Speakers

Mirjam has been a member of the RIPE community for over twenty years and has served as Senior Community Builder at the RIPE NCC for the past decade. She has a deep knowledge of the Internet community and collaborates regularly with stakeholders from various sectors including technical, security, academic and government. This included establishing and maintaining relationships with regional and local operator communities. Mirjam also created and curated RIPE Labs, a collaborative platform that supports innovative ideas and tools for the community.

Prior to this role, Mirjam worked at the Internet Society as Senior Program Manager where she developed and organised technical workshops primarily in developing countries. During those years, Mirjam intensified her involvement with the IETF where she served as the Chair of the IETF Education Team for over ten years. She is currently a member of the IETF LLC Board of Directors.

Mirjam obtained a Masters of Computer Science at the Technical University Berlin, Germany.

Niall has been involved in the RIPE community since 1990 and has chaired both the TLD and ENUM Working Groups. He retired from the University College Dublin IT Services in 2014 where he was responsible for network infrastructure, including planning the introduction of IPv6. Niall was elected to the Vice Chair role, which was reintroduced to support the RIPE Chair’s workload and allow for succession planning.

Ignas Bagdonas has been involved in the network engineering field for the last two decades, covering operations, deployment, design, architecture, development, and standardisation aspects. He has worked on multiple large SP and enterprise networks worldwide, participated in many of the world's first technology deployments, and has been involved with building community awareness via conferences, seminars, and workshops.

Ignas is currently co-chair of the RIPE Routing Working Group. His focus covers end-to-end network architecture evolution and new emerging technologies.

Daniel Karrenberg is one of the pioneers of the Internet in Europe. In the 1980s, he helped build EUnet, the first pan-European Internet Service Provider (ISP). In 1989, Daniel was one of the founders of RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens), the key collaborative forum in Europe for Internet coordination. In the 1990s, Daniel led the formation of the world's first Regional Internet Registry, the RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC), serving Europe, the Middle East as well as, initially, parts of Africa and Central Asia.

Daniel has served as CEO of the RIPE NCC from 1992 to 2000 and as Chief Scientist from 2000 to 2013. In this role he has led a significant number of activities, including the RIPE Routing Information Service (RIS), the global measurement platform RIPE Atlas, DNS Monitoring Service (DNSMON), RIPEstat and, together with NLnet Labs, the Name Server Daemon (NSD). His current interests remain the Internet in general as well as trust, identity, quantum networking and measurements on the Internet in particular.

Currently, Daniel supports the CEO and the RIPE Chair Team on a part-time basis.

In 2001, Daniel was awarded the prestigious Jon Postel Internet Service Award "for two decades of extraordinary dedication to the development of networking in Europe and around the world"; he was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.

Daniel lives in Roermond, the Netherlands.

Antonios is a security and networking leader with experience in creating, designing, standardising and operating Internet-scale solutions that keep everyone more secure and private online. He is involved in TLS, PKI, routing, IPv6, firmware, policy development, post-quantum encryption, and anything that could improve people’s safety online. He’s currently on a sabbatical, spending time working on these projects pro-bono.

Khwaja Zubair Sediqi is a tech enthusiast specialising in Internet measurement and architecture. Currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Germany, Zubair focuses on optimising the Internet’s routing ecosystem functionality. With a background in computer science from TU Berlin, he spent over five years constructing and managing telecom networks, including significant contributions to 2G, 3G, and 4G projects. Zubair’s research involves analyzing BGP, RPKI, and DNS to enhance Internet routing. As he nears the completion of his Ph.D. in 2024, Zubair seeks new opportunities to expand his expertise. He's also experienced in teaching and government IT strategy. 

Daniel graduated in physics from the University of Milan in 1984. He initially spent time teaching in high schools, lecturing at the Milan University, and doing editorial work for a computer science magazine. 

In 1985, he was offered a position at the Computer Center of the Institute of Cosmic Physics of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) where he was initially responsible for the Network Department and then became Technical Manager of the Computer Center. During his years at the CNR, among other activities, he was responsible for the routing and coordination of the Italian interactive academic network (IBM, PVM/Passthrough), was a member of the Italian Executive of EARN, and was the CNR representative in the technical advisory committees of the Italian Academic and Research Network of the Ministry of Research and Education (GARR).

He subsequently joined the European Academic Research Network (EARN) Association office in Paris, between 1990 and 1995, where he later became Technical Manager. In that capacity, he chaired the EARN Network Operations Group and the EARN Network Performance Evaluation Group. He has represented the EARN Association in RIPE Meetings since 1990, chaired a RIPE Working Group, and was a member of the Internet Society Technical Advisory Committee. He was also member of the EBONE Action Team, the group which designed and implemented the first pan-European Internet backbone in 1992.

In 1995, he left the academia to join America Online, Inc., where for over 13 years he covered a number of tasks, including the set up and launch of the European AOL networks, the contracting, provisioning and installation of transatlantic and pan-European WAN circuits, being responsible for the quality of service of the AOL access networks in Europe, the management of the European AOL data centers installations and the management of the European AOL Network Operation center in Luxembourg. During this time he continued his participation and contribution to RIPE meetings and he served as a RIPE NCC Executive Board Member for two years.

Since 2010 he has been involved in high-tech firms such as AMPS (www.amps-llc.com) and more recently uQontrol (www.qkey.com) as a consultant.

Tim has been heavily involved in RPKI development and IETF standards since 2008. First, during his previous employment at RIPE NCC (2006-2018) as a software engineer and assistant manager. In 2018 he joined NLnet Labs, where he implemented an open-source RPKI CA solution (Krill), before re-joining the RIPE NCC in January 2024 as Principle Engineer RPKI. In his free time he enjoys the company of his wife and kids, playing board games with friends, and hiking.

George Nolis is a self-made entrepreneur and esteemed startup mentor. While still a university student, George started his entrepreneurial journey by founding Battlenet Gaming Stations in 1995, an esports gaming venue franchise, marking the inception of his career in the tech industry. In 2009, George founded Lancom Ltd, a company that revolutionized data center, cloud, and telecom services in Greece. Under his leadership, Lancom rapidly expanded, establishing three state-of-the-art Data Centers in Athens and Thessaloniki. A milestone achievement for George was the design and construction of Balkan Gate Thessaloniki, the largest carrier-neutral Tier III data center in Northern Greece. This facility is directly connected with major telecommunication providers in Greece and the Balkans, but also features worldwide connections.

Balkan Gate Crete, Lancom’s fourth data center, is already under construction in Heraklion and will further enhance telecommunications routes in the wider region of the Balkans and the Southeastern Mediterranean. In 2022, George co-founded CBS.LAN, a cyber security company, dedicated to protecting businesses from cyber threats in the increasingly digital world, further proving his reputation as a visionary leader in the tech industry. Also, he is a co-founder of Cloudpharm, a bio-pharmaceutical R&D startup. George's commitment to innovation is evident throughout his career. With a background in Civil Engineering from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, George continues to inspire the next generation of innovators, shaping the future of the industry.