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Members of the ICANN 2015 Nominating Committee

This page contains some background biographical information about each Nominating Committee member.

Members of the Committee

The members of the 2015 Nominating Committee are: Stéphane Van Gelder (Chair), (Chair Elect), Cheryl Langdon-Orr (Associate Chair), Mehmet Akcin, Satish Babu, John Berryhill, Alain Bidron, Don Blumenthal, Sarah B. Deutsch, Robert Guerra, Hans Petter Holen, Louis Houle, Zahid Jamil, Juhani Juselius, Brenden Kuerbis, Yrjö Länsipuro, Sylvia Herlein Leite, John Levine, Ellen Shankman and Fatimata Seye Sylla.

2015 NomCom Leadership Team

Stéphane Van Gelder – Chair

Stéphane Van Gelder

Stéphane is Chairman and Managing Director of Milathan LTD. (www.milathan.com) a provider of domain name and Internet intelligence. Services include evaluating domain name requirements and refining naming strategies, sourcing domain management partners, identifying new industry trends, analysis and participating in Internet governance processes, determining general online strategies and also providing senior management advice.

Previously, Stéphane was General Manager of Indom, a corporate domain registrar which he cofounded in 1999 and sold to Group NBT in 2010.

Stéphane has been active in Internet governance for years. He was a board member for the French registry AFNIC from 2004 to 2010. He was elected treasurer of ICANN's Registrar Stakeholder Group in 2008, and that group's European representative on the GNSO Council that same year. Stéphane was elected Vice Chair of the GNSO Council in 2009 and Chair the following year. He was re-elected as GNSO Council Chair at the 2011 Dakar ICANN meeting. Stéphane served on ICANN's 2013 Nominating Committee and was Chair Elect of the 2014 Nominating Committee. Stéphane has been selected by the ICANN Board to serve as the committee's Chair for 2015.

Stéphane earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Sussex University (UK). He was a print and TV journalist for ten years before starting Indom.

 

Ron Andruff – Chair Elect

Ron Andruff

In 1994, on behalf of the Foreign Policy Association (FPA), Ron Andruff undertook an eight-month assessment of emerging electronic media and new technologies that resulted in an acclaimed white paper he authored, widely distributed by the FPA, that provided a comprehensive analysis of the Internet and its impending, widespread impact. In 2004, as founder and president of Tralliance Corporation, Mr. Andruff spearheaded the last large scale test of new top-level domains with the .TRAVEL initiative; from its initial concept through to launch of the first "community-based" top-level domain. Tens of thousands of .TRAVEL domain names were registered under his leadership, an initiative that gained support from more than 140 travel trade associations in 9 industry sectors, across more than 70 countries.

With over 30 years of international marketing experience coupled with over 12 years of intimate knowledge of the intricate workings of ICANN, Mr. Andruff has brought the voice of business to ICANN and the Business Constituency on topics that affect industry on the Internet. He has served on numerous ICANN Working Groups and Teams as part of the Vertical Integration Working Group (VI WG), the Operations Steering Committee (OSC) dealing with restructuring of the GNSO, and on the GNSO Council Operating Procedures Work Team (GCOT), one of its sub-committees. Apart from his Business Constituency committee work, Ron currently serves as Chairman of the GNSO Standing Committee on Improvement Implementation (SCI) and Vice Chair of the IAG-CCT.

Ron Andruff is president & CEO, dotSport LLC, which is bringing to life www.lifedotsport.com, a sport-centric social media platform.

 

Cheryl Langdon-Orr – Associate Chair

Cheryl Langdon-Orr

About me:- Thirty(ish) years ago I left my Post-Grad research and career as a tutor in Physiology (continuing as Teaching Associate at the Asia Pacific Research Institute of Macquarie University during the early 2000 years) to operate our family owned micro enterprise, Hovtek Pty. Limited, see http://www.hovtek.com.au; and still do so today.

I am a telecommuter, and licensee of domain names in .au as well as in the global DNS, but most importantly, I am an avid end-user of the Internet for work and recreation. Twelve years ago we started a spin off project called BuildersNet, which was developed from some of the TQM (ISO-9002 etc.,) activities of Hovtek. Eight years ago this became a stand-alone Pty Limited Australian Company, and relies totally on the Internet to facilitate its operation http://www.buildersnet.com.au/. Our clients in Australia are Micro Businesses and SMEs - and internationally mainly SMEs and Government or Aid Funded bodies; We service and communicate with them almost exclusively online and the majority of our importation of raw materials and products as well as export documentation bookings etc. is now handled that way.

I believe the Internet should be seen as a public asset and needs to be developed and maintained as a cost-effective and accessible resource for communication, education, community, social and business opportunities by the Australian and wider global community; my work within ICANN with its remit as the coordinator of the unique identifiers (addressing) across i.e. in the Naming, Numbering and Nomenclature within the Internet Ecosystem with its commitment to a multi-stakeholder, bottom-up consensus driven policy development model is an essential part of this aim. In October 2012 I was appointed by the ICANN Board as tne 2013 NomCom Chair Elect and in 2013 have been coinfirmed as the NomCom Chair for 2014. Elsewhere within the ICANN Community I have served on a number of Working Groups, Work Teams and Task Forces (listed and linked below. My ALAC / At-Large Statement of Interest (SOI) is found here Cheryl Langdon-Orr SOI and my GNSO Statement of Interest (SOI) found here Cheryl Langdon-Orr GNSO – SOI;

My focus and ongoing interests are not specifically technical but rather more consumer and end user focused. Until May 2009 when the Council was dissolved I represent ISOC-AU in the Australian Communication Alliance Consumer Advisory Council) see http://www.acif.com.au/ with a keen interest in Policy Development, Access, Outreach and Regulatory issues. In late 2012 I was appointed as a consumer advocate representative to the Australian Communications Compliance (CommCom) Advisory Committee a new independent code monitoring (and reporting) body, that is to ensure that Carriage Service Providers (CSPs) in Australia are compliant with the Telecommunications Consumer Protection (TCP) Code.

I was an Individual Member (prior to the formation of our Chapter) of ISOC and am a Director of ISOC-AU (see https://www.isoc-au.org.au/) since being elected in 2001 I have served as Hon Treasurer from 2003-09, Hon. Company Secretary 2010 -12 and as a non Executive Director since then. see http://isoc-au.org.au/Organisation/Dirs.html

I am a Member of auDA, serving on its Board of Directors now for my fifth term of office in the Demand Class (User Interests) stakeholder category since October 2012 See http://www.auda.org.au/board/members/; previously I have worked on several auDA Policy Advisory Panels between 2000 and 2004, and serve as the Chair of the Domain Name Industry Code of Practice Committee, and Chair the auDA Board Governance Committee, and as part of the auDA Board Finance Committee.

In 2008 and 2009 in addition to my work within APRALO and ALAC and specifically within the arena of communications consumer advocacy in Australia I was instrumental in the formation of a new National peak body to act as a co-ordinated voice of communications consumers Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN) which is now an At-Large Structure (ALS) in the Asia Pacific Region of the ICANN At-Large Community

See http://www.accan.org.au/; http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2008/030; http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/media/media_releases/2008/061

I am also a member of Women On Boards (http://www.womenonboards.org.au/; and am both an individual and corporate member representative in ACCAN http://www.accan.org.au/; and an active member of the NSW Chapter of Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications (FITT) http://fifi1248.staging-iis7-2.netregistry.net/, now formally renamed Women in ICT Australia Incorporated (WICTA) under a new constitution.

For more details please see any or all of the following web sources:

http://about.me/cheryl.LangdonOrr

https://community.icann.org/display/~cheryl.langdon-orr/Home

http://www.womenonboards.org.au/my/profile/view?pid=1861

http://au.linkedin.com/pub/cheryl-langdon-orr/0/a93/956


Committee Members

(listed in alphabetical order by family name)

Mehmet Akcin – RSSAC Representative

 

Satish Babu – ALAC Representative; Asia/Australia/Pacific Islands

Satish Babu

Satish Babu is presently the Director of the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), India, and a past President of the Computer Society of India, an ICANN ALS. He is also a past President of the South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC) and a member of the Member & Geographic Activities Board of IEEE Computer Society. He is associated with several NGOs in the technology & development spaces.

Satish has had a 30-year career spanning the domains of Community Development; Disaster Management; Technology Development; Open Source & related domains; and the IT Industry. He has been an Internet user and advocate since 1993, and ran the first email service in the Kerala province of India in 1994 as a part of the UN Volunteer Project, IndiaLink. In 1997, he conducted a training program on Internet & online tools for associations of fishers in Latin America at the Catholic University, Lima, Peru, on behalf of an international network working in fisheries. He was cited in the IEEE Annual Report of 2005 for his work relating to setting up communication links after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Satish held several elected positions in the Computer Society of India--the country's largest (members as of 31 March 2013: 104,000) and oldest (founded: 1965) professional society in IT--including that of the Vice President and President. In his full-time job, he is the founding Director of ICFOSS, set up in 2009 by the Government of Kerala, India, as an autonomous institution with the mandate of promoting Open Source and related domains. He is also the founder and President (presently on Sabbatical) of an IT Company with offices in the US, Japan, Europe and India.

Satish served on the 2014 NomCom, and is currently serving his second term. More details on him are available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satish_Babu

 

John Berryhill – Registrars Stakeholder Group

 

Alain Bidron – ISP Constituency Representative

Alain Bidron

Alain is the Director of the Naming Addressing and Numbering Department of Orange Group (Formerly France Telecom).

He has 18 years of experience in this area at international level. He is engaged with ICANN since it was created in 1998 and has been participating to all ICANN meetings since ICANN 11 back in 2001.

Alain is an executive officer of the Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers constituency. He is also an active participant of RIPE.

 

Don Blumenthal – Registries Stakeholder Group

Don Blumenthal

Don is Senior Policy Advisor to the Public Interest Registry, concentrating on security and stability, privacy, accountability and transparency, and abuse and other law enforcement related issues. In addition, he is a member of the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee. Don also is an adjunct professor at the University of Michigan School of Information, where he has taught courses on information policy foundations, enterprise security planning, and contemporary privacy issues. Finally, he is a member of the Board of CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email (CAUCE), one of the first organizations to be active in combatting spam.

Prior to joining PIR, Don was a consultant in Ann Arbor, Michigan, specializing in information security natters. Before Ann Arbor, Don was at headquarters of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, where his last assignment was to create and manage the Internet Lab, the agency's Internet investigations center. In addition, he provided legal and technical expertise for security and privacy investigations and policy projects and was involved in Internet governance initiatives. Prior to the Internet Lab, Don worked for the FTC in central IT and as a trial attorney. His career also includes time with another federal agency, in private practice, and on U.S. House of Representatives staff.

Don has been a frequent speaker on the topics of Internet and information security, Internet governance, and privacy. He also has been a major contributor to American Bar Association privacy, security, and cybercrime publications, as well as to the ITU Toolkit for Cybercrime Legislation, the Cloud Security Alliance's Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing, and the 2011 Recommended Security Guidelines for Airport Planning, Design & Construction prepared for the Transportation Security Administration.

Don was the recipient of numerous awards at the FTC, including the Award for Distinguished Service in 2006. He holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Oberlin College. Don lives near Ann Arbor with his wife, Jane, Associate University Librarian and Director of the Taubman Health Sciences Library at the University of Michigan

 

Sarah B. Deutsch – Commercial and Business Users Constituency (Large)

Sarah B. Deutsch

Sarah Deutsch is Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Verizon Communications. Her current practice covers a wide range of legal issues in the areas of global intellectual property, including copyrights, trademarks and patents, Internet policy, liability, and Internet jurisdiction. She has also represented Verizon on a host of domestic and international Internet issues ranging from Internet governance, domain names, digital copyright issues, cybercrime and other international copyright and trademark issues.

Sarah was one of five negotiators for the U.S. telecommunications industry who negotiated service provider provisions that resulted in the passage of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. She has participated in ICANN since its inception and was also actively involved with Congress in the passage of the Anti-Cybersquatting Act.

 

Robert Guerra – SSAC Representative

Robert Guerra

Robert is a civil society expert specializing in issues of internet governance, cyber security, social networking, multi-stakeholder participation, internet freedom and human rights. Robert is the founder of Privaterra, a Canadian based organization that works with private industry and nongovernmental organizations to assist them with issues of data privacy, secures communications, information security, internet governance and internet freedom. Robert also works as special adviser to The Citizen Lab and Canada Centre for Global Security Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

Robert serves as a member of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), as well as a member of the US IGF Steering Committee. Additionally he has participated as a member of the official Canadian delegation at two UN World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS).

Robert has given numerous media interviews and often is invited to share his views on the challenges being faced by social justice organizations in regards to surveillance, censorship and privacy. He advises numerous non-profits, foundations, governments and international organizations, including Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR), Taking IT Global, Diplo Foundation's Internet Governance and Policy Capacity Building Program (IGPCBP), and The Open Net Initiative.

 

Hans Petter Holen – Address Supporting Organization Advisory Committee

Hans Petter Holen

Hans Petter Holen from Norway is Deputy Chair of RIPE – the open policy forum for for the regional internet registry for Europe and Middle East, since 2013. He has been actively involved in RIPE and the Internet industry for over 20 years. His extensive and long-standing first-hand knowledge of global IP address policy creation was developed in the RIPE Address Policy Working Group, of which he was Chair from 1998 to 2007.

Hans Petter has also been part of ICANN's ASO Address Council aso.icann.org since its formation in 1999 until 2013 where he spent 10 years as Chair or Co Chair.

He has also been on the policy advisory board NORPOL for the Norwegian ccTLD for .no – Norid – from 2003 to 2013 and prior to that on the dispute resolution function NOK from 2001 to 2003 and is now serving on a strategy panel for NORID.

He is also a member of the Norwegian IPv6 forum and has been deputy chair of ISOC Chapter Norway from 1997 and part of the interim board tasked to rejuvenate the chapter in 2013.

Hans Petter graduated from The University of Oslo (1988) with a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science with a year from University of York as part of the degree., He continued with further studies at the University Oslo, while working at the University Computing Centre administering the Norwegian EuNet node, name server for .no. In 1991 he was one of the founders of Oslonett AS, one of Norway's first commercial ISPs, and since has been working for other ISPs and content providers.

Since 2004 he has been working for Visma, a Nordic IT company, as IT Director and Managing Director for Visma IT & Communications until August 2013. He is now working with corporate IT projects in the Visma group.

He is also board member of Visma Personnel AS, a recruitment company in the Visma Group, and advisor to the board in the Visma companies Active 24 and Loopia, registrars operating in Norway, Sweden, the Czech Republic and other European countries.

On his spare time he plays the viola in the University of Oslo Symphony Orchestra and Norwegian folk music on his violin for folk dance groups in "Bondeungdomslaget i Oslo". He is also deputy board member of the society´s businesses the "Best Western Hotel Bonedeheimen" with restaurant "Kaffistova" and the craft shops "Heimen Husflid" and "Den Norske Husfliden".

 

Louis Houle – ALAC Representative; North America Region

Louis Houle

Louis is currently president of the ISOC Quebec Chapter (Internet Society) where he serves on the board since 2004. This led him to become involved in activities and projects related to governance, privacy, policies, digital divide, open access to the Internet, disabled persons, protection of the youth and education. He's interacting with Quebec regional communities, communitarian organisations and, at the international level, Francophone communities and other ISOC Chapters. During his term, ISOC Quebec strongly supported PointQuebec who applied for the new registry DotQuebec now publicly available. ISOC Quebec is a pioneer of the new TLD.

Louis is also president of Connect Quebec launched in 2007, a non-profit organisation providing High Speed Internet Services in regions facing accessibility deficits. The organization offers knowledge transfer, management toolkits for ISPs, training for ISPs and users, and funding support.

Involved in ICANN since 2006, Louis is one of the contributing founder of the NARALO where he serves as an At-Large delegate since its inception.

Louis has first been a journalist in Ontario and in Quebec before discovering computers and programming that led him to join a database producer in the news domain, Microfor. He then pursued a 30 years career in the Quebec Government as an analyst and a manager in ITC, information management and Internet services.

Now retired from the Quebec Government, he is now principal at IPSO-Québec Institute (IQI). IQI offers expertise in knowledge sharing within an organisation and between organisations. IQI focuses on IT best practices, integrated information and document management and the use of open, flexible and scalable systems.

A graduate from Laval University (Quebec City) where he studied literature, communication, cinematography and journalism, he also pursued post-graduate studies in public administration at the Public Management National Institute. He also taught in both organisations for a brief period.

Louis was a member of the 2014 NomCom Committee.

 

Zahid Jamil – Commercial and Business Users Constituency (Small)

Zahid Jamil

Zahid qualified as a Barrister from Gray's Inn and is currently practicing law in Pakistan specializing in Corporate and Commercial law, Technology, IPR, Litigation and, ADR. Currently he serves on the Advisory Board of the .pk ccTLD (PKNIC), the Board of ICC's Pakistan National Committee and Chairperson the EBITT Commission, Chairs the Joint Legal Working Group of AFACT, and Cybersecurity Advisory Committee of the Federal Investigation Agency. He served on the Multistakeholder Advisory Group to the UN Secretary General and served on ICANN's GNSO as the Business Constituency's elected representative to the Council for two consecutive terms. As a member of ICANN's new gTLD Implementation Recommendations Team and the Special Trademark Issues Working Group he advocated for greater protection for brand owners and businesses in the new gTLD Rights Protection Mechanisms. He also actively represented business at the Internet governance principles discussion at the Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NETmundial) in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

As the Chair of the Centre for Strategic and Policy Analysis initiative Developing Countries' Centre on Cyber Crime (DC4) and expert consultant to the Council of Europe he provides legislative assistance to developing countries with respect to Cybercrime legislation and has conducted capacity building workshops and provided analysis and commentary on cybercrime legislation for Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica, Malta, Maldives, Tanzania, Ghana, Dominica, Jamaica, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius. He drafted the Electronic Transactions Ordinance 2002, assisted the drafting of the Payment Systems and Electronic Funds Transfer Act, 2007. He recently drafted Pakistan's Cybercrime legislation the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Bill and is also consulting with the Commonwealth for a global Cybercrime Initiative. He has also presented several papers and presentations on Cybercrime, Security, e-Banking, e-Commerce and e-Logistics at domestic (ISACA, CISA, IBP, DG FIA, NR3C, PASHA, MoITT etc.) and international (ICC, EBITT, BASIS, IGF, WSIS, UN, AFACT etc.) fora. He has participated in several Cyber security related forums many of which are domestic as well as on several occasions at the Council of Europe Cybercrime Convention Octopus Forum and also at the UNODC, the UN Task Force dealing with Terrorist Use of the Internet. As a CEDR Accredited Mediator Teacher Trainer he is involved in mediating disputes and is the founding Chairman of the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center which deals with domain name disputes under the .pk ccTLD.

At the 2007 IGF in Rio, was a panelist at the CoE Workshop "Legislative responses to current and future cyber-threats" and also been a panelist in the main Session at the Rio IGF on 14 November 2007. Attended the 2007 IGF in Athens and made interventions from the floor and was a panelist in the APC workshop. He also attended the IGF Second round of consultations on the convening of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 19 May 2006, Geneva. As the Chair of DC4, he conducted a workshop on the Advantages of Cyber Crime Treaties for Developing Countries at the 2013 IGF in Bali and a capacity building workshop on Frameworks for Developing Countries Cybercrime Cooperation at the 2014 IGF in Istanbul.

Zahid is the Head of Chambers, Jamil & Jamil, Barristers-at-law, Pakistan; Legal Advisor to Board of the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative; Chair, Domain Name Dispute Resolution Center of Pakistan for the .pk ccTLD since 2006 and Chair, Developing Countries Centre on Cyber Crime.

 

Juhani Juselius – ccNSO Representative

Juhani Juselius

Juhani Juselius is the Head of the Products and Services at Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority (FICORA) and he is responsible for .FI ccTLD, telephone network numbering, undelivered mail service center and short term tv and radio licenses in Finland. Juhani has been registry manager for .FI since 2004 being responsible not only for technical and operational services but also for dispute resolution service.

In 2010-2013 Juhani was involved in a new gTLD project of TLD Registry Ltd that lead to submittal of 2 IDN and 1 ASCII applications.

Juhani has been the board member of the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries (CENTR) in 2010-2012 and the Councilor for the ccNSO Council in 2009-2012. In addition Juhani holds the vice Chair position in HETKY – a significant ICT related association in Helsinki. Juhani has attended ICANN meetings since 2005.

Prior entering into domain name world Juhani was an Application Engineer in Imatran Voima participating a power plant project in Russia in 1995-1998. In 1998 Juhani joined Sonera, the largest telecom operator in Finland, serving as the Product Manager for various Internet related services. Some of them, like "Global IP" wholesale Internet capacity for international markets and "Private Label" dial access for domestic market Juhani commercialized from an idea on paper to the first completed contracts.

Juhani holds M.Sc. in Engineering but has studied Business Administration extensively as well.

When not at work, Juhani likes running, bicycling, paddling and just playing with kids and the dog.

 

Brenden Kuerbis – Non Commercial Users Constituency

Brenden Kuerbis

Dr Brenden Kuerbis is a Research Consultant at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies and past Fellow in Internet Security Governance at the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, Unversity of Toronto. Kuerbis's research focuses on the governance and security of Internet identifiers (e.g., domain names, IP addresses). He is a contributor to the Internet Governance Project, a leading source for coverage and analysis of the management of critical Internet resources and political economy of global Internet policy that is widely read by governments, industry and civil society. Brenden is also a member of the Non Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) at ICANN, having volunteered two terms on its Executive Committee, and as the past Communications Committee Chair of the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet).

 

Yrjö Länsipuro – ALAC Representative; Europe Region

Yrjö Länsipuro

Yrjö is an independent writer, lecturer and consultant on Information Society and Internet issues, and Vice President of the ISOC Finland, with a career in television journalism, international broadcasting cooperation, public diplomacy and internet governance.

Länsipuro graduated from the University of Tampere, Finland, majoring in political science. Starting from the 60's, he worked first as print and then as television journalist for over thirty years, including assignments as bureau chief in New York, Moscow and Hong Kong.

Engaged early on in international cooperation among news broadcasters, he participated in the planning and implementation of regional television news exchanges among the Arab countries and the Asia-Pacific as a part-time consultant for the German Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES).

Joining the Foreign Service in 1992, he served as the Press Counselor of the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C and as Director General of the Department of Press and Culture of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Helsinki. Since 2005, he led Finland's participation in the WSIS process including national coordination of the implementation and follow up of the WSIS outcomes at various fora such as ITU, Commission on Science and Technology for Development and Internet Government Forum. He also represented the Finnish government on the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) of ICANN and served on the ICANN President's Strategy Committee.

After leaving the government service in 2009, Länsipuro continues his Internet Governance work as an independent professional; writing and giving lectures on the topic in the University of Tampere and other Finnish Schools. He is a member of the Finnish national multi-stakeholder committee on WSIS follow-up and Internet Governance and serves on the boards of ISOC Finland (the Finnish ALS) and the European Regional At-Large Organization (RALO) of ICANN, as well as a member of core organizing groups of EuroDIG and Finnish Internet Forum.

Yrjö Länsipuro was a member of the ICANN Nominating Committee 2011-2012; it's Chair in 2013 and Associate Chair in 2014.

 

Sylvia Herlein Leite – ALAC Representative; Latin America/Caribbean Islands Region

Sylvia Herlein Leite

In 2009, Sylvia was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee At-Large (ALAC) of Latin America & Caribbean at the 1st Summit of the At-Large Organizations which took place in Mexico. She was elected with more than 70% of the votes from the region representatives.

She was the first woman to be chosen as ALAC member and LACRALO Secretary. Sylvia held the position of LACRALO Secretary for the period of 2012 – 2014.

From her work as an active member of LACRALO (Organization Regional At-Large Latin American and the Caribbean), Sylvia brings the experience and knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries and the ability to facilitate consensus-building with the community of the Internet in Latin America.

Since 2005, Sylvia has been serving on a voluntary basis as a Founding Member and the Chief Financial Officer & International Affairs of Internauta Brasil (Association of Internet Users in Brazil). Internauta Brasil (www.internautabrasil.org) is an organization that works for Brazilians' digital inclusion. It organizes courses in tele centers for disadvantaged communities, being its main public adult working age and elderly people. These activities are especially focused on the participation of Civil Society. The volunteer members of Internauta Brasil strongly believe that the use of the Internet is a right of all society members regardless of their social and economic status. From this basis, this organization carries out all its work.

Sylvia also works voluntarily as Executive Secretary at Nexti (Organization of the Executive IT Women in Brazil; http://executivasdeti.blogspot.com/). This position she achieved after the election in 2009, and she currently holds it. In addition, Sylvia has been serving since 2007 as a FLUI Secretary (Latin America Internet Users Federation; www.fuilatin.org) .

Sylvia works as a language and business consultant for her own company: Pronto! Consultoria Linguistica (www.prontocl.com.br). As a business consultant, she advises South American companies on issues such as franchising and cultural peculiarities for their expansion to other countries. Sylvia is also a teacher and Spanish-Portuguese translator.

Sylvia's academic background includes a Bachelor's degree in Tourism. She is an Argentinean and Brazilian citizen.

 

John Levine – IETF Representative

 

Ellen Shankman – Intellectual Properties Constituency

Ellen Shankman

Born and educated in the US and lives in Israel since 1986. Ellen is fluent in English and Hebrew. She is a member of both US and Israel Bar associations. Ellen heads her own firm, which represents a wide range of clients from start-ups to Fortune 10 companies, so brings exposure to broad range of Internet user interests. She is a frequent lecturer and author on Trademark and Domain Name issues.

Ellen's experience and knowledge of ICANN/Internet includes the following:

  • Generic Names Supporting Organization Council member
  • IPC Officer
  • Implementation Recommendation Team member
  • Nominating Committee (former member)
  • International Trademark Association Board of Directors
  • INTA Internet Committee Chair (with sub chair positions previously)
  • INTA Presidential Task Force: Building Bridges
  • .IL ccTLD: Drafted Rules for ccTLD including allocation of domain names, the IL-DRP, the introduction of Hebrew IDNs
  • .IL ccTLD IL-DRP Panelist
  • Involved in ICANN for about 15 years
  • Co-Chaired INTA's Internet Symposium

 

Fatimata Seye Sylla – ALAC Representative; Africa Region

Fatimata Seye Sylla

Madam Fatimata Seye Sylla holds a Master of Science from the Media Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a DUT in Computer Science from IUT du Havre in France, a Certificate of Business Administration (CGE ) from CESAG, a regional post graduate management school in Dakar

From October 2008 to September 2013, Fatimata Seye Sylla was appointed the National ICT Coordinator to connect to internet hundreds of middle schools in Senegal within the USAID -EDB (basic education) project for better quality education. She promoted "ICT in education" teacher training programs and local digital content development in 300 schools by teachers and students.

After 10 years of experience in the Government of Senegal, she has run the USAID "Digital Freedom Initiative" (DFI) program to bridge the digital divide in Senegal. She has capitalized a great deal of leadership activities as Director of private companies in the field of information and communication technologies (ICT) and worked as an expert consultant for several foreign and international organizations such as MIT, UNESCO / BREDA, UN / ECA, ITU, IDRC, UNDP, AAWORD, Francophonie, UN/DAW, ENDA, USAID, etc.

Ms. Seye Sylla is author of several publications and studies in the fields of ICT and education, gender and development, ICT and democracy, Internet governance, mobile banking. She is a founding member of many ICT related associations (ISOC, OSIRIS, FOSSFA ACSIS, Régentic, Bokk Jang), and was nominated member of the At Large Advisory Committee of Internet Corporation for Assigning Names and Numbers (ICANN / ALAC) from November 2007 to November 2009 and Chair of ALAC / AFRALO from 2009 to 2013. Fatimata was nominated by ALAC to join the ICANN NomCom in 2014 and in 2015.

In October 2013, Fatimata is reelected President of the Bokk Jang NGO in Senegal www.bokk.org

Domain Name System
Internationalized Domain Name ,IDN,"IDNs are domain names that include characters used in the local representation of languages that are not written with the twenty-six letters of the basic Latin alphabet ""a-z"". An IDN can contain Latin letters with diacritical marks, as required by many European languages, or may consist of characters from non-Latin scripts such as Arabic or Chinese. Many languages also use other types of digits than the European ""0-9"". The basic Latin alphabet together with the European-Arabic digits are, for the purpose of domain names, termed ""ASCII characters"" (ASCII = American Standard Code for Information Interchange). These are also included in the broader range of ""Unicode characters"" that provides the basis for IDNs. The ""hostname rule"" requires that all domain names of the type under consideration here are stored in the DNS using only the ASCII characters listed above, with the one further addition of the hyphen ""-"". The Unicode form of an IDN therefore requires special encoding before it is entered into the DNS. The following terminology is used when distinguishing between these forms: A domain name consists of a series of ""labels"" (separated by ""dots""). The ASCII form of an IDN label is termed an ""A-label"". All operations defined in the DNS protocol use A-labels exclusively. The Unicode form, which a user expects to be displayed, is termed a ""U-label"". The difference may be illustrated with the Hindi word for ""test"" — परीका — appearing here as a U-label would (in the Devanagari script). A special form of ""ASCII compatible encoding"" (abbreviated ACE) is applied to this to produce the corresponding A-label: xn--11b5bs1di. A domain name that only includes ASCII letters, digits, and hyphens is termed an ""LDH label"". Although the definitions of A-labels and LDH-labels overlap, a name consisting exclusively of LDH labels, such as""icann.org"" is not an IDN."