With the COVID-19 pandemic making face-to-face conferences impossible in the near term, the APNIC Executive Council (EC) and Asia Pacific Network Operators Group (APNOG) Board have decided to pause the regular sub-regional rotation of the APNIC and APRICOT conferences while they go ahead as online events.
The conference location rotation policy is a four-year repeating cycle of sub-regional choices for conferences to be held: South Asia, South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania. It was established in 2014 to ensure fairness and provide better opportunities for members of the Asia Pacific Internet community to attend conferences.
With all events remaining online-only for the foreseeable future, continuing the rotation risked causing unnecessary disappointment in the community as the chosen locations are unable to host conferences. It also created ongoing uncertainty and wasted effort for hosts and organizing teams at APNIC and APNOG.
The agreement to pause the conference rotation was made on 23 December 2020. The next conference location (South East Asia: Manila, Philippines) will become the conference location when the rotation is restarted.
The subsequent locations will remain the same and follow the rotation sequence normally after the restart.
The APNIC EC and APNOG Board will continue to monitor the situation and determine when face-to-face conferences can begin again, following the rotation.
You can read the short agreement if you’d like more information.
In the meantime, APNOG and APNIC look forward to welcoming you online to APRICOT 2021!
The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of APNIC. Please note a Code of Conduct applies to this blog.
Good decesion by the APNIC EC and APNOG Board. Right thing to do in the current situation.