The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) held a gala and web awards night over the weekend to recognise all those using the .ng domain names.
The event which was held at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, comprised of two sets of awards; the .ng web awards and the Presidential awards. The .ng web awards were given as a means of recognise companies and institutions that have used the .ng domain over the years, thereby indirectly helping to promote the Nigerian brand online.
Recipients of the Presidential awards were organisations and individuals considered to have contributed immensely to the development of the ICT industry in Nigeria. Such recipients included; Mary Uduma, former President of NIRA, who received the special recognition award for her contributions to the growth of the .ng domain name ecosystem and Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata Jnr. (CFA), Presenter, Tech Trends on Channels TV and Founder, Techsmart.ng, who received the NiRA Presidential Award for Youth Development. Dr. Wunmi Hassan was also given a similar award for her role in the advancement of women in technology.
According to NiRA, the ultimate goal of the award ceremony was to get more Nigerians to use the .ng domains. This is because Nigeria currently has less than 100,000 .ng domains while South Africa (for instance) has over 1 million .co.za domains.
While speaking about the need for more Nigerians to use the .ng domain name, Mary Uduma said ”Nigerians should be patriotic enough to patronise whatever is Nigerian to spur the economy and even create more jobs, especially in the Domain Name System (DNS) industry.” She further encouraged Nigerians to embrace .ng as a means of assisting in boosting our economy.
Don’t understand how your choosing to use the .ng domain name for your next website would help our economy? Read a previous article I wrote here.