How media practitioners can take advantage of nigeria dns industry 2-02-15

A presentation on:
“How Media Practitioners can take
advantage of Nigeria DNS Industry”
By
Remmy Nweke
Chairman,
Communication & Publicity Committee, NIRA
Group Executive Editor,
DigitalSENSE Africa Media Group
[DigitalSENSE Business News, ITRealms, NaijaAgroNet]
@ 2015
“One-Day Media College on .NG”
organized by
Nigeria Internet Registration Association
(NiRA)
[Late Ndukwe Kalu Resource Centre]
NIRA House, Iponri-Surulere, Lagos
Theme: “Effective Reporting of Domain Name
Industry in Nigeria”
on Thursday 5th March 2015

How Media Practitioners can take advantage
of DNS Industry in Nigeria by Remmy Nweke
2015 One-Day Media College on .NG
Contents
 Preamble
 NIRA at a glance …!
 Understanding How NIRA works:
 Highlights on Domain Name System (DNS) Industry
 Method of Public Engagement
 Why Does .NG Matter/SwitchTo .NG campaign
 DNS industry: Engine for Information Society
 A few “dos and don’ts” for 21st Century Media Practitioners
 What Journalists Must Know About DNS Glossary
 Linking Opportunities for Media Practitioners
 Challenges before Media Practitioners on DNS Industry Coverage in Nigeria
 Recommended Recipe for taking advantage of DNS industry
 Q & A

Preamble
 Over the years, industry sub-sector like the Domain
Name System (DNS) has been under-reported in
the media.
 This challenge is not limited to the Nigeria Internet
Registration Association (NIRA) among other
country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) registries
across the world.
 It is in this premise that NIRA leadership decided to
put this Media College together through the
efforts of its Communication and Publicity
Committee as well as the Executive board of
directors +NIRA Secretariat.

NIRA at a glance …!
 NiRA was founded on Wednesday, March 23, 2005 as a stakeholder-led
organisation, charged with the management of the Nigeria's country
code Top Level Domain Name (ccTLD), dot ng.
 Registered its Incorporated Trustee on Friday, February 9, 2007 with the
Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC);
 NIRA's formation ended long years of controversy over the
management of this critical national resource, dot NG; following the
intervention of former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo;
 12 years instinct of hosting the ccTLD first in Italy and America. While
American Mr Randy Bush was the technical contact for the ccTLD, our
own Mrs. Ibukun Odusote – Fellow, Nigeria Computer Society and
Nigeria ICT Centenary Awardee - served as the administrative contact;

NIRA at a glance … 2
 On March 28, 2006 – Election of a Board of Trustees (BoT)
was held among the stakeholders with Dr. Isaac A.
Odeyemi as the pioneer Chairman, while the current BoT
chairman is Deacon Chima Onyekwere of Linkserve
Limited.
 On May 1, 2007, the first Executive Board of NIRA was
elected with my late friend, Engr. Ndukwe Kalu leading a
10-man Board, with Mrs. Mary Uduma then as Vice
President.
 Mrs. Uduma completed that term following the demise of
Ndukwe Kalu and was elected for her own term in
November 2010 and is actually on her second term, with
Mr. Sunday Faloyan as vice president since then.
 NIRA can presently boost of about 60,000 domains
registered in the .NG registry.

Understanding How NIRA works
 NIRA works within and through its 3-R model (Registry/
Registrars/Registrants). NIRA has about 44 accredited registrars
currently.
 NIRA also works through Committees namely Communication and
Publicity, Accreditation, Policy/Auction, Establishment and Finance
as well as Technical Committees respectively.
 Membership of each committee is usually made up of some EBOD
members and selected stakeholders.
 And for the Communication and Publicity Committee, which
oversees media and public relations as the name implies and
comprises presently:
 Remmy Nweke - Chairman
 Sunday Folayan
 Biyi Oladipo
 Adeola Akinbo
 Sola Fanawapo
 Emma Okonji
 NIRA COO/Secretariat delegate serves as secretary

Understanding How NIRA works-2
 Media Contact Details:
 Remmy Nweke, Chairman
Communication & Publicity Committee
rnweke@nira.org.ng
08023122558, 08951000475, 08172004283
 Edith Udeagu (Mrs)
NIRA Chief Operating Officer/Head, Secretariat
coo@nira.org.ng
0700CALLNIRA
+234-8172004279, +234-8172004272, +234-8172204271
No. 9 Kofo Aboyomi Street
Victoria Island, Lagos
 NIRA House:
8 Funsho Williams Avenue, Iponri-Surulere, Lagos

Highlights on Domain Name System
Industry
 A domain name, according to Wikipedia, is a unique name that
identifies an internet resource such as a website.
 (b) It is an identification string that defines a realm of
administrative autonomy, authority or control on the Internet.
 (c) Therefore, Domain names are formed by the rules of the
Domain Name System (DNS) industry.
 (d) Any name registered in the DNS industry is a domain name.
Thus, technically, a domain name represents an Internet Protocol
(IP) resource, such as a personal computer used to access the
Internet, a server computer hosting a web site, or the web site itself
or any other service communicated via the Internet.
 (e) In mid-2014, active domains have reached 276 million.

Highlights on Domain Name System
Industry - 2
 (f) Top-Level Domains (TLDs), comprises generic top-level
domains (gTLDs) and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs):

Method of Public Engagement
 NIRA like its ICANN global ‘parent’ model tries
to begin every topic of interest, especially
policy development via invitation for public
comments.
 So far, NIRA has launched its own campaign
known as Switchto.ng among others; to
create more enlightenment on the brand.
 NIRA is currently the national secretariat for
the Nigeria Internet Governance Forum
(NIGF) - managed through the Local Multi-
Stakeholder Advisory Group (LMAG).

Why .ng?
 Unique features of the .ng platform
 The possibility of it serving specific trades or interest groups. i.e
DigitalSENSE.ng; InfoTechMedia.com.ng, nicadi.org.ng, nitra.ng
etc.
 With a TLD as .ng, Nigeria’s country code assumes a global
significance for many words by coupling of the TLD with any of
the vowels of the English language. i.e. Fishi.ng, Samsu.ng,
Go.ng,
 The uniqueness of the .ng ccTLD has seen firms like Google,
Microsoft Domain Developers Fund taking up googli.ng; bi.ng;
et cetera.

Why you should switchto.ng platform
 .NG (like our currency Naira and +234 for country code) is
the official ICANN approved ccTLD for Nigeria
 Availability of Names is better on the .ng ccTLD than on the
gTLDs like .com, .org.
 Security – Our primary DNS servers are secured and locally
managed with multiple Anycast servers located around the
world.
 As patriots, we urge you to take up both individual names
like florenceonuegbu@names.ng or for business like
ITRealms.media.ng; NaijaAgroNet.com.ng; ThisDay.ng etc.

DNS industry: Engine for Information
Society
 To a very large extend based on the above classifications, DNS
industry could be safely defined as the engine for the much talked
about Information Society (IS).
 Media trades on information in a given society and in order to
excel in this trade must embrace DNS industry.
 Achievable via experimenting on the processes:
 engaging a registrar who registers your domain name of choice for
you;
 investing on the domain name through a website developer, and
 then it would propel you into opening the other interests within the
Domain Name System industry including being registrar for big
media houses!

DNS industry: Engine for Information
Society - 2
 This can be further stimulated by:
 Engaging colleagues beyond one’s immediate shores by way of
sharing information and getting to know more.
 The more information you share the more you are likely to get
which will be relevant to your profession.

A few “dos and don’ts” for 21st Century
Media Practitioners
 Media Practitioners can also take advantage of the DNS industry
by creating an online presence for oneself, even if you work for
someone else, but of course there should be some “dos” and
“don’ts” to adhere to both in practice and maintenance of any
online presence.
 No naked or half-naked personal photos like display of you taking a
bath, negates you as a professional.
 Prove yourself a trusted professional both with your online and
offline sources
 No Selfie on Social Media
 Twitter account must go beyond incase ‘they ask me’
 Facebook/LinkedIn – Absorb how these stuff work by taking specific
trainings

What Journalists Must Know About DNS
Glossary
 Take note of this Uniform Resource Locator (URL) on DNS
Glossary: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/glossary-
2014-02-03-en
 URL is an abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator; also
known as a web address, particularly when used with HTTP/s -
HyperText Transfer Protocol/Secure, which is a specific
character string formatted from text used by Web browsers
and other network software to define a location on the World
Wide Web.
 ICANN – Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers; a private sector, non-profit corporation with
technical management coordinating responsibilities for the
Internet's domain names and addresses system.
 AfriNIC — The African Network Information Center

Glossary - 2
 ALAC — At-Large Advisory Committee
 ICANN's At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) is responsible for
considering and providing advice on the activities of the
ICANN, as they relate to the interests of individual Internet users
(the "At-Large" community
 APNIC — The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre
 ARIN — American Registry for Internet Numbers
 ASO — Address Supporting Organization
 ccNSO — The Country-Code Names Supporting Organization.
 ccTLD — Country Code Top Level Domain
 DNS — Domain Name System.
 Domain Name Resolvers
 GAC — Governmental Advisory Committee

Glossary - 3
 GNSO — Generic Names Supporting Organization
 gTLD — Generic Top Level Domain - Most TLDs with three or
more characters are referred to as "generic" TLDs, or "gTLDs".
 [In the 1980s, seven gTLDs (.com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net, and
.org) were created. Domain names may be registered in three
of these (.com, .net, and .org) without restriction; the other four
have limited purposes].
 IANA — Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
 IDNs — Internationalized Domain Names
 IETF — Internet Engineering Task Force
 IP — Internet Protocol
 ISOC — The Internet Society
 ISP — Internet Service Provider, etc
 For more: https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/glossary-
2014-02-03-en

Linking Opportunities for Media Practitioners
 Subscribe for News Update at NIRA website:
http://www.nira.org.ng/
 Join our discussion forum with categories such as Affiliations,
Committees, General, ICANN, IGF, Membership, Registrants
and Registrar [http://www.nira.org.ng/index.php/events/forum]
 (ICANN Resource for Journalists) which is available in English
and Espanol https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/press-
2014-03-17-en
 What Journalists Think about ICANN DNS Glossary:
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/glossary-2014-02-03-
en
 Focus on ICANN issues, past and present:
https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/in-focus-2012-02-25-en
 International Journalists Network (IJNET)
 http://ijnet.org/opportunities (IJNet) delivers the latest on
global media innovation, news apps and tools, training
opportunities and expert advice for professional and citizen
journalists worldwide.

Linking Opportunities for Media
Practitioners - 2
 (http://icirnigeria.org/category/media-opportunities/ (International
Centre for Investigative Reporting)
 (Global Conference on Sustainability and Reporting)
https://www.globalreporting.org/information/events/conference20
13/media/Pages/Opportunities.aspx
 International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) http://www.icfj.org/our-
work/knight
 Media Learning Opportunities: web 2.0 social media learning
opportunities training course
 [Thomson Reuters Foundation] http://www.trust.org/excellence-in-
journalism/
 Media Career Services (MCS)
http://www.mediacareerng.org/2014/04/11/training-and-grants-
for-40-nigerian-journalists/ -

Challenges before Media Practitioners
on DNS industry coverage in Nigeria
 Reporting or coverage has been largely defined to include:
 Giving a spoken or written account of something that one has
observed, heard, done, or investigated.
 Cover an event or subject like Domain Name System (DNS) as a
journalist/reporter or ideal media practitioner could be a hill task
due to multiplicity in acronyms.
 Lack of personal investment by media practitioners
 Lack of understanding of DNS by editorial leadership
 Lack of investment by media houses

Recommended Recipe for taking
advantage of DNS industry
 1. There should be a well-set out and thought out structure of
media engagement via Professionals as we are doing today.
 2. Conduct training sessions for media practitioners in the
country, especially for those on the line of reporting/covering
the DNS industry in Nigeria.
 3. NIRA should institute a reward for excellence in DNS
coverage in the country.

 4. A mailing list of those interested in covering the DNS should
be created so as to regularly share information with them.


Recommended Recipe for taking
advantage of DNS industry - 2
 5. Face to face is also encouraged by inviting NIRA officials to
face the media for interactions even if it’s quarterly.
 6. Media practitioners interested in covering this issue on DNS
must themselves try to become .NG empowered/registrants as
having an online presence via email could just be a starting
point.
 7. They can also form a common front to this effect to create
relevant awareness and public engagement to drive the
message of .NG in information so as to make a DigitalSENSE in
Information society!

Questions & Answers
 Thanks for your time and listening.
 Remmy Nweke - Chairman
Communication & Publicity Committee
rnweke@nira.org.ng
 Group Executive Editor,
DigitalSENSE Business News
Editor_ls@digitalsenseafrica.com.ng
 08023122558, 08951000475, 08172004283

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