Nairobi, Kenya- 6th September 2012
Kenya ICT Board and Kenya IT and Outsourcing Services (KITOS), the
country’s new IT industry body, have jointly sealed partnership with
leading technology event organizer AITEC Africa to take up roles as
country host partners for the East Africa ICT Summit, the largest
annual ICT conference and exhibition in the region scheduled for
Nairobi on 24-25 October.
With the theme “Smart Cities, Smart Communities, Smart Enterprises,”
the 2012 edition of the East Africa ICT Summit will include a major
focus on smart city management. IBM, which has taken a lead in
technology and systems in this area across the world, is “Smart
Solutions Partner” for the Summit, and is among a range of solution
providers in this space that are expected to stage tech solutions and
demos. The Summit will attract an audience of government officials,
scholars, and technology and business leaders from across East Africa.
“Conferences of a global nature such as the annual AITEC East Africa
ICT Summit continue to play an important role in passing on knowledge
relating to inventions and innovations from other parts of the world.
The Summit is a particularly important source of updates from other
markets for ICT professionals in the region as far as technology is
concerned,” said Paul Kukubo, CEO of the Kenya ICT Board while
announcing the partnership. He said the Kenya ICT Board took pride
in its role as Host Country Partner, which for the first time this
year it will share with KITOS.
KITOS chairman Tej Bedi said the East Africa ICT Summit theme for this
year resonated well with the needs of governments and private sectors
in the region. “From Rwanda to Kenya, the private sector is becoming
more technology savvy and it is saying, ‘We want smarter government
services’. There is a raging demand for systems to manage public
transport, energy, security, water and other government services which
are necessary to deliver higher quality of life in cities,” says Mr
Bedi.
AITEC Africa celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and organized
its first conference and expo in Nairobi in 1990. The company is
credited with facilitating debates, exhibitions, discussions and demos
of new technologies by their developers to East African ICT
professionals and communities over the years. “Such concepts and
technologies such as GSM, CDMA, cloud computing and outsourcing among
others were fronted at AITEC conference by speakers before they were
realities,” says Simon Muchoki, an ICT manager who has attended AITEC
Africa events since 1997.
The World Bank and the Kenya ICT Board will co-host an Open Data
conference stream during the AITEC East Africa ICT Summit.
Ends.