Wafict Congress 2009 to Fuel Telecom Growth

West African Information and Communications Technology Congress (Wafict Congress 2009), a conference of information and communications technology, experts will focus on how new technologies can be deployed to fuel telecom growth in the sub-region.
The three-day conference, with the theme ‘Harnessing New Technologies for Telecom and ICT Growth in West Africa,’ will run from June 2-4, alongside the highly successful West African International Telecommunications and Information Communications Technology Exhibition (W.Afri.Tel).
Holding at the Ocean View, Victoria Island, Lagos, Wafict Congress 2009 is being organized by IT & Telecom Digest, which is also the Sole Nigeria Agent for the W.Afri.Tel exhibition.
Participants for the conference will be drawn from operating ICT and telecom companies, GSM and CDMA operators, the banking sector, the legal profession, the oil and gas sector, government agencies, regulatory bodies, consumer advocacy groups, the academia, value added service providers and Internet Service Providers, among others.
Wafict 2009 is already getting high level support from across the West African sub-region, as regulators from Ghana, Benin Republic, among others, have confirmed they would join their counterpart in Nigeria, alongside experts to be drawn from across the world, to give impetus to the growing interest in West Africa’s telecom sector.
Mr. Mkpe Abang, editor-in-chief of IT & Telecom Digest, said that Wafict is the product of the growing demand by the West African ICT industry for a conference that seeks to find solutions to their numerous challenges, which limit the sub-region from fully optimizing the new technologies that are being churned out.
“As a responsible magazine, has consistently nurtured the African ICT sector for almost 10 years now, IT & Telecom Digest saw the urgent need to bring to the sub-region this conference, especially as the magazine is Sole Agent for W.Afri.Tel, which is West Africa prime ICT event, which began in 2001 and running year after year with attendant growth,” he said.
According to Abang, the conference will bring together, experts, regulators, operators, government officials, various professionals and people from the academia “from the highest level, as decision makers” to find ways of taking West Africa’s telecom sector to the next level.
“We are in an era where technology available today becomes obsolete the next day; and, West Africa is particularly fortunate, because rather than worry about legacy technologies, we are using cutting edge, latest technologies as they are being introduced.
The challenge therefore is, how do we ensure that these technologies deliver value for our time, money and energies? How do we ensure that the return on investment (ROI) for operators in the sub-region continues to be attractive so as to engender more investment? How do we ensure that the technologies deployed here are environmentally friendly and pose no danger to the societies? These are some of the many issues that experts from across the world, will be discussing during Wafict 2009,” he added.