CAIRO: Minister of Communications and Information Technology Tarek Kamel is heading to the Rwandan capital Kigali leading a high-level official delegation to participate in the Connect Africa Summit from Oct. 29-30, according to a ministry press release. The Egyptian delegation includes senior officials from the National Telecommunications Institute (NTI), the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) as well as top executives of private ICT companies. The delegation is expected to promote the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Telecom Africa, which Egypt is due to host in May 2008. The summit will host a number of meetings between key players in leading African ICT companies. Kamel is due to meet Intel President Craig Barrett and Ericsson CEO and President Carl-Henric Svanberg. On the sidelines of the summit, Minister Kamel and his Rwandan counterpart will co-chair the African ICT Ministerial Council Meeting on October 27. The meeting is expected to consolidate African coordination in reforming telecom regulations in order to realize socio-economic development in Africa. These discussions will be resumed during ITU Telecom Africa. The Connect Africa Summit was announced by ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré at a press conference in Geneva, held jointly with the UN Global Alliance for ICT and Development (GAID). The Summit is organized by the ITU, the African Union, the World Bank Group and UN GAID, in partnership with the African Development Bank, the African Telecommunications Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa. This collaborative effort will engage some 500 high-level stakeholders active in the region, including China, India, the European Commission and G8, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Arab countries, major ICT companies, the United Nations Development Program and other international organizations.
