The SakhaSeliger Forum gathered for its six topic sections more than 1 thousand young people from the Russian regions of Siberia and the Far East. Attendees of the Volunteering section appreciated the social projects of the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development and made suggestions on their improvement.

The SakhaSeliger Forum was held in the Us Khatyn Area, where on the 9th of August all the participants were welcomed by Egor Borisov, the President of the Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation (Yakutia), who initiated the event. The Head of the Republic noted that the rapid pace of the new information technology development and globalization of the economy may cause young people lose traditional values such as national culture, customs and native languages. This problem was discussed by the participants at the workshop on the volunteering development. During the workshop the participants appreciated the initiative of possible implementation of the cultural and linguistic .SAKHA top-level domain.

The promising project on introduction of the .SAKHA TLD started in 2011 during the research on the readiness of the Russian regional authorities for the possible delegation of geographical, cultural and linguistic domains to their territories. That time the authorities of Yakutia officially approved this initiative. However, in the long run only 8 Russian applications for top-level domains were filed to ICANN during the first round of the New gTLD Program. Just two of them contain geogrpahical TLDs - .MOSCOW and .МОСКВА in Cyrillic. Also there is an application from Tatarstan for the .TATAR cultural and linguistic domain.

Representatives of the Internet community in Yakutia and those who are responsible for the development of information technology are watching the activities of their colleagues from the Republic of Tatarstan. It is likely that in case of .TATAR domain success, the Yakuts will be the next obtaining their own cultural and linguistic TLD.

The start of the project that is unlikely to be commercially valuable is possible only on the basis of partnership between public and private sectors. It was discussed at the official opening of the regional part of the Electronic Future International Festival 2012 held on the 10th of August in the auditorium of the ALROSA Diamond Company office in Yakutsk. ALROSA that has its major business in the Sakha Republic and successfully carries out a numer of important social projects in the region could take on some of the costs, associated with the .SAKHA implementation.

Coming back to the the SakhaSeliger Forum, it is important to note that at the seminar on volunteering the participants especially appreciated the Positive Content Contest of Websites for Children and Young People supported by the Foundation for Assistance for Internet Technologies and Infrastructure Development. Yakut volunteers offered to establish a special nomination to award websites targeted at people with some disabilities. Representatives of the organizing committee of the contest promised to bring this idea into life in the next contest that will be anniversary.