Hello Alan, Oh so a statement of support was also going to be helpful, was thinking it was if we had concerns. Thanks for the draft and My +1 to the statement at it currently stand, if its not too late, you may consider a few minor comments below: 1. Can "They play an impactful role in their respective countries to...." be updated to "They play an impactful role in their respective countries and within ICANN to...." I think emphasizing the impact of atlarge within ICANN is quite important. I have always been of the opinion that atlarge defending the interest of end-users within ICANN is of more importance than what they do outside of it. Ofcourse not that, that is also not important. 2. I suggest re-wording of the third paragraph to the following: "The ALAC recognizes that these changes may make the process of selecting candidates more difficult, but believes ICANN is making a wise choice in doing this and would ensure to maintain fairness and balance in the selection process, especially towards improving representation of under-served/under developed countries/territories within ICANN processes " Regards On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:06 PM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> wrote:

To: ALAC <alac@atlarge-lists.icann.org>

...

From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> Subject: Statement on changes to the Fellowship Program

As discussed during the ALAC call earlier this week, there is a Public Comment just about to close on changes to the ICANN Fellowship Program.

Some people in At-Large have been (rightfully) VERY vocal about perceived problems in the Fellowship program, specifically:

- people from some countries (such as Argentina) have recently become ineligible to participate in the Fellowship Program because the country has had its status upgraded in the World Bank list of development status (based on income); - some people, particularly from some island territories were not eligible.

In both cases, the status of the overall economy might not have met the criteria, but that did not alter the perception that the people were not well represented in ICANN.

The proposed changes to the Fellowship Program address these problems and more.

Unfortunately, no one chose to volunteer to draft a brief statement of support for the changes.

At the ALAC Leadership Team meeting yesterday, it was decided that the Fellowship Program is sufficiently important to At-Large, the people we represent, and to ICANN in general that we MUST submit something. Accordingly, I drafted a set of notes which Ariel Liang ably transformed into a statement to be submitted.

The statement can be found at https://community.icann.org/x/LiOOAw.

The deadline for submission is tomorrow, Friday, 29 July at 23:59 UTC. I will conduct a Consensus Call for formally ratify the statement next week, but if anyone has any concern with the statement, please bring that concern to my attention immediately.

Alan

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