[Chapter-delegates] Fellowships: New strategic direction

[Christine Saegesser]

(apologies for cross-posting)

Dear Colleagues,

Please find below a message shared on behalf of Sally Wentworth, Vice President of Global Policy Development, concerning the Internet Society’s new strategic direction with regards to fellowships:

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Dear All:

Fellowships have, and will continue to be, a critical part of the Internet Society’s work and a significant driver of the impact we seek. Given their importance in our strategy, we made the decision recently to step back and assess our existing fellowship programs and supports, seeking to understand what was working well and what we could improve going forward.

As part of this assessment, we interviewed nearly 50 stakeholders, including participants, alumni, industry partners, and Internet Society staff. We also analyzed survey data from fellowship participants from the past several years and looked at other high-impact fellowship programs, both in the Internet space and beyond it.

The results from the assessment were clear: Across the board, there was a desire for the Internet Society to do more with its fellowship programs. There was a lot we’ve accomplished and should be proud of (the existing programs received praise from many, especially current and former fellows), but there was a strong desire for us to increase our impact.

Today, we’d like to share our strategy for increasing the impact of our fellowship programs—this document summarizes this new strategic direction<https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Fellowships-Strategy-Update.pdf>. As part of this commitment, we are introducing two new flagship programs and increasing the amount of resources we devote to these programs.

At the same time, we are scaling back components of our current fellowship programs that, based on the assessment and stakeholder feedback, were not meeting our bar for impact. These changes include phasing out the IETF Tech Fellowship and changing our approach to the IGF Fellowship Programs (by combining the IGF Ambassadors and Youth at IGF into a single program called IGF Youth Ambassadors).

We look forward to refining this strategy in the coming months with input from stakeholders and will continue to update the community on the emerging fellowship strategy over the coming months.

If you have any questions or comments, you can reach out to <learning at isoc.org<mailto:learning at isoc.org>>.

Sincerely,
Sally
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