Launches, acquisitions,
growth, partnerships, broadband, new technologies & services and how to
monetize digital platforms: Africa’s
digital market is moving by leaps and bounds, and showing the world how
innovation is done. This is the underlying premise of the AfricaCom 2014 Keynote sessions entitled: ‘Vision for Africa’ which will present a
snapshot of the most current trends in the market, and discuss the benefits for
customers and industry stakeholders alike.
Always
insightful, the 2014 opening session to kick off the 17th annual AfricaCom
conference on 11 November 2014 at the Cape Town International Convention Centre
(CTICC), is once again set to deliver thought provoking debate. Africa’s digital market is driven by
broadband developments, which enable better services to consumers, new opportunities for all
stakeholders and further growth for Africa’s economies. The key questions are how to deliver broadband access to consumers
across the continent (what technologies, on what devices), how it can be in a
way that is affordable to African users,
and how stakeholders can generate
revenues from the investment.
The opening keynote panel
at AfricaCom will look at how strategic partnerships affect services to
users and investments from stakeholders: the complicated relations between
telecom operators and OTT (over the top) providers. The panel will be composed
of some of Africa's leading operators (Millicom, Airtel , MTN, Orange), joined by two of the most world’s
significant OTT players: Facebook and Twitter. The operator/OTT debate has raged for the
past few years and took a new turn earlier this year with the growth of
voice-based OTT brands and new partnership models developed by operators in
Africa.
A panel on broadband
developments will cover the investments and initiatives needed to improve
broadband access across the continent, with contributions from pan-African
players Orange, Intelsat, Convergence Partners, Liquid Telecom and China
ComServices. Mobile broadband being the main way Africans access the Internet, LTE
services will be covered with contributions from large operators Vodacom,
Smile and Unitel Angola as well as smaller newcomers Surfline and YooMee. The
role of handsets and devices
will be debated by representatives of major operators (Millicom, Airtel) as
well as a handset manufacturer (Tecno) and OS provider Mozilla.
Finally, new revenue
streams will be discussed, with a major new topic introduced to the AfricaCom
keynotes M2M & IoT, with a
keynote presentation from BMW on their ConnectedCAr and a panel including
Orange, Vodacom, Google and the Praekelt Foundation.
Content being a key
revenue stream in Africa, a panel will look at how to monetise content services, with contributions from
operators Vodacom and Airtel, content providers eTV and Ole! Media Group, one
of the continent’s fastest growing digital powerhouses and OTT player Yahoo.
AfricaCom 2014 provides
an information oasis with all major players under one roof. It is also the place where innovation and
business happens and is a not to be missed event for anyone looking to develop
or grow existing revenue within the highly competitive and rapidly evolving digital
ecosystem. Don’t say we didn’t warn
you...
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