3rd edition of .NG Media College Workshop for Media Practitioners held by NIRA
The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) today conducted the third in the series of its .NG media college workshop for members of the media and other professionals. Media organizations that attended the training include Businesstrumpet News, Rave media, APNews, ebusinesslive, eworld magazine, Digital Times, Technology Mirror, Nigeria Communication Week , Telegram and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
In his remarks, NIRA President, Revd Sunday Folayan, said that the .NG country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is a gold mine, one that could contribute very significantly to the economic development of the Nigeria. With a population of over 190 million, internet penetration of over 98.3 million users and business population of over 37 million, the potential for the .NG domain is indeed great.
He compared the economic potentials with the .tk domain name which belongs to Tokelau, a country of 1.6 million population but with over 21 million of its .tk country code top-level domain (ccTLD) name sold and one-sixth of its economy coming from the sale of .tk domains while Germany with a population of about 83 million people has over 20 million of its .de domain name sold already. On the other hand, the .ng domain name has only a paltry 106,000 sold. He also said that at the moment NIRA has 65 domain registrars. With a business population of over 37 million, the ,NG has a market potential of over N37 billion annually (assuming an annual renewal rice of N1,000 per .ng domain). These are besides the potential businesses from additional registrars and subsequent jobs that will be created.
NIRA recently auctioned some of its premium domain names and some of them were sold for as high as N7 million. The NIRA President also pointed out that in the last four years, NIRA has witnessed a 50% year on year growth in the number of domain names registered and is poised to maintain the momentum.
Revd Folayan further mentioned that some of the challenges militating the growth of the .ng domain name include low awareness among Nigerians, poor infrastructure, preference by many for foreign domain names, poor and inadequate policies to drive the .ng domain name and insufficient manpower in the sector.
The above challenges formed the basis for the media college which is “designed so that NIRA and the media can work together in an advocacy relationship to push the .ng domain name to greater heights. The media college workshop is to inform, educate and forge relationship with the media and build partnership to promote and harness the immense potentials in Nigeria’s .ng country code top-level domain (ccTLD) name. It is also aimed at encouraging creativity and discourse on Domain Name Industry and its relevance in the Legal, ICT and Financial Industries in Nigeria”
The workshop fully sponsored by NIRA and rendered free to the media practitioners held at NIRA Office Complex on Funsho Williams Avenue, Iponri, Surulere, had the theme “A World of Opportunities: tapping the opportunities in the DNS Industry”. Presentations were made on “brand protection and trademarking on the Internet”, “Cyber security: protecting the resilience of Nigeria’s financial services”, “a case study for the financial services sector in Nigeria to adopt Nigerian online identity”, local hosting etc.
