Thanks, this is really interesting Stefania, and thanks so much for 
being willing to stand for this position and join us on the Council!
Stephanie Perrin

On 2015-08-27 4:51, Milan, Stefania wrote:
> Dear all
> I am hereby submitting my candidacy to represent our stakeholder group on the GNSO Council. The statement below is in fulfillment of the candidacy requirements for the NCSG elections.
> All the best, Stefania
>
> *Name*: Stefania Milan
> *Gender*: Female
> *Region of residence*: Netherlands, Europe
> *Employment*: Assnt. Professor of New Media and Digital Culture, University of Amsterdam
>
> *Qualifications*
> I have served on the NCUC Executive Committee (EC) over the last two years (2013-2014). I have used this time to serve our constituency on the background, while learning as much as I could about the complex ICANN ecosystem. I have contributed to outreach, delivering several guest lectures on the ICANN and NCUC work, and bringing several new members (including organizational members) to NCUC. More recently, I have contributed to the analysis and revision of the so-called Westlake Report (part of the GNSO review), which some of us believed misrepresented the non-commercial efforts within ICANN. I see myself as someone who builds bridges and “translates” our complex world to the benefit of those who haven’t been “converted” yet--also thanks to my background in journalism and activism.
>
> An Italian national, I have worked and lived in several European countries and beyond, including Canada and Brazil. I am primarily a researcher and an educator, employed as assistant professor at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
>
> I have always been interested in what people, and non-experts in particular, do with technology, and how they engage in both technical practice and policy advocacy. I am a scholar of social movements; over the years I have conducted extensive fieldwork on hackers and grassroots tech groups, and investigated civil society engagement in communications governance.
>
> I have always been looking for ways to bridge research with policy and action. Alongside my scholarly work, I have been a media activist and engaged in grassroots work in a variety of fields, including community radio. In 2003-2005 I covered civic society engagement in the World Summit on the Information Society for the news agency Inter Press Service, giving voice also to the alternatives and the excluded. Since 2012, I co-chair the Communications Policy Task Force of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), and in this capacity I coordinate the engagement of IAMCR members, mostly academics, in a variety of policy arenas. In 2012 I was selected to serve as an advisor on digital issues in the framework of the short-lived Monti government. I contributed to key legislation on, among others, internet literacy, digital citizenship and crowdfunding, and kick-started the process towards an internet bill of rights. (For the record, the charter never saw the light; the process I started bore fruit only a couple of governments later). For a short while, I also represented Italy in the ICANN GAC. Paradoxically, this is how I came across NCUC. On occasion of the ICANN meeting in Toronto (October 2012) I was invited to speak at the policy conference, in order to share my experience writing up the Italian internet bill of rights. I joined NCUC right after.
>
> I continue my policy engagement also beyond ICANN. Currently, I am a member of the working group “An Internet free and secure” of the Freedom Online Coalition, alongside with a few other NCUC members; we advocate for an approach to cybersecurity that is human rights-minded by design. In May 2015 I was elected to serve on the Board of ISOC Italy, which I accepted to do although living abroad in order to “rejuvenate” and renew the (semi-dormant) organization, in a country that still has very low broadband penetration and even lower internet literacy, and where citizens’ engagement with policy advocacy is near null.
>
> I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for some failures on my side. I had been asked by Avri Doria to join the GNSO Standing Committee on Improvements Implementation (SCI, working to improve the GNSO operating procedures), which I saw as a great opportunity to learn the nitty-gritty of the policy work. However, for work-related problems I incurred in, I have failed to do so over the last year and a half. My work situation has now radically changed, since I have obtained some very competitive funding to set up a research team working for the coming five years on the politics of massive data collection and big data (incidentally, the team includes a couple of NCUC members). I expect to be able to dedicate more time and energies to serve the non-commercial interests within ICANN.
>
> I am aware the learning curve will be steep, but I also know I can count on the experience and willingness to share of the colleagues who preceded me on Council. After two years on the NCUC EC, I would be honored to serve the non-commercial interests on the GNSO Council, should the members support my candidacy.
>
> You can find out more about me on my website: stefaniamilan.net
>
> * Conflicts of interest and availability*
> I am now aware of any conflicts of interest that would prevent me from serving on the GNSO Council. I am generally responsive to emails and calls. From September onwards and for the coming five years, I will dedicate most of my time to research, with the flexibility that such a research position allows. I expect to be able to travel and attend calls.
>
>
> ----------------------
> Stefania Milan, PhD
> University of Amsterdam || mediastudies.nl ||
> Data J Lab || datajlab.nl ||
> Internet Policy Observatory || Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania || globalnetpolicy.org ||
> Center for Media and Communication Studies, Central European University || www.cmcs.ceu.hu ||
> International Association for Media and Communication Research - International Council member and Co-Chair, Communication Policy Task Force || www.iamcr.org ||
> Executive Committee, Non-Commercial User Constituency, ICANN
> mobile: [31] 62 7875 425 (NL) || [1] 647 - 973 - 6533 (CA) || [+39] 333 - 2309945 (I)
> stefaniamilan.net || @annliffey
>
> fingerprint: 7606 4526 3D24 20B2 C850  EA42 A497 CB70 04B5 A3B
>
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