Nomination of Farzaneh Badii for the seat of NCSG Chair

[farzaneh badii]

thank you James for the questions. My answers in line

Farzaneh

On Thu, Aug 17, 2017 at 5:10 AM, James Gannon <james at cyberinvasion.net>
wrote:

> Hi Farz,
>
>
>
> As with Arsene on my last email I may not make the call, so asking some
> questions here!
>
>
>
> I am very happy to see you talk about strategy, this is something I have
> been very passionate about and something I think we miss greatly in NCSG.
>
>
>
> What do you think are the opportunities that NCSG may have if we start to
> become more strategic in our operations that we are not exploiting in our
> current more firefighting and tactical approaches. What areas of policy can
> we have an additional influence in, and what do we need to do in the next
> 12 months to get from where we are now to that point. And then what would
> you do as chair to help support that shift in thinking and engagement?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance
>
>
>
> James
>

My strategy would be two-fold, policy strategy and operational strategy.

*Policy strategy*: we need to be more issue specific when it comes to
policy. We have the monthly policy meeting but I believe that is not
enough. It is an influx of topics and people cannot focus on the issues
that they really want to be active in. And when we do more issue specific
efforts we can come stronger at the meetings and it also brings more
efficiency, because as civil society/noncommercials time is valuable for
us. So we will have focal points for various issues and these focal points
will draw the attention of NCSG memebrs to various issues that are going on
at ICANN. I plan t bring issue specific policy briefings webinars and ask
councilors and other volunteers to lead the discussion. What is important
for me is sustainability so I will follow up on the activities and make
sure that discussions don't die with no conclusion, outcome or following
up.

We should also build alliances on issues where possible with other groups
at ICANN and not work in silos. I have good connections with other groups
and will try and come up with some ways to strenghten collaboration.

In general, it is important to organize the flow of information much better
and more strateguically and in a timely manner. We need better and more
reglualr flow of information from council, PDPs and CCWGs - these are being
mentioned by others as well. But we don't handle the info we have available
well at the moment.  There is a lot of information, and our current council
already sends a lot, but some has a regular schedule - council minutes,
policy/PDP summary updates from staff, news of webinars .  All this
information should be made available to NCSG (NPOC/NCUC) and also should be
sorted in a way that is easily accessible and to the point.


*Operational strategy:* we should use the available resources as much as
possible, use communications services for reaching out to the wider crowd
more effectively, make our wiki page populated, use Maryam's great skills
better for NCSG. I will make the finance committee stronger, put much
importance on carefully crafted additional budget reqeusts  (as I did for
NCUC and NCSG and we saw results, and it was thanks to NCSG and NCUC
members also NCUC members attended the webinar on additional budget
requests and came up with ideas for NCUC). I will also try not to loose out
on resources by better planning and consulting with members. I have to
explore with the finance committee on how we can get outside help for NCSG
and do fundraising. At the moment I still don't know how best to approach
this but we should certainly come up with a plan for fundraising for NCSG
and operationalize it. I am in close contact with ICANN staff about
available resources to NCUC and will extend that to NCSG and continue
collaborating with them.

We have 66000 USD additional budget request approved for NCSG to do policy
practicum. If elected, I will carefully plan this with NPOC and NCUC
involved and as you know I always seek the opinion of members. So decisions
will be made by all NCSG members involved. We will use this budget to 1)
capacity building for our current members 2) bring more help for the active
members.

***

As to the policy issues NCSG should work on, since I have been involved
with policy at various groups, I have a general idea on what issues should
be the focus (privacy, jurisdiction, trademark overreach, Geonames, two
letter top level domain names)  will work with our PC chair, councillors
and NCSG members and its constituencies to explore the issues we need to
address from the beginning of my term, appoint rapporteurs for these issues
to report to NCSG and also encourage NCSG members to monitor various issues
that might come up which NCSG should take action on. We will not be done by
just filing a public comment. A volunteer will monitor what happened to
that public comment, what was the Board decision and report back to the
group!

Once a good friend told me to empower the members, they should feel like
they have been awarded a batman cape: to feel effective and make changes or
see where there has been shortcomings and feel empowered to fix it! I want
to make that happen! I see also empowering our members as a strategy
itself. We should enable  them so much that they feel like they are a
wonder woman or have  a batman cape on and are making changes at ICANN and
NCSG!







>
>
>
>
> *From:* NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] *On Behalf Of
> *farzaneh badii
> *Sent:* 15 August 2017 14:53
> *To:* NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: Nomination of Farzaneh Badii for the seat of NCSG Chair
>
>
>
> Thank you, Ayden, for nominating me for the NCSG Chair position, and
> thank you everyone for your support. I accept the nomination. Sorry for the
> delay in my response. This was for two reasons; firstly, I needed time to
> think about it, and secondly, as I am currently the chair of the NCUC I did
> not want to just accept the nomination without a statement that clearly
> stipulated my reasons.
>
>
>
> I think as the Noncommercial Stakeholder Group we need to be strategic in
> our overall involvement with policy development at ICANN. Being strategic
> is not just a fancy term that I throw out there. I actually mean something
> by that. We need to help our members and NCSG representatives on the GNSO
> Council to develop policy at ICANN and to be able to meaningfully
> contribute to the process. We need to be at the top of the game. We need to
> be better in policy advocacy. We have the means, and we have great members
> who have suitable backgrounds and qualifications that can help us to
> advance noncommercial interests and address noncommercial concerns at
> ICANN.
>
>
>
> I believe members of the NCSG should find it easy to get involved with
> policy making, to understand what the NCSG does, and to be able to help our
> GNSO Councilors with their decisions. You should also be able to challenge
> the decisions made by your leaders and representatives. Experienced members
> at the NCSG should not be left alone in their efforts to
> advance noncommercial interests at ICANN. New members should not feel
> lost when they want to get involved with policy making.
>
>
>
> We should also make joining the NCSG to advance policy at ICANN more
> attractive for those who care about similar issues. The NCSG should be the
> prominent venue where noncommercial interests are advanced at ICANN.
>
>
>
> If elected as the NCSG Chair, I will work with you towards building the
> NCSG more. We should explore the resources and means accessible to us to
> make the NCSG stronger. I have gained some experience in managing and
> securing resources which will help us with this. I would also like to work
> more on NCSG internal governance. We need to come up with internal
> operating procedures, update our wiki page, inform you about the leaders’
> decisions and conducts, brief you on most important decisions periodically,
> and overall, tell you more about what is going on within NCSG leadership.
>
>
>
> These are the reasons I would like to run in this election for the
> position of Chair of the NCSG. I have plans and feel totally committed to
> bringing you three things: strong internal governance, support and capacity
> building for policy making at ICANN, and increased outreach opportunities.
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Farzaneh
>
>
> Farzaneh
>
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 5:12 PM, Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>
> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I would like to nominate Dr Farzaneh Badii for the seat of NCSG Chair.
>
>
>
> Most of us will already know Farzaneh — and if you do not, I encourage you
> to reach out to her some time. She is respected across the ICANN community
> for a number of reasons: for her very substantive contributions within
> working groups, for her in-depth knowledge of ICANN and the broader
> Internet governance landscape, and her skills in analysis and
> rapporteurship. But I think newer members know Farzaneh for a very
> different reason; for her desire to share her knowledge, to coach, to
> mentor, to help. That has been my experience, and I do not believe it to be
> an isolated one.
>
>
>
> Indeed, if we explore Farzaneh’s legacy from her term as NCUC Chair, we
> can see that she focused strongly on capacity building, hosting numerous
> newcomer webinars to bring new members into the fold and causing a paradigm
> shift in how we have all come to see the onboarding of new NCUC members.
> She sought to further legitimise the constituency, first embarking on a
> website redesign and rebrand, then reaching out to other stakeholder groups
> to invite collaboration where it was appropriate. She completed a
> revolutionary review of the NCUC Bylaws, and led the development of the
> constituency’s first-ever Operating Procedures.
>
>
>
> Her significant legacy from chairing the NCUC is one of achievement,
> transparency, and structural and procedural change. But it was also a
> glimpse into her as a person. She has shown herself to be dependable [I
> often wonder if she sleeps, because no matter what time of day or night I
> contact Farzaneh, I know I’ll get an immediate response], optimistic, and
> calm when the pressure is on. And she backs this up with legal knowledge,
> experience in mediation, and political acumen.
>
>
>
> We were lucky to have Farzaneh at the helm of the NCUC. We’d be even
> luckier to have her chairing the NCSG. I have every confidence that she has
> the right knowledge, experience, and commitment to grow the NCSG.
>
>
>
> Indeed, she already has been — take a look at the Special Budget Requests
> that were granted for the NCSG this coming financial year, and you’ll note
> that one of the most significant - a huge $66,000 windfall for us to launch
> a “capacity building program for NCSG, NCUC and NPOC to enable the NCSG
> members to effectively participate in policymaking at ICANN from various
> WGs to CCWGs” was drafted by Farzaneh. This is in addition to the $20,000
> she secured for the NCUC for a policy practicum, travel slots for the
> Internet Governance Forum in Geneva, and an additional employee to join
> Constituency Travel to facilitate visas, among other instances where she’s
> backed up her words with resources.
>
>
>
> Farzaneh, I sincerely hope you will accept this nomination.
>
>
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> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Ayden Férdeline
>
> linkedin.com/in/ferdeline <http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline>
>
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