By  EMEKA AGINAM

The Chairman of Africa Information and Communication Techno-logies Alliance (AfICTA), Dr Jimson Olufuye has assured that the organization would engage for the long haul towards the ‘smart’ Africa vision.

Olufuye who spoke recently at the just concluded AfICTA summit held in Cairo, told the gathering that AfICTA would achieve this through organizing non-government ICT stakeholders in Africa for effective local and continental advocacy, be the focal point for Africa ICT advocacy in the global digital economy, promoting constant improvement in African digital literacy in collaboration with stakeholders, among others.

According to him, AfICTA would contribute to capacities building by promoting best practices, encouraging regional projects, sharing data, skills, expertise, events, business announcements, exhibitions, seminars, and many more.

He said that 21st Century belongs to Africa, the 2nd largest continent in the world with more than 1.1 billion people.

“With Africa together, we shall realize our full potentials for a ‘smart’ Africa we very much desire.” he added.

At the summit that was hosted under the auspices of H. E. Eng Atef Helmy, the Minister of Communication and Information Technology of the Arab Republic of Egypt, he said that based on International Telecommu-nication Union (ITU) statistics, close to 30% African are on the Internet.

He said, Internet penetration is growing at 45%, and we are close to 100% teledensity and over $100b infrastructure projects (in the area of broadband, electricity, and transportation) are currently on going across Africa.

He emphasized that, Africa is growing and must continue to grow smart to boost intra-African trade which is currently below 8%.

According to the former Information Technology Association of Nigeria, ITAN, AfICTA was committed to continuous engagement with all stakeholders both within and without Africa.

“AfICTA is committed to effective collaboration among all stakeholders including but not limited to; governments, the civil societies, academia, technical community, business and Inter-governmental organiz-ations” he added.

According to him, AfICTA has already signed MOU with the Information Technology Industry Agency of Egypt (ITIDA), the sponsor of the summit, and collaborating with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) with whom AfICTA partnered to organise the Domain Name System (DNS) workshop; and partnered with the Alliance for Affordable Internet for All (A4IA) to promote the need for Internet access affordability for the African community.

Accordingly, he informed that AfICTA signed an MOU with her counterpart in Asia, the Asia – Oceania Computing Industry Organismic (ASOCIO) represented by Mr Stan Singh.

He thanked H. E. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Minister of C & IT, Eng. Atef Helmy, the Director of International Relations, Nermine El Saadany, the board and management of EITESAL for hosting Africa.

He also thanked Egypt IT Industry Development Agency, the Business Constituency of ICANN, ICANN, National IT Development Agency (NITDA) Nigeria, and all sponsors of the summit for their support.

Also speaking while declaring the Summit open, the Egyptian Minister of Communication & Information Technology, H. E. Eng Atef Helmy welcomed all and expressed Egyptian government’s commitment to engaging with the rest of Africa in the spirit of African brotherhood; the private sector and AfICTA in particular because he believes in a smart Africa driven by the private sector.

He counseled that the “momentum already generated should be sustained and AfICTA can count on the support of the government and people of Egypt”.

Earlier, the Chair of the Summit Organising Committee, Eng Hossam El-Gamal and the Chairman of EITESAL Dr Hazem El Tahawy, expressed delight to receive all delegates to Egypt and assured that Egypt private sector will continue to play important role in Africa private sector engagement with all stakeholders.

Meanwhile, more than 200 delegates from 20 African countries attended the summit including three other Ministers of ICTs from Tanzania, Djibouti and Ethiopia. Also in attendance was the Coordinator of NEPAD Africa Dr Edmund Katiti, Mr Markus Kummer, former Chair of IGF and now ICANN Board member; ICANN Global Stakeholder Coodinator Patrick Jones, Internet Hall of Fame inductee, Nii Quaynor of Ghana, Mr Adrian Schofield, AfICTA Vice-Chair, Mr Roger Latchman WITSA Deputy Chair & AfICTA Board member.

Other board members in attendance include from Nigeria Engr Lanre Ajayi and Engr Tola Sogbesan, and from Kenya Dr Waudo