New trends in ICT could foster industrialization and socio economic development in Africa

Abstract

Experts attending a session on new ICT trends in relation to fostering industrialization and socio-economic development expressed optimism on the benefits that African can derive from using ICT-enabled services, such as open data access, social media, FOSS applications, and mobile computing. “Although Africa is not up to speed when it comes to Internet connectivity, continent has 110 million users,” said Dr Tarek Cheniti of the Said Business School. “Africans are responsive to technology and we have to build on that.” The session, held during the May 2-5 Second Session of the Committee on Development Information, Science and Technology – CODIST II. According to the Information and Communication Service of the Economic Commission for Africa – ECA, participants focused on the uptake of ICTs in Africa and emphasized that the continent has led the global shift as one of the fastest to turn from fixed to mobile telephony.