[Chapter-delegates] Sad news from the Netherlands / RIPE

[Khaled Koubaa]

My heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies for Dr Blokzijl family,
friends, and members of the RIPE community. May God give them the comfort
and peace.

Khaled Koubaa


2015-12-02 16:08 GMT+01:00 Veni Markovski <veni at veni.com>:

> It's a sad day today.
> One of the pioneers of the European Internet has passed away.
> https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/tribute-to-dr-robert-blokzij-1943-2015
> Tribute to Dr. Robert Blokzijl 1943 - 2015
> Dr. Robert Blokzijl, RIPE Chair Emeritus and founding member of the RIPE
> community, died aged 72 on 1 December 2015. If you would like to leave a
> message of condolence or your own memory of Rob, please post it at the end
> of this page
> <https://labs.ripe.net/Members/mirjam/tribute-to-dr-robert-blokzij-1943-2015>
> and we will pass it on to his family.
>
>
>
> The Internet community has suffered [image: Rob Blokzijl]a sad loss as
> the man who led RIPE during its first 25 years of bottom-up,
> consensus-driven collaboration and decision-making died at his home in the
> Netherlands.
>
> As one of the founders of RIPE in 1989 and the Chair of the RIPE community
> for 25 years since then, Rob Blokzijl personified all the attributes that
> have seen the community grow into such a positive force for bringing
> together those who care about the development of the Internet.
>
> Rob’s roots were in the high-energy physics community, and earlier in his
> career he worked at the High Energy Physics Institute in Amsterdam and
> later at CERN in Geneva. He helped to build the computer networks that were
> essential for that branch of science. His work in this area would inform
> much of his contribution to the burgeoning IP networking community in
> Europe in the early 1980s.
>
> Over the past 30 years, Rob has established a global reputation as a
> leader and a pioneer, respected for his work with organisations such as
> RIPE, the RIPE NCC, AMS-IX, ICANN, Nominet and NATO.
>
> In 1989, Rob was co-author of the RIPE Terms of Reference, which stated,
> “The object of RIPE is to ensure the necessary administrative and technical
> coordination to allow the operation and expansion of a pan-European IP
> network.” In his role as the Chair of RIPE, his vision, expertise and
> effort were essential for the tremendous growth and spread of this
> world-respected forum, which acted as a model for many subsequent community
> organisations.
>
> Rob was also one of the key figures in creating the RIPE NCC (RIPE Network
> Coordination Centre), the body responsible for managing the IP address
> space in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia and coordinating
> the technical community in those regions. The RIPE NCC was the first
> Regional Internet Registry in the world, and this model has become the
> accepted way to organise the Internet infrastructure in a more regionally
> specific, responsive and efficient way.
>
> Rob had a particular talent for being able to engage with all elements of
> the Internet community, from government and experienced operators to more
> recent members of the RIPE community to whom he could impart his insight
> and wisdom on the issues of the day. He brought much common sense to
> otherwise complicated discussions in the Internet community, and his mantra
> of “keep it simple” is one that he will be remembered for.
>
> Those who knew Rob personally will miss his sense of humour. He was a
> storyteller with an outstanding ability to recall and relate the events
> from his working life, which not only amused his listeners but also
> enlightened them and informed their discussions. The recent RIPE 71 Meeting
> was the first not to be attended by Rob due to his illness, and so it was
> the first where he was not to be found with a cigarette and glass of wine
> in hand, enjoying the company of those who typically gathered outside the
> venue entrance to talk about serious matters in a very non-serious way.
>
> His contributions were often officially recognised, notably in receiving
> Dutch royal honours by being awarded with the title Officer in the Order of
> Oranje-Nassau in 2010. He also received the Jonathan B. Postel Service
> Award in 2015 for outstanding contributions in service to the data
> communications community. Since standing down as RIPE Chair in 2013, he has
> enjoyed the title RIPE Chair Emeritus.
>
> To many of us in the RIPE community and beyond, Rob was a mentor, a
> friend, a trusted confidante and always the voice of reason. His legacy
> stretches from the physical networks the Internet is made of to the
> community he built and the wisdom he injected into that community’s make-up
> from the very beginning. His legacy will continue to be felt as the
> community continues to grow and its participants often ask themselves,
> “What would Rob do?”
>
> You can leave your own tribute to Rob below
>
>
> Biography
>
> Robert "Rob" Blokzijl was a founding member of Réseaux IP Européens
> (RIPE), the European open forum for IP networking. From its foundation in
> 1989, he was spokesperson for this forum until 2014. He was instrumental in
> the creation of the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE
> NCC) in 1992 as the first Regional Internet Registry (RIR) in the world.
> Prior to this, he was active in building networks for the particle physics
> community in Europe.
>
> Rob graduated from the University of Amsterdam (1970) and holds a
> doctorate in experimental physics from the same university (1977). He was
> employed by the National Institute for Subatomic Physics (NIKHEF) in The
> Netherlands.
>
> Rob was also selected for the ICANN Board by the Address Supporting
> Organization. He served on the ICANN Board from October 1999 until December
> 2002.
>
> He was a member of the Board of Nominet, the organisation that serves as
> the registry for the .uk domain, one of the largest country-code Top Level
> Domains (ccTLDs).
>
> At the RIPE 67 Meeting in October 2013, Rob announced his resignation as
> Chair of RIPE after being in the position for 25 years.
>
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