Category: BUSINESS

DotConnectAfrica’s Sophia Bekele Named One of 50 African Trailblazers by NewAfrican Magazine, UK

Staff Writer

March 20, 2013, Mauritius, Port-Louis, Sophia Bekele, Executive Director of DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust), has been named as one of the ’50 African Trailblazers under 50‘,  by the influential New African magazine UK, a member of the IC Publications group.  New African is a well known publication that is in the vanguard of contemporary Pan-Africanist projection and thinking. www.newafricanmagazine.com  The special “Collector’s Edition” of New African for May 2013 has been put together by the editors of the magazine to coincide with the 50th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the…

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The danger of blindly trusting the technocrats

Staff Writer

We are living in the age of the technocrats. In business, Big Data, and the Big Brains who can parse it, rule. In government, the technocrats are on top, too. From Washington to Frankfurt to Rome, technocrats have stepped in where politicians feared to tread, rescuing economies, or at least propping them up, in the process Technocrats are in vogue within the intelligentsia, too. It is well nigh impossible to pick up a book about any social or political issue nowadays (including, I hasten to acknowledge, my own) without coming…

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Google to Fund, Develop Wireless Networks in Emerging Markets

Staff Writer
Google

Google Inc. GOOG -1.07% is deep into a multipronged effort to build and help run wireless networks in emerging markets as part of a plan to connect a billion or more new people to the Internet. These wireless networks would serve areas such as sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia to dwellers outside of major cities where wired Internet connections aren’t available, said people familiar with the strategy. The networks also could be used to improve Internet speeds in urban centers, these people said Adapted from online.wsj.com

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DotConnectAfrica Trust Responds to ICANN GAC Objection Advice on its .Africa application

Staff Writer

In its response to the ICANN Board, DCA Trust disagreed with the GAC Objection Advice. PRLog (Press Release) – May 16, 2013 – DotConnectAfrica Trust (DCA Trust), the contending applicant that submitted an independent bid for the .Africa new generic Top-Level Domain name, recently submitted another fulsome response to the ICANN Board of Directors to defend the GAC Objection Advice that was issued against its .Africa new gTLD application by the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) body within ICANN. It may be recalled that DCA Trust previously submitted a response to…

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UK Government Crusades To Slash IT Spending

Staff Writer

In a standout presentation at the Jefferies 2013 Global Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in New York this week, the UK government talked about becoming a “very intelligent client.” Gov.UK was represented on this occasion by COO Stephen Kelly and Chief Procurement Officer Bill Crothers. Describing himself as a “poacher turned gamekeeper,” Kelly — who formerly sat on the vendors’ side of the fence with Chordiant and Microfocus — is now crusading to rein in and rationalize government spending on technology, looking for ₤20 billion ($30.9 billion) in efficiency savings…

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‘Blackout’: Syria cut off from internet

Staff Writer

Syria has “largely disappeared” from the internet for the second time since the uprising began in 2011, according to the U.S. State Department and tech firms monitoring web traffic. There was “zero outgoing traffic” from the country Tuesday night, according to Google Transparency Report. “Syria is currently experiencing an internet blackout as of this [Tuesday] afternoon,” the State Department tweeted. Adapted from english.alarabiya.net

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Sophia Bekele Speaks on Technology for Economic Development in Africa at the Yale University

The Yale Undergraduate Association for African Peace and Development held a youth conference on the theme: Re-imagining Africa: a closer look at Autonomy, Identity and Perspective. The Yale Undergraduate Association for African Peace and Development held the second annual Sankofa54: African Youth Empowerment Conference on April 12th – 14th, 2013.The student youth conference was held on the theme: Re-imagining Africa: a closer look at Autonomy, Identity and Perspective. The conference included five discussion panels concerning economic development, global health, and peace and conflict resolution, as well as a series of breakout…

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The European Commission’s Tech All Stars competition returns to honor the EU’s best startups

Staff Writer

The European Commission is really keen to support the EU tech community these days. It’s honoring the top tech entrepreneurs with Europioneers and meanwhile, the second edition of its startup competition Tech All Stars has just kicked off and is looking for entries. Tech All Stars was launched last year, with automated complaint resolution tool CogniCor emerging as the winner. This year’s competition is now looking for entries, and the finals are an international affair taking in Germany, the UK and Ireland. Adapted from thenextweb.com

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The Basics of Domain Names for Your Business

Staff Writer

o stay competitive businesses have to have an online presence. But if you aren’t web savvy, navigating all the ins and outs of creating a website can be confusing. How do you choose a domain name? What must you do to maintain it? And what happens if your domain name expires? We spoke with Paul McGrady, a trademark and domain name lawyer in Winston & Strawn LLP’s Chicago office about what business owners can do to keep their sites running smoothly, here’s his advice: adapted from news.terra

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More Than 250M Domain Names Have Now Been Registered, Almost Half Are .Com And .Net

Staff Writer

The total number of registered domain names passed 250 million in the last quarter of 2012, according to Verisign’s latest Domain Name Industry Brief. More than 6 million domain names were registered in the fourth quarter of 2012, bringing the total to 252 million worldwide. The basic .com domains, of course, make up the majority of registered domain names. By the end of December users had registered 106.2 million .com domains, as well as 14.9 million .net addresses. The .com and .net top-level domains (TLDs) also accounted for the majority…

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