The Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean In­ter­net Ad­dress­es Reg­istry (LAC­NIC) hashon­oured Caribbean-based tech­nol­o­gy ex­pert and­phil­an­thropist­Bevil Wood­ing with its 2013 Life­time Achieve­ment Award.Wood­ing re­ceived the award ata spe­cial cer­e­mo­ny dur­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al­LAC­NIC 21con­fer­ence, on May 8th in Can­cun, Mex­i­co.

Wood­ing is the Chief Knowl­edge Of­fi­cer at the in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it Con­gress WBN.

Since 2009, LAC­NIC has pre­sent­ed theaward to in­di­vid­u­als who have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on the de­vel­op­ment of the In­ter­net and the in­for­ma­tion so­ci­ety through­out Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.Wood­ing, an­In­ter­net Strate­gist and Caribbean Out­reach Man­ag­er for the US-based re­search non-prof­it­Pack­et Clear­ing House, is­glob­al­ly recog­nised for his tire­less work in­im­prov­ing In­ter­net ac­cess and re­silience, par­tic­u­lar­ly in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries.

Ra�lEcheberr�a, ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of LAC­NIC,laud­ed Wood­ing's work in the ar­eas of im­proving­In­ter­net con­nec­tiv­ityand­build­ing ca­pac­i­tyin the re­gion.

"His se­lec­tion as the 2013 Life­time Achieve­ment Awardee was unan­i­mous,"he said.

Echeberr�a, LAC­NIC's chief ex­ec­u­tive from its in­cep­tion in Uruguay in 2002,sin­gled out Wood­ing's work in strength­en­ing In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture, par­tic­u­lar­ly in sup­port­ing the de­vel­op­ment of In­ter­net Ex­change Points (IX­Ps) in the Caribbean.

"Wood­ing has earned the trust and re­spect of the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty. The com­mu­ni­ty val­ues his ded­i­ca­tion, his in­tegri­ty and his con­sis­ten­cy. It is clear his work is his life mis­sion and the re­gion has ben­e­fit­ted enor­mous­ly as a re­sult."

He al­so praised Wood­ing for his role in de­sign­ing and spear­head­ing the­Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union's Caribbean ICT Road­show, which pro­motes­nov­el us­es of tech­nol­o­gy across all sec­tors of so­ci­ety.

In the de­vel­op­ment of tech­nol­o­gy so­lu­tions and ed­u­ca­tion­al re­sources, Wood­ing's in­volve­ment has been far-reach­ing. He is a found­ing mem­ber and chairof the Caribbean Net­work Op­er­a­tors Group (CaribNOG), a vol­un­teer group which pro­vides a fo­rum for the tech­ni­cal com­mu­ni­ty to ex­change ideas and ex­pe­ri­ences.

He is al­so founder and Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of Bright­Path­Foun­da­tion,a non-prof­i­tor­gan­i­sa­tion­fo­cused on tech­nol­o­gy ed­u­ca­tion so­lu­tions fory­oung peo­ple­and com­mu­ni­ties across the world. The foun­da­tion pro­vides youth-fo­cused mo­bile app de­vel­op­ment and­dig­i­tal train­ing pro­grams. In 2012, Bright­Path­fa­cil­i­tat­edthe de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil's first-ever dig­i­tal me­dia syl­labus.

In thank­ing LAC­NIC forthe award, Wood­ing said thathe felth­is work is far from done.

"There re­main com­mu­ni­ties to em­pow­er, poli­cies to de­vel­op, stake­hold­ers to ed­u­cate, IX­Ps to de­ploy, lo­cal con­tent to cre­ate, and re­search to con­duct on how the In­ter­net and our ac­tions are im­pact­ing our re­gion.My com­mit­ment is to con­tin­ue work­ing and to con­tin­ue be­liev­ing in the pow­er of the In­ter­net as a dri­ver for de­vel­op­ment and as a force for good."

His­Tech­nol­o­gy Mat­ters colum­nap­pears in the week­ly Busi­ness Guardian mag­a­zine.