[council] [Fwd: Candidate Statement for ICANN Board Director Seat 13]

Thu Mar 15 14:04:10 UTC 2007

[To: council at gnso.icann.org]

Dear Councillors,

Please note Bruce Tonkin's candidate statement which addresses the 
criteria for Directors as laid out in the ICANN bylaws.
http://www.icann.org/general/archive-bylaws/bylaws-28feb06.htm#VI

Candidate Name: Bruce Tonkin

Citizenship: Australia

Employer: Melbourne IT Limited

1. Accomplished persons of integrity, objectivity, and intelligence,
with reputations for sound judgment and open minds, and a demonstrated
capacity for thoughtful group decision-making;

I have a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (1st class
honours) and PhD in the field of electrical and electronic engineering.
I have worked in small private engineering consulting businesses,
Universities, and industry research laboratories (e.g AT&T Bell Labs in
the 1980s).   The engineer and research training assists in analysing
complex topics and breaking them down into manageable issues.  My
training and experience also gives me the capability of understanding
underlying security and stability issues associated with domain names
and IP addressing.  I believe I have a reputation for integrity and
having an open mind - but others need to judge that.

I am also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors
(http://www.companydirectors.com.au), and have under taken a course in
the duties required for a Board director, as well as having experience
of being on several non-profit and for-profit Boards.  These include the
Board of the Australian Telecommunications Users Group (ATUG)
(http://www.atug.org.au) a business group that has pushed for the
introducing and growth of competition in the telecommunications industry
in Australia, and the Board of Information City Victoria
(http://www.mentre.com.au/informationcity/)  the which is responsible
for assisting the start-up of new small businesses in the IT sector.
(note I am not currently on the Board of these organisations).

I have demonstrated my capacity for facilitating group decision making
through chairing the GNSO Council since 2002, and also chairing the new
gTLD committee, and numerous other short-term groups since being
involved in ICANN.

2. Persons with an understanding of ICANN's mission and the potential
impact of ICANN decisions on the global Internet community, and
committed to the success of ICANN;

I have an in-depth understanding of the ICANN mission and bylaws, and
the impacts of ICANN decisions.  I am an employee of Melbourne IT as
Chief Technology Officer, which was one of the first five testbed
registrars for .com in April 1999, and Melbourne IT was the sole
administrator of .com.au from 1996 to 2002.   Melbourne IT is also a
registrar for most major gTLDs and cctlds, as well as operating
extensive DNS and web hosting infrastructure in several locations around
the world.  Melbourne IT has significant offices in Brisbane, Sydney,
Melbourne, Wellington, San Francisco, London, Stockholm, Madrid, as well
as other smaller offices in other cities around the world.   My role at
Melbourne IT has given me a international perspective on a broad range
of issues facing ICANN, including those relating to ccTLDs, gTLDs, IP
addressing, and security and stability issues.

I support the self-regulation and multi-stakeholder model of ICANN.

3. Persons who will produce the broadest cultural and geographic
diversity on the Board consistent with meeting the other criteria set
forth in this Section;

I am a citizen of Australia, and married to a citizen of Canada (not
sure if that counts as cultural diversity).   I have travelled
extensively both personally, and through my role at Melbourne IT and my
attendance at ICANN meetings (attended every one since the meeting in
Melbourne in March 2001).   I have also taught students from a variety
of cultural and geographic backgrounds in my roles at Universities.   I
feel that I am at least open to learning more about other cultures, and
open to listening to different perspectives on ICANN issues.  I have
been an advocate for preserving the requirement to have constituency
reps from thee geographic regions on the GNSO Council.

4. Persons who, in the aggregate, have personal familiarity with the
operation of gTLD registries and registrars; with ccTLD registries; with
IP address registries; with Internet technical standards and protocols;
with policy-development procedures, legal traditions, and the public
interest; and with the broad range of business, individual, academic,
and non-commercial users of the Internet;

As already stated, Melbourne IT was one of the first five testbed
registrars for .com in April 1999, and Melbourne IT was the sole
administrator of .com.au from 1996 to 2002.   Melbourne IT is also a
registrar for most major gtlds and cctlds, as well as operating
extensive DNS and web hosting infrastructure in several locations around
the world.  In addition Melbourne IT was a partner with Neustar for the
.biz registry bid, and I also participated in providing technical advice
on Neustar's bid to operate .net.

I am familiar with the underlying Internet protocols (e.g IP, TCP etc),
as well the registry-registrar provisioning protocols, (e.g EPP).  I
worked extensively with AusRegistry on extending the EPP specification
for use within the .au policy framework.

I have been extensively involved in the policy development process both
within the registrars constituency as well as within the GNSO Council.
I was involved in the drafting group that developed the current PDP
process.  I have also been heavily involved in the policy development
process within the .au ccTLD - in particular through the competition
panel that established the current competition framework, and through
various names policy panels.

In terms of legal experience, I have no legal qualifications, but have
been involved in negotiating supplier and customer contracts for around
15 years.  The contracting parties have been located in a range of
countries.  I am also very familiar with the registry and registrar
agreements used within ICANN.

I have personal familiarity with a range of users of the Internet
through my work in business, academic and non-commercial organisations.
I have been a user of the Internet since my student days in the early
1980's (for the technically minded I have worked in writing device
drivers in assembler and C under the UNIX operating system for
connecting machines such as DEC PDP-11's, Vaxs etc to the Internet), and
originally used the Internet for collaboration with researchers located
in other countries (using the FTP protocol and IP addresses, along with
various mail and newsgroup systems - pre-dating domain names and WWW
browsers).

While having an industry  perspective I always try to act in the public
interest in my role on the GNSO Council.

5. Persons who are willing to serve as volunteers, without compensation
other than the reimbursement of certain expenses; and

I am used to serving as a volunteer and recognise that I must act in the
best interests of ICANN as an organisation whilst being a Board
Director.   Other than volunteer work in my professional capacity, I
have also been involved as a volunteer in sporting organisations,
including as Vice-chair of the Melbourne based canoeing association
(http://www.vic.canoe.org.au/).

6. Persons who are able to work and communicate in written and spoken
English.

Australian English is my native language - and I can translate the
strange English accents in the United Kingdom and the United States of
America for non-native English speakers.  I believe I can communicate
clearly in written and spoken English.

Section 4. ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

1. Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, no official of a
national government or a multinational entity established by treaty or
other agreement between national governments may serve as a Director. As
used herein, the term "official" means a person (i) who holds an
elective governmental office or (ii) who is employed by such government
or multinational entity and whose primary function with such government
or entity is to develop or influence governmental or public policies.

I am not an official of a national government or a multinational entity
established by treaty or other agreement between national governments.

2. No person who serves in any capacity (including as a liaison) on any
Supporting Organization Council shall simultaneously serve as a Director
or liaison to the Board. If such a person accepts a nomination to be
considered for selection by the Supporting Organization Council to be a
Director, the person shall not, following such nomination, participate
in any discussion of, or vote by, the Supporting Organization Council
relating to the selection of Directors by the Council, until the Council
has selected the full complement of Directors it is responsible for
selecting. In the event that a person serving in any capacity on a
Supporting Organization Council accepts a nomination to be considered
for selection as a Director, the constituency group or other group or
entity that selected the person may select a replacement for purposes of
the Council's selection process.

I am a current serving member of the GNSO Council as a representative of
the registrars constituency.   If I am elected to the ICANN Board, my
intent is to continue to serve on the GNSO Council until the ICANN Board
seat 13 is vacated in June 2007.   Prior to formally taking on the role
as an ICANN Board director, I will resign from the GNSO Council.

3. Persons serving in any capacity on the Nominating Committee shall be
ineligible for selection to positions on the Board as provided by
Article VII, Section 8.

I have never served on the nominating committee.

-- 
Glen de Saint Géry
GNSO Secretariat - ICANN
gnso.secretariat[at]gnso.icann.org
http://gnso.icann.org