Saturday 25 May is Africa Day, commemorating the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (now known as the African Union) in 1963.
Africa Day is intended to celebrate and acknowledge the successes of the AU in the fight against colonialism and apartheid, as well as the progress that Africa has made.
“Africans can be justly proud of the many uniting achievements we’ve clocked up together since the 1963 founding of the OAU. In particular, it was African collaboration in the form of the 2009 OR Tambo Declaration, followed by the Abuja Declaration, that gave impetus to the launch of Africa’s own home on the worldwide web, dotAfrica,” says Lucky Masilela, CEO of Registry Africa, the administrator of the .africa (dotAfrica) geographic Top Level Domain (gTLD).
All 54 countries in Africa are now united under a single, continent-wide domain name that stays true to the vision of the outstanding African leaders who recognised through the above two Declarations that ICT-based initiatives would be central to Africa’s future socioeconomic wellbeing.
“The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century, is one that is being powered by information. It is being brought about by the seamless and rapid access to information that the worldwide web provides. DotAfrica means that Africans can fully participate in this new age revolution,” says Masilela.
The dotAfrica gTLD is endorsed by the African Union Commission (AUC) and furthermore enjoys widespread support from such leading African organisations as AfriNIC, AfTLD, ITU, UNECA and Nepad.