More than two decades ago, network operators from across South Asia came together in Kathmandu with a shared purpose: to exchange knowledge, build technical capacity, strengthen relationships and help develop a better Internet for the region.
In July 2026, the Internet community returned to Kathmandu for SANOG 44. It was a fitting place to mark another milestone, the presentation of the inaugural National – Internet Enablers Awards.
The awards recognised six pioneers from five South Asian economies whose work helped bring the Internet to their countries, expand its reach, and create the technical foundations upon which today’s connectivity has been built.
The inaugural National Internet Enablers were:
Neeraj Sonker – India
Suchit Nanda – India
Sumon Ahmed Sabir – Bangladesh
Jichen Thinley – Bhutan
Tariq Mustafa – Pakistan
Dileep Agarwal – Nepal
They represent different countries, different periods of Internet development and different paths into the industry. But they share something important, each was there when building the Internet required not only technical expertise, but imagination, persistence and a willingness to work without a blueprint.
Before the Internet became invisible
Today, the Internet is woven so deeply into everyday life that it is easy to forget how difficult it was to build.
Before fibre-to-the-home (FTTH), smartphones, cloud services and always-on connectivity, there were dial-up modems, expensive international circuits, unreliable telephone lines, satellite connections, Bulletin Board Systems and networks assembled with whatever technology and resources were available. Behind those systems were people.
Engineers configured the first gateways. Network operators kept early services running. Entrepreneurs took enormous risks to build Internet service providers before there was certainty that a market existed. Others introduced electronic communication to people who had never experienced it, trained the first generation of Internet engineers, worked with regulators and telecommunications operators, or created communities through which technical knowledge could be shared.
Many of them were simply solving the problem in front of them. They were not thinking about awards or how history would remember them. But their work changed their countries.
The Internet Enablers initiative exists to make sure those stories are not lost.
Six pioneers, five countries, countless connections
The inaugural National Awards illustrate how differently the Internet developed across South Asia.
In India, Neeraj Sonker was part of the core engineering and operations effort behind VSNL’s Gateway Internet Access Service (GIAS), launched in August 1995 as India’s first public commercial Internet service. His work helped establish the infrastructure that opened Internet access to the Indian public and was followed by decades of contribution to the country’s IP and telecommunications infrastructure.
Alongside him, Suchit Nanda represents an even earlier chapter of India’s online history. Before commercial Internet services existed, he helped introduce people to electronic communication through pioneering Bulletin Board Systems. He subsequently contributed to the introduction of public Internet access and became one of the early private Internet service providers, helping bridge India’s journey from isolated computers and dial-up communities to the public Internet.
In Pakistan, Tariq Mustafa was among the engineers and advocates active during the formative years of commercial Internet access. His work at Supernet included an innovation that helped make Internet access more affordable: prepaid Internet charged by the hour. He also dedicated considerable effort to explaining Internet technology to new users and practitioners, helping build understanding of a technology that was still unfamiliar to most people.
In Bangladesh, Sumon Ahmed Sabir has contributed to the country’s Internet development for nearly three decades. His work spans early Internet services, the development of BDCOM and the strengthening of the technical and operational ecosystem around Bangladesh’s Internet, including contributions associated with BDIX and bdNOG.
In Bhutan, Jichen Thinley has been part of the country’s telecommunications journey since the period before public Internet services existed. Through his long career with Bhutan Telecom, he contributed to the introduction and operation of Bhutan’s early Internet and GSM networks and to the development of the technical foundations that connected the Himalayan nation to the wider digital world.
And in Nepal, Dileep Agarwal began WorldLink in 1995 with a single computer and modem. From those beginnings, WorldLink grew into Nepal’s largest Internet service provider, extending connectivity from dial-up through wireless, Metro Ethernet and fibre-to-the-home networks, including into areas where geography makes infrastructure deployment particularly challenging.
Their stories are different, but together they tell part of the story of how South Asia became connected.
From regional recognition to national history
The National Internet Enablers Awards build on the Internet Enablers initiative launched with regional recognition at APRICOT 2026.
The idea itself began several years earlier, following conversations within the Internet community after the COVID-19 pandemic. That period had demonstrated, perhaps more clearly than ever before, how fundamental connectivity had become to economies, education, healthcare, work and human connection. It also raised another question:
Do we know who made that connectivity possible?
Internet history is often told through technologies, companies, protocols and major global milestones. Yet much less is recorded about the individuals who translated those technologies into working networks within individual countries.
- The engineer who established an early international connection.
- The person who configured the first public Internet gateway.
- The entrepreneur who risked everything to establish an ISP.
- The network operator who found ways around infrastructure limitations.
- The trainer who taught the country’s first generation of network engineers.
- These contributions form an important part of national history.
- The National Internet Enablers Awards were created to identify and preserve them.
Why Kathmandu mattered
There was particular significance in presenting the inaugural National Awards at SANOG 44.
SANOG itself was born from the idea that South Asia’s network operators needed a place to learn from one another, exchange operational experience and develop the relationships necessary to strengthen the region’s Internet.
Over the years, those gatherings have helped generations of engineers develop their skills and build professional relationships across borders. Returning to Kathmandu therefore connected two generations of Internet development.
In the same place where a regional technical community began building stronger connections between South Asia’s network operators, the community came together to recognise some of the people who helped build the networks themselves. It was not simply an awards ceremony. It was an opportunity for today’s Internet community to say thank you to those who came before.
Preserving the names behind the network
The Internet will continue to change. Artificial intelligence, satellite connectivity, next-generation wireless networks and technologies that have yet to be invented will reshape how people connect and communicate. But every new generation builds upon infrastructure, institutions, knowledge and communities created by the generation before it. That is why preserving Internet history matters.
The purpose of Internet Enablers is not simply to celebrate successful careers. It is to identify the people whose work fundamentally enabled Internet development in their countries and regions, document what they did, and preserve those stories for those who follow.
The inaugural National Internet Enablers Awards in Kathmandu were an important first step. There are many more stories still to find.
Across South Asia, and across the wider Asia Pacific, there are engineers, operators, educators, entrepreneurs and technical leaders whose contributions may be well known within their own communities but largely invisible outside them.
Internet Enablers will continue searching for them — because the history of the Internet should also remember the people who made it possible.