tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-296692882009-06-11T20:53:56.716-04:00Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-20826750732292785802009-03-31T13:01:00.002-04:002009-03-31T13:04:15.935-04:00

By Vika Mpisane and Andrew Mack[NB, this article, co-written with my friend and colleague Vika Mpisane from South Africa, is currently awaiting publication in Johannesburg] Today, ICANN -- the international group responsible for managing Internet governance -- is growing and taking on more responsibility than ever before. However, as we saw at the recent ICANN meeting in Mexico City, the system

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-67379848812005929692008-10-13T11:37:00.003-04:002008-10-13T12:06:36.677-04:00

I work in Washington, and a week and a half ago the ICANN Confidence Campaign came to town.As theater, it was a pretty impressive event. A near capacity crowd gathered in the hallowed halls of the National Press Club to hear Peter Dengate-Thrush, Paul Twoomey and various ICANN luminaries talk about the group’s plans to improve institutional confidence. The audience – mostly lawyers and policy

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-61169749902454899172008-05-14T10:49:00.001-04:002008-05-14T10:50:49.426-04:00

First published in The Progressive BangladeshBy Andrew Mack Friday, 25 April 2008 In February I made my first visit to the Subcontinent, in Delhi, for the regional meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN. In the main hall there were business and government leaders from around the region. At one of the side

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-9250079768876499212007-11-15T10:15:00.000-05:002007-11-15T10:34:52.843-05:00

About a year ago I attended the first Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting in Athens. It was a huge techie jamboree bringing together Internet experts and advocates from around the world. And as I sat there in the audience and listened to the different visions of the future presented from the podium, I recall being pretty stunned by the political focus of the whole thing.Well, I’m happy to

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-3520729195938465632007-11-05T09:46:00.000-05:002008-12-10T08:15:58.898-05:00

Sitting here in the dimly lit ballroom of the LA Airport Hilton, I am every day more impressed by the challenges faced by ICANN, the international group that is tasked with making the Internet run. There are issues of safety and security that are at ICANN’s core. And then there are issues of access, issues around the ability to create the online presence you always wanted, about the net

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-88878836264378937112007-10-25T16:20:00.001-04:002007-10-25T18:15:00.374-04:00

So, you just got back from an exciting week at Pop!Tech 2007, tell me a bit about your expectations going in? Honestly, I wasn’t sure what to think going in. I heard that Camden was pretty and that everyone was working on really interesting “over the horizon ideas.” I also heard in the words of the Bostonian, this group was “wicked smaht”. No question, Pop!Tech is an incredible scene. For

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-19282862905694403332007-10-20T13:53:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:15:59.298-05:00

Africa is looking up. Believe it. After years of being fed a constant diet of bad news about the continent, most Americans are all too ready to assume nothing but the worst stories come out of Africa. Sometimes it seems that CNN has a special slot reserved just for a weekly feature on pestilence, war and famine. At least in the US media, you really have to look hard to find anything

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-40507989134587563162007-10-19T15:19:00.001-04:002008-12-10T08:15:59.447-05:00

I’m rushing to try to put something down for a blog… Partly because we face big issues. Because we don’t have time to wait. But also because I’m only at Pop!Tech for a while. And because unlike many bloggers, it seems to take me a long time to crank out a piece. Time is short, and I’m on deadline, after all. So quickly to the work at hand… Again this morning we heard about the planet

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-22372034991017818922007-10-19T08:45:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:15:59.726-05:00

Thursday morning’s session had an audacious title: “The Human Impact”. And, of course this immediately appealed to me… A veteran of many soccer, rugby and an odd US football game, impact is no stranger. After all, we grow up – especially us boys – wanting to be “impact players”. As we get older, we try to keep in shape through our high impact workouts. And then, as we age,

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-40669765670826174322007-10-18T14:26:00.000-04:002007-10-19T08:44:20.797-04:00

It’s been a long time since Patrick Henry made his famous speech in Virginia calling for liberty or death, calling for democracy and independence for what is now the United States. And a lot has changed since then. A lot more countries are nominally considered democracies, and at least some of them claim to be interested in providing services and opportunities for their

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-42492473223970903932007-10-15T17:45:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:15:59.920-05:00

If you are a regular – or occasional – reader of Andy’s Global View (www.amglobal.blogspot.com), you’ll know that one of my goals is to try to think over the horizon a bit, looking at technology and development issues in new ways, focusing on Emerging Markets. Well I am happy to say that our world just got bigger. This week I will be attending the Pop!Tech (www.poptech.com) conference in

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-89358178007104805242007-09-17T12:40:00.000-04:002007-09-17T12:43:50.006-04:00

Incremental or not, what Africa needs is Entrepreneurial InfrastructureBy Andrew Mack In his piece last month about “incremental infrastructure”, Ethan Zuckerman makes a number of excellent points about the recent development of infrastructure in Africa. Using his example of the entrepreneur who put up cell towers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he rightly observes that

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-923295794760118922007-09-07T10:30:00.000-04:002007-09-17T17:29:12.377-04:00

During the march ICANN meetings in Lisbon I happened in on an interesting presentation. Around the hall sat a group of Africa’s true Internet leaders – entrepreneurs, Government representatives and NGO heads. They were intently listening to a plan aimed at creating a special domain for the continent –.africa. And as I listened and learned more, I came to believe that .africa is an idea

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-17660790088753062292007-08-23T13:35:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:16:01.205-05:00

By Jeremy M. Goldberg with Andrew Mack Earlier this summer I spoke to a group of young telecom professionals from around the world at the United States Telecommunications Training Institute (USTTI), in a meeting here in Washington, DC. I couldn’t have walked into a room with a better collection of today’s emerging telecom and technology stars, from the Philippines and India to Singapore,

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-67708604724557347082007-05-22T13:53:00.000-04:002007-05-22T13:54:55.804-04:00

By Andrew MackAll over Africa, there is a significant realization that tech is the wave of the future. African Government Ministers are traveling around the world – from San Francisco to the UAE to Bangladesh – pitching opportunities for new investors and building deals. Technology has also quickly become a major item on the development agenda, thanks in large part to Africa's new tech

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-26232186391668743842007-04-13T12:22:00.000-04:002008-12-10T08:16:01.536-05:00

About three weeks ago, I sat in a conference hall in San Francisco and listened as President Paul Kagame of Rwanda addressed a group of African and US Government officials. Nothing particularly remarkable in that. Its part of the role of head of state, after all. However, the location was more than symbolic. The event was at the Hilton, in the Financial District, in tech-rich northern

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-16733605475216759152007-03-05T12:34:00.000-05:002007-03-05T12:45:55.254-05:00

By: Jeremy M. Goldberg Sports today are nearly everyone’s global obsession, but did you also know that they are also a new trend in international development? Donor agencies from Sweden and Norway along with the United Nations and sports outfitting companies like Nike and Adidas, have all joined the “Sports for Social Change” movement. Sadly, most donors – like most sports fans around the

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1170095134751426832007-01-29T13:22:00.000-05:002007-01-29T13:25:34.776-05:00

By Jeremy M. Goldberg and Andrew MackRwanda?! There it was again, the same puzzled look – a combination of concern and disbelief –when I told a colleague that I’d been working in Rwanda. After all, what do we in the outside world know about Rwanda? A small country with a history of unspeakable violence, but a place of opportunity? A leader of Africa’s march into the 21st century? Well my

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1168561362834358462007-01-11T19:11:00.000-05:002007-01-11T19:22:42.846-05:00

Not long ago a friend of mine was sitting in an internet café in Gulu, Northern Uganda, busily typing away… and suddenly in mid-email, the server went down – the 3rd time in 2 weeks. And, while technology challenges are nothing new for those of us that work or live in places like Northern Uganda, it made me think about the future of Gulu and the region. Uganda is clearly at a crossroads. The

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1167234296163380402006-12-27T10:42:00.000-05:002006-12-27T10:44:56.180-05:00

Consider the caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil. A simple mixture of lime, sugar and cachaça (a local sugar cane-based aguardiente), the caipirinha is a delight. Separately the pieces are too sweet, too bitter, or too sour to appeal. And yet together, when crushed up just right in a low ball glass and served over ice with the soft sway of bossa nova in the background, these three come

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1162364913168709312006-11-01T01:59:00.000-05:002006-11-01T02:09:50.180-05:00

I was in the big plenary room in Athens yesterday when the ITU’s Yoshio Utsumi made his big claim of the day. According to Declan McCullagh of ZDNet who paraphrased Utsumi, the ITU chief “criticized the current rules for overseeing domain names and Internet addresses, stressing that poorer nations are dissatisfied and are hoping that this week's meeting will erode U.S. influence.” If you read

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1161183818664942132006-10-18T10:58:00.000-04:002006-10-18T11:03:38.676-04:00

Later this month many of the movers and shakers in the Internet world will be in Athens for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The event – part techie convention, part lobbying jamboree – promises to cover topics from a to z, with a strong focus on issues of policy, security and especially, access. Interestingly there are now four separate IGF sessions that will discuss issues of language on

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1158191507008177212006-09-13T19:49:00.000-04:002006-09-13T19:51:47.023-04:00

The other day I was on the phone with a friend who does international business based in Europe. He was telling me about the recent .eu debacle – how basically before it was even launched the .eu top level domain had been corrupted (his words) by squatters who had taken over all kinds of names. Names you or I might know. Other companies’ names.Now that’s Europe, but I work with Emerging Markets

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1156184263553390702006-08-21T14:16:00.000-04:002006-08-21T14:17:43.573-04:00

There’s a lot of talk these days about ICANN’s future and specifically whether the organization should go out on its own later this year. While everyone seems to agree that ICANN must end up as an independent entity, I for one just don’t see how it is ready at this point. And, by prematurely pushing the organization out of the nest, I think we risk making a real mess that no one will be well

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29669288.post-1152118522553477792006-07-05T12:51:00.000-04:002006-07-05T12:55:22.566-04:00

Last week at the ICANN meetings in Marrakech, Moroccan Prime Minister Jettou addressed the crowd about the important role the Internet plays in helping to advance the social, economic and educational agenda of Morocco. In his remarks, the Prime Minister said “as we all know, the Internet today is an essential tool for the competitiveness of private and public enterprises, an effective lever of

Andrew Mackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02422892513829523992noreply@blogger.com0