Nadira Alaraj

Affiliation:	Civil Society
Country:	Palestine
Email:	nadira.araj [at] gmail.com
LinkedIn:	Nadira Alaraj

Nadira Al-Araj is an independent consultant on Internet policy research and capacity building.  She is on her second term of ICANN 2019 Nominating Committee as delegate for ALAC/AP voting seat.

Her other engagement with ICANN on the regional level with the MEAC-SWG, co-chair for the Middle East (ME) space and on the PC for ME DNS forum was an initiator to the Online ME session. Had an outreach presentation on the NomCom at Middle East DNS Forum in Ankara, Turkey.

A member on the NomCom Review Working Party and participant on the Cross-Community Working Group New gTLD Auction Proceeds and At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG). She also served for fellowship selection committee for 2 years / 4 rounds and continued to be a coach were many of her mentees guiding them into the right track in ICANN. Here ICANN journey started after the first fellowship to ICANN53 - Buenos Aires in 2015.

Internet Ecosystem Engagements

Nadira also volunteers into other I* organizations, she attended ITU Plenipotentiary Conference (Oct 2018) in Dubai as and ISOC fellow. On the executive committee of ISOC chapter of Blockchain Special Interest Group.  She was the vice chairperson for ISOC Palestine and was elected to the first ISOC Chapters Advisory Council Steering Committee were they set the rules and procedures for the newly established Chapter Advisory Council.  She was also on the Civil Society Coordination Group for 2016 as liaison for BestBits to nominate Civil Society representatives to different I* committees.

Her first engagement with IG through the online full program on Internet Governance back in 2009.  That introduced her to her first IGF forum in Sharm El Sheikh.  She tutored the online course on IG for HIVOS IGMENA project during the lifetime of this project.  In her role of the Arab IGF 2015 MAG she was the coordinator for the forum workshops. She organized and co-organized workshops to Internet Freedom Festival and IGF 2016 & 2017 respectively . After her fellowship to APSIG 2016  she served on its different subcommittees.

At the local level, she is a board and associate member of several societal organizations such as the Arab International Society for Management Technology and Palestinian Business Women Forum. Nadira hold two M.Sc. degrees, one in Computer Science and the other in Information Resources Management from Syracuse University plus 23 years of lecturing experience at Bethlehem University on Information technology and Operations Management. Served on national steering committees for strategic planning on eLearning, providing consultation in pedagogical methods.

APrIGF 2019 Vladivostok 

I attended several IGFs and ME IGFs but what I’ve seen at the APrIGF 2019 of the empowerment and capacity building of their community and Youth in the Internet Governance space doesn’t have its parallel at other regional IGFs. APrIGF, does give high attention to youth from schools through introducing them to the Internet Governance policy work. That gives to youth the opportunities to be future leaders in their countries and internationally. The evidence of this empowerment is the maturity of the youth logic during the debates which is very close to senior participants.  Another activity at the APrIGF that empowers the fellows is the thematic buddy group assignment which is based on the APrIGF themes. Then at the closing plenary, members of the group provide a short summary report on each of the sub-themes.

The APrIGF Multi-Stakeholder Steering Group MSG is open, inclusive and transparent, because any community member can join the MSG mailing list and contribute to their discussions and planning.

A strategic invention stemmed from APrIGF is the Synthesis Document which takes into consideration all the community inputs. Comments are collected from participants through different methods, a dedicated platform that receive comments, the daily panel after the meeting and from panelist. The synthesized outcome would reflect the current Asia Pacific concerns and updates of the region and it will be shared at the IGF.

Fun Fact

Nadira lead group(s) of students to be MEA regional winners on Google online marketing challenge for 3 consecutive years.

Nadira is jewelry designer and founder of ZaytounaJewelry.com basing her collection on olive Leaves jewelry.