This year's Asia Pacific Internet Week will see two other highly relevant, Internet-related conferences and exhibitions happening alongside APRICOT. The first is Internet World Asia @ Singapore to be held 3rd to 5th March 1999. The Internet World Asia @ Singapore is organised by Reed Exhibitions Pte Ltd and Penton Media, Inc. The second is the Singapore Linux Conference 1999 to be held from 5th to 7th March 1999. All three conferences are co-located at the Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Center, popularly known as Suntec City. The co-location will provide a golden opportunity to meet and interact with people representing all aspects of designing, building, operating, and running the Internet of today and tomorrow. Internet World Asia @ Singapore comprises two forums targeting at two interest groups.

The Enterprise Internet is an information-packed forum that will discuss key e-commerce issues about applications that will drive companies into becoming the enterprises of the future. Internet business applications are rapidly moving beyond electronic brochures to high-powered intranets and extranets. These forums are targeted at Senior Management. The "Web Marketing and Advertising Forum" addresses how the Internet opens up new opportunities for sellers of products & services, consumer goods, information. Marketing professionals are strongly encouraged to attend.

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, is widely regarded as the front-runner to succeed the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Their meeting in Singapore during APRICOT exemplifies the key role APRICOT plays in the growth and deployment of the Internet in this region. ICANN's meetings are open to the public and are aimed at widest possible participation by and input from Asia Pacific representatives. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, is headed by its Interim Chairman, Ms Esther Dyson who is also the Chairman of Edventure Holdings, a small, diversified company focused on emerging information technology worldwide. She is also a member of the US President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption and sits on the boards of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Scala Business Solutions, Poland Online, Cygnus Solution, E-Pub Services, Trustworks (Amsterdam), IBS (Moscow), iCat, New World Publishing and the Global Business Network.

The Singapore Linux Conference 1999 is being held at the tail end of APRICOT. It probably comes as no surprise that Linux and similar Open Source (TM) products are been used to build and drive the Internet. SLC 99 will provide a forum to network with people who are not necessarily running Internet operations, but are nonetheless major contributors and luminaries in the Linux and Open Source worlds. Key personalities speaking at SLC 99 include Eric S. Raymond of the Open Source Initiative, Richard M. Stallman of the GNU Free Software Foundation and Donald Becker of NASA's Beowulf supercomputing project. There will also be a Linux Family Day that will highlight a chess grandmaster competing against a Linux Beowulf- based chess program, CRAFTY. APRICOT is soliciting sponsorships. There are three categories Platinum, Gold and Silver. All of these sponsorships include an option to operate a display booth at the Internet World exhibition under the APRICOT Pavilion. The APRICOT Pavilion will be prominently located at the entrance to the Internet World Exhibition. Internet World Asia @ Singapore expects at least 15,000 attendees for the three days. In addition, all sponsors will have access to a special VIP area to hold business meetings. Included also will be the use of new interactive, web-based scheduling service provided by EasyDiary. A 30% discount off the list price would also be granted to APRICOT sponsors and participants who would want to attend the Internet World Conference and the Singapore Linux Conference.

We are also pleased to invite Mr David J. Farber, the most distinguished Internet luminary to grace this year's APRICOT. David is often regarded as the 'grandfather' of the Internet, and recently testified at the United States Government versus Microsoft trial.

David J. Farber is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication Systems at the University of Pennsylvania, holding appointments in the both the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. He was responsible for the design of the Distributed Computer System (DCS), one of the first operational message-based fully distributed systems and is also one of the authors of the SNOBOL programming language. He was one of the principals in the creation and implementation of CSNet, NSFNet, and NREN. He was instrumental in the creation of the NSF/DARPA-funded Gigabit Network Testbed Initiative and served as the Chairman of the Gigabit Testbed Coordinating Committee. His background includes positions at the Bell Labs, the Rand Corp, Xerox Data Systems, UC Irvine and the University of Delaware. He is a member of the US Presidential Advisory Committee of Information Technology. In addition, he is a Fellow of the IEEE and serves on the Board of Directors of both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Internet Society. He has just completed ten years of service to US National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB). He is is a Fellow of the Japan Glocom Institute and of the Cyberlaw Institute.

Some of the other speakers scheduled to appear at APRICOT include:

Eric Allman the original author of sendmail. He was the chief programmer on the INGRES database management project and an early contributer to the UNIX effort at Berkeley, authoring syslog, tset, the -me troff macros, and trek. He designed database user and application interfaces at Britton Lee (later Sharebase), and contributed to the Ring Array Processor project for neural network-based speech recognition at the International Computer Science Institute. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the USENIX Association.

Scott Bradner has been involved in the design, operation and use of data networks at Harvard University since the early days of the ARPANET. He was involved in the design of the Harvard High-Speed Data Network (HSDN), the Longwood Medical Area network (LMAnet) and NEARNET. He is currently chair of the technical committees of LMAnet, NEARNET and CoREN. Scott is also the co-director of the Operational Requirements Area in the IETF, an IESG member and is an elected trustee of the Internet Society. He is co-director of the IETF IP Next Generation effort.

Randy Bush is an ex-compiler writer, realtime kernel hacker and a software engineering manager who has spent over 30 years in the computer industry. Randy has been a user and occasional implementor of networking in the US from the ARPANET to the current day Internet, UUCP, and FidoNet. He is currently Director of Network Engineering at Verio, a US national backbone provider.

His key network operational experience came from time spent as the principal engineer of RAINet, Oregon and Washington states premier ISP. Before RAINet's acquisition by Verio, RAINet was based on DS0-3 and lower speed leased lines, frame relay, and dialup servers, with over 250 sites in the two states. As the core of Verio/Oregon, RAINet still serves private individuals, public schools, public access sites, and commercial companies. As PI for the Network Startup Resource Center, an NSF-supported pro bono effort, Randy has been involved for some years with the deployment and integration of appropriate networking technology in the developing world.

Complete and latest details on all aspects of the various tracks, plenaries are available at the

APRICOT website http://www.apricot.net.

Participants wishing to join can register online at:

a) APRICOT Sessions (Conferences/Tutorials)
          http://www.apng.org/apricot99/apricot.html for apricot sessions

b) Meetings of the AP Internet organisations
          http://www.apng.org/apricot99/apstar.html

c) Sponsors:  http://www.apng.org/apricot99/callforsponsorship.html

Media contact:

• 1. APRICOT Conferences and Tutorials: Harish Pillay (h.pillay@ieee.org)
• 2. APNG Meetings: Dr Tan Tin Wee (tinwee@pobox.org.sg)
• 3. APNIC meeting: Paul Wilson (pwilson@apnic.net)
• 4. APTLD meeting: Agnes Lee (agneslee@nic.net.sg)
• 5. APPLe Track: Laina Raveendran Greene (laina@getit.org)
• 6. APIA: Izumi Aizu (izumi@anr.org)
• 7. Internet World Asia @ Singapore 99: Gabriel Wong (gabriel.wong@reedexpo.com.sg)
• 8. Singapore Linux Conference 1999: Harish Pillay (h.pillay@ieee.org)

Notes to Editor:

Information about the following organisations are available on the Internet:

Asia-Pacific Networking Group (http://www.apng.org)
Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Forum (http://www.aptld.org)
Asia Pacific Networking Information Centre (http://www.apnic.net)
Asia Pacific Internet Association (http://www.apia.org)

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies (APRICOT) provides the key forum for those Internet builders in the Asia Pacific region to learn from their peers and other leaders in the Internet community from around the world. It is a non-profit event started by volunteers in 1996 and financially underwritten by the regional IP address registry, APNIC, from 1996-1998. APRICOT is an annual gathering of the region's top Internet engineering, business, and policy talent for a week of meetings, conferences, seminars and private sessions. See http://www.apricot.net for more information on past APRICOTs.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                   The Asia Pacific Internet Festival
     The Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications Systems
         Prof. David Farber to grace Asia Pacific Regional Internet
          Conference on Operational Technologies Opening Ceremony

SINGAPORE (February 9th, 1999)- Named as one of the most influential
figures in the networking industry, Professor David Farber will be
addressing at the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational
Technologies (APRICOT) opening keynote.

APRICOT is very honoured to have Professor David Farber grace this
important event.  Names the 1996 John Scotts Award winner for
contributions to humanity, Farber has gained a considerable amount of
respect and admiration. The University of Pennsylvania Alumni magazine,
The Gazette, named him as "The Man who wired the World".

A Philadelphia Inquirer article once wrote "When David J. Farber speaks,
technologically savvy thinkers listen. The Penn professor is setting the
style for plugged-in nerds."

The Internet veteran has been attributed for making positive impact in
technological creation, governmental interworking and implementing highly
constructive changes.

Prof. David Farber is Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunication
Systems Computer at Information Sciences Department and Electrical
Engineering Department at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member
of the US Presidential Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing
and Communications, Information Technology and Next Generation Internet -
PACHPCCITNGI, has testified in the Congress on Internet Governance,
E-commerce and other policy issues.

Earlier, he helped develop LAN and distributed systems technologies during
the early phases of the computer age, played a key role in starting NSF
Network which later became the mother to Internet - so he is often
described as one of the grandfathers of Internet. He is very much involved
with global diffusion of Internet for more than a decade now.

Prof. Farber is on the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier
Foundation the EFF and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet
Society.  He is also a Fellow of the Center for Global Communications of
Japan -- Glocom and a Member of the Advisory Board of the Center for
Democracy and Technology.  He has just completed 10 years of service on
the National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications
Board. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and was the recipient of the 1995
SIGCOMM Award for life long contributions to the computer communications
field. He was the expert witness for the US Government vs Microsoft's
antitrust trial in 1998. He serves on many industrial advisory oards
including AT&T, Earthlink, Covad, Intertrust and Com21.

Professor David Farber will be giving the APRICOT opening and plenary
keynote on March 3, 1999 from 0900 to 0945 at Singapore International
Convention and Exhibition Centre, room MR 201.

APRICOT will be held in conjunction with meetings of the Asia Pacific
Networking Group (APNG), Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
(APNIC), Asia Pacific Internet Association (APIA), Asia Pacific Policy
and Legal Policy Forum (APPLe) and Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN).

In addition, the conferences for Internet World Asia @ Singapore 99 and
Singapore Linux Conference 1999 will also take place during this period.

 Please register online at:

a) APRICOT session (Conferences and Tutorials)
    http://www.apng.org/apricot99/apricot.html for

b) Meetings of the AP organisations
    http://www.apng.org/apricot99/apstar.html

                                   - END-

 For Further information, please contact:
 1. APRICOT Conferences and Tutorials: Harish Pillay (h.pillay@ieee.org)

 2. APNG Meetings: Dr Tan Tin Wee (tinwee@pobox.org.sg)
 3. APNIC meeting: Paul Wilson (pwilson@apnic.net)
 4. APTLD meeting: Agnes Lee (agneslee@nic.net.sg)
 5. APPLe Track: Laina Raveendran Greene (laina@getit.org)
 6. APIA: Izumi Aizu (izumi@anr.org)
 7. Internet World Asia @ Singapore 99: Gabriel Wong
    (gabriel.wong@reedexpo.com.sg)
 8. Singapore Linux Conference 1999: Harish Pillay (h.pillay@ieee.org)

 Notes to Editor:

Information about the following organisations are available on the Internet:

 Asia-Pacific Networking Group (http://www.apng.org)
 Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Forum (http://www.aptld.org)
 Asia Pacific Networking Information Centre (http://www.apnic.net)
 Asia Pacific Internet Association (http://www.apia.org)

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies
(APRICOT) provides the key forum for those Internet builders in the
Asia Pacific region to learn from their peers and other leaders in the
Internet community from around the world. It is a non-profit event
started by volunteers in 1996 and financially underwritten by the
regional IP address registry, APNIC, from 1996-1998. APRICOT is an
annual gathering of the region's top Internet engineering, business,
and policy talent for a week of meetings, conferences, seminars and
private sessions.

 See http://www.apricot.net for more information on past APRICOT.