The domain, with almost 7.200 active registries, launches a new site with special conditions for non-profit entities and will send for one month the .gal at 10 euros for two years.
Culturgal will host the concerts of Caamaño & Ameixeiras and the project Pava of Lucía Aldao as part of this celebration. The fair, which will take place in Pontevedra between the 29 of November and the 1 of December, will include activities organized by the domain, as a cartoonists battle, Lego workshops and a professional day about the challenges of the net in Galicia.
PuntoGal, the entity in charge of the domain identifying Galicia on the net, this year celebrates its thenth aniversary and, to celebrate, promotes a series of activities for the visibility of the Galician culture and tecnology, besides an special offer in which you can obtain a .gal for two year at only 10 euros plus VAT. A decade after the approval of the Galician candidacy and the launching of the first website under the .gal, the registry has almost 7.200 domains and a renewal rate close to 90%. The domain will make this aniversary visible with a campaign to share with the citizenship the consolidation of a backbone project and commited with the people.
Caamaño & Ameixeiras and the projec Pava of Lucía Aldao will bring the music to this celebration with a festival that will take place the Saturday, 30 of November, in Pontevedra in the framework of Culturgal. The domain elaborated a programme of activities under the motto PuntoGal presenta which includes a cartoonists battle in collaboration with Autobán, lego workshops for the youngest in collaboration with FIRST Lego League or a professional day where the challenges of the network in Galicia will be addressed, specially when referring on the survival of the language besides the dominance of the big tech multinationals. The presence of PuntoGal will be complete with a central stand at the fair, where information about the projects in which the registry supports, including the Museo do Videoxogo de Galicia to Museo do Pobo Galego, through the self-publishing fairs to the literary contest with the Real Academia Galega.
The commemoration includes two special offers to get a Galician domain. The first of them allows buying a .gal for two years for only 10 euros plus VAT between the 27 of November 2024 and the 3 of January 2025. The second one is specifically aimed at non-profit organisations that, from now on, have the option of opting for a domain at very low prices, together with other advantages that can be already be consulted on the page asociacions.dominio.gal.
New image
The ten years of PuntoGal is also a time to change the brand image of the registry. Its traditional logo, the name over the blue circle, was born on 2006, when the associative entity which would later give rise to the domain, was constituted. Under the creative direction of the corunian agency Lapera, a new logotype, an updated colour chart, a change of typography and a new motto were introduced.
The new image constitutes a versatile space and shows what represents .gal today, a common home, for everyone, in where the domain adopts the form its users require to identify them with it. According to the creative studio, the process crystallized “on a logo which is alive, which represents the traditional dot of PuntoGal but on a fluid format, in movement·. The image accompanies a modern typography which reminds Galician roots and with the motto O teu punto forte (Your strong point). The new image is now present on PuntoGal websites and social media and will be gradually implemented in other areas where the domain has presence.
Lapera it is also responsible of the commemoration campaign that PuntoGal will launch on media where traditional Galician skills are combined with the present and the future represented by technological networks
The commemoration of the decade of operation of the register is also accompanied by an institutional agenda, which will have its first stop on 15 of October at the Galician Parliament, where the directive of the domain will maintain a meeting with the president of the institution and with representatives of the parliamentary groups. The objective is remembering also the tenth years of the institutional declaration unanimously signed on the parliamentary headquarters the 26 of June 2014, where it was stated that .gal was a “key tool to increase the use of Galician on the network, providing our culture with a new instrument to increase its visibility and make it easier for companies to gain proximity to the Galician public” and was committed to “all the support (…) on the work of disseminating this project and make visible our language and culture and locate Galicia on the world map of network communications”.
Representation of Galicia on the Network
The president of PuntoGal, Manuel González, remembers that “many of us dream of a more prosperous Galicia, more dynamic, more entrepreneurial to explore its resources and capacities, more proud of its culture and identity, more socially cohesive and with more visibility and recognition on the world. This was the dream that deep down inside moved us to start ten years ago a domain .gal”. González considers that “during those 10 years .gal helped to take a step forward on those objectives, contributing to build up a more cohesive and identified Galicia, give visibility to our resources, develop the ICTs in Galician, enriching our culture and, above all, to give visibility to Galicia and its culture on the net”.
The president of the domain, concludes that, after 10 years, “a review of the way travelled is needed, to examine the successes and mistakes made at this stage, and above all gather strength to give a new impetus to the implantation of the domain until it becomes de identity card of every Galician on the net. I have no doubt that PuntoGal will continue to take steps towards the dream that led to its creation”.
As an independent entity in charge of the registry and management of the Galician domain on internet, PuntoGal has been fulfilling three fundamental objectives since 2014. According to the general director of the domain, Dario Janeiro, “PuntoGal creates community with its 7.200 domains under the umbrella of a brand that identifies Galicia on the net with the highest standards of service and security; it represents the country on the international forums where the internet operating policies are decided, as ICANN; and maintains a corporate program of support to initiatives in the fields of Galician culture, technology, language or sports, which are in the DNA of the entity”. This program clutches different creative manifestations or the recuperation and preservation of the memory and heritage, in collaboration with institutions as the Real Academia Galega, the Museo do Pobo Galego, the Cluster da Comunicación de Galicia, the Asociación Galega de Fútbol Gaélico, among others.
As an active member of the global internet community, PuntoGal represents Galicia and its language before the ICANN, an international organization dedicated to coordinate and managing the domain names system (DNS) and maintain a secure, stable and interoperable internet. The domain is member also of GeoTLDs, platform that groups the geographical and cultural registries; or the RYSG, which brings together at the same table the main registries and registrars on the internet. At the same time, it is active part and holds collaboration agreements with organizations which are committed to a secure internet, as the Global Cyber Alliance, Womer for Cyber, the Internet WacthFoundation and the nodo Ciber.gal da Xunta de Galicia.
All this could not be possible, concludes Janeiro, “without the support of the business, entities, administrations and individuals that trust on .gal for its daily operations and, not least, of all the people who in these years have supported in many different ways, contributing with their time and knowledge, in this small miracle of having your own domain. A project that now begins another ten years with new ideas to grow and create community, but always in Galicia’.
More information:
Alba and Ángela: comunicacion@dominio.gal, 623 333 082.
Press: https://i.gal/10anos