According to the already established tradition, the second day of RIGF 2023 was opened by the Virtuti Interneti (“For Services to the Internet”) award ceremony, established by the Coordination Center in 2010.

This year the award was given to Elena Pavlovna Voronina - one of the key persons of the Russian Internet. She stood at the origins of the Runet and took an active part in the creation of the .RU and .РФ domain zones, the MSK-IX traffic exchange point and other fundamental projects. Since 1999, Elena Voronina has led the Moscow Internet eXchange (MSK-IX) project. For more than 20 years, she has been the director of JSC Computer Network Interaction Center MSK-IX, and currently she is the Development Director of the Indata Network Technologies Development Fund, which is engaged in analysis and research in the field of the Internet.

“This award is from my fellows, so it is especially exciting for me. And, of course, it's nice to join the club of Virtuti Interneti laureates,” she said.

Elena also congratulated the forum participants on the birthday of the Russian national domain .RU and, in the laureate's traditional lecture, spoke about the Internet connectivity ecosystem.

Let us recall that the winners of the Virtuti Interneti award are representatives of the Internet community, business, science and the state, who have made a significant contribution to the development of Runet and the global Internet. Past laureates include Steve Crocker, the inventor of the RFC Internet policy format, one of the founders of the technical community of global internet builders, Wolfgang Kleinwachter, professor emeritus of internet policy and regulation at Aarhus University's Media and Information Research Department, author of the book "Internet Governance" Jovan Kurbalija, one of the founders of Runet, ex-director of RIPN, director of MSC-IX Alexei Platonov, director of Autonomous Nonprofit Organization "Digital Economy" Sergey Plugotarenko and many others.