Aleksi Suhonen first got on the Internet in 1987. He started working with ISPs and IXPs in 1997 and founded TREX in 2002.

Aleksi started his university studies on Computer Engineering and Software Engineering at the Tampere University of Technology in 1994, but he got swept up by work the next year. He worked on network maintenance and security at the University and later at Nokia Mobile Phones. By 1997 he had moved to SciFi Communications International, which later became better known as Saunalahti and Jippii. While there he spearheaded the international network expansion of AS6667, including connecting it to half a dozen IXPs in Europe and the United States.

Alexander Krizhanovsky is the CEO of Tempesta Technologies and the architect of Tempesta’s open-source full-stack DDoS protection and bot management platform, including Tempesta xFW for high-performance L3/L4 DDoS mitigation, Tempesta FW for L7 DDoS protection and web security, and WebShield for advanced bot management.

Alexander has designed and led the development of high-performance network traffic processing systems, including a Web Application Firewall mentioned in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, as well as highly scalable S3 and NFS servers with a focus on network I/O, multicore scalability, and efficient data processing.

He has given talks at CppCon, Netdev, SCALE, Linux Conf Australia, All Things Open, FOSDEM, SeaGL, Percona Live, IBM CASCON, and many other conferences. Alexander is also the author of a high-performance lock-free MPMC ring buffer queue published by Linux Journal.

Alfredo Giordano is founder and CEO of Warian, an European managed infrastructure provider working across networks, cloud and AI. An engineer by training, he has more than twenty years of international experience in network design, operations and the development of Internet service providers. He is Vice President of OpenAccess Italia and a board member of NaMeX. His current work focuses on carrier-grade infrastructure, interconnection, digital sovereignty and the practical adoption of AI by network operators. Active in the European networking community, he contributes to industry discussions on resilience, regulation and the evolution of operators beyond connectivity. In 2026, he was awarded with the America's Innovation prize from the Italy-USA cooperation Foundation.

Alissa is an Enterprise Sales Manager at Tele2 Eesti, managing telecom projects and connectivity solutions including Mobile and Internet Communication, IP transit, Ethernet, and other transport services. She focuses on identifying new business opportunities and bridging commercial strategy with technical network Delivery.

Andreas “Andy” Bechtolsheim is Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Arista Networks. He is responsible for advanced AI, silicon and optics initiatives. Previously Andy was a Co-Founder and Chief System Architect at Sun Microsystems, responsible for next generation server, storage, and network architectures. He has been a founding member of the Open Compute Project (OCP) Board of Directors since 2011.

Andy received a M.S. in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1976 and was a doctoral student in Computer Engineering at Stanford University from 1977 to 1982. He has been honored with a Fulbright scholarship, the Stanford Entrepreneur Company of the year award, the Smithsonian Leadership Award for Innovation, the EY 2015 US Entrepreneur of the Year Award (together with Jayshree Ullal) and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Andreas Glatz has been working in optical networking since 2022. He started out in pre-sales engineering for DWDM transport systems, spending around two years working with customers on optical transport designs and solution scoping. He then moved into transceiver support and has been a Technical Support Specialist for about a year, today at FLEXOPTIX in Darmstadt. His work covers customer support for transceivers and fiber optics, compatibility testing of optical modules against different network devices, and technical documentation.

Technical Product Manager at RETN in Riga, joined RETN 4 years ago as network engineer, shifted to Product manager role a year ago. Previously worked for various Latvian ISPs and hosting providers as network administrator for 15 years.

Andrian Visnevschi is the founder, CEO and CTO of ITcare, a managed NOC and network engineering company working with ISPs, data center operators and hosting providers across North America and Europe. He holds JNCIE-SP #2975 and has spent more than 15 years in service provider networking, starting in hands-on routing and switching operations and moving through architecture and integration work on IP/MPLS backbones, EVPN-VXLAN fabrics, multicast VPN deployments and network automation.

For the past few years his team has been building and running an AI NetOps assistant inside ITcare's own NOC, which is the subject of this talk. He is a co-founder of MDNOG, the Moldova Network Operators Group.

Ben Cartwright-Cox is a Systems Engineer in the day and bad-ideas-blogger on the side.

After building a WAF, helping operate a large CDN, and rejigging a Bank’s payment gateways, Ben is currently focused on making day-to-day BGP operations less awful with bgp.tools.

Systems Engineer with hands-on experience in designing and deploying scalable, secure SD-WAN solutions. Skilled in network security and infrastructure optimization, with a strong focus on delivering reliable and efficient architectures. Passionate about using technology to improve everyday life and drive practical innovation.

Branimir Rajtar is the CTO and co-founder of 5×9 Networks, where he focuses on the design and development of software-based broadband networking platforms. He has worked on virtualized BNG solutions and network automation for more than a decade, with a particular interest in high-performance packet processing and scalable network architectures. Branimir is also active in the network operator community as the chair of NOG.HR, the Croatian Network Operator Group, helping organize technical events and knowledge sharing among network engineers.

Network Engineer, founder of Vegvisir Systems (vegvisir.ie), developer of a multi-vendor SR-TE controller Traffic Dictator

Fredrik Korsbäck is an Principal Network Strategy Manager currently working for Meta, overseeing all of Metas network infrastructure in EMEA. Fredrik has been involved in the industry for over 20 years and have always been working with focus large networks and long-term network strategy.

Fredriks main interests and responsibilities are Internet edge, Peering, BGP, Edge-deployments, Interconnet deployments and how the all of these ecosystems works together to form what we today call "The Internet".

Previously Fredrik held leadership positions at Amazon Web Services, NORDUnet and Tele2

Ieva is Strategy and Policy Officer at NORDUnet and a member of the Polar Connect Executive Team, contributing to one of Europe’s most ambitious digital connectivity initiatives. She plays a key leadership role in advancing Polar Connect’s mission. Ieva oversees cross-disciplinary project activities, working with experts on Arctic navigation, fibre-sensing technologies, and engagement with Arctic research communities. Her career in research and education networks spans more than 15 years, beginning at Lithuania’s NREN LITNET and later progressing into international coordination roles within GÉANT projects, including the Baltic Sea Regional Study and the EaPConnect project. This year Ieva joined the GÉANT Network Infrastructure Advisory Committee as a chair, together with other members advising on the development of the GÉANT pan-European backbone network. Since joining NORDUnet in 2022, Ieva has been contributing to NORDUnet’s strategic mission with the Polar Connect initiative at the forefront of her work.

Kaj Kjellgren is a Senior Peering Consultant at DE-CIX, focusing on global peering and interconnection, particularly in the Nordic market.
He has more than 25 years of experience in Internet infrastructure, network architecture and interconnection. Before joining DE-CIX, Kaj spent more than two decades at Netnod, most recently as Technical Ambassador, and previously served as Technical Director for Sweden and Denmark at KPNQwest.
Kaj is a frequent speaker, moderator and panellist within the international peering community. His work focuses on how interconnection, network architecture and resilience must evolve to support new technologies and changing traffic patterns.

Kamil Szczepański leads international wholesale business at Orange Polska S.A. A growth-driven telecom leader with two decades of experience, he combines commercial, operational, and technical expertise across wholesale connectivity, infrastructure, interconnection, and digital services. He actively engages in industry forums focused on automation, APIs, peering, IXPs, network evolution, and fostering collaboration across the global telecom ecosystem.

Kārlis Svilans joined the CERT.LV team in 2020. An Australia born Latvian, he is a senior expert at the incident response team and the cyber threat intelligence lead. He has extensive experience in analyzing cyber incidents of various scales, participating in threat hunting operations, and proactive work on the prevention of potential cyber incidents. Involved in international events – he has spoken at several conferences and represented CERT.LV at the NATO CCDCoE-organized “Crossed Swords 2022,” as well as at NATO’s largest cyber defense exercise “Locked Shields 2024,” among others.

Kirils Solovjovs is a privacy activist and Latvia's leading white-hat hacker. He began programming at age 7, and by grade 9 was already writing machine code directly in a hex editor during lunch breaks. His hobby is asking "what are you gonna do with that piece of information about me?" everywhere every time.
He is the author of the jailbreak tool for MikroTik RouterOS and played a pivotal role in developing e-Saeima, the world's first fully remote legislative system used by the Latvian Parliament. Today, Kirils serves as lead researcher at Possible Security.

Peering manager at Telia Company.
Long-time expert on peering and interconnection.
Advocate for BGP routing security.

Livio is an electronic and computer engineer with nearly two decades of experience in the telecommunications sector. Since 2010, he has led Airbeam, a regional Italian operator with a strong international engagement. He serves as President of PeeringDB and sits on the board of AIIP (the Italian Association of Internet Providers), where he actively contributes to regulatory work at both the Italian and European levels, representing the interests of independent network operators in their dialogue with public authorities.

He is also active in the public and political sphere as National Head of the Department for Technological Innovation, Networks, and Artificial Intelligence within the Italian civic movement Rivoluzione della Bellezza, where he promotes digital and infrastructure-related policies through cross-sector collaboration.

Livio works closely with ISPs, IXPs, and community-driven infrastructure initiatives, combining network engineering with experience in Internet governance and regulation. He is a regular speaker at industry events such as Peering Forums and regional NOGs, where he focuses on optical systems, Internet interconnection, network-level regulatory compliance, Internet blocking and its enforcement mechanisms, and the evolving landscape of WISPs and the Italian telecommunications sector.

Marco Schmidt is the Manager of Registration Services at the RIPE NCC. He is responsible for overseeing the registration and maintenance of Internet number resources in the RIPE NCC's service region. He also manages the implementation of accepted policies in RIPE NCC procedures and operations.

Marco first joined the RIPE NCC as an IP Resource Analyst (IPRA) in the Registry Services department, where he worked for five years. In that role, he gained valuable experience in evaluating IPv4, IPv6 and Autonomous System Number requests while providing support to the RIPE NCC membership. Later, he became the RIPE NCC's Policy Development Officer. In this position, he supported and drove the RIPE community's Policy Development Processes (PDP) both externally and internally.

Mark Coleman is co-founder and Chief Product Officer of NetBox Labs, the company behind NetBox, the widely used open-source network source of truth. He works across product strategy and technical architecture, focused on how operators model their networks and turn that model into reliable, automated change. He has spoken on various automation topics across the world.

Mikael is an experienced networking professional working for Extreme Networks as one of the few Distinguished Engineers. He is also a member of the office of the CTO at Extreme Networks. Mikael is an SME with expert level of knowledge in networking architectures and technologies including AI and cloud. He has been working in the networking industry for over 30 years with international experience across the globe and he is a member of various industry committees.

Director of Software Engineering, ITcare

Nicolai Moraru bridges the gap between advanced software architecture and network infrastructure. As Director of Software Engineering at ITcare, he leads the development of HORA, an AI-powered network troubleshooting system that integrates BGP monitoring, flow collectors, and log aggregators.

Paulius Judickas is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at IPXO and Chairman of the Board at BalticNOG. He leads global growth initiatives and oversees strategic partnerships for IPXO’s innovative IP address solutions. With deep expertise in market development and relationship management, he plays a key role in expanding the company’s reach and strengthening its network of alliances. Paulius is particularly focused on promoting responsible IP resource management and contributing to Internet governance discussions at both regional and global levels.

Sander has been involved in the Internet since 1995, when he helped a friend start a small ISP. He was a founding board member of the Netherlands IPv6 Foundation, NLNOG and the Global NOG Alliance.

Sander has been an involved member of the RIPE community since RIPE 49 in Manchester (2004). Sander was one of the RIPE Address Policy Working Group Co-chairs from RIPE 54 in Tallinn (2007) to RIPE 76 in Marseille (2018). He was also part of the RIPE NCC Arbiters Panel.

Sander's background is in Computer Science with a Master’s Degree from the University of Twente. He focussed on communication related topics such as Protocol Design, Implementation and Validation, as well as some Graph Theory.

Since 2010, Sander has been an independent consultant with a focus on advising enterprises and service providers on network architecture and the deployment of IPv6. He has done everything from short training sessions to management training on the importance of IPv6, to designing and implementing a network automation workflow for an ISP.

In the summer of 2025, Sander started working part-time for Hilco as part of the ProVision team that provides DDI software, anycast DNS and professional services for network management.

Scott Fisher is a Senior Principal Engineer at Team Cymru, where he focuses on threat intelligence, DDoS activity, botnets, and abuse of Internet infrastructure. His work looks at how attackers use compromised devices, residential networks, and proxy infrastructure to launch or support attacks. He is especially interested in the practical, operational details of how these attacks behave on real networks and what defenders can learn from that activity.

Steve Crocker is CEO and President of Edgemoor Research Institute (ERI). ERI facilitates the development and analyses of proposed and existing policies regarding the collection and access to registration data, including personally identifiable information. ERI serves the public interest by creating and promulgating concepts and urgently needed tools that provide precise specifications of data collection, labeling, and access. ERI’s flagship Project Jake is a practical framework for Internet Domain Name registration data disclosure.

Steve Crocker is an Internet pioneer and computer scientist with experience in academia, government, and industry. He earned his B.A. in mathematics and Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA. He managed research at DARPA in the early 1970s, founded the computer science research laboratory at The Aerospace Corporation in 1981, and co-founded CyberCash, Inc. He is an ACM Fellow, and his honors include the 2002 IEEE Internet Award, an honorary doctorate from the University of San Martín des Porres in Lima, Perú, the 2018 Strowger Award, J. Warren McClure School, Ohio University, founding membership in the Internet Hall of Fame Pioneers, and both the Jonathan B. Postel Award and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Internet Society.
Dr. Crocker has been involved in the Internet since its inception. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, while he was a graduate student at UCLA, he was part of the team that developed the protocols for the ARPANET and laid the foundation for today’s Internet. He organized the Network Working Group, which was the forerunner of the modern Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and initiated the Request for Comment (RFC) series of notes through which protocol designs are documented and shared.

Steve Crocker held leadership positions in ICANN starting 2002, first as founding chair of ICANN’s Security and Stability Committee (SSAC). He served on the ICANN Board from 2003 to 2017, first as a liaison from SSAC and then nine years as a director. For the last six-and-a-half of those years, he chaired the board, overseeing the recruiting of two CEOs and the transition in 2016 to independence from the NTIA agreement.

Theo Voss has been active in the Internet Community for over 10 years, co-founding “Community-IX”, a non-profit supporting Internet initiatives, and presenting at several industry conferences. As the CEO and Co-Founder of Inter.link, he focus on providing sustainable and innovative connectivity, pushing our community towards unchartered waters. He’d like to keep contributing to BalticNOG by supporting its events and programs with his experience and dedication to the community.

Thomas Graf, Distinguished Network Engineer and Network Analytics Architect at Swisscom. Stuck with service providers since 1997. Rediscovered networks in 2015 with Network Analytics. The backseat driver of the Swisscom Daisy team with network, software and data engineering enthusiasts recently expressed themselves to feel like belonging to a startup. Authoring next generation data collection protocols in NMOP, GROW, OPSAWG and NETCONF working groups at IETF. Chairing IPPM (IP Performance measurement) working group and IP Performance Directorate at IETF.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/person/[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/networkanalytics-thomasgraf/

Thomas Holterbach is a computer networks researcher who is currently building bgproutes.io, a platform for collecting, monitoring, and analysing BGP routing data. He received his PhD from ETH Zurich in 2021 and subsequently worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Strasbourg and Georgia Tech. His research focuses on Internet routing, BGP monitoring, network measurement, and routing security. In 2024, he received the ACM SIGCOMM Best Paper Award. He was also a 2023 MANRS Ambassador.

Vincentas Grinius is the Co-founder of IPXO and President of BalticNOG. With more than 15 years of experience in internet infrastructure, he has built a reputation as a leader in IP address management, network operations, and digital sustainability. Previously the CEO of Heficed, Vincentas now focuses on scaling IPXO’s platform and driving innovation in IP monetization and compliance. As President of BalticNOG, he is dedicated to strengthening the internet community in the Baltic region through collaboration, knowledge sharing, and industry best practices.

Yolandi Cloete is the Interconnection Community and Academy Manager at DE-CIX, a leading global Internet Exchange operator. Drawing on over a decade of experience in Africa’s peering ecosystem, she leads international initiatives that expand access to interconnection and peering knowledge, encourage collaboration, and support community growth worldwide. A committed connector and educator, Yolandi actively contributes to industry forums and works to strengthen the foundations of a more connected digital future.

Zachary Smith is the CEO of Datum, where he focuses on building the open, interconnected infrastructure powering the next generation of cloud and AI platforms. A veteran of the internet infrastructure industry, Zachary has spent over two decades building Internet infrastructure and the software that powers it. Prior to leading Datum, he co-founded Packet (acquired by Equinix) and was an early leader of Linux hosting innovator, Voxel dot Net.

Zachary serves on the Board of Directors of Nexcess, Wasabi Technologies, 1NCE and the Danish 1st Division soccer club, Akademisk Boldklub.