Programme Committee Elections

Kate Gerry

Statement of interest:

I am interested in serving on the RIPE Programme Committee because I care about helping build meetings with a strong mix of practical technical content, operational experience, and diverse perspectives from across the community.

I would be happy to help the RIPE community continue building a programme that is technically useful, broadly relevant, and well grounded without being overtly commercial.

Biography:

I am Director of Interconnection at NetActuate, where my work includes Anycast BGP optimization, IXP, transit, and colocation vendor management, along with broader interconnection strategy and operations.

I have been an active contributor to the NANOG and Global Peering Forum Program Committees. I have served on the NANOG Program Committee since 2023, helping review and shape three meetings per year, each with roughly 28 hours of content. I also served on the Global Peering Forum Program Committee for the 2025 and 2026 meetings.

Maynard Koch

Biography

My name is Maynard, and I would like to nominate myself for one of the available seats in the Program Committee.

I am a third-year PhD student and research associate at the Chair of Distributed and Networked Systems at TU Dresden.

My research focuses on Internet measurements to improve network security.

I'm particularly interested in DNS, scalable IPv6 scanning approaches, and threat intelligence.

I feel very welcome in the RIPE community and would be more than happy to contribute to the community as a PC.

My previous experiences in this area include serving as a TPC member in the shadow TPC program for IMC 2025, as well as my current role on the artifact evaluation committee for USENIX Security 2026.

It would be an honor for me to bring in my expertise from past PC and research experiences and actively engage in the RIPE community.

Massimiliano Stucchi

Statement of interest:

I would like to have the opportunity to continue the work done in the last 4 years, three of which as PC Chair, to improve the relationship between submitters and the PC, which ultimately helps increase the level of presentations at the meeting.

Biography:

Massimiliano (Max) Stucchi grew up in Italy.  In his past he funded an ISP, and worked at the RIPE NCC and Internet Society.  He recently joined Team Cymru as data acquisition specialist, contributes to run the Euro-IX secretariat, and provides trainings and consulting through his own company.

Max runs AS58280 for fun, and is involved in a number of programme committees.  He also helps run a couple of small community IXPs, and has a lot of fun racing remote controlled cars and painting miniatures in his spare time.

He is based in Zurich, Switzerland, where he is trying to learn (swiss-)German.

Paulius Judickas

Statement of Interest:
I've been on the programme committees of UKNOF and NetUK over the past few years. That experience - evaluating proposals, figuring out what topics actually matter to operators, finding the sessions that generate real conversation rather than just applause - is what eventually gave me the confidence to help build and chair BalticNOG. You learn quickly that the talks people remember are rarely the ones that looked best on paper.

I want to bring that experience to the RIPE PC.

My day job gives me visibility across RIR regions that most RIPE community members don't need - I'm constantly following what's happening in APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and AFRINIC because it directly affects the work I do. That means I see topics and conversations that are important to the broader operator world but don't always make it into the RIPE programme. I think that perspective is useful on a programme committee.

I'm relatively new to the RIPE community, but I've fallen in love with it quickly. Getting to host a RIPE meeting in Lithuania next year is something I'm genuinely excited about - it feels like a privilege, not just a milestone. I want to go deeper, contribute more, and the PC feels like the right way to do that.

Biography:
Paulius Judickas is VP of Strategic Alliances at IPXO, where he works on IP address management, monetisation strategies, and enterprise relations. He chairs BalticNOG, serves as President of the Baltic IPv6 Council, and is currently a programme committee member at NetUK, previously serving at its predecessor, UKNOF. He has a background in both law and computer science, which turns out to be a surprisingly useful combination in this industry. He is based in Kaunas, Lithuania, when he is not on a plane.

Dejan Đukić

Statement of Interest

I am standing for the Programme Committee to bring a policy, legal, and South-East European perspective to the RIPE meeting programme. The RIPE community is strongest when it reflects the full diversity of the internet ecosystem, not only network operators and engineers, but also those who work on the governance, legal, and policy dimensions of the internet infrastructure we all share.

Having previously served on the ICANN ccNSO Programme Committee, I understand what it takes to build a balanced, high-quality conference programme for an international audience. I would bring that experience to RIPE, with a particular focus on topics relevant for the RIPE audience.

Biography

Dejan Đukić is the CEO of RNIDS, the Registry of National Internet Domain Names of Serbia, where he oversees the technical and legal administration of the .rs and .срб country-code top-level domains. He holds a PhD in Law from Union University in Belgrade and has spent over a decade working at the field of internet infrastructure, policy, and law.

At RNIDS, he was involved in the development of the registry’s Alternative Dispute Resolution procedures for domain name disputes - one of the few ADR frameworks in the region built on the registry’s own ruleset. He is also a member of the Strategic and Operational Plan Committee (SOPC) at ICANN, and previously served on the Programme Committee of the ICANN ccNSO, giving him direct and relevant experience of shaping conference content.

Dejan has been engaged with the RIPE community since RIPE 85 in Belgrade, where RNIDS served as the host organisation. He is a regular speaker at international conferences on domain names, cyber security, trademarks, and IP in the digital environment, and has published articles on internet dispute resolutions, data protection, and the right of access to the internet as a human right.

I look forward to the community’s consideration of my candidacy.

Tobias Fiebig

Statement of Interest:
Over the past years I had several opportunities to speak at RIPE
meetings, and always enjoyed the experience. With my broad experience
covering academic and technical topics, I would love to give back to
the community by helping find interesting talks and topics that can
contribute to a great RIPE program for all participants, while also
encouraging better exchange between operators and the academic
community.

Biography:
Tobias is a network and security researcher, and since March 2026
leading the 'Internet Infrastructures' research unit at TU Wien. He is
heavily invested in IPv6, DNS related measurements and Internet
governance. In addition, his work covers various security topics.
Beyond research, he likes to operate systems and networks, and actively
contributes to documents in the IETF on DNS and routing security.

Photo credit: Amélie Chapalain / TU Wien Informatics