Form for W3C Advisory Committee to vote | Advisory Board public page
This page lists publicly nominations and statements for the 2024 election to W3C Advisory Board (AB). Each person has been nominated by at least one W3C Member according to the AB election process.
The W3C Membership elects the members of the Advisory Board. For this election W3C will fill five seats. W3C expects to announce the results on 31 May 2024.
Timeline:
Note: The deadline for votes is 03:59 UTC, 30 May 2024 (23:59 Boston Time, 29 May 2024).
The following nominations have been made (listed in random order):
An asterisk (*) indicates that the nominee is a current participant. All individuals were nominated by the AC Representatives of their organizations unless otherwise indicated below.
The following nomination statements have been made (listed in random order):
I nominate Hiroshi Ota as a candidate for the Advisory Board. He has served as AC Rep at Yahoo! Japan and is currently AC Rep at LY-Corporation following the company's merger.
He has led projects and organizations in a wide range of areas throughout his career, including Product Management, R&D, Business Development, Strategic Planning, and Sales, and is currently leading the Standards Technology and Open Source efforts at LY-Corporation. His experience leading in challenging situations while building consensus among members and organizations with different values will enable him to make a unique contribution to W3C.
To all of the W3C,
I am Hiroshi Ota from LY-Corporation. I joined W3C in 2018 — when the former Yahoo! Japan joined the W3C — and served as the company's AC Rep. I continue to be the AC Rep for LY-Corporation after a company merger. I also serve as a W3C Japan Ambassador, helping to bridge the Japanese local community and the global community.
When I first started participating in the W3C, I wondered "why are there so many line breaks in the text of the W3C's mailing list, which make it difficult to be translated automatically?". Several years have passed with this thought in mind. And then I realized, "why haven’t I expressed this in the member community?"
I believe we need to think carefully about cases like that, in order to achieve a higher level of the Diversity & Inclusion which the W3C values. If I can have the opportunity to serve as an AB, I will work to ensure that the W3C remains a trusted entity for the next 30 years, with the goals of:
Why is the W3C trusted on the Internet and in the Web space? It is not only thanks just to those members who have a great deal to say and influence. Members who have little voice and those who do not have a voice are also important components of diversity at W3C. Just because they are voiceless does not mean that they are not willing, and in order for the W3C to remain a trusted entity for the next 30 years, we must not only rely on the leading voices, but we must also gather up these small voices and wills, and maintain diversity.
It is equally imperative that W3C be an organization that puts its users first, the recipients of the value it brings to the world. I believe its primary users are the developers who use web standards, the users of those services, and the W3C members. However, given the increasing complexity of the Web and its exceptional and still-growing influence, it may be necessary to take a broader view of who needs to be recognized as a user. I believe it is important to continue to make efforts to accurately recognize target users and to act with respect for their voices.
I have spent years as a product manager creating and delivering services to the market. Users are sensitive and aware of whether or not a service is operated on the principle of setting the first priority on users and making efforts to listen to users. If a service is not run on that principle, it will lose trust from users and it will not only cause users to leave but also cause a loss of trust from members in the product team. This is also necessary for standards organizations.
In closing, I would like to express my respect and appreciation to the current and past AB members, as well as the members, Board of Directors, Team, Technical Architecture Group, and all W3C communities. I was particularly impressed with the AB members who moved forward truly difficult tasks in the transition to W3C Legal Entity. The opportunity to run for election as an AB candidate is an incredible honor for me.
I would be happy to help shape the next 30 years of W3C. Please contact me at hioota@lycorp.co.jp.
Thank you.
It is a great pleasure to nominate Max Gendler for the Advisory Board (AB) and to invite you to vote for him in this election.
The W3C has successfully navigated its transition to a legal entity but the Web remains at a turning point. I believe that the problems the Web has are solvable and that together we can make W3C the place where these problems are solved. But for that to happen we need new perspectives, new voices, and new leaders who understand how to listen and turn what they hear into a vision for a better Web.
I've had many occasions to see Max at work. He is thoughtful in every interaction and understands how both technology and regulation work. I have seen him building consensus between industry competitors even when the choices are hard. He can get technologists, lawyers, marketers, CEOs, and policymakers in the same room working together. He is equally at ease nerding out on data analysis with fellow geeks or explaining complex topics to high-ranking lawmakers.
Max has a deep understanding of privacy and of people-centric advertising. He has become an important voice in the wide alliance of those who want the Web to stay open, and he can represent the perspective of those who use the Web and publish content on it. This is particularly important when the emergence of LLMs is threatening the incentive to make content available to all. I know that Max would make an excellent addition to the W3C Advisory Board, bringing a fresh and wise perspective at a time when we sorely need it.
Thank you for taking the time to consider Max, I know that you won't regret electing him.
Hello! I'm Elena Lape. I am Holopin's AC Rep, where I lead a team developing digital recognition SaaS for hundreds of thousands of developers globally.
As someone who still spends a good chunk of her time writing JavaScript, organizing hackathons, and speaking at tech meetups, I'm deeply connected to the daily lives of web developers and users alike. Prior to Holopin, I ran a consultancy focused on enhancing developer experience and open source projects, and led developer tool partnerships at GitHub Education.
My journey in tech has always been about doing good work with good people. Now, as your candidate for the W3C Advisory Board, I'm eager to leverage my experience in web standards, project management and collaboration to help us navigate the challenges and opportunities ahead.
The vision I have for W3C is simple: we should lead by example in quickly and effectively adopting new technologies, starting with addressing our own governance workflows — all while fostering an inclusive community that reflects and amplifies every voice.
As your AB candidate, I pledge to deliver on these key areas when elected:
As we work towards these shared goals, your support is essential. I believe that together, we can cultivate an environment where all voices are heard and where great ideas become a reality.
Huawei is pleased to nominate Dr. Wei Ding for the election of W3C Advisory Board member.
How do you believe W3C could sustainably drive the Web technologies ahead to led the Web to its full potential? Two years ago, when I started to run for AB, I heard strong concerns from W3C members and felt committed bringing them to AB for solutions. Two years later, with the help from W3C Team, and support from the knowledgeable AB colleagues, as the proposer and leader of AB priority program on “Exploring New Horizons”, I am happy to report back that the “Exploration Group” has been set up, targeting to engage broader Web community, proposing more meetups, enhancing liaison scheme to include quicker and deeper technical and industrial insights, as well as supporting better coordination for WG charting. The vision and mission of “Exploration Group” was quite shared by W3C CEO Seth Dobbs by his saying in AC2024 meeting, “it behooves us to connect both W3C Members and the public for exchange of ideas between the best and brightest in the field around the world, so that together we bring innovative solutions to global problems.”
Now, I would like your continual support for my running for the new term of AB. Again, I promise to hear from you and try my best to address your concerns, as I always do.
My term on the AB happens to be through the turning point in W3C history, transforming to an independent legal entity, and running into Director-free model. I was honored to be involved in some key projects, worked together with Board of Directors, AB and TAG colleagues to support a smooth transformation, including the Process document and governance-related documents update, Vision notes development as the guideline for the community runs on Director-free model, and contributed to the technical discussions in AC & TPAC meetings. I applaud for the achievement of the team work, which is now supporting W3C growing well on the new track.
If I were elected and could serve AB for the new term, in addition to continue the efforts to make W3C a more innovative organization, I would like to work on three critical challenges W3C is facing. Firstly, how to address regulator's increasing interests on Web technologies. As Tim Berners-Lee presented during AC2023, “Web is a sociotechnical system, we should be constantly looking at what policy changes may be necessary when a technology is put out there”, and W3C “needs more fluid ways of interacting between technology discussions and policy discussions”. In recent years, it is getting obvious that more and more regulations are relevant to Web technologies, with the goal to protect public interests. An integrated scheme is necessary to be built for bridging the two sides for benefiting both policies and technologies. Secondly, how to pursue a decentralized Web. Web was invented as decentralized system for everyone, but has evolved into an engine of inequity and division. With the increasing awareness of privacy and security of consumers, it is believed a critical tipping point will be reached necessarily soon for a better web. The third, how to activate participation and contribution from small and medium enterprises, government agencies and consumers. A healthy community appreciates diverse and comprehensive stakeholders. W3C, being an infrastructure technology organization, deserves multi-stakeholders with different of interests shaping for the balanced perspectives. I would propose that AB should take the responsibility stepping in and explore solutions for all the three challenges.
I am now working as the Director of Standards Strategy for Huawei. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering and Information Management, I started my career as the Standards Manager at Sun Microsystems, Director of Standards at Intel, followed by Senior Director of Standards at Oracle, that makes two decades of my career in technical standard related work. This career path helps me with comprehensive background in ICT industry covering Semi-conductor, Systems and Software, and rich experience in standardization. My Web technical career started from the doctoral research program leveraging W3C XML standards developing Chinese National Standards GB/T 20916-2007 Specification for the Chinese Office File Format, both as the key technology contributor and program manager. As a strong believer of the Web, I stick to the conviction that Web will always be on the front, with its strong ideology of “One Web” and “Web for All.” Any more info about myself, please refer to: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wei-ding-6a76a11/.
I appreciate your support, and look forward to working with you and make W3C a greater technical community.
Over the past 6 years on the Advisory Board, I have lead multiple critical reforms in governance and process at W3C. Nevertheless, many of these reforms are still young, and call for significant follow ups: to fine tune what has been established, to adjust things that aren't quite working as well as expected, or to take advantage of the new opportunities offered by the reformed situation.
My main goals for this term are:
Other topics I am interested in for the AB include:
In my past terms on the AB, I've had the opportunity to deliver reforms such as the 2020 continuous development update to the Process and Patent Policy, the addition of Registries and W3C Statements, the “Director-free Process”, and the Legal Entity transition—where I not only contributed to Bylaws development, partnership agreements, and financial preparations, but also served as a critical AB-Board Liaison during the transition, and later as a guest on the Finance and Governance committees.
I have had the opportunity to wear many hats at W3C, giving me a broad perspective on how things work here—or sometimes don’t: I have been a specification editor from incubation to Recommendation; a Member representative as well as an Invited Expert; an Advisory Committee representative; a Community Group chair, Workshop organizer, multiple times Chair of the W3C Council, and of course, a member of the AB.
More broadly, I am French, live in Japan, and have also lived and worked in Norway and China. Initially trained as a software engineer in France and Japan, I later complemented this with an MBA from INSEAD. I’ve worked as an engineer in companies large and small, as an executive in two startups, and been a non-profit board member (consecutively as secretary, treasurer, and chair).
I run my own consulting company and am an independent W3C participant; however my expenses for this role will be covered by Shueisha, Kodansha, Shogakukan, Kadokawa, and Media Do (5 major actors of the Japanese publishing industry).
The statement is also available in 中文, Deutsch, Español, Français, 日本語, 한국어.
Sony Group Corporation (hereinafter referred to as Sony) recommends Mr. Tatsuya Igarashi for reappointment as a candidate for the W3C Advisory Board (hereinafter referred to as AB).
Mr. Igarashi has been involved in research of multimedia and network technology at Sony for a long time and has served as a member of the W3C AB for two consecutive terms. Sony is confident that Mr. Igarashi can contribute with the necessary expertise for W3C members and the Web community, and supports his reappointment to the AB.
"I believe that in order for the Web to continue to bring benefits to people globally and develop as a social infrastructure, it is important to develop the Web while incorporating the views of diverse people and industries from around the world.
Although my second term on the AB is coming to an end, I have focused my efforts on geographical and industrial diversity and inclusion, and have expressed my opinions and proposals in various discussions as a member of the AB.
If I am reelected in this election, I would like to continue my activities with a focus on the following points:
When I first became a member of the AB in 2020, I received much feedback from Japanese members regarding language barriers. Recently, AI technology-based automatic English captioning and machine translation of documents have reached a level of quality that can be used in W3C standardization activities. However, in general non-native English speakers still find it burdensome to communicate in English at meetings.
In Japan and China, local W3C community activities are actively conducted mainly by Partners. By enabling sharing of standardization progress in their native languages, providing technical explanations and discussions, we can remove language barriers, create connections between regional communities and the global Web community, contribute to the regional promotion of W3C standardization activities, strengthen engagement of existing members and include new members.
With the aim of promoting geographical diversity and inclusion, lowering language barriers, and promoting regional community activities, I would like to discuss as an AB member what can be achieved in W3C, a global standardization organization, using the Japan-China model as a good example.
I joined the W3C activity in 2010, when many organizations from the media and entertainment industry, such as broadcasting services and video distribution, participated and established the Web and TV Interest Group. So far, various organizations from industries such as mobile, automotive, publishing, finance, and IoT have participated in W3C. I believe that we should continue to encourage participation from a wide range of industries and evolve the Web with the cooperation and support of everyone as One Web community.
Based on this idea, as part of the AB/2024 Priorities, I am conducting activities to create opportunities to explore technology areas that W3C has not worked on before. As W3C celebrates its 30th anniversary, I believe that one of the values of W3C is that it is an open forum with a royalty-free policy that has contributed to the development and popularization of the Internet for a long time. It is not only important to have participation from various different regions, but also necessary to create a framework to promote organizational participation from new industries. I believe that by going beyond the scope of previous W3C standardization activities and contributing to the maintenance and development of the framework, W3C can continue to evolve for the next 30 years.
Finally, I would like to express my thought on multi-stakeholders. W3C standardization should not only define Web technologies for a few regions or industries, but should be carried out by many stakeholders, including Web developers, content creators, and end users. In the standardization activities of W3C, where people with various values and interests participate, it is important to deepen discussions while understanding each other's views to reach consensus. AB also has various agenda to discuss in addition to diversity and inclusion. In AB, I would like to value the consensus process and work with other AB members to fulfill our responsibilities.