ICANN

Bikram Shrestha stands at a rare intersection a Nepali internet pioneer, a senior banking executive, and a committed advocate for the people who are most often left behind in global conversations about the internet. For over two decades, he has carried Nepal’s voice into the rooms where the internet’s future is decided.

At ICANN the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Bikram represents Nepal in international policy discussions that shape how the internet works for billions of people. His role goes far beyond technical participation. He fights to ensure that the needs of developing nations, multilingual communities, and underserved populations are not an afterthought in global internet governance.

For Bikram, the internet is not infrastructure. It is a lifeline for the student in a mountain village accessing education, for the small trader in Kathmandu reaching global markets, for the grandmother in a remote district reading news in her own language for the very first time.

Bikram’s connection to the internet did not begin in a boardroom or a conference hall. It began in Hetauda, a small town in Nepal, where at just 19 years old he founded the town’s first Internet Service Provider (ISP) in 1999 at a time when most people in Nepal had never seen the internet.

One memory from those early days has stayed with him ever since. A local tailor walked into his office and saw the internet for the first time. His eyes lit up with wonder. That moment, Bikram recalls, was not simply about technology it was about the feeling of a whole world suddenly becoming reachable. That single interaction became the compass for everything that followed.

From that small ISP in Hetauda, Bikram went on to lead digital banking transformation at Sanima Bank, found the Nepal Internet Foundation, shape Nepal’s internet policy at national and regional forums, and ultimately take his seat at ICANN representing a nation of 30 million people in one of the most consequential international bodies in the digital world.

He was the first fellow from Nepal at ICANN, and has since returned as a mentor, coach, alumni, and active policy participant across more than a dozen ICANN meetings held across the globe from Toronto and Buenos Aires to Dublin, Abu Dhabi, and Copenhagen.

Championing Internet Security for Developing Nations

One of Bikram’s most consistent priorities at ICANN has been internet security not as an abstract technical concern, but as a real and urgent threat to ordinary Nepali people and businesses.

At ICANN 74 in June 2022, he addressed a global audience on the cybersecurity risks facing Nepal’s growing digital ecosystem. He brought the issue to life with a story that stopped the room:

“A village shopkeeper nearly lost all of her savings due to an internet hoax. Trust plays a crucial role in Nepal. A single attack can destroy years of work.”

His advocacy has pushed ICANN toward developing security frameworks and solutions that are accessible and appropriate for the realities of developing nations — not just for the infrastructure of wealthy economies. As Nepal rapidly adopts digital banking, mobile payments, and e-government services, Bikram ensures that security keeps pace with access.

Key contributions in this area:

  • Raised awareness of phishing, malware, and social engineering threats targeting Nepali users at global forums
  • Advocated for ICANN to prioritize security capacity-building programs for developing nations
  • Applied his deep expertise in banking cybersecurity including VAPT, cyber resilience frameworks, and information security policy to the internet governance context
  • Pushed for solutions that protect users’ finances, data, and trust as digital adoption accelerates in Nepal

Advocating for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

Nepal is home to a remarkable diversity of languages and scripts Nepali, Maithili, Newari, Tamang, and dozens more. Yet for most of the internet’s history, that diversity has been invisible online. Website addresses were written exclusively in Latin script, effectively making the internet a space where millions of Nepali speakers could participate only on foreign terms.

Since 2019, Bikram has been one of the most consistent and passionate advocates for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) at ICANN — a technical standard that allows website addresses to be written in local scripts, including Devanagari.

He explains why this matters in deeply human terms:

“Imagine a child in a remote village typing a website address in Nepali script. That’s not just about access it’s about feeling like you truly belong on the internet.”

For Bikram, IDNs are not a technical feature. They are a statement about who the internet is for. Language is identity. When someone can navigate the web in their own script, they are not merely a user they are a full participant.

Key contributions in this area:

  • Actively advocated for IDN adoption and rollout in Nepal since 2019 at ICANN policy forums
  • Worked to build local awareness and institutional support for Nepali-script domain names
  • Framed IDNs as a cultural and inclusion issue, not just a technical one, in international discussions
  • Collaborated with regional bodies including APRALO and APNIC to advance multilingual internet access across Asia-Pacific

Building Nepal’s Voice in Global Internet Policy

Bikram does not attend ICANN meetings simply to observe. He arrives to shape outcomes. Over the course of his participation, he has taken on progressively greater responsibility moving from fellow to mentor, from participant to policy voice.

Roles and participation at ICANN:

  • First ICANN Fellow from Nepal — ICANN 45, Toronto, Canada
  • Fellow — ICANN 48, Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • Fellow & Mentor — ICANN 54, Dublin, Ireland
  • ATLAS II Fellow — London (At-Large Summit II)
  • ATLAS III Leadership — ICANN 66, Montreal, Canada
  • Vice Chair, NPOC (Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group) — 2022–2023
  • Member, APRALO — Asian, Australasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization
  • Participated in ICANN meetings in Hyderabad, Copenhagen, Panama City, Abu Dhabi, and more
  • Coached and mentored emerging internet leaders from developing nations at multiple ICANN events

Through these roles, Bikram has ensured that Nepal’s concerns from cybersecurity to linguistic inclusion to infrastructure equity are heard and recorded in the policy processes that shape the global internet.

What sets Bikram apart from many technical delegates at international forums is the lens through which he sees every policy debate. Behind every domain name dispute, every security standard, every multilingual access question, he sees a human being.

He speaks frequently about the people whose lives depend on getting internet governance right:

  • The student in an isolated mountain village who depends on the internet to access education and knowledge
  • The entrepreneur in Kathmandu using digital platforms to reach customers across the world
  • The grandchild in a distant district reading news and video-calling home in their native tongue
  • The shopkeeper in a rural market who could lose everything to a single phishing attack

For Bikram, internet governance is not a technical discipline. It is a form of public service and one that requires empathy, patience, and a commitment to the people who are most often forgotten in elite global discussions.

“The internet is about people’s lives, their goals, and their capacity for success in a world that is becoming more and more digital it is not simply about bits and data.”

Bikram’s engagement at ICANN sits within a broader ecosystem of international leadership across the internet governance world:

  • Founder President — Nepal Internet Foundation (NIF)
  • Co-Chair, Cooperation SIG — Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC)
  • Vice Chair — NPOC, ICANN (2022–2023)
  • Board Member — South Asian Network Operators Group (SANOG)
  • Founder & Past President — Internet Society Nepal
  • Member — APRALO, ICANN
  • Speaker at NepalIGF, APRICOT, APNIC, APrIGF, SANOG, NPNOG, and UN Expert Group Meetings
  • UN Expert Group Meeting participant — “The Future of Digital Government for Sustainable Development in LDCs, SIDs and LLDCs”, Incheon, Republic of Korea

Bikram Shrestha’s work at ICANN is the continuation of a story that started in Hetauda in 1999 a story about what happens when one person believes, deeply and without reservation, that the internet belongs to everyone.

He has spent 25 years proving that belief through action. At ICANN, he continues that work bringing Nepal’s languages, Nepal’s security challenges, and Nepal’s people into global conversations that would otherwise happen without them.

The internet, he believes, should reflect the world in all its diversity not just the parts of it that already have a seat at the table.