The first .nl domain in the Netherlands, 'cwi.nl' of the Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, celebrates its 20th anniversary on May 1, 2006. On April 25, 1986, CWI took care of registering the NL top level domain in the framework of its international and national networking activities. This first country domain was registered by Piet Beertema (CWI), who played a central role within EUnet - the predecessor of the European Internet. The first domain he registered was cwi.nl.
Beertema managed the .nl domain for ten years. Due to the explosive growth of the number of domains, the task became too vast for one person. In 1996, the Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland (SIDN) was founded, which took over Beertema's registration work in January 1997. After that, Beertema became a board member of SIDN. In 1999 he received a royal decoration for his pioneering work for the development of internet in the Netherlands and Europe.
More information can be found on Beertema's homepage 'godfatherof.nl'.
