There are moments when professional admiration and personal pride become one. Today is such a moment: my sibling, Dhruv Dhody, has been selected as the new Chair of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) for the 2026–2027 term, one of the most influential leadership roles in global internet governance.
This is not just a career milestone. It is a statement about the kind of leadership the internet's governing bodies are embracing: technically rigorous, globally inclusive, and deeply human.
What Is the IAB, and Why Does It Matter?
For those outside the networking world, the Internet Architecture Board is one of the key governance bodies overseeing the architecture of the internet itself. It provides strategic guidance to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the organization responsible for the technical standards that make the internet function.
Every time you send an email, load a web page, or join a video call, you rely on protocols and standards that the IETF develops and the IAB helps shepherd. Current and recent IAB members represent organizations like Netflix, Cisco, Google, Apple, Nokia, Comcast, Cloudflare, Carnegie Mellon University, and Ericsson. Being selected as IAB Chair places Dhruv at the helm of one of the most consequential bodies in global internet governance.
A Career Built for This Moment
Dhruv's appointment is the culmination of more than 21 years of sustained work at the intersection of research, engineering, and standardization. As a Principal Engineer at Huawei with 24 published RFCs, 21 patents, and leadership roles across multiple IETF working groups, Dhruv has spent their career shaping the foundational technologies that determine how data moves across global networks.
But what sets Dhruv apart, and what I believe made them the right choice for this role, is their commitment to making the internet's governance as inclusive as the internet itself. Dhruv has been a tireless advocate for broadening IETF participation from Asia, the Pacific, and other underrepresented regions. In a field historically concentrated in North America and Europe, that work matters.
And for those who know Dhruv personally, there is so much more to the picture: a multifaceted person, a saree enthusiast with an eye for textiles and jewelry, an accomplished cook, a passionate photographer, and a devoted pet parent. These are not footnotes to a career. They are expressions of the same curiosity, care, and attention to craft that define their professional life.
When we talk about the "architecture" of the internet, we mean the decisions that determine how billions of devices communicate, how data finds its path, and how the system remains resilient under extraordinary scale. My sibling has been making those decisions for over two decades.
Why This Matters for India and the Asia-Pacific
Dhruv's appointment carries special significance for India and the broader Asia-Pacific region. India is home to over 800 million internet users. The Asia-Pacific region represents the fastest-growing segment of global internet adoption. Yet the region has been underrepresented in the bodies that shape internet standards and architecture.
Having an India-based engineer at the helm of the IAB sends a powerful signal: the next generation of internet leadership reflects the communities driving the internet's growth. Dhruv's chairship creates a bridge, ensuring that the perspectives, challenges, and innovations emerging from this part of the world have a seat at the table.
Different Domains, Shared Values
Watching Dhruv's career has always felt like looking into a mirror held at a different angle. We work in entirely different domains, but the underlying questions are the same: How do you govern and improve systems of extraordinary complexity in a way that serves everyone? How do you balance innovation with reliability? How do you make sure the people the system is meant to serve actually have a voice in shaping it?
Dhruv answers those questions through internet architecture and standards. I have spent my career answering them through clinical development and regulatory science.
How do you govern and improve systems of extraordinary complexity in a way that serves everyone, not just a few? That is the question both of us have spent more than 20 years trying to answer.
As President of Amarex Clinical Research, I lead an organization focused on modernizing the systems that bring new therapies to patients. Clinical development today faces many of the same structural challenges that internet governance has confronted: fragmented systems, inconsistent processes across geographies, and a growing need for technology to make complex operations more efficient without sacrificing rigor.
That is why our work with NSF and Microsoft Azure on AI-enabled innovation in clinical research feels so relevant to this moment. We are integrating artificial intelligence and data-driven analytics to enhance regulatory processes, improve operational efficiency, and support the evolving future of clinical development. The goal is not to replace the human judgment that clinical research demands, but to build intelligent systems that make that judgment faster, more informed, and more consistent across global programs.
In many ways, what AI is doing for clinical research ecosystems parallels what standards and protocols have done for the internet: creating common frameworks that allow complex, distributed systems to function reliably at scale. When I look at Dhruv's work at the IAB and our work at Amarex, I see the same ambition expressed in different technical languages.
Both of us are working to make systems more inclusive. At the IETF, that means ensuring diverse global participation in the standards that govern the internet. In clinical development, it means designing trials and regulatory strategies that reflect the diversity of the patients who will ultimately benefit from the therapies being developed.
Different domains. Shared values.
Congratulations, Dhruv
To Dhruv: congratulations. The IAB is fortunate to have you at the helm. Your technical depth, your inclusive vision, and your ability to build bridges between communities, between continents, between ideas: that is exactly what internet governance needs at this moment in history.
For me, this appointment is a source of immense pride. But it is also a reminder. We are shaped, in ways both visible and invisible, by the people closest to us. The ambition to lead, to build, to make things better: these are not qualities you develop in isolation. They are cultivated in families, in shared dinner tables, in watching someone you admire pursue excellence in their own way.
Here is to Dhruv's leadership shaping the future of the internet, and to the shared values that continue to inspire both of us to build systems that make the world better.