This year, OpenStand partner Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) celebrates 10 years of their Fellowship Program. This program is designed to to increase awareness of the open standards development process across communities where there there is a need for understanding these significant issues. Since its inception, the program has served as an incubator for the IETF leaders. A total of 289 awards have been given to 193 individuals (First-Timer and Returning Fellows) throughout the program’s existence.
A recent article from the Internet Society reflected on those 10 years and stated “we have recognized that the success of the program is largely down to not only what Fellows give back to the IETF (directly or indirectly), but also what they receive from it.” The article also published results of a recent survey of past Fellowship participants. Below are a few highlights from the survey:
- Fellows have contributed to the development of roughly 49 RFCs in total, including 7 co-authored RFCs
- Several fellows are active in standards development organizations such as IEEE and W3C, and also involved with network operator groups (NOGs)
- Fellows regularly speak at regional conferences about the importance of the IETF and recruit individuals to become involved
- In 2015, a group of past Fellows from India launched the Indian IETF Capacity Building Initiative, and secured funding from the government to host a meeting and build an Indian Fellows mentoring network
- In LAC, many former Fellows have been involved in recruiting others and organizing local hubs for remote participation
- Former Brazilian Fellows launched professor-student Fellowships where they attended 6-9 IETF meetings over 3 years
- A number of Fellows have led and driven IPv6 deployments at their respective universities
You can review the profiles for those individuals selected for the Fellowship to IETF 97 here.