Alan Levin

Country of citizenship: South Africa
Place of residence: Cape Town, South Africa.
Email address: alan@afridns.org
Employer: Sunesi: http://www.sunesi.com/home

Statement of Qualifications and Experience

University:
B.Sc. (Computer Science and Industrial Psychology) from the University of the Witwatersrand

MBA from the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town.

In the past five years I have been involved in entrepreneurial internet activity that has directly created hundreds of new jobs for Africans. I was involved on a consultative basis on the development of the Telkom SA (the local telecom monopoly) Internet strategy and was a co-founder of the Telkom owned ISP, Intekom. I was responsibile for the development and provision of Internet services for the region. In addition to a matrix of national functions I have contracting services from South Africa to large corporations in the US.

In addition to policy and product functions, my current role at Sunesi includes participation as a voting member in the commercial international health data standard HL7 (Health Layer Seven) where I participate in an XML working group.

I have participated in inaugural AfriDNS and AfriNIC meetings and decision making in Cape Town this year. I continue to actively participate in the AfriDNS community. I have also participated in a UNDP training programme in Nigeria.

As an ICANN candidate I have recently obtained the endorsements of Dimension Data and UUNET, two key organisations participating in expanding the delivery of IP networking services and backbones in Africa.

Please see my candidate home page to read more about these endorsements and others. Here you will also find important statistics which I have together on the internet in Africa. http://afridns.org/alan

ICANN Related Interests

I am not just interested in ICANN, I am personally dedicated to working on ICANN related activities.

My work is involved with the user or customer end of ICANN related businesses and services. I do recognise that this differentiates me from the other African candidates and reflects that I truly do not have any direct financial interest in any ICANN-related business, organisation or service. I have been told by a leading African policy expert that my key strengths relating to this position are my fresh perspective and passionate enthusiasm.

I represent the concerns of the Africa@large group. Africans that include Internet Users, ISPs, Non-Profit Organisations, Internet start-ups, Entrepreneurs, Web Developers, Online marketers, Software developers, IT Professionals, all e-businesses and all their potential employees. I understand ICANN@large is to include this constituency. I am a passionate internet user and committed netizen.

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Personal Statement

I started playing with computers at the age of 12 years, mainframes, mini's and PC predecessors. I have maintained a key interest in the human computer interface and obtained first work experiences at Andersen Consulting where I practiced as a Management Consultant. I specialised in technology impact and worked in change management and strategy projects at corporate clients

After five years of developing business systems in various industry segments I obtained international experience and I returned to Cape Town to resettle in Africa. By early 1995 I was convinced that the internet would change computing and society.

Since then I have consistently achieved technical and business milestones of varying success. My involvement in the web site for the Cape Town 2004 Olympic Bid, lead to the highest international accolades in gold medals from Innovision new media in Web Design and Online Interface in 1997. I am proud of the B2C ecommerce from the site which generated sales at that time of over 13000 collector pins. Another milestone is the Aardvark African search engine, highly acclaimed for its functionality in spidering and database capacity. I have co-founded and provided infrastructure and direction for an African music community, Amuzine. I have developed ISPs, Portals, communities of interest, transaction communities and planned exchanges. I continue to define new Internet products for end markets. I believe that my track record and corporate endorsements illustrate that I will make a difference.

Please see my candidate page for more information on these and other ICANN issues: http://afridns.org/alan

Governmental Affiliations or Employment

None. I also have no political aspirations and I support the ICANN stance that 'we do not do politics'. My position is that government and legislative involvement in Internet administration should be kept to the minimum necessary to provide a viable economic environment.