Tadao Takahashi
Tadao Takahashi is the founder and former Director of Brazil's National Research Network (RNP), the Academic Internet in Brazil. Since 1999, he has served as Chair of Brazil's National Program for the Information Society. He currently serves as Chair of the Brazilian Chapter of the Internet Society, which he has promoted as a platform for wider participation of Brazil's Internet users in discussions about the future of the Internet. From 1995-1996 and again from 1999-2002, Mr. Takahashi was a member of Brazil's Internet Steering Committee.
Chair of the Latin America and Caribbean Outreach Node of the United Nation's ICT Task Force, Mr. Takahashi has a passion for understanding the needs and interests of individual users on the Internet, particularly those from low-income communities. Working to bring Internet access to children in Latin America's most remote regions, Mr. Takahashi has even negotiated with drug lords for permission to install telecenters for Internet access in regions they control.
Mr. Takahashi also served on ICANN's original Membership Advisory Committee in 1998.