Dear colleagues, We do not have much time to make up our mind regarding the Euralo elections to the ALAC. In order to help you select the two candidates who will fill the vacancies, let me please introduce myself. I have been a long time participant in ICANN processes but my involvement in the Internet actually predates ICANN. My educational and professional background is in computer and network engineering. I think this is most helpful in the ICANN context. Actually, this background led me to join the Internet Society. Through my work with ISOC, I have good links with the IETF community, where I have been advocating that technical choices should take the societal needs into account. See for example my last post on the main At-Large list regarding this topic: http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/at-large_atlarge-lists.icann.org/20... As mentioned in this post, while I tink that the ALAC's core business is to advise the ICANN board regarding policies, there is also a need to to have thorough thinking of where we want the Net to go and how this translates into ICANN's business. I hope ICANN can be much more than an administration signing contracts and developing policies around them. My priorities for the work of the ALAC in the coming two years is to consolidate what has been built up to now. The ALAC has gained credibility, mostly thanks to RALO process. It is quite unfortunate that the ALAC review mandated by ICANN bylaws happens at the very moment fo a major change within the ALAC. However, I am convinced that most parties will keep in mind that th current ALAC should not be redesigned based on the past track record. Still I am convinced there needs to be changes in the way users and individual domain name registrants are represented within ICANN. After all, the major part of the income of ICANN are the fees that are collected from the registrants through the registries and registars. We are actually the ones financing ICANN. We need a stronger voice. This message being already too long, I suggest you check my blog or my posts at CircleID if you want a more detailed view of my opinions. See the links at the end of this post. I thank you for attention and will do my best to honour your trust in me. Blog: http://patrick.vande-walle.eu CircleID: http://www.circleid.com/members/1694 -- Patrick Vande Walle