As I mentioned in a previous Public Forum to the Board it would be great to create an “Internship Program” where after due diligence graduate students or even post-doc students (I believe LACRALO at the House of Internet has an initiative) could get engaged. The funds invested would be less and individuals with fresh new ideas would get engaged.

On the other had, most young individuals willing to be engaged have a full-time job and if his/her employer is not linked to the ICANN or Internet Governance environment would not comprehend why a none related professional would want to get involved in ICANN. Thus, the retired and in some cases ‘freelancers’ are the ones more engaged and volunteering to the cause if ICANN’s remit.

Distance participation is encouraged but to increase motivated individuals in most cases a face-to-face immersion process is needed. If we tie this with requirement that some Working groups do business in English without interpretation, we are not encouraging non-English proficient individuals to engage.

Coming from a bilingual community and using technology tools, how about having some portable device to translate on the spot oral conversations. Encourage the use on tools that translate with a reasonable speed audio conversations.

Sorry, just giving some thoughts that might start a more detailed conversation.



That's right Carlton. It will always be an uphill battle -- but they could lighten the load a bit. If anyone reading this has a good example of a project with potential to bring in new members but which would probably not find a place in the current ICANN funding boxes, please send them over. I have a couple, but could use something non-North America based.

Thanks

Marita

On 11/4/2019 3:34 PM, Carlton Samuels wrote:

Well worthy of our collective consideration! 

Because as it now happens, what we built is only narrowing the base from where we expect to recruit.

We know well the challenges we face. Finding volunteers to do the policy work at the level we would find competitive to other well-resourced parts of the community is like looking for the goose that lays the golden egg on a needle in a haystack. 

We have to cast far and wide. And for every thousand we reach if we're really lucky and all the stars align  we will harvest what, maybe three!

And,  if we harvest three, I'm prepared to declare victory and go home. 

Carlton 

On Mon, 4 Nov 2019, 2:23 pm Marita Moll, <mmoll@ca.inter.net> wrote:

 My thoughts about our pitch to the board later on this week re: the evolution of the MS model. We can only expect to have 15 min on this so am keeping it fairly narrowly focussed:

Our focus would be on improving our ability to grow the MS volunteer community, increasing diversity, increasing participation. The goal has to be to build a system that can attract and retain volunteers in multiple locations and local contexts who can engage at multiple levels. There is no one size that fits all. In this challenge, the community must lead. That is where the expertise is, that's where the local knowledge is and where the solutions will come from. We need to innovate, take some risks and think outside of the box.

Good theory, but in reality, there are lots of hurdles -- it is not so easy to get adequate funds moving in the direction of innovative community outreach programs. --- offer a couple of real examples.

The ask: In the interests of bringing more people into our communities to deal with the ever increasing workload, will the Board formally recognize and encourage efforts to innovate in this challenge of growing our community -- by lowering some of the barriers.

Marita

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