DotAsia Board Elections 2010

Jan 13, 2010

Please send comments regarding the Board Elections Procedures to boardelections2010[at]dot.asia

The DotAsia Board Elections 2010 was held between December 2009 and February 2010. Nominations and voting was conducted electronically and according to the finalized Board Elections Procedures 2010, which was drafted based on DotAsia’s Memorandum & Articles of Incorporation. A first draft of the Board Elections Procedures was posted on Dec 2, 2009, and a finalized Board Elections Procedures 2010 was published on Dec 7, 2009.

The nominations period commenced on Dec 9, 2009 and concluded on Jan 13, 2010. The results of the nominations are posted below.

The voting period commenced on Jan 27, 2010 and concluded on Feb 10, 2010. The election results are posted below.

Sponsor Member Category

There were 4 vacancies in the Sponsor Member category and based on the voting results, the following candidates were elected in the Sponsor Member category:

Candidate Sub-Region
Alireza SALEH Middle East, Asia Minor and Eurasia
Dr. SIR Jae-Chul North and Northeast Asia
Stafford Guest Australia and Pacific
Joel E. DISINI South and Southeast Asia

Co-Sponsor Member Category

There was 1 vacancy in the Co-Sponsor Member category and no voting was required as there was only one candidate nominated for the one vacancy. Below is the candidate who was deemed elected:

Candidate
Che-Hoo CHENG

Results of the election were ratified in DotAsia’s annual general meeting (AGM) which was held in Kuala Lumpur on Feb 28, 2010.

In this Board Elections, all elected Directors representing each category shall serve on the board for 2 years, and the term of service was to begin from Feb 28, 2010.

As a result, the following persons will form the new board of DotAsia, starting February 28, 2010:

  • Che-Hoo CHENG (re-elected)
  • Edmon CHUNG
  • Joel DISINI (re-elected)
  • Atsushi ENDO
  • Stafford GUEST (newly elected)
  • LI Guang Hao
  • LIM Choon Sai
  • Tommy MATSUMOTO
  • Alireza SALEH (re-elected)
  • Dr. SIR Jae-Chul (re-elected)
  • Dr. THAM Yiu Kwok

Nomination Results

Candidate
Nominated by
Seconded by
Candidate Confirmation Category Sub-Region
Alireza SALEH JPRS (.JP) CNNIC (.CN) Candidacy Accepted Sponsor Member Middle East, Asia Minor and Eurasia
Joel DISINI IRNIC (.IR) Internet Users Society-Niue (.NU) Candidacy Accepted Sponsor Member South and Southeast Asia
Stafford GUEST Internet Users Society-Niue (.NU) JPRS (.JP) Candidacy Accepted Sponsor Member Australia and Pacific
Chen-Wen TARN TWNIC (.TW) CNNIC (.CN) Candidacy Accepted Sponsor Member North and Northeast Asia
Dr. SIR Jae-Chul KISA (.KR) JPRS (.JP) Candidacy Accepted Sponsor Member North and Northeast Asia
Che-Hoo CHENG APNG IDRC/PAN Withdrawn Co-Sponsor Member  

Based on the DotAsia Board Elections Procedures 2010:

  1. Since the number of candidates standing for election in the Co-Sponsor category is equal to the number of vacancies in that category (i.e. we have one candidate and one seat), no voting would be required. Che-Hoo CHENG is therefore deemed elected as he is the only candidate in the Co-Sponsor Member category.
  2. In accordance with the geographical diversity requirement specified in Article 33. of the M&A, there shall be at least 1 Director elected for each of the 2 Sub-Regions for the Sponsor Member category: Middle East, Asia Minor and Eurasia; and, Australia and Pacific:
    1. Alireza SALEH is therefore deemed elected as he is the only candidate from the Middle East, Asia Minor and Eurasia sub-region.
    2. Stafford GUEST is therefore deemed elected as he is the only candidate from the Australia and Pacific sub-region.
  3. DotAsia have then entered into the voting process, with the following candidates up for election for the two (2) seats left in the Sponsor Member category: Joel DISINI, Chen-Wen TARN, and Dr. SIR Jae Chul.

Bios from these candidates have been collected and sent to members for voting considerations.

Candidate Bios / Candidacy Statements

Dr. SIR Jae-Chul
 

DR. SIR, Jaechul, KRNIC (Korea) – Jaechul SIR is currently the Senior Research Fellow at KISA(Korea Internet and Security Agency), a nonprofit statutory organization. At KISA, he serves the role of an senior advisor regarding policy development and technical management of the internet addresses and security related issues.

Dr. Sir was in charge of Korea Network Information Center (KRNIC) until 2009, working on the development of domain name related policies and technologies such as DNSSEC and IPSEC. He was also involved in building IPV6 and Anycast DNS sites for .kr ccTLD around the world. He also had an active role in drafting the Internet Resource Administration Act for the .kr ccTLD.

Dr. SIR has actively participated in Joint Engineering Team (JET), which was established to develop and implement IDN technology. Moreover, SIR has been contributing to the Activities of .org as an advisory council member of the PIR(Public Interest Registry). He has been participating in DotAsia activities since 2006 as a board member and would like to contribute more to the development of the internet in the Asian region through mutual cooperation. and ICANN 2009 SEOUL meeting he did very well.

Joel E. DISINI
 

I’ve been asked to submit an updated Bio, but rather than do that, I thought I would give you my thoughts and views regarding DotAsia, and what I’ve seen and observed as a Board Member over the last two years. Hopefully it’ll be of use to you in how you participate, or choose to participate, as well as in selecting future board members.

I must admit that when I first arrived, I had serious doubts about the setup. I had seen how much time and resources Afilias had put into getting DotAsia approved. They flew Afilias executives all around Asia to get approval from various ccTLDs and ICT organizations; they attended years and years of ICANN meetings (and threw great dinners; I even recall how frustrated Che-hoo was with how interminably long this TLD approval process seemed. Surely this was a for-profit company masquerading as a not-for-profit? Is it possible that Afilias went through all this trouble of creating DotAsia without ensuring it would continue to profit from it?

I am happy to report that these fears were, to my surprise, largely unfounded. DotAsia is one of those rare companies – the employees and management are very aggressive in expanding market share, and in establishing the DotAsia brand, yet they are not motivated by shares of stock or an IPO. The ideas they generate are highly original and very well thought through. For example, I think Edmon’s concept of investing in a movie that uses a dotAsia domain (breakupclub.asia) is simply brilliant. If the movie succeeds, not only does dotAsia profit from ticket sales, but also from .ASIA brand recognition, and the appreciation in value of the domain “breakupclub.asia”. [Imagine for a minute what avatar.com must be worth] Other emerging TLDs will probably follow Edmon’s lead in the future. And Leona has been working on some excellent promos with the Registrars – I especially the like the 8 GB USB card promo, which she got at a steal, presumably from some manufacturer in nearby China. I’ve yet to see a more interesting promo from a regional TLD or a ccTLD.

But at the end of the day, none of these managers or employees have any equity in the company. All income is either plowed back into the company (and into increasing market share), invested in the money market or some other instrument, or given to charitable cause. It’s really an unusual animal, and Edmon has taken pains to find other means to keep his highly motivated staff interested in staying with DotAsia (other than, of course, the traditional method of giving out stock options, which would be merely symbolic in this case)

Afilias, by the way, DOES make a decent profit for providing Registry Services (I’m not at liberty to disclose exactly how much), but I think the amount is fair, given the trouble they went through in applying for the TLD . DotAsia also needs to pay back Afilias for the expenses incurred during the TLD approval process, which I have no problems with. But most interestingly, DotAsia will be free to shop around for a new Registry Service Provider once its debt is paid to Afilias, and once the current contract with ICANN expires (assuming, of course, that iCANN renews the contract). So Afilias profits from DotAsia, but that profit period is very much time-delimited.

Lastly but not least, I believe that Edmon is one of those people who truly believe in helping others and giving back to society, and that he passes on these values to the people he works with. It may sound trite, but it is one of the reasons Edmon is able to attract a good core of Senior Advisors to help him out.

My only qualm is perhaps in the way the funds are given to charity. Edmon and staff seem to be too focused on brandbuilding, that not much time and thought is spent into getting the best bang for buck for their charitable contributions. For example, i’m not too keen on the DotAsia ambassador program. I’m part of the ICANN process, but I’m not really a believer in it.

Nor do I believe in wasting time debating ICANN policy, much less encouraging kids to learn the mind-numbing intricacies of ICANN policy making. But that’s my opinion – I’m sure Edmon strongly disagrees with me.

I also like the OLPC (one laptop per child) concept, but I think the laptops remind me of the IBM PC Jr. experience – they’re deliberately dumbed down, and far inferior to a cheap linux laptop. Surely they will be obsolete in the near future.

So hopefully if I get re-elected, I can do something to remedy this. If not, it’s been fun! And I hope the new board members will take the time to focus on the issue of using DotAsia’s charitable contributions more wisely.

Chen-Wen TARN
 

Chen-Wen Tarn is the Chairman of the Taiwan Internet Association, board member of TWNIC and Taiwan Internet Content Rating Promotion Foundation.

Mr. Tarn also serves as full Professor at Department of Electronic Engineering, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Before joining the academics, he was the co-founder and Executive Vice President of Gigamedia Limited. (Nasdaq: GIGM) and the founder and president of Koos Broadband Telecom. Inc.

Chen-Wen received his Ph.D. degree from Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Syracuse University, New York.

Board Elections 2010 Results

Sponsor Member Category Votes Received Remarks
Dr. SIR Jae-Chul 6 Elected
Joel E. DISINI 4 Elected
Chen-Wen TARN 3  

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