UNIVERSITY of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) student Shanelle McPherson is among 12 specially selected participants for the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN) annual forum in Cancun, Mexico, March 11-16, 2023. The NextGEN@ICANN Programme at the ICANN76 Community Forum will feature both face-to-face and virtual participation.

McPherson, 27, a first-year student of the UCC studying towards a BSc in Networking with Cybersecurity, said she is “elated to be representing the UCC and Jamaica at the forum, and to participate and learn as much as possible about making the Internet a safe and secure place for all who use it”.

She will be presenting a paper titled The Impact of Cybersecurity on Jamaica’s Banking System.

President of the UCC Dr Haldane Davies, in extending congratulations to McPherson, praised the “forward-thinking initiative of participating in such a forum”.

“Shanelle is an outstanding representative of the UCC. She is a member of Internet Society where she is responsible for training rural kids on cybersecurity through the ISOC x StarLink programme to be launched this year. She is also founder of CodeED, a collaboration with the Jamaica Ex-service Men and Women Association [a Diaspora body] to teach young people how to code. We know Shanelle will be a standout participant at this forum and look forward to her sharing the knowledge garnered on her return to Jamaica.”

An independent committee selected the forum participants based on their current studies and interest in Internet governance. Other participating students have been selected from major Latin American universities including the University of Buenos Aires, Universidad Interamericana de Panama, and University of Sao Paulo.

ICANN was formed in 1998 as a non-profit, public benefit corporation with a community of participants all over the world and a mission “to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet”.

ICANN notes that “to reach another person on the Internet you need to type an address — a name or a number — into your computer or other device. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world”.