By KENNEDY MUPESENI –
THE organisers of the 10th Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) Conference have said the meeting will be held from 8 -10 May 2018 at Lusaka’s Mulungushi International Conference Centre.
According to a statement, the ICT4D Conference 2018, the largest event of its kind for the humanitarian development sector, this year aims at mapping out to the path for technology to make the maximum impact on improving humanitarian relief and development work.
This 10th conference brings together over 600 ICT experts, programmemanagers and senior executives from 80 countries, from Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) staff to academics, technology business leaders, governments and United Nations (UN) agencies.
“Simply put, our goal is to use technology as a tool to improve our programmes, whether in health, agriculture or emergency response, and to reach the most isolated communities; to take effective technology over the last and hardest mile,” said Michele Broemmelsiek, Vice President of Overseas Operations with Catholic Relief Services (CRS).
CRS is the Lead Organising Partner for the conference, the first of which it founded in Nairobi in 2010.
The other Conference Partners are NetHope, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), DAI Global Health, the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) and ICRISAT (Int. Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics).
Others are iMerit Technology Services, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), SOS Children’s Villages, UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), UNESCO Chair in ICT4D at Royal Holloway University, and World Vision International.
Among the groups confirmed as speaking at the plenary session are Facebook, the World Food Programme (WFP), Gartner Executive Programs, SAP Africa, The Great African Food Company, Farm Drive, Radiant.Earth, and USAID.