Dear Councillors,

Following Manju and Mark’s request to be included into this year’s ICANN Academy Leadership Program, I took the liberty to send the below to ICANN Org.

Not only do I think that both our candidates are highly worthy, but I feel that as a community we have been lucky enough to be able retain so many talents during the pandemic and our extend time of remote participation, that we should now double up on nurturing new talent.

I understand other SO/ACs have a similar analysis. We will try to find a workable solution as quickly as possible.

Kindly,

Sebastien Ducos

GoDaddy Registry | Senior Client Services Manager

+33612284445

France & Australia

sebastien@registry.godaddy

From: Sebastien Ducos <Sebastien@registry.godaddy>
Date: Wednesday, 12 October 2022 at 10:07 am
To: prs@icann.org <prs@icann.org>
Subject: ICANN Academy Leadership Program

Dear Team,

It has come to my attention that demand for the ICANN Academy Leadership Program is very high this year, due to a backlog of demand grown over the pandemic period; a backlog which we will now need to resorb. I have at least two Councillors interested in a position who are not able to apply through their SG/Cs because their seats have been frozen for 2 years.

These are 2 very worthy candidates, young and talented leaders from Asia and South America, who themselves rose from the ranks during the pandemic, as we were all struggling to find a voice remotely.

I understand that the program is at capacity this year, that rooms and budgets are not extendable, and that while we would all love to be able to do more, there are constraints. This said, I would strongly encourage your group to look into the possibility of organising in the next year an intersessional program, or doubling the next cohort to help resorb this backlog and return to a normal cadence as soon as possible. I am confident that with only a single additional session we will be quickly able to resorb 2 years of backlog, there will always be a portion of people who have moved on or are no longer in demand for it.