26th August 2022 I The president of PuntoGal, Manuel González González, and of the Deputación da Coruña, Valentín González Formoso, signed today a collaboration agreement by means of which the provincial institution will contribute 29,000 euros to the creation of the PuntoGal Observatory of the network by the domain manager. The signing took place in person at the headquarters of the Provincial Goverment.

According to the president of the Deputation, Valentín González Formoso, “the PuntoGal Observatory will centralise, on a website created for this purpose, information on the use of the network in Galicia, from a technical but also sociological perspective”. As the manager of a top-level domain and as part of the online industry, PuntoGal has the data and tools that will allow it to analyse multiple variables, although special emphasis will be placed on the situation of the Galician language. “Among other issues, this agreement will allow us to obtain detailed and accurate data on the presence of Galicia and the use of Galician on the internet, with an innovative project,” said Formoso.

The president of PuntoGal, Manuel González, pointed out that “The .gal domain was conceived, among other objectives, as an agent to boost Galicia’s presence on the Internet, and especially as a driving force for the normalisation of Galician language and culture, promoting the use of Galician on the Internet and serving as a showcase that gives it universal visibility”. He also pointed out that “it is necessary to monitor the use of the Internet in Galicia and to continuously analyse the presence of our language in cyberspace, because the level of use of Galician on the Internet is a fairly reliable thermometer of its level of health. We are pleased to make this initiative of the PuntoGal Observatory a reality. By signing this agreement, we are launching the PuntoGal Association and the Deputation of A Coruña, whom I would like to thank for their sensitivity in realising the importance of this Observatory”.

PuntoGal, which has more than 6,500 registered domains, has the task of “activating a reference project for the Galician network. The observatory will seek to highlight the presence of the language, culture and business network on the Internet”, in the words of its director, Darío Janeiro. The initial project will be developed between 2022 and 2023, will have a total budget of more than 40,000 euros and will provide “a clear and precise vision, with an unprecedented level of detail, of the richness and diversity of the network in Galicia and also in the province of A Coruña”, concluded Janeiro. The Observatory has a vocation of continuity in the following years, with the incorporation of new metrics that will help to map the Galician network.

The PuntoGal Observatory is part of the corporate programme of initiatives around ICT and language that the domain maintains. This includes support for projects such as the PuntoGal Spin-Off contest, the short-story competition with the RAG, collaboration with the Galician Gaelic football teams, sponsorship of online content in Galician and collaboration with the Museo do Pobo Galego, to name but a few.