ICANN and NASSCOM collaborate on Internet Innovation Research

• Technical research results are expected to contribute to global Internet standards

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and India’s National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) have announced a joint collaboration on research and engagement activities that will foster innovation in Internet identifier technologies.  

ICANN and NASSCOM’s Centre of Excellence for Internet of Things (NASSCOM COE-IOT) have established a partnership centre known as the Internet Identifier Innovation Centre, which will drive collaborative activities as laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by both parties in June 2018.

“We are excited about this collaboration, as NASSCOM COE-IOT has an extensive network within the industry and academia. This is ICANN’s first partnership centre focused on technical research, and we anticipate that it will contribute to ICANN’s technical remit in ensuring the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems,” said ICANN Chief Technology Officer David Conrad. 

“This collaboration provides a structure for us to jointly identify research projects, particularly in new technologies related to the Internet’s system of unique identifiers,” he continued, “The teams began research on the Domain Name System (DNS) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in the context of the Internet of Things (IoT) last year. This first research project focuses on testing the use of the DNS to update IoT firmware, studying how the proposed technology could scale outside a lab environment. This work is nearing completion and will contribute to a proposal in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) documenting the mechanism.” 

The project team is comprised of ICANN technical experts, NASSCOM’s COE-IOT team, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad team, and participants from India’s Education and Research Network (ERNET).

Besides being a major information technology and telecommunications powerhouse, India has a fast-growing Internet ecosystem, with close to 560 million Internet users [1] today and exponential growth expected. India also leads the world in IPv6 adoption, with 56.8% of all connections being made over IPv6 [2]. This environment provides a robust ecosystem to test new technologies. 

NASSCOM President Debjani Ghosh said, “This is the first collaboration of its kind, and with our combined resources we hope to witness significant innovation and development in the DNS and Internet space to support billions of IoT devices in the coming years. As a country, India can further strengthen its potential as an innovation hub through more investments in research and strategic collaborations. It is our global initiatives and relationships that will pave the road ahead and create an ecosystem that nurtures co-creation and innovative systems. We are confident that we will usher in a new wave of innovation and intelligence in the country with this association.”

 The Internet Identifier Innovation Centre will also conduct engagement activities such as: 

• Raising awareness of the research projects and promoting partnerships within the Indian technical community 
• Providing ICANN readouts, community discussions and capacity-development workshops to strengthen active participation in ICANN’s policy-making processes
• Facilitating participation of ICANN and NASSCOM members in outreach activities to further strengthen engagement with the wider community and providing support for the multi-stakeholder governance model of the Internet.

A key pillar in ICANN’s International Office Strategy is to establish strategic relationships that support specific stakeholder needs and ensure ICANN is active in matters that impact ICANN’s mission. ICANN has established partnership centres in Egypt, Korea, and Paraguay to reach more stakeholders around the world. The Internet Identifier Innovation Centre is the latest addition.