Capital

Africa's champion for the digital age

Capital: Could you tell us a bit about your background?

Sophia Bekele: You know this is a question that I tend to answer with, 'google me' as I think it is more efficient, and perhaps less revealing (smile). I was born in Addis Ababa. I come from a comfortable family background where I believe my childhood and formative years were good. My Father, bless his soul, Ato Bekele Eshete who passed away nearly 4 years ago, was a career orientated businessman for 30 years. He has built lots of businesses and contributed to the development of Ethiopia. His most recent venture as you may know was as the Founder and Executive Board Director of the United Bank and United Insurance. He also established the leather and printing factories - Abay Tannery and Finfine printing. His vision stands tall in the capital city of Addis Ababa with the construction of the high rise "Bekele Eshete Towers" completed by his family. Humble yet flamboyant, he was a man of many friends at all levels. My Mum, Mulu Beyene, is comfortably retired now, and frequently travels between her two homes in the US and Addis. She spends much of her time doing charity work with the Church she belongs to.
I was curious about the world from childhood, was an avid reader early on, and was interested in the world and society. My High School days in Addis were great and spent at a private Catholic school, Nazaret high. We used to travel on summer vacations with my parents overseas to the US and Europe. Going to the US for my higher studies, was not always comfortable for me or my sister who travelled with me. We cherished our middle class upbringing in Ethiopia. But our parents had vision for us that we did not see, so off they sent us to study abroad. I studied Business & Computer Science in San Francisco State University and the rest became history!

Capital: Tell us about your education and work.
Sophia: After graduating from SFSU, I was recruited by the Bank of America in what was a very unique field of study then - Information Security. The information to secure then was hardly considered high-risk or high-stakes by today's financial industry standards driven by the internet. However, I worked in wholesale banking and was in charge of information security, audit and risk management of trading floors for the Bank, so I travelled extensively in the US and globally.
I was based in New York for some time, and had a Wall Street office, that was part of the 9'11 tragedy. After having worked in the financial industry for almost 7 years with various other Banks as well and a final stunt at the San Francisco office of Price Water House Cooper, where I managed their largest Client, Barclays Bank, I decided to call it quits with Corporate America and moved on to entrepreneurship.

Capital: What was your vision?
Sophia: Immediately, I set off to travel on my first around-the world trip, which included the US, Europe, Africa and Asia. It was during the mid 90s when the internet was just being commercialised. I recall having my first palm pilot PDA, which was the newest cool high tech gadget, which helped me carry country profiles and guides downloaded from the net and organize my trip data, which amazed many I traveled with.
So I begin to visualize the empowerment of the third world and emerging economies through the use of technology, which was orientated to the Internet and satellites at the time. My entrepreneurship start-up, after this trip, for me was both an opportunity to continue my work in promoting technology for development and also a lifestyle choice of travel and freedom of doing what I want. It was neither to assert myself in business nor a drive to make more money. My favorite book "the Four Hour Workweek," by Timothy Farris, which I particularly recommend, is about someone who wants to get out of the salaried lifestyle and it continues to validate the career choices I have made, although I think I work more than 4 hrs per week, at least my head does (Smile).
Books including the 'World is Flat' by Thomas Friedman, exemplify the 21 century economic models that we need to adapt to. The messages conveyed in all these books is the age of the digital and knowledge economy, and trade and communication flow can be done anywhere with anyone; and mobility and flexibility is part of the new workforce.
Entrepreneurship:
My entrepreneurship marked by technology transfers from the US started when I spent 4 years in Addis Ababa, in early 2000, working on large scale implementation work that my new company won bids to do. At the same time I was also appointed by UNECA to build an African Information Society Initiative, which advised African Ministers on National ICT plans, but also crafted a common position for Africa on the digital divide for the G8.
I then focused on the US market, mostly because of opportunities I saw and I wanted to position my companies to have a global portfolio of clients as well as wanting to be part of a global energy. I found myself assisting Silicon Valley companies in raising early stage venture capital money from global investors, including taking the companies public. I also started a corporate governance portfolio using my past corporate experience. My work to date remains global and I am mobile. Having a base in the San Francisco, Bay Area, where I have spent most of my U.S. residency, but now less than 30% of my time, especially in the past 10 years, gives me diversity in my work and social energy I need to reinforce my vision and continuously achieve my goals.

Capital: What are you currently working on?
Sophia: What keeps our company busy and afloat is the corporate governance work in the US I mentioned earlier, which is assisting corporations with risk management, controls, and advise on the ethical business practices of large public corporations, a much needed service as you can imagine with the current financial meltdowns. I am plugged-in to Africa, assisting in the Continent's entry into the global digital economy. This, we are doing by creating a framework of partnership that works with projects we have initiated and are to implement.
One project is connecting the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) of Africa through a knowledge network (website www.ciin4africa.blogspot.com), the other is a project to create a continental domain re: DotAfrica ".Africa" (website www.dotconnectafrica.org) to register entities that are working in Africa. Am I the only one who cannot access these project sites including my resume at www.sophiabekele.com from Ethiopia? It seems they may have been blocked. In any case, both of these projects use a PPP (Public Private Partnership) model for their implementation are Continental in scope and have been endorsed, promoted and given key platforms by African regional organizations, US and international organizations. Recently in May, I presented both projects at the WISIS 2009 in Geneva. Funding partners are lined up, and we are looking forward to their positive implementation.

Capital: Anything in Ethiopia?
Well, yes, I travel to Ethiopia frequently, because of our various investments
I actively serve on public policy boards like ICANN, the World Affairs Council, and was recently appointed to the Alumni Board of Directors of Golden Gate University, where we focus on how we can improve the quality of education in the University, and improve alumni relations. I continue to also advise various UN agencies. I also recently started the ISOC- SF Bay chapter (www.sfbayisoc.org) along with other professional interested in the development of the Internet. I am one of the co-founders and part of the Executive Board.
Capital: What is your CGEIT designation and all the others I see after your name: CISA, CCS, CGEIT?
Sophia: CGEIT stands for Corporate Governance Enterprise of Information Technology. It is a designation given primarily to C-level management, i.e CEO, CIO, CTO etc. and those who have had extensive experience overseeing the governance of an entire enterprise. For me, it was an honour to receive this, because I went through a non-traditional mixed career path, from corporate to consulting and running a business. Much of the corporate governance experience and advisor work I do deals with Risk & Business Management and Control, and starts from the Board of Director's and Top Management down to the Corporation. Enterprise management and looking at the big picture has been the status quo for me in my career. The other designations, I have also deal with expertise in system auditing and security and controls, which in today's terminology is really the proper governance of Information technology assets.

Capital: You are an elected member of the ICANN Council of the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) could you tell us what it is?
Sophia: ICANN stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers. It is the central agency that is designated by the United States Department of Commerce to oversight the technical coordination of the governance of the internet. GNSO is the policy board that develops policy on gTLD - Generic Top Level Domain Names, such as .com, .net, .org alike.
As what is called a "NomCom" appointee, I represent the public interest and, therefore, I vote on policies NOT based on the principles of a constituency representation, which the GNSO structure is made up of, but on my own views of the issues, although they overlap. The GNSO is the most controversial and influential of the policy platforms in ICANN. This is because generic domain names control over 80% of the commercial market and policies being developed by GNSO over issues governing this could determine major factors in the global economy. The GNSO Council's responsibility in recommending substantive policies relating to generic top-level domains is a critical part of ICANN's function. The mechanism by which the GNSO makes such recommendations to the ICANN Board of Directors is through the GNSO Policy Development Process (PDP). The marking point was that I was the first African to be appointed by ICANN to the policy board of GNSO and I wanted to do something for Africa as well.

Capital: Were you able to contribute time for Africa or other policy issues related to minority groups?
Sophia: Sure, outside my regular contributions and votes, during my term, I was instrumental in getting three things accomplished. One was initiating and championing the policy dialog over International Domain Names (IDNs). There was no policy on these issues and many that use their own language have felt marginalized and have come to me for help. We formed an IDN working group to give focus on IDNs, that resulted in policy development and is now able for implementation. As a result, I was also one of the co-authors of the IDN policy guidelines. The second is on the formation of the African grouping within ICANN, where I feel that there was no African agenda or African related issues that were being discussed.
As an African diaspora, I needed to hear that and I continued to push for a common position on the ICANN Board. This group has also facilitated a more transparent discussion that was originally seen as a closed group working on the continent's opportunities. Third, is the "dotafrica" gTLD initiative, which was one that I initiated and also hoped to use as a vehicle for this common position. As I also mentioned above, gTLDs is the policy space where I spent much of my time in ICANN, so I feel we have the core competency of the policy in this area to lead ".Africa" to a successful launch.

Capital: Are there other African Internet Initiatives?
Sophia: The AfriNIC organization, one that has championed the African IP address, and another group is AfriTLD, which is working actively to organize the AfriCan ccTLDs space in a substantive manner. ccTLD stands for Country Code Top Level domain name, such as .us (USA), .et (ethiopia), or .za (South Africa). There exist various chapters of Internet society, within Africa as well that have made their own efforts on Internet inclusion. Most recently, ISOC Africa, although I'm not clear if it is to represent all ISOC chapters, has surfaced embracing the ISOC mission of improving policy dialog of Internet, although issues so far seem like a rewind of the already existing African initiatives. Africa needs many initiatives to fill the internet gap. Capacity issues will always be a problem in these organizations, as all are less than a decade old, however, needs to be encouraged.

Capital: Can there be Conflict of Interest with all these internet groupings?
Sophia: Yes, good question. While all of these groups have different mandates and should keep it transparent, the policy debates and wanting to "fast -track on opportunities" could create dangerous mandate issues.
Such groupings could also create confusion and identity problems leaving a loop-hole on overlapping mandates and advisory work, which in the past has lead to conflict-of interest and confusions. Unfortunately to my surprise finding, "conflict-of-interest" is a discipline not many in the technical field are attuned to, in fact even management in huge bureaucratic organizations are not aware of it. We in the auditing field have clear radar for it. This is why it is important to continue to be part of the policy development process of GNSO and keep dialog within ICANN and stakeholders, so these things can be identified and reported. It is important there is a level playing field for various constituencies of ICANN as an organization as well as the processes and mechanisms by which the Constituencies operate within the community; particularly in the areas of transparency and openness and the fairness of the Constituency's processes which should continue to observe the interest of the stakeholders that are participating in them.

Capital: What do you think is the emerging internet technologies policy, and its impact on Africa/Ethiopia?
Sophia: We all know Africa will benefit from emerging trends in technology; the penetration of mobiles is evidence of this. I would say, not all technologies are suitable or timely for Africa.
IDNs: Definitely a direct benefit to those who have languages in non-latin script. From Africa, Ethiopia has the most developed language, and should take advantage. Most of the rural development strategies in Ethiopia are based on the local language, therefore IDNs will reinforce that. There are various localization efforts within Africa. Our organization has contributed on Amharic and Tigrigna for the South African based Initiative "100 local languages".
Domain Name: While ccTLDs such as .et (DotEthiopia) are already delegated by ICANN to the respective countries, the development of gTLDs to improve competition and serve the market should be a benefit to Africa. Aside from the existing Domain name allocation mentioned above, there will be limitation in this market in Africa due to the expensive application fees charged by ICANN to issue a new gTLD.
IpV6 issues: This is the next-generation Internet protocol, hyped to run out of IP addressing in 2011. In a recent lunch seminar I attended in San Francisco organized by google/ISOC on the status of IPV6, it validated most of our industry insider findings. Most organizations have NOT decided to deploy IpV6, because they don't see a business driver for the upgrade - a category that includes most U.S. corporations. Integrating IpV6 into existing network requires huge planning effort in enterprise architecture and capital investments. Statistical evidence shows deployment of IpV6 globally is less than 1% even in the US. The issue for me is two fold: The technical and cost of adaption and security issues. If you talk about adaption, 80% of the world's applications are still running on Windows XP, including Ethiopia, so there is no compatibility with IpV6, so why waste resources. It is a 'Colossal Failure of Common Sense as Lawrence McDonald, titled his latest book on the inside Story of the Collapse of the brilliant finance house, Lehman Brothers.
A rush to adapt to Ipv6 without doing due diligence on the enterprise environment, especially in developing economies where the investment cost of adaption is exponential and where network security is vulnerable is equivalent to Lehman's scenario. Most hacking activities reported on the internet such as the recently widely publicized botnet attack leveraged the Ipv6 platform, where the command and control is under Ipv6. This includes illegal file sharing that leverages Ipv6 for peer-to-peer communications. Finally, the best proposed solution is to have a migrating strategy in place, which when I asked ComCast, also present at the meeting, said a not surprising 5 year minimum. It is my opinion that IpV6 is an ICANN/google driven process that is part of promotion of the 'internet'. Google is in it for commercial reasons as it will benefit in the "content business." It also makes sense for it to push for more bandwidth, address space and connections to more users, which drives google's business model which is advertizing revenue. In parallel, ICANN is mandated the same, with the promotion and use of internet. However, as a service provider, one needs to do its own assessment for its own use before attempting to eco the voices of the internet fundamentalist like ICANN and Google, for the more years to come.
NetNeutrality: Currently a US issue that will impact Africa. Africa cannot afford to pay for internet usage. We already have issues with IXP and other regulatory harmonization issues given the geo politics of Africa. To add to an already expensive use of Internet access, and charge for content will mean despair for Africa.

Capital: How do you explain the status of internet technology in Ethiopia?
Sophia: I posed your question to a "Ferengi" business colleague, who lives in Addis. His answer was "Internet is installed; and it is developing permanently (smile). The Ethiopian internet community is not well developed as a result of poor internet penetration level in the country and lack of connectivity at a mass scale.
As a result, this has contributed to the limited growth of internet services. I recall our company CBS International was one of the pioneering companies to introduce the registration of domain names, website development and hosting services in the country in the early 2000. Almost 10 years since, the penetration rate has not been very impressive. The answer remains clear; price and service quality and consumer choice remains unsatisfactory. In a recent public presentation by ETC, I learned there is a massive effort underway to improve infrastructure that hopes to deal with these issues. On the upside, even in the elite circles the CDMA wireless card I purchased from ETC for 1800 birr to connect to the internet works really well and keeps me mobile; it was a huge relief from the 30 dollar per day fee that the Hilton hotel charges outside of my room, which is literally extortionate, even by international standards.
Ethiopia has a vast potential for growth and ICT remains the top priority of the government agenda with agencies like EICTDA focusing on national policy towards a mandate of "informed Society". There also exists a clear duplicate mandate on ICT/internet policy that needs to be sorted out between the various responsible authorities. There is a saying, a nation cannot have two kings or there cannot be two tongues in one mouth. EICTDA also leads a rural connectivity program through "woredanet", which is making efforts to provide rural connectivity and content with Ethiopian Telecommunication Agency (ETC). Therefore, the development efforts we see seem widely distributed and therefore, I believe given that policy makers understand the issues, risks and benefits, there is room for optimism. Once the infrastructure is built, there will be an amazing opportunity to provide internet related services. I note for now, Ethiopia is known to be more cautious than other countries in its development path and seems to have its "own global best practice" (smile).

Capital: You recently briefed Rotarians about the current economic crisis?
Sophia: The address I made for the two Rotary clubs - Rotary Addis Ababa and Rotary West, was on a topic I can talk about all day. As a Corporate governance professional, my analysis of the global financial crisis is that of a regulatory failure not of a failure of a market economy or a failure in capitalism, as socialism may want us to believe; note, I disagree with anything that ends 'ism'. It is a fact that the products that ruined the Mortgage industry were invented on Wall Street. Financial engineers on Wall Street are employed to make money for Wall Street firms and themselves. There is no hidden code that says they will design their products to align private and social benefits and costs. That is precisely where a healthy role for regulation and laws and enforcement can be envisioned.
You cannot imagine a sudden failure of a major bank in less than a 2 year period to say the regulatory authorities did not know about it. The villains and heroes that are glorified by media diffuse the real issue. A systemic risk is still present if we do not reform the financial institutions. Unfortunately, while markets are supposed to ensure transparency, there are so many loopholes in the regulations that allow Wall Street to manipulate trades and orders.
The "innovation" in financial practices for the past decade has NOT been mitigated with proper supervisory and risk management measures. No one was asking the 64k dollar question, which in my mind is how such innovations contribute to the integrity of our marketplace and how do we control them? These were not only derivative products; there were backdating, high frequency trading or just simply "outsmarting" investors. They hold no social value nor give credence to market innovation. Instead they lead to what one calls a mutually assured destruction.

Capital: What was the issue you had with the formation of the Ethiopian stock market?
Sophia: Interesting you ask this question now. Well, the same issue I mentioned as with the Banking Crisis and issues of conflict of interest earlier. The gatekeeper should not be the poacher. The share dealing bylaws presented to us when we were invited to the Chamber meeting by the organizers were that Addis Ababa Chamber be the over-sight agency, which is unheard of in global practices. More seriously the steering committee members were shared amongst the two organizations. I simply stated that the National Bank or other government entry be the over sight agency. An institution cannot develop policy and implement it. There has to be a clear division of responsibilities. Some members then called me 'Marie Antoinette' for my counter proposal on a rural financial development strategy, then sort of like what is happening in expanding internet access to rural Ethiopia, I presume the issues I raised have not been wrong to date. I also have confidence we will get to the proposed stock market someday.

Capital: Tell me about yourself, what drives you? What do you dislike most? What is your passion and hobby outside work?
Sophia: Finding the truth is what drives me. What I detest most is mediocrity. My passion is travel. I have made 5 what Lufthansa calls "Around-the-World trips" in the past 4 years. I have videos of all of them and released one of the trips on Google video to share with the world. I use my global travel opportunity to scuba dive, where I enjoy exotic coral reefs. I am a certified diver. Currently, I am taking flying lessons in California for fun.

Capital: Do you have something to say to the business market in Ethiopia regarding yourself?
Sophia: I made efforts to be part of the development of my country in early 2000. I will say I was young and inexperienced at the time, but still had an impact. There are many issues to doing businesses in Ethiopia, primarily due to the lack of transparency, particularly in the government sector. I am sort of interested again in the market, and this time the difference is I am much experienced, however, still relatively young and with many more years to come (smile).