As a founding member of ISOC Russia Chapter Andrey Kolesnikov has engaged in ISOC activities since 2012.
A RuNet (Russian Internet) veteran, Andrey pioneered public-interest online services in the then Soviet Union by providing email and teleconference services to support citizen diplomacy and business connections between USA and USSR.
Later, he lead a small team of engineers to launch Russia-On-Line, a first mass-market ISP in Russia and subsequently served as an executive in charge of IT and media operation in a number of companies under the Golden Telecom holding, a NASDAQ company.
As a member of the national Internet Industry Steering Group, Andrey drafted a Charter and second-level domains registration policies and procedures for what later emerged as the Coordination Center for .RU, a truly multistakeholder NGO and the nation’s ccTLD administrator and twice served on its Board.
In 2000, together with the Hon. Thomas Ilvek, the-then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia and a Bulgarian expert Andrey was selected for an Eastern European Troika to draft the Report of the high-level panel of experts on information and communication technology for the UN (“The Okinawa Charter”) to ingrain therein the fundamentals of free and open internet.
Between 2009 and 2015 the Russian Internet community supported his election and re-election as CEO of the Coordination Center for the ccTLD .RU. Under his lead, it became one of the world’s leading registries and an indisputable market and industry leader across the post-Soviet space. During his tenure, Andrey engineered a successful launch of the Cyrillic-script IDN ccTLD .РФ, which currently boasts nearly 900,000 registrations making it’s the biggest IDN ccTLD worldwide.
Despite recent challenging domestic and international developments, Andrey has consistently advocated Russia’s rapprochement and collaboration with a number of organizations, including ISOC, ICANN, CENTR, APTLD.
His tireless efforts to engage Russia in the global dialogue on Internet Governance resulted in the launch of the Russian IGF, the biggest multistakeholder platform of its kind across the Central and Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space, currently into the 7th year of existence.
Andrey also served as a gNSO counselor (2010-2012), was ISOC Organization Advisory Council member in 2011-2013; he sits on boards of several NGOs in Russia, including the Russian Internet Development Foundation and Russian Non-Governmental Organization “Center of Internet Technologies” (ROCIT).
As a senior staffer of the Russian Institute for Public Networks (RIPN.NET), Andrey is engaged in research and educational activities in Russia and the post-Soviet space by doing presentations on and advocating IPv6, DNSSEC, strong encryption and open internet environment.
