ICANN to open Istanbul Hub, covering Africa

6 May 2013

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers' (ICANN) president and CEO, Fadi Chehadé recently announced that the organisation will open its first hub office in Istanbul, Turkey. The announcement marks a significant moment in the evolution of ICANN as it prepares to spread its operational functions across three global headquarters - Los Angeles (current location), Istanbul and Singapore.

"ICANN is becoming increasingly international in terms of our outlook, policies and the makeup of our staff. Now our global hub strategy will take our internationalism to an improved operational level," said Chehadé. "These hub offices will become part of the core fabric of ICANN."

The Istanbul hub office will be led by David Olive, ICANN's vice president for Policy Development. A number of current ICANN staff will relocate to Istanbul over the coming months and local staff also will be hired.

"We looked closely at a number of possible global locations," said Chehadé. "We chose Istanbul because of the quality of its infrastructure, growing ICT sector, business-friendly environment and its close cultural and geographic proximity to Europe, the Middle-East and Africa."

Creating a more connected community

"ICANN provides efficient and considered management of the Internet's Domain Name System, and today marks the latest step in the organisation's journey of extending its global influence," said Binali Yildirim, Turkey's Minister of Transport, Maritime Affairs, and Communications. "The ICANN European HUB is being established in Istanbul to act as an epicenter that will help shape internet policy to deliver a more connected community across Europe, Middle East and Africa."

ICANN currently is overseeing the implementation of more than 1,400 new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs), representing one of the biggest changes to the internet since its inception. The first wave of these domains will come online in the coming months. As a result of this massive expansion of the Domain Name System (DNS), ICANN too is expanding as it continues its mission to ensure a stable, secure and unified global internet.