Telkom pledges support for ICT development initiatives

South African telecoms giant Telkom has pledged its support for initiatives that provide access to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to the youth in other developing African countries.

On World Telecommunications and Information Society Day, the company said: “There is no denying that cyberspace – especially the internet – offers limitless opportunities and benefits. For children, in particular, it provides a valuable gateway to educational research and access to a wide world of knowledge and fun at the click of a button,”

“There is thus a concerted global effort to close the digital divide and help integrate the youth – especially from developing countries – into the Information Society. Telkom is no exception in this regard. Through the Telkom Foundation, our corporate social responsibility arm, for instance, we recently launched a 2010 Schools Connectivity Initiative which aims to connect two thousand and ten disadvantaged schools countrywide by December 2010.”

The International Telecommunications Unions (ITU) marketed this year’s edition of the annual global telecoms day using the theme “Protecting Children in Cyberspace.”

According to the ITU, a decade ago there were just 182 million people using the internet globally – and almost all of them lived in the developed world. By the end of 2008, however, this figure had edged closer to 1.5 billion Internet users worldwide, with 50 million users in Africa.