Google and the Nigerian Internet Registration Association, registry for .com.ng Internet Domain Names, have partnered to bring 250, 000 businesses online.
To fulfil this move, NiRA is investing N11 million (appx US$69,950) to upgrade its infrastructure and handle the registration of the 250,000 .ng domains by 2013.
According to NiRA’s Chief Operations Officer Ope Odusan, the amount will be used to upgrade NiRA’s network subsystem, servers, power systems, improving bandwidth and their customer support system.
NiRA says it wants to have more than 250,000 domain names registered in the .ng registry by the end of the year.
It targets government ministries, agencies and parastatals, businesses, educational institutions, and other individuals, especially the youths who use the Internet on a daily basis.
Odunsan believes would help to contribute about N250 million (appx US$1,589,800) annually to the economy, and unlock the country’s unexploited economic spheres online.
This is not the first time for the Nigerian SMEs to be urged to move online. Google’s Getting Nigerian Businesses Online (GNBO) has already put over 25,000 SMEs online, a move that has since showed SME‘s that the Internet is affordable and essential.
Google Nigeria country manager Juliet Ehimuan said GNBO was initiated for this purpose.
”We wanted to prove to SME’s that the internet is an easy to use and inexpensive tool for business,” she said.
To show the business the easy to use and free tools on Internet, Google Nigeria is scheduled to organise a Web fair, to help Nigerians the tools to use to create their own websites on the www.GNBO.com.ng.
Ehimuan hopes the websites will help SMEs in Nigeria thrive, by bringing more local information online and foster economic growth in Nigeria.
