The Iwamoto North America Foundation for Go enthusiastically awards its 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award to Andrew Okun. He has made important contributions to advancing Go in North America, through both conscientious organizational stewardship and innovative leadership.

Andy started playing Go in 2002. Ten years later he began his ten-year term as President of the American Go Association (AGA). During his tenure, the AGA faced an exceptional challenge and took advantage of an exceptional opportunity. The exceptional challenge was the COVID pandemic. Andy worked with the AGA Board to preserve the continuity of the U.S. Go Congresses by supporting virtual congresses in 2020 and 2021. He also played an important role in resuming in-person congresses in 2022. More generally, Andy was supportive of the volunteers who make congresses possible. A former Congress director noted the welcome reassurance that Andy provided as AGA president: “Andy was always supportive, especially in emphasizing that a great Congress was the goal and that the director should not lose sleep over the possibility that unforeseen circumstances might not result in the Congress breaking even financially.”

The exceptional opportunity was the interest of Myungwan Kim (9P) in facilitating the certification of North American Go professionals. Andy worked with Mr. Kim to enable the AGA to begin professional qualification tournaments in 2012. In 2020, Andy was one of the founding board members, and currently serves as the board chair, of the North American Go Federation (NAGF), which provides a forum for cooperation between the AGA and the Canadian Go Association (CGA) professional systems, including the certification of North American Go professionals. Since finishing his term as AGA president, Andy has continued to look for additional opportunities to promote North American Go professionals as well as further promote join efforts between the AGA and CGA.

Andy has also contributed broadly to international Go. His tenure as the AGA Board Chairman and President coincided with the blossoming internationalization of Go as a mind sport. Andy’s business, legal and diplomatic acumen had a chance to be showcased in these endeavors. For example, he was on the formation team of INAF, working closely with US and Japanese Go communities to give birth to this largest North American foundation dedicated to supporting Go.

Andy currently serves as the Anti-Doping Officer of the International Go Federation (IGF). Although most Go players would not normally think about the problem of doping in sports, it is a topic that must be addressed for Go to be included in events like the Olympics. The Go community is fortunate to have a dedicated contributor like Andy to help prepare for future opportunities for Go players.

In summary, Andy has made, and continues to make, contributions to North American Go that the INAF believes are important and worthy of recognition.