Sophia Bekele

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Ms. Sophia Bekele is a businesswoman, entrepreneur, executive, ICT activist, and international policy adviser on ICT/Telcom to public and private enterprise. She is the founder and CEO of CBS International and DotConnectAfrica.

ICANN Work

Ms. Bekele was nominated to serve on ICANN's GNSO policy board from 2005-2007, under the Chairmanship of Dr. Vinton Cerf. Elected by the NomCom, Sophia was the first African to serve and hold a seat the GNSO. During her tenure, Sophia was instrumental in initiating policy dialogue over IDNs as well as the formation of an IDN working group. She was later credited for championing the inclusion of the global IDN community within this policy dialogue. As a result, Ms. Bekele was also nominated to chair ICANN's IDN Working Group. She was one of the co-authors of ICANN's IDN policy guidelines.

Ms. Bekele initiated the formation of the AfriICANN grouping within ICANN.

Sophia also initiated the first African-run bid for a .africa TLD, and is currently championing it across Africa under the non-profit, public-private partnership organization DotConnectAfrica. Her organization has been endorsed by various prominent Pan-African organizations and African governments.

Corporate Experience

Sophia began her career working for multinational institutions in large financial/banking companies in Corporate America such as Bank of America, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi/Union Bank of California, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers, as well as building various start-ups with international business portfolios. Most of Ms. Bekele's work is characterized with overseeing the control and security activities for technologies, auditing computer IT systems, evaluated new product & system services and recommending cost effective solutions, project management, client relationship, operational and business risk assessment, business process re-engineering, writing recommendation reports to Executive Management for operational improvements, and corporate good governance.

CBS International

Ms. Bekele founded CBS International, a private corporation with the goal of supporting technology in organizations working in emerging markets. The company's self-described mission is to: "Utilize our experience in consulting services in sales, software training, and provide our clients with a total systems solutions to help lower their cost and maximize efficiency in the delivery of quality products and services." CBS also consults on Business Process Engineering, implementation of Corporate Strategy & Governance & Sarbane Oxley compliance initiatives. It is based near Silicon Valley, California.

Currently, Ms. Bekele and her company assist various clients in public/private markets, primarily in corporate risk governance, including the recent Sarbanes-Oxley , GAAP & PCAOB and IT governance. Internationally, Sophia also consults on Milennium Challenge issues including anti-corruption, democratic governance, free market economics, and the development of internet and ICT infrastruture and regulatory policy.

DotConnectAfrica

Ms. Bekele also founded DotConnectAfrica. She is responsible for creating the foundations for running a viable non-profit with public/private partnership model, that is going to have a sustainable future with the project initiatives that it undertakes. The flagship projects which invoked the initialization of the organization is the "dotafrica" (.africa) Top Level Domain Name, which is to be the Continental Domain name to register Africa's businesses and other entities that are of concern to Africa.

Currently, Ms. Bekele's responsibilities include identifying opportunities and risks for delivering the company’s services as a web-based business, including identification of competitive services, opportunities for innovation, and assessment of marketplace obstacles and technical hurdles to the business success; Identify technology trends and evolving social behavior that may support or impede the success of the business; and Evaluate and identify appropriate technology platforms (including web application frameworks and the deployment stack) for delivering the company’s services.

Other Endeavors

She is a Alumni Board Member of the Golden Gate University, Founder and Board Member of ISOC San Francisco Bay, a former board member of Information Systems and Control Association (ISACA-SF), advisory member to the World Affairs Council of Contra Costa County, and adviser to United Nation Agencies, where she serves as expert advisor on ICT policy for various UN Agencies Boards and committees, including UNECA (Economic commission for Africa), UNPAN, UNGAID.

Education

Ms. Bekele holds an MBA in Management Information Systems (MIS) from Golden Gate University, San Francisco and a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Systems from San Francisco State University. She is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Control Specialist (CCS), and Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT).

External Links

1. Open letter to Congress, Sophia Bekele wrote an open letter to congress to defend status quo of internet governance, July 13, 2012
2. Application to ICANN, DCA Trust has applied to ICANN for the ".Africa" Geographic name, June 05, 2012
3. Defending Multi Stakeholder model, Bekele writing on Internet Governance:, April 5, 2012
4. DotConnectAfrica Welcome 2012 - The Year for new gTLDs,Welcome 2012 - The Year for new gTLDs - Yes2dotAfrica Campaign, Jan 14, 2011
5. DotConnectAfrica to ICANN, DCA's Executive Briefing Note following, Executive Briefing Note at the ICANN-42 Public Forum Meeting at Dakar, Senegal, Oct 23, 2011
6. Champion of .africa, Sophia Bekele names as Champion of the .africa initiative,, June, 21, 2011
7. Thank you Note, Bekele thankful for support and encouragement of the .africa initiative , June 11, 2011
8. Open letter to NTIA-US Department of Commerce, Sophia Bekele sent an open letter to the NTIA making a preliminary case for the .africa gTLD, Jan 20, 2011
9. DotConnectAfrica, spoke on way-forward on the contribution of the ".africa" name to an ICT enabled environment, and launched its "Yes to a .africa Campaign", at the AITEC ICT summit held in Nairobi, Kenya.html, Sep 11, 2010
10. Bekele, Ms.Sophia Bekele, provided a Keynote address for AITEC Summit during the opening panel discussions.html, Sep 11,2010
11. DotConnectAfrica, DotConnectAfrica registered maximum success in East Africa as the voice was echoed globally.html, April 06, 2010
12. Policy Development,Statement of Interest (SOI) Members of the Vertical Integration Policy Development Process Working Group, April, 01, 2010
13. Public Forum announcement, African Union endorsment of ".Africa" and urging for ICANN to expedite process for TLDs,Nairobi, March,11,2010
14. DotConnectAfrica, African Union endorsed the domain name ".Africa" to DotConnectAfrica org, Addis Ababa, February 18, 2010
15. Policy Development,Statement of Interest (SOI) for the Policy Development Process Steering Committee-Policy Development Team, March 19, 2009
16. Internet Governance, Internet Governanace & Policy Divide, San Francisco, March 10, 2009
17. Public Forum announcement, Continuing interest in the work of ICANN, IDNs and DotAfrica, Paris, June 25, 2008
18. Farewells, ICANN Meeting...and had a lot of respect for, Cary Karp from registries, Mawaki Chango, noncommercial, Ross Rader, registrar, and Sophia Bekele, the NomCom appointee..., ICANN Public Forum, Part 2 Thursday, 1 November 2007
19. DotAfrica, [http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/jpacomments2007/jpacomment_069.pdf DotAfrica�s position on JPA -National Telecommunications and Information Administration], NITA, Los Angeles, California, Feb 2008
    
20. AfriICANN-discuss, A debate on dot.africa, Nov 2007
    
21. AfrICANN-discuss, DotConnectAfrica's initiation of DotAfrica), Nov 2007
    
22. Aftld-Discuss [AfriICANN-discuss], Who is DotAfrica?, Nov 2007
    
23. ICANN IDN, GNSO Final report, Oct 2007
    
24. AfriICANN-Discuss, [http://lists.aftld.org/pipermail/aftld-discuss/2007-October/000183.html Dot Africa�s position on fast tracking of IDN ccTLD], Oct 2007
    
25. GNSO IDN, Comments in Response to the ccNSO-GAC Issues report on IDN Issues, Aug 2007
    
26. GNSO IDN, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN Working group, Mar 2007
    
27. At-Large policy, Policy matters for conference call agenda, Mar 2007
    
28. AfriIcann, Going forward with ICANN- The African Region Perspective, Mar 2007
    
29. AfriICANN, ICANN - GNSo Policy update - presentation to African Group by Sophia Bekele, Lisbon, Mar 2007
    
30. GNSO IDN, Outcome Report of the GNSO IDN WG, Mar 2007
    
31. GNSO IDN Regarding IDN Working Group membership issues, Mar 2007
    
32. ICANN IDN, IDN Working Group, Jan 2007
    
33. GNSO-IDN-WG, IDN Chair Nomination, Oct 2006
    
34. ICANNwiki, ICANNWiki Caricature, Wellington New Zealand, Mar 2006
    
35. DotConnectAfrica's Website,dotconnectafrica.org - African's Map on Digital Inclusion, Mar 2006
    
36. GNSO IDN, On IDN dialog - a debate with John C. Klensin, Mar 2006
    
37. ICANN, Nominating Committee | Biographical Information on the ..., Nov 2005
    
38. ICANN NomComm ICANN | Nominating Committee Announces Final Selections for Key leadership positions..., Vancouver, Canada Nov 2005
    
39. ICANN, Sophia Bekele, Statement of Interest, Nov 2005
    
40. ISOC, appointment to a founding member & board of directors of Internet Society, San Francisco (ISOC-SF), San Francisco, Ca, March 2009
    
41. GGU, Internet Governance and the policy divide, San Francisco, Ca, March 2009
    
42. IP Justice, New Domain Names (gtlds), Sao Paulo Brazil, Dec 2006
    
43. Andrew Mack, Andy's Global View: In a world of .com and .org, why not .Africa?, Sept 2007
    
44. Del Rey Studios "A New Hope" the idea of 'ICANN The Movie' was born! Mar 2007
    
45. TWiNic, NomComm announcement - Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005
    
46. JPNic,NomComm announcement -Sophia Bekele, Nov 2005<br