About Internet Society 17 March 2009

Internet Society Fellowship Awards Build Technical Leadership in Developing Regions

Enhanced Program Supports Diverse Voices in the Internet Standards Community

WASHINGTON, D.C. and GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – March 17, 2009 – The Internet Society (ISOC) today announced it has awarded fellowships to support participation in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) meetings by 19 technologists from 15 countries in developing regions around the world. The Internet Society is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet’s premier technical standards body. Ten fellowship recipients from this round of awards will attend next week’s IETF meeting held in San Francisco on 22-27 March.

This year’s Internet Society Fellowship to the IETF program attracted 150 applications with recipients coming from Bangladesh, Brazil, Kenya, India, Malawi, Mauritius, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Venezuela, Uganda, Uruguay, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The program pairs recipients with an experienced mentor at IETF meetings to support their participation.

“We are very excited to start the year with such a strong group of Fellows,” said Karen Rose, Director of Education and Programs at the Internet Society. “The Internet Society Fellowship to the IETF is a key demonstration of our commitment to facilitate technical leadership and increased participation in Internet standards development by technologists in the developing world.”

Ten Fellowships were awarded to individuals who will be attending the IETF for the first time.In addition, nine alumni of the program were selected to receive the Returning Fellows award, which supports their participation in an additional IETF meeting.Returning fellows are able to leverage their initial IETF experience to provide additional contributions into the IETF standards processes, while helping to build engagement by their local technical community in standards tracks that have important implications for regional Internet growth. Their attendance at the meetings also increases the visibility of the IETF in developing countries.

“Internet Society members Afilias, Google, Intel, and Microsoft have provided key investments in the IETF fellowship program,” said Drew Dvorshak, Senior Manager for Organisation Members. “Fellowships are an important opportunity for business leaders to benefit from ISOC’s global resources by funding a unique and effective effort to develop the next generation of technologists, which are key part of enabling the emergence of the next billion Internet users.”

Since its inception in 2006 the ISOC Fellowship to the IETF programme has sent 47 technologists from 29 developing countries to meetings of the IETF.

Additional information about the Internet Society IETF Fellowship Program
The selected ISOC IETF Fellows for 2009 are:

IETF 74, San Francisco, USA

Noah Kevin Sematimba (Uganda) is the Assistant Manager of IT systems at Warid Telecom Uganda Limited and was a key player in setting up the Internet Exchange in Uganda and still serves as the technical chair of the Uganda Internet exchange point.

Coko Tracy Mirindi Musaza (Rwanda) is an AfNOG instructor and IT consultant and is interested in the Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points working group, whose mailing list he has been following since 2006.

Ceron Joao Marcelo (Brazil) is a network operator and Masters student at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.Joao has been following the Inter-Domain Routing working group mailing list since last October.

Muhammad Haris Shamsi (Pakistan) is the Head of Product Development at Pakistan Mobile Communication Limited and is heavily involved with the Networkers’ Society of Pakistan and is a founding member of the IPv6 Task Force Pakistan.

Blessings Msowoya (Malawi) is a Network Engineer at the Malawi Sustainable Development Network Program and is also part of the team that manages the .mw ccTLD, the Malawi Internet Exchange Point (MIX). His interests are in the DNS Operations, Control And Provisioning of Wireless Access Points, and IPv6 Maintenance working groups.

IETF 75, Stockholm, Sweden

Md. Aminul Haque Chowdhury (Bangladesh) is pursuing his MSc in Computer Engineering at the Ajou University, South Korea and has been following the IPv6 over Low power WPAN working group.

Ronald Nsubuga (Uganda) is the Senior Administrator, IP Data Networks at MTN Uganda and was part of the group of editors for the document from AfNOG to NTIA NOI response about DNSSEC.

Vinayak Hegde (India) is interested in the IP Performance Metrics and Performance Metrics for Other Layers working groups, which he uses in his work on Internet measurement and analysis as an architect at Akamai.

Afaf El Maayati (Morocco) is the Project Manager of the .ma ccTLD at the National Telecommunications Regulatory Agency.She is interested in the DNS Operations, DNS Extensions, and Internationalized Domain Names in Applications working groups.

Dorcas Muthoni (Kenya) is the General Manager/CEO of Openworld LTD, a software firm, and she also runs a user group (LinuxChix) for women engineers across Africa that mentors young women to pursue careers in computing, as well as build capacity for practicing women.

The selected Returning ISOC IETF Fellows for 2009 are:

IETF 74, San Francisco, USA

Subramanian Moonesamy (Mauritius) is a consultant for Eland Systems and continues to participate in the IETF main discussion, Domain Keys Identified Mail, and Anti-Spam Research Group (Internet Research Task Force) mailing lists. He has also provided comments on numerous Internet Drafts.

Baasansuren Burmaa (Mongolia) is the Director of .MN Registry at Datacom LLC where she has reviewed some of the Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (Revised) working group documents together with other ccTLDs. By attending a third IETF meeting, she aims to bring operator interests from Mongolia into IETF working groups.

Mohibul Hasib Mahmud (Bangladesh) is currently working at BRAC BD Mail Network Ltd. (bracnet) as the Senior Manager, Technology Division. He is looking forward to the Domain Name System Operations working group meeting as his current research focuses on DNS traffic behavior; since attending IETF 73, Mohibul has become interested in IPv6 and IPv4 compatibility issues, particularly in the developing world.

Asim Zaheer (Pakistan) is employed by Mentor Graphics and is a part-time graduate student at the Lahore University of Management Sciences.Asim follows the IP Security Maintenance and Extensions, Mobility for IPv4, and Mobility EXTensions for IPv6 working groups as part of his work responsibilities.

IETF 75, Stockholm, Sweden

Alberto Castro (Uruguay) is a graduate student at Universidad de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay and is looking forward to participating in the upcoming Path Computation Element working group meeting and the Locator/ID Separation Protocol discussions.

Martin German (Uruguay) is a graduate student at Universidad de la Republica Oriental del Uruguay. He continues to participate in the Path Computation Element working group and Locator/ID Separation Protocol discussions.

Alejandro Acosta (Venezuela) is currently an Internetworking Coordinator at British Telecom, Venezuela and is working with a group of universities in Venezuela (la Universidad Catolica Andres Bello, Metroprolitana and Universidad Nacional Experimental Simon Rodriguez) to help them develop IPv6 in their networks.

Eduardo Ascenco Reis (Brazil) is a Senior Network Analyst at CTBC Multimidia.Eduardo follows the Inter-Domain Routing working group in his work with BGP routing table optimization, AS interactions on IXP environments, and Large AS versus different IP services (transit, private and public peering).

Jean Philemon Kissangou (Congo) is the Technical Manager at DRTVnet in the Congo where his work interests are in the IP over IEEE 802.16 Networks, IPv6 Maintenance, and IP Telephony working groups.

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society is a non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution, and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. For more information…

About the IETF

The Internet Society is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet’s premier technical standards body. The IETF is a large, open, international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual and there is no membership required. Work is done through mailing lists and various working groups. The IETF holds meetings three times per year. The work and consensus calls take place online to reduce barriers to participation and maximize contributions from around the world.

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