The Nominees for the 2024 Lonnie Borck Memorial Award have now been announced. The list of nominees and their nominating statements can be seen here.
For the first time, the 2024 Award Ceremony will be held at the ICA Annual Member Meeting in Las Vegas. We are grateful to NamesCon for generously allowing us to host the ceremony as part of the conference for the past several years.
Lonnie Borck
The Lonnie Borck Memorial Award was created to honor the memory of a well-respected and much-loved member of the domain community who was tragically lost far too soon. Ron Jackson of DNJournal.com spoke for many with his tribute to Lonnie. Lonnie's family, especially his widow, Ronit, has supported the award over the years, even participating in some ceremonies. This is what she told us in a September 2023 email the award means to her and her children: “… the award shows us how much Lonnie was loved and respected within the industry. This is especially meaningful because my kids were so young when he died they weren’t able to see that for themselves. Our older son Ezra has taken the domain course and is looking into embarking on a career in the industry. Our twins were just 2 when Lonnie died, and don’t have many memories of him. They are now 9 years old and really want to know more about him, and this award helps show them how special he was to those who knew him. And we now have a beautiful granddaughter, whom he would have loved to spoil! One day, this will also help her get to know more about him. Another aspect of this award that I really appreciate is that one of his well-known personality traits was kindness; he was always looking to help people and often went out of his way. So, using his memory to honor someone who has gone above and beyond to do for others in the industry seems very fitting and really helps carry on his legacy. We appreciate it so much!"
First awarded in 2017, the Award honors those who make an exceptional contribution to fostering a sense of community within the domain name industry and has quickly become the highest honor within the domain industry.
Winners
Richard Lau - 2025 Recipient
Richard Lau, founder of NamesCon, played a pivotal role in uniting the domain industry while championing philanthropy. His main motivation for creating NamesCon was to support WaterSchool, a charity providing clean drinking water to communities in Africa, inspiring industry-wide fundraising efforts. Richard continues to give back by serving as Executive Director of WaterSchool and supporting the domain industry in an advisory role to the ICA.
Jason Sheppard - 2024 Recipient
Jason Sheppard was a domain name investor, a DNAcademy instructor, a professional video DJ and most of a friend to many of us. We lost Jason too soon, but his memory and his spirit live on though his work, his deeds, and the lasting connections he's created with so many of us.
Watch the reel of the LBMA ceremony from the 2024 ICA Member Meeting in Las Vegas.
Andrew Allemann - 2022 Recipient
Andrew founded Domain Name Wire in 2005 as the first daily news blog covering the domain name business. Through his consistent and insightful coverage of industry news, UDRP cases, and analysis, he has provided a platform for discussion and debate among domain name professionals, shaping and strengthening the domain name community.
Michael Cyger - 2021 Recipient
Michael Cyger, founder of DomainSherpa.com and DNAcademy.com has helped educate and inform many in the domain name industry. When the COVID pandemic shut down in-person gatherings, he put together a weekly Domain Industry Quarantine Social that allowed the industry to connect socially over Zoom.
Ron Jackson - 2020 Recipient
Ron Jackson, publisher of DNJournal.com, received the Award in 2020. Here's a video of Ron's introduction and of his acceptance speech during the ICA Dinner at NamesCon 2020 in Austin. Ron is the first person to provide daily in-depth coverage of the activities of domain investors and to treat the business as industry worthy of coverage. His in-depth profiles of many participants in the industry helped us to get to know each other personally and to build a sense of community. Here's an in-depth profile of Ron and Ron's own reporting on his receiving the award.
John Berryhill - 2019 Recipient
John Berryhill received the award in 2019. John is a pioneering domain name attorney who has likely handled more domain name disputes and won more Reverse Domain Name Hijacking decisions than else anyone in the world. He volunteers a considerable amount of time to work on domain name policy matters and to educate domain investors about the law. He combines a sharp wit with formidable legal analysis. In recent years he has taken up bike riding, and now rides each year with Elliot Silver in support of the Pan-Mass Challenge to raise funds for the fight against cancer.
Kathy Kleiman - 2018 Recipient
Kathy Kleiman received the award in 2018 in recognition of the enormous efforts she has made for over 20 years advocating on behalf of domain name registrants, particularly at ICANN. She co-founded ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency in 1998, and was one of the drafters of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). She has wide-ranging interests and has produced a documentary on the women who were the first ENIAC computer programmers.
David Weslow - 2017 Recipient
In 2017, David Weslow, of Wiley, was recognized for his pro-bono representation of a grandmother named Heidi Powell who was trying to retain her rights to her long-registered HeidiPowell.com domain name. David is nationally recognized for his expertise on legal issues involving domain names, in particular litigation under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
Expanding the Scope
In its first three years, the Lonnie Borck Memorial Award recognized those who selflessly worked to protect the rights of domain name registrants. In 2020, the ICA shifted the focus of the award to honor those who make an exceptional contribution to fostering a sense of community within the domain name industry. The change honors Lonnie's generous community-minded spirit and expanded the number of those eligible to be considered for the award.
The awards took a hiatus in 2023, but they made a grand return in 2024, being presented at a new venue during the ICA Annual Member Meeting in Las Vegas.