News from dotAfrica

From Africa for the World

In this newsletter

1. Note from the editor
2. Main story
3. Technical news
4. Features: "dotAfrica Profile of the week"
5. News from dotAfrica
6. An interesting read
7. Something fun

Note from the editor

Welcome to the first edition of the dotAfrica newsletter. Thank you for subscribing!

We hope to inform, enlighten and entertain you with news, articles and opinions from the world of dotAfrica. Hope you find this an interesting read. The spotlight this week is on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) new gTLD applicants. The big reveal happened on 13.06.2012.

Please feel free to give us feedback or suggestions on how we can improve the communiqué for your reading pleasure.

Until next time...

Main story

The main story that featured this week is the announcement of all the applicants of ICANN's new gTLD applications. There were more than 1 900 applicants in the process, and it is great and interesting to see that 17 of the applicants hail from the African continent. It's an exciting time for Africa.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) confirmed that only the ZA Central Registry (ZACR) has applied to administer the new .africa (pronounced dotAfrica) generic Top Level Domain (gTLD).

Billed as “Reveal Day”, 13 June 2012 was the day that UniForum SA, trading as the ZA Central Registry (ZACR), was officially acknowledged as the only Registry Operator bidding for the .africa gTLD.

The string that the ZACR has applied for is .africa, with the "dot" in dotafrica representing a "." The end domain name string would resemble as an example "example.africa".

Another bidder, Dot Connect Africa Trust, has applied for a gTLD called “dotafrica”. This means, should DCA be successful, this bidder will potentially be awarded the gTLD in this configuration: "example.dotafrica".

Earlier this year, the African Union Commission (AUC) already selected the ZACR as representing the continent’s official bid based on the level of transparency, reliability, technical ability, financial stability and continental representation that it can bring to bear.

As early as the first quarter of 2013, ICANN will announce which organisation will administer the continent’s dotAfrica top-level domain.

“Having its own unique top level domain name extension will mean all sorts of boosts for the African continent, from the economic to the patriotic,” concluded, Neil Dundas.

Follow the dotAfrica campaign on:

Facebook and Twitter for the latest news and updates.

To read further: (http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/program-status/application-results/strings-1200utc-13jun12-en)

To read further: (http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/announcements-and-media/video/overview-en )

Personality of the week

Meet our dotAfrica Steering Committee Chairperson, Mr Mohamed El Bashir.

Mr EL Bashir is an Internet Expert specialized in Internet Infrastructure management, Domain Names System, Country Code Top Level Domains "ccTLD" and Internationalized Domain Names "IDNs".

Mohamed is an active Internet user and Professional, He was Founder and President of Sudan Internet Society from 2001 until 2008, its main objectives were to promote Internet usage for Sudan’s Socio-economic development. He has been active within ICANN since 2001, handling Sudan ccTLD ".SD" Re-delegation process, .sd is managed by the Sudan Internet Society. Mohamed served as a Council member in ICANN's Country Code Supporting Organization "ccNSO" Council representing Africa, and was also a member of ICANN's Board At Large Advisory Committee "ALAC".

Contact Mohamed
send an email or follow his blog

Technical News

On 18 July 2011 UniForum SA trading as the ZA Central Registry went live with its new Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) platform which is designed to enhance the relationship and communications between the registry and the domain name registrars. The migration from the legacy email based system is of historical significance as the EPP protocol allows for robust and flexible communication between registries and registrars.

The impetus for the migration came from various factors, inter alia,

industry leaders who wanted to have an alternative to the email-based system of co.za domain name registrations;
the need to standardise the registry operating systems in terms of internationally recognised processes implemented within the domain name environment; and
the need to make real-time processing of co.za domain name registration transactions a reality.

EPP is a flexible protocol designed for allocating objects within registries over the Internet. The motivation for the creation of EPP was to create a robust and flexible protocol that could provide communication between domain name registries and domain name registrars. These transactions are required whenever a domain name is registered or renewed, thereby also preventing domain hijacking. Prior to its introduction, registries had no uniform approach, and many different proprietary interfaces existed. While its use for domain names was the initial driver, the protocol is designed to be usable for any kind of ordering and fulfillment system. EPP is based on XML - a structured, text-based format. The underlying network transport is not fixed, although the only currently specified method is over TCP. The protocol has been designed with the flexibility to allow it to use other transports such as BEEP, SMTP, or SOAP.

This bodes well for the dotAfrica initiative as UniForum SA being the endorsed and sole bidder to manage the registy service for .africa is well equipped as a registry. The first EPP transaction, on the .co.za platform occurred in September 2012, and currently there are over 300 registrars, registered on the EPP system.

Telecoms market in Africa

Africa is the second largest continent in the world, with a population of more than one billion people. The social and economic impact that telecommunications have had on Africa over the past decade are astounding. And there’s more to come.

Read the review online here.

dotAfrica in the news

Check out the latest news from dotAfrica.

dotAfrica will be represented at ICANN 44 – Prague. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

dotAfrica will be hosting a media lunch on the 16^th of July at the Jacaranda Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya.

dotAfrica was seen at the ICT Indaba, Johannesburg South Africa; AfriNIC meeting in Serekunda the Gambia, African Preparatory Meeting for ITUs WCIT/WTSA-12, Durban South Africa.

Something
fun

Sudoku is an easy to learn logic-based number placement puzzle. The word Sudoku is short for Su-ji wa dokushin ni kagiru which means "the numbers must be single".