Mr. Mark James Elkins
Nationality: British
Country of Residence: South Africa
Organisation or affiliation: Posix Systems
Position: Chief Executive Officer
Brief Motivation
I was one of the initial supporters (founding member) of the establishment of AFRINIC. Before joining the Board, I introduced the IPv6 /48 policy (Nov 2006). I have also done many presentations at AfriNIC meetings. I have been to almost every AFRINIC meeting (or remotely connected). AFRINIC and its well-being is in my blood.
I joined the Board of AFRINIC for 6 years from June 2009. In those 6 years, I was on occasion part of the ASO-AC/NRO/NC, was the sole representative of AFRINIC at an occasional RIR meeting (saving staff expenses), head of NOMCOM, Vice Chairperson – etc... duty bound.
After a mandatory break, I re-won the Southern African seat but, perhaps unfortunately, resigned after threats of being sued (twice) and the Board seemingly not caring over the situation of Mr Lu Heng. This did though stop certain other connected-to-Heng individuals from gaining that seat. I have been greatly angered by what has happened since and intend to help fix these issues for Africa (hence the non-Geo seat). I do have a continental rather than a regional outlook, please look at my work on the African DNS Study. I also represent Africa on the ICANN DNSSEC & Security workshop planning committee.
I want to see AFRINIC protected from any future abuse.
Professional Background
With regards to Registry Work
Working for the CO.ZA Administration system – which I wrote (fully automated) back in 1995. In 2007, we added both IPv6
connectivity and the ability to add IPv6 Glue to the Zone, ahead of the crowd. UniForum also sponsored the ICANN 2004 meeting in Cape Town and the more recent ICANN Durban meeting. Within the UniForum organisation, we have travelled to and attended multiple ICANN meetings and participated in various events, workshops – sometimes giving presentations on Domain Name Systems. I am currently involved with the DNSSEC day event for ICANN. I also present DNS/DNSSEC training workshops every six month in South Africa.
I became involved with the creation of AFRINIC and spent six years as a Board Member. This has allowed me to gain great incite into the Internet Business around Africa.
I have also been involved with the African ccTLD organisation (AFTLD), usually giving presentations. The same is true for the
African DNS Forum.
I also run my own ISP, am regarded as a LIR (Local Internet Registry) by AFRINIC and as an accredited Registrar by UniForum –
who now trade as the ZACR (South African Central Registry) and now as ZARC (South African Registry Consortium).
For this, I wrote my own EPP System which is completely integrated in to my Virtual Hosting environment (also home-written). I'm not an ICANN accredited registrar, the costs do not yet justify the numbers (80% of my domains are South African).
I have travelled much of Africa and consider many of those who operate both ISP's and ccTLD on the continent as friends. I know that many have taken my council to make the DNS and Internet business in Africa better for Africans. I'm also involved in four of the new gTLD's, the three South African city names and dotAfrica.
I believe I thus have unique qualifications, from both as a Registrant (End user), Registrar and Registry Systems, both from a ccTLD and gTLD prospective.
I was also deeply involved with the 2016 DNS Study for Africa where I wrote the Questionnaire and other relevant data-collecting software. This 2016 work has been repeated for the ongoing 2022 study of the same name. I am also currently (May 2025) involved in the DNSSEC teachings of ISOC Africa.