Sophia Bekele

Website:	[sophiabekele.com Sophia's Blog sophiabekele.com Sophia's Blog]
LinkedIn:	[Sophia Bekele Sophia Bekele]
Twitter:	@sophiabekele

Ms. Sophia Bekele is a businesswoman, entrepreneur, executive, an ICT activist, and international policy adviser on ICT/Telcom to public and private enterprise. She is the founder and CEO of CBS International and DotConnectAfrica

ICANN Work

Ms. Bekele was nominated to serve on ICANN's GNSO policy board from 2005-2007, under the Chairmanship of Dr. Vinton Cerf.

Elected by the NomCom, Sophia was the first African to serve and hold a seat on this powerful policy board that advises the ICANN Board on ICANN's gTLD policy. In this position, Ms. Bekele contributed to global public policies that guide the development of the Internet, including the new gTLD policy and processes affecting .asia, .com, .net, .org etc...

During her tenure, Sophia was instrumental in initiating policy dialogue over IDNs as well as the formation of a IDN working group to focus on IDNs within ICANN. She was later credited for championing the inclusion of the global IDN community within this policy dialogue. As a result, Ms. Bekele was also nominated to chair ICANN's IDN Working Group. She was one of the co-authors of ICANN's IDN policy guidelines.

Sophia has also initiated the .africa TLD within ICANN and is currently championing it across Africa under DotConnectAfrica. Her organization has been endorsed by various prominent Pan-African organizations and African governments.

Corporate Experience

Multinationals

Sophia began her career working for multinational institutions in large financial/banking companies in Corporate America such as Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi/Union Bank of California, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, to mention but a few; as well as building various start-ups with international business portfolios.

Most of Ms. Bekele's work here is characterized with overseeing the control and security activities for technologies, auditing computer IT systems, evaluated new product & system services and recommending cost effective solutions, project Management, client relationship, operational and business risk assessment, business process re-engineering, writing recommendation reports to Executive Management for operational improvements and corporate good governance.

CBS International

Ms. Bekele founded CBS International; a private Corporation with the goal of supporting technology in organizations working in emerging markets. Their self-described mission is to: "Utilize our experience in consulting services in sales, software training, and provide our clients with a total systems solutions to help lower their cost and maximize efficiency in the delivery of quality products and services". CBS also consults on Business Process Engineering, implementation of Corporate Strategy & Governance & Sarbane Oxley compliance initiatives. It is based near Silicon Valley, California.

Currently, Ms. Bekele and her company assist various Clients in public/private markets, primarily in corporate risk governance, including the recent Sarbanes-Oxley , GAAP & PCAOB and IT governance. Internationally, Sophia also consults on Milennium Challenge issues including anti-corruption, democratic governance, free market economics, and the development of internet and ICT infrastruture and regulatory policy.

DotConnectAfrica

Ms. Bekele also founded DotConnectAfrica . She is responsible for creating the foundations for running a viable non-profit with public/private partnership model, that is going to have a sustainable future with the project initiatives that it undertakes. The flagship projects which invoked the initialization of the organization is the "dotafrica" (.africa) Top Level Domain Name, which is to be the Continental Domain name to register Africa's businesses and other entities that are of concern to Africa.

Currently, Ms. Bekele's responsibilities include, to identify opportunities and risks for delivering the company’s services as a web-based business, including identification of competitive services, opportunities for innovation, and assessment of marketplace obstacles and technical hurdles to the business success; Identify technology trends and evolving social behavior that may support or impede the success of the business; and Evaluate and identify appropriate technology platforms (including web application frameworks and the deployment stack) for delivering the company’s services.

Other Endeavors

Additionally, Ms. Bekele has initiated the formation of the African grouping within ICANN; as well as starting and leading the .Africa project through her creation of a non-profit,public private partnership organization,DotConnectAfrica.

She is a Alumni Board Member of the Golden Gate University, Founding and Board member of (ISOC) The Internet Society of San Francisco Bay, a former board member of Information Systems and Control Association (ISACA-SF) and advisory member to the World Affairs Council of Contra Costa County

Adviser to United Nation Agencies: Serve at various UN Agencies Boards and committees, including UNECA (Economic commission for Africa, UNPAN,UNGAID etc..as expert advisor on ICT policy.

Education

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 from 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).

External Links

1. DotConnectAfrica, spoke on way-forward on the contribution of the ".africa" name to an ICT enabled environment, and launched its "Yes to a .africa Campaign", at the AITEC ICT summit held in Nairobi, Kenya.html, Sep 11, 2010
2. DotConnectAfrica, Ms.Sophia Bekele, provided a Keynote address for AITEC Summit during the opening panel discussions.html, Sep 11,2010
3. DotConnectAfrica, DotConnectAfrica registered maximum success in East Africa as the voice was echoed globally.html, April 06, 2010
4. Policy Development,Statement of Interest (SOI) Members of the Vertical Integration Policy Development Process Working Group, April, 01, 2010
5. Public Forum announcement, African Union endorsment of ".Africa" and urging for ICANN to expedite process for TLDs,Nairobi, March,11,2010
6. DotConnectAfrica, African Union endorsed the domain name ".Africa" to DotConnectAfrica org, Addis Ababa, February 18, 2010
7. Policy Development,Statement of Interest (SOI) for the Policy Development Process Steering Committee-Policy Development Team, March 19, 2009
8. Internet Governance, Internet Governanace & Policy Divide, San Francisco, March 10, 2009
9. Public Forum announcement, Continuing interest in the work of ICANN, IDNs and DotAfrica, Paris, June 25, 2008
10. 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
11. DotAfrica, [http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/jpacomments2007/jpacomment_069.pdf DotAfrica�s position on JPA -National Telecommunications and Information Administration], NITA, Los Angeles, California, Feb 2008
    
12. AfriICANN-discuss, A debate on dot.africa, Nov 2007
    
13. AfrICANN-discuss, DotConnectAfrica's initiation of DotAfrica), Nov 2007
    
14. Aftld-Discuss [AfriICANN-discuss], Who is DotAfrica?, Nov 2007
    
15. ICANN IDN, GNSO Final report, Oct 2007
    
16. AfriICANN-Discuss, [http://lists.aftld.org/pipermail/aftld-discuss/2007-October/000183.html Dot Africa�s position on fast tracking of IDN ccTLD], Oct 2007
    
17. GNSO IDN, Comments in Response to the ccNSO-GAC Issues report on IDN Issues, Aug 2007
    
18. GNSO IDN, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN Working group, Mar 2007
    
19. At-Large policy, Policy matters for conference call agenda, Mar 2007
    
20. AfriIcann, Going forward with ICANN- The African Region Perspective, Mar 2007
    
21. AfriICANN, ICANN - GNSo Policy update - presentation to African Group by Sophia Bekele, Lisbon, Mar 2007
    
22. GNSO IDN, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN WG, Mar 2007
    
23. GNSO IDN Regarding IDN Working Group membership issues, Mar 2007
    
24. ICANN IDN, IDN Working Group, Jan 2007
    
25. GNSO-IDN-WG, IDN Chair Nomination, Oct 2006
    
26. ICANNwiki, ICANNWiki Caricature, Wellington New Zealand, Mar 2006
    
27. DotConnectAfrica's Website,dotconnectafrica.org - African's Map on Digital Inclusion, Mar 2006
    
28. GNSO IDN, On IDN dialog - a debate with John C. Klensin, Mar 2006
    
29. ICANN, Nominating Committee | Biographical Information on the ..., Nov 2005
    
30. ICANN NomComm ICANN | Nominating Committee Announces Final Selections for Key leadership positions..., Vancouver, Canada Nov 2005
    
31. ICANN, Sophia Bekele, Statement of Interest, Nov 2005
    
32. ISOC, appointment to a founding member & board of directors of Internet Society, San Francisco (ISOC-SF), San Francisco, Ca, March 2009
    
33. GGU, Internet Governance and the policy divide, San Francisco, Ca, March 2009
    
34. IP Justice, New Domain Names (gtlds), Sao Paulo Brazil, Dec 2006
    
35. Andrew Mack, Andy's Global View: In a world of .com and .org, why not .Africa?, Sept 2007
    
36. Del Rey Studios "A New Hope" the idea of 'ICANN The Movie' was born! Mar 2007
    
37. TWiNic, NomComm announcement - Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005
    
38. JPNic,NomComm announcement -Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005
    

Internationalized Domain Name

Top-Level Domain

Internet Society

Country code top-level domain

Generic Names Supporting Organization. Develops and recommends to the Board substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains and other responsibilities set forth in the Bylaws (ICANN Bylaws).