The Coordination Center for TLDs .RU/.РФ, the Russian Association of Networks and Services (RANS) and the Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU) have signed an agreement on long-term cooperation on increasing digital user skills, organizing educational events and cooperating on digitalizing education as well as information security. In particular, the Coordination Center, RANS and MSLU plan to collaborate under the center’s Explore the Internet & Govern It project, which includes tournaments, contests and online championships that are designed to popularize and improve skills related to using advanced information technologies.
The parties will also cooperate at the Coordination Center Youth Council and will develop and implement educational programs for vocational and the highest levels in order to increase users’ digital literacy in structure, and the possibilities and principles of how the internet works, as well as train IT specialists in various areas. Educational events as part of the Universal Acceptance (UA) international initiative are among the most important areas of the collaboration: they will increase awareness and help identify and address problems related to the Universal Acceptance of all possible domain names and emails (containing every possible Unicode symbol).
The agreement also focuses on international activities. For example, a master’s program will be developed and realized to train technical specialists who can represent Russia’s national interests at the research commissions of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). DTA has cooperated with ITU for a long time and will promote the involvement of MSLU students and members of the Coordination Center Youth Council in the ITU research commission on standardization and global summits on the development of information society that are held annually by ITU.
The youth forum Forming Information Culture in the Digital Environment that will be held at MSLU on April 21, 2020 will be one of the first results of this collaboration. A special section on maintaining and developing language and cultural diversity on the internet is scheduled to take place at the forum to mark the 10th anniversary of the Cyrillic ccTLD, .РФ. The forum will be organized by the Russian Association of Networks and Services (RANS) and Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU) with support from the Coordination Center.
“2020 marks the 10th anniversary of the Cyrillic ccTLD, .РФ, and this year we put much more effort into Universal Acceptance. It is very important that experts from the Russian Association of Networks and Services (RANS) and MSLU linguists join in this work. I know that these parties will be able to make a contribution to resolving the UA problem. The agreement also envisions a comprehensive exchange of expertise between all sides, which will also help develop the internet and ensure security,” said the Coordination Center’s Director Andrey Vorobyev.
Last year the Coordination Center signed similar agreements on long-term cooperation with Pyatigorsk State University and the Novikova Vladimir Institute for the Development of Education.
