NETmundial Initiative Coordination Council launched: Telefónica is in!

Just before leaving our offices for a short Christmas holiday, the NETmundial Initiative (NMI) Transitional Committee (integrated as you perhaps know by Virgilio Fernandes Almeida -CGI.br-, Fadi Chehadé –ICANN- and Richard Samans –WEF-) announced the final group of members of its Inaugural Coordination Council. Santa gave the Public Policy & Internet Direction of Telefónica the present of our Director, Christoph Steck, being selected as representative of the European Business community.

The open call for nominations for the inaugural Coordination Council received 46 submissions for the 20 seats available. Most candidatures received written endorsements by entities and/or individuals from the corresponding represented sector and geography. The final selection decisions are based on the criteria developed in consultation with respective stakeholder groups, in full transparency. After the selection was made, the final list of members is as follows:

Sector: Academia, Technical Community and Foundations

1. Nii Narku Quaynor, University of Cape Coast, Ghana – Africa
2. Akinori MAEMURA, Japan Network Information Center – Asia & Oceania
3. Jean-François Abramatic, W3C – Europe
4. Marília Maciel, Center for Technology and Society – Getulio Vargas Foundation School of Law – Latin America & Caribbean
5. William Drake, Media Change and Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich – North America

Sector: Civil Society

1. Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communications, APC – Africa
2. Ian Peter, Nomination as an individual – Asia & Oceania
3. Jean-Jacques Subrenat, EURALO – Europe
4. João Carlos Rebello Caribé, Movimento Mega – Latin America & Caribbean
5. Eileen Donahoe, Human Rights Watch – North America

 Sector: Governments and Intergovernmental Organizations

1. Atef Helmy, Minister of Communications & Information Technology, Egypt – Africa
2. Lu Wei, Minister for Cyberspace Affairs Administration, China – – Asia & Oceania
3. Andrus Ansip, European Commission, Vice-President for the Digital Single Market – Europe
4. Juan Cruz González Allonca, National Director for Personal Data Protection, Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Argentina – Latin America & Caribbean
5. Penny Pritzker, Secretary of Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce – North America

Sector: Private Sector

1. Andile Ngcaba, Convergence Partners Investments – Africa
2. Jack Ma, Alibaba Group – Asia & Oceania
3. Christoph Steck, Telefonica, S.A. – Europe
4. Pablo Bello Arellano, AHCIET (Asociación Iberoamericana de Centros de Investigación y empresas de Telecomunicaciones) – Latin America & Caribbean
5. James Poisant, The World Information Technology & Services Alliance 

 Organizing Partners

1. Virgilio Augusto Fernandes Almeida, The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee
2. Fadi Chehadé, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
3. Richard Samans, World Economic Forum

There are two additional seats available for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the technical Internet community (I* group). They have to decide how and when they will fill them.

This Inaugural Coordination Council will be in place for a period of 18 months. During its mandate, it will be tasked to promote the initiative and attract new ideas, making it truly transparent, inclusive and participative.

NMI was launched in August by a coordinated action of WEF, ICANN and CGI and with the objective of providing an open and collaborative space –an online platform- where interested entities and individuals can propose concrete actions and activities to help solving the different challenges affecting the distributed Internet Governance System. This platform will act as a contact point for interested parties and as an amplifier to facilitate both crowd-sourcing for proposed projects and crowd-funding to finance them. NMI is not an attempt to replace existing entities in the Internet Governance space nor another one to increase the already long list of different global and regional groupings dealing with the multiple aspects covered under the Internet Governance umbrella. In this sense, NMI will try to help IGF in its work at the global, regional, and national levels.

The first meeting of the Coordination Committee will be held the 31st of March. During this first quarter of the year, the main task will be to develop the NMI Terms of Reference with the help and participation of the global community.

The NMI Transitional Committee now has completed its task of forming the Coordination Committee and responding to the different questions and doubts arisen by the global community and therefore has been dissolved.

Telefónica will try to help NMI by ensuring transparent and inclusive debates. We expect NMI to help the distributed Internet Governance system develop by providing studies and evidences to support the analysis of pros and cons of the different Internet Governance models.

Stay connected to our Public Policy Blog to know more about NMI activities!