Veni Markovski

(excerpted from ICANN website)

Veni Markovski started working on the Internet in 1990, by becoming one of the first system operators of a Bulletin Board System in Sofia, Bulgaria. By 2003 he has founded the second in history Internet Service Provider in Bulgaria ( Bol.bg ). In 1995 he founded the Bulgarian Internet Society ( ISOC.bg )

He is chairing the Bulgarian President's IT Advisory Council, and was selected for the ICANN Board by the Nominating Committee. He started serving on the ICANN Board of Directors on 26 June 2003. His current term will end after the conclusion of ICANN's annual meeting in 2006. He has also server on the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society, and the Computers Professionals for Social Responsibility.

Veni Markovski has three areas of interest in the last couple of years:

Cyber-security, Internet Governance and Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

On cybersecurity, the Internet Society of Bulgaria organized international conference, drafted leg islation, and published pol icy recommendations; on Internet governance, Mr. Markovski has been member of delegations at the U.N. World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), and has numerous publications and presentations; on FOSS he drafted national leg islation and led implementation of an UNDP project in South Eastern Europe.

As a President and Chair of the Board of the Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC.bg) Veni Markovski has:

Been a legal expert to the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Telecommunications
Helped to draft and pass two Telecommunications Acts (2001, 2003)
Helped to draft and pass The E-Document and E-Signature Act (2000)
Helped to draft and pass the Computer Crimes chapter in the Penal Code (2002)
Helped to draft the Free and Open Source Software Usage in the State Administration Act
Implemented first ever legal strategy to successfully eliminate legal barriers to free Internet access (1999 )
been helping the Bulgarian government to define positions on the WSIS and other Internet-related policies

Veni Markovski is the Project Manager of the UNDP pro ject “Support to e-government initiatives based on Free/Open Source Software at the local (municipality) level in South-eastern Europe” ( www.foss.bg ) Through the project ISOC-Bulgaria has

Launched e-government services in eight cities within six months.
Trained more than 200 city officials in three different countries.
Migrated approx. 80 percent of participating city computers to using free and open software applications and tools, and about 20 percent to use Linux OS.
The UNDP project has been positively reviewed in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, heise.de and others (copies of publications available upon request)

Mr. Markovski is graduate of the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ochridski” with Masters of Science degree in Law (1993), he has also passed training by the International Law Development Institute in Rome, the US Agency for International Development, the Open Society Institute, and others.

He has also dozens of publications in Bulgarian and foreign newspapers and magazines since 1984. He's also frequent presenter at different IT-related conferences.