The Internet Society (ISOC) – Uganda Chapter launched its activities on June 06, at Hive Colab while commemorating the World IPv6 Launch celebrations. The event attracted over 100 participants who included representatives from local internet Service providers, government officials and academia. The meeting was presided over by the Hon Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, Uganda’s Minister for ICT, who was represented by Dr. Turahi David, Director for Technology a
In his speech, the minister stressed government’s commitment to the advancement of the internet in Uganda by stressing the National IPv6 taskforce set up in 2010 had finalised drafting a National IPv6 Transition strategy, which was ready to be disseminated to the general public. The minister recognized the role of the internet in promoting economic development in Uganda and called for a multi-stakeholder approach in handling issues such as its governance and development. In marking the beginning of the deployment of IPv6, he encouraged all stakeholders to contribute to the process, ensuring a smooth transition to IPv6 in Uganda.
Also, while presenting current IPv6 activities by the ISOC- Uganda Chapter, Wilson Abigaba shared that the chapter had completed IPv6 capacity building and awareness exercise. The project aimed at improving the state of the Uganda Internet Exchange Point (UIXP) by providing a stable power backup solution and more peering options so that ISPs can consider it an important entity in the provision of their services and local traffic exchange. However, a lot still needed to be done. IPv6 trainings and awareness creation is one of the listed chapter
This was in agreement with a presentation by Ernest Byaruhanga, representing AfriNIC, who shared the current status of IPv6 deployment in Africa. He noted that Africa still lags behind in IPv6 deployment and that only a few countries on the continent have deployed IPv6. Current IPv6 deployment status places Uganda at 4% compared to South Africa at 23% and Kenya at 13%. Further, out of the allocated twelve (12) prefixes, only three (3) are visible. As a way forward, Ernst called for the need for deployment of IPv6 up to the last mile stressing that the three IPv6 ready operators in Uganda need to push IPv6 to the customer/end‐site.
The Internet Society is a global cause-driven organization that is dedicated to ensuring that the Internet stays open, transparent and by you.
As one of the more than 26 chapters in Africa, the ISOC Uganda chapter aims to bring together individual members of the ICT fraternity who share an interest and belief in the Internet Society’s principles and mission and who are committed to furthering the Internet Society’s goals and objectives within Uganda.
All presentations can be downloaded at World IPv6 Launch
Some of the pictures from the event can be access here: World IPv6 & Chapter Launch – Slide Show