APNIC 58 Foundation roundup

Foundation staff, project participants and funding recipients were active at the APNIC 58 conference held in Wellington, New Zealand, from 30 August to 6 September. The Foundation was primarily active during the conference part of the proceedings (the first part of the conference includes the workshop segment) which ran from 4 to 6 September.

The Foundation also ran a booth during the event to assist attendees in learning about the activities of the APNIC Foundation.

A selection of Foundation-related activities are included below. You can also see Foundation-related photographs from the event on Foundation Flickr, or view the APNIC Flickr album.

4 September

Opening Ceremony

ISIF Asia awardee Jon Brewer discussed broadband connectivity in rural Aoteroa (New Zealand).

ISIF Asia Awards

The 11th ISIF Asia awards took place at APNIC 58. Nine awardees were given awards across three categories:

  • Outstanding Research in Digital Development
  • Outstanding Contributions to Digital Development
  • Outstanding Community Service

For the full writeup, including all awardees and links to relevant project pages, see the ISIF Asia awards blog post.

Nextgen and Leadership BOF

Foundation head of Programs and Partnerships Sylvia Cadena joined this session which focused on training the next generation of leaders in the Internet sector, and provided information about what kind of opportunities and services are available.

Internet of Things (IoT) BoF

Maile Halatuituia, from the Tonga Communications Corporation (TCC) discussed their IPv6 rollout in Tonga and its relationship to IoT. TCC is a recipient of an ISIF Asia grant, and recently published an in-depth writeup of their project on the APNIC Blog. Maile also presented at the IPv6 Deployment session the following day.

5 September

IPv6 Deployment

The Tonga Communications Corporation discussed their IPv6 rollout, which was assisted with an ISIF Asia grant.

Panel Discussion on Disaster Resilience: Pacific Islands and the need for robust infrastructure and mitigation plans

Esau Tupou, representing ISIF Asia awardee CERT Tonga, joined the discussion on disaster resilience in the Pacific. In addition to receiving a 2024 ISIF Asia award, CERT Tonga received Foundation funding in 2016 to help with the CERT’s establishment.

APNIC/FIRST Security Track 1

This session was moderated by the Forum for Incident Response Teams (FIRST), which the Foundation last year supported with funding for a symposium. The first speaker was Charles Lim representing Swiss German University (SGU) a former ISIF Asia awardee. SGU has cooperated with BSSN (Badan Siber & Sandi Negara) and the Indonesia Honeynet Project (IHP) on a series of Honeynet projects which the Foundation has also supported.

APNIC Product Demos: APNIC Academy

The Foundation supports the APNIC Academy, and they gave a demonstration in the lounge at the conference.

APNIC/FIRST Security Track 2

Esau Tupou, speaking for CERT Tonga, presented at this session. CERT Tonga is a 2024 ISIF Asia awardee and recipient of Foundation funding.

Technical Session 3

Richard Nelson, speaking on behalf of Searchlight NZ, spoke at the event on the Open Lawful Intercept (OpenLI) software that his team has been working on. OpenLI is an open-source solution for network operators who are legally required to conduct lawful intercept searches. The Foundation supported the OpenLI project via the University of Waikato and now Searchlight NZ, and OpenLi was a recipient of a 2024 ISIF Asia award.

5 September

Tutorial: Cyber Civil Defense – Leveraging Shadowservers Capabilities and Capacity

The Foundation has supported Shadowserver with funding in 2021 and 2022. This workshop taught ways to leverage Shadowserver’s tools.

Inaugural Pacific ccTLD meeting

The Foundation was also involved with arranging logistics for a private meeting of Pacific Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) that took place throughout the day on 5 September.