Board

Mr Danish A. Lakhani (chair) 

(Pakistan)

Mr Danish A. Lakhani is the cofounder and CEO of Cyber Internet Services Pvt. Ltd. (“Cybernet”)—a pioneering Internet service provider in Pakistan— as well as of RapidCompute, Pakistan’s first public cloud service provider. Over the past decade, Mr. Lakhani has led Cybernet’s renewed focus in the enterprise, carrier and consumer market segments while building out the company’s low latency, fibre-based metro and access networks in multiple Pakistani cities. In 2014, he oversaw the founding of StormFiber, a fibre broadband provider specifically for domestic consumers—and led the organization’s growth to over 1000 team members serving customers in seven major cities across Pakistan.

Mr. Lakhani started his career as a Software Engineer at Cisco Systems in San Jose, USA, where he was part of the ATM development team for the Catalyst 8500 series and later as member of the DWDM Engineering team for the ONS 15540/15530 optical platforms.

He holds a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering (with specialization in Networked Systems) from Stanford University. He earned his Bachelor of Science (Applied Mathematics – Computer Science and Business Economics) from Brown University where he was elected to Sigma XI (Scientific Research Honors Society).

Mr. Lakhani is also a member of the Young President’s Organization – Pakistan Chapter, and served as the President of the Harvard Business School Club of Pakistan [2018-2021].

Ms Sylvia Efie Sumarlin   

(Indonesia)

Ms Sylvia Sumarlin is Chair of the Federasi Teknologi Informasi Indonesia (the Indonesian Information Technology Federation (FTII)). The FTII represents 14 professional IT associations. In this role, she leads efforts to advise the government on a national ICT roadmap and regulations that encourage the use of ICT, promote local IT industries to other economies in the Asia Pacific, develop cooperation with international partners, and provide education to enhance the knowledge of ICT professionals.

Ms Sumarlin’s involvement in the Internet began in 1995 when she established and led Dyviacom Intrabumi (DNET), one of Indonesia’s first ISPs. She has founded two other companies specializing in chipset development and defence activities. She also serves as the Permanent Committee Head in the area of ICT Infrastructure Development for the Indonesia Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Ms Sumarlin acquired a Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Syracuse University, USA in 1986. In 1989, she earned two Masters of Arts in International Relations and Economics from Syracuse University.

Mr Sharad Sanghi 

(India)

Mr Sharad Sanghi is the Managing Director and CEO of Netmagic, an organization that he founded in 1998, and is now an NTT Communications Company.

Mr Sanghi is responsible for growing Netmagic into India’s leading managed hosting and cloud service provider, with over 1100 employees and nine data centres delivering services to over 2000 enterprise customers across the globe.

Mr Sanghi is a pioneer in the Indian cloud computing space, and his vision has helped Netmagic become a leader in the public cloud services market in India. On the business side, he led Netmagic through three successful VC funding rounds with Nexus Venture Partners, Fidelity, Cisco Systems and Nokia Growth Partners. He also led the 2012 acquisition of the company’s majority stake by NTT Communication Japan – a first in the Indian data-centre market.

Mr Sanghi is an industry veteran with over 20 years of extensive experience in developing Internet backbone infrastructure and providing Internet services. He is also a part-time Non-Executive Director on the Board of Bharat Electronics Limited, appointed by the Government of India.

During a six-year stint in the US, he worked for Unified Network Management Architecture Group at AT&T Bell Labs, the Backbone Engineering Group of NSFNET (ANS) and the Router Systems Development Group of Advantis (IBM Global Network). He has also helped Merrill Lynch and Bankers Trust design and deploy Wide Area Networks.

Mr Sanghi is an Electrical Engineer from IIT Bombay and holders a Masters degree from Columbia University, New York.

Dr. Jun Murai 

(Japan)

Dr. Jun Murai is known as the ‘father of the Internet in Japan’. In 1984, he developed the Japan University UNIX Network (JUNET), the nation’s first-ever inter-university network. In 1988, he founded the Widely Integrated Distributed Environment (WIDE) Project, a Japanese Internet research consortium. He is a professor of the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio University, from which he earned his PhD in computer science in 1987.

In 2013, he was inducted into the “Internet Hall of Fame (Pioneer category)”. Prof. Murai also served as President of the Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC) and as Vice President of the Japanese Internet Association. He was appointed to the Internet Society’s Board of Trustees from 1997 to 2000 and in 1998, he was appointed as one of nine initial directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and served until June 2003.

He won the 2005 Internet Society’s Jonathan B. Postel Service Award in recognition of his vision and pioneering work that helped spread the Internet across the Asia Pacific region. He was also honored with the 2011 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Internet Award.

Mr Craig Ng 

(Australia)

Mr Craig Ng is legal counsel to the Asia Pacific Internet Development Trust. He is a senior lawyer with over 30 years experience, having led well-regarded legal teams and practised in leading law firms in Australia and Malaysia.

Mr Ng also served as legal counsel to APNIC, and prior to that, Mr Ng was a partner with Australian national law firm Maddocks Lawyers, a position he held for over 10 years. He acted for clients including auDA, the ccTLD manager for .au, and played a key role in the development of the framework for the self-regulation of the .au domain name space. He served on the board of trustee for the auDA Foundation for over 10 years since its inception, and was a director and honorary secretary of the Internet Society of Australia for a number of years.

Mr Ng holds a Bachelor of Economics degree and a Bachelor of Laws degree from Monash University, Melbourne.

Mr Sharil Tarmizi 

(Malaysia)

Sharil Tarmizi has 30 years of experience in law, regulatory work, finance and technology both in the private and public sector.  He was Chair of the Government Advisory Committee (GAC) in ICANN from 2002 to 2007 and actively participated in two World Summits on Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva and Tunis. 

Sharil has been involved in many capacity building programs with various regional and international bodies. He penned a chapter on, ‘Strengthening the Voice and Participation of Developing Countries in Internet Policy-making’ in a book called “Internet Governance-Asia Pacific Perspectives” published by the UNDP APDIP in 2005. His views are often sought and two notable involvements were the Broadband Strategies Handbook (World Bank-2009) and the Media Convergence Review Panel (Government of Singapore). In 2010, he became Vice Chair of the Child Online Protection Working Group at the ITU. Sharil also served as a member on ITU’s mPowering Development Initiative to provide strategic guidance to ITU’s Telecommunications Development Bureau (2012 to 2015) and had also served as an Advisory Board Member to the United Nations University (UNU) Institute in Macau (2019 to 2023).

He graduated from University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and is a Barrister, of Gray’s Inn, London. 

Rajnesh Singh  

Executive Director, Ex Officio

(Australia)

Rajnesh (Raj) Singh joined the APNIC Foundation in December 2023. He is a technology industry thought leader and former serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

He has played founding and leading roles in several technology and private equity investment firms with significant experience in business management and strategy development, spanning diverse industries such as telecommunications, power infrastructure, agriculture, and real estate. 

Raj has an intimate understanding of the nuances of the Asia-Pacific with lived experiences in the region. He has worked extensively with governments, academia, civil society, and the private sector and has served on several Advisory Boards. He has been part of Expert Working Groups for regional and international organisations on infrastructure, policy, regulatory reform, and development issues.

His Internet community leadership roles include Chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF), Founding Chair of ICANN’s Asia Pacific Regional At-Large Organisation (APRALO), and he was the Regional Vice President for Asia-Pacific at the Internet Society (ISOC) and established its Singapore-based subsidiary.

At the APNIC Foundation he builds partnerships and advocates for the technologies, policies and best practices that contribute to a global, open, stable and secure Internet that is affordable and accessible to the entire Asia Pacific community.