The boom in Africa has increased interest in ICT events on the continent. This highlights Africa’s capabilities in providing the perfect opportunity to showcase services and products, sparking future growth. So with Africa turning into an ICT innovation hub, we look at six of the top ICT events on the African continent.
1. IT News Africa’s Innovation Dinner
The IT News Africa Innovation Dinner Series is a bi-monthly event designed for senior ICT executives. The event is great for networking, acquiring information and strategic planning. Once every two months, industry players meet in an intimate, relaxed environment, savouring good food and wine as they build new relationships and promote their organizations. The event — endorsed by industry partners such as the MTN Group, Hewlett Packard (HP), RICOH, IBM, Ericsson, and others — has been described as “informative” and “refreshingly balanced and well organised”.
2. AfricaCom
AfricaCom is one of the largest communications conferences and exhibitions on the African continent, annually attracting over 5 000 visitors. Last year’s summit in Cape Town featured 11 special focus sessions, four strategic keynotes, and AfricaCast and Enterprise ICT Africa, two co-located events. It focused on new models for connecting Africa, mobile broadband, LTE (4G), mobile money, social media and others.
The Africa CIO Summit this year focuses on customers, products, costs and productivity — pivotal to all aspects of business. The summit aims to drive greater IT business, provide a showcasing platform for emerging technologies and solutions to perennial business problems. “The Africa CIO Summit is a widely recognized ICT-focused event where CIOs, CTOs, businesses, and IT executives acquire distilled and compact insights into IT strategies, emerging technologies, and best practices that have direct implications for their business,” the IDC wrote.
4. Broadband MEA Conference 2012
The annual conference has been around for half a decade, growing with every edition. The event’s main focus is fixed and wireless networks across the Middle East and Africa region with 70% operator representation from over 30 countries. Over 1000 visitors attend each year and 2012 will see over 30 operator case studies presented, along with 70 speakers. “With rapid evolution and growth of broadband in the region, Broadband MEA 2012 will cover only the most vital and topical issues,” the conference noted.
The IT Leaders Summit is a gathering for IT and business executives across all industries in Africa. The Summit provides an opportunity to debate and interact with like-minded individuals in an exclusive and energising business atmosphere. The summit, designed for knowledge sharing, networking and deal making within the Southern African IT industry, hosts business meetings, educational workshops and an informative conference agenda. The Summit’s major draw card is the interactive CIO panel discussions, where visitors hear the panel’s views and ask questions on various topics.
Hailed as Africa’s most progressive and innovative conference focusing on all things mobile, the annual event attracts a wide range of industry players involved in the mobile space. Previous speakers include best-selling author Tomi Ahonen, MXit CEO Alan Knott-Craig Jnr and David Erasmus, founder of Cubate in the UK.
Charlie Fripp – Online editor
