Malawi To Host International Open Access Comference

Malawi will next month host the 6th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON OPEN ACCESS at Crossroads Hotel in the capital city Lilongwe.

Conference orgnising chair Charles Govati said in an email responce that the conference is being organized by The ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM) in collaboration with OSISA, The Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and Malawi Government agencies in ICT Advocacy.

He said the conference will be running together with an ICT fair which will focus on physical technological solutions for promoting first and last mile access to ICT Infrastructure.

He said the gathering which has been orgnised over the 5 years has transformed into a major International ICT event.
He said this is the third time it is being held in Africa adding that In Malawi, for the first time the conference will be preceded by the UbuntuNet Alliance - UbuntuNet -Connect Workshop and will run in parallel for two days with an EU Grid-computing Workshop.

"As you will notice, the Malawi conference is going to be unique as we are expecting the EU commissioner on Information and Society and other prominent global leaders in the ICT sector,"he said.

The international conferences on Open Access started in 2003. They were initiated and organized by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), in collaboration with the United Nations Information and Communications Technologies Task Force, and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH).

Both SIDA and KTH have continued to support all subsequent conferences. The inaugural event was held in June 2003 and the second conference in May, 2004 were both held in Stockholm, Sweden.

The third which was may 2005 was in Maputo, Mozambique, while the fourth December was held once again in Stockholm and the Fifth,November 2007 was held in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.

This year, Malawi will host the 6th International Open Access Conference in Lilongwe, The Capital City of the Warm Heart of Africa.

This conference will bring together about 300 International and Local dignitaries, specialists and experts in the field of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) to continue with the spirit of Open Access advocacy.

The ICT Association of Malawi (ICTAM) is honoured to collaborate with Sweden’s esteemed Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) and OSISA to co-ordinate this Sixth Conference at the Crossroads Hotel, in Lilongwe, the Capital City of Malawi.

It is expected that a high profile delegate will grace the occasion as Guest of Honour during the Opening Ceremony. The theme for this year’s conference is: Open ICT Access for Socio-Economic Development”

Meanwhile the orgnisers are inviting members of the public are invited to join as participants or facilitators to present a paper on a specific subject.