Mid-March 2021, Gilles Massen, Director of the Restena Foundation, joined the Board of Directors of the Council of European National Top-Level Domain Registries (CENTR), an association dedicated to the exchange, dialogue and innovation of European top-level domain registries. As one of the founding members of this association, Restena represents the management of the national top-level domain .lu
An internet serving citizens
Gilles Massen was elected as a member for a two-year term of office, along with Roelof Meijer, CEO of the Dutch registry SIDN (.nl). The pair join Barbara Povše from Register.si, Philip Du Bois from DNS Belgium and David Fowler from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), the national registries of Slovenia (.si), Belgium (.be) and Canada (.ca). The election took place during the association’s 2021 Annual General Meeting in March 2021.
“CENTR is the place where European ccTLDs come together to exchange ideas and collaborate. Through this collaboration CENTR members have become reliable partners for a solid infrastructure, part of an internet that serves its citizens. It is a privilege to join the BoD and work with such experienced colleagues and with the extremely skilled CENTR staff toward an organisation that keeps improving its value for the members” said Gilles Massen on his election.
This is the first time that a member of Restena joins the CENTR Board of Directors. Such an appointment is a significant opportunity for Restena - which draws inspiration from and participates in the development of best practices and high standards applied to serve the registration infrastructure of domain names under the national extension .lu - to fully participate in the development of the association and the future of its community in general.
An inclusive community that benefits everyone
The CENTR association federates and leads an inclusive community of mostly European domain name registries, dedicated to collaboration. The contribution of all members is important for their own development, but more importantly for the Internet as a whole. For Restena, one of the smallest registries, CENTR is essential to improve its infrastructure and services and to keep abreast of the latest developments on the Internet from the European Union and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), without the need for massive investments in both human and financial resources.
Like Cynthia Wagner, Restena's Security Manager, Gilles Massen is serving the association. For many years, Cynthia Wagner has been co-chair of the Working Group Research & Development (R&D) that deals with forward-looking technology topics, within a wide perimeter around CENTR members’ businesses, in either disruptive or evolutionary way and in a medium-to long-term timescale.