Statement of Interest: Tan Tin Wee

[Tan Tin Wee]

March 4, 2007

RE: STATEMENT OF INTEREST OF TAN TIN WEE
(Family Name:TAN; Given Name: TIN WEE)

I am currently an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore.
In March 1998, I started a project team to work on Internationalized Domain
Names (IDN) and produced a working implementation of IDNs using an ASCII
encoding system (UTF5 of Martin Duerst) and a proxy Name Server between
the client and the conventional DNS server to interconvert unicode
characters into ASCII in UTF5 on the server.

To test this IDN system, I initiated an Asia Pacific Testbed in my
capacity as elected Chairman (1997-1999) of Asia Pacific Network Group
(APNG), Asia's oldest Internet organisation. (APNIC for instance was
one of APNG's projects before it spun off as a separate entity
initially in Japan, and now in Brisbane.) This success was demonstrated
to the IFWP which came to Singapore in 1998.

However, there was a total lack of interest by the pre-Icanners.
The objection was that it was technically impossible, which we
proved it was not. The next objection was that there won't be any
interest operationally and commercially. To demonstrate widespread
interest, through National University of Singapore where I was
Head of the Internet Research and Development Unit (IRDU) then,
I co-founded a University spin-off company called i-DNS.net
International Inc, which survives today headed by S Subbiah.
It focused on both the original proxy system and a server end
implementation. As a consequence, many companies started to buy
into this idea.

A taskforce for IDN was set up by Kilnam Chon which eventually became the
Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC) which I was a
founding member, board member and one time acting CEO. MINC
at its peak had more than 40 members from industry and a
wide range of luminaries, including our first MINC Chairman,
Kyong Sang-Hyon, who became ICANN Board member.

Next, many Internet engineers objected to the lack of standards.
Consequently, APNG supported the formation of the Joint Engineering
Taskforce, JET, comprising partners in Japan Korea China and Taiwan.
I tasked my former student James Seng to participate
in the standardisation process as part of his job as CTO of i-DNS.net.
Through the cooperation of many, this eventually led to the IETF
working group which finally produced the IDNA standards in 2003,
that pushed the IDN solution to the Applications end and adopted RACE
and then Punycode as we know of today. To popularise the idea of IDN,
I gave many talks throughout the world from 1998 to date, including
presentations at ICANN, INET/ISOC, APRICOT, etc. Through MINC, we set
up many language and script committees such as Arabic AINC, Cyrillic
group, Urdu, etc and supported  languages groups such as Chinese
Language CDNC and Tamil INFITT, to tap their local expertise to
plan IDN deployment in their languages and scripts.

To deal with policy issues, I was involved in coordinating meetings
with ITU and WIPO from as early as 2002, with our latest meeting in
2006 with ITU and UNESCO. Today, I am involved in ICANN via its
GNSO IDN Working Group, representing MINC and NCUC.

For next generation IPv6 IDN, I received a research grant from
the IDRC of Canada to research the area in 1999/2000. To prevent the
fragmentation of the Internet root, I conducted a survey of IDN TLD
deployments in 2006 and have demonstrated technical solutions for
reconnecting a fragmented internet.

 From the earliest demonstration of the feasibility of IDNs to
date, I have remained patient and steadfast in the vision of
the globalisation of the Internet through breaking down the last
barriers of accessibility due to language. By promoting
a level playing field for all, I hope we can build an interoperable
Internet  for everyone everywhere, accessible in their own language.
It has been most gratifying for me to be vindicated in demonstrating
the possibility of IDN, and for IDN and multilingualism to become a global
movement that it is today, thanks to all of your contributions
and your efforts to keep working at it until interoperable IDNs
become a widespread reality.

As a founder and inventor of IDN, I hope my application to
participate in ICANN activities pertaining to IDN will receive
your positive support. Thank you.

--
bestrgds
Tin Wee
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