[NCUC-DISCUSS] Berkman Center to review the proposal to NTIA

[James Gannon]

I think that people may be misunderstanding what this is here.

This is a notice on behalf of NIST which will be participating in the interagency review, they want to have Berkman do their review for them, a pretty normal process for NIST, they posted an RFP on Jan 5, which they only had one response to from a part not familiar with ICANN. 

So in order to not go with that unqualified vendor NIST must show that they are instead contracting with an sole source and have to say that they are uniquely qualified in order to be able to award the contract. Again this is pretty normal in federal contacting when you want select a suitably qualified vendor but are pushed through a RFP selection process.

This is not NTIAs review of the proposal.This will be one of many inputs into the interagency review process.



As for what Europeans or others would think of this, I think that’s its 100% normal and appropriate for a US based federal agency participating in a multiparty review to select an expert vendor that they are familiar with, have a working relationship with and who exists within their respective jurisdiction.


-James


On 19/03/2016, 3:53 p.m., "Ncuc-discuss on behalf of Stephanie Perrin" <ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org on behalf of stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:

>I would have done a call for proposals, and I would have favored in my 
>assessment criteria a university consortium from a range of countries 
>that had Internet governance experience and strong academic credentials, 
>with economic (market) and civil society participation.
>Not that hard to do....they blew it.  The European Commission does this 
>kind of tendering all the time.....they would know better, I suspect, 
>than to sole source this one.  Too important.
>Not that Berkman is per se bad....just US based and an ICANN regular.
>steph
>
>On 2016-03-19 11:46, William Drake wrote:
>> Hi Stephanie
>>
>> I don’t know if I’d go as far as to say this ‘ruins' it; Berkman’s done multiple reviews for ICANN over the years and they have a lot of people etc. they can put on the case, and in any event their input is just that.  But like Avri I did find the 'the only capable source’ framing to be a bit much…I’d guess that’s how NIST sells contracts for local consumption.
>>
>> Who would you have advised NTIA to have gone with instead?
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>> On Mar 19, 2016, at 16:35, Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>> Wow.  What BS.  What are the Europeans going to say about this? (let alone the Chinese.....)
>>> How could you take all that work done over the past year by a multi-stakeholder organization and ruin it by sole-sourcing to Harvard?
>>> Steph
>>>
>>> On 2016-03-19 10:36, avri doria wrote:
>>>> fascinating.
>>>>
>>>>>   the only capable source that can provide an independent review and
>>>>> assessment of a non-profit corporate governance structure designed for
>>>>> a multistakeholder setting
>>>> On 19-Mar-16 10:07, William Drake wrote:
>>>>> May be of interest to some…
>>>>>
>>>>> https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=bfc9cbacbbeb27a0ff16b3bef68c8657&tab=core&_cview=1
>>>>>   
>>>>> Bill
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *************************************************************
>>>>> William J. Drake
>>>>> International Fellow & Lecturer
>>>>>    Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ
>>>>>    University of Zurich, Switzerland
>>>>> william.drake at uzh.ch
>>>>> <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch> (direct), wjdrake at gmail.com
>>>>> <mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com> (lists),
>>>>>    www.williamdrake.org <http://www.williamdrake.org>
>>>>> /The Working Group on Internet Governance - 10th Anniversary Reflections/
>>>>> New book at http://amzn.to/22hWZxC
>>>>> *************************************************************
>>>>>
>
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