30 Jul 2011

AfricaCom 2011 programme embraces the new Digital Africa

We’re just over three months away from the 14th AfricaCom event, and the programme is now ready. How it has evolved from a GSM-focused conference to a large congress and exhibition involving the whole telecoms, media and ICT market! African consumers and businesses have fully embraced the new services and opportunities brought by mobile and ICT technologies; they have shown initiative and innovation to create new uses that are suited to local needs. For those who haven't experienced this first-hand in Africa, here's an interesting article giving a good idea of why this year’s AfricaCom is all about Africa’s digital market as the engine for the continent’s economic growth.
The conference keynote sessions will bring expert speakers from the whole digital ecosystem to discuss the evolution of the market:
- mobile operator groups (MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Atlantique, Expresso) will discuss how they’re transforming their business models and encouraging innovation to adapt to a new landscape and new customer needs
- sub-sea cable companies (such as ACE Consortium), satellite operators (Intelsat, O3B) and fibre companies (Corning) will share how they’re working to improve international connectivity and capacity in order to deliver the new services
- alternative brands will share their perspective on how they deliver attractive services to the end-users in partnership with operators - with two of the most talked-about companies in the market: facebook and Google
More than ever before, the past year has been about innovation and new services to deliver beyond voice. That is why the event includes new sessions to cover mobile value-added services (with a panel discussion on content and apps), social media services (with the participation of African brands Mxit, Motribe, Africanplanet.com and Afrigator), TV services (a new co-located event, AfricaCast, with contributions from Multichoice, SABC, ABN, Multimesh and more), and enterprise ICT services (supported by HP, IBM, MTN Business and more).
We are looking forward to welcoming more new participants this year, and to debating the evolution of Africa’s digital landscape. For more information, visit our website.

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