Thank you Vittorio
- Laura Kolker
Thank you Vittorio, our first Chair of ICANN AtLarge Advisory Committee (ALAC)
November 2007
On 31 October 2002, the ICANN Board adopted new Bylaws that established the ALAC and authorized its supporting At-Large organizations. The new Bylaws, which were the result of ICANN's 2002 reform process, went into effect on 15 December 2002.
In January 2003, the ICANN board appointed 10 interim members to the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC). These ten members were:
- Pierre Dandjinou (Benin)
- Clement Dzidonu (Ghana)
- Izumi Aizu (Japan)
- Xue Hong (China)
- Thomas Roessler (Germany)
- Vittorio Bertola (Italy)
- Erick Iriarte Ahon (Peru)
- Sebastián Ricciardi (Argentina)
- Esther Dyson (USA)
- Wendy Seltzer (USA)
Vittorio was selected unanimously as the first Chair of ALAC at the first conference call. He was one of the youngest member of ALAC at that time – 32 or so?
He came to ICANN meeting in Romania in 2002 for the first time physically, and joined the lobbying effort to continue the AtLarge, which was not included in the “Reform Plan” which canceled the whole idea of ALAC.
He was the Chair of an organization called “AtLarge dot Com”, before ALAC was approved by the ICANN Board – as a desperate effort to save AtLarge, which was very chaotic that time, and eventually lost momentum, in the end. But he did his best to keep the energy and cause of individual user participation in ICANN even after the "reform" process, while many others had given up.
He managed the early days of the interim ALAC and was very good at articulating the policy issues, wrote at least 50 ALAC comments on policy issues, participated in ALL ICANN meetings since 2002 to present, if I am not mistaken, and during the course he became very active in the WSIS involvement at the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, and then the member of Working Group on Internet Governance, again participated in ALL WSIS, WGIG meetings, and started the blog called “Hacking the UN”. He was the guy who brought the team of people from Turin Institute of Technology to implement the live web-cast from the The Palais des Nations, the UN Headquarters in Geneva for the WGIG meetings, for the first time in the UN history.
He got so involved with these Civil Society activities, that his time spent with his real work, or his business got less and less and eventually he became almost “self-employed” or voluntary activist.
He is the very active member of Internet Society’s Italian Chapter, often invited to the Government panel on Internet policy issues.Also active on the Dynamic Coalition on Internet Bill of Rights together with Italian government and many other oreganizations.
Personally, he is a very enthusiastic fan of his local team, Torino, in Serie A now, I can testify as I went to the game with him in 2003. So, he was one of the excellent players of ALAC Soccer team in Mal del Plata, and Luxemburg and Sao Paulo ICANN meetings. He eats a plate of pasta in 75 seconds, as fast as he types the words or speaks at the Public Forum.
ALAC owes him a lot, and, the entire ICANN community also owes him a lot, too.
Thank you Vittorio, from the bottom of our heart.
ALAC and ICANN AtLarge Community