: +1 310 382 4004
E: jason.keenan@icann.org


International: Andrew Robertson
Edelman (London)
Ph: +44 7921 588 770
E: andrew.robertson@edelman.com