Thanks Alice and Washi, like Washington says i also embraced the news with some pessimism due to the fact that the levels and rate of

On another note we have able leaders representing this great continent at the ICANN meeting, Katim, Ann-Rachel, Alice among others sitting at vantage points in various commitees, i would wish to challenge all of you to look at frameworks that will help this continent move away from asking for waivers and compete favourably with the other economic

Barrack, thanks. This will form basis for several workshops proposed for the upcoming UN-IGF and we may want to include it as an agenda item during our national IGF in July. The responsibility of enabling increased access/penetration to the internet while a very important issue is not really for ICANN. New gTLDs were launched and will crowd the domain name space and if most of our developing countries are not involved we shall continue to experience the digital divide. As noted earlier, there were previously 22 gTLDs none of them operated/owned in Africa for example we may have maybe 200-500 new ones, how many of these will be African applicants? We have managed to encourage ICANN to make provisions to support new gTLD applicants from developing countries, which is an important first step. Regarding competing favorably, we need more entrepreneurs in this area to apply and manage new gTLDS. Best Alice penetration of the internet as well as the awareness of matters pertaining to the domain name industry are not very encouraging on the African continent, i wonder whether anything was discussed towards this end otherwise as Washington says the benefits might be skewed towards the western world because of global politics, i recall that there were already guys lobbying for some of the gtlds which i will not mention here during last years ICANN and they treated us to a sumptuous dinner which we could not refuse in the true African Spirit. We look forwad to more information i am sure some of this issues could form good discussion topics during the forthcoming IGF. powerhouses, i am sure a discussion around this during the forthcoming IGF is likely to be exciting as well.

Thank you

On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 1:25 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:

The application fee is steep, not to mention other related fees that

could

eventually amount to over 1mUS$ or more. This issue has been debated over a long time and the decision to

estalish

the so called "Joint SO/AC New gTLD Applicant Support Working Group"

was

to develop a sustainable approach in providing support to

applicants from

developing countries who can not afford those amounts, plus the

technical

requirement among others. So if dot jaluo meets the required criteria would qualify for support.

best alice

On 6/21/11 11:34 AM, Odhiambo Washington wrote:

Thanks for this Alice.

Please excuse my pessimism, but I still think "Internet Presence"

needs to

be determined by how many people are connected, as opposed to the availability of gTLDs. Then I also see this new development as something which appears to have been prompted by the "elite club" Suppose I wanted to create

dot.jaluo, it

means I have to cough USD 185'000? Yawa?? I know conglomerates will

afford

this, not the "ordinary Internet user" hapa mashinani (mashinani ==

KE).

> > > On Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 11:19, <[email protected]> wrote: > > The new gTLDs will effectively allow the creation of any TLD

with up

to 64 > characters, generic words, brand names, regional suffixes,

allowing

> owners to become domain registries. According to the CEO,

this will

open > up the domain "naming system to unleash the global human imagination," . > This development will also provide owners with the rights to

create top

> level domain names in any script or language. Applications for

gTLDs

will > be accepted from 12 January to 12 April 2012. > > There are currently only 22 generic top level domains, which

are .com,

> .int, .edu, .mil, .net, .org, .arpa, .info, ,museum, .name, .pro, .asia, > .cat. .jobs. .mobi. .post . biz, .tel .coop, .travel. .tel, gov. > > With this new development, there is likely to be several

hundred new

> generic top-level domain names which could include such

addresses as .

> bank, .hotel. .shop, .coke, . africa, .nairobi, among others.

It will

> cost US$185,000 to apply among other requirements, like technical > standards, etc a price that rich global organizations will be willing to > pay to maximize their presence on the internet. > Too expensive? > > Yes particularly for developing countries with the same needs

to not

only > increase our presence on the internet but for some to protect

against

> trademark infringement dot.mpesa anyone? > > During the ICANN meeting in Nairobi, the Government Advisory

committee

> (GAC) had advised the board to initiate a process that would see > provisions made to support needy applicants and applications from > developing countries. > > The Joint SO/AC New gTLD Applicant Support Working Group was

set up

with > the main objective to develop a sustainable approach in

providing

support > to applicants requiring assistance in applying for and

operating new

gTLDs > Registries. > This group have recommended a number of innovative approaches

that are

> currently under consideration by ICANN community including the government > advisory committee. > Yesterday's resolution included a "program to ensure support for > applicants from developing countries, with a form, structure and processes > to be determined by the Board in consultation with stakeholders including: > (a) consideration of the GAC recommendation for a fee waiver corresponding > to 76 percent of the $185,000 USD evaluation fee, (b)

consideration of

> recommendations of the ALAC and GNSO as chartering

organizations of the

> Joint Applicant Support (JAS) Working Group, (c) designation of a budget > of up to $2 million USD for seed funding, and creating

opportunities

for > other parties to provide matching funds.........Final Report from the JAS > Working Group (requested in time to allow staff to develop an > implementation plan for the Board’s consideration at its

October 2011

> meeting in Dakar, Senegal), with the goal of having a sustainable > applicant support system in place before the opening of the

application

> window"; > > > > More on this later > > Very best > > Alice

> > -- > Best regards, > Odhiambo WASHINGTON, > Nairobi,KE > +254733744121/+254722743223 > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ > I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler. > Please consider the environment before printing this email. >

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