3. The Telecommunication Development Symposium (TDS) “Connect Africa: Making it Happen”

This year’s Telecommunication Development Symposium theme is: Connect Africa: Making it Happen. The TDS will follow-up upon the discussions at the Kigali Summit and explores three emerging issues:

Africa’s Broadband Platform of Choice? Stepping up Africa’s mobile revolution, mobile operators at the Summit announced USD 50 billion in new investments over the next 5 years – which would extend mobile coverage across the continent to more than 90 per cent of the population. With such pervasive coverage, growing handset functionality and faster download speeds, is mobile likely to emerge as Africa’s platform of choice for broadband Internet access?

The Missing Link to Connect Africa. African leaders participating in the Summit recognized an urgent need for a second wave of regulatory measures to unleash widespread, affordable access to broadband ICT services for all. What are the key regulatory enablers that will Connect Africa?

Convergent Networks? Convergent Policies? Faced with rapid convergence between telecommunications, broadcasting, and computer technologies, the days when national legislation and regulatory foundations could be based on assumptions of separate services running over separate networks are no longer valid. However, if policy and regulatory asymmetry are no longer tenable in a converged environment, what is the best path forward? What should happen when worlds collide?

The Telecommunication Development Symposium (TDS) is a global program managed by the ITU (BDT and TELECOM) as part of the ITU’s goal to extend the benefits of new ICTs (Information & Communication Technologies) to all the world’s inhabitants.

The three stakeholders of the TDS: ITU, Member States (Fellows) and the Sponsors. The Telecommunication Development Symposium or TDS was given life in 1995 from Programme4Development (13 years), as part of a concerted drive to assist developing and least developed countries with ICT development.

Over this time it has grown and matured into the vital international symposium it is today. Held within the wider context of ITU TELECOM Forum, the TDS provides fellowships to middle level managers from developing and low-income countries, enabling them to participate in the TDS and attend World and Regional TELECOM events.

This invaluable opportunity helps equip participants with knowledge critical to implementation issues which can be put to direct use once they return to their home countries.

Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Congo DR, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Equatorial, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.