Relief.Asia: Regionally-Based TLDs, Community and Relief Support
May 21st, 2008
By Chuck Kisselburg
ICANNWiki.org
Last August I blogged about “.asia, A Social Networking Goldmine”. While the gist of the post centered around the new .asia TLD (its value with the advent of IDNs and how it can foster community) the underlying theme has been, and continues to be for me the value of what such regionally focused TLDs can bring to the “community”.
In previous posts also I discussed the value IDNs bring not only from the perspective of DotAsia, but from the perspective of India. To be specific, “What IDNs Mean to DotAsia: A Conversation with Edmon Chung of DotAsia” and “IDNs and India: A Conversation with Rajesh Aggarwal of NIXI”.
Again, the underlying theme being that of “Community”.
Recently we were able to witness the power of what such a regionally-based TLD, such as the DotAsia organization can accomplish when trying to support the community.
May 3, 2008 a cyclone hit Myanmar. At the time of this writing 78,000 are dead with 56,000 still missing.
May 12, 2008, an earthquake hit China’s Sichuan province. At the time of this writing 40,000 are dead with 32,000 still missing.
Shortly after the cyclone hit Myanmar and before the quake hit in China, Edmon Chung and his organization, DotAsia lead the charge of forming “Relief.Asia”. The Relief.Asia website, “… was deployed as a tool and platform to drive awareness and community contribution towards the rebuilding of nature-savaged regions such as Myanmar (also known as Burma) and Sichuan, through the application of Information Technology. Other organizations that jumped in to form a working, cohesive partnership include Internet Society Hong Kong (ISOC HK), The Professional Commons, Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG), intERLab of Asian Institute of Technology, Myanmar Egress, APNIC, and Museum of World Religions, amongst others.”
Through the relationships developed among the various partners, Relief.Asia was able to secure one of the first planes into Myanmar with relief supplies.
As we have seen with Myanmar, politically speaking Myanmar and the US do not have the best of relationships, thus making it difficult for the US to provide relief supplies to Myanmar. Where governments fail in this regard it helps when organizations have relationships within governments, but are not part of a government agency themselves. With that said, DotAsia is not a governmental, or political organization. However, with the establishment of the .asia TLD they have relationships with members of a country’s respective government. I can’t say such relationships helped with Myanmar or Sichuan, but I do know progress towards relief efforts were made due to the relationships established with the various partners of Relief.Asia.
With the development and deployment of regionally-based TLDs on the horizon, I can only wonder if the world has a new avenue for marshalling resources through partnerships to aid in geographically-based relief efforts.
Entry Filed under: Site News, People, TLDs, Business Strategy, Community, ICANN Community, Registry
20 Comments Add your own
1. Janet Johnson | May 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
Chuck, THIS, is the power of the global community in a simple, well told story. The “internationalization” or “globalization” of the world, as facilitated by the internet, has truly built communities that exist across geopolitical borders.
I saw a lot of Twitter traffic on the day of the Sichuan earthquake recommending donations, and know thousands of people here online (in my tiny Twitter community) were moved as I was to donate.
Whether the community is built on a service (like Twitter) or a TLD like Relief.asia, the grace and ease by which people reach out to help is heartening.
Thanks for sharing.
2. ChuckKisselburg | May 22nd, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Thanks, Janet. It is always amazing and wonderful to me how well people come together in times of a crisis. I just feel that with what DotAsia has done with “Relief.asia” and the Internet community, establishes a good example for how members of the general ICANN “community” can tap into their relationships to help with such efforts.
3. Victor | November 5th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
And you do not accidentally from Moscow?
4. Drian | March 28th, 2009 at 5:27 am
interesting things!
5. GUI | April 16th, 2009 at 1:43 am
Good blog!
6. yuraha | April 27th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
12-30-08
7. inyuta | April 29th, 2009 at 6:11 am
Stormtrooper Bumps Head
8. dimitrian | April 29th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Bargain Perfume Shopping in Los Angeles
9. valyunya | April 30th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Thank you author
10. Трейдер | May 19th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Сквозную ссылочку с этого сайта можно купить?
11. nila | June 10th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Blogroll
12. romonoeroetoko | July 8th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Hm that sounds good but I would like to know more details.
13. enyasha | July 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
8/1 義工同製薑餅, 送歡樂到天水圍
14. romonoeroetoko | July 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
Your news is a cool stuff man, keep it going.
15. amenodimeno | July 31st, 2009 at 1:57 pm
That’s good man, keep it going.
16. amenodimeno | August 5th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
Good story for me but please more details.
17. queroeropoo | August 6th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Good information to me.
18. sandrar | September 10th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
19. angelina jolie | September 10th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I love your site.
Love design!!! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that Ive really enjoyed browsing your blog posts. Sign: ndsam
20. megan fox | September 11th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Sign: umsun Hello!!! rcuwwymhyw and 9440ssgfhphzye and 2421Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post nice! I just came across your blog and wanted to say that Ive really enjoyed it.
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed