OREANDA-NEWS. August 10, 2010. Internet festival of national domain UZ 2010 started in Uzbekistan. The organizers of the event are the Fund “Forum of Culture and Arts of Uzbekistan”, “Kelajak ovozi” youth initiatives centre, UZINFOCOM center and Mirada Software company.

Uzbek Agency for Communication and Information (UzACI) and the Women’s Committee of Uzbekistan provided official support to the festival.

Internet festivals have been spent in the country since 2001, it was noted at the press conference devoted to the festival opening. Since 2007, festivals are held only for sites in the national domain UZ. The goal is to develop resources in the domestic domain.

Previously, internet festivals were held every two years. From 2010, the festivals will be held on an annual basis.

In Uzbekistan, the estimated number of internet users is currently about 3 million. The second-level domain UZ was created on 29 April 1995. The number of active UZ domains is more than 10,500. There are also thousands of third-level domains in the UZ zone.

Since the beginning of this year, more than 1,000 UZ domains were registered. Given this, it was decided to make internet festivals annual. The main initiators of the festival are UzACI and UZINFOCOM, which is the administrator of the UZ domain zone.

This year’s festival will be held from 5 August to 20 September. Its results will be announced on the first day of the Information Technologies Week, InfoCOM 2010.

The main goals of the festival are popularization of the internet among the general population, providing assistance to development of national content as a medium for creativity, professional activities, recreation, a source of reliable and timely information.

A jury of experts in internet technologies, art, culture, governance and other fields will be created to evaluate the websites. The contest program includes 14 thematic and 2 special nominations.