e-Learning Africa Conference in Tanzania

The conference was well attended by more than 1700 people from 80 countries. Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Europe and South-Africa had the most participants respectively. There was 25 ministers and deputy ministers and more than 50 high-level government officials from the countries around Africa.

During the Plenary, the conference was officially open, by Dr Mohammed Gharib Bilal, the Vice President of the United Republic of Tanzania. His speech revolved around Africa as an open market for investment and how Africa needs to embrace technology. Dr. Mohammed stated that of the 37% of the youth who make up the working population 60% are unemployed. That said, he also stated that there is still a big shortage of trained teachers, limited access to libraries and shortage of Internet. Dr. Mohammed also highlighted the main factors that needed change in order for the ICT sector to grow well. Some of those being policies, financing, unreliable infrastructure, Language barrier (having windows in Swahili soon would change that), promotion of ICT to meet the MDG and enhancing sustainability and poverty reduction.

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Written by Naomi Ihugo and Anne Kagiri from MKFC partner eCap East Africa