Page History

Ben worked in electronic and software design of satellite paging systems and systems support of Voice over IP networks before joining Econet group in 2002. Initially as an engineer setting up and running networks at Econet Satellite Services, before moving on to become Chief Technical Officer at Liquid Telecom. Ben has been responsible for network and product strategy with Liquid Telecom as they have built an extensive African fibre network.

Portia Rabonda is the Africa Lead at Flexoptix GmbH, through which she engages with IXPs and network operators on a global basis.

Introduced to the community through working with SAFNOG, Portia has a strong love for community and sharing and hopes to contribute to the positive growth of INX-ZA through active work.

Before joining the bright (orange) side, Flexoptix GmbH, Portia was a Customer Relationship Manager at the South African State Information Technology Agency (SITA).

Ranveer is a Director at Rogers Capital Technology Services (RCTS).  He is a a seasoned senior network professional with more than ten years’ international exposure in core network build outs and management at operator level, is very much eager to contribute and share his vision for architecting a better and more democratic internet for Africa and for all.  

Participated actively in crafting the internet policy in Mauritius in 2013 together with the authority and other incumbents, he also contributed to revitalising peering at the Mauritius Internet Exchange point. RCTS also became the first Mauritian operator to be present in South Africca, since 2012, with peering to Napafrica and JINX and a member of the ISPA through his leadership.

Ranveer is the current chair of the Mauritian Internet Exchange Point management committee, and, has previously served on the INX Management committee for the 2017/18 period.

Riaan has being actively involved with operations of INX-ZA environment from 2009 and has contributed to its excellent track record of unplanned outages.   Riaan is currently a member of the INX-ZA technical committee and has been a key contributor to the multisite expansion.  Riaan has been a part of the INX-ZA committee from 2016.

Riaan’s biography follows:
Riaan has more than 14 years' experience working in the industry with extensive experience on Service Provider Backbone networks. Riaan is currently forming part of the team responsible for the network design of Metrofibre Networx (core, aggregation and access).  Before that Riaan has been at Internet Solutions at various senior technical positions, with the last being the lead engineer of the team responsible for the last mile access network (consisting of more than 300 access sites).

Riaan has being exposed to the numerous technologies including but not limited to the following:
* MP-BGP,MPLS, VPLS, IPv6 (including 6PE and 6VPE), SR and EVPN.

Riaan is a supporter of automation and has a vested interest in the current trend of network programmability to minimise human errors. SR and EVPN are two technologies he follows very closely.