" ITREALMS: 500 participants enroute Connect Africa @ Kigali

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

500 participants enroute Connect Africa @ Kigali

Barely few days for the take off of a two-day conference, Connect Africa summit, scheduled to take place in Kigali, the organisers said estimated 500 participants are expected.

Just as International Telecommunication Union (ITU) recently assembled experts to streamline actions for its Global Cybercrime Agenda (GCA) in Geneva.

Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU, Mr. Sanjay Acharya, said the event has as its main goal to help bring connectivity to Africa and promote “Connect Africa,” a new partnership that seeks to expand the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of the continent, mainly on Internet broadband.

This came as the chairman of African Union (AU) and President of Ghana, Mr. John Kuffour has confirmed presence at the event.

Other high-level participants include ITU Secretary-General, Dr. Hamadoun Touré, President, African Development Bank, Mr. Donald Kaberuka and Intel Corporation Chairman Craig Barrett, who is also the Chair of the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank Group, will make a contribution by video link. The Presidents of several African nations are also expected to participate.

Mr. Acharya pointed out that the event will bring together political leaders, including Ministers and Heads of State, CEOs and senior executives of global and African IT companies, leaders from civil society and heads of international and regional development banks.

Industry leaders including Cisco, GSM Association, Ericsson, Huawei, British Telecom, Qualcomm, NTT DoCoMo, Neustar, Safaricom, Nokia-Siemens and Microsoft will attend and announce new initiatives to help bring connectivity to Africa.

He further said that the summit sessions have been designed for television to encourage interactive participation and key sessions and would be moderated by Stephen Cole, a renowned TV anchor with Al Jazeera International.

While the event’s press conferences will be webcast live, and time slots for telephone interviews with prominent participants will be allocated for those journalists who cannot attend.

The summit is organized by the International Telecommunication Union, the African Union, the World Bank Group and the Global Alliance for ICT and Development, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunication Union, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, and the Global Digital Solidarity Fund.

Meanwhile, selected experts recently gathered in Geneva to lay the foundation for a global response to the constantly evolving nature of cyber-threats and the increasing level of sophistication of cybercrimes.

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