DAILY RECAP
AIS'21 | 1 June - Day 2 - Af* Day

AF* Opening

Mr Mocktar Yedaly introduced the Af* session and invited Dr Nii Quaynor to do the roll call for the representatives of AF* organisations.

Dr Quaynor related the beginnings of the Af* and the history behind the AIS through a briefing.

Mr Yedaly introduced Mr Pindar Wong, Chairman Verify HK to deliver the opening keynote presentation.

Opening keynote message 

Mr Pindar Wong concluded that there is an exciting new World Wide Web (W3C) Consortium standard called 'Decentralized Identifiers' and encourage the AF* community to lead in its adoption and deployment.  With the invention and deployment of cryptographic currencies, he observed the opportunity to establish an AF* Bitcoin Endowment to help resource the community. Specifically, he suggested the use of multiple signatures by corresponding AF* organisations.  

After watching 21 years of AF* deployment since the first AFNOG meeting in 2000 in Capetown, he fundamentally believes how the Internet in Africa evolves is of central importance to how the whole Internet evolves, but he cautions against assuming a geographic point of view when the network is fundamentally topological in nature.

 

Organisation updates by Af*

Mr Mike Silber and Dr Christian Bope moderated panels detailing the work and achievements of the Af* organisations.

The updates were given by:

• Nancy Dotse on AfNOG activities and projects
• Eddy Kayiuhra, the CEO of AFRINIC on the organisation's services
• Ali Hadji Mmadi, the chair of Executive Committee of the Africa Top Level Domain Name (AfTLD), on the AfTLD key activities 
• Mouhamet Diop, chair of the African Registrar Association (AfRegistrar), shared details on AfRegistrar history, vision, ecosystem, challenges, collaborations, and opportunities for development 
• Lucky Masilela, the CEO of DotAfrica, on DotAfrica's journey and achievements in a presentation titled Abridged History of Dot Africa
• The AFREN introduction and achievements  were presented by Boubakar Barry
• Jean-Robert Hountomey provided a situational update on cybersecurity in Africa in a presentation titled’’Where we stand now’’
• ISOC update was given by Verangai Mabika, Senior Policy Advisor Africa highlighted the key projects ISOC is involved including community networks and Internet Measurements among others
• Pierre Dandjinou, the Vice President of ICANN for Africa, gave an update on GSE Engagement priorities / Activities in Africa in FY21

 

History of the AF*

The next session addressed the institutional history of the Af* and was moderated by Adiel Akplogan Vice President Technical Engagement, ICANN. The session focused on exploring ways for newcomers in the ecosystem to know the history of Af* and on the change as well as the evolution of AF* and the role they play in the Internet ecosystem. Mr Akplogan invited AF* representatives to join the discussion on what is being done by each AF* organisation to keep their story and history alive 20+ years down the line.

The participants recognised a need to consolidate the repository of records and archives in each organisation and explored the challenges. The session discussed several ideas and recommendations to cover the history of the Internet in Africa.

Mr Akplogan concluded by stating that documentation is crucial for this project and there is a need to have a systematic approach by creating a sub-committee that would consolidate such documentation. Mr Akplogan also proposed that Af* secretariat create a small group to look deep into this  project and discuss about it during the next Af* gathering.

 

Time with Fadi Chehadé

Dr Nii Quaynor introduced Mr Fadi Chehadé, co-CEO of Ethos Capital to the community. Fadi Chehadé spoke about his deep affiliation with Africa. Significantly, Mr Chehadé was touching base for the first time with an Internet community after departing from ICANN. Fadi Chehadé in his introduction paid tribute to Tarek Kamel, an ardent supporter of the African Internet community.

Fadi Chehadé spoke about the trust factor in Africa and as the continent of hope.  ‘Trust’ is a brand of high value and an opportunity that Africa should not miss on.

Fadi Chehadé highlighted that trust is the most significant deficit of our planet today with the surge of omnipresent surveillance. Fadi Chehede expressed his concern over this aspect. 

Fadi Chehadé proposed having guard rails, which can be an effective solution for the Internet.

Dr Quaynor thanked Fadi Chahadé for his contribution to the Internet ecosystem, ICANN, and the African technical community.

Fadi Chehadé concluded the session by saying that Africa should not accept anything less than what can be aimed for as a technical community in Africa and set high goals.

 

Community Engagement session

The day closed with an open mic session. The AfNOG community discussed the future of the Af* and the multi-stakeholder approach of our ecosystem.

Sponsors

A big thank you to our AIS’21 Online Sponsors: Connectivity Sponsor - Emtel Mauritius, Translation & Captioning Sponsor -Flexoptix, Inclusivity and Diversity Sponsor -Dot Africa, other sponsors -ICANN, Internet Society (ISOC), Liquid Intelligent Technologies and DNS Africa.

You can meet the sponsors virtually on the spatial chat platform>>https://spatial.chat/s/africaninternetsummit2021

 

Survey

Our survey is open and the link has already been shared on the chat. You stand a chance to win a little surprise. The winner will be announced on Thursday 3rd June 2021 during the break. EN Link>>https://www.videoask.com/f2ya1ehvr

Slides and videos

All slides and videos are available in the agenda under their individual sessions. 

https://2021.internetsummit.africa/programme/agenda