A former University of British Columbia staff member is being honoured today for creating the .CA domain that put Canada on the Internet map. The Demco Student Learning Centre in the Department of Computer Science will be named after former computing facilities manager John Demco for his volunteerism and foresight in conceiving the .CA domain two years before the emergence of the World Wide Web.
Demco conceived the .CA domain name in 1987 and managed a group of volunteers who recorded requests and granted applications by hand. By 2000, almost 100,000 dot-ca domain names were registered by UBC volunteers. In December 1998, CIRA, a not-for-profit corporation was created to manage the dot-ca registry.
"John administered the dot-ca registry using UBC facilities and equipment for more than 10 years and played an important role in the establishment and governance of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)," says Computer Science head Bill Aiello. "His vision and dedication is an inspiration to students, faculty and staff at Computer Science and UBC."
Interesting fact: Most of the first .CA domain name applications were from universities, including University of Prince Edward Island, McGill, Ryerson, University of Western Ontario, Carleton, Queens and UBC and the first domain registration was for upei.ca on January 12, 1988.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not for profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the dot-ca Internet... [more]
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media Inc. and Editor-in-Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints in International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
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