ICT Sector experts and African government leaders are in Cape Town for the Africacom2023 conference under the theme of building future-orientated digital infrastructure for Africa.
The conference kicked off with a ministerial forum, powered by Huawei technologies.
While opening the ministerial forum, Africa Telecommunication Union ( ATU) secretary General John Omo who challenged Africa tasked African governments to digitally align their policies as Africa quests for a tenable infrastructure.
Omo highlighted that in navigating the complexities of Africa, we must turn our focus towards constructing forward-looking digital infrastructure tailored to shape the continent's future.
" Technologies must align with SGDs, modern ecology and values of our people," he said.
Omo emphasised the need to be deliberate about the actions of a future Africa.
He underscored the need for Africa to work together in order to build a robust digital infrastructure.
" We seem to be more in competition than collaboration. This is not a sprint, it is a marathon. For us to build a good digital infrastructure we need to work together to avoid duplication," he said.
On behalf of Huawei Technologies, Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa President Leo Chen spoke on their support towards Africa's vision of building one network, one cloud to prepare Africa for the digital world and digital economy by building the infrastructure that will respond to the call.
Chen highlighted the successful experience of building a National Broadband Backbone network.
He cited Uganda as among African countries that are on the right trajectory, saying after the first four phases of the NBI, the all-optical backbone Network in Uganda has covered 63 urban areas and connected approximately 1400 government departments.
"Typical govt services such as e-visa processing have been reduced from 22 days to 4 days," Chen revealed.
The Deputy Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Philly Mapulane in his keynote address reiterated the importance of collaborating and aligning our policies, so we can harness the transformative power of digital infrastructure to foster innovation and drive economic development.
The AfricaCom is the world’s largest gathering of African connectivity leaders and the main anchor of the Africa Tech Festival.
