CIRA Board Election

The .ca top-level domain is managed by an organization called CIRA, and I am running in an election to be on their board. If you’re a CIRA member, you should vote for me. I’ll put the how and when details of the vote at the bottom of this post, but I wanted to explain why you should vote for me, and why I am running.

Download a calendar reminder to vote for me here

Why you should vote for me

The domain registration ecosystem in which CIRA operates is complicated. Practical domain name industry experience will be absent from the CIRA board when Rob Villeneuve leaves his position this year.  This will mean there is no one on the board with independent expertise in CIRA’s primary activity.  There will be no one on the board with a deep understanding of how either the registrar channel works or the competitive registry landscape. I have spent more than a decade in the domain industry, working for both registries and registrars.  I have led the entire industry through a regulatory crisis, and now lead it in combating online harms. 

The board has great people with important and necessary skills, but it is lacking in the industry experience required to provide CIRA with both helpful insight, and meaningful oversight. There is no one else on the election slate who could fill this need, and this is why you should vote for me.

Why I am running

I put quite a lot of detail into my CIRA Candidate statement, which you can read here, but I’ll summarize it briefly. The short answer is that I am a values-driven person and, professionally and personally, I seek opportunities to try to make a positive impact in the world. The CIRA board represents a unique opportunity to apply my specific skills and experience to make a difference in an area I feel strongly about.  I think CIRA has an important role to play in supporting Canadian identity online, and I know that I can help them do that better. I also think CIRA’s Community Investment Program is potentially transformative, and I am buoyed by the idea that by helping CIRA be its best, we can help so many more take advantage of the opportunities the Internet can provide.  

How to vote:

Voting opens at 12:30 pm on the 15th of September and runs through 12:30pm on the 22nd. At about 12:30 pm on the 15th, CIRA will send all eligible members an email with an ID and PIN that they can use to cast their ballot online. Further instructions will be available in the email.

If you, like me, live and die by your calendar, you can download a .ics calendar reminder to vote for me here.