The continental roadshow to create awareness of the new DotAfrica top-level internet domain has come to an end after passing through numerous African countries.
The promotional campaign, which began early in the new year, started off in Botwana and passed through a number of African countries in order to spread the word about DotAfrica and encourage adoption of the geographic domain.
On 22 January roadshow team and flag successfully reached the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, and the DotAfrica flag has now returned to its home at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, according to ITWebAfrica.
Lucky Masilela, CEO of the ZA Central Registry, which administers the domain, spoke of the success of the continental roadshow
“Communicating DotAfrica’s potential to uplift Africa economically has been a major objective of our pan-African journey and I believe we achieved this goal,” said Masilela, according to TechnoAfrica.
“Both the World Economic Forum and the African Development Bank speak of Africa making a concerted effort to invest in ICT-related infrastructure and trends like the internet of things – the recent launch of the DotAfrica gTLD is clearly spot-on in this regard,” he added.
In a study concluded by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) before the official launch of the DotAfrica top-level domain name, the total annual value of the African domain name market was determined to be worth $52 million, according to DailyNation.
The dotAfrica initiative is fully endorsed by the African Union Commission (AUC) and has experienced great support across the continent, with African governments, the business sector, civil society and the technical community all expressing their pleasure at the availability of the new top-level domain.
By the end of 2017 the dotAfrica top-level internet domain attracted over 10,000 registrations since its launch in July, displaying a popularity for the domain among businesses, organisations and individuals, according to CajnewsAfrica.
The planned roadshow has made more people aware of the existence of the DotAfrica domain.
The domain experienced heavy initial interest, which placed it in the top 10 worldwide for the number of domain name reservations during the sunrise phase of a launch process, according to TechCentral.
DotAfrica recorded 981 domain registrations by trademark-holders and other intellectual property (IP) rights-holders over the 60 days from Apr. 4.
The ZA Central Registry monitored interest from intellectual property owners that submitted marks through the global Trade Mark Clearing House as well as the ZA Central Registry’s own Mark Validation System, as is normal practice with regards to registries.
