Our New Year kicks off with some changes at ICANN's Seoul office. Hyun-O Kwon is leaving ICANN to focus on her family. In-Pyo Hwang will replace Hyun-O as the new Head of Korea, effective immediately.
Hyun-O joined us last year during an important time when the community worked hard to shape and finalize the proposals for the IANA Functions' Stewardship Transition. Under Hyun-O's leadership, the Korea team contributed to many engagement initiatives to make ICANN more accessible to the Korean community. They helped raise awareness and understanding of ICANN and its issues through platforms such as the Korea IGF and the inaugural Korea Summer School on Internet Governance, and facilitated community discussions on a variety of topics including the ICG and CCWG proposals. The Korea team's (Hyun-O and Kang-Soo) efforts facilitated the development of the multistakeholder model in Korea and the wider APAC community.
Please join me in thanking Hyun-O for her many contributions to ICANN and the multistakeholder community.
Introducing In-Pyo Hwang
In-Pyo brings more than 13 years of experience working with the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA). While there, he contributed to KISA's Information Technology, Human Resources and domain teams, as well as heading up KISA's Boston office. He has made significant contributions to the development of domain name policy in Korea. Incidentally, In-Pyo is not unfamiliar with ICANN. Two years ago, we worked closely together setting up the new ICANN Seoul office.
I am confident that In-Pyo will be an invaluable asset to the ICANN APAC team and serve as the link between the Korean community and ICANN. I'm sure he can further support the local community's multistakeholder participation in Internet Governance discussions.
I would also like to extend my thanks to our MOU partner KISA for their partnership and collaboration throughout the past two years. I look forward to seeing our relationship grow from strength to strength.
Please join me in extending a warm welcome to In-Pyo and we look forward to having him work closely with you. He can be contacted at inpyo.hwang@icann.org.
