AITEC Africa, the continent’s leading organiser of ICT exhibitions and conferences, said ‘Broadband bridges across Africa’ will be the key issue in discussion at the forthcoming major ICT convergence scheduled to hold in Nairobi, Kenya from June 4-8, 2007.
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The event will combine, the African Satellite & Wireless Broadband Conference and the African Voice over IP (VoIP) Forum.
According to AITEC, “the event will include an exhibition focussed on communication products and services, with the theme “Broadband bridges across Africa: First mile and last mile communication solutions”.
The event will be held under the auspices of the Kenya Ministry of Information and Communications.
“Kenya has never experienced such rapid development in its telecommunications sector and this event will provide a platform for the industry to pull together all the different strands of development taking place, enabling all players to exchange information and knowledge and identify the real business opportunities that are emerging for users and suppliers of communications systems,” said Sean Moroney, AITEC Chairman, when announcing the event.
The combined event will have a strong educational focus. In addition to the main conference programme, it will include a number of training workshops and masterclasses, including the following: Strategies & technologies to develop community wireless networks, by Paul Munnery, head of Wireless Digital Cities in the UK; Wireless Security Strategies, by Maiendra Moodley, Technical Security Advisor at the South African Reserve Bank; An interactive workshop for corporate users will provide a detailed introduction to VoIP, by a leading expert from Nigeria, Sunday Folayan, MD of Skannet Nigeria; Survival strategies for Telcos, ISPs & Cyber Cafes, by Russell Southwood, CEO of Balancing Act, UK, a leading analyst of Africa’s telecommunications sector.
“We are bringing a wealth of international expertise to Kenya for this conference,” said Moroney, “and are confident that East Africa’s ICT community will benefit tremendously from this education programme.”
Other international speakers in the five-day programme include: Peter Gbedemah, MD, Gateway Communications, UK, who will speak on “Efficient bandwidth delivery mechanisms”. Renato Goodfellow, Solutions Manager, ME & Africa, BT Global Solutions, UK: “Next Generation Networks: Selecting the right migration path”
Joe Luel, Market Development, SkyVision, Israel: “The role of satellite services in the region’s approaching new fibre era”. Colin Blou, Director, Reseller Group, Deltathree, USA: “International trends in VoIP”. Yves Desmet, Senior Vice-President, Worldwide Sales, Verso, Belgium: “Providing a VoIP service over a WiMAX network”. Mawuli Tse, iBasis, Ghana: “International VoIP services for carriers”. Gary Chalmers, CEO, Torque-IT, South Africa: “Wireless skills development”.
Source: Business Day