Washington, D.C. – 11 December, 2018 – The Internet Society, a global non-profit organization dedicated to the open development, use and evolution of the Internet, today announced that it has selected Rinalia Abdul Rahim for the newly created role of Senior Vice President of Strategy and Implementation. In this position, Abdul Rahim will be responsible for coordinating the organization’s operational outputs and for overseeing the alignment of the Internet Society’s work with its strategic goals and objectives. She will assume her post on 1 January, 2019.
In her new role, Abdul Rahim will lead a team focused on increasing the effectiveness of the Internet Society’s work around the world through strategic planning, performance-led metrics and measurement systems. She will also lead a team on community engagement in relation to members and chapters to deepen the culture of collaborative working across the organization. She will be part of the existing Internet Society Executive Team.
Abdul Rahim brings over 20 years of experience in Internet governance and in promoting Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for development to this role. She most recently served on the Board of Directors for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Prior to that, she was Executive Director of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) where she was responsible for bringing together diverse stakeholders to address development challenges including poverty, education, and the empowerment of women and youth. She also established high impact programs and networks for sharing knowledge, building partnerships and implementing best practices in multiple regions.
Abdul Rahim’s career includes working for the Malaysian government where she developed national ICT policies, strategies and programmes and was subsequently appointed by the Prime Minister at the time to Malaysia’s National Information Technology Council.
In addition, she has held various advisory positions with organizations such as Mozilla Foundation, Global Action Network, World Economic Forum-UNESCO Partnership for Education initiative, United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UNGAID), International Task Force on Women and ICT, Youth Social Enterprise Initiative and the World Summit on the Information Society’s ICT for Development Platform.
“We believe that the Internet is for everyone, and with over half of the world’s population still unconnected – there is much work to be done. We need to ensure that we can be as effective as possible in rising to this, and other challenges facing the Internet today. Rinalia’s extensive experience in Internet development and in bringing different groups together to work towards a common goal will be critical in helping the Internet Society achieve its mission of promoting the development of an open, globally-connected and secure Internet,” said Andrew Sullivan, President & CEO of the Internet Society.
Abdul Rahim holds a Master in Public Policy Degree from Harvard University (USA) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Princeton University (USA). She is certified in Corporate Governance by INSEAD (France).
She will be based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
About the Internet Society
Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet. Working through a global community of chapters and members, the Internet Society collaborates with a broad range of groups to promote the technologies that keep the Internet safe and secure, and advocates for policies that enable universal access. The Internet Society is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
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