More than 400 attendees will include ICT industry experts from across the continent and beyond, policy makers, development partners and young innovators. Smart Rwanda Days will also host a Steering Committee meeting of Smart Africa Alliance, an initiative that was born in Rwanda during the TransformAfrica Summit that took place in October last year.
The gathering aims at stimulating the debate on how Rwanda and Africa at large can leverage ICT to accelerate its economic growth and competitiveness in the information age.
Keynote speakers at the conference will include President Paul Kagame and Dr. Hamadoun Toure, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The conference will also feature high-level panel discussions on digital payments, internet governance, internet economy, open data, content localisation, digital innovation among others.
Rwanda's Minister of Youth and ICT, Jean Philbert Nsengimana, said SMART Rwanda Days provides a unique platform for participants to consider the progress that the contribution that ICT sector has made towards national development and renew strategies and partnerships to advance the country's unstoppable move towards a knowledge economy by 2020.
"SMART Rwanda Days sends a signal to all the actors in the development arena to check how 'smart' they are in their respective domains. The focus remains on the role of innovation in transforming Education, Healthcare, Agriculture, Government Service Delivery and Business in general, especially Financial Services".
Minister Nsengimana highlighted that "For the Smart Rwanda Days specifically this year we chose 'Digitising Rwanda' as a theme, in recognition of the fact that Africa's digital economies are growing faster than traditional sectors and the potential for an even bigger contribution to national GDPs is yet to be unleashed".
In Rwanda, ICT contribution to GDP during the last two quarters stood at 2%, ahead of agriculture and mining. In terms of foreign direct investments, the ICT sector has worked as a magnet, attracting 45% of the total in-flows which is more than the next five sectors combined, including trade, financial sector, mining and manufacturing. A recent study revealed that ICT contributes 3.7% in advanced economies whereas in Africa, ICT contribution to GDP is at a growing 1.1% on average.
AllAfrica is a voice of, by and about Africa - aggregating, producing and distributing 2000 news and information items daily from over 130 African news organisations and our own reporters to an African and global public. We operate from Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, Monrovia, Nairobi and Washington DC.
Go to: http://allafrica.com/