Each of the six economies in the Switch! SEA project have their own National Coordinator. The National Coordinators support participants in their learning journey. They organize and keep track of activities in each of the participating economies and serve as a point of contact for participants.
Ty Sok
National Coordinator for Cambodia
Ty Sok is an Information Technology professional with 10 years of professional work experience, which includes extensive exposure to ICT for development policies and applications, project management in both independent media and civil society organizations, and designing and implementing successful capacity development activities.
Photchanan (Paan) Ratanajaipan
National Coordinator for Thailand
Paan joined the APNIC Foundation in December 2020.
Prior to this, Paan worked with public and not-for profit organizations like at the Electricity Generating Public Company in Thailand as an information system development manager, at the Shinawatra University, Thailand as a full-time lecturer taught Computer Science courses for 16 years. She was also the director of THNIC Foundation, the not-for-profit internet related foundation.
At THNIC foundation, she has worked intensively with ICANN to promote Universal Acceptance (UA) in Thailand in raising awareness of using Thai domain names to Thais business and individuals. She participated in many events in building technical capacities to Thai technical community and software developers to be able to create and modify their systems to accept, validate, store, process, and display Thai domain names and email addresses properly.
As a national project coordinator at APNIC Foundation, she works on diversity and gender empowerment in technical leadership of the Internet industry in Southeast Asia, especially in Thailand.
Maria (Mia) Perez
National Coordinator for the Philippines
With her local industry and academic network, research and community engagement experience, Mia joined the APNIC Foundation in October 2020. She liaises between the Foundation and the project beneficiaries. She also supports and monitors the professional development needs of beneficiaries and collaborates with the Foundation for activities deemed necessary to achieve project objectives.
Before joining the Foundation, Mia previously worked for different government-funded research projects at the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Institute, University of the Philippines- Diliman for 7 years. Her most notable involvement was being one of the design and deployment engineers of the first community network deployed in rural Philippines.
She has a degree in Bachelor of Science in Electronics and Communications Engineering and Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering.
Nhung Phan
National Coordinator for Viet Nam
Nhung joined the APNIC Foundation in December 2020. She previously worked for the Vietnam Internet Information Center (VNNIC) from 2000 to 2018. She had many roles during her 17 years at VNNIC: Web developer to provide whois services for the .VN domain name, IP Hostmaster, IPv6 deployment trainer, policy maker and PR manager. Leaving VNNIC in early 2018, she moved to work for Korea National IT Promotion Agency (NIPA), Hanoi office as a senior researcher on the local ICT market and startup ecosystem. In 2019, Nhung moved to work for Vietnam Internet Association (VIA) as an Event and Project Manager.
Nhung has a Telecommunication Engineering Certificate from Hanoi University of Science and Technology and a Master of Public Administration from Viet Nam National Academy of Public Administration. She loves reading, farming and outdoor activities.
Saysomvang (Say) Souvannavong
National Coordinator for Lao PDR
Say joined the APNIC Foundation in April 2022. He has more than 10 years of ICT professional work experience. Throughout his employment with the Lao National Internet Center (LANIC) and the Ministry of Technology and Communications, Say has been engaged in numerous areas of Internet development. From a government perspective, these include drafting policies, regulations, legislation, laws and development plans. From a technical perspective, he was involved in managing the registry systems of the Country Code Top-Level Domain Name (ccTLD .LA), developing the Lao Script Label Generation Ruleset for the Root Zone of domain name systems, and delegation of the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN ccTLD .ລາວ). He has been involved with the National Internet Exchange (NIX), International Internet Gateway (IIG) of the country, National Root Certificate Authority (NRCA) for e-Signature using PKI Infrastructure, and the establishment of the National Internet Data Center (NIDC).
Abilio Bernardo Caldas
National Coordinator for Timor-Leste
Abilio joined the APNIC Foundation in May 2022. He previously worked for around 10 years at the National Parliament of Timor–Leste as Chief of ICT, and has 18 years of experience in ICT. In his leadership role at National Parliament, he implemented major ICT support infrastructure systems to assist members of Parliament. He was enthusiastic in supporting staff to develop ideas for the implementation of e-parliament systems.
Abilio has learned to make decisions based on a combination of reason and practical experience. This approach has enabled him to work out advances and improvements in ICT development. In every case, it was this combination of reason or theory paired with implementation and the reinforcement of the two that has led to learning advancements. He now brings these skills to the SWITCH SEA project to help participants in their learning journey
He has a degree in Computer Science and a Masters of Information Management Systems.
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