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<div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><em>Press Release – for immediate Release</em><div style="font-family: tahoma,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><div><font size="4">
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</p><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><strong>Accra, Ghana, April 2010</strong> - </font></font><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The Ghana Network Operators' Group (ghNOG) and the Internet Society,</font>
</font><p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Ghana Chapter have successfully organized the second ghNOG workshop and meeting dubbed ghNOG-2.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The four-day workshop on UNIX Systems Administration was a result of the Internet Society and</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">AfNOG’s localization initiative of the track to the country level to help develop local capacity. The</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Workshop was attended by 24 participants, who were from various backgrounds, such as financial</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">institutions, Internet Service Providers, academia, non-profit and government organisations.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"> </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The Workshop instructors were all volunteers with varied backgrounds and alumni of AfNOG workshops.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The ghNOG workshops are scheduled to be organized twice every year. The University of Education,</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Winneba has been selected to host the next workshop, which will take place during the last week of</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">July.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"> </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">After the Workshop, a one-day Meeting, which was attended by 50 participants, was held under the</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">theme, </font></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="3">Towards an Enhance Internet infrastructure</font><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">. The Meeting was officially opened by, Honourable</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Gideon Quarcoo, the Deputy Minister of communication of the Republic of Ghana. In his opening</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">keynote address, the Deputy Minister challenged the workshop participants to take up the mantle and</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">fight for the emancipation of Ghana and Africa from the poor state of technology. Prof. Nii Quaynor,</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chairman of ISOC Ghana and convener of AfNOG in his opening remarks also called on participants to</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">work together as a community to make technology affordable for the people. Dr. Osei Dankwa,</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">President of Ghana Telecom University and host of the event, who chaired the opening ceremony,</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">further challenged participants to bring their collective efforts to improve the Ghana Internet statistics,</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">which is still abysmally low.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"> </font></p><font size="3">
</font><p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>A panel discussion chaired by Prof Quaynor on the recent proposal from the International Telecom Union </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>(ITU) to become a 6</em></font></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="1"><em>th </em></font><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for IPv6 in trust for developing countries was </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>organised during the meeting. Panelists were generally of the view that for Africa, AfriNIC was doing a </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>good job and there was no need for another Registry to assign IPv6. The discussants, who were </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>telecommunication and
academic network operators,
ISPs, as well as from user community and </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>regulators also underscored the fact that the AfriNIC policy development model for allocation of IPv6 was </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>a bottom-up approach and was very satisfactory. Mr. Joshua Peprah, the National Communication </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>Authority (NCA) Ghana’s Director of Licensing and Regulation, who is also advisor to the ITU BDT </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>Director, responsible for implementing the ITU proposal, said he has been made aware of AfriNIC role as </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>the regional internet registry (RIR) and would advise the ITU BDT Director during consultations and </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>added
that many of the proponents of this proposal did not know about the operations of AfriNIC. It was </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>also noted during the panel discussion that several African countries had been allocated IPv6 numbers, </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>so AfriNIC is not short of IP resources. The real problem for Africa and other developing countries is the </em></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><em>uptake of these resources.</em></font></font></p>
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</font><p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">There were updates from different Internet stakeholders including, that on the WIMAX licensing regime</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">by the NCA and the different submarine fiber companies that were already in Ghana or would soon be</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">coming into the country.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"> </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The day ended with a ghNOG meeting, where issues concerning the operators were discussed and</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">participants who attended the Workshop were given certificates of attendance.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The workshop was made possible by the kind support of Internet Society Global, AfNOG, and NSRC who </font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">provided for books for participants.</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"> </font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Photographs from the Workshop can be found at </font></font><font color="#0000ff" size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><span><a target="_blank" href="http://ghnog2.jalbum.net">http://ghnog2.jalbum.net</a></span></font></font></p><font size="3">
</font><p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Photographs from the GhNOG 2 Meeting can be found at </font></font><font color="#0000ff" size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif"><span><a target="_blank" href="http://ghnogmeet.jalbum.net">http://ghnogmeet.jalbum.net</a></span></font></font></p><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="3">
<p align="left"> </p>
<p align="left"><strong>About ghNOG</strong></p></font><font size="3">
<p align="left"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">The Ghana Network Operators’ Group (ghNOG) is a forum for sharing technical information amongst</font></p>
<p align="left"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">technical operators of Internet services in Ghana.</font></p>
<p align="left"> </p>
<p align="left"><font face="Times New Roman">A PDF copy of this release is attached to this mail.</font></p></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="3">
<p align="left"> </p>
<p align="left"><strong>Contact:</strong></p></font><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="3">
<p align="left">Vera Doku</p></font><font size="3">
</font><p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">Chair, Communications Committee</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">ISOC Ghana</font></font></p>
<p align="left"><font size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">E: </font></font><font color="#0000ff" size="3"><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif">vera.doku@gmail.com</font></font></p><font face="times new roman, new york, times, serif" size="3">
<p>M: +233-244627994</p></font><br> </div><br>
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