[Npoc-discuss] Sam Lanfranco: Election Statement for Chair of the NPOC Policy Committee

[Sam Lanfranco]

NPOC Colleagues,

This is my candidate statement for the position of Chair of the NPOC 
Policy Committee.

/Please remember to vote, whether you vote for me or not. Please feel 
free to contact me with any Internet ecosystem concerns you and your 
organization may have. These issues have been central to my work for 
decades, and will continue to be central whether I chair the NPOC policy 
committee, or not. /

First some background on the context: The initial drive to create NPOC 
was driven primarily by the domain name operational concerns of large 
global not-for-profit organizations such as the Red Cross and the 
International Olympic Committee. Within ICANN NPOC is part of the 
Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG), in turn is part of ICANN’s 
Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO). This structure has focused 
largely on the policy issues agenda set by ICANN. In the past year that 
agenda greatly expanded as a result of the US Government decision to 
transition oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) 
to a multistakeholder setting, as well as the need to make ICANN more 
transparent and accountable.

Much of the not-for-profit and civil society (NPOC) constituency has 
only a low level of interest in the internal work agenda of ICANN. Most 
other ICANN constituencies are in one sense or another providers of 
Internet related services, or have a mission (e.g. Internet privacy, 
security and human rights) central to the Internet itself. Much of the 
NPOC constituency consists of organizations whose mission deals with 
development, health, poverty, gender, kids, the elderly, the 
environment, governance, etc. and not the Internet per. se.. They see 
the Internet as a space with opportunities for, and threats to, what 
they do.

Building on this context, my past year as Policy Committee chair has 
been to go beyond developing NPOC input into ICANN’s policy agenda. It 
includes asking what NPOC can do for the Internet ecosystem concerns 
that will impact on the ability of NGOs and Civil Society organizations 
to pursue their own work. Rather than just asking “What can your 
organization do for/in NPOC?”, I am asking “What can/should NPOC do for 
your organization?”

With this focus I have been sending “food for thought” early warning 
postings to the old and new npoc-discuss lists about Internet 
operational issues on the horizon. I support and work with the 
Pathfinder initiative that has similar goals. One area is the risks of 
organizational dependence on free social media when there are storm 
clouds around the terms of access and terms of use on the horizon. 
Another is that Internet-based operational challenges are increasingly 
below ICANN and at the national level. One growing issue is: What is 
NPOC’s role in feeding policy discussion at that level?

Please remember to vote, whether you vote for me or not. Please feel 
free to contact me with any Internet ecosystem concerns you and your 
organization may have. These issues have been central to my work for 
decades, and will continue to be central whether I chair the NPOC policy 
committee, or not.

Sam Lanfranco

Email: lanfran at yorku.ca <mailto:lanfran at yorku.ca>sam at lanfranco.net 
<mailto:sam at lanfranco.net>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/npoc-discuss/attachments/20150601/85e014aa/attachment.html>