[NCUC-DISCUSS] Candidate Statement of Benjamin Akinmoyeje

[Benjamin Akinmoyeje]

Dear NCUC members,

STATEMENT NCUC EC AFRICA

Name: Benjamin Akinmoyeje

Region: Africa

Gender: Male

Employment: Research Student

Any conflicts of interest: None



1       Why do you want to serve on the EC?

Serving as  NCUC EC Africa representative for the last one year has been a
learning experience, I have had the privilege to motivate my constituency's
engagement. We have seen increased participation of non-English speaking
members. We have made some efforts to interpret announcements in french as
often as possible. Finally, we succeeded in getting the second edition of
Policy writing course for members with English as a second language.

Subsequently, I hope to increase the engagement of NCUC in the policy
development process assertively. I hope to champion the process of
simplifying topical issues for the participation of new members and the
group. I hope to improve the visibility of NCUC within ICANN by ensuring a
consistent push of the civil society and non-commercial agenda in  providing

My charge this term will be to consolidate on some of the gains we have
made, by increasing NCUC participation and contribution in policy
discussion and outreach in Africa.  I will endeavor to put NCUC in every IG
event in Africa wherever ICANN GSE is present or not. I will work with the
other ECs and the chair to improve capacity building and help strengthen
the mentee’s and mentor’s engagement in NCUC.

The spread of COVID-19 is causing disruption worldwide, forcing conference
cancellations, and leaving everyone scrambling for alternative ways of
disseminating the work that was to be presented. This has caused an
unprecedented demand for digital technologies not only to facilitate
containment of the spread of COVID-19 but also to enable business
continuity across all continents, including Africa. With this in mind, I
will work to make sure the participation of NCUC members across Africa and
elsewhere takes part in NCUC discussions.

2.      Provide a brief biography of recent experience, associations, and
affiliations relevant to serving.

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/> .

An active member of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group of NIGF, Alumni of
the first AfriSIG, Alumni of AfriNIC and ICANN fellow, member of ISOC
Nigeria and Namibia 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 behavior 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.
Participate in the last IGF remotely.

Experience within ICANN

Fellowship Alumni AfrICANN group

Universal Acceptance Technical Working Group - member - participates in
regular calls.

Cross-Community Working Party - Human Right - member - attend calls and
contributes.

In collaboration with the NCUC - EC and ICANN Staff  organized the Policy
Writing course.

Developed a blog to enlist members for the webinar

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

He is a member of other committees: ISOC IoT SIG, Nigeria ICANN
Multi-Stakeholder Group,     Member and (Cybersecurity) Alumni Diplo
Foundation, ISOC Namibia & Nigeria chapters.

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.

 I  commit 8 hours or more per week and I am readily available for
emergency calls or assignments. I have been 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. I am dedicated to the service of
NCUC.

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

As a member of EC representing the African region, I have engaged my
constituency actively using social media (skype, Facebook, twitter, etc).
This has led to some increased interest in engagement and commitment. I
hope to scale that up by moving our communication to the mailing lists with
regular communication.I  will continue to explore more ways to interpret
and simplify the topical issues in order to get improved participation from
our members.  I will use available channels of communications such as
emails, newsletters, blogs, and targeted social media platforms like
Twitter, Facebook, Zoom, and Google Meet. 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

I hope to consolidate the gains we made in reducing Gender-gap
participation from Africa in NCUC, I will continue to champion increased
recruitment of female members.



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?

The  PIR - ISOC issue has been a major issue of discussion for the past
months, and  NCUC’s view in this conversation is critical.

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.

The pandemic has changed everything, also it will change  NCUC’s engagement
and functions; we need to evolve to online engagement and advocacy.

Our recruitment effort and inclusion of more academia, CSOs, and other
non-commercial users from developing countries online is paramount.

We need to ensure the noncommercial interest or space is not reduced during
the online-only engagement.

Post Covid19 era requires innovation to engage our members actively in
policy development processes, this challenge is critical. I am committed to
help develop solutions to sustaining NCUC members' engagement online.

Areas ICANN policy needs attention

The great PIR -ISOC sale is a major policy concern moving forward.

ICANN Africa Strategy 2021- 2025  will see more NCUC contributions during
implementation and hopefully we bring best practice to the region’s DNS
market growth.

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.

I look forward to continuing to serve the community to improve the
participation of all diverse groups, especially those from developing
countries and newcomers to ICANN.


Kind regards,

Benjamin Akinmoyeje
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20200528/13eb574f/attachment.html>