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/issue/2017.08

Connecting Asia with One Domain.

Asia Expansion with .Asia domains

Since launch, .Asia domains have been registered across over 150 countries & economies. (more below)

Malaysia is Truly Asia!

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has declared 2017 the 'year of the Internet economy' for Malaysia. Since 2015, its robust digital ... (more below)

Serafina.asia, old school NYC Italian meets Asian tastes!

Early in August DotAsia visited the Seoul location of Serafina and spoke with Hideki Yoshimura ... (more below)

Asia Expansion with .Asia domains

Since launch, .Asia domains have been registered across more than 150 countries and economies. In 2016, over 85% of .Asia registrations came from within the region. Outside of Asia, most of .Asia domain registrations came from the U.S. followed by the U.K.

Website Screenshot: Best of Ogilvy Asia

This is not surprising considering five of United States' top trading partner countries are located in Asia. The region presents significant opportunities for North American and European markets. During a trip this July to Asia-Pacific, Boris Johnson, Britain's Foreign Secretary, expressed the United Kingdom's renewed commitment to Asia and its intension to play a bigger role in the region following its departure from the EU.

One of the biggest benefits of using a .Asia domain extension for a U.S. or U.K. headquartered business expanding to Asia is that it may be the first step (and one of the most economical ways) to help your business attract Asian audiences. A .Asia domain conveys the message that you run an international business and are committed to the Asia-Pacific region.

Some great examples of .Asia domain usage coming from the U.S. and the U.K. include:
BestOfOgilvy.asia – Respected advertising, marketing and public relations agency based in NYC
Scholastic.asia – US headquartered education and media publishing house
RalphLauren.asia – Iconic American fashion brand
Campaign360.asia – Elite event run by Haymarket Media Group headquartered in London

If you come across any interesting .Asia domains please let us know. We'd love to hear from you!

News in Asia

300 entrepreneurs from across Asia connected in Manila for Forbes annual Under 30 Summit Asia
http://i.go.asia/2uJPWi9

Can Singapore maintain its balancing role between China and the US in the age of Trump
http://i.go.asia/2uK2FRD

Vietnam based Digital & WiFi Marketing
website screen capture: novaon.asia

novaon.asia

Asia's premier gaming convention
website screen capture: gamestart.asia

gamestart.asia

A Beijing based digital agency
Website screen capture: flow.asia

flow.asia

On-demand logistics solutions, and point-to-point transportation
Website screen capture: gobike.asia

gobike.asia

Tiger Frame
Global Tiger Day

Tiger Frame: Ajitora on Global Tiger Day #Tx2 2017
Calling all Tiger Protectors! Global Tiger Day is on July 29 every year, what did you do to help Tx2 this year? Aji, our rrroaring Tx2 ambassador and cutest DotAsia team member, showed many boys and girls how to be a Tiger Ranger (read more about it in his summer blog post).

Last issue we introduced you to the Amur tiger, this issue learn about how Pavel Fomenko helps save the only 430 Amur tigers left in the wild in Russia. See how a scientist, a researcher, and a football star can be a Tiger Protector too!

Malaysia is Truly Asia!

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has declared 2017 the 'year of the Internet economy' for Malaysia. Since 2015, its robust digital markets have already contributed close to 18% to the country's GDP, outpacing the estimated 18.2% goal that they had initially set for 2020.

According to Internet World Stats, Malaysians are a very engaged audience with 22 million active social media users, up by 22% from 2016. On average, they spend approximately eight and a half hours online everyday, 30% of which is dedicated solely to social media. 88% of the total online users are logging onto the Internet everyday, 53% via their mobile phones followed by laptops, which account for 42% of the total web traffic.

The country is home to a rising population of young and tech-savvy consumers with growing purchasing power. The latest figures from Statista, show the revenues from the e-commerce market amounting to US$1,121 million. This is expected to grow by 23% annually and it is projected to reach US$2,585 million in 2021. Management consulting firm A.T. Kearney stated that the government is expected to spend around US$280 million to rollout broadband Internet to the rural area, increasing the number of people being able to buy online.

Over the past few years, Malaysia has also become a hotbed for start-ups. Its government has systematically implemented many start-up-centric initiatives, creating a favorable environment for entrepreneurship and innovations. On 20 July, Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba, announced the establishment of a digital hub in Malaysia which will empower small and medium enterprises to gain access to the global market. The opportunities are countless and Malaysia is one country not to be missed when expanding in Asia with your .Asia domain.

Serafina.asia, old school NYC Italian meets Asian tastes!

Earlier this month DotAsia was able to visit the Seoul location of Serafina and talk with Hideki Yoshimura, the man behind the Serafina locations in Tokyo, Saitama, Matsuyama in Japan, and Seoul in South Korea. Part of the Novarese group, Yoshimura-san told us that he had visited several NYC branches of Serafina to get the essence of the food and culture to bring to Asia.

"The taste in Korea tends towards a sweeter profile, so we have adapted items on the menu to suit local tastes in Seoul," admits Yoshimura. "In Japan, Italian food is already quite popular and so we have largely kept the traditional flavors similar to the New York style."

Serafina got its start in New York City back in 1995, a dream conceived while the two founders Vittorio Assaf and Fabio Granato were stranded at sea in a small sailboat fantasizing about creating the perfect pizza. Now the yellow awning and fluid blue lettering of this rustic Italian restaurant is in three Asian countries (India, Japan and Korea) and looking to expand to more.

When asked why he thought Serafina.asia was the right online identity, Yoshimura said that it makes good sense for the franchise's identify in the far east. Some markets are quite familiar with Italian food done the New York way, others are warming up to the idea. Next stop for Serafina.asia? "We are looking at opening locations in China!" confirms Yoshimura with a smile.

This is the summer of Internet Governance

As a youth driven initiative program, NetMission Ambassador (NMA) worked actively on three Internet Governance Forum in national and region level this summer!

There are many defining roles of NMA: facilitator, event organizer, policy advocates, and even peer buddies. We proudly bring our myriad of roles and experiences to contribute to the much-needed youth engagement and capacity building on Internet governance.

We, as a co-organizer, played different roles in APRIGF, APIGA, and HKYIGF in order to enrich youth knowledge and awareness on Internet governance. We design capacity development workshops focused on Internet Governance for participants and fellows. There are many interesting and interactive ways to equip participants' knowledge: for example, warm-up sessions that include expectation setting and ice-breaking activities. We've also included role play sessions for experiencing different stakeholders, cumulating in a mock ICANN conference for understanding how the multi-stakeholder approach works in the Internet policy making process.

We will feature APRIGF, APIGA, HKYIGF in the next newsletter. Stay tuned!

Foodmiles: Healthy Food. Healthy Air. 2.0 version is ON with our local partners echo for our sustainable development goals

We are thrilled that Foodmiles: Healthy Food Healthy Air 2.0 version is rolling on! Learning from our esteemed restaurant partners, we had them tell us in their own words how they are committed to turn our vision into their business models.

"We are promoting eating locally as we LOVE the earth by action. This campaign brought us the opportunity to communicate with farmers and customers not only by our food, but also by words. The real stories behind food truly counted. We are happy that Go.Asia can bridge the gap for us."

Mable from 8104 a Box of Life

"It came to 2 core elements when we were designing our menu, how to reduce food miles and enrich nutrition in our cuisine, so we sourced the best local ingredients in town, and it's much economical than meat. As a matter of fact, the vegetarian menu we designed are welcomed by non-vegetarians alike so we are happy for this trial and will keep this menu on a regular basis."

Master Cheung, Flame at Towngas Avenue

"In Hong Kong it is costly to adopt local ingredients in menu especially for small shops like us, the running cost is high with little margin. However, we value local farmers' effort and the idea of ethical consumption. And we have been supporting Food Revolution Asia for years so we had confidence in this collaboration. Finally we have proved it right and hope our continuous support can inspire institutions to recognize our work in action in near future."

Day Ng, Return Coffee House.

We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our partners for helping us fulfil our mission to pursue sustainable development in the years ahead. Hopefully this inspires other Asian countries to join our efforts soon!

The Records Breaking APrIGF Bangkok 2017

The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) has successfully come to an end on 29 July 2017 at the Chulalongkorn University with very encouraging statistics. There was a record high attendance of 550 stakeholders from around the region and over 120 online registrations from government representatives as well as an improved gender balance on workshop and plenary speakers. With the support from the local hosts and sponsors, the Fellowship Program also expanded to a class of 50 APrIGF fellows and 20 youth fellows for YIGF.

Our program is also getting more robust in 2017. On top of the parallel workshop sessions during the 3-day main conference program, it is also exciting to see the increased number and variety of side events such as a 3-day cyber-security training program, a full-day hackathon on open data, a focus group session on universal Internet indicators, and the Asia Pacific Legislative Roundtable, to highlight a few. Emerging topics such as artificial intelligence and big data were being introduced to the newcomers' capacity building sessions in addition to the basics of Internet governance and infrastructure. As the Program Committee strove to reduce the unilateral panel sessions, more new interactive sessions such as cyber-security role-play, break-out group discussions on digital inclusion, hands-on demos on disaster management and hackathons were organized this year. Meeting archives are now available at https://2017.aprigf.asia/archive/.

The final Synthesis Document 2017 will be released in September after the volunteers of each sub-theme working group and the Drafting Committee reviewing another record high of 138 comments received on Draft 0. More information and updates can be found on the 2017 website.

DotAsia is delighted to see the growing participation from our wider community on Internet governance discussions and hope more of you will join us in the upcoming Vanuatu meeting 13 – 16 August 2018.

Stay tuned for updates by sending subscription requests to announce@aprigf.asia!

Ajitora's Summer Blog

What an exciting summer month! I had the opportunity to take part in so many stimulating and meaningful activities and met so many new friends.

For the first time ever, DotAsia and the Dreamstarter Foundation debuted its most ambitious social innovation program, GoDream.asia with a three-day summer program and competition. Between July 17 to 19, I helped to inspire 80 primary school youths in Hong Kong to dream big and encouraged them to be a changemaker in their school and community. In just a short three days, the teams built schools on cruise ships, developed IT programs just for girls, created a Pokémon themed school, assembled solar powered models … some even role-played the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Ms. Carrie Lam :P Their creativity went wild!

Leading up to Global Tiger Day on July 29, World Wide Fund (WWF) Hong Kong and I were zipping around town preparing to spread our Tx2 message. First Mr. Peter Cornthwaite, CEO of WWF HK and I went to the opening of the Hong Kong Kids International Film Festival to talk about Tigers and Asia at the post-screening of "Shimarjiro in Bookend" movie. Every day from July 28 to Aug 6 at the WWF HK "Tx2 Be a Tiger Ranger" roadshow at Cityplaza, Hong Kong, I have been meeting new friends and showing them how forest rangers can protect wild tigers from poachers, RRRWAR!

It's been a bustling month and we're building momentum … Great things will happen! Let's keep it up!