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WEEKLY PUBLICATION DEADLINE: 12 pm GMT Sunday. 
ISSUE NO 156 IXPS - THE "NO-BRAINER" SOLUTION TO KEEPING AFRICAN TRAFFIC LOCALIn most African countries if you send an e-mail across town it makes a long and circuitous journey to North America or Europe before going back to its intended recipient. It costs money in international connectivity charges and gives latency problems (a fractional but sometimes problem-causing delay). This inbuilt internet communications structure problem mirrors similar difficulties with Africa’s telecoms system: calls go north to get back to neighbouring countries. Local internet exchange points (IXPs) allow one country to route all (or most of) its internal internet traffic at a national level thus saving money and adding speed to the connection. In the not-too-distant future regional IXPs and perhaps even a continental exchange point might allow African countries to communicate across borders without going North. Perhaps with IP calling this would begin to also solve the parallel telecoms problem. But we’re getting ahead of the argument...Local IXPs are, as one African ICT policy advisor put it:"An absolute no-brainer." Russell Southwood and Brian Longwe explain why. IXPs are the keystone of the entire internet economy: they interconnect different parts of the internet and they allow different ISPs to connect with each other, creating in effect a clearing house. Routing traffic the long way round is not an efficient way to use the network and thus the IXP mantra "keep local traffic local" developed. Local IXPs offer both internet users and ISPs a number of distinct
advantages: The Kenyan IXP went online fully in 2002 with initially 4 ISPs but is now used by 10 of them. On an uncongested link, the latency is now 30-60 milliseconds. One rather conservative ISP decided that it would only require a 64k circuit to handle likely traffic and within two hours it was so packed that it got congested. Before it was established, international connectivity charges were nine times equivalent local costs. Within a very short period of time Telkom Kenya had slashed its international call rates in half. There are now six IXPs in Africa: South Africa, Mozambique (opened May last year), Zimbabwe, Egypt (also May last year), Nigeria (Ibadan with only 2 ISPs) and the DRC (set up December last year). Uganda has one that is "semi-operational" but not all ISPs are using it. Tanzania keeps promising to open and will doubtless come on stream shortly. Other countries are holding preparatory discussions. The major issue is one of trust. You need to be able to work with your competitors and in some countries this level of trust has not yet been established. As Brian Longwe told a recent workshop at the Southern African Internet Forum:"Getting any IX/peering arrangement off the ground is 10% technical work and 90% socio-political engineering." He also pointed out the importance of getting ("written") regulatory support. Setting up a local IXP is neither costly nor difficult. Well over half of the connections to the North American or European "backbones" for the countries with under 5 ISPs are dominated by many of the usual suspects: France Telecom, Cable and Wireless, Teleglobe, Interpacket and Worldcom. Recent research claims that Africa is paying well over US$400 million for these connections. Whilst this figure is almost certainly open to challenge, it is easy to see that even a small share would lower the "operating costs" of the different countries of Africa, saving money and making them more competitive. Currently IXPs are carrying 20-25% of all traffic with the South African IXP carrying a much larger proportion. If you buy the argument so far, let’s try the next two steps. It is technically not difficult to connect up the different local IXPs. For example, with these connections in place, Mozambique’s internet users could both e-mail and access the web in say South Africa without the traffic it generates leaving the continent, thus saving one of Africa’s poorer countries much needed hard currency. The barriers are largely political and regulatory. Indeed there’s nothing to stop there being an African internet exchange point that could exchange traffic between all countries on the continent. The next much harder step is to imagine a world of African regulation that is "technology-agnostic", a world in which IP dialing or VOIP is possible. Calls could then be made using the internet that could be connected up using the regional IXPs or All-Africa internet exchange point. Just think of the scale of hard currency saved by not routing regional telephone calls out of the continent. All of this is part of Africa’s future. The question is no longer will it happen but how fast can it be put in place? And the answers to that question will be in the hands of people and have much less to do with technology. Meanwhile local IXPs remain an absolute no-brainer...
GHANA’S NCA SPOTLIGHTS 32 ‘ILLEGAL’ ISPS BUT VOIP FRAMEWORK COMINGThe National Communications Authority (NCA) has ordered 32 Companies to pay Ghana Telecom (GT) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) billions of cedis it owned the two bodies for their illegal operation by May 24, 2003 or to face the law and have their names published in the national dailies. NCA Acting Director General, Major John R. K. Tandoh (Rtd), did not name the companies involved but said they never applied to and were not issued with authorisation from the NCA to operate as Internet Service Providers (ISP) contrary to section 9 of NCA Act 524 of 1996. The 32 Companies also failed to register with the IRS and thereby evaded the payment of taxes on their operations. Major Tandoh broke the news to journalists at Ada, near Accra after the NCA management retreat to deliberate on Liberalisation of the International Gateway and draft guidelines on the provision of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) service in Ghana. The meeting also finalised discussions on Cellular Mobile licences and the need for a third National Network Operation (NNO) in Ghana, the criteria for selection as well as consideration of draft terms of reference submitted to the NCA Board of Directors. Major Tandoh, who also chairs the NCA Committee on Tax Evasion by major Telecom operators said the illegal activity of the companies had caused substantial financial loss to the state by paying lower tariff to the Ghana Telecom and evading taxes by their failure to register with the IRS. He said investigations by the Tax Evasion Committee indicated that between 2001 and 2003 a company, which operated under different names defrauded GT and the IRS whooping sums of 2,893,520,777.00 cedis and 1,447,182,021.04 cedis respectively. He said NCA had invoked section 141, 142 and 143 of the IRS Act 2000 (Act 529) for their failure to maintain records, furnish returns and pay tax on due date. (source: NewsinGhana.com) VODAFONE EGYPT TO IMPROVE ITS BACKBONEVodafone Egypt is to start rebuilding its corporate communication infrastructure using 3Com eXpandable Resilient Networking (XRN) technology and Gigabit Ethernet switches. 3Com secured the contract following a competitive tender that involved a number of well-known networking vendors. Vodafone Egypt’s new infrastructure features an entirely new design based on the 3Com Switch 4007, 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924 and SuperStack 3 Switch 4400. Vodafone Egypt will use the XRN Interconnect Kit in conjunction with its two 3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 4924s to interconnect the two switches and create a distributed fabric core which will improve network performance and availability while, crucially, enhancing network redundancy. Vodafone Egypt will also use 3Com Network Supervisor to manage the network. 3Com will continue to work closely with local channel partners Tritech and Perma technology in delivering and supporting the solution. (source: Cellular News) NIGER-SONITEL TO INVEST US$47.2 MILLION IN NETWORK DEVELOPMENTNiger-Sonitel announced last week that it will be investing US$42.7 million in its network, according to its Director-General, Sadou Moussa. The investment programme will be carried out in two phases. The first phase will be 12 billion CFAs in new transmission equipment and exchanges by next July. The capital Niamey will get 45,000 additional lines (to add to 20,000 existing lines) and Zinder, Niger’s second city will get an additional 10,000 lines (to add to 800 existing lines). According to Sadou Moussa, the second phase will cost 15.7 billion CFAs and will allow the company to offer coverage across the country with new equipment, particularly in rural areas. The new investment funds will be made available by Datacom who have taken over the company and BOAD. Datacom is made up of a Chinese group ZTE and the Libyan LAICO who between them have bought 51% of the company. (source: Reuters via Liquid Africa) IN BRIEF- According to the Executive Cyberschuul’s e-letter, recent analysis of the telecom development in Nigeria indicates that about 2,600 engineers and technologists may be required to sustain the market which the industry is capable of generating. - The Namibian Cabinet has given the Namibian Communications Commission (NCC) the go-ahead to invite bidders for the long-awaited second mobile telephone licence.A statement issued by Information Permanent Secretary Mocks Shivute in Windhoek on Wednesday last week said Cabinet had also instructed that the NCC consult the Ministries of Information and Works, Transport and Communication throughout the process.
TOGO’S INTERNET SECTOR EXPERIENCING RAPID GROWTHWith nearly 350,000 internet users, more than 100,000 computers connected to the internet and about 40 ISPs, the Togolese internet sector has really grown. According to Ange Dokoué, engineer and director of Woezon Communication, an ISP and SMS provider:"The internet in Togo has now reached the level of rural communities." This spread underlines the fact that many of the countries larger towns outside its coastal capital lie in the rural areas of the north of the country and are offering identical access prices to the capital. Togo Telecom offers a 64 kbs leased line for a monthly 885,000 CFAs. ISPs then offer it to their clients (companies, cybercafes) for 10,000 CFAs for a dial-up connection. Cybercafes have to register with the regulator for an annual licence fee of 100,000 CFAs. In the cybercafes themselves, an hour’s access costs between 250-500 CFAs, depending on the location of the cyber-café, the state of its equipment and the comfort of its facilities. With a million inhabitants, the capital has more than 200 cyber-cafes, more than one for every 5,000 Loméens, according to the cyber-café owners association. According to Louis Amékoudi many of the cafes do not have the equipment or connectivity to deliver an effective service. There is often a lack of professionalism amongst those who launch cyber-cafes and they will often simply use a dial-up connection. Two large companies share the internet market in Togo. The largest of these, Café Informatique et Télécommunication is a private company launched in 1997 and it has about 50% of the market. It has its own 1 mbps line to Atlanta in the USA and uses Pan Am Sat’s PAS-3 satellite. The second largest is Togo Telecom, the incumbent phone company with a 2 mbps link which it can upgrade to 6 mbps as the market expands. The new regulatory framework introduced in 1998 allows VSAT licences and six ISPs including oft Net, Trade World Telecommunication, and International Telecommunication Developpement use VSAT. According to Germain Abayeh Boyodi, responsible for networks and services at the regulator, the government does not really have a strategy to develop ICT in the country. The government needs to direct funds to those rural areas that the market will not reach. (source: http://www.republicoftogo.com/fr/news/news.asp?rubID=1&srubID=34&themeID=1&newsID=5901 STUDY INVESTIGATES IMPACT OF INFORMATION IN RURAL UGANDAA just published study called The impact of cybercafés on information services in Uganda by Samuel Gitta and J.R. Ikoja-Odongo seeks to assess the impact of cybercafés on the provision of information services in Uganda. It focused on café users only. Findings revealed that 69.8 percent were in the age group of 20-39 years. Eighty-seven percent were not registered with particular cafés. Fifty-seven percent indicated they were satisfied with the service. A little over thirty percent used the Internet daily. All female respondents indicated e-mail as one of their Internet applications. According to the study, cybercafé use demonstrates a tremendous future for the Internet society in Uganda. The potential for meeting user needs in Uganda is high. The application of the Internet in the various disciplines and professions is hampered by low user skills, limited facilities, lack of support for the rural community, low downloading speed, high charges, and a lack of monitoring. Recommendations suggest that ICT policies be instituted and computers and the Internet be made part of the school curriculum to equip Ugandans with the necessary skills and to extend these new Internet services to the Ugandan rural community as well. (source: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_4/gitta/index.html) HUGE NUMBER OF NOMINATIONS FOR .ZA BOARDMore than 90 nominations for the nine-member board of directors to oversee South Africa’s .za domain name authority had been received by the closing date of 30 April ­ and a number of postal nominations are still awaited, says a communications ministry spokesman.A selection panel of five people will review the submissions and present a list of possible nominees to communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. The selection panel is expected to meet within two weeks to draft the shortlist. Three days of strategising, prioritising and looking to the future. The five people serving on the selection panel ­ who are not eligible for nomination themselves - include Mike Lawrie, who was initially responsible for administering the .za domain; and lawyer Ryk Meiring, who has served on the board of the local Internet Society (ISOC-ZA), which was an active member of Namespace, the body originally formed by Lawrie and ISOC-ZA to take over the .za domain administration. Also on the panel are Zodwa Manase, acting chairman of the State IT Agency; Sebiletso Mokone-Matabane, CEO of state-owned signal distributor Sentech; and Sello Matsabu, executive director of the IT arm of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. Business Report states that the selection panel is expected to take a lot of time to review the list, but this is purely because the number of responses has been so overwhelming, and the ministry spokesman says they are confident the panel will finish this task quickly and efficiently. (source: ItWeb.co.za) IN BRIEF- Delegates to the Southern African Internet Forum who would like to see pictures of themselves should go to: http://www.balancingact-africa.com/pix.html - Details of the ICANN nominating process can be found at: http://www.icann.org/committees/nom-comm/formal-call-05apr03.htm - Nigeria’s TNT/IAS Express has launched an express Centre and comprehensive communication outfit at its Corporate Headquarters on the Epe Expressway, Lekki. The Express Centre is a corporate innovation to provide multifaceted business services to residents of the fast growing suburb of Lekki. This will include Internet services for browsing, e-mailing, local and international phone calls, fax and postal mailbox rentals, stamps and postages.
AIRZIM FAILS TO SWITCH TO NEW BOOKING SYSTEMAir Zimbabwe has failed to switch over to a new US$200 000 ($164.8 million) booking system purchased to curb a multi-million dollar ticket scam, with technical hitches in the installation of the programme forcing employees to resort to manual ticketing and cutting the national airliner off from local and international terminals, the Financial Gazette has established. Company officials said Air Zimbabwe was supposed to switch over from its old ticketing system to the new one on Saturday, but the system failed to transfer crucial data and the switch over or "migration" to the new software failed. The new system was purchased from an American firm called World Span and more than 20 Air Zimbabwe officials travelled to the United States for negotiations on the acquisition of the software and for training on how to use it. Air Zimbabwe insiders said more than US$200 000 was spent in the purchase of physical infrastructure for the new programme and to link the airline to an international booking system run by World Span. The booking system was supposed to close loopholes in the national airline’s old ticketing procedures. The loopholes have been used by employees to prejudice Air Zimbabwe of millions of dollars in a scam in which several passengers were flown to the United Kingdom without paying any money to the airline. Air Zimbabwe officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the switchover had still not been effected by yesterday, with staff still completing ticketing procedures manually. "No-one has been able to pick out the problem, but there are no print-outs for bookings right now, no printed tickets and the whole system has been in shambles since Saturday," an official at the parastatal told the Financial Gazette. "The tickets are being done manually and there is no link between reservations and departure control at the airport and with other terminals such as London, Victoria Falls and Bulawayo. The system has failed to link up even with travel agencies and other airlines." There was no comment from Air Zimbabwe managing director Rambai Chingwena, who was said to be attending meetings. Air Zimbabwe insiders however said it was not clear at this stage whether the fault was with World Span or with the airline’s equipment or how the company’s management planned to resolve the problem. The officials said Air Zimbabwe had awarded the booking system tender to the American company despite being recommended to use Sat International, a United States-based firm that has successfully installed new booking and ticketing systems for Ethiopian Airlines and Air Botswana. Under the contract with World Span, which the officials said they believed was signed in October, Air Zimbabwe has to pay about US$2,000 a month to the US company. The officials said several delegations from Air Zimbabwe travelled to the United States for negotiations and training for periods of between one and two weeks and were each paid allowances of US$500 per day. The negotiations were coordinated by Leslie Machado, Air Zimbabwe’s general sales agent in California, while the project manager in Zimbabwe was Ben Makwarimba, the acting sales manager, the Air Zimbabwe insiders said. Makwarimba was said to be out of the office and had not returned calls by late yesterday. "Some of the people were only sent there so they could get allowances. How can someone from finance go on such technical trips that have little or no relevance to their department?" an official with the national airline said. The officials said if the technical problems in the new system were not speedily resolved, Air Zimbabwe could be prejudiced of more money by employees involved in the ticket racket that the company is attempting to curb. (source: Financial Gazette) IN BRIEF- Edo State Government under the leadership of Chief Lucky Igbinedion has scored another first with the deployment of an Information and Communication Technology Center in Benin City. The Project, which was executed through its subsidiary company, Edo State Investment Company Ltd, has several units of personal computers with full Multimedia training facility within a most conducive learning environment. The ICT Center was executed and integrated by Talinet Limited, a leading ICT solutions provider.
SA’S DATATEC MAY SELL KEY ASSETSSpeculation is mounting that IT distributor and consultancy group Datatec may be preparing to sell some key assets following the release of a cautionary notice last week, which follows a March trading update. While Datatec is prohibited from commenting on the Stock Exchange News Service announcement, analysts have been quick to point out that the group needs to do something to shore up its balance sheet. "This is a continuing hangover from the whole Internet and IT bubble," says Piet Viljoen, director of asset manager Regarding: Capital Management. "It is not inconceivable that Datatec, along with a lot of other IT companies, is still feeling the effects of the rash decisions made during the bubble." Datatec has seen its share price deflate substantially during the past two years, falling from more than R100. At 12.35pm today it was at R4.65, up 5c. The group has blamed difficult trading conditions and being caught on the wrong side of the rand’s movements ­ twice. The first time was when the local currency weakened by 35% against the dollar and now more recently when the rand has strengthened against the dollar by about 60%. A trading update issued by Datatec on 4 March warned that the group would experience a headline rand loss due to the currency’s strength during the five months to 28 February.The trading update said the foreign exchange losses in that period are expected to be substantially higher than those incurred in the six months to September 2002. "Shareholders are also advised that the group’s effective tax rate for the full financial year is expected to be higher than that indicated in the first half, as a result of not raising deferred tax assets in certain operations where losses have been made." (source: ItWeb.co.za)
RESPONSESISSUE 154: THE REALITIES OF THE SENEGALESE INTERNET MARKET Based on information from OSIRIS you said "..Senegal ISP INF247 has closed down. According to Osiris, it was largely focused on providing services to American NGOs." The reality is more like this.. Since 1998, inf247 provided services (in jumps and starts) to several NGO’s as well as general inet users. Our service had, for a 1 year period (1999/2000) served the GOS Ministry of Health at more than 20 district and regional health centers, and prior to Early 2002 had up to 240 different private users. The course of INET history in Senegal is dominated by SONATEL and their former sister Telecomplus. This relationship was born following the purchase of 33% of Sonatel by France TV/Video in 1996/97. The high cost of LS service for any ISP operator has caused several smaller efforts, like inf247, to have erractic, or subsequently no service. With no other choice for INET routing out of the country, all potential ISP businesses are forced to deal with Sonatel (France Telecom) and it’s new step sister Sonatel Multimedia. Senegal, while having a quality TCOMM infrastructure, second in Africa to SA, is hobbled by the inefficient and competition wary services of Sonatel (France Telecom). With revenues rolling in, in this one horse market, it is no wonder SONATEL/FT are so efficient at drowning other services in billing errors, cutting service without notice, and are uncapable of honestly correcting mistakes and assisting would be and smaller ISP’s in their efforts at serving a growing number of users. Having offed Metissacana, the 1st OTHER provider of INET connection services, over a 5 year period, and weeding out the likes of JOKO, inf247, WAIST, and a few smaller efforts, SONATEL MM remains king of the heap. Granted most users in Senegal feel lucky to just get a connection and finish their business before they are cutoff. Mediocrity, and one-handed sharing have a long history in Senegal, and until the politico/monetary grip is lossened, will remain the soup du jour in Dakar. We had great customers who stayed with us during all of our fight with Sonatel. We wish to thank them for their faith and hope in us. Our experience was a good lesson for our business and another tale of woe in the African IT history. We understand our users, and colleagues frustrations at the limit of choices and crushing bureacracy with regard to Sonatel, and wish them well in our absence. John S. Metzger
HACKER TARGETS SOUTH AFRICAN LINUX SITESA hacker successfully hacked into 53 South African Web sites on Friday, says IT security and e-commerce attorney Reinhardt Buys.The hacker, called F3PN, hacked the sites between 8.31am and 8.59am on Friday, setting a new daily South African record. All the attacked Web sites are running on a Linux operating system through a single server. All the domains were registered in the name of a company called Vukanet, says Buys. "We’ve never seen a local attack of this magnitude before. This person or group of persons succeeded in destroying more than 50 Web sites in less than half an hour." Buys says the hacker only targeted Web sites in the .co.za domain. No other Web sites were attacked during the course of the day. He says it is highly unusual to see so many sites running on Linux coming under attack. "We do not see a lot of Linux hacks. On average, about 20% of daily worldwide hacks are done on Linux computers." After the attack, all the affected sites had the same message from the hacker: "F3PN 0wnz By FaiSCa_ 0wnz b0x !!" Only a handful of the affected sites ­ mlasset.co.za, partnet.co.za, iso2000.co.za, safarifeeds.co.za, victoriaplace.co.za and anyjob.co.za ­ were up and running by this morning. The sites that were hacked included: unica.co.za, rudsatours.co.za, edgeproduction.co.za, einstein.co.za, equadoor.co.za, groundsconsult.co.za, hittube.co.za, galleryclearing.co.za, iabacus.co.za, fouroaks.co.za, icp.co.za, ideasman.co.za, imberbe.co.za, phashasha.co.za, ndawo.co.za, musgravecomp.co.za, itempowerment.co.za, nitropromotions.co.za, incentivewise.co.za, lesserkestrel.co.za, jojotanks.co.za, learnmaths.co.za, pigbrother.co.za, ppmgroup.co.za, jamescaird.co.za, marlen.co.za, megatour.co.za, rmaa.co.za, saqi.co.za, timbercity.co.za, scg.co.za, tiqms.co.za, tubulartrack.co.za, topnet.co.za, thebigdoor.co.za, ultimategh.co.za, vukanet.co.za, anyplace.co.za, aidaprogram.co.za, bangani.co.za, afritrade.co.za, alltrans.co.za, anyrent.co.za. Alastair Otter, editor of African open source news site Tectonic, says that while the number of sites involved is high, the incident is not exceptional. "Many hosting service providers typically house a number of sites on one machine by using a Web server capable of serving virtual domains. If this single machine is compromised and the attacker gains root access, they are very quickly able to deface all the Web sites housed on that machine within minutes of gaining control. "The fact that the hacker was able to deface 53 local Web sites in less than 30 minutes suggests that this was indeed the case," he says. To systematically break into more than 50 computers within 30 minutes, and gain control of them, is a near impossible task - unless the individual sites were hosted on identical machines with the same vulnerability across all of them. Otter says the fact that the sites were hosted on a Linux machine does not automatically make them more secure than any other. "Typically Linux is a more secure hosting platform than most others, with Linux now one of the most popular Web hosting platforms and the Apache Web server, another open source application, by far the most commonly used server. It is home to more than 60% of the Internet’s Web sites. "But as the operating system grows in popularity, so does its vulnerability," he says. "The open source community is renowned for being quick to respond to bugs and security risks but if those fixes are not applied, the hosting machine is as vulnerable as any other." (source: ItWeb.co.za)
IN BRIEF- Presentations made at the Southern African Internet Forum can be found at: http://www.aitecafrica.com/events/2003/SouthAfrica/presentations.htm - Namibia Business Directory Resource Centre is the business intelligence site powered by NamBizDot.Com cc. This website provides a listing of over 10,000 companies, each with their own web page. The companies are listed Alphabetically, by Classification and by Town.
ARTHUR GOLDSTUCK ON FOUR INTERESTING THINGS HAPPENING IN SAOn a recent visit to South Africa, we asked technology pundit Arthur Goldstuck to name five important things happening in South Africa. He actually named four. Some are obvious but others will surprise you. ITEM ONE: ITEM TWO: Mweb has cut its "burn-rate" although its cost structure is still high. Almost all the other ISPs are now profitable and the big guys are making money. ITEM THREE: Sales have already peaked at around the 13 million mark, which is about a third of the population. It’s close to saturation level. The industry now has the challenge of getting to niche audiences, like the more rural audiences. The question is can it be more effectively catered for? If the answer is yes, then will be continuous growth. Also if you can reach niche markets like those who could buy but thus far have chosen not to. ITEM FOUR:
PEOPLE- Speaking at the panel discussion at Addis Ababa University’s Department of Information Science, Afework Temtime, President of the Ethiopian Information Technology Professionals Association (EITPA) stressed the need for more qualified professionals in the field. "We are witnessing a great increase in the number of colleges and institutions offering ICT education in Ethiopia," he said. "But a great deal of caution must be taken to ensure that the schools give qualify education that is up to the expected standard." Henock Wubshet, Information Services Division Head at the Ethiopian Airlines, explained the major technology of upgrading the Airline’s facilities in 1997. He stressed that these changes were still proceeding. "The renovations in 1997 have brought about a major change in the ICT Infrastructure of Ethiopian Airlines ever since," he said. "We will continue to incorporate these major ICT in our development schemes." He added that the airlines is now planning to introduce some exciting improvements to its ticketing and billing methods. "We are getting ready to start online reservations," he said. "I think that will be more important for our international customers." * South Africa’s Intervid, which last week announced the departure of its CEO, has published a trading update that coincides with the resignation of chief financial officer Keith Pitout and director Chris le Sueur. Non-executive director Mark Taylor is acting as Intervid’s interim caretaker. EVENTS1ST NATIONAL FORUM ON INFORMATION & COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES This forum has been organized by key stakeholders in Ghana to look at: 1. What is the place of ICT in national development? 2. National ICT Policy - where are we, where are we going. 3. State of ICT infrastructure in the country 4 Addressing the in-country digital divide (ICDD) before it worsens 5 Recommendations for moving the ICT and Development in Ghana Venue: Accra International Conference Center Date: Friday 16th May 2003
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