Are you a .ca? Show your pride

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Third Tuesday has a new sponsor – the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). CIRA is responsible for Canada’s top level web domain – .ca. CIRA’s sponsorship will enable third Tuesday to expand and do more programming. (I’ll write more about this in a future post).

I use a.ca domain for my blog, ProPR.ca. I want to speak with my community of interest wherever they are in the world. But I’m also proud of where I come from. Signalling that I’m Canadian provides people with a reference point. It anchors me in my home community.

We have a lot to be proud of in Canada. Now CIRA is giving us a chance to recognize and celebrate some of the best initiatives that use a .ca domain.

CIRA has launched the .ca Impact Awards. The awards will recognize people who are using their .ca websites to make a positive difference for their communities. Awards will be given out for each of four categories: e-learning, small business, not for profit, and web technology. The winners will receive a prize of $5000 and be recognized at an awards ceremony at this year’s Mesh Conference in Toronto on May 24, 2011.

The deadline for award submissions is March 25. So if you think that your .ca website has had a positive impact on your community, why not submit an entry to the first.ca Impact Awards? You’ve done something remarkable. Now be recognized for it.

Interested in more information? Take a look at this video.

(Disclosure: not only is CIRA a sponsor of Third Tuesday, but they also a client of Thornley Fallis and 76design. To paraphrase the old commercial, I liked using the domain so much, I went to work for the people who run it.)

 

The Canadian Internet Forum: Discussions that matter to Internet users (that's you and me.)

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I was shocked by how effectively the Egyptian government choked off access to the Internet during the recent popular uprising. I had always taken it for granted that the Internet’ s distributed architecture would make it impossible for it to be denied to a population in this way. Naïve me.

The shut down of the Internet in Egypt underlined for me just how lucky we are in Canada and how we take our free, open Internet for granted. But we shouldn’t take it for granted. If we care about something, we should take an active interest in it. And we should participate when the opportunity comes up for us to have a say.

Next week, we will have an opportunity to have a voice in a discussion of the issues relating to the governance of the Internet. The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (Disclosure: CIRA is a client of Thornley Follis and 76 design) will be hosting the Canadian Internet Forum to discuss issues surrounding Internet governance in Canada and globally.

I recorded a brief interview with Byron Holland, CIRA’s President and CEO, to ask him what’s at stake, why people like you and I should participate, whether we’ll have an opportunity to be heard and what this consultation will lead to.

This national forum follows six regional consultations that were held late last year. If you’re interested in learning more, you can download the background papers on digital literacy and the digital economy.

The Canadian Internet Forum is open to public participation. If you want to participate, you can register online to attend in person. If you can’t make it to Ottawa on Feb. 25, you will also be able to participate via Webcast.

The Internet in Canada. It matters to all of us. And we can all have our say.