- What's APRICOT

Since 1996, APRICOT  has provided a unique and  successful educational forum
for Internet  builders in  the region to learn  from  their peers and other leaders in
the Internet community from around the world.

APRICOT  has  now  clearly  established  itself as Asia Pacific’s premier regional
Internet Summit where related organizations come together to meet and host their
annual general meetings and other special events.

e.g.

• Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (www.apnic.net)
  
• Asia & Pacific Internet Association (www.apia.org)
• Asia Pacific Networking Group(www.apng.org)
• Asia Pacific Policy and Legal Forum (www.apng.org/apple)
• Asia Pacific Top-Level Domain Forum (www.aptld.org) etc.

The intense week-long summit consists of seminars, workshops, tutorials, conf-
erence sessions and birds-of-a-feather (BOFs)  meetings that have the following
two goals

1) spreading and sharing the knowledge required for the operational stability and
    development of the Internet within the Asia Pacific region.

2) developing affinity groups that foster mutual support throughout the year.

APRICOT's success was largely due to the excellence of its no-nonsense progr-             amme  that  is focused on Internet operational issues (i.e. issues surrounding the
smooth day-to-day operation of internet-based networks and services). It is con-
cerned with bringing true subject matter experts  from around the world,  together
with those who can benefit most from their knowledge and experience.

APRICOT’s targets those individuals that directly impact the operational deployment
and  stability  of  Internet  Protocol ( IP )-based networks and services. These are
namely network operators and engineers, senior executives and regulators.

One of the fundamental  principles of APRICOT presentations has been its vendor
neutral objectiveness that provides for informed opinion. As such, APRICOT is not
a marketing or sales-orientated conference and it is known that it highly discourages
blatant sales or promotional activities within the conference itself.

In essence, APRICOT  creates a neutral educational  forum  that provides for frank
discussions on the skills, policies and technologies that are critical for the smooth
operation  of  the Internet’s  network and service infrastructure both regionally and
internationally.

APRICOT has a one-year technology horizon. This means to say that  APRICOT is
involved  with those  technologies  that are either at the heart of today's Internet or
those that are very likely to see operational deployment within the next 12 months.

The key benefit in attending APRICOT is to synchronize local and regional activities
with the rapid developments in the wider Internet in an objective manner that disti-
nguishes between operational realities and marketing 'hype'.

As APRICOT is only organized once a year, special attention is given to the creation
of affinity  groups  that  foster mutual  support throughout the year. During the year,
these affinity groups play a key role as a source of knowledge and experience.