Sophia Bekele

President and CEO of CBS International. Sophia Bekele

Ms. Sophia Bekele was nominated to serve on ICANN's Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) policy board in 2005, 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 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 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).

ICANN Reference:

1. DotAfrica, DotAfrica�s position on JPA -National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NITA, Feb 2008
   
2. AfriICANN-discuss, On dot.africa, Nov 2007
   
3. AfrICANN-discuss, Resending letter to ccTLDManagers(.Africa'sposition), Nov 2007
   
4. Aftld-Discuss [AfriICANN-discuss], Resending Letter to CCTLD, Nov 2007
   
5. ICANN, GNSO Final report, Oct 2007
   
6. AfriICANN-Discuss, Dot Africa�s position on fast tracking of IDN ccTLD, Oct 2007
   
7. GNSO, Comments in Response to the ccNSO-GAC Issues report on IDN Issues, Aug 2007
   
8. GNSO, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN Working group, Mar 2007
   
9. At-Large, Policy matters for conference call agenda, Mar 2007
   
10. AfriIcann, Going forward with ICANN- The African Region Perspective, Mar 2007
    
11. AfriICANN, ICANN ICANN - - African Group African Group, Mar 2007
    
12. At-Large Fwd: Re: (NA-Discuss) African Region finishes its MoU, Feb 2007
    
13. At-Large Policy matters for conference call agenda, Mar 2007
    
14. GNSO, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN WG, Mar 2007
    
15. GNSO Regarding Working Group membership (council), Mar 2007
    
16. ICANN, IDN Working Group, Jan 2007
    
17. GNSO-IDN-WG, IDN Chair Nomination, Oct 2006
    
18. ICANNwiki, ICANNWiki Caricature, Mar 2006
    
19. DotAfrica, African�s Map on Digital Inclusion, dotconnectafrica.com, Mar 2006
    
20. GNSO, On IDN dialog - a debate with John C. Klensin, Mar 2006
    
21. ICANN?????(Nomination Committee]</span>, Nov 2005
    
22. ICANN, Nominating Committee | Biographical Information on the ..., Nov 2005
    
23. ICANN NomComm ICANN | Nominating Committee Announces Final Selections for Key ..., Nov 2005
    
24. ICANN, Sophia Bekele Statement of Interest, Nov 2005
    

External:

• IP Justice, New Domain Names (gtlds), 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, [http://ianewswatch.twnic.net.tw/twnic_php/shownews.php?id=2005110401&cat=catelog_news_international_organization_monitor_list, Nov 2005
  
• JPNic,NomComm, Nov 2005