Alain Aina
Network Engineer and Trainer
Network engineer, M. Aina is very active in technical networking activities in AFRICA. He worked in a team to launch the first full IP services in the Togolese Republic in 1996 and helped many entities to do so in West Africa and on the continent in general.
He works for NSRC on various projects, supporting networking activities and training as part-time work. M. Aina has a long-standing relationship which is rooted back to 1996, with the establishment of the 1st full IP services in the Togolese Republic and one of the 1st commercial ISPs in Liberia in 1997.
As an NSRC collaborator, he has been involved in many capacity building projects, direct engineering assistance to ISPs, ccTLDs, NOGs, Universities, and Research and Education Networks (RENs).
From February 2016 to May 2021, he worked respectively as Senior Network Engineer and as Chief Technology Officer at the West and Central Africa Research and Education Network (WACREN), where he led the rollout of the first regional research and education network for west and central Africa.
In 2019, he founded the Limited Liability Corporation Digital Intelligence Services, which merged with Technologies Réseaux et Solutions in 2021.
He founded, in 1999, a private company (Technologies Reseaux et Solutions) which provides network and training services to boost Networking and Internet services deployment on the continent. From November 2006, he has worked as Special Project Manager at AFRINIC, a half-time activity, which includes various projects (DNSSEC, RPKI, root server Anycast, etc.), training, and IETF activities for the RIR. He served from June 2008 to December 2008 as acting CTO of AFRINIC and as Acting CEO of AFRINIC from March 2011 to August 2011. He served as director of research and innovation until September 2015.
He served as a member of the ICANN Stability and Security Advisory committee (SSAC) (2002-2015) and on the Internet Society Board of Trustees(2011-2014).
As a Trusted Community Representative for IANA, he served as Crypto Officer for the DNS root signing from 2010 to 2022.
M.Aina is a founding member of AfNOG and has worked as an instructor. M. Aina now serves as co-convener for AfNOG events.
Since 2008, M. Aina has been a Spokesman for the African Secret Working Group.
M. Aina is a recipient of the 2012 AfNOG NII Service Award, as well as the 2019 Jonathan B. Postel Service Award.