ACT 2004: The world goes to Mauritius

Mauritius, the beautiful Island off the coast of South
Africa in the India Ocean, will for three days in
September, play host to a knowledge-sharing forum on
how to get Africa keyed into global trends in ICT.

The Africa Computing and Telecommunications (ACT 2004)
event organised by AITEC Africa kicks off September 9
with the theme “Building partnerships to mainstream
Africa’s ICT sector.” It will hold at the prestigious
Le Meridian Hotel.

Africa remains an attractive and largely unexplored
market and for the organisers, the continent of over
600 million people still retains its allure for
investors even in the face of mass poverty and
political unrest.

In the last five years, there have been official
attempts by various governments in the continent of
about 50 countries to open up the market, break up
monopolies and allow private ownership of once heavily
regulated sectors such as the energy and telecom
industries.

These have yielded dividends with countries such as
Nigeria and Ghana attracting a surprising dose of
foreign investments and the entry of competition into
once sluggish markets dominated by largely inefficient
incumbents.

Now, Africa appears pose to strengthen its growth
margins through seeking for new offshore partnerships
in its burgeoning telecom sector. As the theme of ACT
2004 seems to suggest, the continent is in dire need
of new, value-adding relationships to consolidate on
what it has already gained and expand its benefits of
ICT to uncovered areas.

Less than 20 percent of the entire continent is
covered by ICT facilities. The experts at ACT
2004(www.aitecafrica.com) would certainly be
considering how to further open up the world’s last
market.

“ICT development in Africa is central to our theme,”
Group Chairman, AITEC Africa
Sean Moroney told IT Edge via electronic mail. Hon
Deelchand Jeeha, Mauritius’ Minister of IT &
Communications would declare the event open.

One presentation would interest open source advocates.
“Open Source: South Africa's experience in
implementing cost-effective software solutions,” by Dr
Sibusiso Sibisi, President & CEO, Council for
Scientific & Industrial Research, South Africa.

There is a raging debate in Nigeria, South Africa and
other African countries on whether the poor continent
can afford the more expensive proprietary software.

Linux is particularly touted by open source advocates
as the “supreme solutions’ for a continent with per
capital income as low as $250. They want governments
to de-emphasis patronage of software giants like
Microsoft. (Related Story: Linux on the Run).


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