Walid Al-Saqaf

Author Archives: Walid Al-Saqaf

Heads Up! A Slight Change to the Internet Society Election Process

I’m writing to the Internet Society community today with a notice that there is a key change to the Procedures for Selecting Trustees starting this year.  This change reduces the duration of voting period from 28 to 14 days in the Internet Society Board of Trustees elections through which Chapters and Organization Members get to elect candidates to the Board.

If you read the 2019-2020 Elections Timetable carefully, you may notice that the Candidates Forum and the voting period are no longer done in parallel. As the below timeline shows, the 28-day period that used to be allocated for voting and the Candidates Forum is now split into two distinct sequential stages: the first 14 days is for the Candidates Forum and the second 14 days is for voting.

This decision was made for two reasons.

The first is to allow candidates to be heard fully before votes are cast. Upon examining the activity log of the last elections, we realized that some voters cast their ballots before the candidates had a chance to interact with the community. Voting before hearing what candidates have to say in the Candidates Forum is detrimental to the elections process as it encourages Continue reading

2019 Internet Society Board of Trustees Final Election Results & IETF Appointment

The Internet Society Elections Committee is pleased to announce the final results of the 2019 elections for the Internet Society Board of Trustees. The voting concluded on 8 April. The challenge period (for appeals) was opened on 9 April and closed on 17 April.

There were no challenges filed. Therefore the election results stand:

  • Olga Cavalli has been re-elected to the Board by our Chapters.
  • Mike Godwin and Mieke van Heesewijk have been elected by Organization Members.
  • Also, following the process documented in RFC 3677, the Internet Architecture Board has selected and the IETF has confirmed Richard Barnes to serve a second term on the ISOC board.

The term of office for all 4 of these Trustees will be 3 years, commencing with the 2019 Annual General Meeting of the Internet Society, 26-28 July.

The Elections Committee congratulates all of the new and renewing Trustees and expresses its gratitude once more to all the candidates and to everyone who participated in the process this year

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The Internet Society’s 25th Anniversary and the Renewal of Commitment

Last week was a proud and memorable moment for us at the Internet Society as we celebrated our 25th anniversary in Los Angeles. In addition to the well-known Internet Hall of Fame award ceremony and the annual InterCommunity 2017 event, this year’s event also had a dialogue on topics from  the 2017 Internet Society Global Internet Report: Paths to Our Digital Future and introduced the 25 under 25 award ceremony, which celebrated inspiring and remarkable ideas and projects that young and motivated entrepreneurs in the Internet space have initiated.

I was equally, however, touched by the strong drive and energy in the Internet Society leadership and staff, whose efforts and attention to detail have been clearly visible throughout the two-day event. The joyful spirit demonstrated by the Internet Society team at the Brussels interactive node helped ensure that the 15-hour InterCommunity 2017 marathon covering 16 interactive regional nodes was truly a global conversation. Using the Internet to connect those nodes demonstrated one practical application of the Internet to run a global event with precision and high productivity. Furthermore, the positive mood at Brussels appeared to be quite contagious as reflected by the celebrations that took place in at least another 55 Continue reading