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29 February 2012
"Alice Munyua awarded the 2011 NI&I Service Award "
Yaounde, 25 November 2011 - The 3rd Network Information and Infrastructure Service Award has been awarded to Alice Munyua in recognition to her contribution to improving and sustaining Africa's Internet community. Dr. Nii Quaynor conveyor of AfNOG presented the Award during AfriNIC 15th Public Policy Meeting in Yaounde, Cameroon on 22 November 2011.
For Dr. Nii, Quaynor the initiator of the Award, "Recognising Alice is for us a way to highlight the importance of the civil society and government's contribution to the growth of our local community. We are at a stage where we need to build a more coherent and strong multistakeholder community in order to address our current challenges to build a brighter future for Internet in Africa "
Alice is Kenya's representative on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Government Advisory Committee (ICANN, GAC) and the chair of the 2011 UN-Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Kenya in September 2011 and convenes the East Africa Internet Governance Forum and the Kenya ICT Action Network (Kictanet). "For me, this award is a tribute to my work and contribution at the regional level, a great recognition from my role model and peers in the region. I have been dedicated to creating awareness and understanding in order to ensure that our region contributes meaningfully in global internet governance and policy processes and hope to continue to do so as internet governance becomes more and more significant." says Alice Munyua.
Besides the main NI&I Award, a Young professional Award was also given to Jean Robert Hountomey for his continuous contribution to the internet technical community. Jean Robert has a passion for Information Systems Security and is engaged in the community as track leader of the African network Operator Group French Track, ICANN Address Supporting Organization/ Address Council member for AfriNIC region from 2005 to December 2011, Chair of Internet Society Chapter in Togo, former member of Internet Exchange point Team. He is currently performing the coordination function of the AfricaCERT initiative.
"I'm very happy and proud to welcome both Alice and Jean-Robert as NI&I Award alumni. It is hard to miss Alice Munyua's effort in promoting a bottom-up and participative Internet Governance culture in our region." says Adiel Akplogan, CEO of AfriNIC and recipient of the first NI&I Service Award.
The Network Information & Infrastructure (NI&I) Service Award was instituted in 2009 during AfNOG's 10 years anniversary by Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, who himself received the Internet Society's prestigious Jonathan Postel Award in 2007 for his service in the region and example of dedication, commitment and leadership for the young generation to emulate. The NI&I Service Award has been set up to reward individuals and organisations for providing Internetworking services and Infrastructure in Africa. The NI&I Service Award pays tribute to the actors of this sector in Africa and the Indian Ocean and sets the foundation to reward the next generation of heroes and models from the African Internet technical community for their achievements. www.niiserviceaward.org
The African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) is the Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources for Africa. Based in Mauritius, AfriNIC's mission is to support Internet development in Africa and promote bottom up Internet policy development in the region. www.afrinic.net
The Africa Network Operators Group (AfNOG) is a forum for the exchange of technical information, and aims to promote discussion of implementation issues that require community cooperation through coordination and cooperation among network service providers to ensure the stability of service to end users.The goal of AfNOG is to share experience of technical challenges in setting up, building and running IP networks on the African continent www.afnog.org