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There’s one obvious pick for next year’s ICANN Community Excellence Award

Kevin Murphy, December 15, 2020, Domain Policy

ICANN has opened up nominations for its 2021 ICANN Community Excellence Award, and I don’t think it would be inappropriate of me to suggest that one likely nomination seems like a shoo-in: the late Marilyn Cade.

The award, now in its eighth year, is given to a community member who “deeply invested in consensus-based solutions and contributed substantively to the ICANN multistakeholder model”.

It’s judged by a cross-constituency panel of community leaders and awarded in June each year, using three criteria:

  • Demonstrated ability to work across community lines with both familiar and unfamiliar ICANN stakeholders with the aim of building consensus.
  • Facilitator of dialogue and open discussion in a fair and collegial manner, through the spirit of collaboration as shown through empathy, and demonstrating a sincere desire to engage with people from other backgrounds, cultures, and interests.
  • Demonstrated additional support for the ICANN multistakeholder model and its overall effectiveness through volunteer service via working groups or committees.

I believe Cade, who died last month at 73, fits easily into each of these.

She participated in ICANN’s formation in the late 1990s and participated in almost every public meeting since. She was a long-time member, and three-year chair, of the Business Constituency, and participated in several key volunteer working groups.

There’s a rather fascinating and lengthy audio interview with Cade, conducted by Ayden Férdeline shortly before her death, in which she discusses her involvement with the creation of ICANN, over here.

At the time of her death, ICANN CEO Göran Marby said: “Marilyn had strong views and opinions on many matters but always supported the multistakeholder model. She wanted people to be involved in ICANN and to maximize the potential of the Internet.”

While her views and positions may not have been universally loved, the hundreds of public tributes paid since her death reveal a consensus view that, regardless of competing affiliations, Cade was strongly active in community-building and mentoring new community members, particularly from underrepresented demographics.

It would not be the first time ICANN has given this award posthumously. In 2018, it was awarded to former GNSO Council chair Stéphane Van Gelder after his untimely death earlier that year.

It is of course easier to evaluate an individual’s contribution when their entire body of work is known.

From its inaugural 2014 round, the prize was known as the ICANN Ethos Award. The name was changed earlier this year, most probably to avoid alluding to the private equity firm Ethos Capital, which at the time was involved in a high-profile dispute with the org.

The winner will be announced at the ICANN 71 meeting, wherever that may be, next June.