PAB Javier's election statement

Javier SOLA (jsola@aui.es)
Sun, 07 Dec 1997 19:07:06 +0100


I have been nominated for the office of PAB Observer in POC.

My day job is to run, full time, the Spanish Internet Users' Association.

I strongly believe that the structures of Internet must be changed now to
be able to sustain the Internet of tomorrow. In that sense, I could not
agree more with the spirit of IAHC and all the changes that are taking
place in IANA and the other structures.

Whatever the gTLD-MoU becomes now, it will be seen as an example for most
issues related to Internet Governance. We need to come out with a stable
and workable structure and a balance of powers that will not be challenged
by any of the major players in the Internet. This will involve studying the
viability of the present structure and the choices that we have in front of
us.

I was elected as PAB observer in POC in July. Since then I have:

a) Participated on the definition of what use to be called CORE-DB and is
now referred to as the CORE-SRS. I was also part of the team that prepared
the Request for Proposals for the development of the database, and I am now
in the working group that follows such development.

b) In POC, together with Amadeu, the other PAB observer, we have helped
change the way decissions are made. Now PAB is consulted on every major
decision, even before RFCs are issued by POC.=20

An now for a short CV=85.

I was born in Chile in 1960, which makes me 37. My father was Spanish and
my mother Chilean. I moved to Spain at the age of four. I grew up in the
city of Zaragoza.

I started studying Electrical Engineering in Madrid. Also I started playing
the lute, as a member of a TUNA, a Spanish male university student singing
group that goes around serenading beautiful women (or not so beautiful if
they had food and drink to offer after the serenade).

My singing and lute player carrier was violently severed by my transfer to
Duke University in North Carolina, USA, where I finished a Bachelors in
Science.

I graduated from Duke in 1984 with distinction in Computer Science and
moved to Paris, where I had been offered a position as a researcher on
Artificial Intelligence at Honeywell Bull=92s Research Lab.

After a couple of years I returned to the US, to Ohio State University
(Columbus), to undertake a Masters degree on Computer and Information
Science. In Ohio I resumed my musical carrier by learning to play Irish and
American old-time music with nothing less than a fiddle ! (which inflicted
great suffering onto my house mates).=20

After another two years of computers, tunes and square dancing, I decided
to move back to Paris to continue my work on the development of new
Artificial Intelligence techniques borrowing technology from Operations
Research. My fiddling got a bit better and playing music at the Irish pubs
of Paris became my main hobby. On my spare time I taught at Ecole Central
and Ecole des Arts et Metiers, two of the most important French=
Universities.=20

In 1990, when it started to become clear that the future of industry was
not in Artificial Intelligence (a very, very few applications actually
worked), I decided t move back to Spain, where I worked as an independent
consultant for several years, until, in 1995, I participated in the
creation of the Spanish Internet Users=92 Association. By attracting members
to it and by running a couple of Internet related conferences and
trade-shows, I made the Association grow enough to support me and two more
staff members, allowing us work our way into larger projects.

Last year I coordinated the creation of the Spanish Internet Exchange
Point, after getting the seven Spanish carriers to sit down, talk and agree
to cooperate. The Association participates on several telecommunication
regulation entities and acts an advisor for the Spanish government of
Internet issues.

This year we have coordinated the creation of ISPA Spain, an Alliance that
coordinates the most important ISP Associations in our country.

During this time I have also taught "Strategic Impact of Information
Technology" for a couple of years at Boston University=92s MBA program in
Spain, as well as short courses for Master=92s students at several Spanish
universities.

I have written papers on Automatic Printing of Musical Scores, several
aspects of Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience (statistical analysis),
Operations Research, and Internet. I have been a speaker at INET for the
last two years.

I was elected as PAB Observer in POC in July 1997.

Javier SOLA jsola@aui.es

Director - Asociacion de Usuarios de Internet - <http://www.aui.es>

PAB Observer - Policy Oversight Committee of the gTLD-MoU -
<http://www.gtld-mou.org>

Las opiniones expresadas son personales y pueden no coincidir con las de
otros miembros del Policy Oversight Committee.

Tel: 902-21.03.23 Fax: 91-344.14.25
c/ Alberto Alcocer, 46 Duplicado - 5=BA C
28016 MADRID