FOLLOWING the decision of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) board to expand the generic top-level domain space from four -'.com,' '.org,' '.net,' and '.biz' - to 21, DotConnectAfrica, the operator of the proposed '.africa' domain name is pushing to popularise the initiative at the AITEC Banking and Mobile Money West Africa billed to hold at the EKO Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island Lagos between 11 and 12 May 2010.

Executive Director of DotConnectAfrica, Ms. Sophia Bekele, who will be speaking on the topic: ".Africa - the New Internet Currency," at the Lagos conference, is expected to kick-start discussions and engage participants on how to get African businesses and individual buy into the '.africa' project.
AITEC, as a leading organiser of ICT events across Africa, has most of its 2010 conference theme focused on Mobile Banking and technologies.

Bekele, who communicated with The Guardian through an email exchange from her Nairobi-Kenya base, said: ".Africa is a product of DotConnectAfrica organisaton, whose overarching vision is to leverage the successful and cooperative platform of the African ICT companies and community and further this collaborative approach to other areas of the growing economies, in ".Africa" case, the internet economy."

With help from sponsor organisations and business people, the domain registry would "boost regional integration and benefit the business community."

Although most people prefer the more generic .com and .net, domains, the target market is deemed to have the potential of netting over 900 million Africans, including stakeholders in government, private sector and NGOs operating in the continent.

Bekele explained that DotConnectAfrica is considering having second level names to make it affordable for individuals, charge more for corporations and have an exclusive section for government and related identities. This, according to her would address the issue of low adoption due largely to high costs.

Another strategy to encourage adoption levels, according to her, is through advertising and promoting an African identity by working with respective country codes' top-level domain registries such as ".ng," ".ke," ".ug" or ".tz."

"We will also work with foreign registrars as we promote '.africa' as a one-stop domain, as we aspire to protect and advance their corporate brands and interests across Africa, Bekele said.

It would be recalled that the African Union heads of state recently endorsed the ".africa" initiative at the Addis Ababa Assembly that ended on February 2.

The endorsement followed a similar approval at the November 2009 Ministerial Conference in Johannesburg South Africa, where the Council of African ICT ministers acknowledged its benefits to the continent.

The report of experts stated the need to establish the ".africa" domain as a continental top-level domain for use by organisations, businesses and individuals with guidance from African Internet agencies.

Bekele said "DotAfrica represents a new technology initiative, which carries a continental identity "Africa'. At the same time, it represents "mobility", since domain name technology like cloud computing, can be accessed anytime and from any place where access is available.

"Given that people are open to it, there is a lot of opportunity to bring African business, products and services online with the ".africa" name than any other top-level domain ever. This also helps people to be part of the knowledge and the Internet society, where the next generation of business models and innovation takes place."

As a policy advisor, Bekele has worked for various Top Level domain names, such as .com, .net, .org and was involved in major projects undertaken by ICANN.

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