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Username: DotOrg Foundation
Date/Time: Thu, August 22, 2002 at 11:20 PM GMT
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Subject: Press Release: DotOrg Foundation Announces New Board Members; Calls on ICANN to Correct Their Report

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                The following media alert was distributed to the press on Thursday, August 22, 2002:

DotOrg Foundation Announces Expansion of Board; Foundation President Calls on ICANN to Correct Their Report

Washington, D.C. - August 22, 2002 - Two internationally recognized civil society leaders, Lelei Lelaulu and Kennedy Graham, have been elected to the board of directors of the DotOrg Foundation. 

In announcing the new board members, DotOrg Foundation president Marshall Strauss expressed concern with the errors to be found in some of the materials associated with the recently released ICANN Interim Report on the .org reassignment.  "We are one of 11 bidders," Strauss said, "so we understand fully that some other groups may win the right to operate the .org registry.  That said, it is dismaying to see the extent of the errors that ICANN has allowed others to introduce into the evaluation of the bids."

Strauss noted that both the Gartner review team and the ICANN staff itself had indicated that the DotOrg Foundation was clearly among the group of bidders that had demonstrated the competence required to operate the registry.  "We are delighted at how positively other professionals have received our proposal," he continued.  "Their message is stated clearly: We have shown that we can operate the registry well, at the highest possible level of service."

Strauss focused his concern on the report of the Non Commercial Committee. "Sadly, this report speaks for itself.  The errors are many, if not profound.  Arithmetic is incorrect.  Information provided by other bidders was apparently not reviewed by the committee.  Text and charts clash; the committee even changed the rules of the game after the bids had been submitted," Strauss stated.

"The good news in all this is the professionalism which ICANN has been demonstrating," Strauss emphasized.  "We are confident that many of these mistakes can be rectified."

With regard to the new directors, Strauss said, "We are delighted that two individuals of the stature of Lelaulu and Graham have agreed to join the board of the DotOrg Foundation."

Lelei Lelaulu, a Samoan by birth and for many years prominently involved in development work at the United Nations and elsewhere, is now president of Counterpart Foundation, an international NGO with programs in more than 60 nations.  Kennedy Graham, a former New Zealand diplomat and former CEO of Parliamentarians Global Action, an international NGO based in New York City, was until recently the head of the UN Leadership Academy in Amman Jordan.  Graham is about to become Senior Fellow in the UN University.

"If anyone doubts the commitment and capacity of the foundation to reflect the concerns and meet the clear needs of the non-commercial world, they need look no further than our board," Strauss added.

The DotOrg Foundation board now numbers nine, including:

* Sam Gejdenson, a member of the U.S. House of Representative for 20 years.  As the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, Gejdenson was a leader in human rights and peace work around the world.

* LaDonna Harris, an internationally recognized leader of the Native American community, founder of numerous groups including Americans for Indian Opportunity and INDIANnet.  Harris helped establish Common Cause, the National Urban Coalition and the National Women's Political Caucus and has served on the boards of Girl Scouts USA, Independent Sector, Council on Foundations, National Organization of Women, National Urban League, Save the Children Federation, and other groups. 

* Mikhail Kazachkov, a 15-year survivor of the Gulag.  Kazachkov was the last significant political prisoner released as the Soviet Union was collapsing.  He has remained involved in building Russian civil society and is now a leading advisor to Russian political and business leaders in the telecom field.

* Charles Musisi, a leader in the development of the Internet based in Africa.  As a technical consultant, Mr. Musisi has contributed to Internet-related communications initiatives funded by the World Bank, USAID and UNESCO's Intergovernmental Informatics Program, among others.

* Charles Pfleeger, master security architect of Exodus Communications, a division of Cable and Wireless.  Dr. Pfleeger is a former professor with the computer science department at the University of Tennessee and the former Chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Security and Privacy.

* Marshall Strauss, president of Human & Civil Rights Organizations of America and chair of the National Combined Federal Campaign Committee.  A leader in the field of certifying not for profit groups, Strauss has been involved for years in human rights work in China, Russia and elsewhere.

* Michael Washburn, a leading expert in the environmental movement, based at Yale University.  Dr. Washburn helped develop the national Sustainable Forestry Partnership, a consortium of major forestry schools seeking to foster forestry innovation. He serves on several government-private sector committees addressing issues ranging from sustainable communities to forestry education.

About DotOrg Foundation
The DotOrg Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded with the sole purpose of administering the .org top level domain (TLD) registry for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN.  The value of the DotOrg Foundations specific and directed purpose is that it focuses all of the Foundations resources on developing the .org TLD into a more reliable, trusted, productive and distinctive space on the Internet.  The DotOrg Foundation is joined in its ICANN proposal by two partners with established reputations in the Internet and nonprofit sectors  - Registry Advantage, a division of Register.com Inc. (NASDAQ: RCOM), as its registry function provider; and Kintera, to provide technical development and maintenance for planned additional products and services.  For more information, visit the DotOrg Foundation website at www.dotorgfoundation.org.

     
     
     

 


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