The Director General of the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT, Ms Dorothy Gordon, is calling for a change in the perception people have about the use of the Internet, stressing that Africa is the next frontier in the Internet revolution.
According to her, a lot of the youth on the African continent were getting used to the use of the Internet and as a result, the future of the Internet in Africa would have more Africans.
“As a continent, we need to be looking at issues relating to the huge change management process, and this requires new thinking,” she said at a press briefing ahead of a meeting of the Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) in Accra.
The meeting in Ghana was to discuss Internet-related opportunities and challenges in Africa, including issues of access and sustainable development.
Ms Gordon further explained that, “when it comes to the Internet, Africa is really our next frontier. We have more than a billion people on this continent, and perhaps the fastest growing continent at the population level, so when we look at the future of the Internet, we are probably going to have more Africanists in it.”
She explained the readiness of the GCIG to work with stakeholders on the continent to come up with policies that would help make the Internet a viable tool for development in Africa.
Internet, tool for devt
The Chair of the GCIG, Mr Carl Bildt, said the Internet had the potential of becoming a key tool in the development of the African continent and as such, it must be used to achieve that.
“The Internet will soon be the infrastructure of all our other infrastructure. As a global community, we must consider the opportunities and challenges to ensure Africa has an accessible and open Internet; where human rights are protected and use is safe and secure and also generates growth, development and prosperity for all nations of this vast continent,” he said.
The GCIG, he said, was a two-year initiative launched in January 2014 by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and Chatham House, and would produce a comprehensive perspective on the future of multi- stakeholder Internet governance.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Information Technology Agency, Dr Nii Narku Quaynor, called for public education on cyber security practices.
That, he said, would help create more secured networks and people would know more about softwares as a good cyber space was built around software.
Source: Graphic