The Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) has announced that Belize will host its sixth regional meeting, dubbed CaribNOG 6 Belize. The event is slated to take place from September 23 to 27, 2013. The venue and meeting details, as well as partners and sponsors, are yet to be announced.

The organization said that they will work to build on the success and momentum achieved at CaribNOG 5, which was held in April in Barbados.

CaribNOG describes itself as “a rich community of network operators dedicated to exchanging technical information and experiences related to the management of IP networks in the Caribbean region.” It is a non-profit, engineering, educational, and operational forum for coordination of network operations in the Caribbean region.

Over 120 participants from across the region and the world convened at CaribNOG 5 for two and a half days of training, experience sharing and collaboration which focused heavily on network security, internet exchange points and IPv6 Adoption, the organization said.

Its events are supported by the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Latin America and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) and Packet Clearing House (PCH), among other international Internet development organizations.

Grenada hosted the fourth regional gathering held by CaribNOG in 2012. That event saw roughly 100 participants.

At that event, CaribNOG coordinator Bevil Wooding described the group as a “unique forum for regional network technicians and technology professionals to share experiences and build practical skills.”

Wooding identified one of the main goals of the volunteer-based group as building “a regional community of technical experts capable of designing, building and supporting the technology infrastructure needed to take the region into the future.”

CaribNOG objectives include expanding exchanges among the region’s network professionals in a functional technical community; harnessing the knowledge and experiences of the community as a rich resource; providing a robust platform of expertise necessary to build knowledge-based economies in the Caribbean region; fostering technical research in areas of networking and internet technologies that produce a dense culture of mastery of the subject matter; and leveraging the technical community in the solving of technical problems arising within the critical internet infrastructure implemented in the Caribbean region.

Apart from Barbados and Grenada, St. Marteen, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago have also hosted CaribNOG 5 meetings, which date back to 2010.