ICANN sponsors Africa Internet Summit organised by AFRINIC, AfNOG

In furtherance to its regional outreach efforts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is sponsoring and participating in the Africa Internet Summit (AIS) organized by the Internet Numbers Registry for Africa (AFRINIC) and the African Network Operators Group (AfNOG).

The summit which began on Sunday 21 May will end on 2 June in Nairobi, Kenya, and will assemble key players of the Internet industry with the global and regional Internet community for a series of seminars, workshops, tutorials and panels.

Hon. Joseph Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of Information, Communications and Technology in Kenya, delivered remarks and officially opened the summit.

ICANN is actively involved in the programme on three levels: 27 May – ICANN Day; 28 May – Workshop on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) and 2 June – Plenary Session.

This is the third time ICANN Day will be held during the summit, and it aims to raise awareness on ICANN’s role in the Internet Governance ecosystem and foster ICANN’s outreach in Africa.

It will consist of the following activities: An introduction to ICANN; Panels and presentations on policy development, the regional domain name industry, and ICANN’s NextGen, Fellowship and Newcomers Programs, and domain name dispute resolution.

Also to feature during the summit is presentations on becoming an ICANN accredited registrar, civil society’s role in ICANN, Internet security and the upcoming Key Signing Key (KSK) rollover.

A statement issued by Buket Coskuner, global communications coordinator at ICANN stated that those who are interested in one or more of the following are encouraged to attend ICANN Day: learning more about ICANN and connecting with ICANN leadership; hearing about recent developments and top trends in the global domain industry; discussing various business, technical and policy aspects of the industry and joining the ICANN Community and participating in policy-making processes.

The workshop on Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), also organized by ICANN, will cover topics such as an overview of African languages and writing systems, label generation Rules (LGR) for IDNs, Ethiopic Script LGR proposal for the root zone and the use of Latin script for African languages.

Akinori Maemura, ICANN Board Member is scheduled to speak at the plenary session, which will cover topics such as: an update on the Africa DNS Market Study; key results from the Africa strategy since the last AIS meeting; information on ICANN59 in Johannesburg, South Africa, which is taking place from 26-29 June 2017 and information on the Africa DNS Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

“A year ago, ICANN celebrated the opening of the first African engagement office in Nairobi, Kenya. This initiative was also a recognition of Africa’s increased awareness and participation in ICANN and the greater Internet ecosystem.

“Given Africa’s potential for a greater online presence, ICANN is committed to its engagement with African stakeholders, from governments to the private sector. The Africa Internet Summit is one of the key events in the region for ICANN to fulfill this commitment.

We hope to enhance our efforts ininteracting with the region, and want to help connect the region to the global Internet ecosystem”, Buket Coskuner emphasized.