IT Leaders East Africa Summit kicks off

BUSINESS

The 2nd annual IT Leaders East Africa Summit has kicked off in the heart of Kenya’s capital city, Nairobi. Taking place in the strategic centralised location, the summit aims to provide attendees with the most effective solutions in delivering IT projects and services that will enable business growth and innovation, while successfully leveraging existing resources and investments.

The summit launched with an interesting and insightful welcome presented by Derrick Plank, Director of ClearSpace Consulting who will be moderating the summit this year.

Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information and Communication, will present the permanent secretary address, welcoming attendees to the summit, and providing insight into industry advancements and forecasting Government initiative outcomes.

The first keynote of the summit will be presented by Dr. Katherine Getao, ICT Secretary, Directorate of e-Government, Presidency and Cabinet Affairs Office of the Government of Kenya. Getao will shed light on selecting ICT architecture to facilitate devolved Government.

Charlotte Mokoena, Managing Executive for Customer Experience Management and Global Services at Telkom SA is set to deliver a topical keynote on convergence as the key to optimise resources. Mokoena will provide insight into facility providers, telecommunications operators; IT and Internet Services as well as content providers converge to establish an African solution.

Karmil Asgarally, V.P. Francophone at Mara-Ison Technologies will present a must-attend keynote on MaaS, addressing IT management as a service.

David Karanja, Head of ICT at the Co-operative Bank of Kenya LTD will deliver the anticipated keynote on IT Governance and driving sustainable value.

As the summit is well into day one of the comprehensive and cutting-edge agenda; summit solution providers have added invaluable benefits to attending delegates with an opportunity to attend solution driven workshop sessions during the summit.

Platinum solution provider Telkom SA will engage delegates in a topical workshop focusing on working together to establish a converged solution across Africa to enable our individual economies to grow.

Silver solution provider Kofax will provide insight at the summit into overcoming the obstacles of the paper world and maximising business performance.

Veeam Software, silver solution provider is set to get delegates thinking outside of the box in realising the promise of virtualisation.

The anticipated panel discussion of the first day will feature industry leaders including Denis Karema, Co-Founder & Innovations Lead of Usalama Innovative Systems. This panel discussion promises to deliver more than your average debate in a topical confrontation focusing on consumerisation and more specifically the ‘FMCG’ of IT. This panel is set to address new technologies such as smartphone’s, tablet computers, social media and other consumer and public cloud services emerging into the market at an alarming.

Simon Njuguna, IT Director at Deloitte East Africa will deliver an interesting keynote with a focus on the budget trap becoming the competitive performance gap and how companies that don’t invest aggressively on IT innovation will get crushed this year.