Sandra Hofericher

Sébastien Bachollet (nominator),

Oksana Prykhodko,

Wolfgang Kleinwächter,

Yrjö Länsipuro

Jean-Jacques Subrenat,

 Christopher Wilkinson,

Olivier Crépin-Leblond,

Wolf Ludwig  

Sandra Hoferichter

Dear Olivier, colleagues - greetings and many thanks for the support as part of this dynamic exchange of emails! Dear Sebastian, thanks for the nomination! Definitely, when it comes to decision making on the candidate, it is you, the community, who should decide on who would represents the best the interests, vision, values of ALAC as part of the broader ICANN ecosystem! You know much better what are the current needs especially under the ongoing ICANN/IANA stewardship processes, and ways this is going to impact the overall developments in the years to come!  

Few words about myself, especially for those I have not met before (but more than opened to engage via a more specific Q&A, etc):

• I am  currently based in Chisinau, Moldova, where I run the Open Government      Institute, an NGO/think- tank working around the issues of good      governance, accountability, transparency and citizen engagement, among      others. 
• Since 2012      I am a member of the civil society steering committee of the Open      Government Partnership (OGP), that brings together 69 countries as of      today. It is a very ambitious and promising international platform but      which also aims to support, encourage and motivate domestic reformers deliver      more to their citizens. 
• ICANN is not new to me - I used to be a member of ALAC back in 2007-2008, and I am      also a former NomCom member (2012-2014). 
• When it comes to Internet Governance - I am a former MAG member to the IGF/UN      (2011 - 2014). I guess at country level I am the only promoter of Internet      Governance debate, trying to bring the IG into the agenda of policy      makers. 
• My  background is in Contemporary Diplomacy (MA) with the University of Malta.      My postgraduate studies are in Diplomacy and IT, with University of Malta as well (via DiploFoundation). My first degree is in pedagogy, with      Moldova State Pedagogical University
• I worked in a number of countries around the world on issues related to quality      education, critical thinking as an international trainer of trainers (on    behalf of Open Society Foundations New York) - Nepal, Liberia,  Turkey. 
• When it comes to the region, I have a very good network of both Govs and CSOs (Romania, Serbia, Ukraine, Georgia. Slovakia, Croatia, etc) working on      Open Government, but still very relevant for ICANN/IG as well. I am very well connected internationally/globally as well.  
• In addition      to the above, during the past 5 years or so, I have been working as a short-term senior consultant for the World Bank on education, open      government, open data. I am actively engaged in gender equality issues, working closely on the National Strategy on Gender equality of Moldova. I  also manage few communities of practice back home including on open data      and open government. 
• I managed  half a million grants/budgets as part of the NGO I run, teams of      experts/consultants - up to 30 +, so, also bring the experience of having worked with numerous donors/development partners among others.        

Would be more than happy to answer any questions that you may have on the above and not only!   

With many thanks,

Veronica

Bastiaan Goslings (nominator)

Johan Helsingius

Olivier Crépin-Leblond,

Wolf Ludwig

Sandra Hoferichter

After talking to Olivier, and assuming this is the place to do it, I too want to nominate myself for the ALAC Euralo seat. I have to admit that up until now I have not been very vocal within the ICANN community, mainly because of time constraints and limited resources. So no personal wiki page as of yet.

Working as the regulatory affairs spokesperson for one of the world’s largest Internet Exchanges (AMS-IX), I have attended four ICANN meetings over the last couple of years, using them mainly as important industry events for networking purposes. But since attending the ATLAS II summit on behalf of the Dutch ISOC chapter, of which I am a board member, and all the IANA transition- and accountability discussions and work that followed, I feel that I should bring something back to the community seeing the important transition phase the multistakeholder community finds itself in. I guess that now that I have the time I should make the commitment. Or at least offer to do so.

I am an economist, became an information analyst and project manager/ICT consultant, and was later also trained as a network engineer and UNIX sysadmin. Before I got into policy matters and (telecommunications’) legislation. On behalf of my employer I spend a lot of time at ministries and going to meetings and conferences, spreading the gospel of how the internet technically works and how through collaboration decisions are made and why therefore the internet has grown into the phenomenon that take we in the West now sometimes take for granted. In the Netherlands the succes has led to the setting up a year ago, and I was part of it from the start, of a new industry body, the Digital Infrastructure Netherlands platform. Which we very successfully use to propagate the message that we have something, albeit it slightly hidden, that we can build on to bring further future wealth and wellbeing for all. If we keep the right conditions in mind. And on the other hand that we cannot do it alone and we need all stakeholders on board to battle the negative side effects of a well functioning reliable, cheap and neutral internet infrastructure (e.g. abuse).

I am the liaison for AMS-IX in the GSMA and have participated there in policy development related to the interconnection of mobile networks, especially when it comes to (international) roaming. I continue to be surprised at the completely different mindset and business approach of the traditional telco’s, as opposed to the way IP-networks interconnect and peer with each other to deliver internet services and create end-to-end connectivity for end-users and devices. But being aware of this definitely helps when providing Dutch governmental representatives input when they’re preparing for their next ITU gathering.

A bit of further context: in the ISOC Netherlands board I am responsible for the dossiers related to (new legislation) for Dutch LEA’s and intelligence agencies, and I participate in public private cooperations to mitigate the impact of botnets as well as to improve the use of open and secure internet standards (DNSSEC, TLS, DKIM, IPv6 etc). I works closely with the RIPE community (the NCC is also based in Amsterdam), and I am the chair of the Euro-IX Regulatory Affairs Working Group (Euro-IX is an association for Internet Exchanges). I (co)organised and hosted workshops at global and national IGFs. I interact a lot with civil servants, politicians, NRA’s, LEA’s, and private sector stakeholders. 

The business of the non profit company I work is neutral and very technology oriented. Some argue that the same applies to ICANN when you look purely at its technical remit. While that might sound reasonable, I sincerely believe that the interests of end-users, i.e. what ALAC stands for, requires continued and probably even stronger future focus as commercial and political pressures are becoming more and more dominant. To be honest I would need to catch up on the specifics of current relevant ICANN policy developments. However topics and liaison roles where I think I could add value within the ALAC are a.o. with regard to interests of LEA’s and the GAC, the topic of Human Rights (I did some work with fellow ISOC Netherlands colleague Niels ten Oever in the CCWG on Human Rights), the role and liability of intermediaries and connectivity providers (ISPCP), as well as technical and security related discussions.

So far for this introduction. Thanks for accepting my nomination, and I’m sure you will let me know in case you have any questions.

With kind regards,

Bastiaan Goslings