Chema Alonso
Chief Data Officer, Telefonica.
We have just seen in IGF day zero sessions, the presentation and launching of the ISOC lead IGF Supporting Association.
Presented by Kathryn Brown, ISOC CEO, and Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator of IGF Secretariat and ISOC Vice-president, the objective of this supporting association is to help solving, at least in part, the founding problems IGF has always had, and at the same time devote some funds to finance local and regional IGFs, fund a number of grants and collaborate with IGF to enlarge participation in this Forum, particularly with stakeholders from developing countries.
The initiative was presented this morning to a quite big audience and with a big and immediate success. The first General Assembly was held on the spot and decided on the membership fees (25 USD for individuals and 100 for entities), and on the members of its Executive Committee. Under its new executive committee members are, Raul Echeberría (ISOC) as Chairman and Virat Bhatia (AT&T), Subi Chaturvedi (Media For Change) Marilyn Cade, (mCADE), Cheryl Miller ( Verizon), Avri Doria ( Independent Researcher) Edmon Chung (DotAsia), Tarek Kamel (ICANN), Alice Munyua (CATIA) and Chengetai Masango (IGF Secretariat).
Telefónica will collaborate with this new initiative as it is in line with our desire of reinforcing IGF and enlarging participation.