Mr. Andrew Rugege represented ITU and spoke at the opening ceremony of
Commonwealth ICT Applications Development Forum on 15 February 2017 in
Kigali, Rwanda and informed stakeholders of the work of ITU and its views
on how Apps contribute to development.
In his opening remarks, he proposed that in considering a meaningful and
world-class App Development industry in Africa, we shall need to review the
suitability of the core and early education systems to ICT innovation,
Broadband connectivity to the Internet, approaches to R&D, national
fiscal policies, trends in technology, the proliferation of user devices
and the creation of a critical mass of users (home market) and many others;
without forgetting the critical issues of information security, fraud in
digital financial transactions, the violation of Intellectual Property
Rights and the brutal competition prompted by the interruption caused by
Mobile Apps to incumbent businesses.
As requested, he also delivered the keynote presentation entitled "Key
policy considerations to support App development" for the session
"Fostering innovation through policy and regulation". His presentation was
anchored on a call for deliberate policies on recognizing ICT as a
Strategic Sector; a reformed education system that nurtures talent towards
innovation, Legal and fiscal policies for startups, policies on R&D,
local content, security and others. Below is the link for more information.
http://www.cto.int/events/upcoming-events/commonwealth-ict-applications-forum-2017/
