Anis Hanna

What skills will you contribute to the NCF Board?

As a Hi Tech professional with many years of relevant technical experience in Dot Com companies, and working in the Cyber Security field, I recognize the challenges in running the services the NCF provides. Additionally, with over 10 years of management experience encompassing people management and team leading by building strong working relationships with coworkers, process and procedure creation to improve efficiency I understand the business challenges. I also have 2 years experience as a VP of the board in a non-profit organization, so I am certainty familiar with the responsibilities and duties of a member on a governance board for a non-profit. I recognize that while NCF is a non-profit organization, it still needs to run an efficient fiscally responsible business, which can benefit from someone with both the technical background who would recognizer the technology, and strong business acumen, who understands how to run an organization efficiently. I believe I can provide both to NCF.

What are the most important functions of the NCF for its members?

In addition to the typical duties of governance of a non-profit organization, such as overseeing the organization's activities, setting strategic direction for the organization, and approvals of budgets, and financials, I believe NCF board members should have relevant technology experience, so they can understand the challenges of running such an organization. They should be ready to offer advice on running a more successful operations, participate in committees, and should not be afraid to roll up their sleeves when needed and help the staff. Last but not least, NCF board members should be advocates for the organization, promoting its activities, and publicizing its offering through various networks.

Why do you want to be an NCF director?

The reason I am specifically interested in NCF is because of what it provides to the community. Having completed a bachelor of Computer Science in the early 90s, my career started with the advent of the Internet. Over the years I experienced the gradual maturity, and useful applications of being online. Today the Internet is part of everyone's life. It is not a nice to have anymore, it is equivalent to a utility, such as water and electricity. This is evident in the news coverage of internet outages, which by far surpasses coverage of other things like water supply outages. The internet is essential to every day life, as it is a big part of being connected, communication, information access, entertainment, and with IoT, and smart homes, even having a comfortable household. In this digital age, information access is almost fully dependent on being online. Since access to information is a basic right, i believe access to the internet is therefore a basic right.

This is why I am interested in NCF as I believe it's mission is to provide affordable broadband online access to people who may not otherwise be able to afford it.

I have completed a part-time MBA a couple of years ago. While doing the MBA and holding a full time busy job, I got accustomed to having a busy schedules, and always working. After I completed the MBA, I found that I was left with some spare time. During the MBA i also got to learn about governance, and took an interest to it.

As a result, I decided to use the extra time I have, and do something I like (governance) in a field that is relevant to my professional career (High Tech) while contributing to the wonderful community we live in. I am currently on the board of another non-profit as a VP, but I feel i Have additional time to give back to the community.

Anis Hanna (gb499)