Sophia Bekele

Ethiopian Champion of the .africa initiative

In an exclusive conversation with Bekele, ET asked "What international policy changes would you like to see regarding usage of Internet domains?   

"We have seen a major one in this recent past on International Domain Names (IDNs), which exemplifies the benefits made by the international community to support language development to theinternet based on non-English scripts,which was great. The internationalcommunity that were beneficiaries havegiven credence to DCA its contribution to the ICANN policy development process towards this end ad have endorsed our initiative for such. Further to this, I would like to see a continuation of the internet governance such that it remains free of politics - truly independent of any single or group of countries."   

Sophia Bekele is an

Ethiopian

born executive who has served on numerous international bodies including Internet  Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), United Nations  African Information Society Initiative  (AISI); and has spoken at a host of global  events -UNECA, ISOC, the Africa Union Union Commission.   

A successful entrepreneur with businesses in both North America and her native Ethiopia she has also  spoken at the Stanford Women in Business series, Silicon Valley; and on e-Government at the ITU World Summit on Information Society .  

 Bekele is co-founder of the Internet Society for San Francisco Bay and has represented East Africa on the UN sponsored Steering  Committee for African Stakeholders Network.  

     

Africa's response to the benefits of a unified continental domain on the internet.  It is a new idea which will be guided by the ICANN policy embodied in the rule-book that's a process which is both competitive and "bottoms up" - Sophia Bekele

  

More for full interview and profile: Bekele's talk with Enterprise Technology, page 16 

Press Release: http://prlog.org/11536918

 

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