Trescon’s World Cloud Show virtually brought together over 200 IT Decision Makers, cloud enthusiasts who were involved in addressing critical concerns, difficulties, trends, and strategies on cloud computing for the African area.
Thursday, 29 July 2021: The African edition of World Cloud Show concluded on 16 July 2021 with over 200 participants tuning in from across the globe to explore the current state of cloud computing in the African region. The conference virtually brought together region’s key players in the cloud computing ecosystem, including government officials, leading cloud solution providers, and senior executives from significant think tanks.
The event addressed important issues in cloud computing, such as the cloud as a catalyst of innovation, how cloud adoption would help African enterprises across sectors, the current status of data and cloud technologies, and much more.
Some of the top speakers who attended the event included:
- Richard M Kiarie, Principal ICT Officer/Head, Policy and Research Unit, Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs.
- Collin Mugasha Babirukamu, Director E-government Services, National Information Technology Authority.
- Didier Nkurikiyimfura, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Smart Africa.
- Themba Mnguni, Deputy Director, IT Audit, Department of Rural Development and Land Reform, South Africa
Key highlights and takeaways from World Cloud Show include:
Fekade Getahun, Sr. Strategic Advisor Digital Transformation Program at the Ministry of Innovation & Technology, Ethiopia, delivered the opening keynote on behalf of Dr Ahmedin Mohammed, State Minister, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Ministry of Innovation and Technology. While giving a summary on the Future of Data Centers transforming Africa’s digital landscape, Fekade stated that, “The African data centre market is increasing from 2 billion USD to a forecast of 5 billion USD with an increment of 15 per cent by 2026.”
Ravi Tank, Senior VP at Cloud4C, a CtrlS Group Company, shared insights from his tech talk session on accelerating cloud adoption. While speaking about Cloud4C’s proprietary cloud framework, their services and how they improve the overall cloud service to clients and end-users, Ravi stated that, “We were recognized by Microsoft for Partner of the Year in Qatar (2020) and recently we got the MEA Finance Award for the Most Innovative Cloud Service Provider 2021.”
The show also featured a Women in Tech panel discussion on the topic ‘the Rise of African Cloud: A cloud-connected Africa.’ The speakers on the panel included Lavina Ramkissoon, Director-General, Global Council for The Promotion of International Trade, South Africa; Chinenye Chizea, Chief Information Security Officer, National Identity Management Commission, Nigeria; Sylvia Mukasa, Founder/CEO, GlobalX Investments Ltd/GlobalX Innovation Labs, Kenya; and moderated by Sithembile Songo, Head Information Security and Risk Management, Public Investment Corporation.
They discussed key topics such as how AI is changing the world of cloud computing; key to speeding up Africa’s development; security policies for cloud computing; Africa powering cloud adoption across enterprises and much more.
In an interesting panel discussion on the topic ‘Securing Cloud and Data Infrastructure for Africa: How enterprises can protect their data from the next generation of cyber threats’, moderated by Vukosi Sambo, Head of Data Solutions, Medscheme, South Africa the panellists discussed the importance of cyber security at the core of every IT infrastructure and protecting an organization’s cloud data storage is extremely important and cloud security is the modern way to achieve this task.
The panellists included Winnie Sergon, Head of ICT & Innovation, Boresha SACCO Society Ltd, Kenya; Rohit Dhawan, CIO, Bank of Kigali, Rwanda; Taz Chikwakwata, Section Head ICT, Mimosa Mining Company, Zimbabwe; Peter French, GM for Middle East & Africa, Acronis, City of Cape Town.
“Finding the right business context for cyber security is a big part of the game as it opens up a plethora of possibilities. However, innovations in the cyber security field must be contextualised and integrated into a company use case,” stated Mithun Shetty, CEO, Trescon.
The show was hosted on the virtual events platform Vmeets which helped the participants to network and conduct business in an interactive and immersive virtual environment. Participants were also able to engage with speakers in Q&A sessions and network with solution providers in virtual exhibition booths, private consultation rooms and private networking rooms.
The African edition of the World Cyber Security Summit was officially sponsored by Gold Sponsor – Cloud 4C ; Silver Sponsor – Acronis and ManageEngine.
About World Cloud Show
World Cloud Show takes place in strategic locations across the world which gathers pre-qualified CIOs, CEOs, CTOs, Heads of Research, Industry Practitioners, IT Decision Makers and Experts in Cloud Computing among others from cross-industry verticals.
The show features exciting keynotes, government and enterprise use-case presentations, product showcase, panel discussions and tech talks to discuss latest challenges and explore applications of Cloud-based solutions.
For further details about the announcement, please reach out to us at: [email protected]