A brief history on ISOC chapters in Switzerland

In ca. 1995 a Swiss Geneva Chapter was constituted as a Swiss not-for-profit organization, it was a member chapter of the global Internet Society and used the Websites www.isocgva.ch and www.isoc.ch. The chapter was very active for many years and usually held its meetings at the Geneva Press Club. See the mail below for a typical invitation (from 11 October 2003) to such an event:

From: "Internet Society Geneva" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: ISOC GVA: 23rd October, 6pm, Geneva: Special guest: Fred Baker, \ 
         ISOC Chairman of the Board and former IETF Chair
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 13:41:28 +0200

Dear members and supporters,
We are testing a new mailing program, so we apologize in advance for any
potential inconvenient which it could generate.
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WHEN:  Thursday 23rd 2003 - From 6pm
LOCATION: GENEVA - SWITZERLAND
Language: English
Place: Geneva Press Club/Club suisse de la presse, la Pastorale - 106 rte
de Ferney, Geneva
Entree libre/Free entrance
Organizer: Internet Society Geneva
Aperitif offer by the Geneva Press Club /Club suisse de la presse
Inscription & detail: https://www.isoc.ch/events/octobre.htm
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Speaker:

FRED BAKER
ISOC Chairman of the Board

" Growing Pains: The Internet in Adolescence "
Fred Baker has worked in the telecommunications industry since 1978,
building statistical multiplexors, terminal servers, bridges, and routers.

At Cisco Systems, his primary interest areas include the improvement of
Quality of Service for best effort and real time traffic, the development
of routing and addressing, and issues in law enforcement and emergency use
of the Internet. In addition to product development, as a Cisco Fellow, he
advises senior management of industry directions and appropriate corporate
strategies.

In addition, he is the chair of the Internet Society's Board of Trustees.
His principal standards contributions have been to the IETF, for which he
served as IETF Chair in from 1996 to 2001 and a member of the Internet
Architecture Board from 1996 to 2003. In that forum, he has contributed to
Network Management, OSPF and Ad Hoc Routing, PPP and Frame Relay, the
Integrated and Differentiated Services QoS architectures, and RSVP.

Looking forward to seing you
Best regards
Stephane Koch

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Inscription & detail: https://www.isoc.ch/events/octobre.htm
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Many thank to our sponsors:
***************************
Club Suisse de la Presse: http://www.pressclub.ch/
Le Temps: http://www.letemps.ch/
Obital & Cie: http://www.orbital.ch/
Toutlecontenu.com: http://www.toutlecontenu.com

Contact::
Stephane Koch
Internet Society Geneva, President
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web: www.isocgva.ch
Fax: +41 22 731 6007
Mobile: +41 79 607 57 33

_________________________________________________
Felix Curinga

Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[EMAIL PROTECTED] Maillist-Archive:
http://www.mail-archive.com/swinog%40swinog.ch/

The ISOC Geneva Chapter organized regular public meetings, helped its members run special interest groups (in particular: the Geneva Developing Countries Special Interest Group or DevSIG), provided information about Internet, Internet training and related matter, took part in local and international projects, and, through its participation in ISOC worldwide, worked to ensure that the Internet remained open, accessible, affordable and in the interest of everybody. In 1998 a large INET was held in Geneva at Palexpo and in May 2002 the Geneva Chapter was involved in the preparation of the World Civil Society Forum on Information Society to be held in Geneva in December 2003, “the first international summit in which civil society as such has been officially recognized as a key-actor in the development of ICT”. At same time, ISOC GVA was announced as the only bilingual ISOC chapter (French and English languages). The key board members for a long time were Stéphane Koch (President), Pierre-Andre Rion and Rosa Delgado.

At a meeting on 26 November 2009 at Hotel Cornavin, the Geneva Chapter board announced its resignation. According to the minutes of that meeting, the “main reason for the resignation is the arbitrary closure of the Geneva chapter by ISOC World”. The same minutes, however, state the facts that no AGM’s and thus no elections took place since three years and that the “chapter relied on just a few board members to perform activities. So much energy was required to organizing these events that the board and members became tired”. ISOC global explained the closure of the Geneva Chapter by “current practice to close non-active chapters such as Washington DC, France and Geneva”.

In late 2009, plans to reform as a Swiss chapter emerged.  In a first chapter recreation team meeting on 13 January 2010, proposals were discussed for the first time among the seventeen members physically present in a room at ISOC EMEA in Geneva.  It took an additional “rejuvenation” meeting in Geneva (17 February 2010) where a transition plan was proposed (18 February 2010) and a transition team of approximately 10 volunteers accepted the objective to constitute a ISOC Switzerland Chapter.

The next important step was the chartering by ISOC. The great news arrived on 9 May 2012: the ISOC Board of Trustees had just officially recognized the Switzerland Chapter as Chapter of the Internet Society.

Since then the ISOC Switzerland Chapter organized several events, among them informal After-Work gatherings in Zurich and Geneva, co-hosting an IPv6 specific event with the Swiss IPv6 Council and last but not least, two policy related events in Bern, the capital of Switzerland:

  • 27 November 2012, “The Internet Under Threat”, with National Counsellor Balthasar Glaettli, entrepreneur and politician (member of the Swiss Parliament), and Brian Trammell, research associate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich
  • 8 March 2013, “WCIT Digest”, a panel discussion with Frédéric Riehl, OFCOM, Vice-Director and Head of International Relations Service, Richard Hill, independent consultant (former senior ITU staff member), and Markus Kummer, Internet Society, Vice President Public Policy

All events were well attended and lots of positive feedback was expressed to the Board.

As of 2013, ISOC-CH is engaging over 100 members across the country in events that reflect member interests and ISOC priorities, and has plans for more events in Bern, Geneva, Zurich and other regions of Switzerland over the coming year and beyond.