Nigeria to Host Forum on Local Internet Content Development

According to statement signed by Muhammed Rudman, managing director and chief executive officer, IXPN and Opeoluwa Odusan, chief operating officer, NIRA, the two day forum scheduled for last week of April, 2013 will hold in Lagos.

The two-day Forum with the theme: “*Sustaining Local Internet Content, the way forward for Nigeria”*, seeks to facilitate increased Nigerian content on the Internet, the hosting of such content, locally, and an increased adoption of .ng as the domain name of choice, particularly among Nigerians.

The LIC Forum 2013 is the maiden edition of a collaborative effort of*Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN)  and the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA) targeted at tackling the challenge of a dearth of Internet content produced and hosted locally in Nigeria.

The statement also read: “The .ng is Nigeria’s unique identity on the Domain Name space, yet the predominance of the adoption of .com and .co.ukstill holds sway due highly to some misconceptions about the .ng country code Top Level Domain.  The Forum aims to address some of these misconceptions.

“The Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) embodies the physical Network infrastructure that allows Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Telcos, Educational Institutions and other IP centric organisations to exchange data traffic between their respective networks. The key purpose of the IXPN is to allow networks to interconnect through the exchange, providing the necessary environment to keep local Internet traffic local, stable and reliable. In effect, the benefits to all the networks, operators and end-users are a reduction in costs, latency, and increased speed among others.

“Therefore, the purpose of the two-day Forum is to sensitize all stakeholders, key players in the sector and the general public on the significance of local Internet content, our nation’s identity on cyberspace, as well as the emerging relevance of local hosting of content which has a multiplier effect on the economy through capacity building, and job creation, just to mention a few”.

The  agenda for the two-day event shall include the following: Infrastructure for Content Hosting, Cost of Local Fibre Infrastructure, Broadband Penetration, Content Provision and its Challenges, registrars challenges in hosting content locally, monetization of content among others.

The Forum will also afford a good opportunity for exhibitors especially ISPS and Telcos who may wish to leverage the event to showcase their services (Data Centres, Hosting Platforms, etcetera) relevant to the creation of local content and the hosting of local content locally.

Amongst other benefits, the Forum will also serve as a platform for networking as there would be discussion sessions to enable stakeholders share their individual and collective thoughts and experiences on producing and hosting local Internet content.

Participants at the Forum will include Government MDAs, ISPs, Telcos, Registrars of NIRA,  Financial Institutions, Institutions of Learning, Bloggers, Various Professional and Trade Organisations, NGOs, Faith Based Organisations, the Print and Electronic Media, diverse categories of Content Producers, Authors/Writers and Publishers, and the interested public.

Culled from : Nigeria Communications Week