Ram Mohan

Ram Mohan is Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Afilias Limited. He is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Mohan oversees key strategies, management and technology in support of Afilias’ various lines of business: top-level domains such as .INFO, .MOBI, .移动 (“Chinese Mobile”), and .SHIKSHA (“Indian Education”); country code domains such as .IN (India) and.ME (Montenegro); and supported domains such as .ORG, .NGO, .ASIA and .在线 (“Chinese Online”). Mohan leads the company’s growth and innovation in its Internet infrastructure and service business, and new product development including Verification and Directory services, Managed DNS and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

Before joining Afilias in September 2001, Mohan held various leadership positions at Infonautics Corp., a pioneering and leading online database and content distribution company. His work included the award-winning CompanySleuth product, the Electric Library product line (now used in schools and libraries worldwide) and Encyclopedia.com, the internet’s first free encyclopedia. Prior to Infonautics, Mohan worked at First Data Corporation, Unisys Corporation and KPMG Peat Marwick in a variety of leadership, engineering and technology positions. Mohan is also the co-founder of the technology behind TurnTide, an anti-spam company acquired by Symantec.

Mohan is an active contributor in the ICANN community. He has served as a non-voting Board member since November 2008, elected by the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). The SSAC is an advisory committee comprised of preeminent Internet pioneers, security and technical experts. Mohan serves as the Co-Chair of the ICANN Board Risk Committee and the Chair of the ICANN Board IDN Variants WG. He is a co-author of the Redemption Grace Period (RGP) and the IDN implementation guidelines, now global industry standards. He co-founded (along with the UN and the Public Interest Registry) the Arabic Script IDN Working Group and led the initiative to cryptographically sign over 14 top level domains with DNSSEC in 2009 and 2010, the single largest TLD security initiative of its time.

Mohan’s educational background reflects his belief that technology is best used for business advantage and market leadership. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Manipal Institute of Technology (University of Mangalore), and an MBA in Entrepreneurial Management from Bharathidasan University. While completing his second Master’s degree in Computer Science at Drexel University, Mohan decided to drop out to take Infonautics public. A prolific inventor, he is the author of several patents.

Mohan is the recipient of industry honors including IDG’s CIO 100 Award, InfoWorld’s CTO 25 Award, and the Philadelphia Business Journal’s 40 under 40 Award. He is the President and founder of the Internet Society’s Philadelphia Area Chapter and serves on the advisory boards of several start-up companies as well as the Lifeboat Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of Ram Mohan and do not necessarily represent those of IDG Communications, Inc., its parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies.