The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is the Internet’s governing body, will hold a five-day meeting in Accra in March that will focus on Sub-Sahara Africa.
Between 400 and 500 delegates from across the globe will attend the meeting from March 10-14, which will be its first for the year.
A statement from Network Computer System (NCS) said one of the main aims of the meeting was to reach out to sub-Saharan stakeholders of the Internet.
It will also educate the ICANN community about sub-Sahara Africa, its problems, advantages and concerns as well as setting the stage for funding technology development.
Participants will include the ICANN board, staff and ICANN constituencies as well as representatives of governmental organisations and the general public, according to the statement signed by Nana Ofosua Quaynor of NCS. The Accra meeting will be the second by ICANN after the first held in Cairo, Egypt, two years ago.
The conference will enable African operators to join the self-organised technical policy development process. In addition, global communities would be able to participate virtually through the Internet and contribute and seek opportunities to bridge the digital divide.
The statement said ICANN meetings were global policy development, technical coordination and administration of the Internet.
These meetings are held quarterly in different geographical regions. NCS, the main organiser of the meeting, won the bid to host the meeting against a competing bid from South Africa.
NSC is organising the meeting in collaboration with Valley View University and other Ghanaian universities, research institutions and NSRC of the US.
Source: GhanaWeb
