This week’s Information Communications Technology for Africa 2008 Conference might be the farthest Southern University has ever “hosted” a conference. Victor Mbarika, director of Southern’s International Center for Information Technology and Development, said he expects about 200 participants at the inaugural conference being held in his home nation of Cameroon.
The theme is using information technology to expand telemedicine, e-business and distance learning in poor, developing African countries, he said. One highlight of the conference will involve a teleconference showing a doctor in the U.S. or a European nation treat a rural African patient. Eventually, Mbarika envisions, poorer residents in rural areas throughout Africa will receive medical treatment from doctors in developed countries without ever having to leave their villages.
“We decided to take the conference route so we can train the trainers,” he said, hoping that others will spread his programs across Africa. He calls it “ICT4M,” or information communications technology for medicine. Mbarika has described health care in much of Africa as nightmarish.
The conference starts Thursday in Yaounde, Cameroon, and runs through Sunday. University scholars, government officials and business and technology leaders are expected to attend. Mbarika hopes the conference will expand to 1,200 people next year and then in 2010 rotate to different countries such as Ghana.
Oneurine Ngwa, a Southern e-business graduate student from Cameroon, is one of three students accompanying Mbarika at the conference. Ngwa said she wants the conference to lead to more technological advances in Africa. Many people die of treatable diseases in developing countries every day, she said.
“We really need help all over Africa,” Ngwa said. On Tuesday, Mbarika and Ngwa were in Paris, where he was speaking at another information technology conference on developing countries. Mbarika is co-chairing the African region’s representation, he said, and is hoping to garner more support for his efforts.
Mbarika said he also wants to see information technology expand in Africa so more students can learn online. He sees democracy spreading through technology as more citizens become informed and help root out corruption.
SU hosts conference in Africa on communications technology
By JORDAN BLUM, Advocate Capitol News Bureau, Published: Dec 17, 2008
