Hi,

My candidate statement for this year’s NCSG elections for GNSO Council representatives:

Name: Amr Elsadr

Gender: Male

Region of residence: Egypt, Africa

Employment: Grad student

I am submitting this statement as part of the candidacy requirements of the NCSG elections of our stakeholder group’s representatives on the GNSO council. I have had the privilege to serve the NCSG in this capacity over the past two years (one council term), and would very much be honoured to  continue to serve our members for another term.

I am originally a medical school graduate from Egypt, but had been working full-time since completing my internship in telemedicine solutions for healthcare providers and patients. Around 2007, I also began doing pro bono work with a group of like-minded volunteers. The aim of this group was to develop a first-hand understanding of young people’s use of the Internet in Egypt, and to raise awareness on management of their online personal information. In 2011, I worked with a number of people in Egypt from civil society, government and business to launch the first organization in Egypt focused on Internet and telecom policy. It was also the first NGO in Egypt to have a multistakeholder membership structure in its bylaws, which was a novelty in itself at the time. This org is also now the Internet Society chapter of Egypt. I served on the board of directors of this NGO for a year, before resigning to leave to Norway to continue studies in my field of telemedicine and e-health. I have been back in Egypt for a few weeks, and will be done with my studies in the near future (after submitting my final thesis).

I have been a member of the NCSG/NCUC since 2010. I joined my first GNSO working group in 2012, and have repetitively participated in more and more of them since, as well as one implementation review team (teams set up to work with ICANN staff on implementing gTLD policies developed by the GNSO). Over the past two years, I have been a member of the GNSO Council, representing non-commercial interests as best I could. My approach to Council work has always been to manage the GNSO in a way that allows for non-commercial interests to be taken into account at every opportunity (consistent with the GNSO operating procedures and working group guidelines). I have always endeavoured to ensure that our views and concerns are adequately expressed and taken account of. I believe my modest efforts on the Council have been effective towards that end.

On the GNSO Council, I have actively participated on the GAC/GNSO consultative group working to create processes that should encourage the GAC to become involved in GNSO working groups and engage with the GNSO community in policy development at an early stage, as opposed to limiting GAC input to late stages of the PDP in the form of GAC Advice to the ICANN board. I have also worked hard to reconcile the process by which the Expert Working Group (EWG) on next generation gTLD registration data services (aka WHOIS) with the regular GNSO policy development process. This was a complicated issue, as the EWG work was produced via an ad hoc process, and there were attempts to have the GNSO adopt the EWG’s work without the benefit of all of the numerous public comment periods that the GNSO policy development process allows. This is an important policy issue, and now, we do actually have an open public comment period on a preliminary issues report for this PDP (https://www.icann.org/public-comments/rds-prelim-issue-2015-07-13-en). Additionally, I have served as a council liaison to more than one GNSO working group, and one implementation review team.

Apart from my time on the Council and GNSO working groups, I have also been an NCUC representative to the GNSO Standing Committee on Improvements Implementation (SCI) for a couple of years now. This committee is chartered by the GNSO Council to review and improve the GNSO operating procedures and working group guidelines. Working on this committee for this time has also been helpful to my role on the Council, in that it assisted greatly in my developing a keen understanding of the guidelines that govern the GNSO, and making sure that all due process in Council work is appropriately taken account of.

I would also like to take this opportunity to admit some of what I perceive to by shortcomings on my part over the past two years. When I was first elected to represent the NCSG on the GNSO Council, I had promised myself that I would do what I can to always keep the NCSG membership as informed as possible regarding what is actually going on. I believe, to a great extent, I have not done a very good job at this. This is, to me, an obvious task in which I need to improve my personal performance. I have regularly attended the monthly NCSG policy calls, and do what I can to brief our members on the calls on what is on each one of the GNSO Council meeting agendas. Still…, there are far more members who do not participate in these calls than those who do. And although some GNSO and gTLD policy issues make it to the NCSG-DISCUSS list, quite a few of them are discussed on the NCSG Policy Committee (PC) list. Although the PC list is publicly archived, there are issues I should probably flag, especially that I have also been serving as the NCSG Policy Committee chair for the past year.

Conflict of Interest and Availability: I have no conflict of interest that I am aware of to serve for another term. If this changes over the course of the next two years, I will be sure to inform the NCSG of this. I have put in a significant number of hours per week over the past two years on GNSO Council business on behalf of the NCSG, and see no reason why I cannot commit to continuing this for another term. Again…, if my circumstances in this regard change at any time, I will inform the NCSG.

IMHO, it makes sense to me that the NCSG have at least one councillor who has a sound understanding of the GNSO operating procedures. After all, the GNSO council is meant to manage the processes these procedures govern. It also makes some sense to me that the NCSG have a councillor who follows gTLD policy development very closely, and works to mitigate the risks of the GAC and ICANN board overreaching to replace the GNSO as the place to develop gTLD policies that affect both ICANN contracted parties and registrants. With everything the NCSG is involved in regarding the CWG on the IANA stewardship transition, the CCWG on ICANN accountability, and the cross community working party on human rights, it makes sense to me that we have at least one GNSO councillor who is keeping a watchful eye on gTLD policy issues, whether those are happening within or outside of the GNSO. With at least two very significant new PDPs starting in the next few months (post EWG-PDP as well as a PDP for yet another round of new gTLD applications), we will certainly need someone who is paying as much attention to those issues on the Council, as we do have others paying attention to the multiple cross-community projects. Those are the reasons why I believe I would make a good councillor for another term, and they are pretty much the reasons I want to run for a second term. If the NCSG membership will find it desirable to have me for another two years, I would be honoured to continue to serve, and to attempt to improve in my performance of that service.

Thanks.

Amr