Nigel Roberts
Country: | Channel Islands | ||
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Nigel Roberts served as a member of the ICANN Board beginning in late 2018 and was part of ICANN for nearly 23 years upon his decision to step back from all ICANN activities at the end of the AGM in late October 2021.
He is founder and CEO of the Island Networks group of companies,[1] which runs the ccTLD registries of .gg (Bailiwick of Guernsey) and .je (Jersey). He was one of the first elected members of ICANN's Domain Name Supporting Organisation (DNSO) Council, representing the ccTLD constituency. The DNSO is the forerunner of today's GNSO and ccNSO.
Roberts has been involved with ICANN since its earliest days and took part in the U.S. Government's International Forum on the White Paper in 1998.[2]
ICANN Involvement
Roberts was selected by the ccNSO to serve on the ICANN Board of Directors. His term will expire at the AGM 2021.
Committees
- Accountability Mechanisms | Chair
- Risk | Member
- Strategic Planning | Member
- Technical | Member
Career
Roberts began his career at the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Before founding CHANNELISLES.NET in 1996, he worked for a number of companies and international organizations throughout Europe as an independent consultant/contractor, including BT, SWIFT, and the European Environment Agency in Denmark.
Together with another ex-DEC employee, he founded Island Networks in 1996. Island Networks is based on the small island of Alderney in the Bailiwick of Guernsey.
Honors
Roberts is a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society, a Fellow of the Insitute of Directors, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Education
Nigel has a BSc in Computing Science from Essex University and an LLB from the OU/College of Law.
During his time at Essex, he played a minor role in one of the groups of students who created the world's first multi-user computer game. He is a Chartered Engineer.
Fun Facts
He is an occasional radio presenter on QUAY-FM. Roberts has been involved with the Internet for so long that his very first email address, which was given as a "tourist on the ARPAnet," by MIT predated the DNS itself by several years and contained no dots, (NIGEL@MIT-AI).