The Information society in
Europe, Asia and South America and other
world regions is advancing by the day. Whereby
the creation, distribution use and application
of information is a central aspect of daily life be in political. economical
and cultural; all these are already leveraging on Information Technologies.
Africa is lagging behind mainly
due to lack of affordable and reliable connectivity which is now a fundamental
human right. CEO of UbuntuNet Alliance , Dr Pascal Hoba says this can be remedied
if African governments begin to offer
greater support to the growth of
National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), which are the people networks
of researchers and others in the education sector as well as the high speed
physical, fiber networks that support their use, sharing and manipulation of
big data sets.
Dr Hoba said, in a high level
panel at IST-Africa that developing Africa’s knowledge society hugely lies with
nurturing well established and functioning NRENS.
And representing the African
Union Adil Suleiman indicated that one way in which the African Union is
working to support improving connectivity is by encouraging nations to set up Internet
Exchange points. On the policy landscape, Ms
Suleiman indicated that the AU is already creating a supportive policy
environment by developing the Regional
Connectivity Policy.
On his part Anthony Muyepa,
Director General for the National
Commission for Science and Technology said Malawi as a country was ready to work
implementing the information society
by rejuvenating the Malawi National Research and Education
Network but that the Commission lacks adequate
financial support to carry out its activities.
Such high level dialogue is expected to
translate to a favourable environment for growing Africa’s Information Society by prompting African nations to
remove prevailing challenges.
The plenary was moderated by Paul
Cunningham and other panelists included Mrs Lonely Magreta, Permanent Secretary
for Education Science and Technology in Malawi, Andrew Kumbatira who is Director
General at Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority, (MACRA), Victor Malewa the Deputy Director of
the Malawi e-Government, Dr Harry Gombachika CEO of Malawi Telecommunications Limited, Kasirim
Nwuke, Innovation and Technology, UNECA, Dr Paulos Nyrend CEO of Malawi’s SDNP , and Concultant Bessie
Nyrenda from the Malawi Institute of Management.
IST –AFRICA 2015 is the
tenth in the series of IST-Africa
Conferences which are aimed at bringing together senior representatives from leading government, industry and
research institutions around the world in order to share knowledge and experience related to
Information society, ICT, Innovation, Adoption, Policy and Research. The 2015
Conference was organizes by a an international team comprising various
partners including the European
Commission, African Union, UbuntuNet Alliance and local organizers NCST as well
as local partner organizations such as
MACRA, MTL, Skyband, the Ministry of Education and various others.
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