ICT Ministry’s e-Tech Africa Expo 2014 scheduled for 12-14 March

The Ministry of Information Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services will host the e-Tech Africa Expo 2014 next week from 12 to 14 March at the Harare International Conference Center (HICC). The theme of the expo and the conference, which will run concurrently, is “Promoting Competitiveness and Sustainable Growth Through ICTs”.

According to information gathered from the official eTech Africa Expo 2014 website, the objective of the conference is as follows:

The general objective of the e-TECH Africa Conference is to arouse the interest of the Zimbabwean population in the use of ICTs for a successful transformation of Africa from an agricultural society to a knowledge society. In line with the African Regional Action Plan on the Knowledge Economy (ARAPKE), the Conference is expected to:
a. Promote the right of all to have equal access to ICT value added services and to experience the advantages of using technological services
b. Develop, maintain and stimulate people’s curiosity, interest and enjoyment in ICTs
c. Promote the acquisition of appropriate technological skills, concepts, principles, methods and vocabulary
d. Leverage ICTs as a tool for socio- economic development especially in developing countries.
e. Attract more and new investments in the ICT sector
f. Bridge the digital divide.
g. Promote business linkages and partnerships.
The thrust of the conference is therefore to explore how ICTs can accelerate Africa’s developmental agenda and in the process transform Zimbabwe into a knowledge based society.

The conference side of the annual event will have several speakers address topic like Human Capital development, management and innovation and careers in ICTs.

The exhibitions will probably be more interesting to the general public. From previous events, all the the major ICT companies were represented and that trend is expected to continue this year.

We don’t have the full list of exhibitors yet but we know that Astro will be launching their Astro Mobi Store we spoke about a few days ago and the Astro Box which is basically an Android powered device that turns any TV into an android “computer”.

So far media coverage building up to e-Tech Africa Expo 2014 has been low key. This is probably because this years event is really the e-Tech Africa Expo 2013 scheduled for October 2013 but postponed to March 2014 because of post-election inertia in the country last year. Most exhibitors may have already paid for the event but there’s still need to for more publicity to get the public in the loop.