Page History

Dr Angus Hay, PrEng, CEng, MIET, MIEEE, FSAIEE, is Regional Executive - South Africa for Africa Datta Centres, a business of Cassava Technologies. He was part of the team that started Neotel where he held various roles, including CTO. He has been involved in a variety of aspects of information and communications technology.

Dr Hay was President of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers (SAIEE) in 2010, and received the Institute’s Young Achiever award in 1999. He was Chair of the Management Committee of the West Africa Cable System (WACS), and is a Director of the Number Portability Company, a board member of the Africa Data Centres Association, and a member of ISPA’s INX Committee for the past two years.

As a postgraduate student in the early 1990s, he took part in the establishment of the Internet between academic institutions in South Africa.

Dean Pillay, the Founder and CEO of Agile Solutions Provider, has spent over 10 years investing in his passion for building and optimising ISP networks across Africa.  Before starting Agile Solutions Provider, Dean worked for multiple ISPs and is a certified Core Network Engineer (Cisco, Juniper and Huawei).

Dean is a current member of the JINX Technical Group, and believes that he can add more value to INX-ZA and its mission by also being part of its management committee.  Dean is passionate about strengthening Africa's internet infrastructure.  

Edrich de Lange has been working in the ISP field since 2008, and is currently a consultant to various ISPs in and around Durban. He has been on board of various non-profit organisations and in fields as diverse as the information technology community;  orchestral arts;  and sailing, and has a deep love of community involvement.

Edrich is passionate about peering and the utility it brings in the networking industry.  As co-founder of ZANOG he's helped pioneer a community-led CDN caching system that has improved the network performance (and cost savings) of operators in Cape Town and Durban immeasurably! 

Edrich is a firm believer in change through action, passing on information through education, and you'll often find him elbows deep "in the trenches" helping to run training workshops.

Graham Beneke is a seasoned network engineer and a prominent figure in South Africa’s internet landscape. With a career spanning over two decades, he has made significant contributions to network architecture, peering strategies, and internet policy. As a technical specialist at eNetworks, a division of Datacentrix, Beneke has been instrumental in advancing the country’s digital infrastructure. 

Beneke’s leadership roles include serving as the chairperson of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) and its Internet Exchange Point division, INX-ZA. Under his guidance, INX-ZA expanded its footprint by establishing multi-site Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, enhancing network resilience and reducing latency for local internet users.  His efforts have been pivotal in promoting local peering, thereby improving internet performance and affordability in South Africa.

Beyond his technical achievements, Beneke has played a vital role in shaping national broadband policy. In 2014, he was appointed to the National Broadband Advisory Council, where he provided industry insights to inform the country’s broadband strategies.  His commitment to fostering a robust and inclusive internet ecosystem makes him a valuable nominee for the INX-ZA INXCOM committee.

Riaan Vos has over 19 years of experience in the Internet industry, with deep expertise in the design and operation of Internet Service Provider (ISP) backbone networks. He is

currently part of the team responsible for network architecture at MetroFibre Networx. Prior to this, Riaan worked at Internet Solutions (now integrated into Dimension Data/NTT), where he contributed significantly to the development and resilience of their national and international infrastructure.

Since 2009, Riaan has been actively involved in the operations of the INX-ZA environment

and has

played a key role in its outstanding track record of minimal unplanned outages.

He is

a current member of the INX-ZA

Technical Committee and has been part of the broader INX-ZA committee

Riaan’s vision is that by being part of the INX-ZA committee:

since 2015. His contributions include bringing the Cape Town Internet Exchange (CINX) into production, supporting the successful expansion of INX-ZA into a multi-site model, and participating in critical evaluations such as the recent Nokia equipment trial. Riaan remains committed to strengthening South Africa’s Internet infrastructure by helping maintain a stable and reliable peering fabric.

Riaan is a strong advocate for IP peering and the broader peering ecosystem. He has experienced firsthand the many benefits it offers, including:

• Keeping traffic local, which improves latency and end-user experience;
• -Leveraging the inherent redundancy of peering to reroute around network problems — including an instance where he temporarily provided international capacity to another operator during a major outage via the peering fabric;
• Rapid fault resolution through direct access to the right peering contacts.

Riaan’s vision for his continued involvement in the INX-ZA committee is clear:

• To support the ongoing mission of ensuring INX-ZA’s exchanges remain available and operate optimally for the benefit of the community;
• To contribute insightfully to discussions on technological changes and their potential implications for the platform. Over the years, he has learned many lessons and looks forward to applying that experience to further strengthen the South African Internet landscape.