Directory >> People >> Representative figures of the Civil Society at ICANN and other Domain Names Institutions
Alan Barrett has been involved with the Internet since 1989, when he was a lecturer in Electronic Engineering at the University of Natal in Durban, South Africa. In 1990 and 1991, he played a key role in transitioning the South African university network to TCP/IP and connecting it to the global Internet, while operating the primary name server for .ZA. In 1993, he co-founded South Africa’s first commercial Internet service provider.
In 1997, he authored the proposal to create AFRINIC and served on its Board from its formation until 2009. Alan has been a member of the ASO Address Council since 2005 and participated in the CRISP Team, which drafted the number resource community’s response to the ICG's request for proposals. He was also a founding member of both the South African chapter of the Internet Society and Namespace ZA, an organization initially created to oversee the .ZA ccTLD before regulatory changes shifted that responsibility.