[AfriNIC-announce] Pierre Ouedraogo wins the 2012 John Postel Service Award

[George Nyabuga]

Dear Colleagues,

Pierre Ouedraogo is the winner of the 2012 Jonathan Postel Service Award. He was awarded for of his immense contributions to the growth of the Internet in Africa. A founding member of AFRINIC, Mr. Ouedraogo is currently the Director of Digital Francophonie at Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) based in Paris, France. He is also a founding member of numerous organisations including the AfTLD (African Internet Top Level Domain Names Association); AFNOG (African network operators group); AfCERT (African CERT network), and AfrICANN (African network of participants to the ICANN process).

The Internet Society presented the award, including a US$20,000 honorarium and a crystal engraved globe, during the 84th meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 29 - August 3, 2012. The Award Ceremony was held on 1 August 2012.

In his acceptance speech, Mr. Ouedraogo said he was immensely proud to have contributed to the development of the African information society. He paid tribute to the Internet community for the honour. “I’m very proud to be here with you, and to be honoured by our community; this community that makes dreams come true. We dreamed of an open Internet, we have done together many things to make it happen with open standards and improving accessibility to all world languages to the Internet. Open standards are very important for African development, this means that it’s important for improving lives, poverty alleviation, bridging digital divide and building democratic open societies,” said Mr. Ouedraogo.

The President and Chief Executive Officer of the Internet Society, Lynn St. Amour, praised Mr. Ouedraogo for helping bring the Internet to Burkina Faso and other French-speaking African countries. “Pierre Ouedraogo is a highly-regarded technical leader in Africa,” said Ms St. Amour. “His commitment to the expansion of the Internet and encouragement of young engineers to help them build their skills through training workshops has had a profound impact on the growth of the Internet across Africa.”

 

Regards,



Dr George Nyabuga                                                  Tel:   +230 403 51 00
Head, Communications and PR, AFRINIC           Fax:  +230 466 67 58
george at afrinic.net - www.afrinic.net
 
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