Olaf Kolkman

As Chief Internet Technology Officer, Olaf has responsibility for leading Internet Society’s Strategic Technical activities, particularly as they pertain to issues and opportunities for enhancing the Internet’s evolution.

Olaf has been actively involved with Internet technologies since his astronomy studies during the early nineties. Internet became his professional focus in 1996 when he joined the RIPE NCC to develop the first version of what has become a worldwide test-network. In 2007 he became the managing director of NLnet Labs. Under his responsibility NLnet Labs produced open-source products, performed research on technical issues with global impact, and contributed actively to the regional and global collaborative standard and governance bodies (e.g. ICANN, RIPE, IETF), and 'pushed the needle' on the development and deployment of DNSSEC.

Kolkman describes himself as an Internet generalist and evangineer, somebody with deep knowledge on some of the Internet's technical aspects who particularly enjoys bridging the technology-society-policy gaps.

Notable Accomplishments

Olaf Kolkman has had numerous responsibilities in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the premier standards organization for the Internet. He chaired the IETF DNS Extension Working Group (dnsext) and the Web Extensible Internet Registration Data Service (weirds) working groups. He was IAB member from 2006 to 2012 and its chair between March 2007 and March 2011. He was member of the IETF Administrative Oversight Committee (IAOC) and the IETF Trust, and was Acting RFC Series Editor in 2011, and was the IETF/ISOC representative on the European Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardization between 20112 and 2017.

He currently serves as a Trusted Community Representative in the context of the DNS Root-Signing ceremony, a commissioner on the Global Commission for Stability in Cyberspace, and a member of the advisory council of Bits of Freedom.

Olaf Kolkman is based in the Netherlands, where he lives with his family. He tweets as @kolkman.

Image credit: © Jordi Ruiz Cirera/Panos