[AfrICANN-discuss] Help with .africa history

Thu Jun 28 14:44:58 SAST 2012

Thanks for clarification

Dr Alioune Badara TRAORE
+223 6678 58 31

De : Jean Robert Hountomey <jrhountomey at gmail.com>
À : africann at afrinic.net 
Envoyé le : Jeudi 28 juin 2012 12h05
Objet : Re: [AfrICANN-discuss] Help with .africa history

The domain dotafrica.org was created on 2004.Domain ID:D104553929-LROR
Domain Name:DOTAFRICA.ORG
Created On:21-Jun-2004 20:33:13 UTC 
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 (http://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 mailto: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 http://www.wanjiku.co.ke/ twitter; wanjiku

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