A native of Togo, Adiel Akplogan helped establish his country’s first TCP/IP connection in the mid 1990s and went on to help start AFRINC, the first regional Internet registry on the African continent. He eventually became its chief operating officer, a role he held until 2015.
In a recent interview, Akplogan said that while he hopes that the Internet continues to develop in a manner that allows for creativity among users, he acknoledges the need for public policies that help facilitate user security.
“How do we make sure we close as much as possible the gap between the development of the technology and the policy making? They need to coalesce at some point to allow the technology to develop, but also to allow people to be confident that this technology…can help solve a lot of problems we have.”