Programme Committee

The following individuals are the current members of the Programme Committee. All PC members are also part of the UKNOF Meeting Crew.

Chris Russell

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Chris used to be the the Systems and DataCentres manager for a regional ISP and Services Provider, Knowledge IT in the North East of England. Knowledge IT were responsible for, amongst other things, the largest Wi-Fi campus network in Northern Europe (so Cisco told us) & the first Campus ipv6 lan in the North-East (as far as we know) whereas we used 2 full /48's (ND PFD). Knowledge was purchased by The Onyx Group in December 2014, and in turn Onyx were purchased by Pulsant whereas Chris is now a Senior Network Engineer within the Networks team whereas he continues to design solutions and work in core networks.

Cathy Almond (Vice-Chair)

Fearghas McKay (Vice-Chair)

Ben Carter

Ben Cartwright-Cox

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Hal Ponton

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James Bensley

James’s technical career background to date is based on network design and operations, and programming. He’s worked for various service providers across the UK designing, building and maintaining networks and automating their operations. UKNOF is an essential part of network operations in the UK which is how James discovered UKNOF himself.

The social and communal aspect of James’s career to date has been based on active participation within the networking community, both within the UK and abroad. He is proud of the passionate and supportive industry community that exists within the UK. He both attends and speaks at industry events such as UKNOF, LINX, RIPE and NetLdn. He is one of the co-founders and organisers of NetLdn and is now thrilled to be part of the UKNOF PC.

Keith Mitchell

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Also on the UKIF Limited Board of Directors as Managing Director

Keith Mitchell from 2008 until 2012 served as Vice President of Systems Engineering at the Internet Systems Consortium, where he had responsibility for ISC's infrastructure and open-source software development. This included operation of ISC's F-root, DNS and public benefit hosting network infrastructure. Prior to this at ISC he managed the OARC programme for DNS operators, since 2012 serving as President of the now-autonomous nonprofit OARC Inc.

Keith conceived the UK Network Operators' Forum UKNOF in 2005, and has been leading this for its past twenty-six successful meetings. He has previously been involved in Internet engineering and governance for some 25 years, founding the London Internet Exchange (LINX) in 1994 where he was Executive Chairman until starting up XchangePoint in 2000. He has served as a non-executive Director of Nominet UK, Chairman of the RIPE NCC Executive Board and co-founded the UK's first Internet startup, PIPEX, in 1992.

Marek Isalski

Marek has been a freelance network engineer for over a decade, helping businesses by finding the technologies, skills and suppliers they need to start pushing their own packets. He believes that every day is a school day - never stop learning!

Mike Hughes

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Mike is a freelance consultant with over 15 years of industry experience, specialising in areas of multi-stakeholder relations, peering & interconnect, and technical evangelism.

Having a degree which has nothing to do with computing, Mike's technical skills were forged in the fires of dial-up ISP tech support and network ops in the mid- to late-1990s, having to do mighty hacks to make things work, and the power of asking someone to "Reboot and if it still doesn't work, phone back".

Mike is also Chair of the Board of Trustees at University of Greenwich Students' Union.

Neil McRae

Since graduating in Software Engineering I have been employed by various ISP and Telecommunication companies in the UK and I have also carried out some contracting work for some US based Internet Service Providers.I worked at COLT Telecom Group PLC for 10 years in a number of roles including Director of Network Architecture responsible for Network Engineering and Product Development for COLT's services. I have also been an elected Non-Executive director of the London Internet Exchange Ltd for the past 5 years. I am currently also studying at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nick Ryce

Nick Ryce is a Senior Network Architect for a major ISP based in Scotland. Nick has over a decade of experience working within the Service Provider industry and has worked with a variety of IT start ups as well long established operators within the industry.

Steve Karmeinsky

I am currently a consultant (NetTek Ltd) specialising in Internet and telecoms strategy. I was in full-time employment with THUS until March 2005 (from March 1995) as Head of Product Futures with overall responsibility for evaluating and providing technical insight into future technologies (both in the Internet and voice/data areas) and how they could be utilised in the development of new products and services. I also owned THUS's product roadmap.

Prior to joining THUS, I held the position of Internet Consultant at Telecom Securicor Cellular Radio Ltd (BT Cellnet/O2). I hold a BSc in Microelectronics and Information Processing, and am a member of the IEE, BCS, IEEE (US), and a Fellow of the Royal Institution.

Tim Chown