[NCUC-DISCUSS] Candidate Statement Benjamin Akinmoyeje

[Benjamin Akinmoyeje]

Dear Fellow NCUC members,
First I want to thank Wisdom Donkor for nominating me for the NCUC Africa
EC position and for the support I have received.

Please see below my  candidate statement.


STATEMENT NCUC EC AFRICA

Name: Benjamin Akinmoyeje

Region: Africa

Conflict of Interest: None

1       Why do you want to serve on the EC?

My choice to serve as NCUC EC Africa representative stems from my CROP
application work plan - where I had indicated participate in the election
process,  [MC1] as an outcome of the opportunity and my years of engagement
in NCUC. I also would like to see improved participation of members from
the Africa region in the policy development process. I believe the core
NCUC mandate is of higher service to the Africa region, so it is
unfortunate to see limited participation by Africans in NCUC policy
development conversations. My duty is to try and increase African
engagement and also mainstream African issues on the frontlines.  With
other ECs, I hope we can articulate ICANN’s mandate in a manner that is
engaging and practical to the region. This will allow us to have a policy
development process that is not only based on academic knowledge, but also
practical.

NCUC visibility in the region can be highly improved.

Issues such as affordable access, Internet shutdowns represent the critical
issues for Africa.

Taking into consideration the missions and visions of NCUC and recognizing
the many technological challenges Africa is confronted with, there is a
strong need to strengthen institutional effort in addressing some of the
many policy developmental challenges in light of strengthening policy
developmental capacity across Africa. Improved participation of Africans on
NCUC and ICANN will foster collaboration among members, improve and
facilitate a mentorship program for African members and above all champion
the course of NCUC among the internet governance communities across Africa
and other regions.


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 a specialization in ICT4D and Digital Health with over 10 years’
experience working in international development. I am currently a DAAD
postgraduate research scholar at the Namibia university of Science and
Technology and Regional Coordinator of ICT4si.org <http://ict4si.org/> .

Active member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of NIGF.

Alumni of the first African Summer School of Internet Governance - AfriSIG,

AfriNIC and ICANN fellow, member of ISOC Nigeria Chapter.

I am a member of Nigeria Coalition of Alliance for Affordable Internet
(A4AI), consistently advocating for affordable and inclusive Internet
access.

I belong to the coalition of Africa Center for Citizens Orientation (ACCO),
championing improving access for women and girls to up-to-date ICT
education and some existing ICT facilities in Abuja and northern Nigeria.

My area of research is Persuasive Technologies for health behavioural
change and personal informatics. I have over ten years’ experience working
as an ICT4D manager in an international NGO and in public health in
Nigeria. I participated in the NetMundial Meeting, Netmundial Initiative in
Sao Paolo in 2014 which led up to the IANA Transition process.

I have been active in NCUC as member of the Membership engagement team. I
am an ICANN fellow, AFRINIC fellow, Diplo Foundation alumni, and alumni of
the inaugural Africa Internet Summer School.

Contributed to a few NCUC and NCSG call for comments especially those
relating to the Africa region.

I am always eager to help and to collaborate to achieve the greater good as
a group. I have introduced a handful of new members to NCUC and ICANN.

Experience within ICANN

Fellowship Alumni AfrICANN group

CCWG Accountability

GNSO Next-Gen RDS PDP WG

·         Draft Proposal of the New Fellowship Program Approach – commented
on the NCSG draft statement.

·         Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs PDP Working
Group – member – regularly on call of this WG

·         Defunct Next-Gen WHOIS/RDS PDP WG, however following closely the
EPDP process. – Member of draft teams (DT) on Domain Sales and WHOIS Data
elements.

·         Making comments as part of the NCSG, formed a team on the ICANN
Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 version 3.0 – volunteered to on the comment
drafting team

·         NPOC Policy committee - volunteer

He is a member of other committees

1.    TWG on drafting Nigeria eHealth Policy

2.    Nigeria Open Government Partnership -  Non State Actors Group

3.    A4AI Consumer and Pricing Working Group

4.    Global Network for Cybersolution (CSO)

5.    Nigeria ICANN Multi Stakeholder Group

6.    Member and (Cybersecurity) Alumni Diplo Foundation

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.

Generally, I can commit 8 hours per week and I am readily available for
emergency calls or assignments. I am very much committed to the course and
development of the visions and missions of NCUC and ICANN. I am a full-time
researcher and a student of Informatics.

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

As a member EC representing the African region, I will identify the
critical policy issues which are on the table for discussion and simplify
them for the understanding of my African audience and newcomers. I will use
available channels of communications such as emails, newsletters, blogs,
and targeted social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google
Hangout. Also, I will work with existing NCUC communications strategies and
members to advance the work I am doing in the NCUC EC. I hope to drive
engagement by linking my EC activities to some of the real-life issues and
benefits of NCUC activities to the African users, especially on the issues
of Access, Local Content, Human Rights, Development, Privacy, and
Multilingual Internet. These issues, when addressed, will ultimately grow
the domain name business in Africa. Ultimately reinforcing the stability,
security and resilience of the global network

We need to organize more Pre- Post ICANN events in Africa Region to help
improve the region’s members and their involvement.

In collaboration with the NCUC ‘s e-platform group, I hope to develop an
ICANN and IG-related activities schedule to keep members abreast of events
going on.

I will become active on social media, especially Twitter, during or after
ICANN events and calls.

Language  is a major constraint to fully engage the full potential of
Africans participation, as we have about 50% francophone in Africa to
actively engage. I hope to use French as a channel to reach more
participants. I intend to work with mentors like Mamadou and  Muriel
Alapini to push this engagement agenda.

Gender - gap in participation from the region are yet to be tapped into, we
have higher female participation from my region  in other IG space, why not
in NCUC, this is what I want to improve.

I will facilitate productive and sustainable mentoring relationships.

ICANN/ NCUC-Africa Outreach is a major project for me to increase our fan
base on the continent.

Become active  on social media, especially twitter during or after ICANN
events and calls.

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?

With the ongoing Evolving  ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model - it is certain
NCUC engagement will evolve in the process.

With the ongoing Evolving ICANN’s Multi-stakeholder Model - it is certain
NCUC engagement will evolve in the process.

Personally, I see NCUC’s function evolving in the future, as we bring more
participation of academia, CSOs and other non-commercial users from
developing countries on board. As we connect the next billion to the
Internet and NCUC as the home of the non-commercial users; we need to
engage our members to become stronger advocates for the issues of concerns
to the constituency (civil society's communities and individual users) in
ICANN policy development processes and trending Internet Governance issues.
I believe we need to awaken the competent hands in NCUC, that have gone
silent and activate new voices, the balance of these two groups will
determine how strong NCUC is among stakeholder group within ICANN must also
move to champion education about domain name rights, freedom of speech,
etc. of civil societies and other bodies with common interests. NCUC within
ICANN will have to seek collaborations from ICANN constituents who have
common goals on different policy issues for the purpose of the greatest
impact. NCUC with ICANN must support those UN SDG goals that coincides with
NCUC mission.

Areas ICANN policy needs attention

EPDP on the Temporary Specification for gTLD Registration Data - Phase 2;
this next phase, it requires the delicate balance between data protection,
privacy advocate and need for innovation + data on the Internet.

Review of All Rights Protection Mechanisms in All gTLDs PDP

ICANN Africa Strategy, this region requires more of ICANN’s engagement to
help grow the DNS market.

New gTLD Auction Proceeds Cross-Community Working Group: the mechanism to
utilize the resources should help improve and grow the Internet where it is
lacking, especially in Africa.

It is with excitement that I look forward to serving the NCUC community to
engender participation of all diverse groups, especially those from
developing countries and newcomers to ICANN.


Benjamin Akinmoyeje
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