It was another day to remember in the history of Kabale University on May 27, 2024, as Kabale University hosted Universal Acceptance (UA) Day. It was held under the theme of “Unlocking internet potentials for promoting quality education and enhancing business growth in Uganda”. KAB received funding from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as a result of the collaboration between Dr. Francis Akena Adyanga (Dean Faculty of Education) and Mr. Jones Murangira (Deputy Chief Information Technology). As a result of the collaborative efforts of a multidisciplinary team at Kabale University and at ICAAN, the universal acceptance day event was a great success.
There were approximately 200 participants for the physical event and more than 100 participants for the online session via Zoom. The one-day event focused on Universal Acceptance awareness, adoption, academic, and technical training. As a result of this event, University programmers will have a better understanding of UA and be able to ensure that their systems are compliant with internationalized domain names and email addresses. Participants at the University will also benefit from integrating University concepts into curriculum design and implementation, as well as facilitating the conduct of contextually relevant research.
As part of the event, participants were also reminded of the importance of embracing diversity and inclusion. As Kabale University, we remain grateful to ICANN for funding this important event. We look forward to future collaborations with ICANN. Sam Lanfranco, Professor Emeritus from York University Canada, delivered the keynote address at the event. Cliff Mutegeki represented the Internet Society of Uganda among the other external speakers.
The UA day was organized by the KAB team led by Dr Francis Akena, who was also the project leader. Mr. Collins Nowamani (Web/Email Systems Administrator), Mr. Collins Nuwabaga (eLearning Officer), Mrs. Patricia Kyomugisha (Assistant Lecturer, Faculty of Computing, Library and Information Science) and Mr. Vincent Mabirizi, eLearning Officer (Instruction Design), conducted the technical training. As part of the technical training, Kabale University staff, students and the community (policy makers, technology developers, email administrators/providers, and business community) were sensitized on universal acceptance (UA). In addition, it stressed the importance of having internet applications that are compliant with UA requirements.
