Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter View our profile on LinkedInView our photos on flickrView our videos on YouTube   
DotAfrica logo with no labels

DotConnectAfrica

 

Founder of generation.africa

yes2dotafrica 

 

Non-Profit/NonPartisan

 Open/Transparent

 Think Global, Act Local

 

much much more... 

DotConnectAfrica TedBits 

 senegal travel image for dotafrica

Boasting a groovy music scene, great beaches, well-worn colonial history in its buildings plus wildlife and wonderful hospitality, Senegal is one of West Africa's principal attractions. The country has great valleys, national parks, abundant plant life and wildlife. Ever since freeing itself from the rule of France in 1960, Senegal has served as a showcase for democracy in Africa.  

 

21 Sept 2011                             Internet industry updates, policy trends, tips, and news on Africa... 

 

Did You know this about Africa?
Africa is second-largest of the Earth's seven continents - covering about 30,330,000 sq km (11,699,000 sq mi), which makes up about 22 per cent of the world's total land area.
 
If you  are on your way to Dakar, Senegal, at least you should know this ! ;)

UPDATE

 

AFRICA

 ICANN  

INDUSTRY

Interesting Reads

 

.Top 5 Myths About the Internet

 

.Outgoing ICANN chief touts domain name changes

ICANNAfrica/

Africa Domain News

 

. ICANN is coming to DAKAR, Senegal 

 

. 2011 NomCom Africa selection -congrats from DCA

 

ccTLD for Southern Sudan .SS ! 

 

 
senegal map

 soon to come 

dakar.africa

Policy Alerts

Remarks by Lawrence E. Strickling

 

Payback time: The European Commission papers on ICANN

 

INSIDE AFRICA

 

Africa says thank you 

to ICANN & DCA

 

 

 

 *********************************

DCA's Recent Commentaries

 

DCA OFFICIAL RESPONSE TO THE "DRAFT RESOLUTION" OF

MEETING OF EXPERTS AND THE AFRICAN MINISTERIAL ROUND-TABLE IN DAKAR FOR THE 'AFRICAN AGENDA ICANN'

 

HARD TALK: NePAD Has Failed to Solve Africa's Myriad Problems

 

. The AFRICA -IGF

 

Rejoinder to Mr. David Goldstien

 

 

Pre-Register 

your.africa

Click  our logo below

DotAfrica logo with no labels

Recently Trending!

 

dakar.africa
cabal.africa

africa-agenda.africa

reserved-names.africa

newgtlds.africa

desperatehousewives.africa

Yes2.africa

 no-campaign.africa 

girlsoutfit.africa

diamond.africa

zirconia.africa

AU.africa

Nepad.africa

icann.africa

IGF.africa

 

 

check us out on 

 

  
yes2dotafrica logo

 
DCA Social Media logo
 
DotAfrica logo with no labels
 
petition dotafrica 
*

Quote of this News article...

 

We have a responsibility in our time, as others have had in theirs, not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history. ---Madeleine K. Albright 

   

 

You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people. ---Marsha Evans

 


Join Our Mailing List

 

 

Contact Us:

 

[email protected]

  __________________________

About Us:

www.dotconnectafrica.org

 Africa.com: The Compelling Story behind the future "Huffington Post for Africa"

Theresa Clarke - Africa.com

 Teresa Clarke, 

CEO Africa.com

-- article by Domains africa 

  

I am a big fan of type-in traffic, and everyday, I access at least 10 websites  by typing in generic keyword domains into the browser; I rarely get lucky as virtually all the best domain names are taken. Late last year, I typed in africa.com into my browser and out came a not so well designed website that did not even catch my attention. I just wanted to know the lucky mortal who owned such a crown jewel of a domain name.  In my daily browsing ever since, I don't remember ever landing on africa.com again until today. 

 

In 2001, she acquired the domain africa.com and kept it in the closet. At least now she owned a piece of Africa, an African real estate on the World Wide Web.  In the meantime, she pursued a high rolling career in Wall Street as a Managing Director with Goldman Sachs. She was one of the few African Americans on Wall Street.

  

 For me, ownership of the Africa.com domain name is about more than a business opportunity. I see this as a tremendous privilege and a great responsibility. Whoever owns this domain name has a monumental opportunity to shape how the internet world views Africa. Africa has been very good to me throughout my life and my career, and I wanted to step up to the challenge of ensuring that this great vehicle for change is used responsibly and effectively. -- Teresa Clarke

[more]

 

Africa.com: The domain Google wanted that launched a startup instead :  Then in 2009, Google was on the verge of launching their focus on the next internet frontier, Africa, and they thought the africa.com domain name would be perfect for their plans. They wanted to build a social networkafrica.com that could beat Facebook to the emerging African market. They approached Ms Clarke with an offer but she declined, quit her job at Goldman Sachs and launched africa.com in February, 2010 [more]  


HARD TALK:     Eye Opening Analysis!

 

NEPAD logo"This month (July, 2011) the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NePAD) completes ten years since it was set up by the African Union (AU). The underlying logic of this widely publicised and seemingly innovative initiative is: "African solutions to African problems"

 

From my perspective, the initiative, 
despite its intellectual appeal and clearly defined goals, has been a terrible failure; it has brought no substantive change to Africa in terms of transforming the continent's economies or improving the livelihoods of the mass of the African people - which confirms the critics' view, upon the launch of NePAD, that the project was a "non-starter".  

Evarist Kagaruki

,

 


The Challenges Facing Africa's Emerging Governance Architecture 

 

"The relationship between the Chairperson, Deputy and the Commissioners of the AU Commission could at best be described as "dysfunctional with overlapping portfolios, unclear authority and responsibility lines and expectations". To date, no reports have revealed the opposite to this unflattering description".   Sabelo Gumedze

          Full article: Click on right

 African Union:  Clinton Tells African Leaders,  Economies Would Fail Without Women's Toil

Clinton says African economies will fail without women

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talks to Julia Dolly Joiner, left, Commissioner of Political Affairs for the AUC at the African Union Commission

 

-- By Flavia Krause-Jackson

 

African Union,Addis Ababa, Ethiopia-

 

Hillary Clinton's speech was met with silence from the male-dominated envoys at the African Union as she criticized the continents aging autocrats

 

The mood changed when the U.S. Secretary of State turned her attention to women. 

 

"The women of Africa are the hardest working women in the world," said Clinton, addressing the 53-nation body in Addis Ababa on June 13. Interrupted by loud cheers from the visitors' area in the upper gallery in the back of the hall, she exclaimed: "If all the women in Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town, decided they would stop working for a week, the economies of Africa would collapse."

 

If African women were given equal access as men to vocational training and technology, the continent's economy  would expand by at least 40 percent, according Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge,  Massachusetts.  [Full Article] 


What is Up at DCA?

 

.Our ScoreCard  (why we do the things we do)

. DCA podcast (Yes2newTLDs)

.The Successful Munich Campaign 

. Meet Yes2dotafrica campaign in Senegal

 

 DCA Sponsors ICANN Dakar

  DotAfrica logo with no labelsyes2dotafrica logo
is sponsoring ICANN Dakar!   

Come visit us at Booth 14!

ICANN Internet Governance 

  

                Hot  Topic!                  

European Commission logo

ICANN logo for dotafrica

 

"The Board was right to depart from 
his advice.  De Graaf should know, 
moreover, that the ICANN Articles and bylaws clearly specify the nonbinding status of GAC advice. 
 
Indeed, many of the GAC demands would have constituted unilateral modifications of painstakingly negotiated compromises among multiple stakeholders.  
Yet while the EC clearly lost the argument, it has chosen to get vindictive rather than admit a mistake"
----Miton Muller"

 ICANN 42 Dakar Interview with Sebastian Bachollet Explains Challenges for Africa and Other Global Internet Issues.

Hot  Topic!     

ICANN logo for dotafrica
 
IRTN: This calls into question the authority of the United States on the Internet and ICANN is an organization under American law.  Do you think these issues will be discussed at the 42nd conference in Dakar?

SB: The question does not arise in those terms. There are people who have long dreamed of a transfer of governance to organizations like the UN.  We should be well aware that no intergovernmental structure can replace ICANN. 
In the structure of ICANN, governments and international treaty organizations work in partnership with businesses, associations, users (business and individual) and technical specialists. They help build and maintain the global Internet. ICANN is run by a board of international representation that oversees the process of policy development and with an international team of permanent staff who ensure that  ICANN meets its operational commitments in relation to the Internet community and allow a real commitment of volunteers. ICANN opens the door to all countries. It would be a step backwards to think that intergovernmental structure within the UN can deal with the management of domain names and IP addresses worldwide.
----Sebastian Bachollet
[More]
 
NOTE:  DCA largely supported and Voted for Sebastian Bachollet during his Nomination for ICANN Atlarge Board. THANK YOU Sebastian, you are representing Africa very WELL.

INDUSTRYIndustry:  Why ICANN's New Domain-Name System Could Benefit Brands

 

By By: Alexa Raad 

 

Alexa Raad

Alexa Raad

When the Internet Corp. of Assigned Names and Numbers approved in June the new top-level domain program, virtually every major media organization covered it.  Unfortunately, few understood it.  

 

They are not alone. Even veterans of the domain name system are mulling the potential for new TLDs. Do they portend a revolution in internet marketing, or are they much ado about nothing?

 

The Association of National Advertisers doesn't like it. Last week, it fired a shot at ICANN, claiming new TLDs would cost advertisers millions to protect their brand names. ICANN counters that their approval process will block anyone from launching a TLD under a trademarked name they don't own. That includes, for example, not only .Microsoft, but the owner of .software can't sell Microsoft.software to anyone but Microsoft. [more]

 

Alexa Raad is CEO of Architelos, a consultant for top-level-domain applicants, and the former CEO of the Public Interest Registry for .org domain names. 

 

See DCA's comments to this article below  more comments...

 

 

This article pretty much explains everything that embodies the upcoming TLDs and for that we appreciate Alexa's grand input, this should be able to help many individuals and organizations who have not understood how the whole process and the impact of the new TLD's.  Am glad that the whole new range will help to individualize as well as give identity to the people who deserve and own them, Brands, Continents ,consumer , individuals Products have a great opportunity to improve their naming system. the fact that it will eventually be easier to remember names, as the example on eBay really shortens the domain names and even more gives clarity to the e-users, now that internet is becoming part and parcel of day to day life.


In Africa, we are more than happy and can't wait to see the day ".africa" comes live, broadband has really penetrated the continent with arrivals of the submarine communications cables, we boast of improved speeds that has translated across the board, mobile phone usage is hitting huge figures and that means people are in touch with web based technologies to transact day to day business, developers therefore have been moved by the challenge and as such developing Apps that suit the African setting.

 

We therefore applaud the whole process and look forward to a tremendous future with our very own TLD, DotconnectAfrica being at the fore front of the Campaigns to a .africa future salute ICANN and the professionals who have tirelessly continued to work hard to educate and reach out that people may heed the call to apply for more tangible top level domains, Salute Alexa Raad!.

by GIDEON ROP

Quick Links

Africa In perspective
Africa is second-largest of the Earth's seven continents - covering about 30,330,000 sq km (11,699,000 sq mi), which makes up about 22 per cent of the world's total land area.
Africa in perspective -DCA
Thomas Kamanzi, Newsletter Editor, [email protected]