[Comments-fellowship-proposal-11jun18] My contribution to the question of the New Fellowship Program Approach

[Mark W. Datysgeld]

I am Mark W. Datysgeld, a researcher and consultant from Brazil, specialized in public and private policymaking, and affiliated with the Business Constituency (BC). I have attended ICANN starting as a NextGen in meeting 53, then also attended as a Fellow, having ever since followed a path towards a mostly self-sustaining participation in the community. I currently serve on the selection committee for the NextGen program, as well as always aiming to coach those selected by that program to the best of my abilities.

I write this comment under my personal capacity.

The question that I would like to address in this comment is that of "Selection Criteria", which has been quite a cryptic matter in the past, and as it framed in the current proposal, continues to be so. A fundamental question is not being answered in point number 3 of “Revise Selection Criteria”, which reads “Prioritize diversity of applicant pool”, in which there is no definition for what diversity is. Let us move away from handling this matter as a philosophical question, and get to the point that there needs to be a clear definition of what diversity entails for the Fellowship program.

Traditionally, diversity has fundamentally followed two criteria: gender and geography. If the selected group of fellows is comprised of an even number of males and females and they come from different countries, the community calls it a day and considers the group to be diverse. Stakeholder diversity comes at a distant third, working largely on a “nice if we can get it” basis.

I affirm this supported by the report concerning the 10 years of the program that was presented as a complement to the “Community Consultation Process to Review Current Fellowship Program”, from 2017. When looking at the sectorial breakdown of the fellows, Private sector has the second to last number of Fellows, with 1/3 of the number of fellows from Civil society, which has so far been the most represented stakeholder group.

Now, as we do not have a disclosure mechanism that details how many potential fellows from the Private sector applied to begin with, we cannot say why that is. It could be that consistently a small volume of applications from that stakeholder group is received, but it could just as well be that there is a bias against selecting members of the Private sector out of a sense of “fairness” in relation to Civil society. This has certainly been a topic of discussion during different formal and informal deliberations, including during the previous consultation carried out concerning the Fellowship program.

There seems to be a loose perception that “businesses can afford it”, so they should not receive the same amount of support as others. This does not, however, reflect any sort of reality beyond a superficial analysis of who a business stakeholder in ICANN is. Within the BC, we have a healthy mix of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and technology giants, and both get a say in the policymaking process, and there is ample respect for achieving an opinion as a group, regardless of company size.

It is fallacious to assume that a business actor necessarily has more means to attend a meeting than a member of Civil society. A member of Civil society supported by a strong NGO or receiving compensations from a university might have just as much disposable cash as a small entrepreneur. I speak that from experience, as in my career I have attempt to combine my academic endeavors with my passion for sustainable businesses.

If it is the case that not enough Private sector stakeholders apply for the Fellowship, then the question becomes: why? If there is true commitment to diversity, shouldn’t this matter be taken as a more serious question? It could simply be that not enough effort is made to reach these actors and communicate the advantages of the program to them. I do tend to believe more strongly on the first scenario I presented, though, in which there is a perception that these actors do not require financing.

Apart from stakeholder diversity, I also hold other concerns that I have been trying to address when I find it possible to. One point that stands out strongly to me is the matter of interregional diversity. The program considers its diversity mission complete if it selects somebody from a country that is classified as underserved, but there is an underlying question there that is never addressed, which is whether diversity is being addressed at an individual national level.

While for smaller countries this might arguably carry less importance, in countries with a large landmass, it is often the case that very different groups are represented under one nation’s flag. I do not mean this in the sense of the inclusion of indigenous people as is performed by the “Global Indigenous Ambassador Program”, either. For example, Brazil has currently two very distinct major poles of technology development, one in the South-Southeast and another in the Northeast. To guarantee that both of these poles are properly represented is a mission I tried to be mindful of as a selection committee member for the Panamá round.

I know for a fact that this kind of situation is replicated across the world. What I mean to say is: if there are several candidates from Russia, isn’t it important to consider splitting the share between Moscow and St. Petersburg to a certain degree, if the selection pool allows for it? Couldn’t the same be said for several other nations such as India and the United States of America, for example? This is relevant. The potential for fellows to engage when they return to their home countries should be maximized geographically in situations in which that is relevant.

Too much cynicism has creeped into defining what diversity is, and the community has stagnated in terms of considering what further meaning a real commitment towards that carries. I propose that more significant consideration be given to what this criterion means, with the knowledge that there is already discussion going on in WS2 regarding diversity, with the BC contributing to that with some points that resonate with the ones presented here, on a draft that I co-authored.
[https://www.bizconst.org/assets/docs/positions-statements/2018/2018_01january_14BC%20comment%20on%20WS2%20Diversity%20recommendations%5b2%5d.pdf]

I propose that, as a community, we move forward with the intention of making ICANN diverse in a real sense, aiming to enhance and promote a progressively more global community with an actual variety of points of view that extends beyond what is immediately observable, so that we progress from just ticking boxes, and really fulfill the goal of inclusion within this international mechanism.

Mark W. Datysgeld [www.markwd.website]
2018, June 21