AfICTA ICT Summit Gathers Momentum

The primed event of the Africa ICT Alliance (AfICTA) with the theme of the Summit is “Fulfilling the Promise of the Digital Age in Africa” is scheduled to hold in Lagos, June this year.

With a population of more than 1billion, GDP of over $2trillion (2012 estimates), growth rate of more than 5%, and with a huge natural resource base, Africa is poised to cheetah-pole-vault its development for a 21st Century African renaissance, says the organizers.

As the private sector led voice of the Continent’s ICT industry and in line with its vision towards the fulfilment of the promise of the digital age for everyone in Africa, AfICTA is convening this Summit to connect key ICT leaders in the public and private sectors across Africa to brainstorm and thus engender the fulfillment of the promise of the digital age in Africa.

The promise of the digital age, they continued, is as articulated in the Geneva Convention 2003 and the Tunis Agenda 2005 of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) for an Information Society by 2015; a global society that reaps the full benefit of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), thereby bringing dividends of improved living standard, wealth and prosperity for citizens. Can this be a reality in Africa?

While governments in Africa continue to review policies to propel a digital economy in Africa, are there roles for the industry stakeholders to help fine tune these policies in the area of broadband penetration, promotion of intra-African trade (currently at less than 5%), boosting of financial co-operation, information availability, communication, multi-stakeholderism, appropriate legislation, e-education, technology localization and securing DNS with DNSSEC.

The 1stAfICTA Summit is set to set the pace for the realization of AfICTA vision and mission.

It is set to reach out to business on creating new opportunities in the Internet driven economy in collaboration with the Business Constituency of ICANN.

It is to collaborate with ICANN on DNSSEC adoption in Africa through awareness creation. Evolve strategies forcollaborating with other stakeholders particularly governments on WSIS targets and proffering proactive review of the post 2015 process.

Evaluate tested advocacy tools for constructive and robust private/public sector collaboration.

It is also to stem the spate of ICT project failures through a Workshop on Project Management Methodology.

 The Summit will also honour few distinguished African ICT personalities that have championed ICT growth and development in Africa.

The maiden edition is being hosted by (the Federal Capital Territory Administration, Ministry of Communication Technology Nigeria, in collaboration with ATCON, NCC (TBC) & ICANN.

AfICTS is a 3-day high level event for African ICT Champions, Director-Generals & CEOs of ICT Development/Regulatory Agencies/Commissions, CEOs of ICT firms, Commissioners, Directors, Leaders of ICT Associations and other non-state actors among others.