WS #223 Communities of the Practice- NOGs Driving the local Internet

Summary

This discussion focused on Network Operator Groups (NOGs) and their role in maintaining internet infrastructure. Speakers from various regional NOGs shared insights on the evolution, challenges, and future of these organizations. NOGs were described as volunteer-driven communities where competing companies collaborate to solve technical problems and ensure internet stability.

The discussion highlighted the importance of NOGs in keeping the internet running smoothly, despite their low public profile. Speakers emphasized the need for NOGs to adapt to changing needs, with examples from SANOG and MENOG on how they’ve evolved over time. Challenges faced by newer NOGs in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Maldives were explored, including political instability and lack of resources.

Sustainability emerged as a key concern, with speakers suggesting strategies such as starting small, focusing on community building, and gradually developing leadership within the group. The importance of making NOG meetings enjoyable and accessible was stressed to encourage participation.

A significant point raised was the disconnect between network operators and policymakers. Speakers advocated for increased NOG involvement in policy discussions at forums like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact. They emphasized the need for NOGs to educate policymakers about technical realities while also becoming more aware of policy implications.

The discussion concluded with calls for elevating the status of NOGs, bridging the gap between technical and policy communities, and ensuring the next generation of professionals becomes involved in NOGs. Overall, the session highlighted the critical yet often overlooked role of NOGs in maintaining a stable, open, and interoperable global internet.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The role and importance of Network Operator Groups (NOGs) in maintaining internet infrastructure and fostering collaboration between technical experts

– Challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, especially in developing regions

– The need to evolve NOGs to meet changing community needs and engage with policy discussions

– The disconnect between technical operators and policymakers, and how to bridge that gap

– Ways to increase NOG participation in internet governance forums and policy development

The overall purpose of the discussion was to raise awareness about NOGs, their critical role in internet operations, and how to strengthen and sustain them going forward. There was a particular focus on highlighting NOG activities in developing regions and exploring how NOGs can have more influence in policy discussions.

The tone of the discussion was largely collaborative and forward-looking. Speakers shared experiences openly and offered constructive suggestions. There was a sense of urgency around the need to elevate the status of NOGs and ensure their voices are heard in policy forums. The tone became more action-oriented towards the end as participants discussed concrete next steps.

Speakers

– Rajnesh Singh: Moderator, from APNIC Foundation

– Rupesh Shrestha: Representative from SANOG (South Asian Network Operators Group)

– Osama Al-Dosary: Representative from MENOG (Middle East Network Operators Group)

– Vahan Hovsepyan: Representative from RIPE NCC (Regional Internet Registry)

– Mohibullah Utmankhil: Coordinator of Afghanistan Network Operators Group

– Harisa Shahid: Representative from Pakistan, described as “next generation” in the industry

– Niuma Faiz: Representative from Maldives

Additional speakers:

– Mery Henrica: Representative from Timor-Leste Network Operators Group (TLNOG)

– Karma Donnen Wangdi: Co-chair of Bhutan Network Operators Group (BTNOG)

Network Operator Groups (NOGs) and Their Role in Internet Infrastructure

This comprehensive discussion focused on the critical role of Network Operator Groups (NOGs) in maintaining internet infrastructure and fostering collaboration among technical experts. The session was structured into three segments: NOG ecosystem, NOG practitioners, and sustainability and future of NOGs. Representatives from various regional NOGs shared insights on the evolution, challenges, and future of these organizations.

1. The Importance and Function of NOGs

NOGs were described as volunteer-driven communities where competing companies collaborate to solve technical problems and ensure internet stability. These groups play a crucial yet often unrecognized role in maintaining a stable, open, and interoperable global internet.

Speakers provided examples of how NOGs contribute to internet development and capacity building in their regions, including:

– Promoting IPv6 deployment

– Establishing internet exchanges

– Offering technical training and knowledge sharing

2. Evolution and Adaptation of NOGs

The discussion revealed how NOGs have evolved over time to meet changing community needs. Rupesh Shrestha shared SANOG’s journey: “We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make SANOG as a more training platform as well.” He also highlighted SANOG’s future plans, including a focus on gender equality and a fellowship program to support participation from underrepresented regions.

Osama Al-Dosary discussed MENOG’s development, emphasizing the importance of starting small and keeping meetings informal and fun. This approach has helped MENOG grow and adapt to the needs of its community.

3. Challenges in Establishing and Sustaining NOGs

Several challenges were identified in establishing and sustaining NOGs, particularly in developing regions:

– Reliance on volunteers, leading to sustainability concerns

– Political instability hindering NOG development and activities (e.g., Afghanistan)

– Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities (e.g., Maldives)

– Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals (e.g., Pakistan)

Osama Al-Dosary highlighted a critical issue: “Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers.”

4. Bridging the Gap Between Technical and Policy Communities

A significant point of discussion was the disconnect between network operators and policymakers. Rupesh Shrestha described this as a “0 degrees to 180 degrees” gap between the technical community and the governance community. Speakers agreed on the importance of NOGs having a voice in policy forums like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact.

Approaches to bridging this gap included:

– Direct participation in global forums (Vahan Hovsepyan)

– Simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals (Osama Al-Dosary)

– Using ‘interpreters’ to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities (Rupesh Shrestha)

5. Future Directions and Sustainability

The discussion concluded with a focus on ensuring the future sustainability and relevance of NOGs. Key points included:

– Encouraging next-generation participation: Harisa Shahid emphasized the importance of involving younger professionals to become future leaders.

– Adapting to changing needs: Speakers agreed on the need for NOGs to continually evolve their services and focus to remain relevant.

– Increasing visibility: There was consensus on the need to improve branding and outreach to increase NOG recognition.

– Sustainable funding models: The need for more sustainable funding models, especially for regional NOGs, was discussed.

– Emphasizing human connections: Speakers highlighted the importance of socializing and building relationships at NOG meetings.

– Integrating with regional IGFs: A suggestion was made to make NOG discussions a regular part of regional Internet Governance Forums.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the critical role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure while emphasizing the need for adaptation, policy engagement, and sustainability. The session concluded with a call to action from the moderator, Rajnesh Singh, emphasizing the importance of “action, not words” in moving forward.

The overall tone was collaborative and forward-looking, with a clear emphasis on the continued importance of NOGs in the global internet ecosystem. As NOGs continue to evolve, their ability to bridge technical expertise with policy considerations will be crucial in shaping the future of the internet.

Rajnath Singh: All right, good morning, and welcome to workshop number 223, Communities of Practice, NOGs Driving the Local Internet. We have a small gathering here this morning. I guess it’s too early. Some have started leaving, but that’s okay. Just to give you a quick overview, we’re not using any presentations or slide decks. It’s all interventions by our esteemed speakers. I’m hoping we stick to the time, and I’m also hoping we can get some interaction from the audience. And hopefully the room fills up a little bit more as the day goes on. So first of all, I’m Raj Singh from the APNIC Foundation. Most of our speakers are in the room here today, except for one, Mohib Ullah, who’s joining us from Afghanistan, I believe. The way we’re doing this session is divided into three segments. First, we’ll cover a little bit about the NOG ecosystem, then we’ll go and hear from NOG practitioners who are out there on the ground setting up NOGs. And then to wrap it up, we’ll talk about sustainability and the future for NOGs. Now, if you don’t know what NOGs are, NOGs are network operator groups. And I thought I’d start a little bit with my own experience with NOGs. Back in the day when I was doing startups, I was asked by one of my team members to go to a meeting in Singapore. I had no idea what it was. He said, it’s like a NOG meeting. I had no idea what NOG meant. So when I arrived at the meetings, he introduced me around, APNIC meeting, by the way. And my first question was, and I started to understand a little bit how NOGs work, why is it that people from competing companies are collaborating and discussing and trying to fix problems together? Because from a business perspective, it didn’t make sense to me. Why would I collaborate with them? my competitors, right? It took me a while to understand why that was the case. And today, of course, I’m a big supporter of the NOG ecosystem, as Rupesh will allude to. So the key thing there is that NOGs, they may come from different companies and different organizations. They may be competing with each other at the business level, but they work together to solve problems, to address issues, to ensure that the internet keeps on operating the way it needs to operate. It’s stable, it’s secure, it’s resilient, it’s robust. And therein, the NOG groups perform a very important function in the internet ecosystem. The problem, however, is that hardly anyone knows about NOGs and us, right? NOGs are basically those that work in the background. They keep things running, they collaborate, they coordinate, but the outside world never really knows you, right? Even when things go wrong, they go to the ISPs or retail providers or whoever they may be. There’ll be lots of social media chatter that, you know, this is not working, internet’s down, speed is slow. But behind the scenes, it’s the NOG operators, you know, people from NOGs who work in these companies who try and make sure that those things don’t happen. So I believe this is the first time the Internet Governance Forum has actually had a session on NOGs. That, I thought, was quite amusing in the manner of speaking, because if it’s the Internet Governance Forum, the internet basically depends on NOGs to keep things up and running. And we’ve never brought up these issues at an IGF, you know, in the 20, what, nearly 20 years that it’s been around. So I’m glad that we’re doing this session. And at least it’s on the agenda, you know, we have some online participants. And, you know, we’ll have some outputs out of this, which I hope can be shared with the wider community. So to start off, we’ll talk a little bit about the NOG ecosystem. So I’ve asked a couple of my speakers a question each on what their experience has been in setting up NOGs and being involved with them. I’ll get each speaker, you know, as I turn to you, please just introduce yourself in two sentences. Let’s not do long bios. And then, if you could answer the question that I put to you. So I’ll start off with Rupesh. Rupesh, in many respects, SANOG, the South Asian NOG, is one of the more mature NOGs in the Asia Pacific region, with more than 20 years of history. Can you share some thoughts on that 20 plus year journey, and in particular, how SANOG has contributed to the South Asian technical community, which keeps the internet up and running, not just in the region, but outside it as well?

Rupesh Shrestha: Thank you, Raj. Thank you very much. Raj, as you mentioned, this is probably the first time that the NOG has been part of this IGF program, and I’m really very thankful to the APNIC Foundation for facilitating this and bringing us together with the governance side of the internet. As Raj mentioned, the NOG people are working in the background to keep the internet stable, secure, as well as kind of open, but we work in a stealth mode for the governance team, right? So, SANOG, we started in 2003 through the initiative of a few people, like Gaurab Razapad there, and then Dr. Phyllis Smith and Champika, and then a few other people. And later on, other people started joining the movement. We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make the SANOG as a more training platform as well. So, over the period, I mean, if I have to break down this 23 years of journey of SANOG, we would basically, on a broader way, we just break it down into three different parts. The initial movement was like some of the people were like very enthusiastic people coming together to share their knowledge, share their experience, and get along, and getting that satisfaction and motivation of being with the team of good technical people who are thriving to keep internet secure and then resilient, as well as getting the knowledge transferred to the new generation. And I always say during the SANOG events that a lot of people who were trained by SANOG in the earlier days are now in various leadership positions and are the key members of this internet community. Initially, it was basically a training program, workshops that we used to do. Since 2003, we’ve done, we’ve trained probably around 3500 people. Hardcore training, right? So five days of hands-on training on how you should work on the internet. And when we started in 2003, it was more of a static routing days, right? So you give a command in the router saying, oh, send this network, subnet, to this network, and it’s more static. And we started this through the SANOG, we started training on the OSP, BGV, and then things of that sort, and then gradually moved to DNSSEC and security, and then now more on the automation side of the network as well. The initial journey was towards like training this, making the SANOG as a workshop, a training platform, where a lot of people were trained. And at the same time, we were also providing fellowship to more deserving candidates, and then those fellow people who’ve got the fellowship has come back to the SANOG as a trainer now. So they’re more of the senior trainer for SANOG community, and then it’s all done through the volunteer way, we don’t pay to the trainers. It’s all the volunteer trainers that come to the community and share their experiences, share their hand, just as SANOG initially gave them a hand to start their career. Then, the second phase of SANOG, we started to think that, okay, probably the SANOG being a regional network operators group in these various countries, we do two events, we’ve been doing two events every year in different cities of South Asia, in Kathmandu, Bhutan, Thimphu, Paro, Mumbai, or Kolkata. or Dhaka, Colombo and various places. So we realized that, okay, maybe we should not only do this event on an international basis, we should also carry the localized part of the content. And we started to encourage the local content providers, local providers to come up with their challenges. And then we built onto the process and then thought process of creating this local NOGs. And we started supporting the creation and then handling of the local NOGs, where in 2014, the BD NOG started in Bangladesh and 2016 NP NOG started in Nepal. And now that we have all the NOGs in different countries now so all the South Asian countries have their own local NOGs. And that’s like very, very interesting to see that. We’ve covered SANOG in six different countries and then it’s very interesting and very happy to see AFNOG. I was part of the opening ceremony in AFNOG last week and then I’m happy to see MNNOG also coming up. So through this initiative, we plan to cover all the regions, countries and happy to see that the local NOGs are carrying the content and carrying the thought process that SANOG initially covered. And it’s more on the localized basis, right? So SANOG will come as a regional platform but the local NOGs can, through their local language communication, through their local needs, will come up with their local, to address the local challenges. For example, in Nepal, they came up with the optical fiber training which was the local need at that time. And then that curriculum is nowhere found. So they developed their own curriculum, started the training and then there was like catered to their own community’s requirement. Similarly in Bhutan, same thing happened. I think Afghanistan, the last AFNOG was in local language. I was very happy to see that. Sri Lanka is doing it in the local language. NPNOG is just did the last event partially in a hybrid mode with the Nepali language as well as English language. So the second part of SANOG’s journey over this last 20 plus years, 23 years to be more specific has been, first phase was more of a community building. Second phase focused on the local NOG creation. And we are at the brink of starting our third phase, which I’ll talk later on, what next for SANOG. Now that all the countries have their own local NOGs, that we are going to move to the next phase. Also through the SANOG movement, we’ve been able to create and then do the training or to start the journey of various internet exchanges as well. And this movement was contributed by a lot of people. Raj was part of the community which contributed to SANOG. Aftab was there, Jichen from Bhutan, and a lot of people, a lot of people. So we were a part of this to make the SANOG a NOG community, a strong community. And it’s like completely, I mean, it’s a very selfless job. You know, I mean, like Raj talked about like why competing organization will come together and then showcase their challenges or success stories or the difficulties that they’re facing in the business. It’s more of a family, you know? You come to a family’s environment where you feel free to share your challenges. You feel free to share your successes so that the bonding becomes bigger for the greater interest of internet in overall, right? So we are more of a, well, SANOG is basically, I mean, as initially Raj also mentioned, I also mentioned we are like working on a background like a guardian of a South Asian galaxy, but a lot of people do not realize that and in the governance side of that. Maybe my five minutes is up. So probably I’ll continue in the later part of this. Thank you, Rupesh.

Rajnath Singh: So guardians of the South Asian galaxy. So that could stick, eh? Osama, so the Middle East NOG has been around for… over 15 years, I believe, you have evolved in that time, of course, to meet community needs. So that’s another important aspect of NOG, that you need to meet the community’s needs. Could you share some thoughts on the Meenak journey and how it has helped contribute to internet development in the Middle East, which itself, of course, has been rapid in these 15 odd years?

Osama Al-Dosary : So kind of similar to SANOG, actually, I attended the SANOG No. 4, and I really enjoyed the experience there. And for me, it was a new experience in terms of how people came together and were able to help each other, and also how valuable the sessions were, because they were from people that actually have real hands-on experience, as opposed to the typical training you may get from vendors, where it’s just professional trainers, without respect to them, but they don’t have the operational background to explain the challenges that people may face, or you may face on a daily basis. And that was very enlightening. And similar to SANOG, we were actually founded initially, led by Dr. Philip Smith, I think this was 2007, and a couple of other local members, including Fahad and Shiaoun. And I was part of that team, part of the program committee from that initial meeting. And we kept on going, and it was mostly in the beginning, it was mostly grassroots efforts, and the effort to kind of gain more awareness of MENAG and more awareness of the challenges and the importance of focusing on internet operations, to make sure that the internet operates and continues, and trying to reach out to not only the community, but also to the, let’s say, executives and telecom operators, and also to reach out to government, the regulators, and so forth, to kind of raise their awareness of the different issues, and also things similar to, for example, the need to roll out IPv6, or get their support to kind of roll out IPv6. And that was kind of the initial phase that we went through in the beginning. And part of the success is also, you know, part of the local successes that we had in the region, for example, is in Saudi Arabia, the regulator actually took upon themselves to kind of promote IPv6, and we’re kind of, the adoption of IPv6 in Saudi Arabia was one of the best, not only in the region, but globally. And that was kind of the early phase. Later on, we went through some other changes in MENAG, and the RIPE NCC kind of took a more bigger role in the leadership of the NCC, Dr. Philip Smith had to step away a little bit, and we, it took a kind of different role, not the kind of same level as it did, but it took like a higher role of engaging governments more, and trying to raise more awareness on a government level, and also conducting, we continue to conduct the trainings that we did. So we had a similar format in terms of, we had hands-on workshops, and we were actually modeled after SANOG, so very similar format in terms of, we had hands-on training workshops, whether on IPv6, whether on DNS, DNSSEC, security, and then we would have, we used to have tutorials, one day full of tutorials, and then we would have another day, we’d have two days of plenary sessions, where we would accept submissions from a region and globally to present in the conference. And then after that, we kind of, we had to roll back a little bit, so we’re not, we weren’t doing twice a year as we first started, initially started, but then we started doing once a year, and we’ve been continuing on the once a year format since then, and I’m happy to say that I think it’s going very well. We had a recent meeting in Oman just a few weeks ago.

Rajnath Singh: Right, thanks Osama. Thanks for that overview of how you’ve developed MINOG, and you know, again, the key thing between both MINOG and SANOG is it’s about community, right? You’re building a community of practice, and people are there to help each other, rather than, you know, compete. The competition comes later, right? Okay, if I can turn to Vahan, who is of course with RIPE NCC. Vahan, RIPE NCC is one of the five regional internet registries, and the RIPE region itself of course covers multiple sub-regions. As RIR, you enjoy a higher level view of how the internet has been developing at the technical level, and you work with multiple stakeholders to ensure that internet remains open, available, and accessible. Could you share some thoughts on what you see from a RIR perspective, and in particular, what are some of the challenges that the network operator community faces?

Vahan Hovsepyan: Okay, good. Yeah, nice. So actually, NOCs are one of the priority groups in the RIPE technical community, and we do support the creation and the activities of NOCs in our service region with many, many, many instruments, sharing, and this is not only financial. We do share in many cases also our personal, let’s say, history of cooperation, or even history of creation of the NOCs. I was, I had the personal experience prior to joining RIPE NCC, I was the creator of Armenian Association of Operators that has initiated first Armenian NOC, and that is why I have my own personal, let’s say, history of things happening, why, and understanding why NOC should happen, and what it can bring to the community. But I can share here some experience we had with many NOCs, and what issues they have, and what kind of opportunities they have, and some uniqueness of work with them in these regions. So, so far, I have participated in, well, participated in kind of creation and supported them of Georgian, Armenian, and Kazakhstan NOC, and the interesting thing with Kazakhstan NOC is that it is not even an event, but it is a community. So, sometimes we have some similarities with IGF, you know, we have the IGF as an event, but this is kind of not an event, this is a process, this is a procedure of internet governance, and this is also a process of network operators to discuss their issues, and not to discuss it once a year or twice a year. but also have the platform where they can discuss the current issues and get the current answer. So Kazakhstan NOC started from the Telegram chat group. And they have decided to go to the NOC kind of year after they have started very proactive communication via Telegram. And not only Kazakhstan network operators gathered there, but also some operators from neighboring countries, from Russia, from other places, and myself as well. So what they do, they do this very proactive communication on current issues each day. They have hundreds of messages each day in this Telegram group. And they started communicating at the conference with the government itself. And this was already a second step of their development. The third step of their development was that the state has recognized them as an organized group. And they have advised them to come and asked them to come to the advisory group under the ministry. And one of their initiators is already in the public council at the ministry. And third step they had is the creation of association, a legal body. And they have created now the association of legal bodies that has also an ability to legally support these processes. What we do with them and how it can be also beneficial for other multi-stakeholder community to cooperate with them. Okay, we do also this, we try to do at least these trainings because there is a gathering of network operators. It’s a good place to go and deliver their prior to the event or after the event, the trainings that can be beneficial for this technical community. What is quite interesting, they are not only discussing now the technical questions. They are not now discussing only the how they can operate the internet, but they now also discuss all the questions that can be interested for the operators. Should it be commercial, marketing, sales, all these questions. And as it was mentioned here, it is not a place for competition there. They are quite free to share their experience. They are quite free to share their advices, how they can do with this or that product. And it creates quite a unique environment where they can openly talk about their problems, even the state that is called to be very close. It goes there and take participation in these discussions. How it can be also helpful to others. We see a lot of our counterparts also working with technical community. So should it be ISOC with their programs to support community? Should it be state or multi-stakeholder other bodies like we have, for example, the IT also providing some conferences and sites on how they can develop the internet or support to develop the internet and standards, etc. So they are also coming sometimes to these meetings. And this is as we see for IXPs, for NOCs, for policy players, this is also can be also a future place for them to grow and represent their questions to the state and have this negotiation with the state immediately and not to wait for, I don’t know, four months or a year to have the NOC gathering. We are closely cooperating with them and supporting them, not only for the creation of or for the organization of event itself, but also in the development of that. And I guess the brightest example of this combined cooperation or successful cooperation can be Minoc where my colleague, you might know him, is quite widely engaged and our manager Hisham was playing quite a significant role. I have participated at two Minocs. They are brilliant and they are bringing all the questions that are very actual for the community, for the development of community. And this can be also the place where you can understand these issues of the community and bring it to the upper level, like to regional level or to the international level. That’s what is maybe missed sometimes for the discussions at IJF, where we can bring what we have discussed

Rajnath Singh: at Minoc. Thank you. Thank you, Vahan. So, what we heard from those three speakers is how the NOC ecosystem has been evolving, at least in the wider Asian part of the region and, of course, the European side as well. Needless to say, the NOC community plays a very important role and I think I’m hoping it will continue to do so. Thank you. Thank you very much, Vahan. In the following segments or in the last segment today, we can talk a little bit about how we can raise that voice in other fora as well. One good thing to hear from Vahan and Osama both was the fact that governments are also interested in the work of the NOCs. I think that’s not equal across the world. I think it depends on the economy or the region or the sub-region. I think maybe we could do a little bit more work there as well. So, we’re doing very well for time. Thank you to my speakers for listening to me, being on time. I absolutely am impressed. Thank you. I’ve got a few minutes allocated for some questions and answers. I wanted to make this interactive and not just have a series of talks by our speakers. So, why don’t we first go to my good friend, Kahil, if we have anyone online with any questions or comments? Oh, no comments thus far. Okay, all right, fine. So, we can turn to the room itself. Anyone in the room would like to ask a question, have a comment? Mary, yes, please. Please take a mic so that, yeah. If you could also introduce yourself very quickly. Maybe it’s off.

Audience: Hello, everyone. I’m Mary from Timor-Leste. Sorry, I’m a little bit nervous because this is my first time to attend an international discussion like this. In the room, I also want to say that Timor-Leste also has a NOC this year. So, we just started this year and we got the support from the APNIC and the initiative we started the NOC is from the APNIC staff. So, we are very happy to be here. This year, we started the NOC with three days for workshop for internet routing basic and then for conference one day and we got a sponsor from the international company also and from APNIC and then we got support also from our government that facilitated us with the with the building to held a conference, held a workshop. So, here I want to ask to the SANOG, what’s your input for our TLNOC? We just started. So, maybe SANOG may have more experience with the NOC. So, maybe you can share or you can give us the idea or a suggestion to the TLNOC. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: So, in fact, the next segment talks about how new NOCs are starting up. So, our three colleagues from Maldives, Afghanistan and Pakistan are going to cover a little bit of that but Rakesh, maybe you can share some brief comments. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mary,

Rupesh Shrestha: for the question. Basically, when you start a new NOC, what as a SANOG through our experience, what I would like to recommend is focus on two things. One, understand what the local community requires from this community, right? So, local requirement has to be clearly spelled out before you start to listen to the outside world. Second part of the responsibility for a TLNOC would be to get the success stories and the scenarios from the outside world. For example, when the IPv6 deployment was required, SANOG was part of it to provide training to its community and then get the regional people, regional engineers ready to get the deployment of IPv6. When the wave came for internet exchange, SANOG was helping the community to get the knowledge transferred to establishing the internet exchange, the BGP and all those things. The DNA set, right? So, now the RPKI or low implementation and all those things. So, focus on two things. Understand what the local community wants or the requires and help facilitate through the outside world or through the local resources itself. Second, whatever is happening worldwide in terms of making the internet more secure and resilient and then stable, get those things processed to the community through whatever internet foundation or whatever help we can get from the outside world. SANOG will be happy to extend our resources for the upcoming NONs as well. So, we would be happy to get those things facilitated as well. So, just focus on those two things. Apart from that, there will be a lot of challenges. Funding will be challenges and getting the papers, presentations, there will be so many other challenges. But just try to focus on these two key areas for the success and stability of getting the operations rolled for the benefit of the community.

Osama Al-Dosary : Thanks, Rupesh. I’d like to add. So, it may differ a little bit from my colleague here. I would actually recommend that you start simple and focus on the community. So, the people that are involved, just try to have this in a way that’s very simple, that doesn’t cost anything, be very frugal and maybe start very small. Somehow, getting together, maybe it could be just getting together over a meal and then maybe talking about one topic. You don’t have to make it very big from the beginning. You can reach the stage where it’s big, but initially, you should focus on the community aspect and focus on the technology and the operational aspect. So, the people that are interested in NONs, the best people that are interested in NONs are the people that are very interested in technology and operating technology. So, have that as the core goal of the group. So, when you gather together, you gather in a more social manner and talk about these different issues and then maybe you can start by having discussions on certain points. You don’t have to have something very formal or anything like you don’t have to try to rent out a location to set up something. Just have it as a normal, like a simple discussion. So, you create a very simple structure. We get together once a week, once a month, it’s like that and some regular cadence and then you, it could be over a meal, talk and then you may have something simple as like, okay, for the next 30 minutes, we’re going to talk about or the next 20 minutes, we’re going to talk about one topic or if someone has something to share, please share it and then when you start doing that over time, then you can start doing something a bit more formal. If someone has, let’s say, a topic they want to present, you know, maybe get to a point where they actually prepare a presentation. So, very often, people in our communities, the technical people, people that run routers and switches and DNS and so forth, they’re very, very uncomfortable presenting. So if you tell them, can you make a presentation about this and talk to people, that is very scary. It’s extremely scary. But if you start in a very casual fashion, OK, please tell us about this topic or can you share this experience without any presentation, just have it very informal, very casual. And then over time, you can start to make it more structured. When the team gets bigger to the stage where you can’t have a normal conversation like this, then at that point, it becomes very obvious that people need to actually put some slides together, like have something more formal to do. But I would recommend avoid cost, avoid incurring any additional cost in the beginning. Because the more cost you have in the beginning, the more difficult it can be to maintain. So for example, if you get used to getting funds from Sanhok or whatever other organization, or let’s say one of the companies come sponsor you, and then you get used to doing that, if that fund is not available, then it becomes difficult to actually manage your group. So that would be my recommendations, is start small, start casual, social, and then gradually build up the engagement.

Rajnath Singh: I think that’s some useful advice there. Yeah, Van, I’ll just come to you in one more.

Vahan Hovsepyan: Yep. Yeah, small one, really a small one. So it is on, yeah. Don’t forget about the human basis of all of us. This is about socializing, yes, but this is about fun and the event should be attractive to everybody. So if you have a fund there, well, it should be interesting. It should be interesting and not very full of technical details, et cetera, but with also human conversation, really fun, attractiveness. Don’t think much about money itself. So either RIPE NCC or IPNIC or IPNIC Foundation will help you or ISO. Okay, that is not an issue, but to create a unique environment where they have a fund, where they have an opportunity to talk and express themselves. And if it is interesting, they will come.

Rajnath Singh: So for those who may be unaware, Timor-Leste is one of the newest sovereign countries in the world. It’s based in Southeast Asia. It’s a small country and we’ve been doing a lot of work trying to support them over the last several years. I had a question at the back there, perhaps. Can someone run a mic? Thanks.

Audience: Yeah. Hi, can you hear me? I’m Karma from Bhutan. I just have a few comments with regard to the NOC. I’m also one of the co-chair of the Bhutan Beta Group. We established in 2014. And since then we have had over 11 BGNOC events every year. For the last 10, 11 years. My question is on the sustainability part and it’s just a comment, basically. The NOCs, like the few speakers have already mentioned, drives on the volunteerism, right? And there are only group of volunteers that come forward, organize these meetings, but also at the same time deliver trainings, help the community with the training, specific requirements within the country, within the region. And these volunteers are basically, they volunteer. So we get a fund. So what we do is we heavily rely on the sponsorship, not just from the international, but from the local as well. And I think we have a great opportunity here right now for all these NOCs, IGF, ISOC, country-specific chapters to co-exist, basically. And each of the players has an opportunity to complement each other to achieve the outcome, the goals of the respective IGF, ISOC, or the NOCs. And also with regard to the, now with NOCs coming up more prominently for the last five, six years, the way the regional NOCs approach this whole new community building, capacity building, the whole regional NOCs has to change. And I’m very much looking forward to hear from Rupesh Day on what would be the next step for the salon. This is very important so that there is no duplication in efforts and we grow together. Just a comment. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. I am a big believer in no duplication. So, and indeed the last segment is about sustainability. So we’ll cover that a little bit later. So we’ll go to the next part of the session today, which is actually hearing from NOC practitioners. It just so happens we had a nice segue. We had from Timor-Leste and Bhutan before we hear from the other three economists. So I’ve ended up with five economists, which is a good thing. Let me first turn to Mohibullah from Afghanistan. Mohibullah, Afghanistan is one of the newer NOGs, NOG efforts in the region, and you have had your fair share of challenges in many dimensions. Can you share some insights on what you have had to do to set up a NOG and the challenges you have faced?

Mohibullah Utmankhil: Thank you, Raj. Am I audible?

Rajnath Singh: Yes, you are.

Mohibullah Utmankhil: Okay, that’s good. Good morning, everyone. I’m Mohibullah Utman Khair. I’m the coordinator of the Afghanistan Network Operators Group, and currently I’m based in Germany. I just wanted to say that as well. Let me give some context about Afghanistan before addressing your questions, Raj. We are a landlocked country located at the crossroads of the South and Central Asia. Despite the rich history, we have faced challenges in the past 50 years, including political instability, infrastructure gaps, and economic constraints. All of which have impacted the development of the country and also the Internet ecosystem. So, though the Internet penetration has been improving over the years, from almost no connectivity in the early 2000s to having an internal fiber ring in the country and five to six national-level telecommunication service providers and around 60 to 70 network operators all over the country at the moment. Although we don’t have direct access to the subsea cables, however, we have fiber connections to almost all of the neighbor countries. And despite all of these, there is still much work to be done, particularly in addressing infrastructure gaps and capacity building and digital divide. AFNOG was conceptualized as a response to these challenges. So the idea for establishing a network operators group in Afghanistan began back in 2018 during discussions with regional leaders. leaders, including Dr. Philip Smith and APNIC engineers at the SANOG meeting in Kolkata, India. And the goal was to create a platform for Afghan network operators to collaborate, share experience and also learn from original and global best practices. One of the tasks back then we wanted to work on was to have an instance of the DNS root server hosted in Afghanistan. And I had the honor of leading the SANOG establishment back then and discussions and also following the communication between about the DNS root server instance with the Ministry of Communication and IT at those days. However, turning that vision into reality was not easy and we were not able to follow up things during the COVID pandemic and later the political situation changed in Afghanistan, which made things worse and we were not able to stick to our plans. Later in 2022, when I was living in Pakistan, I was also one of the fellows of the APNIC Foundation’s Afghanistan project, which is a capacity building program and now it’s extended to digital leap South Asia and included other countries. The idea of having SANOG in Afghanistan was raised in our mailing list by Mr. Omar Ansari and I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to follow up on the idea of having a SANOG in Afghanistan again. And from 2023 that we officially launched Afghanistan Network Operators Group, we recently had our second AFNOG meeting in December this year and it was organized remotely for two days and we had around seven sessions and panel discussions. with around 60 participants. So of course, we are a young community and there are still many things that needs to be done to make the community more inclusive and stable. And at the moment, some of the key challenges that we are dealing with is, for example, the community engagement is a challenge for us, bringing together a fragmented community of network professionals and experts is a challenge. Sometimes, especially when over the past four years, majority of the experts and leaders left the country and reaching out to them in different regions with different time zone and bringing them together in discussions with local experts inside Afghanistan is a challenge that we are dealing with. In addition, due to the lack of pre-existing collaborative culture, getting stakeholders to actively participate and sharing knowledge has also been a challenge. So though we have seen progress through last two years to consistent outreach and engagement efforts, but there’s still, there are other things needs to be done in this specific task. And other challenge is the political situation in the country. Sometimes we find it challenging to actively engage local experts who are inside Afghanistan in our community discussions. And since the situation is complicated and they don’t wanna risk their positions and it’s understandable for us. And as a community, we also prefer sometimes to be adaptive and they do join our webinars and communications, but they prefer to have their co-operations in the background and not actively. And another challenge is the political situation. capacity building. We also have training and skill development programs to address the technical expertise gap within the local community. We organize monthly webinars and discussions while our priority is to have local presenters and panelists, which is sometimes a challenge to have their engagement. I mean, despite all of these challenges so far, the journey has been rewarding. We have learned that collaboration is key, not just within the country, but regionally and also globally. Organizations like APNIC Foundation, APNIC RIPE, and South Asian Network Operators Group have been invaluable partners so far, and I’m thankful today. Thank you

Rajnath Singh: very much. Thank you, Mohibullah. And of course, thank you for also plugging the work of the APNIC Foundation and how we’ve been helping build capacity. Of course, Afghanistan, as you heard, has its own challenges. Mohibullah is sitting in Germany trying to coordinate and organize Afghanistan. We have some of our colleagues from Afghanistan here in the room today as well. And, you know, in another session, I mentioned that, you know, whenever conflict or political issues happen, media and the world pays attention for a little bit of a while, and then they move on to something else, right? The problem still remains in Afghanistan, though, so I think, you know, there’s still a lot more to be done. Okay, I’ll turn to Harisa now from Pakistan. Harisa, Pakistan has a vibrant technical community, and I’ve been a frequent visitor, but the NOG group also has had its challenges through the years. However, in more recent times, there’s been a flurry of activity locally. As part of the newer generation in the industry, how do you see what NOGs do and what has your experience been? So, Harisa is one of our next generation leaders, I can say. So, I was keen to hear what she would contribute to this discussion. And, you know, the voice of the next generation, I think, is equally important, not just the old-timers like myself and Rupesh and Osama and Vahan. So, Harisa, please. Thank you

Harisa Shahid: so much, Raj. Am I on? Yes, yes, you are. Okay, that’s great. First of all, thank you so much for like bringing this up and having this discussion. And as you said, indeed, Pakistan is a vibrant community of multi-talented people and has a huge technical spectrum. But the weakest challenge in this chain has been observed the inter-organizational collaboration. As you said that I have been a part of the next generation, like I was not involved as much in the previous years. But from the time since I have been involved in the Pakistan NOG and have discussion with the people there. So, I’ve like come to know that the organizational collaboration has been the main challenge. And it starts from the ISPs with the last. So, but it needs the discussion to it needs the people for us like us to come and discuss these issues. If I talk about the earlier times, I believe that in the earlier times, the meetups were being organized by some, like the government entities or the government technical wing to bring up the stakeholders and the interested parties to collaborate and gather and discuss the issues. But the organizational interaction or the collaboration has been the weak point, because maybe they were not being being able as Sama and Sama said that the technical people are very shy to discuss to come up and to discuss the issues. So, maybe that that could be the reason or maybe they don’t want to like to share their hidden trade secrets, which can be understandable, but which is truly, truly understandable. But in those events, now, if I talk about recent times with the help of organizations like APNIC and other organizations, new ways of engaging these technical experts, these organizations have been put into play. And talking about nowadays, industry has a positive outlook towards these meetups and isn’t shy to discuss the discuss the technology or present any issues. And with, if Vahan both said that the events and we should start from the smaller steps, and it for the technical experts to discuss and engage freely, it should be like it should be a have to have something fun. So, social events have been observed to be have the board attendance and we utilize those events to come up and discuss the technological aspects of the issues. And in these events, the people gather and discuss these technical expertise, any technological issues. And if the discussion is not more, continue later on to to have like to have the troubleshooting, knowledge sharing and technological discussions. If I talk particularly, if I talk about the Pakistan NOG, Pakistan NOG is not like running in in the way like typical NOGs are right now, but baby steps are being taken to to to have a strong base before it is launched nationwide, and, and becomes one stop for collaboration and knowledge sharing expertise.

Rajnath Singh: So yeah, that’s all I think. Thank you. So I think one key message I’m getting here is that, you know, first, let’s learn how to crawl, then walk, then we run, right. And then after we start running, we can start to sprint. Yeah. The other bit, of course, that resonated for me in just a few contributions, including what Vahan said earlier was that, you know, we are building network connections, but it’s humans doing right. So we need that human connection to make those network connections work as well. So that social interaction and human beings by nature, they like interaction and socializing, right. So, right. So let’s go to Numa from the Maldives. I had a very interesting chat with her earlier in the week. So I’m keen to hear what else what other insights she will share with the wider group today. So the Maldives NOG is also in the early formation stages, Numa. You have recently also held a number of activities, including a local IGF. How difficult or easy for that matter, has it been to try and bring the community together? And what are some of the challenges going forward? And of course, some of you may be aware of the Maldives has also had its political challenges in recent times, right? So, Numa, thanks.

Niuma Faiz: Thank you. Thank you, APNIC, for this opportunity. As Raj mentioned, we just had this year’s IGF in Maldives on October, and the initial NOG discussions were kick-started during the IGF this year, with the assistance from APNIC as well. We brought together people from ISPs, public-private sector and network operators as well, to come up and we organized, with the help of APNIC, we organized an introductory session to this community, technical people, just to introduce them to the community just to introduce what NOG is, because when we reached out to the community, what we found out was most of them are not actually familiar with the concept of NOG itself. First, we are taking very baby steps just to let them know what NOG is about, and what kind of support is in the community, and what is a community, what is missing out in the digital age. So, we are at the start of formation of MPNOG, and I would say the kind of challenges that we have… Okay. Am I audible now? Okay. So… Okay. So, we have identified that in Maldives, there is a skill gap, especially we have a huge need of building capacity within the country in terms of network security, or even in network operators as well. So, in order to build the capacity, we need resources to conduct professional trainings as well. So, in order to build the capacity, we need human resources as educators as well. So, to fill in that gap, I think organizations such as APANIC, CENOG, and as we have received comments from most of the NOG operators in the community, I think we need to work together and collaborate to fill in these resource gaps. And the other approach that we are looking in MPNOG establishment is we have established local community organizations such as Women in Tech who are very actively engaged in the community, who are working with network operators and government and public sectors who have a very good connection with the local community, technical sector, as well as the government and public sectors. So, organizations such as Women in Tech, civil society organizations, and MBICF will be a very good help to bring these multi-sectorial communities together and start this kind of conversation. So, we are trying to, as Osamu also mentioned, we are trying to start the discussions and works of MPNOG in a very small scale because, as we all know, the technical communities are not very open. They like to have close group discussions. In order to come up with a very comfort discussion and to start with the initial discussions, we need to have fun activities, close group discussions, maybe just a coffee meetup will help because they need to come together and start to work as a community to bring in these benefits. And also, I think the other challenge that in a country like Maldives would have is because we are scattered in different islands, the resources, if we need to conduct workshops or trainings, the logistics and the cost that would be a bit expensive. We need to bring in people from different islands, the travel expenses, these kind of things are going to be there. So, I think an approach that we think is very effective in Maldives, as a friend from Bhutan also mentioned, to partner with the local ISPs and partner organizations who can support as sponsors to support these kind of initiatives within the Maldives. So, I think with the formation of MPNOG, it will bring in a lot of new discussions and positive aspects in the technical community and internet provision because currently, we do not have such an ecosystem in the Maldives. So, if you bring them all together to bring about a change, not only in the capacity building in terms of policy formulation, regulatory aspects and to push the government to establish and provide more capacity building because we are going to move towards a more digital future and new emerging technologies are going to come. So, if you want to catch up with the technological advancement, we need to be ready to work together and collaborate. This is not going to happen with a single body working towards. We need to work towards a common goal to address the challenges that we all face together. So, I think the NOG formulation would be a very positive thing for Maldives and we look forward to work together with APNIC, APNIC Foundation and SANOG and all the NOG communities in the region. Thank you so much.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you, Neema. So, what we’ve heard in the past two segments is, of course, what NOGs are, how they have evolved over time and we’ve heard from some of the newest NOGs that are trying to establish themselves in the region and in some countries which have also gone through some upheavals recently. So, it’s not an easy task and I think any support we can provide. So, I do appreciate Rupesh saying that, you know, even though Timor-Leste is not in South Asia, they’re happy to provide whatever support they can and I’m pretty sure other NOG and regional groups have a similar sort of attitude towards this and it’s all about helping others to ensure that the global internet itself keeps on functioning the way it should, right? So, let’s not forget what we are here for is an open global internet, right? And one that is interoperable. Okay, so we’ve got just under half an hour. left. The third segment is sustainability in the future for NOGs. Some of those questions have actually already been raised and some have slightly been answered, some slightly haven’t been. I know we’ve got a few comments online as well but I’ll just first go to Rupesh, Osama and Vahan with a couple of questions and then after that we’ll see what we have on the online comments and then we’ll go to the floor, have a bit of discussion. So Rupesh, Osama, Vahan, if I can ask whatever interventions you make now if you can make it a bit short so we can get into a wider discussion with people in the room and online. Rupesh, most NOGs are largely volunteer-driven as we’ve already heard yet fulfill an important role to ensure internet infrastructure keeps running. I know Sinog has recently been looking at its own future and you and I have had some discussions on that in the past as well. Can you share some thoughts on the challenges and the future and maybe also address some things that our friend from Bhutan brought up? Thank you Raz,

Rupesh Shrestha: thank you again. Yes, we’ve had a fair bit of challenges in over the period and as I said initially, the Sinog’s journey we’ve tried to divide in the phases, phase manner. The initial phase was successfully executed and like we have a good community of people with trained people attending the Sinog and as Omar said I mean he was part of Sinog and a lot of other people were part of Sinog and got some background to start this thing. And then second part, local NOGs have already been started. Now the third part, I’ll come to that as well, the third phase we had a long discussion, long meeting regarding what Sinog should be doing and I thank you Karima for bringing that as well. So I’ll talk about that, we are yet to come up with the formal report for that but probably this would be the platform that I’ll be sharing some of the information outcome of that meeting. Just before I start that part, I mean let me also add a small thing about how Sinog is helping. I think last October we did Sinog in Lamma, Pakistan and PKNOG was a part as a co-host and a lot of PKNOG including Harisha was part of the Sinog and the PKNOG event and that gave them a kind of initiative to come onto the floor and I agree with Osama and Van as well that the NOG starts on a probably on the tea table or coffee table or coffee talk right or online. You don’t need to have that expensive thing to start with and that’s how the journey starts. One of the initiatives that through SANO we’re also trying to do is we’re trying to reduce the cost of trying to help the NOCs to reduce their cost. We’re facilitating the different NOCs in South Asia with the streaming devices, streaming equipment, so that they don’t have to pay for the expensive audio-video system to the streaming system, including camera, streaming mixer, and everything. So we’re going to give that away to all the NOCs so that they can reduce their cost in terms of their operation. So that’s what we are trying to start. Now the future of SANO, I have put a few points because I have not prepared the report for that. Over the period, as I said, we’ve been doing two events every year. Now with all the local NOCs coming up, and we’re covering in the different countries of South Asia, we’ve decided that we’ll just do one event every year, and we’ll be more focusing on the conference and tutorial part only. We’ll be more supporting as an umbrella organization for all the local NOCs for the workshop part of it, wherein we will not be conducting the workshop, but we will be doing the train-the-trainer program for all the trainers who will be training in the local NOCs. So the SANO will be doing the training program for the trainers of the local NOCs so that we can add the value to their own skill part of it. So that’s one thing that we’ve decided to do. Also on the second part of it, through SANO, we will be more focusing on the challenge that we-one of the challenges that it’s getting more difficult to organize SANO as an event. So I know that I can understand the challenge of the local NOC, but the SANO being the regional platform, a lot of funding and support is needed. The sponsorships in the past has been more of the technical people from the different organizations would contribute to us the sponsorship, but nowadays the thing’s becoming more tighter and tighter for the organizations. They would want-they want more visibility on their branding, sales, and all these things. So we are kind of like very volunteer-driven, very open platform kind of an organization, not supporting any vendor-based presentations or vendor-based system. It’s getting very difficult for us to organize that. So in view of that, we are going to do a couple of other things as well. So we are going to improve our branding. We’re going to improve our outreach. As Varun said, in South Asia, it’s a very sensitive issue to reach out to the government, right? So being-maybe the country-wise you can do that, but as a regional organization, you cannot intervene and influence or communicate with the-to the government of every country. So maybe indirectly, we have some strategies around that. So we will reach out to different media, government, and then we’ll build our branding and marketing activities. That’s something we will be, again, working on. So we’re also changing on the organization structures, right? So we had a lot of advisors, core committee was there from different parts. So our core committee now onwards from 2025 would be-will constitute a representative from all the NOCs, one individual from all the NOCs. So that will form a core committee of SANOG. And they determine how the SANOG should be moving forward, right? So based on the regional requirements. So that’s basically how we are going to proceed further. The next event, probably, we’re planning to finalize the date, which probably Karma Jamyang and the team in BTNOG will also be working on. So we’ll be doing one event in Bhutan, the next one, will mostly be a conference and tutorial event, whereby the workshop will be done by the BTNOG team, and we’ll be facilitating on that. So the SANOG’s role as a regional going forward for at least for the next five years will be more towards even further strengthening and empowering the local NOCs, helping them to grow even to the higher level. And also like building the brand of SANOG as a more of a regional conference similar to like BTC or Apricot or Nano of that sort. So we’re aiming for a higher branding platform, branding visibility. But that is the something that we are doing to help the local NOCs, right? So the whole strategy that we built, we had a meeting last month, thanks to APNIC Foundation for supporting us to have that meeting successfully conducted. And we did that and had very, very good feedbacks. I cannot go through all the pointers, but some of the major bulleted pointers in terms of organizing structures, and in terms of like branding, in terms of how we are still being part of the SANOG and how SANOG will be structured going forward, is something that I just wanted to give as a highlighted point for the future of SANOG. Thank you.

Rajnath Singh: Thanks, Rupesh. I’m glad to hear the progress that’s been made. Of course, I’ve been constantly asking what next? What next? Where to next? And I’m glad to hear that you’ve actually addressed some of the issues that have been existing. I want to point out something here. Just because you’ve done something for 20 years doesn’t mean you keep on doing it, right? And the internet itself has evolved. And I’m really glad to hear that SANOG is now going to evolve itself. It’s going to see how it can better serve the wider community. And if an organization doesn’t do that, then I think there’s something really wrong. You haven’t moved the needle. You haven’t really made the impact. What I’m hearing from SANOG here is that I think they have made the impact, and now they’re going to see what is the next part in their evolution and how they can continue supporting the internet in the region. How are we doing for time? Okay, 20 minutes. Osamah, some thoughts from you, from ENOG? What are the key factors for sustaining ENOG, or indeed, if you want to make some other comments that you may have heard, please feel free to do so.

Osama Al-Dosary : So in terms of sustainability, when we’re talking about NOGs, I think regional NOG is very different than a local NOG. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s very different. Regional NOGs are very different than local NOGs. And I think the real value comes from local NOGs. It’s more important than regional NOGs in my opinion. And sustainability is a challenging question. It’s not something that can easily, you know, be maintained. Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key thing is that, or the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers. And when volunteers, for some reason, they change roles, they progress, they go somewhere else, or they, you know, it could be for many reasons, they move away, then that kind of weakens the NOG and causes it to kind of dissipate. So what I would recommend in terms of sustainability, if we’re talking about the local NOGs, is that I think the ones that are leading right now, right, the ones that are leading right now, they need to kind of keep that sustainability in mind. And that sustainability can be achieved, I think, in a couple of ways. One, what we discussed about earlier, which is trying to be as frugal as possible, and not to be very dependent on sponsorships or enormous kind of funding needed. But the other aspect is trying to develop the people that are joining the NOGs and participating to play a greater role over time. So, very, very often, NOGs are led by one person. So the one person is active, they set up the meetings and people come, and they’re happy to come and join. But in terms of participating and organizing, or leading, sometimes people are shy to do that. So, over time, once you’ve established a level of rapport with your people, with the community that you have, you need to reach out to them and say, I need help. I need more people to step up and take a more active role in the organizing. And that’s, I think, very important that you need to create, once you have that rapport and that comfort with your community, you need to start to kind of ask for more commitments to the group. And always maintaining fun, obviously, not making it something that’s unenjoyable, but you need to kind of create that community. And it can be something simple, right? So one person is responsible for finding the location where we meet. The other person is responsible for, let’s say, finding, you know, reaching out to the different members to find out who’s going to talk about a topic, or managing the topics. The other person is responsible for the scheduling and coordination. Simple things like that. So, once you start to create that kind of team-level commitment, over time, that helps maintain that sustainability. Because if one person, for some reason, is the initial leader that started driving the meetings, for some reason needs to step away, or needs to move on, or anything like that happens, then over time, you have others that can step forward. And so you need to always be aware of the people that seem very eager to help, very eager to participate, to always encourage them, encourage their participation, encourage their help. So if you see someone always attending and always eager, ask them if they can actually do more. Can you help me with that? And then also, over time, once you get bigger, once you get more active, volunteering is always, you know, challenging and can also always be challenging to manage. So if you’re leading and you find that you’re doing most of the work, right, and yet you still have a large activity going on, but you’re doing most of the work, don’t be afraid to say, guys, you know, I’m a bit overloaded. Can someone help me with this? Or during the meetings that you have, ask, okay, so this is a great suggestion. Who can do this? Don’t take everything on yourself. Try to find people that will help out. And you’ll find people that will help out, but you need to speak out. You need to kind of encourage that, encourage that participation. And when you see, and once you get to a stage where, let’s say there’s a committee for that NOG, and the committee, each one has work to do, has roles, whether it’s reviewing programs, whether it’s finding people to speak or finding sponsors, you need to, you know, kind of a little bit, although they’re volunteers, you need to a little bit, you know, point out, okay, I really need your commitment. We’re suffering here, maybe not in a group setting, but maybe on an individual level saying, hey, I really need your help. We’re kind of slow. Can you guys, you know, you know, step up a little bit. So that will be my two cents on this topic in terms of sustainability.

Rajnath Singh: Thanks Osama. Vahan, one thing I guess we haven’t, I think it’s been alluded to, but we haven’t really discussed yet and I think we should do it now. I often see a disconnect between the work of network operators and policy and regulatory interventions that a government may make. Often such interventions do not consider wider implications. Can you share your thinking around that? be a key consideration you would ask policy makers to take into account. And, of course, an added question there, and I’ve noticed a few comments online as well, is about, you know, how do we contribute to discussions like this at IGF? This is the first time an IGF has talked about NOGs, which is bizarre. And then you’ve got things like GDC and WSIS plus 20 and others as

Vahan Hovsepyan: well. So, Vahan? Exactly. And I wanted just to talk about that. Well, why we are here. We have talked about how to initiate or stimulate people to come to the NOGs, but we don’t talk about how NOGs can be engaged, how their voice can be casted in similar events in the WSIS plus 20, in Global Compact, at IGF, etc. And here is a really huge gap. Because they have their own problems. They have their issues of interconnection, of peering, of working with this or that state regulatory, of getting the access, and all this. But they think that this WSIS plus 20 Global Compact is very far away in Saudi Arabia, somewhere that we have never visited or never heard of, maybe. But no, we should be very detailed with them, so they can understand if they don’t participate, if they don’t cast their votes, if they don’t think about that, this might be very painful for them. Not only fruitful for the future development of the internet, but if they don’t participate, if they don’t share their concerns for many, many things, it can be also painful for the internet, it can be painful for them. Because when you don’t participate in the policy, the policy is still participating with you. So that is the main idea. And what we are going to do with that, we are already organizing the NOC sessions and tribe meetings. We are going there and trying to discuss with them these global policy issues. Because they know quite well, much better than we, how to get engaged with their local regulator or ministry itself. But we know better how to deal with these global issues. But we need also their voice, we need also their concerns. So this mechanism should work to both phases. We should and we are requested to provide this information to them, so they can understand what is this global development. And they should tell us what they are thinking. And maybe we should think now how to enable their voices to come there and to represent it there. Thank you.

Osama Al-Dosary : Thank you, Vahan. Osama, you speak. Can I add to that? I think that’s very important what Vahan said. And also, I think sometimes the idea of, if you talk to an engineer, a NOC engineer, and say, hey, I need you to help in policy development. That sounds scary. That sounds like, okay, that’s really too high level, right? So it may not be something that they’re motivated to do because they don’t really feel the impact. But we need to kind of simplify the concept. It’s not, when we’re talking about policy development, we’re not talking necessarily, yeah, it could be something legislative, but we’re really talking about something simpler that may affect you. And we need to also encourage the awareness. So these engineers or the NOC or the NOG members may not necessarily be the people that will develop the policy, but they are the people that need to educate the people that will develop the policy. So the people that might be involved in developing a policy, they need to listen to the NOGs and these technical people. And the other side of it, the technical people need to be a bit more open and reach out and try to educate those that are involved so that they have a full awareness of the challenges and the issues that we’re taking. Yeah, I think that’s a good point. Yeah, Rupesh, just a quick one.

Vahan Hovsepyan: Just a small addition. There are two approaches to sell some product. One is just to make this very attractive so a person can go and wants to go and buy it. Second approach is to show the person that without this product, it will be very painful for him to leave. So in that case, he will buy this product with any price. And the product here is the NOG.

Rupesh Shrestha: Thank you for bringing up this issue. Yes, I mean, right now. The idea for the governance team is looking at this zero degree and then the technical team is looking at the 180 degree so there’s not coming together there has to be a breeze between these two kind of interpretation of what technique technology can impact the policy and what policy can impact the, these people do not understand each other. So, again, I thank you very much to rather than the opening foundation for having knowledge session in this idea, and then I believe that we need to have some kind of outcome out of that, in terms of like how can we cooperate with each other. And then, just as I said we need to kind of an interpreter and I believe. But I’m over here is also a right person he’s a lawyer by profession, and also a very good advocate in the in the governance side and somebody who understand the technology and whatever we had some issues in Nepal, in terms of a technology or any kind of it be learning comes across. He’s the person who facilitates the meeting and we all of us to give him the technical input on part of that. So maybe people like him would also have to breathe this kind of gap between what the technical people is looking for, and what the governance people are looking for just to give you a brief difference of this thing. The first time I attended every court. I was all suited like this. So, maybe a tie as well sorry with a tie and everything and then I once I entered the record venue, everyone’s wearing like short torn jeans and then like the, the t shirts. I was a kind of a different person in different universe. And had I come over here with the t shirt and then half shirt, I would have been a different person in different universe. So this is the kind of a difference that we have in two different universe and that has to be an interpreter who. I was the most ugliest guy over there. Like somebody who was like really formal and it’s like different. I’m a very smart over here with the suit and all, but not in that community probably. But things are changing, but this is just an outlook that I just wanted to give. Also, one more thing I forgot to mention earlier. Sanhok has been providing fellowship for a very, very long time. We’ve so far given like around 400 fellowship so far. And recently we’ve, last five, 10 years, we’ve started to focus on more gender equality as well and giving like a 40 to 50% fellowship to female participants also. So that’s something that I forgot to mention earlier. And that’s, thanks Raz for mentioning that as well.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. So, you know, you talked about zero and 180 degrees. The problem is if someone said 90 degrees, both fall off, right? Any online comments that we need to, I know we’ve got just five minutes left. So anything that strikes, catches your attention there?

Audience: There are a few, two questions, but one comment. So do you want to take the questions one by one or read all of them? Last one is the comment. Maybe read the comment. First we will go with the comment. Yeah. And I think the policy one we’ve already covered. Okay, sure. Yes. Fahad Khan from APNOC says, being the lead volunteer for the APNOC, sorry, for the PKNOC, they take care of me from the session, especially the pinpointing of keeping the meetups and online sessions simple, and less dependent on financial factors by Osama. Another one is to keep it humane and fun as much as possible. Thanks to Bahan for this. Hopefully PKNOC will flourish with our contributions in near future. So.

Rajnath Singh: So that was Fahad, right? That was Fahad Khan, yes. He’s done part of my job for me. So we have one takeaway from the session already. Thank you, Fahad.

Audience: Thank you. So here is a simple question, like how we can ensure more passionate in the structure of the engagement of NOGs to the public policy discussions and IGF?

Rajnath Singh: Okay, so that’s the one maybe we can end with, and it’s, you know, we’ve just got a few minutes left. So I think, so this is my suggestion to the people in the room and people online. You know, I think we have to elevate the status of NOGs and what they actually mean. But I think, you know, we’ve all been working in the background behind the scenes, but we also see that there’s potential things happening on the internet, which could, you know, which have implications on your work, right? Which makes your work much more difficult. Maybe this was a good first step. You know, maybe we should make this a regular thing at the regional IGFs as well. But I think it’s not just the IGFs, right? There are other policy fora where we need, NOGs need to have a voice, right? Some in the UN system, some in the ITU system, and some are completely outside of our typical internet technical community ecosystem, where these discussions need to be raised as well. So maybe that’s something we could consider as we, you know, see what the outcomes of this session are. We’ve got like three minutes left. Can I ask all my speakers for just a one sentence round off, you know, what is your key takeaway and or key suggestion for the future? Where do we go from here? So can I start with you, Vahan?

Vahan Hovsepyan: I think in a nearest future, in one or two years, we’ll have a lot of challenges, a lot for the internet, for the development of new digital society. And we need to have the consolidation. We need to have the consolidation of all the systems that we have in the world. We need to have the consolidation of all the systems need to have the consolidation of all our counterparts from technical community, but we also need an understanding from other counterparts coming from other parties. And that is what we should work. That is why we should empower NOCs, IXPs, other units of technical, let’s say unions and associations. And that is why we should find the ways to bring them the information about current processes and find the ways to get their feedbacks and cast their words to these instances, let’s say.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. Osama?

Osama Al-Dosary : I would say the key takeaway from my perspective is it’s important to talk to people and understand their experiences and try to put yourself in their shoes. And this could be whether we’re talking on a NOG level where one engineer is talking to another engineer, trying to understand their perspective, their challenges, or it could be when we’re talking on a different level, when we’re talking a policymaker needs to put their selves in the shoes of someone else, of an engineer or people running the internet and they need to talk to them, they need to reach out to them and vice versa. Those engineers need to reach out to others. So I think that’s my key takeaway is simply put, talk to people and try to understand them, understand what they’re going.

Rajnath Singh: Mukesh?

Rupesh Shrestha: Yeah, I think I think that it’s been a very fruitful discussion today. Something that I wanted to say that the digital channel being a regional platform in Oregon. So we need to help. We need to go deep down to the local knobs and then maybe further down from there to help the root people in the area to be to help themselves to build that. Stable internet across the internet internet is not just run by one, one country or one person but it has to be stable across the region, or across the globe to make, make it work. And that’s what Sano is doing and I think we know another partners across the world are also doing, they’re going in the right direction, the good good takeaway from this is the helping the local North, as well as having the more closer relationship with the governance and government people. And maybe not only like having this not meeting in every reason, regional as well as the internet governance meetings but also like how the governance IGF and other API GF can also you and for that matter or any donor agencies can help that not regional as well as local enough in terms of having their, their voices heard, and how the technology should evolve, and how the policy should, what kind of a policy should be shaped up for for the betterment of the internet.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you very much. Thanks for pressure I’ll give the last word to her research the next generation. What’s your key takeaway and vision for the future.

Harisa Shahid: I believe that the key takeaway for me being the next generation is that the next generation should really come up because, and if I see in the, in the north, especially, there are more professional and the professional what experience. So I believe that the next generation who is struggling with the early, early career professionals should really come up and get advantage of having a discussion with those professionals, and like, and have their place so that they can be the leaders of tomorrow.

Rajnath Singh: Thank you. Well, I think we’re just on time I’m being told that we need to basically shut the session down so thank you to all my speakers, thank you for all of you being here. Thank you for the audience participation and and the support team who helped us. Thank you. So current as a way forward and, you know, one thing very clear for me as a message was that you know we need to bring you know the unsung heroes of the other logs right and I think we need to elevate their status, and we’ll see what. how we can do that going forward. We need to be a part of those policy discussions, but I do agree with Rupesh, there are two ends of the spectrum really, and he’s given a very visual description of how things actually are. So I think we need to find that bridge in the middle somehow. And the APNIC Foundation, of course, is here to help and facilitate, but we can’t do it alone. We will be looking to our colleagues from across the regions and maybe we’ll make something out of it going forward. So once again, thank you very much for being here with us. Stay connected. And our organizational slogan these days is action, not words. And that’s what we did here today. Thank you. Yeah. Can we have a quick picture of the speakers in the front, please? You want to have one now on screen? Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you both. Great, great work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you you you you you you you you

Agreement Points

Importance of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

Mohibullah Utmankhil

NOGs keep internet infrastructure running smoothly behind the scenes

NOGs provide a platform for competing companies to collaborate on technical issues

NOGs contribute to internet development and capacity building in their regions

NOGs play a crucial role in addressing local technical challenges

Speakers agree that NOGs are essential for maintaining and developing internet infrastructure, providing a platform for collaboration and addressing technical challenges at both regional and local levels.

Need for NOGs to adapt and evolve

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

Vahan Hovsepyan

NOGs need to adapt to changing community needs over time

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

Speakers agree that NOGs must evolve to meet changing community needs, focus on building strong communities, and engage more in policy discussions to remain relevant and effective.

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers emphasize the need to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities, highlighting the importance of NOGs participating in policy discussions and educating policymakers about technical realities.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Disconnect between network operators’ work and policy/regulatory interventions

Need for NOGs to have a voice in policy forums like IGF and ITU

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

These speakers highlight common challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, including reliance on volunteers, lack of awareness, and difficulties in community engagement.

Osama Al-Dosary

Niuma Faiz

Harisa Shahid

Sustainability issues due to reliance on volunteers

Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities

Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of social and fun aspects in NOG activities

Osama Al-Dosary

Vahan Hovsepyan

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

While discussing different aspects of NOGs, both speakers unexpectedly emphasized the importance of making NOG activities social and enjoyable, suggesting that this approach can lead to better engagement and sustainability.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the crucial role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure, the need for NOGs to adapt and evolve, and the importance of bridging the gap between technical and policy communities.

Consensus level

There is a high level of consensus among speakers on the importance and challenges of NOGs. This consensus implies a shared understanding of the critical role NOGs play in internet governance and the need for their continued development and adaptation to remain effective in a changing digital landscape.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to starting and sustaining NOGs

Rupesh Shrestha

Osama Al-Dosary

NOGs need to adapt to changing community needs over time

Importance of starting small and focusing on community building

Rupesh Shrestha emphasizes adapting to changing needs and focusing on regional conferences, while Osama Al-Dosary advocates for starting small and informal to build community.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the approach to establishing and sustaining NOGs, and the methods for engaging NOGs in policy discussions.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Most speakers agree on the importance of NOGs and the need for their involvement in policy discussions. The differences mainly lie in the specific strategies and approaches to achieve these goals. These minor disagreements actually contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and potential solutions for NOGs, rather than hindering progress on the topic.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the need for NOGs to engage in policy discussions, but they differ in their approaches. Vahan emphasizes direct participation in global forums, Osama suggests simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals, and Rupesh proposes using ‘interpreters’ to bridge the gap.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Osama Al-Dosary

Rupesh Shrestha

Need for NOGs to engage more in public policy discussions

Importance of simplifying policy concepts for technical professionals

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

Similar Viewpoints

These speakers emphasize the need to bridge the gap between technical and policy communities, highlighting the importance of NOGs participating in policy discussions and educating policymakers about technical realities.

Vahan Hovsepyan

Rajnesh Singh

Rupesh Shrestha

Disconnect between network operators’ work and policy/regulatory interventions

Need for NOGs to have a voice in policy forums like IGF and ITU

Role of NOGs in educating policymakers about technical challenges

These speakers highlight common challenges in establishing and sustaining NOGs, including reliance on volunteers, lack of awareness, and difficulties in community engagement.

Osama Al-Dosary

Niuma Faiz

Harisa Shahid

Sustainability issues due to reliance on volunteers

Lack of awareness about NOGs among technical communities

Difficulty in bringing together fragmented communities of network professionals

Key Takeaways

Network Operator Groups (NOGs) play a crucial but often unrecognized role in keeping internet infrastructure running smoothly

NOGs face challenges in sustainability, community engagement, and adapting to evolving needs

There is a significant disconnect between the technical work of NOGs and policy/regulatory interventions

NOGs need to have a stronger voice in policy forums and internet governance discussions

Starting small, focusing on community building, and encouraging next-generation participation are important for NOG success

Resolutions and Action Items

Consider making NOG discussions a regular part of regional IGFs and other policy forums

SANOG to focus on empowering local NOGs and act as an umbrella organization

SANOG to conduct train-the-trainer programs for local NOG trainers

NOGs to work on improving branding and outreach to increase visibility

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively bridge the gap between technical and policy communities

Sustainable funding models for NOGs, especially regional ones

How to increase NOG participation in global internet governance discussions

Strategies for NOGs to influence policy without becoming overly political

Suggested Compromises

NOGs to simplify policy concepts for technical professionals to encourage their participation in policy discussions

Policy makers to actively seek input from NOGs and technical communities when developing internet-related policies

Regional NOGs to focus more on conferences and tutorials while supporting local NOGs for hands-on workshops

NOGs are basically those that work in the background. They keep things running, they collaborate, they coordinate, but the outside world never really knows you, right?

speaker

Rajnesh Singh

reason

This comment highlights the critical but often unrecognized role of NOGs in maintaining internet infrastructure, setting the stage for the importance of the discussion.

impact

It framed the entire conversation around the need to elevate the status and recognition of NOGs in the broader internet governance ecosystem.

We started as a knowledge sharing platform, initially, with a conference aligned with one of the IT conferences that was happening in Nepal. And then we moved on to make the SANOG as a more training platform as well.

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

reason

This provides insight into the evolution of NOGs from informal knowledge sharing to more structured training platforms, showing their adaptability and growing importance.

impact

It led to further discussion on the developmental stages of NOGs and how they adapt to meet community needs over time.

Very often, NOGs fail. Very often fail, meaning that they disappear and dissipate over time. And the key reason is that very often NOGs are dependent on volunteers.

speaker

Osama Al-Dosary

reason

This comment brings attention to a critical challenge in sustaining NOGs, highlighting the vulnerability of volunteer-based organizations.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards discussing sustainability strategies and the need for more structured support for NOGs.

We need to have the consolidation of all our counterparts from technical community, but we also need an understanding from other counterparts coming from other parties.

speaker

Vahan Hovsepyan

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for collaboration not just within the technical community but also with policymakers and other stakeholders.

impact

It broadened the discussion to include the importance of NOGs engaging with policy discussions and other internet governance forums.

The next generation should really come up because, and if I see in the, in the north, especially, there are more professional and the professional what experience. So I believe that the next generation who is struggling with the early, early career professionals should really come up and get advantage of having a discussion with those professionals, and like, and have their place so that they can be the leaders of tomorrow.

speaker

Harisa Shahid

reason

This comment brings a fresh perspective on the importance of involving younger professionals in NOGs for future sustainability and leadership.

impact

It introduced the topic of generational transition and the need for mentorship within NOGs, adding a new dimension to the sustainability discussion.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by highlighting the critical but often unrecognized role of NOGs, their evolution and challenges, the need for sustainability strategies, the importance of engaging with broader policy discussions, and the necessity of involving younger professionals. The conversation progressed from defining NOGs and their history to addressing current challenges and future directions, emphasizing the need for greater recognition, sustainability, and engagement with both policy makers and the next generation of professionals.

How can NOGs be more engaged and have their voices heard in global policy discussions like IGF, WSIS+20, and Global Digital Compact?

speaker

Vahan Hovsepyan

explanation

This is important to ensure technical perspectives are considered in policy decisions that affect internet operations.

How can we bridge the gap between technical network operators and policymakers?

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

explanation

There is a disconnect between these groups that needs to be addressed for more effective internet governance.

How can NOGs ensure sustainability and continuity when they are largely volunteer-driven?

speaker

Osama Al-Dosary

explanation

Sustainability is crucial for NOGs to continue fulfilling their important role in maintaining internet infrastructure.

How can regional NOGs like SANOG evolve to better support local NOGs while maintaining their relevance?

speaker

Rupesh Shrestha

explanation

As local NOGs develop, regional NOGs need to adapt their role and structure to remain effective.

How can NOGs attract and engage more young professionals and next-generation leaders?

speaker

Harisa Shahid

explanation

Engaging the next generation is crucial for the long-term sustainability and evolution of NOGs.

How can NOGs in developing countries or regions with political challenges (like Afghanistan) overcome unique obstacles to their establishment and growth?

speaker

Mohibullah Utmankhil

explanation

Understanding and addressing these challenges is important for ensuring global internet stability and inclusivity.

How can NOGs better collaborate with other stakeholders like civil society organizations, government bodies, and the private sector?

speaker

Niuma Faiz

explanation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is key for addressing complex internet governance issues.