Egypt intensively prepares for ITU Telecom Africa 2004

Telecom Africa, due to take place at the Cairo International Conference Center aims at bringing markets closer to share the growth of the telecom sector. More than 200 officials including ministers and key decision makers in the industry are expected to attend. Moreover, estimated above 600 high level participants will be at the forum and more than 200 members of the international media will cover this event. Since 2001 (ITU Telecom Africa's last event) revolutionary advancements happened in the ICT field, as well as vast transformations and developments in consumer habits and business trends. Building on this potential, the Government of Egypt will be working on a specific agenda to engage its regional partners assuring a platform for communication between governments, funding agencies, the business community and the ICT society at large.

More than 200 exhibitors will occupy over 18000sqm, with more than 550sqm located in the new annex built specifically for this grand event. The exhibition will house national pavilions showing unique initiatives of ICT for development and related projects from the region, as well as multinational corporations, SMEs working in the ICT business also from the region.

'Advantage Africa' is the theme of Telecom Africa's forum. Topics debated during the forum will be specific to the region and will include: Digital solidarity; mobile Africa; managing internet resources; ICT for development case studies; using ICTs to achieve NEPAD objectives and fostering local content.

The highlight of the event is the Youth Forum, entitled 'Access Africa', which will gather young adults from 53 countries to participate and share their views towards issues related to the advancement of telecom in the region. Moreover, Telecom Africa will organize another side event, namely the Telecom Development Symposium bringing 100 professionals of mid-upper level management form 53 countries to discuss development of the sector in the region. Concurrently, the Arab Business Forum for ICT will hold its annual conference during the event.

Remarkably, during the World Summit on Information Society-WSIS in December 2003, H.E. Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt, Mr. Kofi Anan, UN Secretary General and Mr. Yushio Utsumi, ITU Secretary General, sent an electronic invitation to the World Community to meet at ITU Telecom Africa 2004 in Cairo.

Egypt is, indeed, honored to host and organize the first official event following the WSIS to focus on African telecommunications. The event will explore the latest technologies, discuss investment opportunities, define future partnerships and debate the issues affecting the African telecommunications industry. In this context, Egypt is planning to facilitate the participation of African small and medium enterprises working in ICT that could benefit from such an exposure.

Concurrent to the event, the Ministry of Communications and Information technology-MCIT, in cooperation with the National Telecommunications Institute (an affiliate of MCIT) have designed and will implement a training program for ICT professionals from African countries. The program aims at building the capacity of ICT professionals within the governmental levels as well as the capacities of technical staff. The program will offer 25 scholarships to 15 African Countries.

Egypt is finalizing various aspects related to the exhibition, forum and social activities related to ITU Telecom Africa 2004, on this occasion the President of the Telecom Sector in the ITU, Mr. Fernando Lagranga held several meetings with officials and the business community in Cairo over the past few days.