As a tribute to Liz Dengate Thrush an Internet Entrepreneurship Foundation has been established. The objective of the Foundation is to improve people's awareness and understanding of Internet technologies, and encourage Internet entrepreneurship and other positive uses of the Internet in New Zealand.

The Trustees will ensure the Foundation evolves in line with Liz’s philosophies and enthusiasm for Internet technologies.

The Foundation has created and runs annually, the New Zealand Internet Industry Awards. The Awards focus on the Internet as an enabling platform for business, global, entrepreneurship, education and society-enhancing programmes.

For more information on the Foundation, please click here www.ldtf.org.nz

About Peter Dengate Thrush - Chair of the Foundation's Board of Trustees

Peter Dengate Thrush is a Barrister specialising in Internet Law. He is the Chair of the Foundation's Board of Trustees, a Fellow and former President of Internet New Zealand. In November 2007 he was appointed Chairman of the Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) taking over the role from Vint Cerf.

The global organisation ICANN was founded more than twelve years ago as a not-for-profit, multi-stakeholder organisation dedicated to coordinating the Internet's Domain names and address system, one of its foundational principles has been to promote competition in the domain name marketplace while ensuring Internet security and stability. The expansion of the generic top-level domain (gTLD) space will allow for a greater degree of innovation and choice. This is a complex and involved process that requires the coordination and consensus of many groups and factions.

In a world with over 1.6 billion Internet users – and growing – diversity, choice and competition are essential to the continued success and reach of the global network.

In the last 6 months Peter has given speeches about the coordination of the internet at the Peace Palace in the Hague; at the World IT Global Public policy meeting in Bermuda and has chaired a series of ICANN meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.