Rafael Ibarra, better known as Lito Ibarra, is a key player in the development of Internet and ICT in his native country, El Salvador, as well as other Latin American and Caribbean countries, where he has been active for many years. He is known as the father of the Internet in his country, and has received recognition for his activities and accomplishments. He has been the administrative contact for .SV TLD from the start, a duty he proudly received from Jon Postel, as well as a class B block of IP addresses, which he used to start the Salvadorian Internet. He became a member of ISOC in 1996, while attending the INET meeting that year.
Lito holds academic degrees in Electrical Engineering and Business Administration, as well as a Masters in New Information and Communication Technologies. He has served as IT director and faculty staff at a major university in El Salvador, as maintenance engineer at NCR (National Cash Register) and Texas Instruments, Inc., as an external consultant for many NGOs, private and public enterprises, both in El Salvador and other countries, and as a graduate research thesis advisor.
Lito is one of the founders of international organizations such as LACTLD and RedCLARA, and local institutions such as the ISOC Chapter in El Salvador, SVNet (SV ccTLD), RAICES (Salvadorian NREN), Infocentros (Salvadorian telecenters), Conexion (local NGO to socialize technology) and is part of several technological initiatives, in civil society, private and public sectors. He is and has been a member of governmental and multistakeholder commissions in Science and Technology, Information and Knowledge Society, and others areas and disciplines.
He is currently part of the board of LACNIC, and he was the first president of LACTLD, being also part of the board of RedCLARA. He is the president of the ISOC SV Chapter, president of SVNet, and a member of several boards, past and present, in education and ICT private enterprises. Lito writes a weekly blog (www.litoibarra.sv) about technology as a means to foster economic and social development, equity and freedom in developing countries, such as his.