Africa Tech Festival Kicks Off In Cape Town With Record-Breaking Attendance

The 25th Africa Tech Festival kicked off in Cape Town with a record-breaking Day one attendance and the palpable hum of networking after a two-year physical absence because of global lockdowns.

James Williams, Director of Events, Informa Tech, officially opened the festival. He remarked: "During these 25 years, the event has evolved to ensure we remain the continent's largest and most influential tech event and to tell the story of continued growth and frontier technologies and how African innovation is tackling some of the globe's biggest challenges.

"AfricaCom and AfricaTech came together as a festival in 2018 and continue to explore connectivity, infrastructure, and telco evolution. And with this evolution to a festival, we've also worked this year, more than any other, to integrate some of the stories around culture, sport, music, and entertainment that make the continent such a diverse and unique place to work."

Adding to Williams' comments on the event's growth and its legacy and officially welcoming delegates to the 2022 event, Deputy Minister of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Republic of South Africa, the Hon. Mr. Philly Mapulane remarked on the value of the event's capacity for bringing people together and encouraging tech investment in South Africa and the region.

Unpacking Africa's history of technology and its bright future, Russell Southwood, Balancing Act, shared a keynote, saying, "… fantastic things have happened to Africa because of the investment in technology over the last 35 years…we now have networks, we now understand what needs to be done. And the next, however many 20 or 30, 40 or 50 years is going to be interesting, because when they write a new history of Africa when it's completely changed, and very different, they will say it started here."

Africa Tech Festival is a hub for business. In one of the first deals to be signed during the event, the European Investment Bank concluded a USD10million agreement with Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCS), backing the rollout of eastern DRC telecom connectivity. The deal is the first EIB Global quasi-equity investment. It will support expanding the fiber-optic network to 2.5 million people and provide high-speed connectivity to 319 schools and 70 hospitals. This will fund 1250km of fiber infrastructure out of the 20 000kms BCS is looking to build over the next three years in Eastern, Southern, and central Africa.

Reaffirming its commitment to helping Africa digitize its economy, Leo Chen, Huawei president of the southern Africa region, emphasized the three major elements of digital transformation: digital infrastructure, digital services, and digital skills. "If we do these three things well, we can connect the unconnected people and businesses, fully unleash digital productivity and develop the digital economy, no matter its definition," he said. Mr. Leo also shared data that shows how the digital economy in sub-Saharan Africa is growing faster than the region's GDP.

On investment and creating suitable climates for this, Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Geordin Hill-Lewis, shared a keynote speech with delegates around 'This is Cape Town - Building Africa's Innovation & Investment Hub.' Acknowledging the role that regulatory frameworks and government participation play in driving progress, Hill-Lews said: "Digital transformation in our government not only leads to new opportunities for economic growth and job creation but also improves the functioning of government to the benefit of all of our residents."

Fadi Pharaon, Ericsson shared mobility trends that the company has seen of the late key, which has been the rapid uptake of 4G across the territory, with sub-Sahara reporting a staggering 26% increase alone. 4G devices have also made a giant leap forward, in many instances surpassing the number of 3G devices, thanks partly to lower prices of entry-level mobile models and the growing market for refurbished smartphones. Pharaon also noted that: "another enabler which will accelerate 4G adoption are regulatory initiatives to make more spectrum available for key markets. Now we all know that this is the foundation of the telecoms industry."

Answering the question of what it means for the Government to be committed to the tech sector's success, Cape Town's Executive Mayor explained: "For us in the city, this involves building an enabling environment first and foremost. Our job is to ensure that the conditions for your success as tech businesses, investors, innovators, and creators are present, not to try to intervene to make your success happen on your behalf."

Africa Tech Festival is a confluence of enterprise and the all-important startup sector, and the AHUB, which has grown in prominence and scale over the last few years, was no exception today. Tomiwa Aladekomo, Tech Cabal Media and Chair of the AHUB Start-up stage, observed how: "Startups have provided some of the most important economic growth, foreign direct investment, and job opportunities across the continent over the last few years. Today, there is a global recession that is challenging some of the fastest growing tech companies globally and that challenge is also affecting the capital available for African startups to grow. It's a challenging period, but startups will remain a critical growth engine."

Delegates were treated to insights from Philip Kiracofe, CEO of Startupbootcamp AfriTech, on supporting startups to foster innovation, and Theran Knighton-Fitt, Co-Founder and Chief Humanising Officer · Mygrow, regarding how culture, adequately harnessed, can make a startup more human and more innovative. Also, on the billing today at AHUB, several speakers shared where venture and startup funding is in Africa today.

Critical to the advancement of digital across the continent is citizen trust in the channels available to them. On Tuesday at Africa Tech Festival, several vital sessions spoke to the growing need for cybersecurity measures. Commenting on how we need to operate along the lines of "trusting nothing and verifying everything" with increasing automation, AI, and machine-led influence on everything we do, Alan de Waal-Smit from ITR Technology shared how an integrated approach to IT systems and management would be required to create a zero-trust architecture, that would also attract consumer confidence.

Affordable access is, of course, a continuous theme in every discussion involving Africa's digitization. A rousing panel discussion, entitled: 'Empowering Africa's Connectivity Champions to bridge the digital divide was well attended, with panelists noting that while Government was essential to kick start providing the framework, it was also down to the private sector to make it sustainable.

Speaking to the need for every user in Africa to have computing power in their hands, Mariam Abdullahi, Director, Android Partnerships, Africa at Google, said: "It is not a matter of just giving the power of computing to everyone. You've got to give them secure, reliable, delightful services to use most affordably."