Veni | Вени

The coming Internet Governance Forum seems to be the place where many of the hot-topic related issues around the Internet will be discussed.

In the last year that place was the WSIS.

I believe there’s a need for involvement of different players on the stage. The way ICANN board is being renewed every three years, perhaps the same way should the people around ICANN be renewed. Today this arena is taken by mainly people from the rich North and rich West. People from countries in transition often can’t make it to the ICANN meetings. They couldn’t make it to the WSIS, too, although so far this was the only place one can see citizens from all over the world talking to the governments as equals.

Coming from Bulgaria, and being one of the founders and chairman of the Internet Society of Bulgaria (est. 1995!), I have alternative views on many of the items regarding the Internet Governance topic.

I have been sharing some of these ideas throughout the years, and I have often been a lonely voice in environment, which is often superior to people from developing countries. Today, also thanks to the WSIS, that has changed. My voice is not the only one alerting of the dangers confronting the global Internet community. There are other, different voices. And it’s important not only to be different, but to be vocal, too. Because different voices make a difference.

How to deal with the coming number of forums – IGF, ITU, UN, US, you name it? One has to have unaccounted money to be able to travel all over the world, and follow what’s going on every week. That’s a huge problem, esp. for poor countries or countries in transition, like Bulgaria.

Can we improve these and other related matters?
My solution for the IGF is to have a small secretariat – either the one from the Working Group on Internet Governance (based in Switzerland), or one which should be based in a non-West country. The independent status of the secretariat is of vital importance. Be that Switzerland, or another country, preferebly in Eastern Europe (to eliminate speculations – Bulgaria is not a candidate to host it; we believe if something works, it should not be touched). This secretariat should look for funding for developing countries’ participation in the IGG. If the IGF will be only for the rich countries, then it’s not needed.

The issues to be discussed should include not only the “most favorite” topic – who “controls” the Internet (aka “the ICANN topic”), but issues, which have far greater importance for the users – spam, security (computer crimes are causing more and more losses to… the West!), affordability of the access to the Internet.

Some countries and people may decide there’s also a need of a small, properly formed, coordinating group – the countries who have the most to gain/lose in this discussion, plus representatives from civil society, academia, and business should create something like a WGIG-2, but working mainly on line – cost-effective, all-inclusive, etc. Why they may want this? Because the IGF seems to become a big gathering, with many parallel tracks, and in the meantime, there’s need for people to communicate on a smaller scale.

Much more information can be found at the Internet Governance Resource Portal

Have you noticed that January is extremly warm in New York, and extremly cold in Sofia, Bulgaria?

Why is that? Why it’s minus 15 Celsius in Europe, and plus 10 in East Coast USA?

Who can tell?

I went this past weekend to the Bulgarian restaurant “Bulgara” in New York City. It is by no means the best Bulgarian place I’ve seen abroad.

The place is extremly clean, tidy, the tables are covered with Bulgarian national-made cloths. It’s easy to find it, and cabs from Manhattan to this place would cost between $ 15 – $ 20, depending where you board.

The food – delicious! We tried “meshana skara” (steak, kebabche, kufte, shish), the famous shopska salad, leshta chorba, and we were given complimentary for desert – baklava and tolumbichka, made by Natalia, who is a very gifted and skilled chef.

One of the owners – Egor, was giving that Sunday free Bulgarian monthly newspaper – edited and printed in Las Vegas. He has also put a pile of calendars for 2006 with picture of a soccer team. When I entered, I thought it’s the CSKA – Sofia team. Nope! It was the Bulgarian New York Soccer team!

So, going back to the food and services – extremly good. I will go again, I am sure. And will bring other people, too. Price was relatively low for New York City.

And yes, the salads there are the normal way, that is without all the leaves and grass they usually make them in New York.

Read more…

Last weekend we celebrated 10 years since the foundation of the Internet Society of Bulgaria.

   On the picture: A Moment From the Cocktail Party (click to enlarge).
   Members of ISOC (left to right):
   Veni Markovski – ISOC-Bulgaria President and Chairman of the Board;
   Plamen Vatchkov – chairman of the State Agency for ITC;
   Sergei Stanishev – Prime Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria;
   Dimitar Ganchev – member of ISOC.bg Board and BOL.BG CEO;
   Anelia Delcheva, ISOC member.

   Here’s the official press-release of the event:

ISOC Bulgaria celebrated its 10th year anniversary at the Matti Hall of the National Palace of Culture.

More than 250 guests, among them many members of ISOC attended the cocktail party. Among them were the Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev (member of ISOC since 2001), the chairman of the
governmental ITC agency Plamen Vatchkov (member since 1999), M.D. Emil Raynov – deputy-minister of health, members of Parliament Ivan Ivanov and Luben Dilov Jr., heads of other governmental agencies, as well as chief of cabinets of different ministers.

Office of the President was represented by chief of staff Krasimir Stoyanov, and also chief of legal council Boris Velchev, secretary for non-governmental organizations Andrey Bundjulov, Emil Iliev, and others.

The United Nations were represented by Mr. Neil Buhne – head of the UNDP office in Sofia.
Among the guests were also the CEOs of the leading Internet companies – like Nikolai Gorchilov, Nikolai Badinski, Theodore Zahov, and others.

The Bulgarian music industry leaders were headed by Ms. Stanislava Armutlieva, CEO of Virginia Records.
Ms. Nina Selvelieva, Pepa Vitanova, Velislava Dareva, Kalin Manolov, Vassil Chobanov were among many journalists to come to greet the hosts.

IT business was also present with George Sharkov – head of the Basscom – Bulgarian software association; Tihomir Tsolov of Sunny Commputers, Konstantin Stoilov of Hewlett-Packard Bulgaria, Dragomir Tsankov of Comtel, Vladislav Hristozov and Vassil Hristovich of Apis, Simeon Angelov of Omnitel, and many others.

Free and Open Source Software movement and business gurus were also there, among them Yovko Lambrev of IBM, Stoyan Mishinev of OpenIntegra, and others.

The Balkan Acceession Fund C.V. was represented by Thomas M. Higins – managing partner. The Academy of Science was there through Dr. Velizar Shalamanov – one of the top cybersecurity experts in Bulgaria, former deputy-defence minister.

Also present were the people involved in the development of the IT strategy of Bulgaria – Nikolai Gerassimov and Roumen Trifonov of the Coordination Center for ITC to the Council of Ministers, Krassimir Benevski of the UNDP, who were in the company of ISOC-Bulgaria coordinators Ms. Dessi Pefeva and Ms. Julia Velkova.

Supreme Court Judges, prosecutors, investigators and law enforcement officers were all over the place, communicating with other members of ISOC. The first Bulgarian e-notary George Dimitrov was spoted exchanging arguments with Ilia Bojinov.

Many other guests and members of ISOC enjoyed the great catering of Mati and the wines from
ISOC-Bulgaria’s favourite cellars.

For more pictures, visit this web page (in Bulgarian).

OpenFest is another great activity of the Bulgarian FOSS society.

ISOC-Bulgaria got a friendly visit on January 5th by a number of the people, involved in the creation and implementation of the OpenFest.

They’ve brought a big cake, a couple of bottles of wine, and some soft drinks (yeah…, I know:-)

We’ve talked about a number of issues, related to what we could do together in 2006. It seems like an interesting year, where many projects we hope will happen for the good of the Internet in Bulgaria.

I am personally quite happy that there are such great people in Bulgaria, like the Free and Open Source Software guys!

Another year started a few days ago.
I was in Sofia for the welcome ceremony of 2006. In the last week of 2005 I’ve met with almost all my friends who I haven’t seen in the last few months, while being in the USA.

2006 will be an interesting year for Bulgaria –
We expect to hear if we’ll make it in the European Union.
We expect some IT-project to take place in Sofia (I will be writing more during the year).
We are having Presidential elections, where one of the members of the Internet Society, and current President Georgi Parvanov, is expected to run again.

In my personal life – I am getting married later this year.