Virtual life has become real. This is how we could define the year 2021.
What was new and unusual in 2020 became a reality and a daily routine in 2021. We are used to online lessons, online business meetings, online sports events or cultural performances. Machines and technologies have helped us to cope with the exceptional situation we have been in for the past year.
The year 2021 was a continuation of the previous one, i.e. the so-called “pandemic one”. The beginning of the year was marked by a strict “lock-down”, i.e. a curfew. People worked from their homes. Students learned online.
And what did we do in SK-NIC in 2021?
We have informed what has happened on the internet
In January, we published a historically first Annual Report on the Internet for 2020. In the report, we presented various statistics from the world of domains, interesting facts from home, but also from all around the world.
The pandemic has also contributed to the growth of domain registrations with a pandemic topic. Back in 2020, we launched a specific page, where we published on a weekly basis numbers of domains that were registered in connection with various frequently used words of a pandemic. In 2021 we covered the second wave of the pandemic in the same way. You can see for yourself what interesting information is to be found there.
We have supported
During the pandemic months, the trend of new registrations growth continued. Nevertheless, we felt that it has been still necessary to continue to help new virtual residents.
We executed virtual world entry active support also in the real world. In March, we significantly reduced the price of a new domain registration with the Happy 7 days promotion. 2021 was dynamic and new registrations grew also thanks to that, and the autumn promo Be online! helped yet another amount of virtual residents to enter the territory of Virtual Slovakia. Welcome!
We have provided
In 2021, we made significant progress in domain security as well. At the end of the year, DNSSEC technology already secured more than half of the .sk domains! That means actually 51.55%! In two years, since the launch of the technology, we have already reached the excellent 5th place in the world in the middle of the year, after Norway, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Sweden. Just to remind you, we had secured 38% of all domains with the most beautiful domain suffix .sk at the end of 2020.
You can read about DNSSEC technology on our website and a simple tutorial video is also available.
Security also includes laws. The amendment on Cyber Security Act entered into force on August 1, 2021, and we actively participated in its preparation by commenting and notifying registrars and the Internet community.
We can also proudly say that we have passed the newly required audit according to this law successfully and as one of the first in Slovakia!
We have trained both teachers and cadets of the police academy
Together with our partner JA Slovensko, which we also supported from the SK-NIC Fund, we continued to support the project “Digital Competence Coordinators Program” for the second year. As part of the program, the director of the company Peter Bíro also trained IT teachers at secondary schools.
Computer crime and cyber attacks are on the rise and so we have trained more than 120 cadets on this topic in cooperation with the Police Academy in Bratislava.
We have been looking for inspiring people
The Academy of Virtual Slovakia, which has already established itself as an educational platform covering the virtual world entry, presented successful projects of people who were not afraid and entered fully internet with their business. Check out their inspiring stories and join them. The second series is available on the portal, but also on our YouTube channel.
We have been experiencing Slovakia
The summer was spent in the spirit of experiencing the history of Slovakia. Since traveling abroad was still difficult, we launched a project that presented some of our important castles. Together with the fencing master Peter Koza, we brought up the stories of five of them. Castles are like a hard disk of their time. See the beautiful stories they hide inside.
At the end of the year, together with Rado Hoppej, we looked again at another series of hidden treasures of Slovakia in our tourist series Experience Slovakia in a Real and Virtual Way.
We have helped those who help
The summer was full of great events. We have launched the registration of third-level org.sk domains for those who help others. Halved price for both new registrations and renewals is our answer, if it is possible to help.
It’s always possible, you just have to find a way. We found it in the form of a special domain suffix org.sk. And of course we have also prepared a short video that you can watch on our YouTube channel.
We have launched a new portal
The previous lines will certainly confirm that our activities are running so much that it is appropriate to give them a separate space. Autumn was spent here in the spirit of a new portal launch. It started to communicate and live in Virtual Slovakia at the end of October 2021.
The Virtualno.sk portal is full of information from the IT fields of education, security, entertainment and new trends. Don’t forget to confirm your subscription to the news so you don’t miss new articles or quizzes about the virtual world. Exercise your memory and be in… well, internet active!
The SK-NIC fund helped to develop Virtual Slovakia once again
The SK-NIC fund helped to develop Virtual Slovakia once againThe SK-NIC fund has significantly helped projects even before. We helped to launch 38 projects throughout Slovakia. And we offered our support also in 2021.
At the end of January, we presented the winning projects of the 2020 call. In doing so, we tried a fully virtual presentation, as the pandemic made it impossible for us to present the projects in real life. And it was not difficult – current applications and platforms have really advanced! Feel free to watch the presentation on our YouTube channel.
We celebrated Children’s Day with a big show. It was exactly on June 1 when we launched a call for support applications from the SK-NIC Fund. The call for small projects was open from June 1 to July 15.
The results of the call surprised us pleasantly again. 176 applications competed for the support. Many were excellent ones, but in the end, 12 of them made it to the finals, among which we divided the amount of EUR 100,000.
With this call, we have already supported 50 projects with a total amount of EUR 600,000!
We were also happy that we managed to present all the projects of the last call live in the premises of Aurelium in the autumn of 2021 – the experiental science center in Bratislava. Watch a short clip from the presentation.
SECURITY, SUPPORT, EDUCATION, but also support of the new projects and challenges will therefore remain our motivation in 2022 as well.
