<h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><font size="2">Please feel free to forward to interested people.</font><br><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></h2><h2 style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Application
Round Opens for San Francisco Fellowships</span></h2>
<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Program
ensures global representation at ICANN's International Public Meetings</span></p>
<p style="margin: 9pt 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">5 October
2010</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">MARINA DEL REY,
Calif.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">: The
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is launching the 12th round
of applications for the Fellowship program, to facilitate participation in
ICANN's 40th International Public Meeting to be held San Francisco, California
on 13-18 March 2011.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Over the last 10 meetings,
the Fellowship program has proven to be a successful method of capacity
building for the ICANN community, making sure global voices are heard in the
wide variety of public forums that it holds. As CEO Rod Beckstrom said when
addressing the Russian Internet Governance Forum in Moscow last May, <em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">"The Internet is a work in
progress. It feeds and grows off ideas, and new ideas greatly affect its
direction. Its most influential contributors are those who can see the
possibilities that others don't. And the most powerful are those whose ideas
trigger the imagination of others."</span></em> We see the Fellowship
program playing a major role in bringing those great ideas and idea makers into
the Internet community. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Per the program charter,
applicants must be citizens of economically eligible countries (ICANN uses the
World Bank classification) and priority in selection is given to applicants who
are current residents of the region that a ICANN meeting is being held in, as
well as those who are active or interested in participating in ICANN and its
supporting organizations and advisory committees. In this case, as the United
States is not an economically eligible country, applicants from all other ICANN
regions will be equally weighted (as long as applicant meets program minimum
requirements). The Fellowship program will assist in covering airfare, hotel
and a stipend. Recipients will be expected to actively participate in and
contribute to ICANN processes, in and after the ICANN meeting. As always,
registration for an ICANN meeting is free for anyone wanting to attend.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Applications for the meeting
in San Francisco will be accepted from now until 1200 PDT (UTC -7) on 12
November 2010. More information, as well as a link to the application for a
fellowship, is available online at: <a href="http://www.icann.org/en/fellowships/">http://www.icann.org/en/fellowships/</a>
or email <a href="mailto:fellowships@icann.org">fellowships@icann.org</a> if
you encounter a problem.</span></p>
<h4><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">What
Is ICANN?</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To reach another person on
the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a
number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each
other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without
that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">ICANN was formed in 1998. It
is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over
the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable.
It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique
identifiers.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">ICANN doesn't control content
on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with access to the Internet.
But through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have
an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.</span></p>