[Cairo, Egypt, Oct 25, 2016] More than 100 ICT regulators, industry leaders and experts from
over 20 countries of the African continent gathered
yesterday for the co-hosting high
caliber event by Ministry of Communication Technologies and Digital Economy Tunisia and Huawei Technologies North
Africa. It was
the first time for such ministerial-spotlighted event
happened in Tunisia, the ICT hub envisioned by the Digital Agenda
2020. Held in the beautiful seashore city Hammamet, the theme of event is centering on “Building a Better Connected
Africa,” which aimed at communicating national
ICT practices, exploring ICT trends and how the
governmental entities and enterprises of different industries can collectively achieve the
goal of national digitalization.
Peng Song, President of Huawei
Technologies North Africa, elaborated Huawei's strategy and its
vision for enabling an intelligent world via pervasive cloud concepts and
technologies at AFRICA NATIONAL ICT FORUM. He called for the countries of the region to think about Cloud-based
ecosystem by such initiatives as kicking off cloud strategy, architecting cloud infrastructure,
developing cloud technology and realizing
cloudification.
During the Forum, Mr. Peng Song noted that “As Huawei, we regard the national ICT development will be
cloud-enabled. We assume in the near future an intelligent world
will bring about enormous changes in society and we are sure of that ICT will
be the cornerstone of this intelligent world. In our philosophy, the
intelligent world has three defining characteristics: all things will have the
ability to sense, all things will be connected, and all things will be
intelligent. The existence of these three defining characteristics depends
entirely on advanced ICT! In an intelligent world, devices will play the role
of the feelers in an all-sensing environment. Networks will connect everything,
and the cloud will be the source of intelligence behind all things. These three
elements form a synergetic architecture of devices, information pipes, and the
cloud.”
It was the first time that Huawei has
publicly given a comprehensive look at its cloud strategy and boldly called for
a cloud-enabled digital ecosystem in face of high caliber officers, including Mr. Hou Lin Zhao, Secretary General of ITU, ICT
ministers and counterpart Representatives across the Mediterranean and Africa
region. According to Huawei, the Company positions itself as the enabler
and driver of an intelligent world, and will persist in its culture of
customer-centricity, focusing on ICT infrastructure and innovative
cloud technology. Huawei intends to become a preferred partner in national
digitalization and cloud transformation while actively contributing to the
ecosystem through openness, collaboration, and shared success. Mr Peng Song indicated,
as an ecosystem enabler, Huawei is willing to help all of its customers build
all manner of clouds.
Responding to the existing
status of the Africa countries, the President of Huawei North Africa put
forward the recipes as follows.
It's vital for the
governmental entities and enterprises to change the mindsets around the role of
ICT. Nowadays ICT is shifting from a support system to production system, and it
is necessary to proactively use technology to redesign the production processes.
“There might be some
doubts from the audience today, is Cloud far from the Africa countries? How
shall we introduce such ICT-advanced cloud conception and implementation? From
my insights, a great number of African countries have the advantages to think
big and kick off the cause of cloud. Compared with some other regions, for the
African countries normally there are no historic legacy assets or mechanism to
block the way forward. Additionally, it
is more difficult for any single country in Africa to create a cloud ecosystem,
barely relying on its own strength and resources. Whereas, the untied efforts by the countries are
highly encouraged for the ushering of Cloud era. We should think big and act
small! ”, remarked by him.