The next transform Africa Summit will be held in the republic of Guinea for the first time outside Rwanda.
Kigali has hosted this summit for 5 consecutive times but the 6th edition will be held in the West Africa, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean.
On Wednesday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame announced after delivering his presentation during the 5th edition of the Transform Africa Summit at Kigali Convention Centre.
“Allow me to close with a happy announcement. The host of the 6th Transform Africa Summit in 2020 will be the Republic of Guinea,” President Kagame revealed amidst applause.
Guniea President Alpha Conde has been highly engaged in the pushing the agenda for Smart Africa alliance.
“We thank the President, His Excellency Alpha Condé for his strong support for Smart Africa,” Kagame said.
Rwanda has been very instrumental in promoting activities of the Smart Africa, because the country has demonstrated a leading role in promoting information and communications technologies.
Because of Rwanda’s commitment to ICTs, it was chosen as the best place to host the headquarters of Smart Africa Alliance secretariat in 2016.
This alliance is composed of African states and institutions that aim at promoting ICTs as a driver for socio-economic growth of the continent.
The alliance also boasts of 24-membership states with a total reach to 600 million people. It is implementing a host of futuristic initiatives such as Smart Cities, Youth innovation and job creation, digital economy, green economy, ICT industry development and digital literacy.
Lacina Kone recently appointed to the role of executive director of Smart Africa says that the continent is considered the youngest in the world.
“Africa needs a catalyst platform to transform itself into a single digital market, and to that we need to connect and interconnect our states, innovate our approaches to socio-economic development to transform and propel our continent in this 21st century towards a knowledge-based economy.
According to him this represents the challenges as well as the challenges to be met by Smart Africa.
Kagame thus considers this smart move towards an ICT and knowledge-based economy as aimed at increasing Africa’s competitiveness in the global economy.
“ICTs have the ability to level the global playing field, unlock human capital and exploit its full potential.”
