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RIPE 93
Main hall
RIPE community Plenary
29 October 2026
4 p.m.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Hello everyone. I don't know if there are more people coming in, but let's get started. I usually say at this point we have a really full agenda but this time actually we don't, we have a bit of space and time and so we learned from last time when we packed maybe with too much in, we have some time for Open Mic and discussion. So, if you want to bring something up later, let me know.
Before I forget, I have a few announcements to make. I should remind you that voting for the Programme Committee closes at 5, I announced it at the end of the session it's usually too late so I'm doing it now so you still have a few minutes to do that. An hour. I hear the bell so people might come in now.
And then also please note that it's a short walk from the hotel to the dinner tonight, that starts at 7:30 which is a bit earlier than usual. But there is one bus available for guests with mobility issues, which departs from the hotel entrance at ten past seven. And the return buses for those same guests, with mobility issues, will depart from the dinner venue every 30 minutes starting at 22:30, half past ten. And please remember to bring your ticket and your badge to the dinner, otherwise you can't get in. But before that, there will still be two BoFs today, one in here about connecting researchers and network operators, and one in the side room about AI and networking, which is kind of second iteration of the BoF ‑‑ well the second part of the BoF that started last time.
And then last but not least, please remember to rate the talks, both for the Plenary and for the Working Groups. That would be really helpful. Thank you. Now, let's get started. This is our agenda. We only have really three agenda items here, one I am going to give you a quick update as usual about what the RIPE Chair team has been up to and other community activities that you might not be aware of. Then as a second set of speakers will be our esteemed NRO NC members who will come up here and give you an update of the RIR governance document, the successor of the ICP‑2. And after that we'll have Michela from the RIPE NCC talking about the new fellowship programme and first success stories that came out of that new programme. Then we'll have time for Open Mic.
Right just so you know where, what we are up to and what we are doing. Very often I get travelling and presenting and I am usually also at the RIPE NCC Executive Board, they might not be executive anymore after tomorrow, who knows, Executive Board meetings, just with my community hat on and then report back to the Board about community activities, policy proposals, any own going developments in the community. I believe the board finds it useful and we'll get some good feedback from the Board. I have also attended the IETF 126 in Vienna this time and I was at the TNC conference, the NREN an academic conference you presented there as well, I believe, and also you presented at INEX, I was at Euro‑IX and NLNOG meeting in the Netherlands, and we also going to be at some of the regional and national Internet governance forums, and I usually have like a monthly update on RIPE Labs where we also update you on where we are at and give you a few more, some highlights of what happened at these event and other activities that we are seeing.
Then I want to basically give a big shout out to our kind of community engagement and volunteerism, and so first off, there is, for the second time I think we have a Meet and Greet team where comprised of NCC staff and community members. And I think that works really well. The community members were I think happy to do this and there was a good vibe and it's a really nice way for community members to get to know other community members, and also have a perspective from the community to like, newcomers and other questions that might come up. So if you you are interested, it's not a lot of work, it's basically just be there in the coffee break and be available to answer any questions, and you also get a red T‑shirt if you participate in the programme.
So, let us know if you want to do that. There is a nice picture of the team that was there at this meeting.
Then also, I would like to point out that we have, we always at every meeting have a list of mentors, so when you register for a meeting, you are new or maybe it's your first meeting, if you still feel like after your second, third meeting you could use a bit of help, don't hesitate to click on, I would like to have a mentor when you register. This time we had 13 pairs, mentor/mentes, you can see the list of mentor volunteers, and they are helping our newcomers to feel more, you know, included and comfortable during the meetings. So thank you to all these volunteers who make that possible.
And then also, as the next step, you will hear more about this later, but just as a summary, we have restructured our fellowship programme which also includes a new role, if you will, a new community role, is the coaches for the fellows, so that's a bit more than a mentor, it involves preparations with the fellows, leading up to the meeting, and going through some tasks and kind of really guiding them to, until they come to the meetings, and so, I have, I would like to also thank the coaches. I think a picture of that later on as well. That's really important to also guide new, get new people into the RIPE meeting.
Then also for the academic fellowship programme, we are reviewing that process and the he will anyway who is running that from the RIPE NCC side she set up a focus group to review the application process and the evaluations and also like to thank you the volunteers who help with that, and as a little reminder there will also be that BoF later today.
This is the list of all the coaches. Not all of them are here this time, but they have also worked with the fellows leading up to this meeting and so I would like to really thank them to ‑‑ it was a bit of effort actually to help with setting up the programme in the first place and also now helping the fellows in their programme.
A few other announcements or updates about the community, facilitating the community. You have probably seen on the mailing list I have updated you on the mailing list, we have reviewed the Code of Conduct document that talks about the appointments and the roles and responsibilities of the Code of Conduct team members. And that document was published in 2023 when we set up this whole process and the team for the first time. Now with more experience we looked at that and suggested some changes in that document, mostly related to the terms and term limits. So in that section, they were the most changes. And so when talking to the team members and other community members, it was felt that in this case, well you might know I am a big fan of terms, in general, but in this case you felt like more long term continuity and building trust over time is really essential for this particular role in the Code of Conduct team, and so we are actually suggesting to not have term limits, but we are still going to have terms and then every, after each term, we are going to have a check point with each of the team members, to have a chat with them, see if they are still, you know, happy to do this because there could also be quite a bit of emotional burden and we don't want to overload them and burn them out and they shouldn't feel obliged to have to continue, so we'll definitely have a bit of a chat with them, see if everything is fine. Also, at the same time, it's always open for new volunteers, so the team kind of doesn't get stale, there will be rotation in the team, so, that's our proposal. And we have sent this out and the deadline for comments was actually last week. I got some positive comments, kind of directly sent to me. That is a good change. And there are some editorial changes suggested and we'll send out the next version after this meeting or the final call hopefully, last call, and then hopefully have it published before the next right meeting and then implement with the current team members.
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Another document, we have talked about. Because we published this in the meantime as a RIPE document so that was an updated version of the Working Group Chairs role and job descriptions and there were some changes made to the task that the mandated chairs have during their Working Groups and also we added a list of best current practices for the selection processes for Working Group Chairs. So that's all done and dusted and it's published and on the website. If you are interested in looking at what that entails and you are interesting in becoming a Chair in the future, that's a good starting point.
Then also during the week I just added this kind of last minute because it came up during this meeting and also before, maybe we are going ‑‑ we will be looking at improving our communications towards speakers here at the RIPE meeting, because we have the PC chairing the Plenary sessions, the Working Group Chairs of course are responsible for their sessions and we have a lot of information for speakers on the website. We have the public speaking tutorial, we have tips and tricks for your slides, what template to use and also communication by e‑mail, maybe it's a bit too much, maybe it's a bit over the place so we are going to look at that, consolidate that review, the text, together with the PC and Working Group Chairs and Anna Wilson is actually going to lead that project, so that will hopefully be helpful for the speakers, especially those who come here for the first time and then we'll also obviously have benefits for the audience.
NIALL O'REILLY: I was criticised the other day for not saying who I was first. So I am a ‑‑ I think I would encourage even experienced speakers, I haven't done it myself yet, but I plan to do it in the near future, to take the public speaking module, training module, because it's not just about how comfortable the speaker is with addressing a crowd. The people who are used to speaking, especially if they are used to speaking in a strongly anglophone environment are likely to be less careful about their articulation than is needed for the target audience at a RIPE meeting, and it may be very well ‑‑ very useful for people like me who have been speaking English all their lives to go and see what bad habits they have from the training module, and I'll also do a gap analysis in the training module at the same time.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thank you for the feedback and the suggestion. We'll definitely take that on board.
I want to give a bit of a shout out to another volunteer who has been a lot inform in the press, Ondrej, his picture also came up on the slide with all the coaches for the fellow, so he is a great volunteer in various areas, and I was so impressed also when you read his interviews, he is so modest about his work that he is doing, and is basically stressing the importance of first of all OpenSource and also maintenance of OpenSource and volunteer work, and he is kind of pointed out how the Internet infrastructure, you are all kind of responsible for it, can take it for granted by the larger, the world basically, and if something breaks, people notice, and he saved the Internet, as it says there in one of the publications. I think it's worth pointing that out.
DANIEL KARRENBERG: Now, I will try to pronounce very clearly, my name is Daniel Karrenberg, I am one of the founders of RIPE, and I think in this context, it is very important that all of us who depend on, in particular, PHP, and who know people who make loads of money based on their technology, to contribute something, some of that money back to that team, so that they can improve the security.
(Applause)
And of course, never blame the volunteer.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thanks for that.
Then the last section here, just, you know, to, a little teaser for the next few meetings. As you might know the next meeting, RIPE 94 in May will be in Vilnius in Lituania, and I will also mention this tomorrow but traditionally we used to open the registration for the next RIPE meeting right at the end of this meeting. This time we won't do this because we are going to switch over our registration system, or the RIPE NCC is working hard to implement a new shiny registration system, and that will be available in January. So, registration will open later. However, the website is already up, you can have a look at that. And also the information about accommodation and the venue is already available and I would like to encourage you if you already know, you are planning to go to Vilnius, maybe please start looking at hotels or accommodation, because the city will be rather busy at the time, because it's also Lituania's presidency at the time of the European Union, and our hotel booking will be a little shorter than usual because the hotels apparently don't need us that much as usual because they have other guests. So, just a heads‑up, please book your hotel early, and then whenever registration opens, obviously we'll also communicate this on the mailing lists so you'll be prepared.
Also, just as a piece of information there, we will co‑locate again with DNS OARC, they will have their meeting the days before the RIPE meeting also in Vilnius, and there is a link to that on the slide.
Then, last but not least also the next few RIPE meetings, well the dates already are known to RIPE 100 but the one after Vilnius will be Madrid next year, and RIPE 96 we don't have a location yet but the dates are definitely fixed. So I hope to see all of you there as well.
Now, I would like to ask Daniel Karrenberg, who is the secretary of the Rob Blokzijl foundation, to come up and say a few words about what that is and what your plans are with that foundation.
DANIEL KARRENBERG: Hello. My name is Daniel Karrenberg, I am one of the founders of RIPE, I am also the first person who ever worked at the RIPE NCC, and I am still working there, on a very, very part time basis. But I am here at the moment as a Board member of the Rob blocks foundation and for those of you who are new to this, you might wonder what is this. Well, it's a foundation we started to keep alive the memory of Rob Blokzijl, our first Chairman, who helped RIPE through the first decades of its existence. Rob was a very wise man, and also incidentally very fond of Bulgaria because of the huge family of his wife, Muza,, and I can tell you I learned about shopska salad from Rob, because it was one of his favourite foods.
What we do at the Rob Blokzijl foundation is to recognise ‑‑ to of course further the memory of Rob, but also recognise members of the community who have made substantial contributions to it regularly by giving them the Rob Blokzijl award. We have done that a couple of times to people like Wilfried Woeber who some of you might remember, Gert Döring, who I think is in the room. And Randy Bush, who we embarrassed enough so that he ran for RIPE NCC Board and is now on the Board.
And the reason I am here is to apologise, first of all, because the Board has actually dropped the ball on making the 2026 award. The we had volunteers ‑‑ we do this by having an award committee and the Award Committee makes a call and then selects the awardee, and we didn't give them enough support so that it could happen this year. So it's really all our fault. What have we done to remedy this?
Well we are restarting and doing it for giving an award in 2027. And we are also renewing the Board with some younger and more energetic people. So my first announcement is the Rob Blokzijl foundation Board has been augmented with Franziska Lichtblau, also known as Helena from the dark forest. Is she here? And the second reinforcement that we got is Lars Yap Lehmann, also known as the tall Swede who can really play the piano. Is he here? So we hope that with this, we will be more successful in the future.
We have also appointed the 2027 Award Committee. They are Patrick Bussmann, is he here? Vasja Krizmancic, Paul Thornton and a previous awardee, Gert Döring. So if you have suggestions on who should receive the 2027 Rob Blokzijl award then talk to these people. If you think we could have more diversity in the Award Committee, you might talk to these people and see if you could work with them and we can still make changes to that. Is
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And that is all I have to say. Any questions?
Thank you.
(Applause)
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thank you Daniel. Look can forward, I assume there will also be some communications on the RIPE list, some announcements about the next award.
Right. And that brings me to the end of my part of the update. Are there any questions about anything I have said, anything online? No. Okay. Well then I would like to hand over to Herve, Constanze and Andrei who will give us an update of the RIR governance document and there will be another set of slides.
HERVE CLEMENT: Good afternoon, we are the three of us from the RIPE NCC region, to present one more time ICP‑2 rated work we have performed within the Council. I advise you to enjoy this presentation because perhaps it will be the last, and in Vilnius it's a possibility we won't present anything regarding ICP‑2, we never know. So enjoy this afternoon. I am Herve Clement, the Chair of the ASO AC, my two colleagues from the RIPE NCC Services region the Council, Constanze Berger and Andrei Robachevsky and in the room you have also Nicole Chan from the APNIC region who worked on that.
Saying that, the ASO recommend we talk about the ICP‑2 update, it's probably not the final title of the document but it's a draft Internet registry governance document.
The work because about updating the ICP‑2, which was ‑‑ which is still an ICANN document, it was the criteria for a new Internet registry to be created, the ID, I will tell about that, of this work is to strengthen the Internet number registry system. We all are impacted with.
I talk about that this morning for some people who were attending the Address Policy Working Group, the ICANN ASO AC. So we have 15 within this Council, which is also called the NRO NC, three coming from the five different regions. So we are the three from the RIPE NCC. Of course, we have different roles and functions. We advise the ICANN, that's the reason why sometimes we go to the ICANN meeting. We talk during the Address Policy Working Group about global policies, and so we are here to check if the process to adopt the global policy, so a policy common to the different regions and dealing with the link between the IANA and the different regions is well done. We appointed to the ICANN Board 20 directors, we appoint members for the seat 9 and the seat 10. And also, one member to the ICANN community. We meet monthly. You can go to the website to the ICANN website to see when the meetings are, they are remotely and everybody is welcome as an observer to be there. And we have collected the ICP‑2 process this year, we have selected somebody for seat 99 because sadly, Alan Barrett, the ex CEO of the AFRINIC, passed away and he was filling this place, so we have appointed Oscar Robles who was CEO of the LACNIC as well and we have to reconduct the selection for the term of 2027‑2030 also. And I talk about the global policy development process. Why to revisit ICP‑2? That's the core subject, because it's 25 years old. The world has changed. And the ICP‑2 was just there on the criteria just for the recognition, the formation of a regional Internet registry and not for the entire cycle of a regional Internet registry. For example if you want to conduct an audit for this ICP‑2 document, it's impossible because it was just the recognition.
That's the reason why the other part of the ASO, which is the NRO EC, the CEOs of the different regions ask us, the NRO NC to work on that update. First, there was, I would say, short work which was called the ICP‑2 implementation procedure. So it was for reviewing the draft procedures for validating and addressing on compliance with ICP‑2. Then the task 2, to update per se, the document. It was large work. We started in 2024, and for us, we pretty ended after a lot of consultation in 2026, so before giving the document back to the NRO EC in July. And with that, Constanze.
CONSTANZE BUERGER: Thank you. I am Constanze, thank you for the opportunity to speak and to introduced to you our work, what we have done in the last years.
So we have been working on the review of the ICP‑2 since 2024. But I have to really emphasise throughout this process, the experience and the view of the community were central for us in this work. It's very important to emphasise this again. We started with a questionnaire. You see this, we marked this red, and we had a public consultation, and this questionnaire, the content had been 24 questions, and with this questionnaire, we wanted to identify the gaps that needed to be addressed in the new document. After that we shared two drafts of the document for public consultation in every region, in five regions. And this was how we work.
Now, it seems really easy, but our comments from the RIPE region did not always meet with agreement. And we had a lot of discussions with the colleagues. But finally I think we have a good and proper document.
We published our recommended draft on the 1st September. And now, we are here ‑‑ now, we have finished our work. So, we have now completed our work, on revising ICP‑2. We handed over the document to the NRO EC and the ICANN, and the final draft was handed over, and any further community consultation leading up to the adoption of the document will be managed by the RIRs and ICANN.
On this stage, I want to thank you everybody for your engagement and cooperation. So, next come to the content.
And just a substantive update. Andrei will go on with the details. And just an overview, we changed definitions and decisions. We had clearer terms and decision‑making pro versions. We changed consultation, clarified when consultation may occur, and the other steps you will find in the next steps Andrei is presenting.
ANDREI ROBACHEVSKY: Thank you, Constanze. I am Andrei, I'll walk you through more details of this document, and I'd like to emphasise what Herve and Constanze said, that this document to a large extent was shaped up by community input, and we tried to ensure that community input is integrated and addressed and throughout the process you probably, if you followed this, we tried to keep you updated on how we address different input from the community.
Definitions, decision‑making and structure. That's mostly a clean‑up, a very important clean‑up because if you are not clear on definitions I think the whole document is not clear enough. Decision‑making, also we clarified a part, because in many cases, you see reference to RIR, ICANN and people asking who are those? I mean is it just directors? Is it the community? Is it the Board? Without specific anything like this, we made it very clear that decisions are made following the normal governance processes that relate to specific organisations.
Now we streamlined the structure. So, now you can read this document from the beginning to the end without need to jump over to understand all the processes which adds to the clarity of the processes.
So this region, we also thought about this, well, there was a presentation at the Address Policy Working Group that brought another aspect into this, inter stellar address location, so we didn't consider that, because at that time it was not on the table, but we still made it more broader than just continental stuff. So it's geographically continuous area of substantial size, multiple jurisdictions.
Community consultations. Some parts seem to be like decisions are not transparent enough and maybe not include community feedback. Again, we tried to avoid being prescriptive here. This is still a high level document, but we said that this allows no prescribed community consultation, making it very clear that it's really open and really for the entities involved to decide.
And amendments. Well you know that document may be amended and we'll review this every five years but there is certain conditions under which that might be not a good time to review and make amendments to the documents such as an RIR is being in the process of being recognised, or an RIR is under the emergency continuity operation, so that is specified there, that's not a good time to make changes.
Recognition process. And you see now this process fits on one side which was not possible in Version 2. It's very streamlined. We start with a proposal by the candidate RIR. Each RIR makes their own assessment, RIR review. ICANN does the same. And then through this process, modifications to the proposals are possible. And if candidate RIR agrees, they can incorporate these changes and if changes are substantive, then probably needs to all start over again, but if there is agreement that changes are not substantive, there just may be improving the proposal in general, it can move forward.
I think that also underlines it sort of drawn here as a linear process, but in fact it assumes collaboration and it assumes that information is gathered, more information is collected and maybe decisions are made and being informed.
Finally, ICANN makes a decision, but this decision is subject to certain conditions, what we call ICANN limitations. I'll talk about this on the next slide.
So, to make a decision for the recognition, ICANN needs two thirds support. And what does that mean? That means that at least two thirds of assessments received from the RIRs, they express support for the recognition.
Now, a declaration of interest, an input from potential RIRs explicitly considered. They were concerned that of course emergence of new RIRs will impact a bigger or less extent other RIRs, that should be declared when the assessment is submitted. An RIR with a conflict of interest may be excluded from this arithmetics of calculating the threshold, but conflict of interest in this particular stance is very narrowly defined, is defined is defined the material impact, as far as service region or membership is concerned
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Now candidate RIR can receive substantive feedback, I mentioned that, they can improve their proposal. The whole process we tried to ensure, put safeguards that the whole process is transparent. So all the assessments, all the supporting documentation is published. So all the decision process is visible.
And based on this process, finally ICANN make a decision.
Audit: This is a very important thing and that was missing of course in ICP‑2, that's ongoing commitments and how you keep ongoing commitments from the RIRs. And how you detect this earlier. This is prevent I have measure, this is not reactive measure. There are two types of audits and in the previous documents we call them audit and ad hoc audit, which creates some confusion. So what's the difference? It's like random audit or something like this? But in fact, ad hoc audit is a compliance review on specific points identified through the requirements of the document where there is evidence that that might be not up to ‑‑ on par with the requirements.
So, now we call this compliance reviews, as opposed to regular every five years regular audits.
Now, we also added some safeguards, so compliance review are not weaponised, and doesn't create a situation where an RIR is continuously making audits, or going through the audits, and going through rehabilitation without providing their services. It could be requested by the at least 50% of the members, which is 1,000, the RIRs or ICANN, but it has to be ‑‑ there must be a reason, there must be some evidence that a prompt to create, to request this compliance review.
What is also added in this document is explicit requirement that not only recommendations from the audit are published but also the plan how to remedy all the issues, how to resolve them is published and followed up. So the audit is not just something, oh yeah, have a look at this, but we ensure that all the shortcomings are being resolved.
Emergency continuity. That's another one, another important part.
What we made very clear in this document that emergency continuity is a really temporary arrangement. It has initial duration of 90 days. It can be renewed but every renewal it sort of has a due diligence process and it's very transparent as well, might even include consultation with the community. So, we put the safeguards to avoid situations where emergency continuity runs in perpetuity, and basically emergency continuity operator replaces the RIR, which is not the desire of this.
We lower threshold how emergency continuity can be triggered because emergency continuity is not necessarily a governance crisis, right, it may be a natural disaster, God forbid. In this case it should be triggered very fast and in many cases the RIR in question is in the best position to actually trigger that, but also it can be triggered by other RIRs and ICANN with majority vote. So we moved from unanimity threshold here.
I think that's basically what I wanted to say on the slide.
Now de‑recognition: Again streamlined. We also aligned this with the recognition process, you can see sort of similar building blocks there. The beginning of de‑recognition is different, and we made it very explicit that de‑recognition is a last resort and it should be preceded by rehabilitation, so attempts to rehabilitate should happen. I mentioned rehabilitation plan from the audit, right, so if rehabilitation plan, if everyone sees and concludes that rehabilitation plan, despite the planning and support doesn't bring us to the are place we want to be, then a proposal for de‑recognition could be triggered. The same thing happens then the RIRs put in the proposal and submit their assessment. ICANN does the same and in doing this, more information may be collected, and finally ICANN makes a decision.
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Who can trigger de‑recognition proposal? And that's not the de‑recognition itself, it's just starting this be process. Is could be triggered by any RIR, by a group of members of the RIR in question with some thresholds as you see on this slide, or ICANN. Now, the process concludes with ICANN making decision, again with the two thirds support.
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Well, some key changes in the process compared to Version 2, and if you didn't follow this closely I will not try to talk in Deltas, but just present you the final state.
Transparency, I think it's all over the document, we hope we achieved the level of transparency that this community is comfortable with. Rehabilitation I mentioned, it's a mandatory condition for starting a de‑recognition proposal. Building blocks, the processes are aligned, which is easy to implement and easy to control and maintain the process. It priorities restoring compliance over de‑recognition. And ICANN makes the de‑recognition decision following rehabilitation efforts provided there is support from at least two thirds of the RIR. And remember before it was unanimous.
So in summary, the ICP‑2 is modernised by this governance document. It creates a framework that looks at the whole lifecycle of an RIR, from sort of recognition through ongoing maintenance and de‑recognition and there are certain things that might happen through the ongoing operation that I think make it more stable and robust, such as audit, compliance audit and if something goes on emergency continuity can be enabled.
I think it reaffirms the existing expectations of the RIR, their independence, their non‑for profit status and community driven nature of operation.
It enhances oversight through regular audits, allows proactive identification of potential issues through compliance reviews and supports rehabilitation in case of non‑compliance. So, all the steps that sound like well reasonable now are documented and formalised so they are easy to engage and we know what conditions should be when those things are being triggered.
And it also provides ICANN with a very clear role with respect to the RIR governance, guidance. If you look at the ICP‑2, this role was also simple but I think in this document, it's actually more clearly defined and it sets certain boundary conditions as well.
And all in all, we hope that it provides overall, increases overall accountability of the RIR system as a whole.
These are some informational things. This is the version 3, and I think you can find the red line version if you are really interested in comparing Version 2 to version 3. And the rational document, and we maintain this document through the whole sort of presentation of our changes, those who follow. Remember this rational document summarises all the changes we introduced in version 3 and provides rational, why we made this decision.
I think that's my last slide, and to make it very clear that at this stage, our job as the NRO NC is almost done and we handed this over to the RIRs. I am inviting Athina to the stage to talk about the next steps. Please.
ATHINA FRAGKOULI: We have a question?
SANDER STEFFANN: Not a question, but as a former member of the NRO NC, I just want to thank you for all the hard work you put into this. I know how difficult it has been, so thank you very much.
(Applause)
ATHINA FRAGKOULI: Thank you very much indeed. My name is Athina, I am the Chief Legal Officer of the RIPE NCC. And I was heavily involved in the process supporting all the great work the ASO AC has done, and well, we must be very proud of our representatives.
So next steps. What happens now?
As it was said, the document has been shared with NRO EC, together with the rationale. Now, this document has been shared by the NRO EC with ICANN for consideration. You see, this document creates a new role, a new responsibility for ICANN, so we have to make sure that ICANN can fulfill these responsibilities. Therefore, we are engaging with the ICANN team. Last week at the ICANN meeting we had multiple sessions together, it's always easier when you are face‑to‑face, and this week as well, it's a RIPE meeting but we also in parallel have discussions with the ICANN team on this document.
So we are very much committed to complete this work as quickly as possible, and to do it in a diligent manner, respecting of course the document that we received from the RIR communities.
It's very difficult right now to talk about specific next steps in timelines. This will come definitely after this RIPE meeting. However, I can share the key milestones with you that must be done.
So, after we have concluded to a final draft, we will launch a last call for the RIR communities.
Another key milestone is that ICANN also wants to have a public common process, that is important for their Board to approve and adopt the document.
A very important key milestone is the adoption, actually, of the final document. So, yes, the adoption will take place by the RIR boards and the ICANN Board.
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Of course, after this document is adopted, we have three years to implement it, and to make sure that the mechanisms described in this document are in place. So we will start developing of course the implementation procedures and anything else that needs to be in place there.
So, yes, we will come back to you, hopefully very soon, with concrete steps and timelines, taking, of course, into account the processes that the RIRs are for the adoption of the document by their boards and ICANN boards as well.
With that, I would like to open the floor for questions.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Any questions? Anything online? I don't see anyone in the room. Thank you very much for this very clear description of the process.
ANDREI ROBACHEVSKY: I just compare this with the early BoFs we had when people were lining up at the microphone. Well I take this as a positive thing, not that we sort of reached consensus by exhaustion but that we addressed the input that we see from the community adequately. So thank you very much for your input as well and that comes from all of us.
NIALL O'REILLY: To put it in my ‑‑ in a different wording, when you get to this the stage where it has become boring, you know you have succeeded. Boring is good.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Yes, in this case it is I think. Thanks again. Next up I would like to invite Michela Galante from the RIPE NCC to give us some highlights on the new RIPE fellowship programme.
MICHELA GALANTE: Hi, everyone. So I am Michela, I am working for the RIPE NCC for 13 years, many of you might know me for RIPE Atlas, but since last year, I am involved in this amazing project, amazing programme that is the RIPE fellowship. So as you can see from the title, it's a new RIPE fellowship, so I am going to tell you how it looks like, how it has evolved and what we have changed. And also the success stories about it.
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So, we had an old RIPE fellowship, And it ran between 2017 and 2025. We had to pause it during the Covid years, and in this image you can see the geographical distribution of the country that we managed to cover. So these were the people that attended the RIPE meeting thanks to this programme.
You might think: Well, I mean it's not too bad, you managed to cover quite a large territory. So why this need of changing this programme?
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Well, some people came to us and told us we need to do something about the RIPE community. People are starting to retire, the community is ageing, we need new blood coming in, we need new ideas, fresh starters and so on. We were like, but we do have a programme, we have the RIPE fellowship. So, how does it come? We are bringing you people in and why they don't stay? So, we had to rethink about this programme and see what we could do to solve this issue brought by the community.
So, what did we do about it? So, my management decided to hire a consultant for this, and I think it was a very good idea because it was a lot of work to redesign it. And I am also very happy that Laura Lorenzo was the one assigned to this programme redesign. So I am pretty sure that she is watching me from home, she is not here, I am saying hello to her and sending a big hug, and I also want to thank you for the amazing work that she has done with this programme, ciao Laura.
Many of you know her, because she has had interviews with so many of the RIPE community. I want to mention that Laura was totally new to the RIPE community, so she had no idea how things were working, she didn't know that much about the RIPE NCC except from what she could read, but very quickly she started to get it. So first of all, she already knew that a programme cannot be redesigned just by yourself. So she needed the help of the community, the involvement of the community, more than the help. She needed the community to be part of it, because this is a project for the community.
So, what she did ‑‑ well first of all she attended different events, she went to events organised by the RIPE NCC, she was involved with us internally of course, she did a lot of activities, very important, she met some of the older RIPE fellows. This is very important because well we wanted to know how did they experience the RIPE meeting? Why they didn't come back if we never saw them back. And RIPE mentors, Mirjam mentioned them in the presentation before, were also very important element of the programme in this case, because they were the ones having contacts with the newcomers. So they had some experience about how newcomers are experiencing a RIPE meeting.
And well she gave a presentation in diversity in tech, trying to gather feedback, so she was involved in so many activities with the community.
So, many of you will remember the co‑creation workshop at RIPE 90 in Lisbon, so she basically made a group of people that were representing different roles in this programme. So we had representatives old fellows, we had RIPE community members that were mentors, we had RIPE Working Group Chairs, there were RIPE NCC staff. Why RIPE NCC staff? Because we needed to run this programme, so we need also to be realistic about what can be done when we look at the resources.
So this is actually how the new programme was designed. It was really a co‑creation that happened during RIPE 90.
So what came out of this co‑creation workshop?
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We changed the goal, first of all. So, one thing that was clear was that both, the fellows and the RIPE community was not happy with the programme just being a participation to the RIPE meeting. So, before it was ‑‑ it was only about getting the people to a conference, to the RIPE meeting, and they didn't get the context sometimes. Also, I think many of you were overwhelmed during the first RIPE meeting. I was, I remember that oh my God, how do I meet people? How do I approach them? So many things going on at the same time. What do I need to attend? What is important to me?
So they were missing this context when they were coming here. So, it is not sufficient to bring people to the meeting. What we want to do is actually bring these new voices in the RIPE community. So this is the important element, It's about finding the place in the RIPE community and staying in the RIPE community.
So this is actually how the programme looks. This is how we tried to achieve this goal. Of so first of all, we changed the selection process. Before, it was the RIPE NCC staff deciding who was going to be a fellow. And we made it a community responsibility. So, these people are for the community. So, the community should be involved. So we have amazing volunteers doing the selections of the fellows. And then we changed the programme in not being only participation to a RIPE meeting, but into a journey, a journey that starts three months before the RIPE meeting.
So it is involving certain activities that are before, then of course during the meetings, still the RIPE meeting is an important part of it, and after the meeting. So it even continues after the meeting.
And one important role in this programme, and this is a very big change, is the RIPE fellowship coach. Mirjam has mentioned that before in her presentation, she has shown just the last RIPE fellowship coaches. But in reality we have many volunteers here that are very enthusiastic about becoming a RIPE fellowship coach. The importance of it, each fellow gets, when assigned, from the moment they begin their journey. It's not only for the RIPE meeting, it's not like a mentor that only meets them here at the RIPE meeting. They are actually meeting them three months before.
So there are some activities and deliverables. It's not because we want to give them homework, or we want to make it difficult for them. It is not so difficult to come up actually with all these things. But it is about making them think why they want to be part of this community. Is it the right place for them? Is it something good for their career? Of course they come here also because it's a good step in their career, right?
So, they have mandatory calls with the coach. This is where they get the context of the RIPE community, this is how they learn a little bit more about what the RIPE community is. They have also group calls with the whole group, the whole cohort, and the RIPE fellowship coordinators, so me and Gergana, and it's very nice because this is how the spirit of the group grows. So they start to know each other already three months before, and we have four group calls before the RIPE meeting.
They have to deliver a personal learning path, and this is a very important element of the programme, but I am going to talk about it in a moment. They have to follow the RIPE public speaking course, and Niall mentioned that everybody should follow, indeed it's a very good course, it's totally recommended, for them it's mandatory. And we also actually let them follow some online soft skill courses that we have selected, with the generosity of ICANN that make us use them, and we think that it will help them in getting the confidence they need when they come to a RIPE meeting.
And then finally, they need to prepare to come to the RIPE meeting. So there are the personal meeting goals. It is a set of activities, key people they want to meet. I don't know if you are doing that, I am doing it when I am going to events. So I'm making a list of things that I need to do because otherwise, it starts to be very hectic and I am starting meeting people, talking to everyone. It is a very important element of the programme as well, thinking, what do I want to follow? What do I want to do? Who I want to meet. And to discuss all of these of course with the coach and the coach needs to approve.
About the personal learning path. This is the first deliverable that we give them and it is one of the most important. Why? Because it is designing their path to the community. And the nice thing is that they choose their own adventure, so they own it. So they know where they start from. So they choose their learning track which is corresponding to the Working Groups in the RIPE community be so they what they are capable of, they know their skills, they know their interest. The what they don't know yet is what the community is and they don't the link between their work is with the RIPE community and this is where the RIPE fellow coach is so important. Because with the guiding of the fellow, they can bring them to see what the link between the professional work is with the RIPE community.
And as I said before, we don't leave them after the RIPE meeting. So, they are actually welcome to join the RIPE fellowship network and we also are planning some activities with them afterwards, because what we want them to think is: What is next? Did you like this experience? Did you like the fellowship? Did you like the RIPE community? And I am sure that they love it, but we still ask this question of course, do you want to stay connected? Do you want to be there? Then how can you contribute? Now, you know what the RIPE community is. The RIPE meeting is very useful as experience because I think even with all the context that we are giving, you understand what it is only when you experience it one time.
If they join the fellowship network, it's voluntary of course. Then we try to keep them engaged and connected and think about the contribution to the community. And we hope that they become active community members of course. We will be able to measure that in the future if it was really successful.
So, I cannot mention the RIPE fellows of this first era of the new fellowship. So in RIPE 92 this was the cohort. So, there is actually one of these fellows that came back, so this is a success story. Stefan is here in the audience.
(Applause)
So, these applause is totally deserved, He is our youngest fellow, So it is an example that we shouldn't ever discriminate with age because sometimes you may think 18 years old, he is 18 years old, still in high school, he is already going to conferences and presenting. So I think it's a really, really great example.
(Applause)
And these are the RIPE 93 fellows. So I invite them also to stand up and to say hello.
(Applause)
Unfortunately, Alia couldn't make it so we are going to say hello to her as well, she is probably watching us from home. Ciao Alia.
And now, I want also to show some statistics about the applications we received when we opened the first time the call that was last September. So one element of difference in the programme is that we are only opening one call per year, and that is for two RIPE meetings. So we open the call in September. The Selection Committee needs to review the applications in December. And we communicate to the fellows end of January if they are selected or not.
So there are many countries here, I don't see Bulgaria. I hope next time we will see also some Bulgarian applications. There are many countries missing. So we hope to increase basically the number of countries applying. As you can see here, it turns out that Iran had a lot of applications. But also the United Kingdom, Yemen and the Netherlands. And we hope to see many more and from many more countries. There were 108 applications in total. So that you know.
So, it's not all great. I mean all looking fine and all working fine. We do have some challenges as well in the programme. And we don't have a solution yet for these issues, and in some cases it's not really dependant on us, but maybe we can try to think about possible solutions.
So when we were asking the applicants if they needed a visa, 70% of these 108 people said yes. It's a very high number, and I don't know if you are familiar with these processes, I was not. I found out actually that I am privileged, I have a European passport, and apparently we don't need a visa for many things, and it's really hard to get a visa. So we had actually three fellows that had to drop out from RIPE 92 because they didn't get their visa and we had one on this allocation. So for me it was painful, and I think also for the people that are finally making to be fellows and they cannot come here. This is by the way, also a bigger issue with participation for certain countries to a RIPE meeting. So, maybe we can think about more documentation that we can give or if anyone is involved in other programmes or similar programmes, what people need a visa, please approach me because I would love to hear if it can be solved in any way.
Geopolitics is another issue, and we all wish for peace, but the world is not a peaceful place right now, so many countries in our region are experiencing war issues. And we cannot just get for safety reason people out of a country if we cannot guarantee them to go back. So, it's a very important thing. Unfortunately we cannot accommodate the travel for people that are in these risk countries.
And I am sorry to mention this again, I think I probably will have heard it many times in this meeting, but AI is another issue. The application is not enough anymore to select applicants. Many people are making use of AI of course because they want the application to look perfect. They want their English to be perfect. As a non‑native English speaker ‑‑ you can hear ‑‑ I am also using it. It's good, you know, sometimes I don't find this word, I am checking it. It's fine to check the language, but don't let AI change your ideas. The personal touch is always what makes an application unique.
So now my call to you, the community again, we are asking for your help, so please spread the word in your network. You all know I am sure valuable people that you would like to come to the RIPE community. So tell them about this fantastic programme, tell them about the welcoming RIPE community, and tell them to apply and the call is open until 23rd November.
So, we also don't want to make it too easy for people to apply. It is about giving them the context.
So they have first to complete a course. This is giving a little bit of a basic information about what RIPE is, how it is organised, about the Working Groups, about the RIPE Chair and so on. And then they get some information about the RIPE NCC Services. They need to pass the quiz. Only if they pass the quiz, then they can apply. They will receive an invitation, and they will have to log in to HIFA, our new application system that I'm sure will solve a lot of problems that we had in the past making everything manual. And it will make it more efficient. Again an invitation to make it really personal there to do mistakes. It's not a problem if there are grammar mistakes. It is better in this application will really stand out.
So, if you are interested in being a RIPE fellowship coach, you can approach me or Gergana, I know that it's a little bit later in the meeting, but we are still this evening we have tomorrow morning. Otherwise send us an e‑mail to fellowship@ripe.net.
And again, a big thank you to the RIPE fellowship coaches, because without them we couldn't make this programme so wonderful, and they are a huge part of the success.
(Applause)
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thank you so much Michela for presenting this. This is a fantastic programme and I really like this collaboration also between the RIPE NCC staff and obviously all the RIPE NCC financing this and also on the other hand the community engagement. And I see already some success stories and I hope this will be a long term programme and will bring us new people in. Are there any questions or comments?
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Mick O'Donovan, Asiera, without wanting to put the fellowship programme members on the spot, it would be interesting to find out what they felt of the whole experience this time around, if anybody is brave enough to comment, it would be great, or share it virtually, whichever?
MICHELA GALANTE: Any of the fellow wants to share? No pressure!
MIRJAM KUHNE: I see one coming to the mic.
AUDIENCE SPEAKER: Hi everyone. Fernando, RIPE NCC. So, this is already clearly for me, really great, and I think it's quite a successful story. So the RIPE fellowship programme has clearly helped me find my place in the community. In the RIPE community worldwide, but also on my local community. I am really clear and I am quite confident that it helped me present at the NOG this year, so that was clearly an entry point to my local community and I am really glad of it.
I only have words to thank Michela for all the process and all the work that was clearly involved in the process like from the goals. And also I would like to thank my coach, Wolfgang, he is here, for explaining to me the whole process also in a moment where I was joining the RIPE NCC. So it was quite a useful experience for starting in the community. So thank you so much.
(Applause)
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thanks for sharing. I think Niall was next and then Jim.
NIALL O'REILLY: I am wearing two hats, one as ex Vice‑Chair of RIPE, which I was when this began, and one as twice now a fellow coach. And you mentioned Laura, I think it's important, as you said, to appreciate and recognise Laura's contribution, the work she put in to developing this programme. I found her at first a very difficult and challenging person, because she forced me to separate all that I knew about over whatever, 30 plus years of RIPE, from what really mattered, the separation between my superficial impression, my superficial confidence in knowing how RIPE worked from what was really deep and important and useful for the fellowship programme. This business of challenging people, forcing them to think outside the box was part of her method which really made the difference, and made it valuable to have had her as a consultant for this process. I miss her greatly, but it's important that she has moved on and left us to implement what she designed and take responsibility for it and not lean on her anymore. Thank you, Laura.
(Applause)
Beyond that what I understood from Laura and from my experience as a fellow coach is that it's really important for the candidate fellows and the fellows when they are chosen to realise that this is about them. It's not about satisfying their coach, it's not about satisfying Michela. It's not about using AI to create a good impression. It's about identifying what your motivation is, what is important for you. It's about introspection. It can be painful sometimes, but you cannot contribute to a community unless you know who you are, what your values are, where you are coming from, where you want to go. And that's what this fellowship programme can achieve for the individuals. And because it supports the individuals in this way, helps them find their strengths, they can contribute ‑‑ they can potentially contribute better to the community in the long term. If they find out this is the community for them, and that's not something that's a pre‑conception, it's something that their fellowship will confirm or not for them and that's the importance of the relationship between the individual and the community.
(Applause)
JIM REID: Thanks. I think one of the two or the comments that he made were things I was about to say. And also thanks Michela for all the work you have done for putting all the stuff together in the presentation today.
The one thing that might need a little bit of tweaking in terms of how we encourage people to come forward is around this issue of AI. I think it should be fairly obvious that we should try to make it clear to potential applicants they should not be using AI slop to generate their applications and discourage that if we possibly can. I think it's understandable we can say to people, especially if it's not your mother tongue, you might not get the spelling or grammar correct, I know I am being hypocritical here because I am a grammar spelling Nazi, but that's not the point, we have to make the barriers low to entry and don't make people feel they have to go down the AI route to generate an application. Because what we are interested in is what are people going to bring to the community, what are their values, what are they able to offer us, what are they interested in, and that I think is more important than making sure you have got a perfectly polished application, where every I is dotted and every T crossed. I don't think that's important because we should be capable of reading past those things and actually engaging with the quality of the applicant rather than the substance of the document itself.
MICHELA GALANTE: Thank you, yes. I comment about the AI. So what we were thinking, because we are thinking already solutions there, and we are thinking to, because it is in our website, we want the applications to be personal, don't make use of AI, except for language check and so on. But probably people any way will do. They have to really pay attention of the fact that sometimes AI is changing your thoughts and ideas and motivations so that's actually what we want to solve and we might have to not base anymore the selection only on the application form, but we might have to go also for some interviews to select the final candidates. So this is something that we are thinking about. But yes, it's not easy. Thank you.
MIRJAM KUHNE: Thanks, Jim and Michela. Are there any comment online? Any questions? No. Anyone else in the room? No. Thank you very much for this presentation.
(Applause)
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I think Michela has a little surprise for the fellows here, so if we can ask all the fellows to come up on the stage.
MIRJAM KUHNE: You have all been through this programme and you all get a little certificate at least signed by the RIPE NCC and by the RIPE Chair.
MICHELA GALANTE: Shadi Motaali, I don't know if I will pronounce good the family name. Mohammad Khali. Katsiaryna Pushkarova. Fernando De Peroy, Fariba Osali. Nadiia Lusupov. Assem Amantayeva.
(Applause)
MIRJAM KUHNE: Is there anything else anyone wants to bring up? Or do we give you a bit more time to prepare for the BoF and to prepare for the dinner.
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I don't know if you need a reminder of the logistics for tonight. As a reminder, the venue, the RIPE meeting venue is actually in walking stance, so there is no transport arranged, except for people that have mobility issues, and of course you'll have a bus for you ready at ten past seven. Then return buses also for those same guests starting at 22:30 every 30 minutes coming back. Please don't forget your badge and your ticket. And I hope I'll see you all there. But there is still two BoFs in between. So, finish early, a few minutes early, which is great. Enjoy the break.