More than 35 digital infrastructure luminaries speaking at IEIC’s second Global NAP Summit in Henry, Virginia this will include DE-CIX Richmond’s official ribbon cutting
HENRY, Va., November 3, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — The Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC), an independent global committee that promotes Internet diversity and resilience through the formation of new global Internet hotspots, today announced that Zaid Khan of Microsoft joined as a Board Member.
IEIC will host its second annual summit in Henry Virginia on November 8thth2022. Dr. Vint Cerf“Father of the Internet will deliver the keynote address followed by five panel discussions, a fireside chat and the ribbon-cutting ceremony of the DE-CIX Richmond Internet Exchange platform, the world’s largest data center and carrier neutral Internet Exchange.
The event will feature 35+ digital infrastructure luminaries from six continents representing all sub-sectors of Digital Infrastructure including—Data Centers, Submarine Cables, Terrestrial Fiber, Internet Exchange, CDN, and SDN. The event will be attended by hundreds of executives from industries such as Automotive, Finance, Academia, Banking, Healthcare and Hospitality.
“IEIC is an independent global committee, and I am glad that it attracts like-minded people who work to keep the Internet open and stable,” said. Vint CerfChairman of the Board of IEIC. “I worked with Zaid previously in establishing the Internet Society Chapter (ISOC) of the San Francisco Bay Area. Zaid is passionate about technology and the Internet, and I am pleased to welcome him to the IEIC board.”
“What I like about the IEIC charter is the focus on hardening the infrastructure and the right group of experts who are currently on the board to guide a wider audience,” said. Zaid Kahn, GM of Cloud AI & Advanced Systems Engineering at Microsoft. “My past experience in Internet infrastructure development will be helpful to the cause of IEIC as well as to many aspects of what I am working on now with advanced technologies at Microsoft. I am concerned that we are moving digital economies so that technology becomes much easier achieve as society grows. over time,” “Attending the upcoming IEIC summit is extra special for me, as I have been on the board of DE-CIX, and witnessing the continued global expansion of their platform, is an honor.”
“There are pioneers like Zaid who have made a difference in the stability and inner workings of the Internet,” said. Vinay NagpalManaging Director and Founding Member of IEIC, and President, InterGlobix, LLC. “We generally take for granted that the Internet just works, but there is constant work being done behind the scenes to keep the Internet working. I welcome Zaid to the IEIC board and look forward to working with him on Internet diversification and the creation of more interconnection hubs worldwide. The next summit will be a great and unique opportunity not only for Henry but for the whole Community of Virginia learn about the economic impacts and benefits to local business of the rapidly evolving digital infrastructure. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this opportunity to meet with the Internet infrastructure luminaries from various parts of the world.”
The comprehensive summit also includes DE-CIX Richmond’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. DE-CIX Richmond is the 5 of the companyth Online Exchange in North America offering low-latency Layer 2 connectivity between Richmond, New York, Dallas, Phoenixand Chicagocreating the largest carrier and data center neutral networking ecosystem in North America. Customers connected to the DE-CIX North American interconnection system can also connect to DE-CIX’s IXs across the Atlantic.
More information about the summit can be found at: https://ieicco.com/summit-2-0/
About the Zaid Kahn
Zaid Kahn is currently the General Manager (GM) of Cloud, AI & Advanced Systems Engineering at Microsoft where he leads a team focusing on advanced architecture and engineering efforts for Microsoft’s AI infrastructure. Zaid is part of the technical leadership team across Microsoft that is establishing an AI hardware strategy for training and inference. Zaid’s team is also responsible for software and hardware engineering efforts developing specialized computing systems, AI and Network Accelerators, and advanced network technologies in the 400/800G space. Prior to Microsoft Zaid was head of infrastructure at LinkedIn, where he was responsible for all aspects of architecture and engineering for Data Centers, Networks, Compute, Storage and Hardware. Zaid also led several software teams focusing on building and managing infrastructure as code. This included zero-touch provisioning, software-defined networking, network operating systems (SONiC), self-healing networks, spin controller, software-defined storage, and distributed host-based firewalls. The network teams led by Zaid built the global network for LinkedIn including POP, peering for edge services, IPv6 implementation, DWDM infrastructure and data center network fabric. The hardware and data center engineering teams led by Zaid were responsible for water cooling to the racks, fiber optic infrastructure, and open hardware development that contributed to Open Compute Foundation (OCP). Zaid holds several patents in networking and is a sought-after keynote speaker at high-level conferences and events. Zaid has a degree in Computer Science and Physics from the University of the South pacific
About the Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee
The IEIC is an independent committee that promotes Internet diversity by forming new global Internet connection points. IEIC’s mission is to partner with communities worldwide to create new online hotspots through public and private partnerships with local municipalities, academia and businesses. IEIC’s Founding Members are industry luminaries from many of the world’s most respected companies and leaders including: Vint Cerf/ Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), Clint Hayden/IEIC, Vinay Nagpal/InterGlobix, Steve Alexander/Ciena (NYSE: CIEN), Rafael Arranz/ Telxius, Jason Black/NVIDIA (NWSE: NVDA), Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Mark Boxer/Cigna (NYSE: CI), Barbara Boyan/Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), Andrew Dugan/CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), Staffan Göjeryd/Telia Carrier (VSE: TEL1L), Brent Bensten/ QTS , Asher Kagan/Blade, Vinay Kanitkar/Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), Sarah Keller/Uber (NYSE: UBER), Athanasios (Sakis) Kitsopanidis /Ford (NYSE: F) Michael Leidinger/Hilton (NYSE: HLT ), Steve Alexander / Ciena (NYSE: CIEN ), Krishna Narayanaswamy / Netskope, Frank Nazzaro/FreddieMac, Antonio Romanello/Henrico Economic Development Authority, and Zaid Khan/ Microsoft. For more information visit: www.ieicco.com
IEIC Media Contact:
Carter B. Cromley
(703) 861-7245 | [email protected]
SOURCE Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC)
