“Just like the Internet, ICANN is global in scope in its operations,” said Theresa Swinehart, ICANN’s vice president, Global and Strategic Partnerships. “Our Fellowship program has had a lot of success at our last 8 meetings in making sure global voices are heard in the wide variety of public forums that it holds.”

For the Nairobi Meeting, there are 26 fellows from 21 countries, chosen from 119 applications received. 10 of the fellows are alumni from at least one of the past eight programs; 14 fellows are first-time attendees to any ICANN meeting and 2 have attended past meetings, but are first time fellows. Priority is given to applicants who are current residents of developing and least developed nations and interested in participating in ICANN and its supporting organizations, such as the Governmental Advisory Committee, the Country Code Names Supporting Organization, the At-Large and the Generic Names Supporting Organization.

The Fellowship program will assist in covering airfare, hotel and a stipend. Recipients will be expected to actively participate in and contribute to ICANN processes. As always, registration for ICANN’s meetings is free for anyone wanting to attend.

Applications for the meeting in Brussels will be accepted from now until February 19, 2010.

ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers.

ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.