Gaurab Raj Upadhaya

Gaurab Raj Upadhaya is a native of Nepal, and resident of Singapore. He has been active in the Internet community for more than a decade.  Currently employed by Limelight Networks (LLNW) as  Director of Network Strategy and Interconnection, Gaurab manages network capacity, expansion and interconnection. Gaurab previously worked for Packet Clearing House (PCH) as Senior Internet Analyst (2002-2010) and ran PCH's global anycast DNS platform, providing resilient domain name service for more than 100 top level domains from more than sixty Internet exchange points around the world.

Gaurab has a long record of volunteerism and commitment to the Asia Pacific Internet Community. He served on the Asia-Pacific Internet Association (APIA) Board of Directors from 2004 to 2014, and as Chair from 2006 through 2009. He has served on the APRICOT Program Committee continuously since 2004, and as Chair from 2007 to 2009. Additionally, in 2003 he was the founder of the South Asian Network Operators Group (SANOG), the regional network operators' forum that has trained hundreds of network engineers and brought the Internet community together in the South Asian Region with twenty-five successful meetings to date. In addition, Gaurab played a role in the formation of the Middle East NOG (MENOG) and has served on its coordination committee.

Between 2007 and 2011, he has served the APNIC community as the chair of the APNIC Internet Exchange Special Interest Group (IX-SIG). In 2010 he was elected as the chair of the APNIC Policy SIG, and subsequently was elected to the APNIC Executive Council in 2011.

Gaurab is one of the 14 global Trusted Community Representatives who oversee the process of cryptographically signing the root of the domain name system in ICANN Root DNSSEC Key ceremonies.

In 2001, Gaurab was the founder of the Nepal Internet Exchange (NPIX), the first IX in the South-Asian region, and still serves as its Chairman, pro-bono. In 2007, he worked together with local colleagues to build the Nepal Research and Education Network (NREN) and continues to serve as its Technical Director. This role has brought him close to various NRENs in the region and increased his understanding of their role in education and on the Internet.

During his career, he has spoken and presented at INET, APRICOT, SANOG, APNIC, NZNOG, MENOG, AUSNOG, PHNOG, JANOG, SGNOG, MYNOG,BDNOG,AfNOG, NANOG, ICANN conferences as well as RIPE and LINX Meetings.

I have known Gaurab Raj Upadhaya since 2003, when he first came to Dhaka to encourage us to setup the Bangladesh Internet Exchange (BDIX). Since then, I have had the pleasure of working with him many times. Together we built the BDIX, and he helped Bangladesh's ISPs to learn and use BGP routing. He founded SANOG, one of the best things to happen in our region. SANOG has given our community a regular regional meeting place with high level workshops, APNIC participation, and international speakers. He has done countless workshops on IXPs, routing, resource allocation policies, and shared his network operations experiences with us. He also encouraged, helped and spoke at the inaugural BDNOG conference in 2014.

I have observed Gaurab's contribution to the Internet Industry in South Asia and internationally, and given his understanding of the operations, protocols and policy concerns facing operators, governments, regulators about interconnection, Internet growth and IPv6 adoption, I believe he would be an excellent candidate for the APNIC Executive Council. His past four years in the Executive council has been visible in and appreciated by all. His rare combination of technical and people skills will enable him to continue to valuably serve the community in our region in this new role.