Candidate statement of Tapani Tarvainen

[Tapani Tarvainen]

On Nov 13 17:13, Brenden Kuerbis (bkuerbis at INTERNETGOVERNANCE.ORG) wrote:

> The current NCUC Executive Committee has developed a list of questions to
> help the NCUC membership learn more about the nominees. If you have been
> nominated, please take a moment to complete and post to the list answers
> for the following questions:

Reading Norbert's, Bill's and Mary's statements left me feeling
rather humble - I will have some serious catching up to do should
I get elected. But, here're my answers:


> 1. Why do you want to serve on the EC?

Because I think it is an important job that needs doing
and one where I could make myself useful.
Because I see it as an opportunity to change a small corner
of the world to the better.
Because I want to get deeper into and learn to understand
better the way of ICANN from a new (to me) point of view.

And because I think it is a bit of a bad sign for any organization
holding elections if there's only one candidate per position,
so I decided to provide at least some choice, even if I am
nowhere near as qualified as many other candidates.


> 2. Provide a brief biography of recent experience, associations, and
> affiliations relevant to serving on the Executive Committee. Describe the
> relevance of your personal and professional experience to serve on the NCUC
> Executive Committee, and identify any conflicts of interests you might have.

I have not held any kind of "inside" position in ICANN and I've only
been NCUC member since 2009, so I'm something of a greenhorn here -
something I can only make up by working harder.
I have, however, been involved in ICANN-related issues for years
both in my work (mainly at Jyvaskyla University, but also as a
technology consultant, notably in Saudi Arabia 1998-2000)
as well as in my, eh, activism (mainly in Electronic Frontier Finland).
I have also been active in WSIS and IGF since the beginning.
Even though I still consider myself mainly a technical person
(happy to maintain my own name servers), I can see ICANN and related
things lso from academic and legal and, perhaps most importantly,
individual users rights points of view.

I don't think I have any conflict of interest here.


> 3. The EC performs several functional responsibilities for the
> Constituency.  What  level of time commitment can you bring to your EC role
> on a weekly and overall basis?  Describe any concerns or limitations on
> your ability to attend online meetings of the Executive Committee and ICANN
> Meetings in person.

When I decided to accept the nomination I also decided to commit myself
to do the job, should I get elected, as well as I can, realizing that
as a newcomer I'd probably have to work harder than more experienced people.
I expect I should be able to spend 3-4 hours a week, occasionally
two or three times that, on EC work.
As for meetings, at present my work makes it relatively easy for me to
travel a few times a year, although getting travel funds may be difficult.
Online meetings should pose no problems (time zone differences aside).


> 4. Communication with the membership is critical. How would you keep
> members apprised of your EC-related activities?

Existing membership can presumably mostly be reached by mailing lists,
and I would try to maintain enough activity there for people to know
what I'm up to.
I would also try to reach potential new members, especially in Finland
and elsewhere in Europe, as it seems to be NCUC membership is way too
thin on the ground here.


> 5. How do you foresee NCUC’s function, scale, or role changing in the
> future? What areas of ICANN policy, if any, need more attention and why? Be
> concise (200 words maximum).

NCUC exists, obviously, to defend non-commercial users' rights -
to keep up issues governments and commercial actors tend to overlook,
including freedom of expression and privacy, and issues relevant to
communication from non-commercially motivated individuals and
organizations. The number of such people and organizations
is much bigger than the size of NCUC at present would suggest,
so if NCUC could reach a bigger portion of them it and its role
in ICANN could grow significantly.
The main big policy issue I see is keeping commercial and (some)
governments' interests from taking over and using ICANN for purposes
beyond its technical mandate, whether due to intellectual property
claims or political or moralistic demands.



I hope that is enough - and not too much, thank you for all who
read this far, and to those who will consider voting me.

Sincerely,

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen