[AfrICANN-discuss] Help with .africa history

[Dandjinou Pierre]

Rebecca,

Good you are writing the history of .Africa

To my knowledge, there has not been any application for the .Africa
string, apart from those we now have with the new gTLD programme.

We did have an expression of interest by a westerner to run .Africa
back ther in the 2000s and we thought it back during one of the Icann
meeting in 2002 I believe.

We (actually Nii, Pierre O. Adiel, and Pierre D. also Mohamed Diop I
think) later on developed a concept paper on how the .Africa should be
run for the benefits of Africa. We wanted .Africa to be expressive and
thus detailed it as 'DotAfrica' in the oaper and the latter was
circulated and posted on the website (www.dotafrica.org). (Nii
registered that name and has been paying for it i think)!

In 2007, the bearer of the DCA initiative approached us; I gave her
the concept paper; she promised to work with us, to bring the diaspora
perspective so that we collectively moved that agenda for Africa. We
believed her!

Here we are now, with lies, cabals and confusions!

 Hope this clarifies!

Pierre D.
On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 9:59 AM, Rebecca Wanjiku
<rebecca.wanjiku at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am writing on the history of .africa and there seems to be conflicting
> information on when the initial expression of running of .africa was made.
> Was there an actual application to ICANN or not?
>
> If you have a recollection of the events then, please help me out.
>
> I have drafted the brief history and if there is another part of it that I
> am getting wrong, please correct me.
>
> Here it is....
>
> History of dot Africa
>
>
> At the beginning of the second round of the new Generic Top Level Domain
> (gTLD) application in 2000, an entrepreneur from a western country had the
> idea of running dot Africa.
>
>
> The entrepreneur approached Nii Quaynor and Pierre Danjinou, Africa's well
> known technology ambassadors to organize support for the redelegation and
> operation of the geographic domain.
>
>
> By the time ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) held
> its first meeting in Africa in Accra in 2002, the idea of redelegation of
> dot Africa was floated to other experts and the feeling was that at that
> time, Africa had other more challenging problems like redelegation of
> country code Top Level Domains, connectivity infrastructure issues, and
> policy development among other challenges.
>
>
> It was largely agreed that the best approach was to tackle the elementary
> problems such as connectivity and redelegation of ccTLDs before dealing with
> dot Africa, but the debate continued.
>
>
> Some of the elementary problems were: connecting the Eastern Africa region
> with the fiber optic cable to reduce its reliance on satellite connectivity,
> increasing the number of fiber optic cables in west Africa to further reduce
> connectivity costs, boosting network infrastructure to interconnect
> different countries and exchange content locally and developing registry
> operations to support growth of country code Top Level Domains, among other
> challenges.
>
>
> The policy and infrastructure discussions started an investment wave that
> saw several investors coming together to initiate several fiber optic cables
> in such-EASSY, TEAMS, and SEACOM among others. These investment vehicles
> were both private and public-private partnerships.
>
>
> By 2006, it was clear that the connectivity hurdle was going to be cleared
> and the debate focused back to dot Africa. In the meantime, European
> countries had rallied behind dot EU and Asian countries were galvanizing
> support for dot Asia.
>
>
> In Africa, the debate was centered around the shape and form of dot Africa
> organization, and the role governments and private sector would play in
> promoting dot Africa, and how the organization would contribute to training
> and infrastructure development.
>
>
> Between 2007 and 2008, a private sector initiative emerged, promising to run
> dot Africa with the support of the African Union but it was marred by
> controversy because the African Union Commission only expressed its
> intention to rally African countries behind dot Africa in 2009 and in 2010,
> Africa TLD organization (AfTLD) which brings together ccTLDs in the region,
> rendered its support to the AUC in sponsoring and selecting the right
> organization to run dot Africa TLD.
>
>
> In 2011, the AU invited interested companies based in Africa to express
> interest in running dot Africa, clearly showing their registry operational
> experience, stating where the registry operations will be based, how the
> operation will benefit African countries and a methodology of how these
> benefits will trickle down.
>
>
> After deliberations on the technical, financial ability and benefits to
> Africa tech community, UNIFORUM was selected by the AUC as the organization
> to establish and run dot Africa.
>
>
>
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Becky
>
> 254 720318925
>
> www.wanjiku.co.ke
>
> twitter; wanjiku
>
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>



-- 
Pierre Dandjinou
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