Eager to tap into Africa’s education sector, which has so far been less impacted by the information technology (IT) revolution, Acer is to roll out its new Acer Education Centre partner certification to 15 African countries.
Acer Education Centre is a partnership arrangement that Acer will use to certify technology partners in its drive to ensure that Africa’s education sector benefits from the latest technologies.
This type of partnership arrangement has been established by Acer in South Africa with 15 partners working with educational institutions to boost the relationship and interactions between teachers and students using the latest technologies.
Erik Blom, the education sector BU manager at Acer said the Acer Education Centre channel programme will enable the company recruit a network of regional dealers able to sell, implement and support complete solutions in the education market.
“With this new certification, we want to create a set of partners who have a deep understanding of the specific technology needs of the education market and how Acer’s products can address these requirements,” Blom said.
Programme partners will offer schools and other learning institutions access to products and solutions tailored to their needs, as well as specific expertise around technology in the educational sector. Blom was speaking following the launch of the programme in Uganda where ITec Solutions Ltd., has been appointed as the Acer partner.
Blom said the education market in Africa offers a host of exciting opportunities for Acer and its business partners with a growing number of learning institutions integrating technology into their teaching methods and curricula.
“Technology has a vital role to play in education by supplementing classroom teaching, giving learners access to information sources and preparing them for a tech-driven workplace,” Blom said.
“It also helps teachers and administrators to carry out administrative tasks more efficiently, and can fill gaps in subjects and areas where there aren’t enough teachers on hand.”
Acer showed offer a product that lets teachers interact electronically with their students using its ‘Acer Classroom Manager’ – a touch-screen white board that is linked to a projector, netbooks on student’s desks allowing for a seamless interaction between students and teachers.
Blom said class manager has been used successfully in South Africa where remote access capabilities of classroom manager have been implemented.
“As a global leader in personal computing solutions, Acer wants to play an active role in developing and cultivating the school of the future, providing innovative and extremely affordable solutions to the global education community,” Blom said.
He warned that it was vital for institutions and schools to choose the right technologies, ones that are simple to install and easy to use, reliable and affordable.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
DotConnectAfrica asks US gov’t not to delay application process
DotConnectAfrica (DCA), the not for profit organisation that is applying for the .africa “generic top-level domain”, or gTLD has written an open letter to the US Department of Commerce asking it not to delay the application process to widen the Internet space with the addition of new domains.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) was on schedule to expand the Internet's domain name space in May this year.
However, last December, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) wrote to ICANN asking them to delay the process until they have finalised a risk/benefit report into further opening up of the Internet domain space.
“Yes we see delays, not by ICANN but based on the letter from the Department of Commerce to ICANN to delay the process until ICANN has finalised a risk/benefit report,” Sophia Bekele, the executive director DCA said in an email response.
The DOC asked ICANN to delay the process a day before the ICANN public forum on new gTLDs in Cartagena, Colombia in December – something that came as a surprise to everyone in the industry.
In the letter to Ms. Fiona M. Alexander, the associate administrator of the National Information Telecommunications and Administration at the DOC, copied to both the chairman and chief executive of ICANN, Bekele reiterates the three key principles why DCA has championed the .africa domain. Bekele also presented the same case during the ICANN Cartagena public forum.
She said .africa as a gTLD is long overdue given the potential it has to brand the continent’s products and services, so that the rest of the world will know what Africa does and what the continent has to offer.
“While Africa’s image has suffered through war, famine and governance issues, there is also another image that the world does not know about Africa, and that can be told through its people, when they engage in promoting their products and services for trade and investment in the new gTLD,” the letter reads in part.
The letter said this is in line with the current US administration’s policy of “focus on Africa”, to assist in increasing trade and investment.
“While, we all acknowledge ICANN is an international organization, it is also based in the US. Therefore, the dotafrica gTLD fulfills this US agenda and support for Africa’s speedy entry in the global village,” the letter reads.
Bekele, a former ICANN policy advisor said DCA has instituted a programme called ‘generation.africa’ as part of the dotafrica agenda to empower the youth to adapt to the powers of the Internet and its use.
She said just like the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a goodwill ambassador to ICANN, has championed broadband in Africa, DCA is calling on ICANN to do the same for the .africa agenda.
Bekele explained that a shift in the industry away from the original gTLDs that have served Africa like the dotcoms and dotorgs to a dotafrica will mean development of a new industry and market for Africa empowering African jobs and wealth creation.
She said Africa will be empowered in the process so that gTLDs don’t have to go to ICANN for financial support as is the case with African community gTLDs
“The dotafrica registry can instead fulfill that need, and this DCA is ready to do,” Bekele said. Africa has already missed the boat in the last many rounds; but we have seen the successes of .eu and then .asia. Now is the time for .africa.”
At the moment, the Internet contains just 21 gTLDs, from the most famous, dot-com to lesser known extensions like dot-name or dot-travel.
The dotafrica registry has so far received endorsements from the African Union, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and recently the International Domain Resolution Union (IDRU).
In its letter of endorsement on December 5, 2010, the executive director of IDRU, David Allen, stated, the IDRU endorses your efforts for the “dotafrica” initiative.
“IDRU stands ready to assist DotConnectAfrica in its gTLD application for '.africa' in regard to the various African languages that it would support. At the international level, these include Arabic and French and Portuguese; at the local level also - for example - Amharic and Swahili,” the IDRU endorsement reads in part.
Uganda moves to implement BPO model
Uganda has moved to implement her Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) strategy and model, which has so far cost some Ush5b (US$2.1m).
The strategy will see some 3,000 young Ugandans acquire BPO skills through training that has already commenced with some 500 youth at Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (FCIT).
FCIT has partnered with National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) to develop an international BPO training programme that will be used to provide BPO training in the country and also act as a benchmark for other training institutions, which may wish to develop competencies in BPO training.
Mr. James Saaka, the executive director NITA-U said the BPO training programme at Makerere is aimed at addressing the BPO skills gap that Uganda is facing compared to leading BPO destinations like India, Malaysia, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius and other BPO emerging markets.
“Once the programme commences, the country will stand to benefit from a critical mass BPO skilled personnel and a wealth of BPO skilled managers and entrepreneurs that are key in attracting global BPO business,” Saaka said.
According to Saaka, the Uganda government is developing the capacity of BPO operators in the country to cope with the competitive nature of the industry while positioning Uganda as a BPO destination.
He said the goal of the programme is to develop BPO skills, to build, demonstrate and establish a BPO incubation centre with a 300 seat-call centre as a BPO centre of excellence to provide direct and indirect employment opportunities for 1000 Ugandans within 2010/2011 financial year for starters.
Government will provide rented space for BPO operators that are not in the call centre category, provide bandwidth for BPO operators and clean power with backup power as incentives for BPO operators who will operate in the incubation centre.
Government will also provide a training facility for BPO trainers, to brand and market the BPO industry in Uganda and to develop BPO governance frameworks.
Government’s decision to support the BPO industry through the provision of incentives is intended to make the industry grow, mature, become globally competitive and deliver the expected benefits.
The expected benefits Saaka talks about include creating employment, increase in government revenue, increased economic development and further investment in infrastructure to support the BPO industry and marketing Uganda as a preferred BPO destination.
Business Process Outsourcing is the strategic use of the third party service providers to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff in a company or an institution.
It is common in the airlines, insurance, banking and energy sectors.
Information Communications and Technology Minister Aggrey Awori said there is a growing demand for ICT outsourcing in Africa that Uganda needs to capture.
“BPO has two categories including; back office outsourcing which involves internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing which includes customer-related services such as marketing or technical support,” Awori said.
Awori said that with the ever increasing number of graduates from Ugandan universities, of whom only 40% are absorbed in the formal job market coupled with Uganda’s use of English as a language of instruction, the BPO industry would be able to employ a large number of university graduates.
Minister Awori said in India, the BPO market is massive, generating revenues of US$30b per year, but that rising costs mean it is a less cost effective option for basic outsourcing services.
Management costs he said are approaching US levels, employee costs rising at 10-15% per year, and it is becoming difficult to attract/retail talent – justification he said for countries like Uganda to join the BPO industry.
He warned that BPO and ICT services are very competitive and companies that provide these services will require strict adherence to set standards as well as strict operating procedures that cannot easily be met without dedicated top-tier infrastructure and support from the host governments.
A BPO technical working group has been set up to spearhead the activities of the BPO roadmap.
Ends…../
The strategy will see some 3,000 young Ugandans acquire BPO skills through training that has already commenced with some 500 youth at Makerere University’s Faculty of Computing and Information Technology (FCIT).
FCIT has partnered with National Information Technology Authority Uganda (NITA-U) to develop an international BPO training programme that will be used to provide BPO training in the country and also act as a benchmark for other training institutions, which may wish to develop competencies in BPO training.
Mr. James Saaka, the executive director NITA-U said the BPO training programme at Makerere is aimed at addressing the BPO skills gap that Uganda is facing compared to leading BPO destinations like India, Malaysia, South Africa, Egypt, Mauritius and other BPO emerging markets.
“Once the programme commences, the country will stand to benefit from a critical mass BPO skilled personnel and a wealth of BPO skilled managers and entrepreneurs that are key in attracting global BPO business,” Saaka said.
According to Saaka, the Uganda government is developing the capacity of BPO operators in the country to cope with the competitive nature of the industry while positioning Uganda as a BPO destination.
He said the goal of the programme is to develop BPO skills, to build, demonstrate and establish a BPO incubation centre with a 300 seat-call centre as a BPO centre of excellence to provide direct and indirect employment opportunities for 1000 Ugandans within 2010/2011 financial year for starters.
Government will provide rented space for BPO operators that are not in the call centre category, provide bandwidth for BPO operators and clean power with backup power as incentives for BPO operators who will operate in the incubation centre.
Government will also provide a training facility for BPO trainers, to brand and market the BPO industry in Uganda and to develop BPO governance frameworks.
Government’s decision to support the BPO industry through the provision of incentives is intended to make the industry grow, mature, become globally competitive and deliver the expected benefits.
The expected benefits Saaka talks about include creating employment, increase in government revenue, increased economic development and further investment in infrastructure to support the BPO industry and marketing Uganda as a preferred BPO destination.
Business Process Outsourcing is the strategic use of the third party service providers to perform activities traditionally handled by internal staff in a company or an institution.
It is common in the airlines, insurance, banking and energy sectors.
Information Communications and Technology Minister Aggrey Awori said there is a growing demand for ICT outsourcing in Africa that Uganda needs to capture.
“BPO has two categories including; back office outsourcing which involves internal business functions such as billing or purchasing, and front office outsourcing which includes customer-related services such as marketing or technical support,” Awori said.
Awori said that with the ever increasing number of graduates from Ugandan universities, of whom only 40% are absorbed in the formal job market coupled with Uganda’s use of English as a language of instruction, the BPO industry would be able to employ a large number of university graduates.
Minister Awori said in India, the BPO market is massive, generating revenues of US$30b per year, but that rising costs mean it is a less cost effective option for basic outsourcing services.
Management costs he said are approaching US levels, employee costs rising at 10-15% per year, and it is becoming difficult to attract/retail talent – justification he said for countries like Uganda to join the BPO industry.
He warned that BPO and ICT services are very competitive and companies that provide these services will require strict adherence to set standards as well as strict operating procedures that cannot easily be met without dedicated top-tier infrastructure and support from the host governments.
A BPO technical working group has been set up to spearhead the activities of the BPO roadmap.
Ends…../
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