Public Interest Registry Announces .ORG Outreach Initiative in Latin America

.ORG Registry Launches Initial Program in Ecuador to Create Internet Awareness

April 17, 2006; 08:17 AM
RESTON, VA - Public Interest Registry (PIR), the .ORG registry, a not-for-profit corporation, announced today the first of multiple planned .ORG outreach initiatives in Latin America, commencing in Quito, Ecuador on May 18, 2006. ".ORGanize 2006: Strategic use of the Internet for the .ORG Community" is designed to create confidence and build awareness in the Internet as well as educate the not-for-profit community on the benefits of the .ORG domain.

".ORGanize 2006 will focus on the importance of Latin American non-profit organizations and individuals getting online," said Edward G. Viltz, President and CEO of Public Interest Registry. "This is the first of several initiatives planned for Latin America during 2006. Our objective in the Quito conference is to increase Internet usage in Ecuador and build understanding of the many benefits of an online presence. As the Internet home of the global noncommercial community, .ORG is pleased to host this conference and we look forward to working with CONATEL, FLACSO, Microsoft, and the ChasquiNet Foundation who have all graciously offered assistance on this initiative."

"The internet usage in Ecuador is an interesting paradox. Ecuador has an internet penetration rate of 5.5% an increase of over 200% over the past 4 years," said Klaus Stoll, President of ChasquiNet and a charter member of the .ORG Advisory Council. "There are still however many barriers to getting online, as well as, lack of trust in the internet. This conference will address these issues so that additional Ecuadorians can more confidently get online."

The diverse agenda includes an in-depth overview on the strategic uses of the Internet for non-commercial organizations presented by ChasquiNet; Internet technical and security issues presented by Microsoft; the status of connectivity in Ecuador given by CONATEL, the state of the Internet in Ecuador presented by FLACSO; and the benefits of an online presence & domain name value presented by PIR.

For more information on this unique 1 day conference, please contact Christine Paz Brundage, at [email protected].

About PIR

Public Interest Registry (http://www.pir.org) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation created by the Internet Society (ISOC) to manage the .ORG domain. PIR's mission is to manage the .ORG domain in an exemplary manner, while educating and empowering the global noncommercial community to use the Internet more effectively and, concurrently, to take a leadership position among Internet stakeholders on policy and related issues on behalf of the .ORG community. PIR is based in Reston, VA, USA.

About ISOC

The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) is a not-for-profit membership organization founded in 1991 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. With offices in Washington, DC, and Geneva, Switzerland, it is dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. ISOC is the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) and other Internet-related bodies who together play a critical role in ensuring that the Internet develops in a stable and open manner.

About .ORG

The .ORG domain, which has come to be associated with noncommercial activities, is the Internet's third largest "generic" or non-country specific top-level domain with more than 4 million domain names registered worldwide. In 2002, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board of Directors selected ISOC's proposal from among 11 organizations bidding to operate the .ORG top-level domain. PIR assumed control of the registry on 1 January 2003.

About ChasquiNet

ChasquiNet, based in Quito, Ecuador, is a stable and long established regional organization with a global impact. ChasquiNet is a private non-profit organization in Ecuador dedicated to empowering grass-roots organizations, campesinos, minority groups and impoverishing sectors in general through the promotion and use of the Internet. The mission of ChasquiNet is to build up multi stakeholder partnerships among the governmental, private and the social sectors on a local and global level through being facilitators in order to define digital inclusion strategies. www.chasquinet.org

Contact: Michael Ward Public Interest Registry (703) 464-7005 x113 E-mail: Email Contact