Dear Colleagues,
I hope you are keeping well as we continue to battle the COVID-19 Pandemic. There are a few updates this month.
- We have had time to digest and consider feedback received from some of you regarding billing and the late payment penalty in this COVID-19 situation. We have received the Board’s approval to extend the 5% late payment penalty period to August 20 instead of March 31. However, for payments made beyond August 21, the applied late penalty will be 15%. We hope this consideration will help mitigate some financial challenges and difficulties members may have faced during the COVID-19 related lockdowns.
- On training. Since the beginning of this year, we have launched three fully interactive online courses at https://academy.afrinic.net. We currently have more than 500 people enrolled in the academy. We have run 11 webinars attended by 1,046 people, and we are continuing to provide IPv6 deployment support.
- As mentioned previously, we will have our AIS’20 meeting online during the second week of September. It’s unfortunate that we are not in a position to meet face to face. Nevertheless, we hope to have a unique and enriching online experience. In one of the preparatory meetings, a community member raised the point that we have the perfect opportunity to welcome aboard people who may not have been able to travel to Kinshasa. We are busy preparing a successful event, and we hope to see you online.
- On a different note, every five years, we get the privilege of charting this organisation’s future. And since we exist to serve you, we are seeking your input to create our strategic plan for the next three years as we aim to build a stable, robust registry capable of unleashing the Internet’s potential for Africa. We had earlier done some consultations that, unfortunately, did not yield much response. We humbly request that you devote approximately 45 minutes of your precious time to respond to this survey (Available only in English and French.)
- On MyAFRINIC updates. As communicated earlier, we are working on a brand new version of MyAFRINIC that will hopefully be ready next year. We, however, believe that the current version needs a few upgrades that are in the pipeline. The team is currently testing an upgraded version, including a new 2-factor authentication feature that should improve your experience on the platform. My technical colleagues will contact you soon when ready for production.
Thank you very much for your time, but please expect more communications from us about AIS ’20 in the coming days.
Take care,
Eddy Kayihura,
AFRINIC CEO