African ICT Foundation Rebrands, Seeks Nomination for New Board of Trustee

As part of its rebranding and re-engineering process, which began few months ago, the African ICT Foundation has begun the search for a new Board of Trustee to position the Foundation to meet its key objective beginning for 2019.

African ICT Foundation is an independent not-for-profit, and non-partisan empowerment and educational organisation whose mission is to formulate, evaluate, and promote policy solutions that accelerate innovations and boost productivity to spur growth, opportunity and progress in the ICT ecosystem Africa.

According to statement issued in Lagos, South West Nigeria, by the Executive Secretary of the Foundation, Mr. Emmanuel Bassey, the African ICT Foundation was established in 2009 to discover new opportunities in ICT that will have positive impact on the African economy, tackle attended challenges, and avoid potential pitfalls.

He disclosed that a key aspect of the rebranding is the inauguration of a new Board of Trustee to drive the affairs of the Foundation in the coming years, saying that the Foundation is rebranding for effective delivering of its objective hence the need for a new board.”

He said: “At inception it had as its board member: Dr. Samuel I. Ikiddeh – NNPC as Chairman, Engr. Emmanuel E. Ekuwem-Phd –Teledom group,(now SSG to the Akwa Ibom State government) . Engr. Lanre Ajayi – Former ATCON President and Pinet Informatics Ltd. CEO, Mr. Aliyu D. Ibrahim – (NCC), Dr. Olufunsho Olusanya, Rector,D S Adegbenro Ict Polytechnic Polytechnic, Itori Ogun state(Former ICT gateway Polytechnic, tori Ogun State) and Rev. Oke Omezi, Legal Practitioner and Pastor of the Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM).

Mr. Usman A. Rufai, Faculty of Science, Computer science Department ,University of Lagos, and Prof. Effiong Johnson- University of Uyo.

Bassey explained that the Foundation is poised towards providing policymakers in the continent with high-quality information, analysis, and recommendations they can trust.

While expressing confidence of the new Board of Trustee to meet the objectives of the Foundation, he promised that in all ramifications, it will adhere to a high standard of research integrity with an internal code of ethics grounded in analytical rigor, policy pragmatism, and independence from external direction or bias.

He stated that Africans can nominate respected ICT personalities who have made their mark and creating impact in Africa’s ICT ecosystem by visiting the Foundation’s website:africanictfoundation.org.

The Foundation, according to him, “will be led by a board of experts in the ICT industry in Africa and African descent that are internationally recognized in policy issues and have recognised footprint in the industry.”

He said the board will be a team of policy analysts and fellows includes authors and recognised experts in the fields of telecommunications, public policy advocacy, economics, tax policy, trade, privacy, cyber-security, and life sciences, among many others.

The board will run the Foundation through a secretariat based in Nigeria with other offices in Africa.

Upon inauguration of the board, which shall consist of the Chairman of the Board/President, Vice Chair/Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and representatives of other African countries, the board shall elect its officials.

Source: NigeriaCommunicationsWeek

AFRICA: KENYA’S INTERNET SPEED RANKED FASTEST IN AFRICA

Kenya’s internet is faster, and cheaper as compared to many countries around the world a report by Akamai, a leading Content Delivery Network revealed. Out of the 108 countries sampled globally, Kenya ranked number 23, and the country is the top ranked African country, with the fastest internet connectivity speed. The fast and reliable internet in Kenya has significantly influenced the improvement of e-commerce, generating enormous social, and economic benefits for the country.

Kenya’s internet speed and connectivity is faster, and cheaper as compared to many countries around the world a report by Akamai, a leading Content Delivery Network (CDN) has revealed.

Out of the 108 countries that were sampled globally, Kenya ranked number 23, and the country is the top ranked African country, with the fastest internet connectivity speed. South Korea has the highest average connection speed globally at 26.1 megabytes per second (Mbps).

Akamai aims to make the internet fast, reliable, and secure for its customers.

In most African countries internet is expensive, and speeds are generally slow. In Kenya several internet providers such as Safaricom, Airtel and Orange have upgraded their speeds to the benefit of their customers, and such upgrades have had a positive impact on the economy.

The reliable internet in Kenya has significantly influenced the improvement of electronic-commerce. Many Kenyans are now able to bank and transact online, download music and videos while the uptake of e-learning resources and usage of social media platforms has also greatly improved over the past few years.

According to the report, Kenya overtook third-quarter leader Israel to gain the top spot for average connection speeds among the surveyed Middle East and Africa countries in the fourth quarter. The country has had a tremendous growth in high-speed connectivity in the past years.

The report further said, Kenya has an impressive average of 15mbps followed by Israel at 14.4mbps, South Africa recorded 6.6 mbps, Morocco 5.2 mbps, and Nigeria 4.1 mbps.

Kenya’s National broadband strategy

The improvement to Kenya’s connection speeds and broadband adoption rates is attributed to the successful implementation of the National Broadband Strategy (NBS). The vision of this broadband strategy has been to see the transformation of the country to a knowledge-based society driven by a high capacity nationwide broadband network.

The overall objective of this strategy is to provide quality broadband services to all citizens.

“The strategy has enabled the government to roll out the National Optic Fibre Broadband Infrastructure that has linked all the counties to the Internet by fibre cable. Fibre cable ground installation and provision of 4G network coverage has contributed to the high speeds and efficiency in connectivity,” Joseph Mucheru, the Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary in the Ministry of Information said.

Access to fast and reliable internet has the potential to generate enormous social economic benefits for the country. The benefits include economic growth, job creation, growth of investment opportunities, access to online government services, improved education and training services, improved national safety and security services among others.

Top ranked countries with high speed internet connectivity:

South Korea: 26.1Mbps

Norway: 23.6Mbps

Sweden: 22.817.3Mbps

Hong Kong: 21.9Mbps

Switzerland: 21.23Mbps

Denmark: 20.7Mbps

Finland 20.6Mbps

Singapore: 20.2Mbps

Japan: 19.6Mbps

Netherlands: 17.6Mbps

Source: This is Africa