Dmitry Burkov is an Internet industry pioneer in Russia, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development, and one of the originators of the Eurasia Network Operators’ Group (ENOG).
Burkov graduated from Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University in 1983. While a student, he worked in the Microsystems Laboratory of the Russian Academy of Sciences on modeling and development of various systems and networks. Between 1983 and 1994 he worked for the St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In the late 1980s, Burkov co-founded Demos, one of Russia’s first Internet service providers. Later he was a board member at Relcom, a Russian ISP. He also worked in the management of major Russian telecommunications companies: Comstar, Rostelecom and RTComm.
In 1990, Burkov directly contributed to establishing an Internet connection between Moscow (the Kurchatov Institute) and Finland (the University of Helsinki). In 1995, he participated in creating Russia’s first traffic exchange facility: MSK-IX (Moscow Internet Exchange).
Burkov made a significant contribution to the integration and development process related to the Russian .RU and .РФ TLDs. In particular, he was the first chairperson of the Council of Coordination Center for the TLD .RU (administrator of the Russian national top level domains .RU and .РФ) and remained a Council Member until 2009. He took part in the operations of the Russian Association for Networks and Services. Burkov ensured Russia’s presence in the following organizations: EUnet, CIX and RIPE NCC.
From 2006 until 2018 Burkov was a board member and ICANN Liaison at RIPE NCC. In 2010, Burkov was among those who initiated the establishment of ENOG and also took part in the Key Generation Ceremony and signing of the DNS root zone using the DNSSEC technology. He became a Trusted Community Representative (TCR), and a Crypto Officer for the US West Coast Facility. Burkov is a member of the ICANN Customer Standing Committee (ICANN CSC).
He received an Award of the Council of Ministers of the USSR for participation in the development of the Soviet network operating system DEMOS, as well as an Honorary certificate from the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. In 2020 Russian president Putin awarded Burkov a Medal of the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" for “achievements in setup of Russian segment of informational and telecommunicational network Internet".