ICANN Email Archives: [gnso-nominations]

["Marilyn Cade" <marilynscade@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Full Name of Nominee: Mike Roberts 

Email address :mmr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Country of citizenship of Nominee; United States 

 

Full name of nominator: Marilyn Cade

Email address of nominator: mscade@xxxxxxx

 

 

I am hereby nominating Mike Roberts as a candidate for election to the ICANN
board from the GNSO Council.

 

As we all look to the future for the Internet, it is clear that ICANN, in
its role in coordinating the technical parameters of the global Internet,
and in addressing the post WSIS environment, faces a continually evolving
set of challenges, ranging from dealing with the implications of IDNs, to
the introduction of a broadband Internet, to changes in traffic
characteristics such as the introduction of sensor based applications, to
the move into mobile devices as the dominant access mechanism to the
Internet. Security issues are a growing part of ICANN's focus. And, the
issue of a single authoritative root and how to best examine questions that
ensure end to end interoperability in this changing world, while supporting
competition, fairness, and transparency are confronting ICANN. 

 

I believe that Mike Roberts can make a significant contribution at the Board
level, as it fulfills its leadership role as ICANN, addresses these
challenges, and others that it faces.  Mike Roberts expertise, executive
management experience, and technical understanding of ICANN's role and
responsibly are quite unique and will make an immediate contribution to
ICANN's board and its role in leadership. 

 

Mike has a wealth of experience in interacting with the diverse global
technical, business and higher education community at the senior executive
level, including long standing interactions with technical and business
representatives from academia, government, and multi national corporations.
Mike's experience as an executive responsible for performance and budget are
a much needed set of skills within the Board leadership. Mike's ability to
help to build consensus within the ICANN board and his ability to reach into
the Internet community to "feasibility test" on possible activities make him
a strong candidate for the Board position from the GNSO.  As ICANN addresses
how best to address the changing relationship with governments, Mike will be
a steadfast proponent of private sector leadership - a key issue to ICANN's
very existence. Mike is a senior leader in the Internet community, and
commands the respect of others in the technical community; business
community, and with governments.  

 

Most recently, Mike is a policy consultant in the field of Internet
technology, services and product development, with a specialization in
research and higher education issues.  Mike was part of the private sector
leadership who supported the privatization of the functions that ICANN now
coordinates, and served as the first President and CDO of ICANN from 1998 to
2001. 

 

Mike is well known to the ICANN and broader Internet community due to his
long standing leadership in a variety of areas which have advanced the
creation and adoption of the Internet. He has a demonstrated and current
active understanding of the challenges before ICANN and the impact of
ICANN's decisions on the global Internet community.  His commitment to
iCANN's success is well documented, including his active engagement at a
constituency level, upon leaving the role as President and CEO of ICANN. 

 

Mike is in a very unique space of having no conflicts of interest and not
representing clients before ICANN on economic or policy matters. Through his
membership in the Business Constituency and attendance at ICANN meetings, he
has a very current understanding of the challenges before ICANN. In the
early 90's Mike was co-founder, Trustee and the first Executive Director
(seconded from Educom) of the Internet Society, whose purpose is to promote
the use of the Internet and guide its further development for both public
Interest and private enterprise purposes.  Prior to joining EDUCOM, a
consortium of 600 universities and colleges where he was responsible for
networking and telecommunications programs, he was at Stanford University as
Deputy Director of Information Technology Services, with executive
responsibilities in computing, communications and information systems
programs. 

 

Mike is author, co-author and editor of numerous publications on networking.
He has testified before the US Congress numerous times on topics ranging
from the Internet, the national Research and Education Network (NREN) and
ICANN. Mike is also a member of ACM and IEEE. 

 

I am pleased to nominate Michael (Mike) Roberts as a candidate to the Board
from the GNSO.