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Fellows' Biographies

Biographical details of InternetNZ Fellows since 1998.

Fellowships - 2008

Peter Dengate Thrush

Peter Dengate Thrush has a long and distinguished record of contribution to Internet policy issues both nationally, in particular to InternetNZ, and internationally. 

He provided advice to the Council of InternetNZ from 1995 on management of .nz and represented InternetNZ on the landmark Oggi court case which validated the first-come-first-served policy.

Peter was President of InternetNZ from 1999 to 2001.  His international contributions date from involvement with consultations by the US Government from 1997 which lead to the formation of ICANN.  He was Chair of APTLD from 2004 until 2006 when he was elected by the ccNSO constituency to the ICANN Board.  He succeeded Vint Cerf as Chair of the ICANN Board in December 2007.

Fellowships - 2006

Liz Butterfield

Liz is the Managing Director of Hector’s World™ Ltd (HWL), a separate subsidiary of NetSafe.  HWL has grown into a respected social entrepreneurship venture offering effective cybersafety education for very young children.

Previously, Liz founded the Internet Safety Group (in 1998) and managed its NetSafe® programme until early 2006.  NetSafe has a national, and international, reputation for innovative online safety and security education.

While serving as Executive Director of NetSafe, Liz's achievements included: initiating national and international cybersafety conferences (including one in 2005 at the University of Oxford), and co-authoring the 2003 NetSafe Kit for Schools (since adapted for all British schools). Liz has written articles for many NZ and overseas journals.  She also wrote a chapter for a book on E-learning, compiled by Dr. Kwok Wing Lai of the University of Otago. Liz has given presentations to a wide range of organisations, as well as international conferences in the Pacific, Australia, the US and Britain.

In 2003, Liz was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her work in the field of Internet safety, and was also awarded the NetGuide ‘Living Legend’ Web Award for her contribution to the Internet industry.

Fellowships - 2005

Joe Abley

Joe currently runs a small consulting company, providing network operations and architecture support for various Internet companies. He was once Network Architect at CLEAR Communications and has worked as a consultant for various other Internet companies in Auckland and Wellington; he was also one of the founders of the Auckland Peering Exchange, and one of those responsible for GEEK.NZ.

Fellowships - 2004

Mark Davies

Mark has been involved in the development of the Internet in New Zealand since the first dial-up connections between VUW and the University of Calgary in 1986.  Three years later he, Andy Linton and Jonathan Stone established the initial fixed internet links from VUW and Massey University to the CSnet international gateway at the University of Waikato (using a modified SLIP over DSIR circuits).

Mark has been a councillor of the Internet Society of New Zealand  (1997-98) and served on several technical committees.  In the early days he worked tirelessly to promote the Internet at many NZUUG and UniForum conferences.  He continues to provide technical assistance to those that ask for his help.  Mark has maintained a list of New Zealand organisations that are connected to the Internet since the end of 1993 (when there were 242).

Roger Hicks

Roger was elected in May 1995 to chair the interim Council that established the Internet Society of New Zealand. He was instrumental in establishing the principles that still guide the Society nearly a decade later. In six months he guided a concept into an incorporated society which asserted responsibility for the well being of the Internet in New Zealand and for promoting New Zealand's interest in the international Internet community. The first six months saw the concept of an ISP Code of Practice introduced and legal work around the DNS begin. Roger followed on as the first Chair of the Incorporated Society through the end of 1996. He guided ISCONZ through the first traumas of "domain name capture". Roger continues to contribute as a member of the .NZ Oversight Committee.

Jim Higgins

Jim was elected in May 1995 to the interim Council that established the Internet Society of New Zealand.  He was then elected as the second Chair of the Society serving from 1997 to 1999.  This was a period of dynamic growth in the Internet. Jim was faced with trying to develop the management of the NZ domain name space at a time when registrations were growing rapidly. There were inevitable problems that arose from the unpredictable external pressures the Internet growth generated. Jim's tremendous drive and energy saw the Society through this difficult period.

Jim vigorously represented NZ internationally at a time of significant restructuring of Internet governance. He established strong relationships with ISOC.  His high profile in the IT world developed through his many public activities helped the Society to raise its profile both domestically and internationally.

Fellowships - 2003

Nevil Brownlee

Nevil Brownlee is well known in New Zealand having guided Auckland University's networking endeavours for nearly twenty years. Nevil was a key contributor to Kawaihiko, the early university network, and Tuia, the consortium that brought together the interests of both the university sector and the CRIs.

Nevil and his staff at the University of Auckland provided the majority of management support for Kawaihiko, minuting meetings, managing its funds and producing periodic reports on traffic.

Nevil made his international reputation in the area of network measurement. Nevil developed NeTraMet - a real­time traffic flow measurement architecuture - for Auckland University in the early 1990s. The current version of NeTraMet is used by 200 organisations around the world.

Nevil spends half his time at Auckland University and the other half with CAIDA (Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis) where he leads their Metrics Working Group. Nevil is also co­chair of the IETF's Realtime Traffic Flow Measurement Working Group and is author or co­-author of twelve RFCs.

John Vorstermans

John Vorstermans is widely known throughout the New Zealand Internet community. He has combined technical competence as demonstrated through participation in the NOG with a social conscience and deep belief in the ability of the Internet to improve lives.

John co-­founded Actrix - New Zealand's first commercial ISP - which originally operated out of a spare room in John's house.

John has been a consistent and ardent supporter of the concept of the Internet as an open network for the entire community. Under John's guidance Actrix has provided a high level of support to Wellington community groups.

John was also instrumental in the formation of The Internet Society of New Zealand, serving on Council from its inception until 2000. He participated in writing the ISP Code of Practice and served as an inaugural member of the board of NZIRL.

Fellowships - 2001

Rex Croft

The father of the DNS in New Zealand, he 'put it to bed' every night for many a year. Rex, with the assistance of other Network Operators, demonstrated that an industrial class service could be run with dedication rather than large dollars.

Sometimes described as the "DNS saint" Rex negotiated policy that angels feared to touch without a ruffled feather. Rex also provided much of the support for the NZGate billing system that was a key to sharing the cost of New Zealand's overseas link.

Frank March

Frank is Chair of the .nz Oversight Committee, which is responsible for policy matters relating to New Zealand's country code top level domain. 

He was a member of the group that founded ISOCNZ (InternetNZ) and served on the Council for a number of years, including several as Secretary.

He has been involved in the development of the Internet in New Zealand since its beginnings.

As Director of Information Technology at Victoria University of Wellington he was involved in the Tuia Society and Kawaihiko (the early university network).  He encouraged early Internet take-up among government agencies and businesses in wellington.

Frank is a senior specialist advisor in the IT and Telecommunications Policy Group of the Ministry of Economic Development and has a continuing interest in public policy issues with regard to the Internet.

Donald Neal

Donald was the first Secretary of the Society and was responsible for drafting many of its rules. To this day he often drops into a discussion with a "point of order".

His contribution to the Society was not all. As a member of the system development group at Waikato University he was instrumental in the provision of the archie.nz service for years, the development of a distributed web caching strategy, and was a strong supporter of NZNOG (the New Zealand Network Operators' Group).

He made further contributions to SunSite and to UniForumNZ.

Neil James

Not unlike Jon Postel in appearance and demeanor (but without the ponytail), Neil carried an important mantel in the earliest days of organising the NZ Internet Community.

First, there was the TUIA Society. TUIA was composed of the Universities, the then DSIR, and MAF, and was responsible for developing the collaboration necessary to develop the NZ Internet at the turn of the decade (1989­1990).

Neil chaired TUIA for many years, winding his way through politically troubled waters. He was then instrumental in forming ISOCNZ and spent a few years on Council.

More recently he has been involved in attempting to gain support for 'Internet 2', a New Zealand Research and Education Network.

Fellowships - 1998

John Houlker

John's principal legacy from the Internet's early days in New Zealand was that he provided the key early linkages between TUIA, the consortium set up to manage the New Zealand Internet backbone, and the US-­based Internet services while these were provided by the US Government.

He negotiated an arrangement with PACCOM for 50% subsidy for NSA money for a 19.2K link from New Zealand to Hawaii, in 1989. After the link (initially 9.6K) was installed, he provided the main driving force at Waikato University for the services required for the New Zealand Internet gateway.

He also played a key role in ensuring that NZGate could meet the needs of other users, such as the DSIR, who used non­-IP protocols in the early days.

When, from 1995 onwards, Internet connection services passed to the main telecommunications providers, he negotiated the NZgate connections ensuring a smooth transition.

He acted as the go-­between for many of the early users of the Internet for IP address space, first with IANA and later APNIC.

He also held the official delegation for the .nz ccTLD from 1989 until this was passed to InternetNZ (then ISOCNZ) in 1996.

Richard Naylor

Richard has promoted a vision of a networked city networked world. He has taken every opportunity that provided itself as a means of extending people's access to networking and the Internet.

As IT services manager for the Wellington City Council, Richard ensured that he linked the Council to the Internet through Victoria University as early as 1989, first for the Usenet News services but later to provide information about Wellington to its own citizens and the world.

This is now recognised internationally as being the first governmental information in the world to be made available on the Internet. Because of his work, Wellington had the world's first local government Gopher server and the first Web site. Wellington also provided one of the world's first free nets, providing citizens with access to Internet services at the cost of a local phone call.

More recently, Richard has been a prime influence on the development of CityLink, providing access to high speed bandwidth around the Wellington CBD as a direct challenge to the slow, costly traditional telecommunications services.

John H Hine

John's farsighted policy of extending access to Internet services enabled the New Zealand research community to take rapid advantage of the Waikato University PACCOM link when that became available, ensuring its financial success from the outset.

John used his connections with North American universities to introduce the Usenet News service to New Zealand from 1985 onwards, initially on behalf of the Computer Science community, but quickly extending this to anyone needing access to the service.

The Computer Science Department at Victoria University, of which John was head and Professor, ran what amounted to a semi­-commercial News service over international PACNET and for several years provided an invaluable service to the New Zealand research community. This service, along with international email services, built the foundation for today's Internet.

From the early 1980s, he played a leading role in establishing the initial inter­-university network which, after 1988, evolved into the backbone of the New Zealand Internet until it was replaced by commercially available services from early 1996.

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