Are you interested in attending the next meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in Toronto in July 2014? Have you never been to an IETF meeting but would like to participate in the face-to-face aspect of the open standards process of the IETF?
If so, our colleagues who operate the “Internet Society Fellowship to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Programme” have alerted us that the next application window is open and applications will be accepted until April 11, 2014. This “Fellows” program is open to men and women from developing and emerging economies who might not otherwise be able to attend an IETF meeting. The goal is to help bring in more people from various regions of the world so that more voices are heard within the IETF discussions.
The most recent group of Fellows to IETF 89 in London included people from Venezuela, India, Morocco, Argentina, Tuvulu, Ecuador and Ethiopia. At past IETF meetings I’ve had the opportunity to record video interviews with some of the Fellows and it has been amazing and inspiring to learn their stories.
If you are interested to learn more and apply, I would suggest starting with reading through the selection criteria and then down the main page on the Fellows program. The links to apply as well as additional material can be found at the bottom of that main page. As I noted above, the application window closes on April 11 for this upcoming IETF 90 in Toronto. (It will then open up again a few months later for IETF 91 in November.)
If you’re interested in IPv6, DNSSEC, securing BGP… or, well, really any topic covered by the IETF, we’d encourage you to apply! And we look forward to meeting up with some of you at future IETF meetings!
