The
event aims to establish a platform for the DNS community across Africa and to
advance the domain name industry and domain name registrations on the
continent.
Over
the years, the Internet Society (http://www.internetsociety.org), AfTLD, and
ICANN have supported the continued development and growth of Country Code Top
Level Domains (ccTLDs) in Africa through capacity building and technical
support.
DigitalSENSEBusiness News recalls that
despite the support, the growth and sustainability of African ccTLDs and
adoption of new technologies remains very low as compared to other regions of
the world.
And to
identify the bottlenecks that are keeping the industry from growing and the
actions that can catalyze its growth, the three organizations determined the
need for a forum to discuss these regional DNS issues, the collaboration
becomes imperative.
DigitalSENSEBusiness News also gathered
that the DNS Forum is expected to foster cross-border collaboration between
registries, registrars, registrants, DNS experts, Government representatives,
and policy makers.
Topics
slated for the 1 ½ day event include trends, opportunities, and challenges of
the DNS industry; strategies for registries and registrars; legal issues with
cross-border domain registrations; ways Governments can support domain name
growth; and benefits of standardizing accreditation to attract more
cross-border registrars and registrations.
Internet
Society Regional Bureau Director for Africa, Mr. Dawit Bekele, said that ISOC
has been working to strengthen the ccTLDs in Africa by improving
sustainability, encouraging the implementation of automation solutions at
ccTLDs, and promoting the use of technology such as DNSSEC at registries.
“We are
pleased to join together with AfTLD and ICANN to host this multi-stakeholder
forum where participants can share experiences, gain new insights, and
establish new business relationships with organizations from within and outside
the continent. Such a forum is important to bring growth in the African domain
name industry,” he said.
Also
commenting, the ICANN Vice President of Stakeholder Engagement for Africa, Mr.
Pierre S. Dandjinou, assured that ICANN partners players in the region to
implement its Africa strategy, which was developed in 2012 by the African
community.
“Thus,
this DNS Forum in Durban, as a partnership between AfTLD and the Internet
Society and as a pre-conference event to the ICANN meeting, is another
milestone that builds on the MIGworks event in Addis in March 2013, which
sought to pave the way for the development of the DNS industry in Africa and to
empower the African community for an increased accreditation of registrars from
the continent,” he said.
Dandjinou
believes the new gTLD programme would help grow this industry on a global and
regional level, even as, he expressed the hope that African business players
could be part of this growing industry as much as possible.
“ICANN
will present in this event several programmes to support and incubate new
business players in Africa to benefit out of the growing potential in this
continent,” the VP said.
Equally
commenting, the AfTLD president, Dr. Paulos Nyirenda noted by working with and
building on our partnerships in running the DNS Forum, adding that AfTLD’s
objective is to build a thriving capacity building activities for ccTLDs in
Africa so as to improve the DNS in Africa and the sustainability of ccTLDs.
“The
DNS Forum will present a great opportunity for players in the domain industry
to learn and to foster new and established relationships, including those among
ccTLDs, registries, registrars, operators, policy makers and end users,” he
said.
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