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Chair’s Blog: March Board Workshop and ICANN82 Preview

5 March 2025
By
Tripti Sinha

Tripti Sinha

ICANN Board Chair

Tripti Sinha is the President and CEO of Internet2, where she champions the organization’s core mission of enabling U.S. higher education and research institutions to collaborate on mission-critical technology services and emerging technologies. Internet2 also works with global National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Sinha has over three decades of progressive experience in Internet and Cyber-Infrastructure technologies. Her experience spans leadership roles in engineering, operations, finance, governance, advocacy, and policy.

Before joining Internet2, Tripti held two leadership roles at the University of Maryland: Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX), a regional research and education network. In these roles, she supported advanced, high-performance networking and research technologies, including GPU compute infrastructure optimized for AI workloads and investigating evolving quantum networking technologies.

She has served on many non-profit and private sector technology advisory boards, and was past Chair of The Quilt’s Board of Directors and former Co-Chair of ICANN’s Root Server System Advisory Committee.

Tripti has a Computer Science degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and did graduate work in Computer Science at the University of Maryland. She holds executive education certificates from Harvard Kennedy School in Public Leadership and Policy, and in Global Innovation and Execution from Stanford University. She was born in India and lives in the United States. As a child and young adult, Tripti moved back-and-forth between the U.S. and India which gave her an appreciation for global pluralism. She is proficient in English and Hindi, and understands Punjabi, Urdu and the ancient Sanskrit language. Sinha has a keen interest in Information and Communication Technology innovation, entrepreneurship, governance and policy, and international affairs.

Tripti was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Nominating Committee in 2018. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting 2027.

The ICANN Board will hold its next three-day workshop before the ICANN82 Community Forum in Seattle. This workshop will include a public informational session on the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC):

ALAC Informational Session to the Board
Friday, 7 March 2025 | 13:45–15:15 PST (21:45–23:15 UTC)

The Board also will discuss the future of ICANN reviews, review the progress of the community-led project to optimize ICANN Public Meetings, and prepare to engage with the community at ICANN82.

Here is an overview of the workshop agenda and a preview of the Board's activities next week.

How We Meet Project: The Board will receive a briefing on this project, which is focused on assessing the efficacy of ICANN's 2014 Meeting Strategy in light of current challenges. A small, high-level working group – selected by Supporting Organization and Advisory Committee leaders – was convened to conduct a focused and expedited review exploring the options. The output of this work will be shared for Public Comment following ICANN82. There also will be a Community Feedback Session on this topic on Monday, 10 March.

Reviews: The Board will continue its discussion on the future of ICANN reviews. We will consider the Pilot Holistic Review Team's current work on the purpose, scope, and input for the Holistic Review, and discuss the anticipated Fourth Accountability and Transparency Review.

Internet Governance: ICANN's Government and Intergovernmental Organization Engagement team will give an overview of its activities since the last workshop. These include the briefings for diplomats that ICANN organized last month along with the International Telecommunication Union on the 20-year review of the World Summit on the Information Society outcomes (WSIS+20). The Board will also discuss the next steps as we approach the WSIS+20 later this year.

Next Round: The New Generic Top-Level Domains Program: Next Round team will update the Board on the program's implementation status, including the development of the Base Registry Agreement, and give an overview of the upcoming Applicant Guidebook milestones. The ICANN community will dedicate significant time next week to discussing and advancing its work toward launching the next application round.

Finances: The Board will receive an update on the current financial position of the ICANN organization and on the status of the plan to reduce its annual expense run rate. If you missed the Finance and Planning Update during Prep Week, the recording and materials for the sessions are available on the ICANN82 schedule page.

During ICANN82, the Board will hold bilateral meetings with nine ICANN community groups, which are a key component of the Board's effort to collaborate more closely with the community. My Board colleagues and I are eager to meet with the NextGen@ICANN and Fellowship Program participants, and to answer questions and accept feedback from the community during the Public Forum. As usual, the meeting will conclude on Thursday with a public Board Meeting.

Whether you are attending ICANN82 virtually or in person, I look forward to seeing you next week!

Authors

Tripti Sinha

Tripti Sinha

ICANN Board Chair
Tripti Sinha

Tripti Sinha

ICANN Board Chair

Tripti Sinha is the President and CEO of Internet2, where she champions the organization’s core mission of enabling U.S. higher education and research institutions to collaborate on mission-critical technology services and emerging technologies. Internet2 also works with global National Research and Education Networks (NRENs). Sinha has over three decades of progressive experience in Internet and Cyber-Infrastructure technologies. Her experience spans leadership roles in engineering, operations, finance, governance, advocacy, and policy.

Before joining Internet2, Tripti held two leadership roles at the University of Maryland: Assistant Vice President and Chief Technology Officer and Executive Director of the Mid-Atlantic Crossroads (MAX), a regional research and education network. In these roles, she supported advanced, high-performance networking and research technologies, including GPU compute infrastructure optimized for AI workloads and investigating evolving quantum networking technologies.

She has served on many non-profit and private sector technology advisory boards, and was past Chair of The Quilt’s Board of Directors and former Co-Chair of ICANN’s Root Server System Advisory Committee.

Tripti has a Computer Science degree from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts and did graduate work in Computer Science at the University of Maryland. She holds executive education certificates from Harvard Kennedy School in Public Leadership and Policy, and in Global Innovation and Execution from Stanford University. She was born in India and lives in the United States. As a child and young adult, Tripti moved back-and-forth between the U.S. and India which gave her an appreciation for global pluralism. She is proficient in English and Hindi, and understands Punjabi, Urdu and the ancient Sanskrit language. Sinha has a keen interest in Information and Communication Technology innovation, entrepreneurship, governance and policy, and international affairs.

Tripti was nominated to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors by the Nominating Committee in 2018. Her term will expire at the Annual General Meeting 2027.

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