Last week Mirjam Kühne chaired the meeting of the Community of European IP Address Administrators, des Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) for the first time. Since March 2019 Mirja Kühlewind has been head of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the American Alissa Cooper will hold the reins of the most important one until next year Standardization organization for the Internet, the IETF, in hand, and she too was the first woman in this role. As different as the three women are, their example could set an example.

What is missing: In the rapid world of technology, there is often time to rearrange the many news and backgrounds. At the weekend we want to take it, follow the sidewalks away from the current, try different perspectives and make nuances audible.

A logical choice and farewell to volunteering It doesn’t matter who you talk to about the new RIPE boss: In the field of Internet governance organizations, everyone knows Kühne, and many call her an almost logical choice. At the beginning there was still anger about the “squatting”. Because Kühne, previously an employee of the operational arm of the RIPE, the RIPE NCC, was unable to fall back on her employer as a sponsor like previous RIPE bosses.

She has therefore terminated her contract as a RIPE NCC employee and since May is not only the first female, but also the first full-time RIPE boss. The idea of ​​rewarding work is not entirely new – and even the first RIPE chairman, Rob Blokzijl, was temporarily honored, has now revealed Blokzijl’s successor and current CEO, Hans Petter Holen – but it means saying goodbye to the old system of volunteering for the RIPE – Chair. But no one holds that against Kühne, she is far too popular and a recognized veteran.

Internet veteran: The bridge builder 1999 it was Kühne who picked up the recently resigned managing director of the then founded RIPE NCC, Axel Pawlik, from Schiphol Airport when he arrived for an interview for the newly created post. Before that, she checked the IP address assignment to the networkers from the very beginning, remembers Hans-Peter Dittler from Braintec Consult. She first drove to the beer garden in Vondelpark with Pawlik, he remembers, and Dittler got the internet addresses requested for a large telco.

The computer scientist only worked for a few years with a degree from of the TU Berlin and contracted between 2005 and 2009 at the Internet Society (ISOC). There she brought the IETF Journal to the start and then brought ideas back to the RIPE NCC. Back at RIPE, she soon took over building the RIPE Lab and went from Community Builder to Senior Community Builder. The bridging between the developers, the security experts, academics and more and more government representatives were automatically part of their business area, as well as the cooperation between IXPs and the local Network Operators Groups (NOGs).

Cohesion and modernization To bind new members to the RIPE and to bring the community together Welding is high on their agenda, Kühne assured the RIPE plenum on Friday 81. “Diversity is not enough,” said Kühne. “We also have to integrate new participants so that they feel part of the community, and we have to reach the next generation and encourage them to actively participate.”

The cohesion might be that The main challenge for the new RIPE Chair, acknowledges Pawlik. RIPE membership stretches from Europe via Russia to the Arabian Peninsula and in recent years has increased from the originally small circle to far beyond 81. 000, especially because everyone wanted to get a piece of the IPv4 cake in the end . In November 2019 the last IPv4 addresses were assigned.

Now there are only returns – and IPv6. The big run is over and the RIPE has to adjust to shrinking back to a new normal level. This means that on the one hand you want to take money into your hands to reach the larger community and, as Kühne hopes, to involve them better. On the other hand, you will have to save and part with one or the other project.

This is not primarily the task for Kühne, but for the new CEO, who has already announced an inventory . But the corresponding decisions can create additional conflicts of interest among members. Moderating them will be Kühne’s job, as well as navigating through jurisdiction and regulation that are increasingly confusing for the address administrator.