Friday 20 September 2013

Rwanda to host Transform Africa 2013 summit

Rwanda to host Transform Africa 2013 summit


Rwanda will on October 18, 2013 host Transform Africa 2013’ summit themed “The Future Delivered Today” aimed at leveraging the potential of broadband in communities, governments and the private sectors across Africa.


The global technology forum will be hosted by Dr. Hamadoun I. Toure, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), alongside Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame.


According to ITU’s Regional Director for Africa Andrew Rugege, the Summit will primarily review the achievements of the 2007 Connect Africa, and discuss how broadband infrastructure and applications that followed the summit can be leveraged to help transform Africa.


Rugege explained that participants will be drawn together by the vision that leveraging the potential of broadband whose application extends from the village user on a hand-held device to the user on a super computer, will transform the lives of Rwandans as well as other Africans.


The summit comes after South Korea’s largest telecom company, Korea Telecom, entered into an agreement with Rwanda to deploy 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) broadband network across the country.


This agreement will put Rwanda among a few countries in Africa set to roll out a high-speed 4G broadband network that delivers download speed of up to 100 Megabytes per second.


The Minister for Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, said the country is ready to host the summit and is looking forward to play its part in transforming people’s lives using the power of ICT.


“He added that Rwanda looking forward to get involved with a transformation agenda for Africa to achieve broadband growth that benefits every citizen,” he said.


During the summit awards will be presented to exemplary individuals and companies that are excelling in using technology to drive socio-economic transformation.


The summit will also include five key interactive sessions that include awards, leaders’ youth innovation extravaganza forum, exhibition and smart Africa conference.


The goals of the summit includes Connecting Africa’s capitals and major cities on broadband by 2012” and “Connecting African villages by 2015”. Rwanda has made major strides in both goals, including the eminent launch of 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) network throughout the country.”


Early 2013 Networked Readiness Index by World Economic Forum (Wef) and European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD) ranked Rwanda among the top 10 countries in Africa that are in good position to benefit from new ICTs.



Rwanda to host Transform Africa 2013 summit

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