IST-Africa 2012 Advance Programme

Hosted by the Government of Tanzania through the Tanzania National Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH), Supported by the European Commission and African Union Commission, IST-Africa 2012 will take place in Dar es Salaam, 09 - 11 May 2012.

Part of the IST-Africa Initiative, which is supported by the European Commission under the ICT Theme of Framework Programme 7 (FP7), IST-Africa 2012 is the seventh in an Annual Conference Series which brings together 500 senior representatives from leading government, commercial and research organisations around the world to identify opportunities for international research collaboration between Europe and Africa under FP7 / Horizon 2020 and bridge the Digital Divide by sharing knowledge, experience, lessons learnt and good practice.

The IST-Africa Initiative and IST-Africa 2012 directly supports the 8th Africa-EU Strategic Partnership (Science, Information Society, Space), the African Ministerial Council on Science and Technology (AMCOST) and the Consolidated Plan of Action for the African Regional Action Plan on the Knowledge Economy (ARAPKE).

IST-Africa 2012 will provide a world-class international forum to showcase existing research activity and research capacity across Africa and Europe. IST-Africa 2012 will focus on the Role of ICT for Africa's Development and specifically on Applied ICT research topics addressing major societal and economic challenges, which is part of the European Commission's ICT Theme of FP7. The Conference Programme combines strategic keynote presentations, technical and policy papers, case studies, workshops, an exhibition and social activities.

Advance Programme

The Advance Programme is available online and consists of over 150 presentations from 39 countries in 47 parallel sessions.

Plenary speakers confirmed to date include:

- Honourable Prof. Makame Mbarawa, Minister of Communications, Science and Technology

- Dr. Florens Turuka, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Communications, Science and Technology

- Dr. Hassan Mshinda, Director General, Tanzania National Commission for Science and Technology

- Dr. Zoran Stancic, Deputy-Director General, DG Information Society and Media, European Commission

- Prof Luis Magalhães, European Co-Chair of the Africa-EU 8th Partnership, Portugal

- Mr Jerome Morrissey, CEO, GESCI, Kenya

- Dr Jyrki Pulkkinen, Senior Adviser, Information Society & STI for Development, Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

The Advance Programme brochure can be downloaded

In the context of focusing on the Role of ICT for Africa's Development, the Opening Plenary on Wednesday 09 May features a high level dialogue on Implementation of the 8th Africa-EU Strategic Partnership on Science, Information Society and Space. The Closing Plenary on Friday 11 May focuses on Initiatives Supporting Development of Regional S&T.

IST-Africa is organising a pre-conference workshop focused on Living Labs on Tuesday 08 May.

Online Registration is available at http://www.ist-africa.org/Conference2012/default.asp?page=registration