12 October 2012
Over 900 participants attended the 6th Telecom Namibia ICT Summit 2012 on October 9 to 11 at the Safari Hotel & Conference Centre in Windhoek under the theme, “ICT – an integral part of everyday lives.”
Founded in 2007, this prestigious event has rapidly won national limelight for being one of the best platforms that catapults ICT issues on the national agenda, as it garner significant participation from key local and foreign players in the ICT sector – the manufacturers, suppliers, the intermediaries, the service providers, maintenance companies, the customers, the regulator (CRAN), government agencies and the consultants - to exchange latest information on technological improvements, new innovative ideas, products, services and solutions.
Honourable Joel Kaapanda, Minister of Information and Communication Technology delivered the keynote address at the gathering’s start.
Also in attendance was the Minister of Education, Hon. Dr. Abraham Iyambo, whose ministry is keen in introducing e-learning through the TECH/NA!, a comprehensive strategy for the integration of ICTs across the entire education sector. Telecom Namibia is a partner in TECH/NA!
This year’s event presented the participants the opportunity to interrogate a complex array of technical, technological and organisational challenges in making ICT part of the everyday lives of Namibian households, businesses and public sector.
This Summit had a strong focus on ICT diffusion and utilisation, in keeping with the theme of the Summit. Some of the vital issues that came out were:
- Using ICT to improve information and exchange and decision-making;
- Using ICT to improve health, education and the economy, especially employment creation;
- Using ICT to create business opportunities;
- Corporate responsibility on the issue of ICT, in particular working to increase the access, use and benefits from ICT;
- Youth empowerment, in relation to ICT; and
- Enabling environments in terms of policies, regulatory frameworks, resource allocations and strategies in order to be able to reach a wider group of end-users.
In his keynote address Minister Kaapanda stressed some of the achievements that are directly attributable to Telecom Namibia. He said that the arrival of the West-African-Cable System last year laid the foundation with state-of-the-art infrastructure for ICT promotion, growth and development. He further said that Namibia’s direct connectivity to the WACS cable placed the country in an advantageous position to act as a gateway for land-locked countries to access the rest of the world through the submarine cable system. “The international points of presence that Telecom Namibia is establishing in various countries would immensely benefit neighbouring States,” the Minister added.
Telecom Namibia Managing Director Frans Ndoroma pointed out that the decision to transition the company towards a Next Generation Network Operator six years ago had seen advances in ICT in the country, and the introduction of many innovative products, services and solutions by Telecom Namibia and other ICT players.
In addition to the tremendous growth in broadband capacity over the last, Ndoroma revealed that more and more households are being connected to the Telecom Namibia fixed broadband networks with maximum speeds of 2 megabit per second. Fixed broadband connections in 2011 increased by 28.7%, while net growth this year amounted to 31%.
In the foreword to the summit brochure, Ndoroma mentioned some achievements that show that the company is still leading the pack on ICT development in Namibia. He stated: “Fixed and wireless broadband infrastructure is being rolled out throughout the country. A national IP/MPLS core transport network is in place, supported by a state-of-the-art DWDM platform” all which are crucial to the provisioning of advanced ICT services in the country.
He continued: “We have deployed about 9,000 km of fibre optic cables. The deployment of fibre will provide the opportunity for innovative IT applications to emerge in business, government, education and health sectors which will achieve a number of social and economic benefits.”
Sustaining success requires that Namibia’s ICT players to evolve policy and sector development actions beyond connectivity, and accelerate the identification and build-up of ‘right to win’ capabilities in the new digitisation era, including speed, usability, skills, innovation, and entrepreneurship.
The Summit ended on 11 October 2012.
