[Chapter-delegates] Application to form a Chapter in Bangalore, India

[Sabrina Wilmot]

Dear Sivasubramanian, et al,

Thanks for sharing your concerns and observations. I will do my best to 
address your thoughts in this reply. Some of them were also lengthly 
discussed in the meeting Sivasubramanian, Rajnesh Singh and I had 
yesterday.

The overall goal for Chapters is to work well alongside each other, and 
to be mutually supportive of each other and cooperate well together as 
you try to help further the ISOC mission in India and other countries.

Through the course of this discussion and our due dilligence process, we 
have heard support for the creation of a Chapter in Bangalore. That is 
also supported by Sivasubramanian and others in India with whom we have 
spoken.

However, this new (or any other) Chapter application is *not* a 
competition for members or about altering the constitution of an 
existing Chapter. It is about how to be *most effective* in advancing 
the goals and the mission of the Internet Society and about how to be 
most effective in meeting the needs of particular groups of our members.

India has a huge population. There are of over 62 million people (i.e. 
potential ISOC members) alone in the state of Tamil Nadu, of which 
Chennai is the capital.
Several people have repeatedly pointed out the very important different 
linguistic and cultural aspects in India that emphasise the role for a 
Chapter in Bangalore (capital of the state Karnataka, population over 52 
million). Taking the diversities into account, we also anticipate that 
there will be more Chapter applications emerging from different parts of 
India. As ISOC works to strengthen its presence and visibility in India, 
one would expect this to be the natural outcome. Of course, their scope 
needs to be different to avoid any duplication of effort or overlap.

We would like to work with Sivasubramanian and the new group to ensure 
the best outcome in terms of advancing the mission and goals of the 
Internet Society. The applicant and his group are very well aware of the 
work Chapters in India are doing and have clearly specified plans that 
don't overlap with the existing Chapters.

Sivasubramanian, as agreed in our meeting yesterday, the concrete next 
steps in this case of the Bangalore application are:

1) As part of the due dilligence with this application, I'm awaiting 
written answers from the applicant to questions I had discussed with him 
during the interview in Delhi. These will be part of our review and I 
will discuss them with you.

2) A meeting will take place between ISOC staff, Sivasubramanian 
(Chennai Chapter) and the new group to talk about the Chapters' scope 
and a potential collaboration.

Thanks to all who gave input to this discussion and also to all who gave 
their feedback offline.

Regards,

       Sabrina Wilmot
       Manager, Chapters & Individual Members
       Internet Society (ISOC)   www.isoc.org
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