The Philippines is all geared up for the hosting of the biggest gathering of Asia-Pacific’s top-notch Internet experts next month. The 2023 Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) will be held from February 20 to March 2 at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza Manila.
Excitement runs high for this 10-day summit as it returns to in-person mode following two years of virtual meetings, as lockdowns due to the pandemic made it impossible to hold the conference in-person. In 2021, the Philippines hosted the first full virtual set-up of the event. Director of the Asia Pacific Network Operators Group (APNOG) and Chair of APRICOT 2023 Philip Smith, points out how the Internet became indispensable in continuing to hold the Conference despite the pandemic, “Internet infrastructure and technologies made it possible for APRICOT to smoothly shift to a virtual forum and continue the important work of enhancing and growing the operational Internet in the Asia-Pacific region, especially due to the increased demands being made on the global Internet infrastructure because of the pandemic.”
The annually held event brings together leading Internet engineers, operators, researchers, and professionals from over 50 countries to tackle current and developing Internet networking technologies and trends through conference and technical training workshops. The sessions are organized as conference sessions, technical training through workshops and tutorials, and birds-of-a-feather, and cover topics on operating and growing a robust Internet infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. Smith adds, “Aside from the usual workshops and tutorials on network topics like BGP and IPv6 Deployment, Network Automation, Network Management, Monitoring and Security, the Conference will also have a panel discussion on workforce diversity.”
With APRICOT 2023 returning to Manila, Philippine Network Operators Group (PhNOG) Chair and Head of Globe Telecom’s Peering, Interconnection & Strategy - IP Ecosystem Achie Atienza, cites what participants can expect this year, “The pandemic brought to the fore how resilient and expansive the global Internet infrastructure has become, but at the same time, we also saw disparities in terms of domestic Internet infrastructures, so there will definitely be discussions around this.”
Atienza encourages more local participation and says, “We hope there will be more Philippine participants who can attend and take advantage of the learning opportunities that the APRICOT conference and sessions bring, especially since the topics are very much tailored to the local network operations landscape.”
On the government side, the DOST-Advanced Science and Technology Institute (DOST-ASTI), which runs the Philippine Research, Education and Government Information Network (PREGINET) infrastructure, is a supporting organization.
DOST-ASTI Director Franz De Leon highlights the importance of its support, “DOST-ASTI’s participation in and collaboration with communities such as APRICOT has been integral in the growth of PREGINET, where a number of the technologies that we implement in our network has been acquired.”
De Leon also echoed the importance of having more local participation, saying that “It is rare for the Philippines to host APRICOT, the first one the country hosted was in 1998 and the second was back in 2009, we don’t know when we will have another Summit in Manila, so we hope more Philippine delegates will register to the conference and technical sessions.” By Jeline Tanya H.Tetangco
APRICOT 2023 is organized by the APNOG and co-organized by the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) which will co-locate the APNIC 55 to the Summit, and with PhNOG as the local host. Registration for APRICOT 2023 is on-going through the event website at https://2023.apricot.net/register/register/.
