View/Print
as FULLPAGE| Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 |
| Session 4 | Session 5 | Session 6 |
Back to conference summary page
This conference is a must for decision-makers concerned with information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Africa’s development. The event marks the launch of the new Connectivity Africa programme sponsored by Canada. Ground-breaking publications on research into ICTs in Africa are to be launched as well.
Overall, proceedings deal with what has been learnt during five years of research in Africa in Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. Participants will reflect on Acacia’s major research publications—to be launched at the conference—covering the effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in development. Five plenary theme sessions will interrogate ICTs and poverty, education, access, policy and innovation. After debate, the conference will propose an agenda for continuing research and development.
Acacia has put together a lively and innovative programme of speeches, presentations and debates. The website will operate as a window on proceedings, both for conference-goers and those in the wider global community. Amongst the highlights:
Top notch facilitators will encourage high levels of participation and heated opinion-forming debate.
Speakers will include one of the founders of the World Wide Web along with visionary African ICT leaders.
Conference attendees are encouraged to submit proposals for their own “7 minutes of fame”—briefly and informally putting their views to the plenary sessions.
Interaction between Acacia stakeholders will take place in the after-hours functions including a game drive and networking dinners.
There will be a small exhibition of innovative technologies and a session on innovations that make a difference to struggling communities.
Throughout, coverage will be provided by a team of reporters using a VSAT system to send out the news.
The AITEC & Balancing Act Southern African Internet Forum precedes the Acacia conference and there will be reports on the website.
In sum, this is a conference about making a difference. New techniques and equipment can help people to grow and develop but there are no guarantees that poorer communities in Africa will benefit from them. People in villages, towns and cities need to explore how technology works for them under the conditions they face. Many African economies are characterised by over-regulation and under-delivery. Linked with inefficiencies and corruption (which are not unique to Africa but have been widely reported here), the cumulative effect is to slow down the penetration of new methods and maintain the digital divide between info haves and have-nots.
Development in this field is not just about technology and training handouts. It is about access, policy, infrastructures, education generally and finally democracy.
ICTs, Poverty and African Communities
Much has been said,
although not often by Africans, about the possible links between entering the
information society and reducing levels of poverty. Critics feel that ICTs are
an unnecessary luxury in impoverished areas that rather require water
and health facilities. Proponents of information and communication technologies
say these tools are the necessary prerequisite if people are to rise above
poverty. While the debate goes on, little is known about what is happening on
the ground in Africa, while there are few channels for the voices of the people
to be heard. This conference will reveal the results of projects and research
conducted among poorer African communities using ICTs, and will ensure that
local experience gets an airing.
ICTs and Education in
Africa
Efforts to enhance education using ICTs are making slow but sure strides in
African schools. More than 20 countries have adopted policies supporting
endeavours to bring the digital age into the classroom. It is clear that merely
putting computers into classrooms is not enough: a broad set of interventions is
needed. The key issues, based on new research from schoolnetworking experiences
in a number of African countries, will be presented for the first time to
advocates, researchers and practitioners who together will attempt to refine the
options and the way forward.
Universal Access—Beyond
Telecentres?
Telecentres have become for some remote
communities the only place from which to make a phone call, access the
internet, or learn about computers. Government officials in rural towns use them
as they often house, the only computers in town, to perform jobs. But in many of
these rural and remote communities the computers in telecentres are off-line
acting as mere phone booths because of the absence of electricity and telephone
charges. Usually the cost of being connected to the Internet is so high and the
quality of service so bad that there is little attraction to pay for an email
account or worse, surf the web. As private telecentres e.g. in Senegal and
cybercafes have continued to flourish around the continent the debate is raging
about why the huge investments should be borne by governments. Conference
session 3 will highlight the key issues, based on new research from a varying
array of telecentre experiences in Africa and will attempt to define the options
and the way forward.
Most existing forms of telecoms liberalisation in Africa have not delivered cheaper access. Africa’s human and capital deficits make liberalisation extremely problematic. The continent is straining under infrastructural constraints, hampering diffusion of the internet to the needy and limiting the inclusion of African economies in the international system. Can Acacia’s support for research into the policy, infrastructure and access issues have any major influence on policy formulation? In any case, what influences could be expected to have a lasting impact on economies that are in transition?
Innovative technologies are challenging the regulatory environments by reducing the cost of connectivity. The Acacia conference will host some of the more enterprising and imaginative personalities who have devised or implemented cheaper, broader-based technologies for community use. A small exhibition will demonstrate how to lower the costs or connectivity and raise the possibilities of increasing access even in areas with no fixed-line electricity.
Participation and input by all is essential. Acacia hopes to disseminate its research findings to raise the debate in this sector. From the issues raised at this conference should indicate the direction of future Acacia-funded research.