Telecom
GSMA MWC Kigali 2024 to explore role of connectivity in driving socio-economic growth across Africa
GSMA MWC Kigali will return to the Kigali Convention Center from 29-31 October 2024.
MWC Kigali, Africa’s largest and most influential connectivity event, will convene powerful innovators and political leaders from across the entire continent, geared towards driving the digital economy forward and enabling socio-economic growth.
MWC Kigali will deliver a range of keynotes and panel sessions hosted by industry thought leaders and leading enterprises, focussed around the four event themes: Connected Continent, The AI Future, FinTech, and Africa’s Digital DNA.
Recently confirmed speakers include Airtel Africa’s CEO, Sunil Taldar; Amini’s Founder & CEO, Kate Kallot; the GSMA’s Director General, Mats Granryd; the ITU’s Secretary-General, Doreen Bogdan-Martin; Lelapa AI’s CEO and Co-founder, Pelonomi Moiloa; MTN Group’s FinTech CEO, Serigne Dioum; Republic of Rwanda’s Minister of ICT and Innovation, Hon. Paula Ingabire; Take Back the Mic’s CEO & Founder, Derrick Ashong and, Wi-Flix’s CEO, Louis Manu.
For the first time in Africa, the GSMA Ministerial Programme will be hosted at MWC Kigali, marking a new chapter in the commitment to advancing the digital agenda in Africa.
The programme will convene the most influential telecommunications leaders from across the African continent to discuss policy and regulatory topics key to the region.
The Mobile for Development (M4D) team will once again play a central role at the event, driving innovation in digital technology to reduce global inequalities. M4D will host the ‘Mobile for Development Theatre’, a dedicated space for keynote sessions, panels, and discussions.
Themes will range from AI for impact and humanitarian innovation, agriculture and climate, to digital inclusion and gender.
Also returning this year is the Mobile Money Leadership Forum, which will explore key trends and innovations in mobile financial services.
The MWC Kigali keynotes will cover some of Africa’s most pressing digital connectivity issues.
Keynote 1 will discuss how digital technologies are driving socio-economic development in Africa to address the continent’s unique challenges.
Keynote 2 will focus on the transformative potential of AI, including how it can drive sustainable and inclusive growth across Africa.
Keynote 3 will see speakers explore the rapid evolution of Africa’s Fintech landscape and the technologies impacting investment opportunities.
While Keynote 4 will explore how the evolving content landscape is allowing African content creators to be heard and celebrated globally.
An agenda of GSMA Summits will be hosted during the event, inviting industry leaders and policymakers to discover the issues affecting enterprises in areas from network security to diversity in tech:
The Security Summit will tackle the most pressing security challenges mobile network operators face today, in the context of a rapidly evolving cyber risk landscape.
The Digital Summit will explore the digital economy’s potential in Africa, exploring how digital technologies and policy reform can drive significant socio-economic growth in Africa.
The AI Summit will cover both the vast potential and the associated risks of AI technologies in Africa, as the technology’s prevalence grows in the global economy.
The 5G Summit will address the barriers preventing the technology’s widespread adoption and ways to unlock its potential for both enterprises and consumers.
The Diversity for Tech Summit will focus on the urgent need for greater disability inclusion in Africa’s tech sector, ensuring that people with disabilities have access to the tools and opportunities they need to succeed.
MWC Kigali is held alongside the Africa Health Tech Summit and FEWA (Future of Education and Work in Africa), offering an in-depth exploration of connectivity challenges and opportunities in the health and education sectors.
We are proud to have the support of our stellar line up of sponsors, exhibitors and event partners, including Africa CDC, Africa Union, Huawei, inABLE, MTN, the Republic of Rwanda, Smart Africa and ZTE.
For more information, follow our updates on the MWC Kigali Press Zone or visit www.mwckigali.com.
Accredited media are invited to register here for a complimentary pass, which is required for access to the press centre.
Telecom
IHS Nigeria Partners Jaza Energy to Deploy Solar Hubs @ Tower Sites
IHS Nigeria, a subsidiary of IHS Towers, has formed a strategic partnership with Canadian-based energy company Jaza Energy, that will see Jaza install solar hubs at 250 towers in underserved areas of Nigeria.
Tower infrastructure company, said that the partnership will enable it to reduce the environmental footprint of its operations.
According to IHS, the hubs will provide clean energy to the towers, while the excess power generated by the solar panels at these hubs will be used to charge battery packs for local households and businesses, which it notes will reduce reliance on diesel generators.
Jaza Energy specializes in providing energy equipment and solutions, aimed at supporting homes and communities.
IHS has sought to reduce carbon emissions as part of its Project Green initiative.
The project aims to reduce kWh emissions intensity by approximately 50 percent by 2030.
The tower company has invested more than $200 million into the initiative over the past two years.
“This partnership with Jaza Energy complements this initiative, as we seek to integrate more solar solutions on our sites, and simultaneously help support local communities,” said Mohamad Darwish, CEO of IHS Nigeria.
“In this case, by helping Jaza Energy provide more local households with access to battery packs for domestic use, as substitutes for diesel-powered generators.”
Jaza Energy claims to have delivered more than three million solar battery swaps and reached more than 100,000 people in Tanzania and Nigeria with its clean energy solutions.
IHS said it expects the 250 hubs to help it achieve an emissions reduction of approximately 32,600 – 33,000 tonnes of CO2e over the seven-year agreement.
Last month, IHS Towers struck an agreement to renew and extend its Nigeria tower master lease agreements with MTN Nigeria until December 2032. The contract renewal covers approximately 13,500 tenancy contracts.
Telecom
GSMA Launches Industry-wide Responsible AI Maturity Roadmap
The GSMA has launched the first industry-wide Responsible AI (RAI) Maturity Roadmap to provide telecoms operators with the tools and guidance to test and assess their responsible use of the technology.
Recognising that the overall opportunity derived from the expanded use of AI within the telecoms sector is estimated by McKinsey to be as high as $680 billion over the next 15-20 years, the GSMA is uniting the industry in using the technology ethically and responsibly – the first time a whole sector has committed to a common approach to AI.
The roadmap, developed based on insights by McKinsey and a group of operators, will allow telecoms organisations to assess where they currently stand in terms of their existing maturity in using AI responsibly against where they want to go, i.e. their ambitions and needs. It then provides clear guidance and measurement tools to help fulfil those ambitions, while ensuring industry-wide best practice in the responsible use of the technology.
Its development follows the well-established commitments of many mobile network operators (MNOs) to ensure the exploration and integration of AI within their work has been and is done in ethical and responsible ways.
Following extensive industry consultation, the GSMA has taken these approaches and combined them with existing global regulations, recommendations and standards from international organisations including the OECD, and the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI to create a roadmap for the whole industry to align on the use of RAI.
This initiative has been championed by Axiata, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica and Telstra. Nineteen MNOs have already committed to using the roadmap as a way of tracking, maintaining and improving their responsible use of AI. Full details of all the MNOs already using it are available in the notes to editors.
Best-practice principles
The RAI Maturity Roadmap is underpinned by five core underlying dimensions: the vision, values and strategic goals of an organisation; its operating model and how to maintain AI governance across all operations; technical controls aligned with regulatory requirements; collaboration with third-party ecosystems; as well as corporate change management and communication strategies.
For each of these dimensions, the roadmap will guide organisations to take the appropriate steps to use AI responsibly relative to their level of maturity.
It also builds on well-established best-practice principles, including: fairness; human agency and oversight; privacy and security; safety and robustness; transparency; accountability; and environmental impact.
By providing greater clarity and a common approach to the responsible use of AI, the GSMA’s industry roadmap will give MNOs the confidence to commit to its adoption in the knowledge they are doing so in established, agreed and ethical ways, and therefore unlock the technology’s full value more quickly.
Mats Granryd, Director General of the GSMA, said: “The transformative potential of AI has long been apparent but its integration in our work and our lives must be done in a responsible and transparent way for it to be truly effective and sustainable. This roadmap will now empower more MNOs to embrace AI in the knowledge they, in line with the whole sector, are doing so responsibly and ethically.
“Responsible AI is the right way to explore and unlock the many opportunities the technology presents, and the telecoms industry is proud to lead the way as the first sector to commit to this approach – we hope others will follow our example.”
José María Álvarez-Pallete López, GSMA Board Chair and Chairman & CEO of Telefónica, said: “The speed with which AI has now become a central part of tech and telecoms operations demonstrates its power and undoubted value, but also the risks we must consider as an industry and the need to include ethics at the heart of AI to prevent its uncontrolled development.
“It is crucial for us all to ensure responsible guidelines for the use of AI are implemented now, and it is great to see the telecoms industry leading the way on this with the GSMA’s new roadmap.”
Telecom
Instagram Unveils Teen Accounts with Built-in Parental Control & Privacy
Instagram is overhauling the way it works for teenagers, promising more “built-in protections” for young people and added controls and reassurance for parents.
The new “teen accounts” are being introduced from Tuesday in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
They will turn many privacy settings on by default for all under 18s, including making their content unviewable to people who don’t follow them, and making them actively approve all new followers.
But children aged 13 to 15 will only be able to adjust the settings by adding a parent or guardian to their account.
Social media companies are under pressure worldwide to make their platforms safer, with concerns that not enough is being done to shield young people from harmful content.
UK children’s charity the NSPCC said Instagram’s announcement was a “step in the right direction”.
But it added that account settings can “put the emphasis on children and parents needing to keep themselves safe.”
Rani Govender, the NSPCC’s online child safety policy manager, said they “must be backed up by proactive measures that prevent harmful content and sexual abuse from proliferating Instagram in the first place”.
Meta describes the changes as a “new experience for teens, guided by parents”.
It says they will “better support parents and give them peace of mind that their teens are safe with the right protections in place.”
Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly viewed content about self-harm and suicide on Instagram before taking her life aged 14, told the BBC it was important to wait and see how the new policy was implemented.
“Whether it works or not we’ll only find out when the measures come into place,” he said.
“Meta is very good at drumming up PR and making these big announcements, but what they also have to be good at is being transparent and sharing how well their measures are working.”
Teen accounts will mostly change the way Instagram works for users between the ages of 13 and 15, with a number of settings turned on by default.
These include strict controls on sensitive content to prevent recommendations of potentially harmful material, and muted notifications overnight.
Accounts will also be set to private rather than public – meaning teenagers will have to actively accept new followers and their content cannot be viewed by people who don’t follow them.
- Telecom2 days ago
Over 65m GSM Lines Risk Disconnection over SIM-NIN Linkage
- News1 day ago
Tinubu Did Not Ask Cardoso, CBN Governor to Resign – Presidency
- E-Business2 days ago
Konga Health To Appoint Resellers for L’Oreal Dermatological Beauty Products and others Nationwide
- Telecom2 days ago
Nnamani calls for Deliberate Moves Towards AI Regulation, Data Center Growth
- Telecom2 days ago
Stakeholders Harp on Importance of Unified Infrastructure to Africa Digital Leap
- E-Financial2 days ago
Banks, NDPC Partner to Enhance Data Security
- E-Business1 day ago
IDC Predicts Artificial Intelligence to Contribute $19.9 Trillion to the Global Economy through 2030
- Uncategorized2 days ago
NCC, ALTON, MainOne Back Oketola’s Book on Tech Evolution