RIPE Programme Committee Biographies
Valerie Aurora
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 91
Valerie Aurora first began working in networking in 2000, writing drivers for obscure supercomputing network interconnects. She collected questions for a TCP/IP trivia game, maintained several Linux network drivers, and implemented PLPMTUD in a VPN client.
She also co-founded a non-profit that drove adoption of codes of conduct and similar methods to increase DEI in open source software and other open technology fields.
Valerie has served on several program committees, including the USENIX conferences FAST, ATC, and HotOS.
Ondřej Filip
RIPE Meeting Host Representative
Ondřej has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and the Internet. He studied Computer Science at the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics at Charles University and Executive MBA at University of Pittsburgh - Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. During his studies at Charles University he founded an important open source project – routing daemon BIRD - and started working for the company IPEX, a nation-wide ISP in the Czech Republic. He later became Technical director and a member of the board at IPEX.
Since December 2004, Ondřej has been CEO of the CZ.NIC association. CZ.NIC currently covers many activities for the local and global community, e.g. developing open source software and hardware like BIRD, Knot DNS and Turris. It runs the national cyber security team of the Czech Republic (CSIRT.CZ). Over the course of Ondřej’s career, he has served on the boards of many Internet related bodies and additionally supported many activities. He is the Chair of the board of NIX.CZ, and a member of the boards of Euro-IX and IX-F. He is also a committee member of SSAC and on the programme committee for CSNOG. He has regularly attended RIPE meetings since 2003.
Ondřej's hobbies include basketball, travelling and programming open source software. He speaks Czech and Slovak, is fluent in English and partly understands German and Russian.
View Ondřej's profile on LinkedIn
Affiliated organisations:
- CZ.NIC (CEO)
- NIX.CZ (Chair of the Board)
- Euro-IX (Board Member)
- SSAC (Programme Committee Member)
- CSNOG (Programme Committee Member)
Number of affiliated LIRs: 9
Doris Hauser
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 90
Doris Hauser is currently working at nic.at, the Austrian registry, as a Linux sysadmin (mainly) with a bit of networking and scripting/programming (bash/python mostly).
She started getting into computers at a young age, starting with games on DOS computers, then joining a technical high school in Vienna when she was 14 years old. Afterwards she made her bachelor’s degree in IT Security at a university of applied sciences in lower Austria.
Doris' bachelor thesis was about the security of smart sex toys (or rather the lack thereof), with a focus on privacy issues in the smartphone apps of said toys.
Franziska Lichtblau
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 91
Franziska has a background in Internet measurement research with a focus on interconnection and BGP, and now works at SAP developing and supporting an internal infrastructure as a service cloud platform.
She joined the RIPE community 10 years ago, served three consecutive terms as part of the RIPE Programme Committee, two of them as PC chair.
Other community activities include serving on the Code of Conduct Team.
Kevin Meynell
RIPE PC Member
Term Ends: RIPE 92
Kevin is currently working for the SCION Association. He worked for the Internet Society from 2015 until 2023 which included leading the MANRS Routing Security initiative; organising the Network & Distributed Security Symposium (NDSS); working on IXP and Community Network development in the RIPE NCC service region; and running its Deploy360 programme that encouraged the deployment of IPv6, DNSSEC, DNS-over-TLS/HTTPS and RPKI.
He previously worked for APNIC as its Training Manager, and prior to that he worked for 16 years for TERENA (now the GÉANT Association) to develop R&E networks across Europe and beyond, to deploy new services such as 6NET (IPv6), Eduroam, Shibboleth and PKIs, and running TF-CSIRT – the European Forum of CSIRTs. He has also worked for JANET (now Jisc), the UK’s National Research & Education Network, and CENTR on various networking initiatives and services.
Brian Nisbet
Anti-Abuse Working Group Chair
Brian Nisbet is the RIPE Working Group Chairs representative on the RIPE Programme Committee. He has been active in the RIPE community since RIPE 48 and he currently co-chairs the Anti-Abuse Working Group. His day job is Network Operations Manager for HEAnet, the Irish NREN, where he mostly makes sure the packets are flowing in the right direction.
Antonio Prado
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 89
An open source enthusiast, Antonio Prado is currently the Chief Technology Officer at AS59715, a local government body in Italy. He has been active in IT since 1993 and was an early adopter of IPv6.
A former MANRS ambassador and MANRS Steering Committee member, he recently co-authored the book “BGP, from theory to practice”, already available in Italian, to be published in English by the end of 2022.
Moin Rahman
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 89
Moin is currently pursuing his Masters Degree in Computer Security. He has 16+ years of professional experience running Network Operators in the Asia Pacific region. Before starting his Masters; he has been an active Community Member in the Asia Pacific region. He has joined and presented in multiple regional NOGs in AP region including APNIC, APRICOT, SANOG. He has also been a member of the PC for these conferences and recently have also chaired the APNIC54 PC. He is also an avid Community Trainer for APNIC and has conducted training on various topics including Network Security, System Administrations and IPv4/IPv6 Routing for the last 6+ years.
He is a big enthusiast and advocate of The FreeBSD Project. For more than 7 years now he has been a regular contributor and committer for ports/docs (bofh@). His primary interest is with ports but also contributes in the docs automation and the CI builds of the FreeBSD src tree.
When he is not doing anything he is in the mountains of Nepal for mountaineering or trail biking.
Khalid Samara
MENOG Representative
Khalid is a telecommunications and ISP expert with extensive experience in Internet, mobile, engineering and security technologies. He has acquired over a decade of experience in network planning, operations management, security and telecommunications policy development.
Khalid currently serves as PC Chair of the Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG), an international forum dedicated to elevating communication and awareness about Internet best practices. Having been actively involved in providing consultation and advice to ISPs in the Middle East and Arab region, Khalid concentrates specifically on network strategies, design, Internet technology, and operations, as well as configuration and training. He has played a major role in training Middle East ISP and network engineers through MENOG roadshows and conferences.
Khalid is based in Jordan. Prior to his current role with ORANGE Telecom in the field of information security, he worked extensively with several regional and international telecom/ISP operators and has come to be considered a well-known face in the Internet industry in the Middle East.
Massimiliano Stucchi
RIPE PC Chair
Term ends: RIPE 92
Massimiliano “Max” Stucchi runs Glevia GmbH, an organisation providing training and consulting related to networking. In his spare time, he also runs AS58280 as a hobby ASN, and participates in both the CH-IX and IXP.ge NOCs.
In the past, he founded an ISP and WISP in Italy, worked at the RIPE NCC as a trainer, subsequently as the IPv6 Programme Manager and then at the Internet Society. He is involved in a number of programme committees including RIPE, Euro-IX and a handful of NOGs.
He is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Clara Wade
RIPE PC Member
Term ends: RIPE 90
Clara got introduced to the community five years ago in a peculiar way. She was only 22 years old, working at an online escrow company from its Buenos Aires office when IPv4 address transactions were becoming more urgent and frequent as the run-out was happening.
It became her passion project to make sure the process was as safe as possible and meeting people in the community that were committed to building a stable and sustainable Internet only emphasised the importance of the work being done here.
Since 2022, Clara has been helping develop the IP address strategy at AWS, where she is also an inclusion ambassador. Having attended multiple NOGs and RIR meetings across four regions, and being a member of the NANOG DEI committee, she loves connecting with people from different parts of the world and have seen first-hand the impact that contributing to this community can have.
Jan Žorž
PC Vice Chair, SEE Representative, BCOP Task Force Chair
Jan Žorž is a VP of 6connect Labs, working on the development of various protocols and network solutions to accelerate the global deployment of IPv6.
Active in the RIPE community as a RIPE PC member, Jan is also SEE RIPE regional meeting chairman and a founder and a chair of SINOG, the Slovenian Network Operators Group. Several IETF RFCs author and one of the founders and member of the board of GNA (Global NOG Alliance). Jan is also active in its "Keep Ukraine Connected" initiative.
Previously worked with the Internet Society and served as a CEO of Go6 Institute Slovenia. Jan is based in Slovenia, EU.