Chairman of the BIX Committee

Budapest Internet Exchange

Council of Hungarian Internet Providers

Ferenc Csorba is a Trainer at the RIPE NCC. He graduated from the University of Technology in Vienna with a Master's Degree in Electronic Engineering and successfully completed his CCNA in 2013. Ferenc is responsible for the ongoing development of the RIPE Database Training Course. He gives training courses throughout Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia on a number of topics, including: Local Internet Registries (LIR), IPv6, and the Routing Registry. He also gives presentations at conferences and industry events. Ferenc speaks English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, Hungarian and intermediate level Russian.

Harald is in charge of the operational coordination of the Austrian Academic Computer Network ACOnet (http://www.aco.net) and the Vienna Internet eXchange VIX (http://www.vix.at). Harald is also an active participant of international workinggroups within RIPE and Euro-IX and the community of NREN operators. He has been a board member of Euro-IX since October 2013 and also one of the co-authors of the IXP-wishlist (https://www.euro-ix.net/ixp-wishlist), a document that defines features that should be supported by network-equipment for running an IXP.

Christian Panigl has been involved in the development and operation of the Austrian research network ACOnet (www.ACO.net) since 1986, starting at the University of Technology in Vienna, in the context of RARE and COSINE. In 1992, the whole ACOnet team and their responsibilities moved to the University of Vienna, joining forces with other international networking activities. Christian has been in charge of the Vienna Internet eXchange (www.VIX.at) since its creation in 1996 and was also a founding member of the executive board of the Euro-IX.net association from 2001 to 2008. He has been formally leading the ACOnet & Vienna Internet eXchange division at the University of Vienna since 2008.

Expertise: RIPE Labs, RIPE NCC and RIPE community, Regional Internet Registry, RIPE NCC Services

Serge is the Chief Communications Officer for the RIPE NCC. He is responsible for the RIPE NCC's Communications Department, the Web Services Team and RIPE Labs. One of his primary tasks is to continuously build on and enhance the robust RIPE community that currently exists. Internal and external communication form an integral part of the continuity of the organisation and a major focus has been placed on these areas. The RIPE NCC websites play an essential role in establishing first-line contact with RIPE NCC members and the wider RIPE community. Our team works hard to ensure that the websites provide information that is concise and easy to access. Before joining the RIPE NCC in 2011, Serge was the Secretary General of the European Internet Exchange Association (Euro-IX) for more than 10 years. This role brought him in close contact with more than 100 Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) from not only Europe but around the globe and has given him a great understanding and appreciation of how IXPs operate. He has also been working closely with key players in establishing both the Asia Pacific Internet Exchange Association (APIX) and the Latin American Internet Exchange Association (LAC-IX) as well as actively participating in more than 30 RIPE and RIPE NCC Regional meetings throughout the Europe and the Middle East. Serge has a very strong affinity with the European peering community and as a result has been chairing the European Peering Forums since their inception in 2006. He plays an active role on various programme committees including those of Euro-IX, Eurasia Network Operators' Group (ENOG) and the RIPE NCC Regional Meetings. Serge had an integral role in organising the first "Setting up an IXP" conference in Istanbul, Turkey in 2010.

Expertise: Internet Registry System, Internet Governance, Internet Administration, Policy Development Process, RIPE NCC Services

Paul Rendek is the Director of External Relations for the RIPE NCC. 

He is responsible for developing and maintaining the RIPE NCC's public relations activities and for the organisation's external communications. He also oversees outreach activities, such as RIPE Meetings, Regional Meetings and Roundtable Meetings, for the RIPE NCC members, the RIPE community and governments and regulators. Together with the RIPE NCC's Senior Management Team, Paul also helps to develop the organisational strategies to ensure that the RIPE NCC continues to meet the membership's needs. 

Paul was one of the founders of the Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG), and as part of the MENOG Coordination Team, he helped to establish the group's ongoing success by coordinating its first meeting, MENOG 1, held in Bahrain in April 2007. He is still actively involved with MENOG. 

Drawing on the experience he gained with MENOG, Paul was one of the founders of the Eurasia Network Operators Group (ENOG) in 2011. Now firmly established as the leading meeting of its kind in the region, Paul continues to work tirelessly to draw together operators in Russia and Central Asia for this twice-yearly meeting. 

Paul is currently based in Dubai, allowing him to focus much of his attention on the Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East regions. His main concern is the needs of RIPE NCC members in these regions, and he works to involve those members in public/private cooperation activities with government and law enforcement authorities. 

In 2012, Paul was appointed to serve as a member of the Internet Governance Forum Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF MAG) to give the RIR perspective on Internet governance. Paul was later appointed to the Arab IGF MAG to provide similar advice and support on Internet governance issues in the Middle East region. 

Paul was the driving force on the RIPE NCC delegation that lead the technical community through the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). He was also instrumental in driving the creation and formalisation of the Internet Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) in the OECD. 

Paul is a strongly active figure in the RIPE community, as seen through his work in helping to establish the RIPE Cooperation Working Group, which brings together representatives of government and the Internet community to discuss technical issues that are important to all stakeholders. 

Bijal Sanghani is the Secretary General at Euro-IX based in London, UK.

Bijal’s experience includes DNS management for DEMON Internet, Provisioning Engineer at Level 3, Senior Operations Engineer at FLAG Telecom and Reliance Globalcom where she was involved from the beginning to build the FLAG IP network. In 2011 Bijal moved from an operational role to the top management role at Euro-IX. Euro-IX is a non-profit membership association for Internet Exchange Points (IXPs). In her role she brings the members together to share ideas and experiences on technical, commercial and regulatory matters, and works on other IXP related projects such as the Euro-IX Twinning Program and the IXP Database. Bijal has grown the membership by over 60% since she started in 2011.

Bijal has been involved with the Peering and Interconnect Community since 2003, she’s been a RIPE NCC Services Working Group Co-chair since 2005 and served on the UKNOF Program Committee from 2006 until 2014.

Martin Semrád has been involved in the Internet business since 1996. In 2000 he founded the company NETWAY.CZ, providing housing services and wireless internet access. His company became a member of NIX.CZ in 2004. He is also the founder and CEO of i-registry, the .co.cz domain registry.  

In 2008 he was elected as a member of the Supervisory Board of NIX.CZ (the largest Neutral Internet eXchange in the Czech Republic) and in 2010 he became the Director of NIX.CZ where he is applying his rich experience of the Internet environment.

Lubomir has been part of SITEL Group since 2003. He began as a Telehouse Interconnection Designer responsible for developing in-house optical and metal interconnection systems. As of 2007 Lubos is a Key Account Manager handling international projects.  He is in charge of new installation activities, network expansions, and Operation & Maintenance services in Central Europe territory furthermore he cooperates in the field of telecommunication networks and technologies especially with large international telco operators, and broadband carriers. In 2011 Lubomír became a part of the SITEL International team providing technology housing services and Dark Fibre routes across Central Europe. Lubos dedicates his spare time to his family and sports.

Massimiliano Stucchi is a trainer at the RIPE NCC. In his position he travels around the RIPE region to perform training sessions on how to best use assigned resources. He has previously been CTO, founder and owner of an ISP/ITSP/WISP and also a consultant with experience ranging from web technologies to carrier-grade networking topics. He is vice president of the Italian FreeeBSD Users Group (GUFI), and in his spare time he enjoys running and hiking in the mountains.