Walid Al-Saqaf
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| Affiliation: | ISOC |
| Country: | Sweden |
| Email: | walid.al-saqaf [at] isoc.ye |
| Facebook: |  Walid Al-Saqaf
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| LinkedIn: |  Walid Al-Saqaf
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| Twitter: |  @wsaqaf
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Walid Al-Saqaf is a Yemeni postdoctoral researcher with a B.Sc. in computer engineering and a PhD in media and communications. His research is mainly focused on ICTs and democracy. As a member of the technical and civil society community, he co-founded and currently chairs ISOC-Yemen, the Yemen Chapter of ISOC. Walid sits on ISOC's board of trustees where he is a member in the governance and audit committees. As an anti-censorship Arab activist, he started efforts to combat Internet censorship mainly through Alkasir, which is a solution he created to map and circumvention web censorship. He has been the first [TED] Fellow from Yemen and is actively engaged in promoting Internet-related grassrouts initiatives through events such as TEDxSanaa, which he created in 2012. Al-Saqaf became directly involved in Internet policy discussions when he was selected as a member of the Arab IGF MAG in 2012. Since then, he participated in several Internet-related global events such as the IGF, Stockholm Internet Forum, and the Cyber Dialogue Forum. [1]
Al-Saqaf started his involvement in ICANN in 2013 as a Fellow and since then has been an active community member. He has been chairing the Middle East and Adjoining Countries Strategy Working Group (MEAC-SWG) since June 2016 and remains a member of NCUC, for which he served as the coordinator of its membership affairs team during 2014-2015.
ICANN Involvement:
- Participated as an ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 46 meeting held in Beijing during 7-11 April 2013
- Participated as an ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 49 meeting held in Singapore during 23-27 March 2014
- Was approved as the representative of ISOC-Yemen as an ICANN ALS in May 2014
- Appointed in December 2014 by the NCUC Executive Committee as the Coordinator of the Membership Affairs Team responsible for inreach engagement
- Participated as the Membership Affairs Team Coordinator of NCUC in the 2015 Non-Contracted Parties House (NCPH) meeting held in Washington, DC during 12-13 January 2015
- Participated as the Membership Affairs Team Coordinator of NCUC in the ICANN 52 meeting held in Singapore during 8-12 February 2015
- Participated as a coach and ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 53 meeting held in Buenos Aires, Argentina during 21-25 June 2015
- Chairing the Middle East and Adjoining Countries Strategy Working Group (MEAC-SWG) since June 2016
- Participated as the chair of the MEAC-SWG in the ICANN57 meeting held in Hyderabad, India during 3-9 November 2016