AIS'15 Training

The AIS'15 training sessions were held at the Ramada Plaza Hotel from 24 May - 1 June 2015. The AIS'15 Trainings covered Internet related technical topics including Cybersecurity, UNIX, IPv6, Internet measurements, RPKI, DNSSEC, AfNOG topics, Internet number resource management, and online localised content development.

The AfREN Meeting, which is the annual forum on African research and education networking, also took place during the first week.

Over 300 participants from 35 countries took part in nine workshop tracks (six in English and three in French) and eight tutorial presentations conducted by 22 instructors from all over the world.

 

 

ICANN Day

The ICANN day was held on 1 June 2015. Pierre Dandjinou, ICANN’s VP Stakeholder Engagement for the Africa Region, introduced the ICANN Day and explained how ICANN coordinates critical Internet resources - domain names, Internet number resources and Internet protocols. This coordination helps to make the Internet stable, open and resilient. Pierre explained that ICANN also exists within a multi-stakeholder environment made up of a varied community of supporting organisations and Advisory Committees. Pierre ended his presentation by speaking about ICANN’s Africa strategy, which was implemented in 2013. The strategy seeks to enhance Africa’s participation in ICANN, to ensure ICANN’s presence in Africa and to support development of the Africa DNS industry. | Presentation

Danielle Andella, Registration Service Manager at ICANN, presented remotely on how entities that are interested in selling generic top-level domain (gTLD) name registrations can become accredited by ICANN as registrars and explained the accreditation process.

Aziz Hilalil (AFRALO) gave an introduction on AFRALO, ICANN’s At Large community organisation for the African region and gave statistics on their involvement in capacity building in Africa. | Presentation

Tijani Ben Jemaa (AFRALO) then talked about the endless possibilities the Internet offers to everyone and the increase in the number of gTLDs following the first round of the new gTLD program. The presentation enumerated on opportunities for Internet users from personal, 

professional and educational levels. The economic impact from the underserved regions was also highlighted in Tijani's presentation. | Presentation

Bob Obchleng (ICANN) presented on the New generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Program which was developed to increase competition and choice in the domain name space. Hundreds of new strings (over 630 currently) have been delegated and continue to be added to the domain name system since 2013. Bob highlighted the different review areas necessary before a second round could be considered. | Presentation

Fadh Batayneh, ICANN’s Stakeholder Engagement Coordinator for the Middle East, talked about developing a partnership between the domain name industry ecosystem in Africa and the Middle East. Fadh highlighted the importance of such partnership especially in terms of capacity building. | Presentation

 

 

Panel Sessions

The afternoon panel session discussed the participation of Africa in the IANA functions’ stewardship transition process. Mary Uduma from the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) chaired the session. Pierre Dandjinou, ICANN’s VP Stakeholder Engagement for the Africa Region, kickstarted the session and gave an overview of the transition proposal. He explained that ICANN has been asked to facilitate the development of a single proposal from the names, numbers and protocol communities. Each of the three communities prepared a separate proposal, which will be formulated into one single proposal and submitted to the ICANN Board for review. | Presentation

Fiona Asonga also gave an update on the activities of the ICANN Accountability Cross Community Working Group (CCWG). | Presentation

Mike Silber (ICANN Board) concluded the session and gave the ICANN Board's perspective on the IANA Stewardship Transition process. Mike added that useful public comments have been received that will help to improve ICANN's operations in the future. Mike reassured the community that the process is transparent and encouraged everyone to read the documents. However he did express some concern about the degree of complexity on some of the comments received.

Watch the ICANN Day here

 

The official opening ceremony included speeches from HEM Fehni and HEM Kone,the ICT Ministers of Tunisia and Cote D'Ivoire, representatives of the local host and AF*.

The first speaker was Moez Chakouk, representing the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), gave a passionate speech who spoke on the importance of effectively managing Internet number resources for the African region.

The representatives of the AF* - Markus Adomey (AfricaCERT), Paulos Nyrenda (AfTLD), Aziz Hilalil (AFRALO), Barry Boubakar (AfREN), Alan Barrett (AFRINIC)  - then addressed the key activities and projects within each organisation. Dr Nii Quaynor (AfNOG) spoke on the importance of AIS to unite the AF* family.

HEM Kone, ICT Minister of Cote D'Ivoire carried on with a speech that addressed the issues of inclusivity, content and security of the Internet.

The opening session ended with the speech made by HEM Fehni, Tunisia’s ICT Minister, who spoke about the Internet being a powerful tool in politics and society in Tunisia and beyond. HEM Fehri highlighted the important role that the Internet is playing but warned that this might lead to a divided world between the connected and the unconnected if we do not act to close the gap. The Minister iterated his trust in the new generation for creating new opportunities that would lead to better world and enumerated his vision of the future ICT sector in Tunisia.

Alan Barrett thanked the hosts and the sponsors for their support and welcomed the attendees to Tunisia. He wished everyone a successful and productive meeting and declared the AIS’15 open.

You can watch the video for the above sessions here.

After the official ceremony everybody gathered for some snacks and drinks at the AIS'15 Opening Cocktail. Kathy Brown (CEO, Internet Society), Dr Nii Quaynor and Alan Barrett made a welcome speech during the Opening Cocktail.

 

AFNOG-16 Meeting was opened by Issatou Jah (Qcell), who highlighted the crucial role of AfNOG as one of the pioneer organisation in the African Internet ecosystem before presenting the 2014/2015 update on AfNOG activities. This was followed by Network Operators’ Groups (NOG) reports from Congo, Ghana, and Nigeria. | Presentation

A speech by Dr Nii Quaynor (AfNOG) paid tribute to the Internet Society (ISOC) and the other Internet pioneers for helping to set up AfNOG and the establishment of many country NoGs in the region. Dr Quaynor cautioned that the Internet community should be prepared for the Internet of Things and more connected devices. According to Dr Quaynor, online transparency will also be a crucial aspect of the Internet in the near future and the technical community will need to adapt accordingly.

Lucky Masilela (Dot Africa) talked about Dot's Africa's readiness for the registration of domain names for Africa and stated that .durban, .jburg and .capetown have already been registered. Lucky also highlighted that Dot Africa has transparent policies and enhanced services for registration of domain names.

Next on the agenda was Pierre Dandjinou who spoke about ICANN new activities in regard to ICANN's Africa strategy. Pierre talked about the importance of the AF* and their connection with AfNOG. He highlighted the importance of having volunteers as well as not relying solely on sponsorship and building a sustainable organisation.

The official ceremony ended with the ISOC’s CEO Kathy Brown giving a keynote address. Kathy said Africa is at a tipping point in Internet development and provided the key findings from the recently launched ISOC Africa Report on Internet Governance. Kathy reiterated the importance of sustaining the Internet's open and global nature and spoke on the importance of security of the Internet and IPv6 uptake in Africa.

The next panel was composed of Simon Balthazar (Tznic), Kevin Chege (ISOC), Douglas Onyango and Fiona Asonga (ASO-AC)

Before the start of the session, Alain Aina (AFRINIC) provided the Secret Working Group report.

Simon Balthazar (Tznic) followed with a presentation on the process of key signing and roll over at TzNIC. | Presentation

Kevin Chege (ISOC) talked about online training for African NOGs and the important role of NOGs in capacity building in Africa, including track courses in high demand like the Unix Track 0 Course. Kevin then highlighted the added value of these online course and offered comparative statistics and said that courses are mostly targeted at NOGs and NRENs.| Presentation

Douglas Onyango and Fiona Asonga (ASO-AC) provided the Best Current Operational Practices (BCOP) update. The speakers introduced the BCOP teams around the world and provided a BCOP update informing the community that a white paper on BCOP is under preparation. Additionally, there was an update by Jan Zorz (ISOC) on the RIPE-631 BCOP document: “IPv6 Troubleshooting for Residential ISP Helpdesks”  | Presentation

The next panel session comprised Karim Jouini (Expensya), Thomas Volmer (Google) and Michuki Mwangi (ISOC).

Karim addressed the opportunities offered by cloud computing from the perspective of investment, developers, tech architects, users and governments. | Presentation

Thomas Volmer (Google) made a presentation on Growing Local Content & Peering. This presentation showed Google's content delivery network's progress in Africa and what most content delivery networks require to grow local content and local traffic exchange.

Michuki Mwangi (ISOC) then spoke about Africa’s Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) participation and having an IETF meeting in Africa. During this session the community debated about whether Africa is ready to welcome an IETF Meeting as participation in IETF activities by Africans is not high. | Presentation

Neriah Sossou from AFRINIC presented the AFRINIC Internet Routing Registry (IRR). | Presentation

Towela Jere Nyirenda (NEPAD) spoke on Transboundary Issues in Cybersecurity. | Presentation

 

Open Mic

 

During the Open Mic session, the community made several suggestions including that there should be a feedback mechanism, a process for evaluating the AfNOG meetings, that the AfNOG training track could include business models, and that there should be more presentations in the plenary on the latest technical innovations in the Internet industry.

You can see the video archives for the AfNOG-16 Meeting here.

Sponsors’ Cocktail

After the Conference, a sponsors’ cocktail was held at the Regency Hotel.

Alan Barrett (CEO, AFRINIC) and Dr Nii Quaynor (AfNOG) thanked all the AIS'15 sponsors and their representatives who were presented with a certificate and a token of thanks.

The PDWG co-Chair, Seun Ojedeji, welcomed everyone to the policy day and explained that his co-Chair Adam Nelson was absent due to his resignation from this position.

Seun provided an agenda overview and an introduction to the AFRINIC Policy Development Process. He informed the community that the "AFRINIC Service Guidelines" policy has been withdrawn by the author a day before and would therefore not feature on the agenda.

Following on Seun's introduction, AFRINIC’s Policy Liaison Manager, Ernest Byaruhanga, gave a report on the recently ratified and implemented policies at AFRINIC since the last meeting. He also gave an update on interesting policy proposals from the other RIR regions that touched on issues that have been raised on the AFRINIC policy discussion mailing list. Marco Schmidt, RIPE NCC Policy Development Officer, gave the RIPE NCC policy update and invited the AFRINIC community to subscribe to and join the discussions going on on the RIPE NCC mailing list.

Sunday Folayan, speaking with no affiliation, spoke about the need to elect another co-Chair to serve Adam Nelson’s remaining term. Barry Macharia was nominated, and the motion supported by several members of the community. The community was requested to confirm his nomination by a show of hands. Barry was selected unanimously.

The community also discussed whether the AFRINIC Board has the option to reject a recommendation from the PDP co-Chairs to ratify a proposal that has obtained consensus from the face-to-face meeting and Last Call period. The AFRINIC Board Chair, Sunday Folayan, said that this is possible. Another question was raised about whether a proposal which has not been updated or discussed on the mailing list since the previous AFRINIC meeting should appear on the agenda at the next AFRINIC meeting as this would be a waste of time. There were several minutes of debate on this topic with several members of the community lining up to have their say. The co-Chair explained that such proposals become expired only after one year and thus should remain on the discussion table according to the PDP, unless the community would like to make a change to the PDP.

Video

Policy Discussions Session 1

Policy discussions then kicked off with Douglas Onyango, the author of the "Out-Of-Region Use of AFRINIC Internet Number Resources" policy proposal. Consensus was not reached for this proposal due to the following:

• The proposed policy mentions an arbitrary number without providing the basis for that number.
• It is practically impossible for AFRINIC to enforce such a policy.
• The proposed policy limits genuine AFRINIC businesses from expanding/growing their services outside Africa when such limitations exist.
• It may promote fraud that cannot be abated since non-African companies will look for ways to create artificial entities in the region to get the IP address space and route that space out of the region.
• AFRINIC’s IP address space needs to be preserved for future use in Africa taking into account that Internet penetration in Africa is the lowest in the world.
• Any company needing IP address space to use outside Africa should contact the RIR serving that region where the IP addresses are needed, or contact an IP broker.
• Organisations outside the AFRINIC region can deploy on IPv6 for other regions and integrate them in the global network.

Video

Policy Discussions Session 2

The next session began with discussion of the “Resource Reservation for Internet Exchange Points” policy proposal presented by Michuki Mwangi and supported by Frank Habicht and Nishal Goburdhan. This policy seeks to reserve IPv4 and ASN resources for public Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in the African region, ensuring that there would be discrete IPv4 and ASN resources to allow the establishment and growth of future IXPs.

The authors explained that no updates had been made to the policy since the last meeting but that there were several issues that needed community input. A lively discussion followed with some of the key discussion points captured below:

• The wording surrounding 16-bit only, 32-bit only and 32-bit needed to be clarified.
• Some members of the community believed that the proposal should not exclude other critical infrastructure. Other members of the community and the authors disagreed with this viewpoint, stating that there are specific needs for IXPs and that a holistic proposal would not be useful.
• There was a call for AFPUB-2010-v4-005, “IPv4 Soft Landing Policy” to be modified to include IXPs. It was generally agreed that this was not a good solution.
• There was much support for this proposal and a few statements of non-support. The discussion ended with the decision to make minor required edits to the proposal and move to Last Call on the mailing list.

There was consensus to move the proposal to Last Call with minor edits.

Video

Draft Consolidated Resource Policy Manual

Ernest Byaruhanga, (Policy Coordinator) gave an update on the status of the Draft Consolidated Resource Policy Manual. The document is now on the AFRINIC website and has been sent to the Board for comment. It came to light during the session that the Board had not received the document. It will be re-sent.

Video

Staff Policy Implementation Experience Report

Madhvi Gokool, AFRINIC Registration Services Manager, gave the Staff Policy Implementation Experience Report. She asked members to give feedback at the microphone or on the mailing list. There was some discussion on the resource transfer guidelines, which Madhvi reiterated was not a policy. She explained that, for cases where AFRINIC cannot see justification according to the guidelines, the transfer request is declined. She asked the AFRINIC community to discuss whether a formal policy proposal was needed.

Video

Policy Development Working Group co-Chair Elections

The last session of the day ended with the Policy Development Working Group (PDWG) elections. Dr Boubakar Barry, NomCom Chair gave an overview of the PDWG ToRs, and the criteria for nominations. He stated that two nominations were received, Seun Ojedeji from Nigeria and Khaled Khoubaa from Tunisia. The latter withdrew his candidacy on Wednesday at 3pm on the mailing list in support of Seun. Seun was re-elected by a show of hands.

Video

Open Mic

A PDP open mic session then followed. A comment that was not related to the PDWG session was made and an objection lodged against it. The AFRINIC Board Chair subsequently proposed to hold a general open mic session after the PDWG open mic session. During both open mic sessions, there was lively debate on various topics including how more participation in the policy process is needed from governments and a broader cross-section of the community, the need for inter/intra RIR transfer policies in the AFRINIC region, legitimate use of IPs, allocation rates, the need to educate people about Internet number resources, getting the continent onto IPv6 to solve the issue of IPv4 exhaustion, the concept of service to the community, leasing, selling and trading of IP addresses, conflict of interest within the Board, Board accountability, Board ethics and general Internet number resources management issues

Before closing the session, Sunday Folayan, Board Chair, invited everyone to continue the discussions at the Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM).

Video

You can see the Video Archives for the policy discussion here.

The detailed minutes from the PDWG session will soon be published here.

FIRE Workshop

 

The Fund for Internet Research and Education (FIRE) Programme hosted a workshop on Marketing and Sales techniques for Business development for FIRE recipients on 3 and 4 June 2015.

On 3 June the workshop discussed the tools needed to write a marketing plan for their projects, make sales projections, and use relationship-selling techniques.

On 4 June, the workshop engaged participants in exercises in marketing that include sales channels, competitive analysis, pricing, relationship selling, customer relations and retention, and sales forecast.

The training was delivered by FJ Cava from Cava Consulting (http://www.cavaconsulting.biz)

AIS'15 Presentations

The Day began with a presentation from David R Dean, Boston Consulting Group, “Which wheels to grease? Reducing Friction in the Internet Economy". He gave an overview of the report, which had been conducted in conjunction with ICANN and focused on e-friction in Africa and beyond. Pierre Dandjinou, ICANN's Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement Africa, gave a short overview of why ICANN worked with the BCG on the e-friction study. There was some discussion surrounding the presentation, with some people commenting that it was refreshing to see Africa's Internet being presented in a positive light: it acknowledges the success achieved but notes the challenges that still lie ahead.

There was a comment about Internet number resources and whether they were considered as a source of e-friction. The presenter said that in this study Internet resources were not included but that it would be interesting to look at these in the future. | Presentation

Video

IANA Stewardship Transition Session

Mwenda Kivuva gave the Consolidated RIR IANA Stewardship Proposal (CRISP) Team's update. He explained that the ICG will take one combined proposal to the ICANN board and the five RIRs have come up with a consolidated proposal which included the following points:

• ICANN should continue as the IANA number service operator.
• The role of the NTIA should be replaced with the RIRs.
• A review committee should be established to review the performance of the IANA Services.
• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related issues (iana.org, the IANA trademarks) and jurisdiction issues.

Mwenda also gave an overview of a proposed Service Level Agreement (SLA), which would be signed by ICANN or the eventual IANA functions operator.

It was also emphasised that the RIRs do not have any plans to move away from ICANN as the IANA functions operator. However, as is good practice, a clause will be added to the proposal which will enable the RIRs to change this contract in the future should the need arise. Some discussion followed on this and the proposed set up of a review committee. In closing, the CRISP Team encouraged the community to participate in the process and asked that they read the proposed SLA and comment on it on the ianaxfer@nro.net mailing list. | Presentation

Video

 

Annual General Members Meeting (AGMM)

The AGMM opened with a welcome address, a review of the agenda and approval of last AGMM minutes dated 6 June 2014. Sunday Folayan, AFRINIC Board Chair, gave the Board update. Alan Barrett, AFRINIC CEO, gave the AFRINIC Activities update.

Video

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An update on the AFRINIC Financial Report followed. The draft Financial Report can be found here. The key issues raised during the discussion were:

• The auditors have been consistently late in delivering acceptable financial statements to the community. The community raised concerns that if there are consistently poor results from the biggest names in the audit industry (Ernst & Young, KPMG), then perhaps there is an internal issue.
• Members were concerned about the fact that AFRINIC tends to spend a high percentage of its revenue on HR costs. The Board stated that there's a goal to try to reduce this to 45% and that it will always be higher because AFRINIC relies on a high number of expatriates in order to be representative of the region in which AFRINIC operates.
• There was a clarification from the Board Chair about financial performance as follows: Historically, AFRINIC budgeted based upon projections of revenue for the current year , targets which are often missed since there is no way to predict the number of new members coming on board. There has been a change for 2015 to base budgeting on actual membership numbers, taking delinquents into consideration.
• It was also clarified by the Board that there was no problem with the initial auditor (Ernst & Young). The auditor was changed to KMPG because AFRINIC had been using the same auditor for 10 years. Some of the current issues can be attributed to changes that have been made to improve the audit process.

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Voting on Special Resolutions

Voting on special resolutions was declared open at 13:30. Alan Barrett called for volunteers from outside of the AFRINIC region to count the ballots. Owen DeLong, Jan Zorz and Sander Steffann volunteered.

• Ballots were cast on-site and through e-voting which was opened for a 10-minute window per resolution.
• On-site and e-voting was then closed and the volunteers started the count.
• The electronic votes were displayed on the screen in-house and added to on-site votes.

Results:

• Resolution SR 1, amendment to Clause 13.10 of the Bylaws, was withdrawn by the proposer before voting began.
• Resolution SR 2, amendment to Clause 12.11 of the Bylaws, was not accepted. It received 70.8% in support, which is below the minimum required percentage of 75% as per the bylaws.
• Resolution SR 3, amendment to Clause 14.1 of the bylaws, was not accepted. It received 51.2% in support, which is below the minimum required percentage of 75% as per the bylaws.

Video

Publication of 2014 Board Resolutions and Meeting Minutes

The Board and the members debated over the publication of past Board meeting minutes and whether resolutions from 2014 should be published on the AFRINIC website. The members reiterated that the Board must publish the minutes from their meetings and the resulting resolutions for the sake of transparency and accountability.

A motion was proposed and seconded to adjourn the Board of Directors elections to 5 June as the AGMM had run significantly over time.

The AGMM was adjourned until 5 June 2015 08h30. See the rest of the AGMM report on page 22 below.

The video archives for all the AGMM sessions can be seen here.

The full AGMM minutes will be published here in the coming weeks.

Gala Dinner

The Gala Dinner was held on the beachfront at the Regency Hotel in a traditional Berber tent with Mr Badru Ntege serving as host for the evening. Traditional dress, dancing, songs and music from all over the continent helped set the mood until a traditional Tunisian feast was served to the guests. The event included a huge cake to celebrate AFRINIC's 10-year anniversary. Alan Barrett gave a welcome speech followed by Andrew Alston from Liquid Telecom, Gala Dinner sponsor also addressed the audience. Pierre Dandjinou, Pierre Ouedraogo, Adiel Akplogan, Michuki Mwangi and  Fadi Chehadi (remotely), gave a speech congratulating AFRINIC for 10 years of hard work. Later in the evening, a historical video showing AFRINIC's accreditation by ICANN was shown. The Gala Dinner was also the occasion to pay tribute to the work of a prominent figure in the Internet community in Africa with the seventh edition of the NI&I Service Award (see below).

NI&I Service Award 2015

The seventh Network Information and Infrastructure Service (NII&I) Award was given to Francis Frederick Tusubira for his work in promoting Internet development in Africa.

Boubakar Barry (AfREN) presented the Award. Dr. Nii Quaynor, conveyor of AfNOG and initiator of the Award, praised Mr.Tusubira who is from the Research and Networking community for his commitment to the development of the Internet in Africa. Dr Tusubira unfortunately had to leave the AIS one day prior to the ceremony but he shared a video presentation in which he expressed his gratitude for this recognition:

“I am happy to accept this recognition not for myself but on behalf of all Africans who have devoted their lives and time to ensure that we can achieve the African renaissance. It has become a lifetime struggle,” said Dr Tusubira. He also quoted Mr Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi as his inspiration and paid tribute to the resiliency of Africans who have faced many hardships over the years. You can watch Dr Tusubira’s video here.

The NI&I Young Professional Award was given to AFRINIC’s own Mukom Akong Tamon for his contribution to the Internet infrastructure development.

“The Award celebrates excellence through Mukom’s work and commitment in IPv6 Training in the African region, said Anne Rachel Inne, former COO of AFRINIC, current VP Global Engagement at ICANN, and recipient of the NI&I Service Award in 2010.

Mr Tamon is AFRNIC’s Head of Capacity Building and Community Development. In his speech, he expressed his deep gratitude towards the community for recognising his contribution to the development of the Internet by quoting artist Khalil Gibran with his famous inspiring words: When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.”

 

2014 Board Resolutions and Board Meeting Minutes

The AGMM opened with the Chair informing members that an email was sent to the members informing them that the 2014 resolutions had been made available online as per the members’ request. However there was a configuration error in the mailing list, which prevented the email sent by the Board Chair being circulated to the members accordingly. This issue was addressed and the email was subsequently forwarded to the community in the morning of 5 June. The membership thanked the Board for complying with the request but questioned the Board on the accuracy of the information being circulated. There was some discussion on this and the members requested that the Board to have a meeting to decide on the way forward, which they duly held during an unplanned 15-minute adjournment to the AGMM.

Following this short extraordinary Board meeting, Badru Ntege and Paulos Nyirenda were invited to the floor by the Chair. Badru Ntege and  Paulos Nyirenda conveyed their decision to step down from the AFRINIC Board. The Chair in his following remark stated that the Board deliberated that members who were perceived to have violated the NDA (non disclosure agreement) should step down and as a result approved Ntege’s and Nyirenda’s decision.

NomCom15 Mailing List Breach

It was bought to the attention of the Board and members that there had been a breach of the NomCom2015 mailing list. Due to an admin error, the mailing list had been set up incorrectly which meant that anyone could join and read the archives. One member of the wider community brought this to the attention of several AFRINIC Board members. The members and the community had extensive discussions on this, with the person who breached the list explaining his actions. Alan Barrett apologised to the NomCom  for the administrative error that led to this breach and  speaking as AFRINIC’s CEO stated that no legal action will be taken..

Voting on Special Resolutions

The Meeting carried on with the proposer of the remaining Special Resolutions SR4 - SR 8 stating that he does not feel it is appropriate to put all these resolutions before the floor right now and  withdrawing them all on the condition that the voting was tabled until the extraordinary meeting that will take place in November during the AFRINIC-23 Meeting.

Video

Open Mic

A short open mic session saw discussions on the efficiency of the current policy development process and legal/bylaw issues.  More on the Open Mic session here (video on 5 June, discussion begins at minute: 33:00).

BoD Elections

The elections for Directors for the vacant seats 5 (Eastern Africa) and 6 (Southern Africa) started at 12:25 local time. A list of the candidates who stood can be found here.

The following members were elected by the membership:

• Seat 5 – Eastern Africa: Abibu Rashid Ntahigiye (Tanzania)
• Seat 6 – Southern Africa: Lucky Masilela (South Africa)

The Chair of the Board explained that the two newly elected Directors’ terms do not commence until 1 July 2015. As two Directors – Badru Ntege and Paulos Nyirenda - stepped down during the meeting, these two vacant seats must be filled for the month before the two new Directors take their seats. The two remaining Alternate Board Members, John Walubengo and Mark Elkins, will take these seats in the interim.  The Chair thanked the representatives from the other RIRs and observers for their comments and thanked the members for their on-going support and belief and closed the AGMM 2015.

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AIS'15 Presentations

In parallel to the AGMM, several presentations and panel sessions were held throughout the day.  Discussions focused on Innovation and ICT in Business, Internet governance, and Internet measurements.

Innovation and ICT in Business

The topics of Innovation and ICT in Business were discussed during two panel sessions. There was agreement in the room that more sessions on the subject of innovation were required at subsequent meetings.

Panels representatives included Ian Mutamiri (Nativ), Majdi Calboussi (Tunisia Ecotourism Network), Seun Fakude ( BEACONS), Michael Graaf (Right to Know Campaign (South Africa), Bernard Adongo (MyRide, Kenya) and Farell Folly (National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority, Benin)

Presentation (Ian Mutamiri)

Presentation (Michael Graaf)

Presentation (Bernard Adongo)

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance panel discussed topics including net neutrality, open Internet initiatives, stakeholder engagement and broadband Internet development. The panel was composed of: Enrico Calandro (Research ICT Africa), Mongi Marzoug (Orange Group), Towela Jere Nyirenda (NEPAD), Abdeldjalil Bong ( ZIYARA) and Aminata Garba (Carnegie Mellon University).

Presentation (Enrico Calandro)

Presentation (Mongi Marzoug)

Presentation (Aminata Garba)

Presentation (Towela Jere Nyirenda)

Internet Measurements

The day ended with two presentations on Internet measurements.

George Michaelson, APNIC, presented on Internet measurements using a very interesting technique based on Google ads. These ads were targeting Youtube users in a specific country. This technique is similar to software network probing and reached more than 100,000 views. The data collected was quite significant and allows better understanding of the behaviour of DNS, which opens new avenues in Internet measurements.

Christian Teuschel, RIPE NCC, gave an overview of RIPEstat and the RIPE Atlas project, explaining the capabilities of each platform and how they can be used. The RIPE Atlas overview focused on the network of probes and anchors around the world. Christian gave a demonstration of the active probes in Tunisia. Attendees saw how probes can help in building better networks. Christian also highlighted an “African use case” with regulators interested in hosting probes for the purpose of monitoring the quality of service of the ISPs. AFRINIC is also running its own RIPE/AFRINIC Atlas project in order to distribute more probes throughout the region.

Presentation

Sponsor Presentations

Sparkle and De-Cix gave a short presentation focusing on a new hub based in Sicily. Andrew Alston from Liquid Telecom gave a short talk on the importance of ensuring that Africa’s resources are used to connect the next billion Africans. He closed by saying that Africa must not let the world take its Internet number resources just because Africans are not using them yet; with a billion people on the continent, there is plenty of opportunity to use it up and if Africa doesn't do this, someone else will take it for themselves.

Video

Global Updates

Representative from the other four RIRs gave updates about developments in their respective regions:

• George Michaelson (APNIC) | Presentation
• Owen Delong (ARIN) | Presentation
• Diego Mena (LACNIC) | Presentation
• Axel Pawlik (RIPE NCC) | Presentation

Updates were also given on the work of the:

• Number Resource Organization (NRO) | Presentation
• IANA | Presentation
• Address Supporting Organization Address Council (ASO-AC) IANA | Presentation

Video

AFRINIC Services Update

The final day of the AIS’15 ended with departmental updates from AFRINIC staff. The key activities from each department were highlighted. From the floor, there were queries about why the French version of the AFRINIC website does not automatically redirect to the English version. Staff answered that they will look into the matter. Mark Elkins also queried whether the AFRINIC website is DNSSEC enabled. Staff confirmed that it is not currently DNSSEC enabled.

• AFRINIC Finance and HR Update:  Patrisse Dessee, Finance & Accounts Director | Presentation
• AFRINIC Member Services Update: Arthur N'Guessan, Head of Member Services | Presentation
• AFRINIC Registration Services Update: Madhvi Gokool, Registration Services Manager | Presentation
• AFRINIC Training Update: Mukom Tamon, Head of Capacity Building and
  Community Development | Presentation
• AFRINIC Communications Update: Gaelle Fall, Head of Communications & PR | Presentation
• AFRINIC R&D Update: Alain Aina, Director Research and New Technology | Presentation
• AFRINIC IT Update: Neriah Sossou, Head of IT & Engineering | Presentation

Closing Speech

Alan Barrett thanked everyone for their participation and support and announced that the AIS’16 would be held in Botswana from 22 May to 3 June 2015. He also announced that the AFRINIC-23 meeting will be held from 21-27 November 2015 in Brazzaville, Congo.

Video

 

A closing dinner was organised for all those still in Tunisia on the final evening of the AIS’15. The community gathered for a festive dinner in a relaxed setting to chat about the events of the last days; the perfect way to wrap u­­­p a very eventful AIS'15.