Innovation Africa Digital Summit 2016 Gets LOC in Abuja

The Local Organizing Committee (LOC) for the 2016 Innovation Africa Digital (IAD) Summit being hosted by Galaxy Backbone Ltd and the Government of Nigeria in partnership with Extensia Uk has been inaugurated in Abuja.

Mr. Owoicho Igoji, vice-chairman of the Summit Planning Team while inaugurating the 10-man LOC stated that the IAD Summit is a continental ICT stakeholder engagement platform that is held annually across the African continent.

He further informed members that prior to now, the IAD had held successfully in 13 countries. Nigeria was selected to host the 2016 event due to recent developments in the telecoms and ICT sector.

While rebasing her economy in 2014, the huge contribution of the sector to the Nigerian GDP played a major role in Nigeria’s emergence as the largest economy in Africa. which contributed significantly to the recent rebasing of Nigeria economy making the largest African economy based on GDP.

The 14th edition of the IAD Summit will be held from the 19th – 21st April, 2016 at Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja at 8.30 am daily.

Continuing, Mr. Igoji who is also the Chairman of the LOC further informed the committee that the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the LOC was carefully created in a manner that will ensure the successful execution of the event.

“The ToR has been structured in a manner that makes it possible to plan and deliver the event end to end. It will also help to guide deliberations of the LOC and the execution of assigned tasks. Our focus should be to deliver positive results on the basis of the MOU signed between Nigeria (represented by Ministry of Communications & GBB) and Extensia Uk.

The committee is made up of five sub-committees namely; Programme Coordination/Secretariat/Accommodation, Entertainment/Dinners, Media/Publicity/Marketing, Finance/Procurement and Logistics/Transportation/Security. Membership of the committee were drawn from public ICT ecosystem.

IAD Summit 2016 with the theme, 'Harnessing Africa's Digital Growth' will assess how ICT can support national and regional development objectives, engagement strategies, operational efficiencies and QoS improvements in Nigeria and across Africa.

As a demonstration of Nigeria’s commitment to ensure a truly Pan-African summit, Adebayo Shittu, minister of Communications has sent out letters of invitation to over 50 Ministers of ICT from different African nations.

Attendees will include Ministers of ICT, Heads of Regulatory Authorities, CXOs from telecoms service providers and High-Throughput ICT end Users from across Africa together with a select number of solution providers, vendors, consultants and investors who can support key business requirements.