The history of the Fundació.cat (now Accent Obert) is linked to the history of the .cat domain. It was born out of the passion, resolve and courage of the Catalan-speaking Internet community.
The .cat domain is the first one to represent a cultural community on the Internet.
The Catalan-speaking Internet community, one of the most active in the world, started wondering “why not have a domain that represents us on the network”.
The ICANN, the institution regulating Internet domains, opened the possibility to assign domains to regions. We asked ourselves: Why not have a .cat domain identifying the Catalan community on the Internet?
The puntCAT Association, which was established for this purpose, found the opportunity to file the application for the .cat domain. The .cat domain application received the explicit support of 98 entities and associations, 2,615 companies and 65,468 people from all Catalan-speaking territories, a number which has never been achieved by any other application, which significantly helped to eventually get it.
Once the domain name has been requested, the puntCAT Association is dissolved and gives way to the .cat Foundation, established before the Registry of Foundations of the Generalitat of Catalonia, with the objective of managing the registration of the .cat domain name and, in general, promoting the Catalan-speaking Information Society.
In April 2005, during one of its quarterly meetings, the ICANN officially announced that it had started negotiations with the puntCAT Association to reach a contractual agreement that would lead to the effective creation of a .cat domain. During the approval process, there were dissenting opinions regarding the creation of the domain, such as that of a Spanish ambassador, who addressed the ICANN to protest. Notwithstanding the above, the .cat domain was born 5 months later.
The first .cat domain to be created was tan.cat (which means “closed” in Catalan), a little pun made by puntCAT Foundation engineers.
Eventually, the registration of .cat domains was opened to everyone, thus putting an end to the start of the .cat launch stage.
Prize awarded by the Carulla Foundation to people or organisations that have helped to strengthen the awareness of a national community and the sense of belonging to the culture of Catalan-speaking regions.
This is one of the highest acknowledgements an individual or organisation can get from the Generalitat de Catalunya (Regional Government of Catalonia), which values and highlights the promotion and care of Catalan identity.
A prize that highlights the work carried out by the .cat domain from its onset in terms of promoting and normalising Catalan on the Internet.
The festival of information technologies awards the .cat domain for actively promoting ICTs through initiatives that seek to boost Internet business and dissemination, for turning technology into a tool for growth, pluralism and participation and for being a vehicle that supports language and culture.
