February 15,2023
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced its plans to hold a hackathon for university students across Bahrain in relation to Bahrain's Arabic .bh domain (.البحرين). This initiative is being implemented in collaboration with Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on a number of projects aimed at increasing community awareness of worldwide acceptance of multi languages on the internet. In recognition of the significant role of our youth, the TRA is involving university students in their plans to develop and deploy technologies that support Arabic domain names (IDN).
Besides Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names, the hackathon will enable people to use multilingual domain names in all their internet applications. Hackathon participants will develop a software and configure email systems to support Email Address using Arabic language domain names. The TRA will work with universities to incorporate multilingual domain name projects into students' semester assignments as part of a long-term engagement.
Commenting on the initiative, SH Ahmed Bin Isa Al Khalifa, Manager of ICT and Acting Head of External Affairs at TRA said “in Today’s online world, we aim to enhance and cultivate the presence of the digital Arabic language and content. The joint initiative will bring together students from local universities for the first MENA hackathon that aims to train undergraduates to support Arabic language domains. This initiative will not only give students exposure to the Internet eco-system but also provide them with an opportunity to gain industry insight in to the on-line world and help address many of the industry’s challenges.”