2017 Council elections

Ko Te Arawa tōku iwi, ko Sarah Lee tāku ingoa, tena koutou! It’s been my privilege to serve the membership as an Internet NZ Councillor for the last 3 years.

Coming from a community development background with a digital literacy focus, the first year on Council was a steep learning curve. There is a lot to absorb for new Councillor’s, however, grasping that knowledge and adding to it along the way has increased my capacity to make meaningful contributions towards realising our vision of a better world through a better internet.

I am eager to apply what I’ve learnt to the next 3 years, providing some continuity and stability at the governance level as we navigate our way through the proposed InternetNZ group restructure.

I’ve worked hard on Council devoting many hours as a member of the Grants Committee and Chair of the Māori Engagement Committee over the past two years. While I am immensely proud of the progress made on both sub-committees, there is important work still to do that I would like to see through to completion.

With the support of staff, the Grants committee have continued to review and improve policies, processes and outreach. Our efforts have been rewarded with a significant increase in the quality and quantity of applications received over the past 12 months. Developing and implementing a grants impact framework is on our current work plan, which is an area I can offer skills and experience to.

I continue to support the Councils strategic goal of increasing our grant’s funding pool to $1m by 2020. This will enable more New Zealander’s to shape the growth of the internet as well as its development and use, which is critical if we are to maintain an open internet for the benefit of all.

I’ve been a key player in the establishment of our Māori Engagement Committee, accepting the position of Chair when it was formalised in December 2015. An internal strategy was developed with the guidance of external Māori tikanga experts. The vision ‘Internet NZ is effectively engaged with the Māori community, collaborating in a spirit of genuine and open engagement’ expresses what we aspire to achieve.

An important first step towards realising this vision was taken when Councillors and staff attended a two-day nation-building training with Takawai Murphy at Hongoeka Marae last year. We held our first Internet NZ Council meeting on a marae (at Hongoeka) the day after the training. Several programmes are in place to support and develop our understanding of Te Ao Māori through a whole-of-organisation approach. The committee are very close to implementing a Māori stakeholder outreach plan. Existing relationships with Māori stakeholders, coupled with my understanding of te reo Māori me ngā tikanga would contribute to a successful outcome in this important phase of our development.

In my day job I work as a marketing and accreditation consultant for the 20/20 Trust. I’ve been employed in a number of roles during my 6 year tenure with the organisation. I currently support the ICDL team with the KiwiSkills programme (digital skills for jobseekers), which includes supporting a Department of Corrections digital literacy pilot for female inmates.

Enabling the disadvantaged, digitally disconnected and often marginalised communities across the country, I am incredibly proud of the grass-roots programmes offered by the 20/20 Trust. Our work is not done until every New Zealand citizen has access to the internet and the digital literacy skills to use it. There is considerable alignment with Internet NZ around enabling access, an area I actively contribute to and am passionate about.

Living in the South Island in rural Marlborough, I have personally experienced accessibility and affordability issues that face rural communities. This has naturally stirred my interest in the RBI initiative and I advocate for rural communities at every opportunity. I am the only person on Council who lives in the South Island and I will actively work on increasing our membership numbers from the South over the next 3 years.

This is a very important and exciting time to be part of Internet NZ as it continues to mature and grow. With the internet now a fundamental part of many New Zealander’s daily life it is vital we continue protecting its potential and promoting its benefits.

I believe the Council are heading in the right direction by reviewing the current group structure. While this structure has served the group well, we need to remain open to more efficient ways of working if we are to stay agile and relevant on the fast-changing internet landscape.

If re-elected I will continue to bring aroha, integrity, passion and commitment to the role. It would be an honour to represent our membership for a second term.

Experience and skills include:

• Governance experience from a diverse range of Boards (10 years)
• Cross-Government relationship management
• Event and project management
• International ambassador for youth health
• Mother of two gamers

I'm Matthew Jackson, and I'd like your support to join the InternetNZ Council.

Why - I'm at the front of the Internet generation. I co-founded Global Mode, a product which sparked an international conversation about online consumer rights and changed the fabric of New Zealand's Internet.

I have been internationally recognised for thought leadership; in publications like the India Economic Times, as a speaker at events such as APRICOT, SANOG & ISPAI, and as keynote speaker at the European IoT Conference Descon.

I helped facilitate the copyright and net neutrality streams at NetHui. I’m proud of my involvement with the team at InternetNZ and Mohawk Media on the education campaign about copyright policy issues. The video production was an important first step in creating 'new media' communications to make InternetNZ messages accessible for everyday Kiwis.

I believe open internet access drives economic growth through a digital economy and I stand for these values;

1. Promote and protect the global free flow of information
2. Promote investment and competition in high-speed networks
3. Encourage multi-stakeholder cooperation in policy development processes

Shane Hobson and Matthew Harrison jointly nominated me for the council. Shane is on the board of ISPANZ and is Chair of the Web Access Waikato Trust, Matthew is the Chair of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association. I'm grateful for their support.

There are four areas I'll work on;

Grow Membership

Our goal is for a better world through a better Internet. By shifting from active work to informative engagement, I can see a future where InternetNZ membership can move public opinion for Internet opportunities like IoT and important issues such as Net Neutrality.

Misuse of Personal Data

Privacy of personal data is ingrained into many aspects of European legislation. I will work towards getting the same protections into NZ legislation.

Revenue Diversification

InternetNZ is reliant on a single declining source of income. I’ll undertake a review of the group's revenue and funding models as a part of the group restructuring review.

International Engagement

InternetNZ participates in international multi-stakeholder Internet governance. I will proactively support opportunities for our members and staff to continue our overseas engagement.

I have a proven ability to execute and deliver.  It would be my honour and a privilege to represent you on the InternetNZ Council.

The internet has become the nervous system of our society. Its future becomes ever more our future, its failures, our failures. InternetNZ has a unique vision and mission that it would be my honour to serve, and I am standing for the InternetNZ council because I have skills, experience, and perspective to add that will enhance this mission.

Me:

Born in Christchurch, I’m a technical expert by education, an international security consultant by trade, and a communicator by choice. As a queer technical woman, not only do I believe that people like me need to see people like me in positions of influence and making a difference, I believe that people NOT like me need to see people like me in positions of influence making a difference.

I also believe strongly in community, and in providing opportunities to those who do not get a fair shake. Accessible community is where opportunity breeds, where futures are made, and where great things come to pass. I am involved with NZITF, recognized with an ISANZ information Security award, and a core organizer of BSides Wellington, an inclusive community event aiming to maintain the momentum and community anchoring that Kiwicon previously provided.

Three things I'll bring:

1. Security/Privacy expertise and credibility

As a security expert, I find my particular area of expertise being used ever more to whittle away the very things that have enabled the internet and its benefits to be realized. The internet is founded on being open and free, but in NZ we don’t take that to mean you can openly abuse and harm people with it. At the same time, the need for stability and oversight doesn’t mean it should be overtaken by vested interests – whether government, private, corporate, intelligence, or other.

My security expertise, experience, and influence enables me to discuss security and privacy related topics with a rare level of knowledge, credibility, and passion that I believe will be an asset to the Council and to InternetNZ.

2. Commitment to Diversity and Accessibility

I’m a strong believer in the power of enabling others to succeed, particularly those who are different, whose journeys are more complex. This ranges from supporting them in their own journeys through mentoring and support, to being an example to others of what they can do.

3. Innovation and Strategy

Professionally I work on very large scale issues, with research into the effects of new internet technologies which haven’t yet arrived. I work on solutions that are as much social and political as technical, building strategies that provide incremental benefit at each step while working towards addressing the greater challenge.

Three things I’ll aim to do:

1. Strategic foresight to bigger and long term issues

Encourage expanded initiatives on important issues concerning the openness and capturability of the internet in NZ. These will either extend beyond the scope of the .nz space, or extend beyond immediate timelines. Key examples at present could include Automation, IoT, and non .nz external internet infrastructure (app stores and other walled gardens). 

2. Member expansion and member value

Support and expand the existing work to both grow and broaden membership, ensuring an increasingly more representative viewpoint of NZ’s people and stakeholders. This will require identifying underrepresented groups (such as young people), and explicitly involving them. Additionally, I will investigate ways to provide explicit value to members, ensuring that InternetNZ is exhibiting value to all our members, beyond that we provide to NZ and the Internet more generally.

3. Financial Diversification

Support the diversification of funding sources so internet NZ will survive and thrive if conditions change. InternetNZ has access to people, technology and IP that few can match, all with a mission and a charitable status that enables it to explore new services. The exact nature of these sources will need to be carefully considered to align with our mission and charitable status. But, I believe we can explore diverse funding sources that will not only enrich new Zealand, but will ensure InternetNZ is here to advocate an open and uncapturable internet far into the unknown and unknowable future.

Professional Experience:

I have worked with clients across the globe and, in this role I not only tested the security of systems myself, I sat down with development teams as they built, worked with architects as they designed, and discussed with risk owners and boards as they decided. I have worked on some incredibly challenging and high-stakes projects (including medical devices and internet connected cars), published on new Internet protocols and technologies (Multipath-TCP, QUIC, HTTP/2), liaised with media on many different topics, and spoken at many different events across several countries (including BlackHat USA, APRICOT, Kiwicon, ACSC, and more).

Hello, my name is Dave Moskovitz. I was member number two of the Internet Society of New Zealand (as it was called then) in 1995. I have been on the InternetNZ Council since 2010, and I am asking you to re-elect me for one final term so that I can focus my efforts to bring operational efficiency to our organisation.

TL;DR: I’m an experienced Internet technologist, company director, and innovator. InternetNZ does great work, but has become top-heavy. The time has come to consolidate our gains, and focus on operational efficiency. Rather than growing ourselves, we should put our resources into better supporting other organisations that do good work that is aligned to our objects.

You can find out about my professional background on my blog or LinkedIn profile. Briefly, I’m a software developer by trade, more recently a serial entrepreneur, startup investor, and company director, and passionate about growing the New Zealand digital economy through new companies doing cool stuff on a global stage using the Internet. You might be interested in watching my TEDx Wellington talk on The Four Superpowers of the Internet.

When I entered Council in 2010, InternetNZ was a vastly different organisation, and Council was a very different place too. During my tenure, we’ve seen:

• The diversification of Council from an all-white-male group to a body that contains a significant number of women as well as Māori representation. Most meetings now have roughly equal numbers of women and men attending.
• Council lifting its game from being fractious to working well together, respectfully debating the issues to achieve the best outcome for wider society.
• The professionalisation of staff where InternetNZ is now seen as an important contributor to Internet policy development, and a worthy steward of the dot-nz domain space, as recognised by Government through a Memorandum of Understanding. Our focus areas – Access to the Internet, Trust on the Internet, and Creative Potential – are exactly the areas where InternetNZ can have the most impact. We continue to run a world-class domain name registry with open, transparent, robust policy.
• The introduction of a formal grants programme and strategic partnership programme whereby we distribute significant funding to other organisations aligned with our objects. We’ve funded a wide variety of important work including such varied initiatives such as relatively early research into SDN, the Christchurch rebuild, the 2020 Trust, and Creative Commons Aotearoa/NZ. Through sponsorships, we’ve also supported Kiwicon, GovHack, Rails Girls, and many more.
• Key issues supported by our society, such as the rewrite of Section 92a of the Copyright Act to prevent rights holders from wantonly prosecuting alleged infringers, and the nationwide rollout of Ultra Fast Broadband. We also fought against the TPPA, and managed to mitigate some of its worst components, pushed for the establishment of a CERT and rallied against the Vodafone-Sky merger. We’ve also exhibited great leadership in the areas of encryption, copper pricing, and contributed to the Digital Future Manifesto.
• Much better engagement with our membership and the wider public through events such as NetHui, public speaker series, publications such as dotNews, and stories in the mainstream media.

In many ways, the organisation is on the right track. But things are not nearly as good as they could be. As three organisations (InternetNZ, Domain Name Commission Limited, and NZRS Limited) we lack alignment and could work much more effectively. There has been more than one occasion in the last few years where one of our constituent organisations has “lawyered up” against another. This is not acceptable, and a waste of resources and goodwill. There is unnecessary duplication of effort between the organisations, and no great incentives to coordinate. As a group we’ve sent nine people to an ICANN meeting – without a single structure, there is no way to keep costs like this under control. There are eighteen governors, three CE’s and three deputy CE’s (or equivalent) – that’s crazy for a group of 30-40 people. Our resources are unnecessarily siloed, and we obtain a poor return on investment from them.

I was on the Council’s Organisational Review Committee which recommended that the three organisations be combined into one. It’s worth noting that I am also Council’s nominated director on the board of the Domain Name Commission. This board would be disestablished should the recommendation be carried through, so you could call me a turkey voting for an early Christmas. I also believe that the size of Council should also be significantly reduced.

On the subject of the Domain Name Commission, we could have done a better job in the recent WHOIS consultation. I accept my portion of responsibility for the organisation’s initial poor consideration of vulnerable people affected by the lack of a robust privacy option. However I am satisfied with where the policy landed – we continued to consult, listened, and ultimately ended up with a good result.

I have been a hardworking Councillor, and have a member of the time-consuming but important Grants Committee, and I believe I’ve only missed two Council meetings during my tenure. On Council, I have by far the most experience in governance, and am one of four Councillors with in-depth experience in writing software that implements the protocols that are the core business of our organisation.

Should I be re-elected, my focus will be on Operational Efficiency: turning the InternetNZ group into a high functioning, efficient, authoritative, well-oiled machine that continues to provide world class policy advice, registry services, and works hard for the Local Internet Community as required by RFC1591. Rather than continuing to grow as an organisation, I would rather see InternetNZ deploy its resources in better supporting allied organisations through more grants, sponsorships, and strategic partnerships. Rather than trying to do more ourselves, I believe we will be better off enabling others to do great things with the Internet in their respective spheres of interest.

Hi. I am Hayden Glass. I have had the privilege to serve as a Councillor since 2014 and I am keen to serve one more term.

InternetNZ has come a long way in recent years. We have moved from a organisation where members did most of the work to an organisation where most things are done by a larger core staff. Our focus on the issues has broadened as the Internet has become more central to daily life. We have developed our flagship event Nethui, added new things like the speaker series and improved communications, expanded our grants programme, and diversified our governance and our membership. All the while we have continued to provide the domain name policy, regulation and registry services that are central to why we exist, and we have explored developing other commercial services that in time could help sustain our revenues.

There are two especially important items for me on our roadmap. One is the organisational review that the Council has started, proposing to combine our three organisations into one. As with others, I think InternetNZ is over-governed and that our complex internal structure is no longer serving us as well as it could. I am keen to make sure that we keep the pieces that are working for us while moving past the organisational design elements that were set up for a situation that we are no longer in.

I am a supporter of making Council smaller as well, so long as we can ensure stronger organisational oversight, good access to necessary skills, and a diversity of views around the table. A streamlined internal structure and a smaller Council could mean a much bigger workload for Councillors.

The second important item for me is improving engagement with members. We have made some important progress with this. I was on the Council committee on Membership Engagement that helped define the path we are taking organisationally. There remains more to do to make it easier, more relevant, and more enjoyable to be a member of InternetNZ.

In the midst of all of this internally-focused effort, we need also to not lose sight of the services to the Internet community that are the reason for our existence.

I reckon the world is just getting started on the transformations that will be brought by the power of Internet to encourage collaboration, information sharing and more open innovation. There are threats to this positive future that Internet NZ plays a role in guarding against. And there are big opportunities that lie before us that I think Internet NZ can help hurry along. We need to lead on some of these things, and enable and support on others. We can get a long way by working with like-minded folk to advance the issues that matter.

I work as the COO of Figure.NZ, a social enterprise making it easier to find and to use data about New Zealand. I also do some consulting projects, mostly on the impacts of technology and data on business. And, with two friends, I bought a secondhand bookstore in Auckland a year ago to restore it to commercial sustainability so it can continue to serve the Ponsonby community. The Open Book, we have called it.

My background is the telecommunications industry and in economics. Way way back I studied law. I'd be delighted to continue to bring these perspectives to the Council table.

Te Rarawa, Board member IITP (Institute of IT Professionals), BSocSci (Computer Science, Maori), PGDip (Information Systems), Principal Paua Interface Ltd, Medical Drones Aotearoa.

My contribution to a “better world through a better Internet” can be summed up as building bridges. Successful Internet projects can be measured by people knowing that they've achieved something worthwhile.

I've managed an IT consulting company (www.pauainterface.nz) for 27 years. While I've worked at the coalface, I've also served in governance roles including the National Health IT Board, National Maori Broadband Working Group, Digital Strategy Advisory Group and others. I’m currently supporting students at the Tech Futures Lab with The Mind Lab team. All of this has provided a strategic and technical insight that helps me to help others navigate through what many believe is a formidable sector.

I'm also in a rare position to volunteer IT skills and mentoring to groups that would otherwise not have access. Two recent projects are 'Mitimiti on the Grid' http://thedownload.co.nz/our-stories/catching-up-with-the-rest-of-the-world-at-high-speed/) and the early startup Medical Drones Aotearoa (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?objectid=11882053&ref=twitter)

Mitimiti on the Grid was driven by the belief that once a community is "fibred up", economic growth can be measured at the two-year point. This collaboration brought fast speed fibre Internet and mobile capability to a community six hours north of Auckland, that was destined to be a telecommunications 'blackspot'. We asked, “What would it take to curb decades of population decline and to achieve economic growth in Mitimiti - and who will help?”

Medical Drones Aotearoa is about breaking down barriers that prevent people getting their medicines in rural areas - where people get sicker or worse than their urban counterparts. We expect to be trialing the first drone deliveries in November 2017. We asked “How can we get medicines to people in isolated places fast and cheaply – and who will help?”

I do ask for help a lot where projects have no obvious source of skills or funds. I’ve found over the years, that there are some stunningly awesome people out there who step into these projects and help to make things happen. Those of us in the IT sector are in positions to influence substantial changes in people's lives.

I believe that the Board of InternetNZ requires us to contribute meaningfully to society and to do so with the utmost professionality, confidence and intent. I strive to exhibit a professional ethic that is informed not only by my work, but also by the communities being served. If InternetNZ's membership believes that diversity coupled with a professional IT background can bring a breadth of untapped experiences that will have an impact, then I can offer to help extend the Board's reach so that we can evolve and shape our collective futures.

I am a founding InternetNZ member, InternetNZ Fellow, former Councillor and member of the "Hine Commission" that defined how InternetNZ operates the NZ domain. Outside of InternetNZ, I have founded two Internet service providers (one of the first in NZ), built a significant domain hosting services platform and provided technical leadership in DNS operations, industry competition and open access fibre/layer 2 distribution network architecture and specification, including UFB development.

A quarter century in this game gives me a strong "feel" for how the Internet services are provided and operate and the issues faced by the industry, ranging from the commercial and policy overview down to bits on wires.

I believe strongly in level playing fields and maintaining low barriers to entry, as I believe these are essential to ensuring an efficient, competitive and innovative industry. I have a solid track record of influencing the industry in this direction.

As a prospective InternetNZ Councillor, I seek to continue this influence, and to be able to assist Council with technical viewpoints, in a Council now dominated my non-technical interests. Being able to understand what goes on under the hood is vital to being able to accurately comment and direct policy efforts in the service provision space.

Outside of the access space, I am particularly interested in how Internet services are used and funded, and how the services we enjoy today are sustainable in the long term, how the rise of a small number of dominant players in the market distorts how the industry operates, how the industry and consumers will react to these challenges and of course what we need to do to make the Internet better in the face of these issues.

Having been at the sharp end of NZ domain policy during its development, I do want to ensure that sight of the issues raised at the time are not lost in the rush to streamline the organisation. NZRS was separated from InternetNZ to ensure NZ registrars had a stable, focused organisation with which to deal with and to contain commercial risks, and I believe it is essential not to lose sight of that in a reorganisation. I hope that by being a part of that reorganisation, I can assist in ensuring that that the essential character of NZ domain management is preserved.

As I am not currently a member of the Council that has proposed the organisation changes, I can bring an fresh, independent viewpoint to the subsequent development of the new structure.