SHARM EL SHEIKH - The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) has recently organized a regional workshop on Arabic Domain Names and Internet Governance at the Savoy Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
The meeting tackled important topics related to the Arabic domain names in general, and the “.arab” Top-Level Domain, which will be applied for in 2010, in addition to issues associated with critical Internet resources and cyber security.
This workshop aimed at disseminating knowledge to a wide array of stakeholders about Internet governance from a regional perspective. More specifically, the workshop will discuss the plans and roadmaps for the deployment of the ".arab" gTLD, the establishment of a global gTLD registry for this purpose, as well as the full-fledged implementation of IDN country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) in the Arab region.
One of the main speakers at the workshop was Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) Executive Director Mr. Charles Sha’ban whose presentation focused on “Envisaged channels for Arabic script ccTLDs”.
“Through my presentation, I talked about the policy and business models ccTLDs in our region can follow, with concentration on business models and how we can make them financially beneficial, and similar to big ccTLDs and gTLDs registries” Sha’ban said.
Detailed presentation and information can be found on: http://www.escwa.un.org/information/meetingdetails.asp?referenceNum=1176E
The workshop was co-organized by League of Arab States and ESCWA, and hosted by the Egyptian Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT), in cooperation with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Arab ICT Organization (AICTO) and the Saudi Network Information Center (SaudiNIC).
Representatives of regional and global key Internet players participated in this event, mainly from Arab country-code top-level domain operators, domain name registries, registrars, resellers, Internet service providers as well as small and medium enterprises and telecom operators interested in the implementation of Internationalized Domain Names in the Arab region.