Sophia Bekele
As such, I am actively involved in the policy development process of the International Domain Names (IDNs) and generic Top Level Domain names (gTLDs) that are of concern. I have also initiated and pursuing the efforts for a successful launch of the '.Africa' continental domain name project dotconnectafrica.org, within ICANN and the global African community..." - Statement of Interest 2006-2007, - ICANN.
President and CEO of CBS International. Sophia Bekele
Ms. Sophia Bekele was nominated to serve on ICANN's - Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers GNSO policy board from 2005-2007, under the term and Chairmanship of Dr. Vint Cerf, who is one of the founding father of the Internet and current Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google Corporation.
In this position, Ms. Bekele contributes to global public policies that guide the development of the Internet. During her tenure, Sophia was very instrumental in initiating policy dialog over International Domain Names(IDNs) as well as the formation of a IDN working group to give focus on IDNs within ICANN. She was later on credited for championing the inclusion of the global IDN community within this policy dialog. As a result, Ms. Bekele was also nominated to chair ICANN's International Domain Name (IDN's) Working Group. She was one of the co-authors of the IDN policy guidlines within ICANN. Additionally, Ms. Bekele has initiated the formation of the African grouping within ICANN, as well as initiated and leading the .Africa project.
Ms. Bekele holds an MBA in Management Information Systems (MIS) from Golden Gate University, San Francisco and a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Systems, at San Francisco State University. She is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA, Certified Control Specialist (CCS), and Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT) . Full profile @ www.sophiabekele.com
ICANN Reference:
- Statement of Interest,Statement of Interest (SOI) for the Policy Development Process Steering Committee-Policy Development Team, March 19, 2009
- Internet Governance, Internet Governanace & Policy Divide, San Francisco, March 10, 2009
- Public Forum announcement, Continuing interest in the work of ICANN, IDNs and DotAfrica, Paris, June 25, 2008
- Farewells, ICANN Meeting...and had a lot of respect for, Cary Karp from registries, Mawaki Chango, noncommercial, Ross Rader, registrar, and Sophia Bekele, the NomCom appointee..., ICANN Public Forum, Part 2 Thursday, 1 November 2007
- DotAfrica, DotAfrica�s position on JPA -National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NITA, Los Angeles, California, Feb 2008
- AfriICANN-discuss, A debate on dot.africa, Nov 2007
- AfrICANN-discuss, DotAfrica's initiation), Nov 2007
- Aftld-Discuss [AfriICANN-discuss], Who is DotAfrica?, Nov 2007
- ICANN, GNSO Final report, Oct 2007
- AfriICANN-Discuss, Dot Africa�s position on fast tracking of IDN ccTLD, Oct 2007
- GNSO, Comments in Response to the ccNSO-GAC Issues report on IDN Issues, Aug 2007
- GNSO, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN Working group, Mar 2007
- At-Large, Policy matters for conference call agenda, Mar 2007
- AfriIcann, Going forward with ICANN- The African Region Perspective, Mar 2007
- AfriICANN, ICANN - GNSo Policy update - presentation to African Group by Sophia Bekele, Lisbon, Mar 2007
- GNSO, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN WG, Mar 2007
- GNSO Regarding IDN Working Group membership issues, Mar 2007
- ICANN, IDN Working Group, Jan 2007
- GNSO-IDN-WG, IDN Chair Nomination, Oct 2006
- ICANNwiki, ICANNWiki Caricature, Wellington New Zealand, Mar 2006
- DotAfrica, African�s Map on Digital Inclusion, dotconnectafrica.com - dotAfrica website, Mar 2006
- GNSO, On IDN dialog - a debate with John C. Klensin, Mar 2006
- ICANN, Nominating Committee | Biographical Information on the ..., Nov 2005
- ICANN NomComm ICANN | Nominating Committee Announces Final Selections for Key leadership positions..., Vancouver, Canada Nov 2005
- ICANN, Sophia Bekele, Statement of Interest, Nov 2005
External:
- GGU, Internet Governance and the policy divide, San Francisco, Ca, March 2009
- IP Justice, New Domain Names (gtlds), Sao Paulo Brazil, Dec 2006
- Andrew Mack, Andy's Global View: In a world of .com and .org, why not .Africa?, Sept 2007
- Del Rey Studios "A New Hope� the idea of 'ICANN The Movie' was born! Mar 2007
- TWiNic, NomComm announcement - Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005
- JPNic,NomComm announcement -Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005
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