ICANN Nominating Committee
Members, 2004

This page contains some background biographical information about each Nominating Committee member.

Bernard Aboba

Jose Luis Barzallo

José Luis Barzallo is an attorney with Barzallo & Barzallo Peñaherrera, and a consultant at the BID Inter-American Development Bank and the Ecuadorian Institute of Intellectual Property. Consultant at the World Bank and the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations, for the wording of the Ecuadorian electronic tax regulation; Consultant at the Consejo Nacional de Telecomunicaciones CONATEL (National Council of Telecommunications), for the wording of the Ecuadorian Electronic Law Regulation; Co-author and coordinator of the Ecuadorian Law Project of Electronic Commerce. He also teaches electronic commerce law in the master degree, Competition Rights at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, and at the doctor's degree level of the International University SEK and is President of the Ecuadorian Association of Informatics Law and Telecommunications. Barzallo also is a national and international lecturer at numerous seminars and courses on electronic commerce.

Jose Luis serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the At Large Advisory Committee.

Jean-Michel Becar

Jean-Michel is a Senior Architect for Global Media Online INC. (GMO) in Tokyo. He started his career in the early 1990's working for IBM as a Telecom engineer, and then as project leader for Digital Equipement Corporation. He spent seven years working for the European Telecom Standard Institue (ETSI) where he became the ETSI representative in all the Internet bodies like CORE, RIPE, IETF and ICANN.

Jean-Michel serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the Registrars Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Jean-Jacques Damlamian

Jean-Jacques Damlamian is Special Advisor to the CEO of France Telecom. From 2003-2004, he was Senior Vice President Corporate Technology and Innovation in charge of the Group R&D activities, the Directorate of Innovation and the Directorate of the Intellectual Property and Licensing. From 1996 – 2002, he was Group Executive of the Development Branch, in charge of Strategy, International Business Development, R&D and Information Systems. During this period he was the sponsor of all the changes brought by the Internet to the business of France Telecom: introducing high speed internet (ADSL) in the offering portfolio, and using the Internet technologies in all company processes.

From 1991 – 1995, he was Senior VP Marketing and Sales for France Telecom. He established an organization based on product lines and Market divisions, launched the ISP business of France Telecom and created what later became Wanadoo. From 1989 – 1991, he was Group VP, International and Industrial Affairs. Under his management, France Telecom established strategic points of presence in the world and invested in overseas networks (Telecom Argentina and Telmex in Mexico). From 1988 - 1989 He was VP Mobile Services for France Telecom. He launched the GSM-network program (Itinéris), a personal communication service.

Prior to 1988 he worked in various divisions in France Telecom (R&D laboratory CNET, Local and Long Distance Networks Operations, Overseas Networks) and at the headquarters as a Personal assistant to the Chief Executive Officer.

Mr. Damlamian has served on the Bull Board of Directors since 1996, the Palm Board of Directors since 2000, and has been Chairman of the Eutelsat Supervisory Board since 2001.

Jean-Jacques Damlamian graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique (X61) and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications. He is Recipient of the French Legion of Honour, the National Merit Order and the "Palmes Académiques.” He is also a Member of IEEE.

Mr. Damlamian serves as the non-voting Chair of the Nominating Committee, appointed by the ICANN Board.

Alan Davidson

Alan Davidson is Associate Director at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), a Washington D.C. non-profit group working to promote civil liberties and human rights on the Internet and other new digital media. He works broadly on issues relating to Internet policy including free speech and censorship, copyright, and Internet governance. Mr. Davidson's is currently leading a major new initiative at CDT focused on the public interest issues surrounding copyright and digital rights management.

This spring Mr. Davidson is a Visiting Scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Program in Science, Technology, and Society. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's Communications, Culture, and Technology Program.

Mr. Davidson serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the At Large Advisory Committee.

Pavan Duggal

Pavan Duggal, a practicing Advocate, Supreme Court of India, is an internationally renowned expert and authority on Cyberlaw and E-Commerce law. Pavan is President of Cyberlaws.Net, which is Internet's first ever-unique Cyberlaw consultancy. He is President, Cyberlaw Asia, Founder, The Cyberlaw Association & Founder President, Cyberlaw India. He has been a Member of Membership Advisory Committee and Membership Implementation Task Force of ICANN. Pavan has been a consultant to UNCTAD and UNESCAP on Cyberlaw and Cybercrime respectively. He is a member of AFACT Legal Working Group of UN/CEFAT and has worked as an expert authority on a Cyberlaw primer for e-ASEAN Task Force. He is on the Board of Experts of European Commission’s Dr. E-Commerce. Pavan is also a member of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center Panel of Neutrals. Pavan is associated with Ministry of Information Technology, Government of India on legal issues of Electronic Governance and Data Protection. Pavan is a prolific writer and speaker and has authored four books as well. He was a member of the 2003 ICANN Nominating Committee.

Pavan serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the At Large Advisory Committee.

Grant Forsyth

Since November 2000 Grant has been a representative of the Business Constituency on ICANN's DNSO (now GNSO) council and is also currently a Council member of InternetNZ, the delegated authority and policy body for the .nz ccTLD. As Manager Industry & Regulatory Affairs, Grant is responsible for the development and articulation of regulatory and public policy for TelstraClear Ltd., New Zealand's second largest full service telecommunications company and first competitive challenger to the privately owned ex-monopolist incumbent. Prior to joining TelstraClear in 1998, he was for 5 years the CEO of TUANZ, the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand. This followed 13 years in the IT industry including periods of work in the USA and UK. Grant has an MSCE from the University of Washington in Seattle and an Executive MBA from the University of Auckland, NZ.

Grant serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, representing large business users, selected by the Business Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Hartmut Richard Glaser

Hartmut Richard Glaser is Assistant Professor at the Escola Politécnica (Engineering Faculty) of the University of São Paulo since 1968.

He has been Coordinator of ".br Registry Services" and Coordinator of Brazil’s NIR for IP addresses since 1996. He also serves as Director (Treasurer) of LACNIC and AC/ASO Member for the LACNIC Region.

Hartmut serves a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the Council of the Address Supporting Organization.

Dr. Rainer Händel

Rainer Händel works within the Siemens Information and Communication Networks Group as a director of standards coordination. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg. He joined Siemens in 1978 where he was engaged in software development for switching systems, in concepts and standardisation of broadband networks, and in the analysis of the liberalisation und deregulation of telecommunication markets. From October 1994 till the end of 1995 he was a member of the Planning Board of the German Foreign Office in Bonn (with a focus on the societal impact of new information and communication technologies). He has been an active member of several international standardisation organisations such as ITU and ETSI for a long time and is the author of several technical articles and a book on broadband networking.

Rainer Händel participated in the preparation and execution of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as the German industry representative. During the WSIS process the subject of Internet governance, which includes the current and future role of ICANN, has appeared as one of the most contentious issues to be resolved till WSIS II in 2005. To this aim, many institutions are contributing, for example the International Chamber of Commerce’s Advisory Committee on Internet Governance and the UN ICT Task Force.

R. Händel is a member of the ICC Advisory Committee; he also participated in, and submitted a paper to, the recent UN ICT Task Force Global Forum on Internet Governance.

Dr. Händel serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI).

Alf Hansen

Alf Hansen is Managing Director of UNINETT FAS A/S, a subsidiary company of UNINETT A/S, the non-commercial academic network in Norway.

He graduated from The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) as "Sivilingeniør" (Graduate Engineer) in 1973. After 5 years as a computer communications consultant, he became research scientist at SINTEF, Telecom and Informatics in Trondheim.

He served as Chairman of RARE WG 1 (on MHS) - (RARE was later reorganized into TERENA), the NORDUNET MHS WG and the IETF X.400 Operations WG.

From 1991 Alf was employed as Operational Manager in UNINETT A/S, and in 1999 he became the first Director of UNINETT FAS A/S. The Norid ccTLD function was hosted by UNINETT FAS until summer 2003 where UNINETT Norid A/S was established as a not-for-profit limited company. Alf has been member of the CENTR Executive Committee since 2001.

Alf serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the ccNSO.

Jeanette Hofmann

Jeanette Hofmann, PhD in political science, holds a temporary position as professor in the Department of Political Science for Politics and Communication at the University Duisburg-Essen.

She is program leader for Internet Governance at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB) (Social Science Research Center Berlin) continuing research of the project group "Kulturraum Internet" which she co-founded in 1994. She is co-coordinator of the WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, and a member of the WSIS German Civil Society Coordination Group. As such, she has been a representative of this group in the German Government Delegation to the World Summit on the Information Society.

In 2003 she was a member of the editorial group of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)´s “problem statement” working group, and has co-authored one of the internet drafts of this working group. Since 2003 she has been a member of the Committee for Communication and Information of the German Chapter of UNESCO (Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission e.V.), and since 2002, a member of the academic advisory board of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.

In 2001 she participated in the international NGO and Academic ICANN Study (NAIS) group which was formed to explore public participation in ICANN. In 2000 she was a member nominated candidate for the ICANN election.

She has done research on the IETF and the development of IPv6, on ICANN and the DNS. At present she leads a study on ENUM.

Jeanette serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the At Large Advisory Committee.

George McLaughlin

George McLaughlin is the Director of International Developments for AARNet (Australia’s Academic and Research Network). He joined AARNet in 1995 initially overseeing the sale of AARNet’s commercial customer base to Telstra, Australia’s dominant telecommunications carrier. In 1997, he managed the process of establishing AARNet2, the second generation national network connecting Australia’s universities and research organisations. He guided the establishment of AARNet Pty Ltd as a separate legal entity (with its own carrier licence) responsible for managing and developing the AARNet network; and has since been the driver for positioning AARNet as one of the leading research and education network organisations.

George has been instrumental in establishing international connectivity from Australia to the global R&E networks. Starting with an indefeasible right to use on a 155Mbps circuit between Australia, Hawaii and the US West coast in 2001, to the recently announced dual 10Gbps circuits (SX TransPORT – Trans-Pacific Optical Research Testbed). He has served on various national and international committees associated with telecommunications and advanced networking and has been recognized for his contributions to advancing telecommunications in Australia as recipient in 2003 of both the ATUG Chairman’s award and the Sir Ernest Fisk award.

George was invited by the European Commission to be an independent expert evaluator for the advanced networks of the EU Sixth Framework Program. He is one of only two non-US members of the International Committee of the Board of Internet2. He is a member of the Pacific North West Gigapop Advisory Council (Seattle); the Asia Pacific Advanced Network’s (APAN) Backbone Committee; and is currently Vice President of the Asia Pacific Advanced Network Consortium (APAN).

He served on Senator Alston’s Broadband Advisory Committee and on Minister Nelson’s Higher Education Broadband Advisory Committee.

George is a graduate of the former Royal Institute of Chemistry. He has worked in the chemical, pharmaceutical, engineering, precious metal and information technology industries, has authored more than 50 research papers, and has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Ram Mohan

Ram Mohan is Vice President, Business Operations & Chief Technical Officer of Afilias Limited. At Afilias, Ram is charged with managing all of Afilias’ technical operations which support the generic top-level domains (gTLDs) .INFO and .ORG, in addition to a number of country code domains.

With Ram’s guidance, Afilias was the first to implement an XML-based "thick" registry running on the new Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP), and was the first to complete the largest transition of a domain registry when it successfully transitioned .ORG from VeriSign Global Registry Services on behalf of the .ORG registry operator, the Public Interest Registry.

Before joining Afilias in September 2001, Ram was at Infonautics Corp., a pioneering online database and content distribution company. He has held various leadership positions at Infonautics, including Interim COO, CTO and VP, Product Marketing. Ram is the founder of the award-winning CompanySleuth product, and created the Sleuth line of business at Infonautics. He helped architect Electric Library, the United States' most used online reference database in schools and libraries, and Encyclopedia.com, the first free encyclopedia on the Internet. Prior to joining Infonautics, Ram worked with First Data Corporation, Unisys Corporation and KPMG Peat Marwick in a variety of leadership, engineering and technology positions.

Ram’s educational background reflects his belief that technology is best used for business advantage and market leadership. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Mangalore, an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from Bharathidasan University, and is completing a second Master’s in Computer Science at Philadelphia’s Drexel University.

Ram has been active in the ICANN community, serving on the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) implementation task force, the GNSO WHOIS task force, the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) registry implementation committee, and the 2003 ICANN Nominating Committee. Ram is a member of the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), which is an ICANN Board advisory committee comprised of Internet pioneers and technical experts including operators of Internet root servers, registrars, and TLD registries. In 2003, Ram was named one of the Philadelphia Business Journal’s 40 under 40. Ram also serves on the Board of the Philadelphia-based Metropolitan Career Center, serves on the advisory boards of several Philadelphia-area startup companies, and is actively involved in cancer-related nonprofits.

Ram serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the gTLD Registries Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Simbo Ntiro

Simbo Ntiro is a management consultant at WorldAhead Consulting Network, and an independent management consultant focused on digital opportunities for Tanzania’s development. He is a DOT Force alumni and participates in the UN ICT Task Force and is active on a number of working groups implementing the Genoa Plan of Action and supporting achieving the UN’s MDGs. In addition, he is part of the Tanzania technical team that prepared its involvement in the Geneva WSIS event in December 2003 having attended PrepCom3. He is a member Tanzania’s Ministry of Communications and Transport National ICT Task Force that drafted the first National ICT Policy, and the Implementation Task Force that is now preparing implementation plans for the National ICT Policy that was approved by Cabinet in March 2003.

Simbo is acknowledged as an influential expert on matters pertaining to “e”, ICT for Development and the digital divide. He is also a founder member of Tanzania’s eThink Tank (with over 480 members), a focal point for ICT and development issues in Tanzania. He also manages a number of other discussion fora related to ICT and development. He sits on a number of steering committees of ongoing ICT projects being executed by various entities. He is the founding Vice Chairman of the Tanzanian Chapter of the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA). He is also a contributing author to a book project for the University of Maryland focused on the Tanzanian Case Study entitled “Negotiating the Net – Diffusion of the Internet.”

He sits on the Board of Directors of SchoolNet Africa, a pan-African NGO headquartered in South Africa and is on the Finance Committee of the Board. SchoolNet Africa is charged with continent-wide interventions in the education system focused on deploying ICT to improve learning systems and is currently in negotiations with NEPAD to become the implementing agency for NEPAD’s eSchools Initiative. Simbo is a member of the Consultative Group of Experts Committee established by NEPAD’s eAfrica Commission.

Simbo serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the At Large Advisory Committee.

Adam Peake

Adam works at the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), a research institute located in Tokyo. Adam has been living in Japan since 1989 and joined GLOCOM in April 1993. His interests are the intersection of public policy and the Internet, and promoting information and communication technologies in society.

Adam participated in the G8 DOT Force where GLOCOM was the Japanese NPO representative. Adam has co-led GLOCOM's work on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), including GLOCOM's role as facilitator of NGO/Civil Society participation in the Asia and Pacific Regional WSIS Conference, January 2003. He is a coordinator of the WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, and a member of the Public Interest Registry Advisory Council.

Before coming to Japan, Adam was employed at British Telecom as a project manager working on the interconnection of Other Licensed Operators (cellular radio, radio paging and competitive telephony carriers.)

Adam serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the Non-Commercial Users Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Michael Roberts

Mike Roberts was the first President and CEO of ICANN, serving from 1998 to 2001. Previously he was a founder and the first Director of the Internet2 project in the United States. His professional career has been in computing and networking in higher education in the United States, where he has been widely published and has served in management and as a Director of many non-profit organizations associated with the Internet.

Ellen Shankman

Ellen B. Shankman, Esq. has more than twenty years of experience practicing Trademark and Intellectual Property Law. Formerly a partner and the head of the trademark department with one of the largest intellectual property firms in Israel, Ms. Shankman specializes in global branding, trademark and trade name counseling, including the development and management of international trademark portfolios for technology and other companies. She represents the administrative body responsible for Domain Name allocation under the .IL ccTLD and contributed the section on Israel Trademark and Internet Law, as well as the chapter on ccTLDs for the International Trademark Association's ("INTA") book Trademark Law & the Internet. Ms. Shankman has also authored the section on Israel Trademark and Internet Law in Domain Names: Global Practice and Procedure published by Sweet & Maxwell.

Ms. Shankman is Vice-Chair of the prestigious INTA Internet Committee, which has been instrumental in defining the legal issues associated with the Internet and e-business, and she has served as a member of INTA's Emerging Issues Subcommittee. Ms. Shankman recently completed her tenure as a member of the Policy Council of the Generic Domain Name Supporting Organization of ICANN (formerly the Names Council) representing the Intellectual Property Constituency, which works to formulate policy and consensus regarding domain name governance on the Internet. She is the recipient of the 2002 INTA’s first-ever Volunteer Service Award for the Advancement of the Association for her work in the Internet area.

Ellen B. Shankman is admitted to practice before the Israel, New York, Massachusetts and Maryland Courts, as well as before the U.S. Federal and Supreme Courts. She practiced law in the U.S. as a litigator before immigrating to Israel in 1986.

Ellen serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the Intellectual Property Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Antonio Tavares

Antonio Tavares lives in São Paulo, Brasil. Owner of an ISP company since 1993, Tavares is the ISP representative to the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, a national council named by the government of Brazil for local Internet governance. He has been a founder and President of ABRANET, the National Association of ISPs for 5 years, and remains a member of its Superior Council. Previously, Tavares worked for VIA NET.WORKS for 3 years, living in the USA.

Tavares serves as a voting member of the Nominating Committee, selected by the Internet Service Providers Constituency of the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

Christopher Wilkinson

Christopher Wilkinson is Head of the Secretariat for the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). He was a GAC Vice Chair, 2001-2002. He is Adviser, Internet Governance at the Directorate General for Information Society. Since January 2003 the GAC Secretariat is based in the European Commission, Brussels.

Christopher Wilkinson was born in Fujian, China in 1941. After returning to England in 1951 he was educated in Yorkshire and at Cambridge University, where he took degrees in Natural Science and Economics. He studied management at the London Business School (1971) and international relations at Harvard (1982-83). He has taught economics in London (1962-63), European Integration in Lisbon (1980-81) and industrial economics at the College of Europe, Bruges (1989-90). He speaks French and Spanish.

Following a career with the Commonwealth Secretariat, OECD and the World Bank, including periods living in Madrid and Lagos, he joined the European Commission as Head of Division in 1973. There, he managed several Divisions dealing with regional development, industrial policy and international, economic and technological aspects of the information society. He participated in the first EU exploratory missions on science and technology cooperation to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union (1990). He led the European Commission delegation to the ITU World Radio Conference (1992).

Since 1996, as Adviser in the Directorate General for Information Society (DG XIII), he has been closely associated with the reform of the DNS and the creation of ICANN and GAC. In 1998 he was nominated in his personal capacity by the Internet Society as a member of the Policy Oversight Committee (POC) of the gTLD MOU.

IIn his capacity as Head of the GAC Secretariat, Mr. Wilkinson has been designated to serve as the GAC's non-voting liaison to the Nominating Committee.

Linda Wilson

B.A. Newcomb College, Tulane University; Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Honorary doctorates from University of Maryland, and Tulane University. Former Vice President for Research, University of Michigan and President Emerita, Radcliffe College, Harvard University.

Linda has contributed long service on national committees in the United States addressing research and development, and university-industry-government relationships. She has extensive experience on governing boards of non-profit and for-profit organizations and served as a member of the ICANN Board of Directors from its founding in 1998 until 2003. Currently, she is a member of: Board of Administrators, Tulane University; Board of Directors, Tulane Murphy Foundation; Board of Directors, Myriad Genetics, Inc.; Board of Advisors for College of Letters and Sciences, University of Wisconsin; Dean’s Advisory Council, Newcomb College; Board of Trustees, Committee on Economic Development; and Board of Directors, Friends of DaPonte String Quartet (www.DaPonte.org). She is an Elected Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science; and member of the American Chemical Society.

As the previous Chair of the ICANN Nominating Committee, Linda is a non-voting member of the 2004 Nominating Committee, serving as Advisor.

Pindar Wong

Pindar Wong is Chairman of VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd., an Internet infrastructure consultancy. Since co-founding Hong Kong's first licensed Internet Service Provider (ISP) in 1993, Pindar has remained actively involved with helping to develop and promote the Internet in the Asia Pacific region.

He currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, the technical advisory board of the Packet Clearing House, the international advisory boards of the UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, the advisory board of CDT's Global Internet Policy Initiative and the editorial advisory board of Cisco System's Internet Protocol Journal. Pindar is also an Associate member of the Orbicom Network (the international network of UNESCO Chairs in Communications). He is Chairman of the Island School Council.

Previously, he has served as Chairman of the Asia Pacific Internet Association, the Executive Committee Chairman of the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies, the alternate chair of the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre. He was appointed by the Internet Architecture Board to the Policy Oversight Committee and has served as the Vice Chairman of ICANN's Board of Directors, the At Large Study Committee and the Associate Chair of 2003 Nominating Committee. In 2003 he served as Vice-Chairman of the Business Domain for the ITU's Telecom World 2003 and on the Steering Committee for the Youth Forum.

Pindar is a non-voting member of the 2004 Nominating Committee. Appointed by the Chair, he serves again as the Associate Chair.