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

Sat Mar 19 18:17:57 CET 2016

+1 James

I performed a quick search on the FedBizOpps website a few minutes ago, and
from my cursory glance at the results this seemed to be fairly common
language for when a federal agency wants to quickly appoint a sole source
in order to procure their services. That's not to say I think the Berkman
Center is or is not the right vendor for the role - and I absolutely agree
with Stephanie that the optics aren't ideal here - but I don't think there
is anything necessarily nefarious in the language used. The issue I have is
more from a business processes perspective: surely all public sector
contracts should be awarded in a transparent and meritocratic manner where
we pick the best party for the job through a structured evaluation
and selection procedure — and not on the basis of whether or not we've done
business with them before. But hey, the NIST is only spending
taxpayer funds…

Ayden

P.S. I'm on a train with sketchy wifi and have had to press the 'send' button
about 20 times... hopefully you receive this message only once
On Saturday, 19 March 2016, James Gannon <james at cyberinvasion.net> wrote:

> 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 <javascript:;> on behalf of
> stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca <javascript:;>> 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 <javascript:;>> 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 <javascript:;>
> >>>>> <mailto:william.drake at uzh.ch <javascript:;>> (direct),
> wjdrake at gmail.com <javascript:;>
> >>>>> <mailto:wjdrake at gmail.com <javascript:;>> (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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> >Ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org <javascript:;>
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-- 
Ayden Fabien Férdeline
+44.77.8018.7421
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