Walid Al-Saqaf

Person

◀ ▶
ICANN group	ISOC
Region	AP
Country	Yemen

Achievements

Walid Al-Saqaf is a Yemeni postdoctoral researcher with a B.Sc. in computer engineering and a PhD in media and communications. His research is mainly focused on ICTs and democracy. As a member of the technical and civil society community, he co-founded and currently chairs ISOC-Yemen, the Yemen Chapter of ISOC. Walid sits on ISOC's board of trustees where he is a member in the governance and audit committees. As an anti-censorship Arab activist, he started efforts to combat Internet censorship mainly through Alkasir, which is a solution he created to map and circumvention web censorship. He has been the first [TED] Fellow from Yemen and is actively engaged in promoting Internet-related grassrouts initiatives through events such as TEDxSanaa, which he created in 2012. Al-Saqaf became directly involved in Internet policy discussions when he was selected as a member of the Arab IGF MAG in 2012. Since then, he participated in several Internet-related global events such as the IGF, Stockholm Internet Forum, and the Cyber Dialogue Forum. ^[1]

Al-Saqaf started his involvement in ICANN in 2013 as a Fellow and since then has been an active community member. He has been chairing the Middle East and Adjoining Countries Strategy Working Group (MEAC-SWG) since June 2016 and remains a member of NCUC, for which he served as the coordinator of its membership affairs team during 2014-2015.

ICANN Involvement:

Participated as an ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 46 meeting held in Beijing during 7-11 April 2013
Participated as an ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 49 meeting held in Singapore during 23-27 March 2014
Was approved as the representative of ISOC-Yemen as an ICANN ALS in May 2014
Appointed in December 2014 by the NCUC Executive Committee as the Coordinator of the Membership Affairs Team responsible for inreach engagement
Participated as the Membership Affairs Team Coordinator of NCUC in the 2015 Non-Contracted Parties House (NCPH) meeting held in Washington, DC during 12-13 January 2015
Participated as the Membership Affairs Team Coordinator of NCUC in the ICANN 52 meeting held in Singapore during 8-12 February 2015
Participated as a coach and ICANN Fellow in the ICANN 53 meeting held in Buenos Aires, Argentina during 21-25 June 2015
Chairing the Middle East and Adjoining Countries Strategy Working Group (MEAC-SWG) since June 2016
Participated as the chair of the MEAC-SWG in the ICANN57 meeting held in Hyderabad, India during 3-9 November 2016