Ministers from six African countries have come to an agreement to accelerate broadband access across Sub-Saharan Africa. Government ministers from Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia met during the weekend in Botswana to discuss general points for consideration to expand internet access across the countries. Nonofo E Molefhi, minister of transport and communication for …
Below is a complete unabridged version of the comment/questions raised by Ms. Sophia Bekele, Executive Director and CEO of DotConnectAfrica Trust, at the ICANN-47 Public Forum Meeting in Durban, Republic of South Africa on 18th July 2013. A shorter version was read out at the ICANN Public Forum Meeting on Thursday, July 18, 2013 due …
The position of GAC and its importance in the ICANN new gTLD progress is being placed in a very tight spot over the relevance and the practicability of the recommendations that it has offered on the new gTLD applications and more specifically the Safeguard Advice. GAC entered ICANN as one of the arms that would …
ICANN has currently placed the GAC advice that was given during the 46th meeting in Beijing China, according to the announcement “On 11 April 2013, the Governmental Advisory Committee issued its Beijing Communiqué in which it provided advice on New gTLDs. The Board New gTLD Committee, acting on behalf of the full Board, will now …
DotConnectAfrica has received a GAC consensus advice on .africa through the ICANN GAC. The GAC early warnings which lead to a GAC advice has already been criticized for corruption and nepotism. This current one was also marred with irregularities and inconsistencies that have made GAC lose its credibility in the eyes of many internet governance participants and observers. DotConnectAfrica has survived all objections so far …
“If ICANN were to delegate the gTLD to DCA despite the AUC’s endorsement of UniForum, it is likely that the AUC would lose faith in ICANN and its structures.” The statement above that is part of Uniforum’s reply to the Independent Objector is reminiscent of the bureaucracy that is magnificent in the existing structures that …
Speaking recently to Reuters in an interview, Vint Cerf, a senior Google executive better known as a “father of the Internet.”, acknowledged that the search giant’s increasing push in the past 18 months to institute real-name authentication for Google+ and other services has sparked intense debate within its Mountain View, California, headquarters. Google has also …
DotConnectAfrica has taken a swipe at the delay of ICANN to check into the detailed issues of the conflict of interest, and has made apparent its impatience in the pace at which ICANN is dealing with its whistle blowing, in its 4th letter to ICANN dated January 31st, 2013 . “However, we write to express …
Chief Executive Officer of Signal Alliance, Mr. Collins Onuegbu, has predicted that Nigeria will be among the top 10 countries of the world in internet usage and penetration in few years’ time. Onuegbu, whose company specialises in software development and service delivery, gave the prediction in Lagos at a forum organised by Signal Alliance to …
Ms. Sophia Bekele DCA Registry Services, Kenya Mr. Neil Dundas Uniforum ZACR, South Africa Compare your Benefits: In my research since the .africa domain became official, I have been looking and comparing the various houses and their benefits towards the African context. I have looked at the publicly available information and drew up the …