Dear RIPE colleagues and fellow RIPE NCC staff,

30 years ago today the RIPE NCC, the first of the RIRs, opened its virtual doors. Yes it was on April 2nd and not a day earlier as is often wrongly reported. This is a fact! I was there. The term 'post-factual' was just being invented.

An NCC had already been proposed two years earlier: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-019 . Our purpose, our relationship with RIPE and many of our tasks today are already expressed clearly in that proposal.  The very first RIPE NCC Activity Plan was ready a year before the start: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs/ripe-035 . It took a year to collect the initial funds, a host organisation and office space.

Some friends suggested strongly that I should lead the set-up of the RIPE NCC. I got the job and signed up for one year, fully expecting to return to an academic career in computer science. The rest is, as the saying goes, history.

By the way, the history of the RIPE NCC is well documented in quarterly and annual reports and other RIPE documents: https://www.ripe.net/publications/docs . We started with three people and five computers. I have described the first hours from a geeky perspective five years ago: https://labs.ripe.net/author/dfk/25-years-of-the-ripe-ncc-the-first-hours/ . At the same time we published a short summary of the history with a photograph of the staff in 1996: https://www.ripe.net/publications/news/about-ripe-ncc-and-ripe/celebrating-25-years-of-the-ripe-ncc .

Together we have come a long way. I am proud of all of you, past and present, who have made the RIPE NCC a success. I am  proud of the strong community we have built and nourished. Recently we have mastered the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and we are coping with conflict and terrible wars in our region. I am confident that with our combined efforts both RIPE and the RIPE NCC will thrive for a long time to come.

Thank you all, past and present staff, past and present board members, the RIPE community, the membership and all other supporters!

Daniel