It's truly an honor that you're back for A day to walk International.
All African large to help improve lives through connectivity. And if you could, please allow me just a few words to recap yesterday or day one before I introduce the first item on the agenda, as also people arrived, and looks like people are really joining us. So I want to recap yesterday, just to remind you of a few key points that came out of day one, as well as to make people did not join us for the optional opening ceremony feel really bad for missing yesterday. So day one went very well. I was the official opening ceremony, graced by a number of high level government officials, including His Excellency Doctor Mola, Minister of innovation and technology, as well as our guest of honor and His Excellency engineer bah. Chara Bah, Director General of the hip and communications authority and Doctor Emmanuel Manasse, Acting Regional Director for the International Telecommunications Union, regional office Africa. And Mr. Chris loka, Executive Vice President and Managing Director of the Internet Society Foundation. And Mr. Dimo sekiriaku, Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer of Wingo Africa. And, of course, Doctor Assad mudatu, president of the Internet Society Ethiopia chapter. And of course, we were honored by the presence of Dr David wakara, who is on top of organizing this incredible event from Internet Society Ethiopia. And I think David and his team deserve a very, very nice round of applause for doing such a great job. It does not look like a very nice round of applause. Can we do it better than that? Good to celebrate one another. You know, people feel encouraged to do better and next time so welcome remarks. As you remember, most of you were here yesterday, were delivered by Doctor Assad. And then we went into the rest of the messages from our guests from the different offices. And then we got to the point where the excellency, the minister, delivered the opening, official opening remark, which was really a good one. And then we went into the first session just after coffee, which essentially was a panel of three, which again was moderated for us by Dr David, a panel joined by Miss wood Mattis from the African Union and Doctor abiot Bayou from mint, who discussed the continental and local digital transformation strategies and among other things, the importance of digital skill, attitude and financial resources were discussed in this panel, and we had two parallel sessions on the afternoon. And one of the parallel sessions discussed the role of regulations in connecting the unconnected, and the Kenyan experience and community networks and the Brazilian experience in innovative regulatory approaches were discussed, among many other things that were raised throughout the afternoon. And the other panel, which I helped facilitate, discuss the digitization of the financial sector and the role of the internet and clean takes and the need to devise a way to include even what we call nano businesses other than MSMEs, as such as small as shoe shining or street vendors to be digitized and banked, and the importance of collaboration between governments and financial institutions to tackle The challenges faced in the FinTech sector were seriously discussed, and it was a very fruitful discussion. And I want to mention that this brief report or recap of day one was produced or written for me by our reporter, Johann is over there, and I want to recognize that before we move on. So we're going to delve into this conversation on day to today, and as we go deeper, we are hoping that you will continue to, you know, engage with us in as much as we can share your expertise, expertise and experiences without reservation, because without your your thoughts and your expertise out there in discussion. We really, can't really do what we are here to do. So please don't feel reserved. Join us in as much as you can throughout the day, and of course, tomorrow, as well as we are going to be here tomorrow, half day today, we're going to go into day two, and we're going to start with internet information. With internet infrastructure development, which is going to be moderated for us by Dr Ephraim. If you could allow me, I will introduce Dr Ephraim, and I will leave the floor for him to take over and moderate this first session for day two. So Dr Ephraim, our moderator is Chief Technology Officer at zargarp, cloud service provider. And Dr Ephraim is the Chief Technology Officer of zargarpur cloud services and the CEO of CIT cot consulting. And he's a leading professional in telecommunications cloud solutions. He worked for the past many, many years driving scalable cloud infrastructure over 600 film suppliers and Ethiopia, and as an assistant professor at Addis Ababa University, he teaches advanced telecommunications and leads, where was that light? And he drives scalable cloud infrastructure for over 600 enterprises. And as an assistant professor at abusive University, he teaches advanced telecommunications and leads industry focused training. And with over 20 publications, he is dedicated to digital transformation and tackling Africa's unique take challenges. Ladies and gentlemen. Without further ado, it's my honor to invite Dr FM and please welcome with a nice round of applause. You
I thank you for the word for introduction. So today we'll have a session on the infrastructure development. I'm very happy this session independent discussion. I will introduce my guest shortly before I do that. I want to say words about about the session. So the session highlights Critical Role of internet infrastructure in connecting digital transformation the media region, which will explore development of internet exchange points, IX piece in Ethiopia, the importance of data centers supporting IX piece and the lessons learned from our neighbors in Tanzania, tanzan XP Association a panel discussion from featuring regional infrastructure experts after presentations to deep deeper into strategies, challenges and opportunities, we will try as much as possible to focus the discussion during the conversation actionable points. What can we learn from our neighbors in our countries? And we try to focus actionable points on national insights, to address different stakeholders, policy makers, experts in the industry, leaders. So the main objective of the session is to discuss progress, whereas an impact of IX piece, emphasize Critical Role of data centers enabling IX piece, important activity in the region in Ethiopia, to learn from Tanzania's IX experience, to engage with Ethiopia's infrastructure Experts and challenges in fostering collaboration for both internet infrastructure. So this, let me take few minutes to the presenters. We have five presenters, four presenters with me. First presenter is Mr. Vision Graber. I apologize if I mess it up. You will correct me when you are on stage. So he is an exp development expert at the Internet Society. He specializes in developing internet exchange points or IX piece infrastructure and fostering pioneering ecosystems. Previously, he consulted for the society IXP projects. He helped technically monitor our roles the Rwanda country for domain, Rwanda. He's passionate about inquiring new generations. He also explores economic models behind internet. So we'll hear the presentation from him, and we'll also be joining join us at the panel discussion later. Next presenter or next panelist will be Mr. Freddie Raymar, so he's a group director in the enterprise sales and marketing Africa, which the host of his workshop first so he is assistant professional leading enterprise sales and marketing team at WIN Africa Group company delivering innovative Cloud and connectivity solutions to enterprise Africa is in getting that operation, project management and business development great value for customers, partners and stakeholders. For stakeholders in mobile considering the data center services as a group director for the overseas success performance, ensuring achievement of sales targets and identifying those opportunities. He strategizes effective marketing and sales techniques, techniques and Latinos revenue, analyze market trends and supports business functionalities. Freddie also collaborates closely with public relations team expands customer reach in a transportation business passage. This proven a track record developing strategic partnerships, new both sales data centers and ISED products and services rating has successfully made needs of international payers and mobile network operators is saying the prizes. So we are we are very happy to have you here. So next presenter is Mr. Barra tieno. He was is the chairman of Association of Community policy in Kenya, a Management Information Systems Specialist. He is over 20 years of experience. He is a leader in internet infrastructure, governments policy development as a general manager of Africa. Labor domain organization has advanced clinical reform, supported DNA sick programs and played a key role in the Africa domain negation. It's Kenya School of internet governance and chairs also service as CTO of RNA hearing it,
providing connectivity to over 70,000 community members in Western Kenya, and he has held leadership also in ICANN and chapter advocating for pollution and sustainable implement across then next finalist that will be have will be joined with is Dr Carlos. Dr Carlos Ray Moreno. He's a co founder, co founder of Len networks. Unfortunately, Dr Carlos will not be joining us in person here. So he was beginning planning to come here, but he had some difficulties in person. But joining us online. So Dr Carlos has over eight years of experience advancing community network solutions worldwide. He's a co founder of any networks. He researched sustainable connectivity models in rural South Africa during his PhD with association for progressive communications, initiative overseeing opportunities in Latin America, Africa and Asia Pacific. He also needs policy efforts to enabling frameworks for local operators, delivering training, offering reports in engaging in governance forums. And finally, we'll be joined by Mr. Dante, CEO of cloud 251, top service provider driving the country's digital transformation Under her leadership, cloud 251 delivers localized effort, efficient and secure cloud solutions that comply with ETs data protection laws with over eight years of experience in managing it, projects, including The establishment of the orange digital center biggest combines technical expertise and strategic vision. She also Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from in COP, and she's certified Project Management Professional. We are very happy to argue here, and she'll be joining us later at the panel discussion. Okay with this? I will in the introduction of my panels. So before we go to the panel discussion, the our panelists will set the stage with short presentations. So first presentation will be by Mr. Vision, he will be talking about IX development. That means point exchange point, so Please give around important cloud for
Good morning, everyone. My name is from the Internet Society and other things, but I'm also involved in debt related to doing advocacy, comforting intellectual threats and so capacity building, but my main focus is about peering and economic Health. This is where we find the same point. Also have a background with regards to DMS and not RW the past, but that's also some of the things that have done in the classes. So come everyone, my presentation will be about the critical role of
so I will be for talking about activity and digital transformation internet infrastructure and creating technical communities and REG so as we are Talking about digital transformation, we need to talk about infrastructure. Thank you. We need to talk about infrastructure because the infrastructure is the one that enables connectivity in the digital transformation. What do you mean by digital transformation? Digital Transformation mainly about anything that allows life to happen on The platform can be dedication Public Services can be immense.
Infrastructure. We have districts interconnected among themselves. If I am in the south, can I send packet? Can I send a message to someone who is in the West without passing through others? That's the question. And the South interact with South and the North interact with the North. Can his interact with his without passing through this in December and so on, intersecting infrastructure, cross border infrastructure. Ethiopia region is not an island. We are living on a continent that lives in the world. We need to for content to be accessible from someone in Japan, from someone in Thailand and so and so forth, cross border are very important. And internet exchange points, this is very, very critical. We have an internet exchange point within the country so that the digital health or the digital activities within the country can leave if the country was isolated. So that's mainly what is about main system. I think Barrack will talk more about that. But DNS is very also critical when we talk about digital transformation. So for for some of those transformation to happen, there is a need for key aspects. So some of the key aspects are public and private investments. Uh, when I remember it run up a long time ago. It was probably 2016 years ago, government made some important infrastructure investments. So those are the kind of investment that the private sector cannot do. But from those public investment, then the private on top of that, we need to create an enable regulated environment. Is it easy for an operator to come and operate? Is it easy for an operator to lay fiber across countries. Need to raise awareness and promote digital service. Heard about cashless, paperless. This is also promoting digital transformation. Need to lower barriers access to devices, tax incentives. Is it easy to import devices in the country? This also can the digital transformation for Internet, and we need to talk about continuous capacity building activities creating critical mass of skill, indigenous and resources in terms of infrastructure. Let me go quickly through some of the internet infrastructure that are key in the I got region and also around Africa terms of exchange points. It's not something it's something worldwide known and very important to implement. As far as Africa is concerned, there are five. Site shows that there are 57 exchange points in Africa. There are some countries that are still not having the exchange world, and we need really to move forward in terms of, for example, the I got region, the I got regions. What are the countries that do not have an exchange and we are, as Internet Society, ready to have those countries to have their own exchange? Pch as a map that shows the exchange point around the globe. They are around 1100 plus. Mainly, you can see that they are densely located in Europe, in Asia, Latin America and the US, also Africa. Syl has some work to be done, but we are getting there. bring forward in terms of route name servers, it's very important to understand that with them, servers are quite important because when you're doing yz.tt. The name has to be resolved into an.
that have happened in the region, but we are still work to be done. There are some countries still that do not have data centers using the open tele telecom data.org website, you can see that there are some countries that still need some data centers. Fortunately, in Ethiopia, there are some data centers in Addis and also on the northern part in terms of inland fiber. Inland fibers means the fiber within the countries that you can look at the website after five. So it's a website maintained by NSW. It's very important to see the different fiber within the inland, between Ethiopian Somalia and Djibouti and Eritrea, and going west with South Sudan and South Sudha and Sudha seed some room. That is still some work to be done in terms of developing local infrastructure. So that's the region is really mesh, because this is how content or access will be facilitated in and out of the region. So in terms of submarine cables, it's very important to see that some less touch points. I think Sudan Djibouti has some some funding stations, but we still need probably more, more touch points. I think there we have 123455, and the region is really up north, in Mediterranean or Asia, East. So in terms of, sorry, is that the only there are some missing slides. Yeah, I can talk about it.
So this the next point that I'm about to finish. The next point is about building technical communities. So cannot build infrastructure if you don't have technical communities. So it's very important to have people communities. And of the reasons that we have advancement, it is because there are engineers that can be routing, that can especially routing security and so and so, it's very important to establish those network operators group building critical mass of student engineers and re and those engineers are the ones that will enforce best practices so that the environment is secured and trusted, so that more investment can come into the region in terms of creating regulatory environments, there are some very important key aspects. First is to create a competing environment so that best quality of service can be offered to the end users. It's also very important to law and minimize minimize the regulatory interventions. Some countries have much regulatory interventions, and that will depend on the development of the ecosystem. For example, there are some exchange points that do not allow networks to clear unless they are licensed in the country. This is a hindering intervention. And lastly, it is about intermediary liability. Some countries do not protect the intermediate the intermediaries, so whoever is hosting is liable for the content he has or they have not created. Very important to segment their responsibilities so that the different the different players, are held accountable for whatever they are doing. As I am concluding, I want to make sure that also we are sharing some important development as far as Internet Society is concerned we have some funding, mainly two important funding we are offering as an Internet Society, what we call the sustainable peering infrastructure. That funding goes up to 70,000 US dollars for a project that can last up to 12 months. And it is really targeting exchange points, develop their operational capabilities, acquire equipment capacity for their own resources and for the community, have a second funding, which is called Sustainable technical community funding. One goes up to 4000 US dollars, and is targeting nobs, end rents, CED communities, all those technical communities, just to hold their workshops and so on, so forth. And lastly, we are having a very important summit that is really targeting peering players, and it is what we call the UPS. Take a pairing and Interconnection Forum, the up fi happening once every year in October, in the third week of October. And this year it will happen in Lagos, Nigeria. And we are all invited. And those are the quite important, important information to mention. Lastly, the last day of this event, Friday on 24th will be having the Ethiopia clearing day. It will happen here. And you are most welcome if you're interested in This topic. Thank you very much for your attention. You
Thank you, Mr. Vision, for nice, insightful presentations, and at the end, after that, there are some opportunities for funding to apply these initiatives. So I sorry I forgot to reiterate, this is a good opportunity for technical communities here on the whoever is missing, we get in touch with isoping the funding. So I wish you luck. Next presenter is Mr. Freddie from Africa, so wanted to give this. Give a warm welcome. Mr. Brady, you
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, please. Thank you very much for the opportunity on this stage represent win group is also sponsor this event, about our experience, our knowledge, information we have about the industry, my presentation somehow equal my colleagues from Rwanda, James was how the infrastructure has developed under the custodian of wi together with stakeholders in different markets that will help different stakeholders be updated and informed about how
EGOT markets, specifically Ethiopia, how we have made some progress on how our digital infrastructure is ready to drive digital economy. And say that allow you to give me a permission use the you the win case as the use case how the infrastructure need to be developed, collaboration and partnership will accelerate digital transformation, and how the infrastructure that has been prepared and developed accelerates Internet exchange to eventually the development of internet and affordability of internet. For my discussion will be focused on the basic features of a data center. For example, some mics mix it with the normal it facility. Also, it will talk a bit about the data ecosystem data center cannot drive as a standalone box. Has to be integrated to other systems. We call it data ecosystem. Then touch base being of every career needs at the carrier neutral data center? What is the value neutral data center and how internet exchange?
For are brought by career neutral data center, we accelerate and support the development of infernals. Then we'll discuss a bit about the challenges and the opportunities some other presenters already touched based on that, but I'll highlight the challenges and opportunities towards data center infrastructure.
For background of Wingo started from Djibouti from 2012 we've been in Djibouti market for 13 years now. We have two facility in djibout and the last year elaborated with second facility, which is integrated data center, which is a data center integrated with table administration. Well, started since 2012 2022 we have two facilities already, and it's carrying with the facility, and also operation in Somalia, where we have cable landing station. Also the latest market is Tanzania, which is also bordering with eight landlord countries. So it's a very strategic location for the landlord countries. So what are the specification and features that we see in the modern data center? When I say modern data center, are these data center at the level of tier three data center, this data center provide reliable power, in terms of utility power and also return in terms of generators, this facility provides a generator that's capable of running for many hours with all the
generator they run continuously. We have big facilities in terms of the size of the fuel tanks with more and you can also grab a brochure outside there. Don't want to spend much time on the these features. Important thing is data center of that standard assure you 100% availability, 24/7 monitoring, security and access
at any time. Talk more on the data ecosystem, and I will refer some of the markets that we have already developed the data ecosystem since this conference is about idiot, we'll talk about two facilities that are in egart markets and in Djibouti. And I will finalize on Ethiopia.
In Djibouti, we have mobile network operator called 07 and there is two new ISP the mobile operator is djibout Telecom, we have afrifibre and to seven. Boot telecom is a mobile network operator that provides mobile and fixed services, but to seven and afrifiber Distribute Metro and other regional fibers in also Djibouti as being carrier neutral data center, we have developed a proper
ecosystem. And mobile network operators all have been extended to our meet me room. In our meet me room provide access to these players since our data center career, he journeyed and established the first internet exchange in djibouto Now, which has developed to become international level, which is part of Six. Six is one of the top 10 giant exchange from our data center,
big and international traffic and other digital and
which is Ethel and Safaricom, but also we have an ISP, which is webs. Both the three have extended their fiber is into our data center in a protected way. So Ethiop has three routes of fiber coming to wingu data center. Safaricom have three routes, and web springs have three routes. So in Ethiopia environment, the wingu data center is the highly connected facility in Ethiopia. This allows Ethiopia to be connected in different ways. So if it's to do with connecting within the country, Ethiopian Safaricom connected within the metros, the same web space can do however my colleague from Rwanda explained about the terrestrial fiber. So although Ethiopia is aligned lock the countries, but through terrestrial fiber, Ethiopia now has different gateway to go out of Ethiopia to go to the world. We still have the traditional routes through Djibouti. But now we have three new routes, which is to go to through Kenya and then Sudan and also Somaliland. And we have seen traffic from Ethiopia being distributed through these four routes. So Ethiopia now has no such a big risk. Case one gateway is down, if another one gateway is down, definitely traffic will route it through other gateways. Again, Wingo, together with few pioneers in Ethiopia, expertly and strategically established the first internet exchange in Ethiopia. Up to two years ago, Ethiopia did not have any internet exchange. Most of the traffic in Ethiopia were exchanged outside. So if we are in the same room and we are sending each other an electronic or I
for be senior internet University internet coordination, and some other members Who are now joining the addicts. So addicts is now up and running in Wingo data center, and this is the room which we have brought in, in terms of collaboration, addicts operates on its own, but through collaboration, partnership, win who has enabled the addicts to be in Wingo data center, so that everybody can benefit through this infrastructure. So we encourage every player in Ethiopia to connect to the ix, join the addicts Internet Exchange, so that we can all benefit and accelerate the development of Internet services.
Again,
you cannot mention that you have standard tier three infrastructure if it's not certified. So all the wingu infrastructures in our market are tier three certified. Three has two stages of certification. You are certified. You are certified in terms of design and also certified in terms of construction. Normally, construction come after design. So all the wingu facilities are tier three certified by uptown Institute. But we are not ending there. We know we are going to host some other sensitive services, so we are looking forward also to proceed and get more certification for our facilities in terms of business continuity, information security and any other payment system that need the infrastructure to be certified. So that is a brief about how so far, wingu have been part of the eagerd Society and the infrastructure that we have developed together with different stakeholders. Allow me now to share some few things to do with the career neutral and what are the trends globally towards career neutral data centers and this, we say this career neutral are the new homes for Internet exchange. So from the report that were shared by Salam informatics, this does different analytics, it shows that most of the data center remember region of this data center started from telcos, ISPs, government offices and other it kind of companies, but the VO evolution now all are realizing the value of career neutral and how career neutral will accelerate their growth. So you can see from the graphs, there is a declining of mobile network or ISP own facilities, government owned facility, other players that have used to have facilities, but you can see high growth of carrier neutral data center. So
about 60%
or 65% of the new data center that came into the market for the last three years, they are based on area neutral data center. And here you can see the kind of the pan Africa data centers. I call picker data center, pikes, wingu, all these data center are driven towards career neutral data center. So we encourage the market also and the partners here embrace the career neutral data center, but for Internet exchange and other players in the internet development, the career neutral data center, the main homes for the for the Internet exchange through the internet exchange hosted at the carrier neutral data center, You will see growth at a very, very high speed, because it's provide the ecosystem that will allow the growth and also sustainability of the Internet Exchange. There's been some concern about costs of Internet and other services, but if you are co located at a carrier neutral data center. Definitely, there's a lot of benefits that are brought in by having a career neutral data center. So members who are on the Internet Society and also working on the Internet Exchange, these are the new homes, reliable and sustainable homes for the Internet exchange. So that the benefits that we look from the sort of career neutral data centers, I've added some few, but from global, local, carrier neutral Data Center provides benefits to Internet Exchange, because the main purpose of Internet exchange to speed up and improve internet connectivity user experience, to provide affordable internet and reliable connectivity. So from carrier neutral data center and I will look in the big picture, you have sort of submarine cables landing into the country. So for example, the case of Djibouti, where you have subsea cable landing in Djibouti, and these are extended and integrated into our data center in other countries, where, for example, Kenya, South Africa, these submarine cables lend into carrier, neutral data center, and these allow internet exchange to tap into these platforms, these connectivity and access to international content, but also in terms of a global content distributor, I've seen my colleague from meta, all these contents provide us prefer to go to carrier neutral data center and the carrier neutral data center hosting these global CDNs. Definitely, it will be easy, accessible by Internet Exchange, but also in the countries, you have mobile network operators, you have ISP, you have government services, you have local and international clouds that are providing different digital services. So the career need to provide sustainable, efficient and suitable environment to support growth of Internet Exchange, but also will eventually lower cost of internet, because this is the main challenge in different areas. The Internet still is still expensive in most of the Africa continents. Then after having this discussion, I would like to touch base a bit on the opportunities and challenges that are brought in by we have faced as a data center operator, but also player who works with different stakeholders in terms of bringing the ecosystem, because you need the infrastructure, you need the connectivities, and you need the users, and also need the traffic. If you don't have the traffic, you don't have the user, you don't have the contents, then we are in a trouble. So I've identified some few challenges that I think are important for this society, this gathering, to get touch on by so we have we are facing a reliable and renewable power the current data center and future data center energy generation has been a challenge to most of the African countries, so we need to think and collaborate to generate new source of power. But also some of my colleagues have touched base the challenge on regulatory related challenges. Different countries have different approach and different views in terms of regular regulation. So we need as expert in this room, expert from different areas, to
deep down, discuss
and how we can resolve these challenges that are brought based on the regulatory challenges, but also we have a challenge in terms of skilled labors to develop and work on this infrastructure. I'm happy there are different funds for different trainings, but we've seen this challenge in different markets. Most of these data center are built by experts from different continents, but in terms of rating them, running them, it's a challenge. ET being blessed with the youngest generation in the continent, we need to empower our young engineers, boys and girls, to be able to have the right skills and knowledge, especially on the area of ICT also projects like infrastructure facility city infrastructure incur a very, very expensive import costs. So custom duties are so expensive when we importing these materials. And all the projects where we've been able to build data center gone through a serious challenge in terms of importation costs and other taxes. Governments have different places mentioned about incentive, but when you go to the real world, to the real life, these are completely challenging area. So we need to work closer to help each other with the governments to make sure that we improve and provide proper taxing and custom duties to facilitate this infrastructure to be developed in our markets. We also have a challenge on internet penetration. Most of the people have mentioned about this, so we need to find synergies on how we can be able to build the society that have access to internet as a working tool. Internet is no longer a lecture. It's a working tool, and we need to embrace collaboration to help cost of internet and the devices to grow to be affordable. Thus is the challenge. And ah, refer yesterday, there was a discussion about AI and how Africa can have its own content. So we need to resolve this challenge. Most of the content that we are consuming in Africa, markets are outside, generated out of our continent. As we move forward to AI, Africa need to have its own content. Has to build a lot of contents that will help us to grow in some of the challenges. If you ask AI define gender, and the AI will go to such such information in American content or in other content, definitely you see more number of genders. While in Africa, we only recognize two genders. So if we don't have our own content, we don't have our own story into the digital platforms, then our young generation will consume things from different continents, from different which has a different context. So it's very important to support our youth. Our system to develop contents within the market, create more developer create more solutions which are localized in our market. On the right side is the opportunities that I won't spoil much time because I can see my time is almost over, but it's more about collaboration. Public and private sector need to work together in terms of developing new energy sourcing, but also public and private to work together, building infrastructure like a terrestrial fiber through public infrastructure, like our towers, railways, but also to prepare special program for startups, fintechs, innovators, but also encourage internship and program that will incubate our young generation to be able to save this market, but also the regulator to have healthy working environment, collaborative working environment, innovative working environment, regulators need to change from being monitored a member and a collaborative member, a consultative member towards the industry development. Having said that, I would like to end my presentation
with
the comment which I would like all of us on this station, to embrace if you want to go far, if you sorry, if you want to go fast, on your own, if you want to go far, then let's go together. We are here. We are partner. Let's work together. Let's collaborate. Let's share experience provide the opportunity for Africa in the EGOT markets to grow second law you
Thank you, Mr. Freddie, for the wonderful presentation. And I'd also like to echo your last final message, so we will need to work together to to achieve our goals of connectivity in others as well. So
of course, for
mentioned it earlier, all of the presenters will be back later for a panel of discussion. So if you have any questions and if you need some elaboration on the presentations, please take your notes, and you will have a chance at the end of the panel discussion to ask the questions, to directly to the panelists.
The next presenter is
Mr. Barrack, Otieno, so please give a round of applause and welcome to
the stage. You
thank you very much. Good morning. Good morning. Salam, Alaikum.
Don't know the greeting in Ethiopia, but I know I will learn how to say it before I leave. Addis Ababa, so my name is Barra Otieno. I represent the association of community networks in Kenya, but I'm also a very active and passionate member of the Internet Society Kenyan chapter for the many years, from 2009 or there about when we started the process of registering it. I will go back to a present, to the presentation I did yesterday.
Okay, apologies, challenges of height. I understand this is covering me, yeah, but I hope you can now view me. You can now see me. Well, I will go back to the presentation that I did yesterday. I did it in a rush, but I will try and focus on issues that I think are relevant when it comes to internet infrastructure development. Thank you to all those that we had follow up engagements yesterday. There's a lot to be said about community networks, and as I indicated, ISOC has offered a platform. There are training programs if you visit the Internet Society website, many free courses that I have the privilege to facilitate, and if we meet there, we can engage. And for us, it's not about engaging. We engage until the community network is built. So I really look forward to meeting as many of you in those follow up. What happens is, we don't teach, we share knowledge. I've also learned a lot through those particular forum so I'll start with challenges of community networks, even as I talk about infrastructure, and the number one issue has been understanding what a community network is and what a community network is not. When we look at the evolution of telecommunication, it's heavily been business oriented, for lack of a better word. And yet, in so far as the global south is concerned, we still notice that over 70% of our population is still left out, is still unconnected. Actually, if you those who follow the research by GSMA, you will notice that still, there are as many as 23 to 30% who are only making meaningful use of the Internet in our region. Majority of these are young people who cannot even afford these smart devices. Those who can afford smart devices like you and I do not know half the features in those particular devices. Is that true or false, so we are not making meaningful use of those particular devices. So understanding community networks is critical because it presents a unique model for us to be able to bridge the gap. Having said that community networks is telecommunication infrastructure. We still have to deal with capital expenditure. We still have to deal with operating expenditure if we are to provide a good service. And therefore we need to assess whether a community, first of all, will benefit from be able to sustain a community network. Last but not least, just like any other network, it's important to plan the construction of a community network. The first community network that I was involved in building a hairinet in 2019, 2020, we started with LTE. You have those that not telecommunication spectrum. We did a pilot, and we were working very closely with Safaricom, but somewhere along the way, we were reminded that Safaricom is not a charity. Allow me to use that name, we had to pay money. While we had partners, we realized that we were paying almost $5,000 a month connecting about 45 schools, and before we knew it, we were having demand letters because we had debts. We went to the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education said, as far as they are concerned, education is for free, and so after investing a lot in deploying infrastructure, we realized that we could not use it, we moved to the unlicensed spectrum, 2.4 gigahertz and 5.8 industrial, scientific and medical band, and within no time, there was a lot of noise in the spectrum. When the 5g transition was taking place, some of the spectrum was actually reformed, and some of the tier three operators were transferred to the five gigahertz range, bringing a lot of noise, which rendered the networks unusable. And now we have transition to fiber optic cable, because as far as the community is concerned, they don't care whether you are using wireless or fiber. What they want is a good service. Again, as community networks. Now we have to understand deeper how internet works. We are dealing with routing. In some of the communities they want content. They want only content, CDNs. In some of the communities they want international content, or rather IPT, so we have to divide in our networks between IPT and CDN. So you can see that the fact that is community networks does not mean that we are exempt from from some of the requirements or from providing a good service.
I will move quickly to
some of the opportunities that have presented themselves. Number one is increasing support from our governments and regulatory agencies. Yesterday, we spent time here with the communications authority, and you can see that there is goodwill two brothers from the private sector community networks are not coming to take away the market. They are complimentary. Actually, they are last mile solutions. This is a difficult conversations we've had in Kenya, and I think we have found some agreement. But I think the bigger challenge is always the pushback from the traditional operators. While you push back, you deny 70% of our populace an opportunity to come online. There is also the need for increased awareness on the digital value chain. When our people come online, what value do they get? I watched the inauguration in the US the other day, and I couldn't help to see the CEOs of the tech giants, most of whom their market is in Africa, present in that particular meeting. And I think this is the opportunity that we are missing as the African continent. So we need to do digital literacy, so that there is meaningful use from our communities on this infrastructure and the services that are provided in this infrastructure, there's a lot of investment from ICANN, from the Internet Society, in internet infrastructure to localize internet locally. Again, there's a lot of enactment of futuristic policies, digital public infrastructure, data protection, AI to name but a few, and of course, there are a lot of efforts to localize internet traffic and also increase data centers. And we've just had a presentation from wingu Africa. I think data centers really hold a great key in ensuring that the 70% who are unconnected are actually connected. Why am I saying so, people will come online if they find content that is in their language, content that is in me, that is meaningful to them. At the moment, a lot of the content that is being consumed is not does not resonate with our local communities. As I conclude, I want to point out to some of the challenges of community networks. Cost of recruitment remains a major challenge, and I think private sector needs to think of how some of this equipment that we are importing can be manufactured locally to lower the cost. Operating costs are also a major challenge. Power remains a key issue for us. Most of the community networks operate using solar infrastructure, because in most of the communities, electricity disappears for two weeks, if you are lucky, or through or three weeks. So you can imagine, this is Africa, and Africa is our business. We have to talk about those things again, cost of bandwidth is very high, especially when you move away from the cities, you find that you pay 10 times more compared to the people that are in the city. In fact, in the cities, you can even get bandwidth for free inappropriate network designs, yeah, remember, people are interested in content, the network designs are the ones which will determine the cost of connectivity. You find that most of our connectivity is expensive because we have to go out of our countries and then come back, which really increases the cost. Again, we have weak communities of practice. We have local not network operator groups. I'm a very active member of the Kenya network operator group. I volunteer. It's normally supported by ISOC. I believe there's a network operator group here. I encourage you take it work. We have, for instance, national DNS forum when it comes to DNS issues. Have these meetings, even if you meet under a tree. It's not a mass that we meet in places like this, but the more we meet, the more we'll be able to move forward, as I conclude in my 15 seconds again, we there is need for us to have conversations at our Regional Internet Registry level, for resources to be allocated to community networks, and more focus on value based training, so that we can have applications that bring money to our communities and that will encourage many more people to come online. So with that, I would like to bring my presentation to a close. I see my time is up. Thank you very much. You
well, you try you wanted to try someone. Haq, right? Are you good? Soon? Okay, now you say,
in them, in them, in a true, good student, let's give them a round of applause. Thank you so much. I'm
gonna go and invite our next speaker. Forgive me, I have to find it on my agenda because I wasn't prepared for this, and it's embarrassing, honestly. So you were Barrack right,
huh? I have it. I got it. I got it. Doctor, don't
worry. So Dr, Carlos Raymond, co founder of Zen zalini networks, will be now presenting on community networks, a complimentary solution to connect to the unconnected. Please welcome Dr Carlos to the stage. Thank you.
Hello. Hi, everyone. Can you can you hear me and see my presentation?
Yes, we can see it. Please proceed, sir.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you, thank you ISOC, and thank you to all organizers to actually having invited me to share some of the lessons that APC, the Association for Public Communications, has learned over over the years on this topic, it's always difficult to go after Barrack, as he's a very knowledgeable speaker on the topic with a lot of knowledge from the ground and a great partner in Kenya, very briefly, on APC, that is the organization I represent, whereby we've been working on this topic for the last seven years, very intensely, not only at the local level, working with partners such as the CN Association in Kenya, but also through policy in capacity building with different actors at all levels in the region, as well as participating in the ITU. And
we need just to
okay, just to, just to say that I've been, I've been listening to to all the conversations, right, especially the the one that Barrack mentioned, and how, yes, there is a massive investment and development and deployment of internet infrastructure, yet we need to acknowledge, as Barrack was saying, not only that people is not using it, but that there is a massive social impact on them, right? That internet usage is growing. People who are using the internet have more and more benefits into a society that is
increasingly digital, and those that are not using
the internet for whatever reason it is are being left behind from we saw this, especially through COVID, but afterwards, in relation to access to education, access to health, access to government services, how all those efforts that have been discussed in this in This session, need to go to everyone. Need to go universal, because many people are not benefiting from them. It is great to see my experience. It is amazing to see data centers, how fiber infrastructure is growing, but yet, as Barrack is saying, many millions people are not online and won't be online for the foreseeable future. If we look at the trends of industry, which is focusing on moving from G on providing connectivity to users, better connectivity to users that are already connected
in
so far, they are able to pay for the services and to maintain the return on investment of the industry players that are currently providing access. In that regard, and in relation to talking a bit about policy, right? This is the path for the future, the global digital compact that was endorsed and adopted by the United Nations in September last year. They acknowledge, really, that the closing the digital divide is the first goal, right, the first objective of the global digital compact, because there is probably 6 billion people that are not connected.
And in
their commitments to close the digital divide by 2030 they commit to invest in resilient digital infrastructure, including local network initiatives, including the type of community networks that Barrack was alluding to. This is, this is from September last year. This was adopted by all countries, acknowledging that this needs to happen one way or another, and committing to invest on this. How this will take place, play out we are to see,
and because,
yeah, what is the role of community networks in the in the sector? Right? That additional operators are so in science of having reached their limits, they have a bottom line in their return on investment, on the investment they are seeking, there are populations that are simply not able to meet them, right? So they are investing, and they are improving their infrastructure in places where that return on investment can be, can be done different attempts of solving that from incentivizing through USF, the universal service funds or otherwise, is not working, because at the end of the day, either you subsidize them forever, once those subsidies stop because of their costs of operating and because of the cost of their services in though, most of those solutions end up being stopped, most of those stations stop operating right and so that regard community networks or community center connectivity initiatives can move towards closing that that gap and bring connectivity To those that are otherwise excluded by the market because, again, the telecommunication sector has been looked only through the eyes, or mostly through the eyes of a market approach, yet succeed, as well as a social justice issue, social issue an economic issue, where many people are being left behind from and excluded from the digital transformation and society altogether, but also because they they can bring, keep some of those profits local and generate economies in places where there were none. Right. The case of South Africa, that is the one that I knew the most, but I know the most, and there was a time where in my PhD, where 22% of the disposable income of people who live below $2 a day and live in the community to highly profitable telemedications companies. And the thing is that that 22% mainly came from social grants from the government. So actually, if those social grants from the government were to be used for something else, and would were to be used to remain local, you know, a local economy could be created instead of those profits going back to the capital and leaving those rural areas under the beloved past were prior to the employment communications. So I want to really allude to what Barrack was saying, using an analogy from my friend Steve song, who I believe is part of the conference as well, and around the complementarity of these approaches, right? If you think maybe you've seen this analogy, or you've heard us talking about this before, but if you take
the entire
number of humans in society, and you know, think of them as a jar and how that jar could be filled, or how those users could be provided with connectivity. The main approach in many countries is to feel to provide them with services from mobile network operators and traditional operators, and those are massive operators, right with a national footprint, with, you know, the shops everywhere, their headquarters, their marketing campaigns and the like. And if you put those rocks into the into the into the jar, and the jar appear to be full, right Jean, if you fill it with water, who would realize that half of the GR is still deep, right? So that other operators are actually necessary. Smaller operators. ISPs really wisps, although now with the reduced cost of deploying fiber as Barrack was alluding to, they are deploying fiber as well in areas that are not profitable by the traditional operators, and they can fill those gaps right and and they are filling those gaps in many countries. And yet again, if you fill that jar with water, this a significant amount of space is still left, a significant amount of people that those operators are not able to cover right? And here is where community center connectivity models appear to fill those other gaps and complement those, those other efforts that they that the other companies are making to really fill the jar and fill all the gaps that are left by by market approaches and then, and so, what is a community network, and I think, or a community and activity provider, and Barrack mentioned this in relation to community, in relation to participation, and in relation to local ownership and governance right, but also in relation to infrastructure, right? There is capital expenditure, there is physical infrastructure that need to be provided. There is back home that needs to be connected to in order to reach the rest of the internet right. So at the end of the day, a community connectivity provided refers to a wide variety of efforts by local communities to build and manage all or parts of the infrastructure recreate, required to enjoy and CO create the internet. They differ in purpose. They differ in governance structures. They DeFi on the type of infrastructure and services that they provide. I mean, Barrack alluded to moving from ml te to wireless to fiber, there are different sizes, from the 30,000 that Barrack has connected to smaller operator operations in in many other countries in the world, in Brazil, there are small community networks that cover 250 families in communities that are isolated in the middle of the jungle. So they really variety in many ways. And
there,
they also have different models, right? We have from those families in Brazil pulling resources and uncovering the networks, I mean the community with the smallest subset of infrastructure required municipal networks, where really the local the local governments, and this is happening in especially in Asia, in the Philippines, In in Indonesia, where the local government is actually investing their own resources into covering and providing service, infrastructure and services to the year, to their to their community members, to social enterprises. And I would think that a head in it is is a social enterprise in many ways in which they don't only work on a remaining profit, not profitable, I mean covering their costs again, being sustainable economically, but they also have a social impact. And many of these community center connectivity providers do have an environmental impact. And bottom line whereby they are trying to do things that contribute to different society that is not again, fully driven by the market by but still trained by the rules of the market. In so far, they need to be sustainable, and in so far, sometimes for that sustainability, they need to scale. How do they cover or reach that sustainability again, there are different models in relation to the initial investment, in relation to the sustainability model, and in relation to the to the pricing model. Sometimes people say that, how come price are going to be lower than the price of the market and the price of the mobile operators and other incumbents. Way why? Because they are able to play by other rules. They are able to cut down their costs, right by, by by by engaging with local people and employing local people, by reducing their overheads, by reducing their return on investment requirements, by reducing a lot of these plane by action, based subsidies, by barter transactions, by many other elements by which they are indeed able to reduce the costs and do it cheaply. And then other telecommunications operators are able to do, and this is considered by the broadband commission. Whereby, in the in this report from from 2021, but in many other reports that I, I would be more than happy to share with you, they do allow, they do allude to supporting financially community networks. I think the person from wingu was talking about creating enabling environments, and those enabling environments are not necessarily only regulatory, as we see in Kenny, but they need to be financial as well as Barrack was mentioning capex is required, and access to capex and access to sorry investment for capex is really created in terms of those, or only accessible to if you go to ask for a loan or if you ask to engage, is only considered in terms of
big operators, right
loans that are of a certain size, interest rates that are for those that are, you know, operating with big margins, etc, etc, etc. So we need to work towards creating innovative financial mechanisms that are for a those small operators and social operators that are covering the gaps that the market is unable to to cover. Right ISOC is doing a great job with their grants. There are different people that are doing great job with with providing financial resources and otherwise to these actors. But I think if we are to meet those commitments from a the global digital compact, we do need to consider the needs and the realities of those social and local operators in their lack of access to finance, which is a
minimal at the moment.
And again, the ITU also considers community broadband networks as part of a very innovative funding mechanisms in so far, they consider they are cheaper, and they are able to do the same with way less resources, right? So again, a investment mechanisms could be doing the same, but doing it cheaply. And yeah, with that, I want to conclude, and thank you so much again for the invitation. You
Thank you, Dr
Carlos from South Africa, and apologize for the interruption earlier, and thank you for bringing up the emergency. Yeah. So now we have finished presentations from our presenters, from our panelists. I would like to once again thank every presenters for setting the stage for the remaining discussion.
So yes, you
so now I will call on the panelists to join me on stage, and we will have an open presentation on open discussion on the panel. So please welcome my panelists
to the stage.
Dr Carlos will be also joining us online, so please give them a round of applause while they come here to the stage. You
okay, so
I will start the discussion with
just with you.
So my first question I'm going to raise for you is you are a leader of a cloud services provider in Ethiopia locally. So I will, I will start. I want to focus on that and on the team of the presentation, connectivity. So from your experience as a leader of cloud services provider company, please reflect on the role of local private companies like the one you're leading in fostering connectivity in digitalization process. Please also reflect on what the main challenges that are faced by a company like yours, and what can be stakeholders that are listening here? Can can do to expand the reach of such companies? Thank you.
Oh. Okay, good morning, dam. My name is tegucirante. I'm the founder of, CEO of cloud, 251, for directly answering the question. I would like to give a little bit of story regarding this. For, for, for Ethiopia, data that we are collecting every day is a natural resource. I would say, when I say this, it's because it's a story of 120 million people, and it's a digital footprint of us every single day. So having that data, the personal data protection proclamation number 1321, elaborates specifically on Article 22 elaborates about that sovereignty. In that section, it elaborates about those data should reside in Ethiopian soil. So imagine the amount of data that we are talking about. So I believe we can leverage that data and to our own advantage, and for example, for the future artificial intelligence solutions and the like. So for me, this is a once lifetime of opportunity to support the private sector to to become a champion in collecting this data, utilizing it, analyzing and utilizing it for the national interest. Therefore, this is exactly where the cloud industry was born. So under cloud industry, there are layers of industries like cloud service provider, like Cloud five, one and zergau and data centers like Roxio wingu and Ethiopian communication authority, the regulatory body. And the one thing that always under underestimated in Ethiopia, I would say it is overlooked cyber security. All this data we're talking about should be safeguard by cyber security. So that being said, I can come to your answer no to your question. As a cloud service provider leader, what's my role in this? That's so beautiful question, by the way, because think about it, let's just take one sector, just one, one example, for instance, starting from January this month, every bank opening and every documentation authentication authority, they are requiring national ID. National ID is registered so far, 12 million ID. And imagine the number, the number of data that would create. And as of today, 6350 terabyte of data are trafficking every single day in Ethiopia, and this is growing 25% every year, if not more. So this big data just related so far that the transaction that we have so far, and let me add you one more example. For example, in financial sector, just last year, half of the GDP of Ethiopia, which is $81 billion was transacted over digitally, and one of the biggest bank in Ethiopia, Ethiopian commercial bank has announced to lay off significant amount of employees because 80% of its transaction is happening digitally. So all this data, when you see all this data, what do you see? It need? Reliable, secured, scalable, cost effective cloud. That's exactly where I fit in, I guess. Imagine for example, the Herz. I just mentioned two examples so far. Imagine yourself after five years. Imagine Ethiopia after three or five years, all her sector, all other sector, for example, transportation sector, by the way, did you know almost close to 200,000 ride hailing order is happening only in Addis Ababa every day. What does it tell you? That's exactly where I'm coming from. That's exactly what I wanted to say. This is our natural resource, and this is what I would like to emphasize. And this type of data are very precious than the gold that we have in our soil or the coffee that we are exporting every day every Thank you. Sorry
for interrupt you. I have been told by the organizers that we're running late with time, so if you just take one or two minutes to reflect on what can be done to expand the reach of the companies like yours in inter connectivity and overall digitalization process.
Okay?
Regarding the the question that you asked me about the challenge, for example, we have a huge challenge on directives. Okay? The directives, for example, the policy are there. For example, six months ago, the artificial intelligence policy is enacted, and personal data protection were there, and everything but the nitty gritty detail, the road map, is not there. So that's the first problem that we're facing. The second problem is conflicting of regulations. And can give you example on this one, for example, the Ethiopian communication authority, the regulatory body, financial sector to utilize private clouds as long as they meet the standard in whatever the requirement is. But unfortunately, when we approach the financial sector, the banks, the Saco and the micro finances, they are, they retreat to use that because of afraid of a national bank rules. So the as a government and as a sector veteran, all of us, we have to empower Ethiopian communication authority to reinforce this thing and to come up with the same line so and the other one is attitude, attitude, when I say attitude regarding the government, for example, all the trend now is all public sectors are strictly using public cloud providers. That's not right. We cannot grow like this. We cannot meet the vision that we created on digital 2025, and also so I believe the Ethiopian communication authority should reinforce this and the public imagine 2.2 million employees are under the government, and there are 178 organizations. We're not asking the national the we're not asking the national interest data to be sit on the private cloud. But the rest, for example, from 170 half of it is sitting on the private sector. There is where you empower the capability sector. So we believe, we believe that the government should work hand in hand with the private sector. It is a win win situation. So we believe the private sector should be the economy should be led by the private sector, not the public sector. So the train should be changed. That's nice. I think you'd like to be. Thank you so much. Thank you, Teres,
so I will be quicker. Of course, there is a lot to discuss on each of these points. So in the interest of time, and I'll jump to you. Ishan, so for you, my question is, on IX piece, since you are an expert in IX piece, and they have worked on this on different occasions in different countries, can you repeat because we have been introduced to Ix piece for the non so expert audience, can you elaborate what an exp could bring to to a country like Ethiopia, in terms of cost of connectivity, quality of connectivity, and also perhaps security and regulatory confirmation? So please, I will give you. So I have asked a lot of questions, but I will only be giving you some three minutes.
All right, I will try my best to answer simply as possible. So an exchange point, internet exchange point, is infrastructure. First of all, it's a it's a network infrastructure. For the layman, I will say it's a simply switch. And in that switch, many operators connect ethos Telecom, connect with Safaricom, connect with ISP a, ISP B, ISPC and the exchange traffic. So when you don't have that infrastructure, what it means is that each and every one of those networks connect, not within the country, they will connect somewhere else, outside of the country. Fortunately, if there is an exchange in the region, probably that traffic will go out of the country to the neighboring country and being exchanged and come back in the country, it is delayed. Traffic has to go out. If that link that goes out of the country is broken for for by accident, or any reasons, then that interconnection between those two local networks does not exist. So the implication are very huge, because the traffic has to go outside. There are security implications, there are efficiency implications. They are implications in terms of not being able to create some specific content real time, sensitive application will not be able, probably, to work effectively, and so and so forth. So I would say you will be able so to save money if you have an exchange point within your country, because those two network that connect outside of the country both have to pay US dollars out. So it's capital expense, capital export. I will say foreign currency export. I would say those are economic implications that are happening. And I will share this with you, for example, an example yesterday, I think I was in, I was in the panel in the FinTech and I was trying to do some trace routes from one of the local networks. I will not mention them, but from one network to another network, the traffic was moving outside of here, to Somalia cable to, I would say to cogent Marseille, back to Kenya, coming back here, just for a local service, just to access a local service that is available, and that will be the same path going back. So there are security implications, as I mentioned, and then foreign currency exports, implications and so forth. So an exchange point within Ethiopia will create also the foundation for digital economy, education, health, e commerce, financial transactions and so on, so forth. Thank you. Thank you. We could
talk all day about this, so I'm sorry to rush you. So the next question is, for you, Freddie, for you, also what I would like to you know,
come back to Ix piece. I want you to share your experience in Tanzania, if I may ask for how the ix piece, how the usage of IX piece is promoted, and especially with related to government services. So can you reflect on that?
Thank you very much. Have to be honest, Ethiopia, in comparison to other market in terms of Internet Exchange. ET is young and new. So Tanzania has been having an Internet Exchange, and last year we celebrated 20 years of having an Internet exchange. So in a snapshot, the Internet Exchange has permanent member. When I say permanent members are those who have as a number and an IP address block. So this you're talking about 38 permanent members. And to the latest records, there are more than 3940 peers. So you can see this is a very healthy Internet Exchange. But this is built based on the regulatory framework, which is has been in Tanzania for sometimes, we have licensed the mobile network operator five license, the mobile network operator, and more than 30 registered internet service providers. So you can see the ecosystem in terms of everybody need to connect to the internet exchange. But the Internet Exchange has been a host of the content networks. So the CDNs, like Google, meta, Netflix, Akamai, they are all already in the Internet exchange. So that has forced all the ISPs and ML to have access to the ix so that they can the end user can have access to that content. But Tanzania is blessed to have access to the sea, so we have three subsea cables. So even these three subsea cables have also seen the value to go to the Internet Exchange, because they will be able to provide access. They will be able to get access to the local market where the users are staying. But one important thing is to do with government and the regulations, because the government of Tanzania embrace the Internet Exchange. The central bank is already connected to the Internet Exchange. The Tanzania Revenue Authority is then connected to the Internet exchange, the Port Authority, a different university and the E government. Why? Because most of the government services has been digitalized so to speed up the user experience and to avoid transaction failure, because these payments like ah, parking services, Land Services, government levies are paid through online so by the government getting there, it has forced all these services to be exchanged through the internet exchange. So the experience has been very good, and everybody embrace the Internet Exchange. Even the regulator has made Internet exchange part of their regulatory framework, so they are called in as stakeholders to discuss in terms of new regulations, changes, policies. I've been blessed to be part of the executive committee for eight years, and you can be able to see how the regulator and the government and the private sector work together to drive the value of the Internet Exchange. Thank
you. Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm coming to you, Barrack. So there were two key points that were raised today, the ix, P and community connectivity. So for you have an extensive experience working on connectivity, rural connectivity, community networks. So my question for you will be focused on that again, on your presentation, so So building on your experience in Kenya.
So
can you reflect on the impact of these community networks? Can we bring to a country and a neighboring country like Ethiopia, and what things should be, what we learn from you? What can we enhance here? So Bay, can you discuss on that again, I will be very I will not give you so much time as we are running time. So
be brief on that.
Thank you very much. It goes without saying that connectivity has had a major impact. I think for those who followed the development in Kenya the Gen Z protests, they were largely on they were using their devices. They expressed their displeasure, and it it caught the attention of government. It might be looked at positively or negatively, but that's why I mentioned that those are the fruits of the investment that has been made in training these young people, a lot of the parents kept telling their young people that they want them to be leaders, and now, when they saw them on their street, on the streets with their phones, they were wondering, what's going on. But over and above this, the young people also doing a lot of business online. Most of them are studying. They've transformed their lives and their families lives using connectivity. So I would say that these are, this is the effort of capacity building, and the outcome of the work that our universities have actually been doing, and the investment that has been made. I think the other point that I would like to make is there's also been a lot of capacity development, and I want to speak to the issue of research and development. I hope that we can understand more the spectrum real. I'm glad that we have itu in the house. That's one area that we haven't really cracked. Well, I'm saying that because I've engaged with researchers from the International Center of theological physics way back in 2004 and we were able to do antennas using teams, and they were working very well. And so when we are talking about lowering the cost of entry, those are the things that we should be pursuing here in Africa. Again, availability of devices. I see some devices being manufactured in Kenya. They have a lot of spelling mistakes. Probably you receive one or two calls and they go off. But I'm really proud of such initiatives. They cost about 1000 shillings or $1 meaning that anyone can afford. For me, we need to encourage such initiatives. I don't. It's not a must. I have an S 20 or something, provided it works and I can communicate with someone in my village, those are things that we should encourage. I think again, availability of infrastructure is key. Many thanks to the Internet Society, ICANN and other partners that have been supporting, I think ICANN now has pushed for ICANN manage root server instances in Africa. The whole idea is to help localize our content or our communication. Lastly, is the supportive legal and regulatory environment. The fact that we are here, hosted by the ministry, we are here, supported by the regulator, points to a good direction where we are going. And I think we need to encourage more of this. I have had to learn the language of regulators to speak to regulate us and encourage us when they open the door. Let's take the opportunity and move there. So I would say those are some of the things that we've done in Kenya to be able to be where we are. We are not there yet. There's much to be done, but I think it presents a great opportunity for the young people, for the old people, and for us in general, because we are one region. Thank you.
Thank you.
So my last question to my panelist, Dr Carlos, in South Africa, I hope you can hear me.
Is you online? Yes, yes. Okay,
so my question for you is, again, on community networks. So what? So it is clear the importance in the role of community networks for inter connectivity. What I would like to ask you is, what role can we? Can Yeah, Are there benefits in bringing together, in bringing together efforts in the different community networks across Africa, and, more specifically, across EGOT, since this conference is in the context of EGOT. So what are the benefits of putting pulling together the resources, both human and capital, in coordinating the efforts towards building community based connectivity?
Thank you. And I would say, I mean, ISOC and APC have been collaborating for or collaborated for five editions of the community networks Africa summit, which brought together a lot of those practitioners that contributed a lot to certain experiences and lessons and building a community of practice right around, around these topics, which is very much necessary. So bringing efforts together and sharing, as as also Barrack was alluding to in his presentation, is critical a for for developing community of practice that somehow is centralized in the big cities and decentralized it to the rural areas and where the communities that do not have access actually live, because that's the other point I wanted to make. I think there are a lot of needs in the region in relation to population, in relation to finance. We've heard massive efforts and much more than need to be done on fiber optics, on data centers, on IX piece and all that is necessary. But if, if we only invest on that, if we only focus on that, 50% of the population, or even more, is going to be left behind, there is going to be a massive exclusion of population if we don't work at working with the communities and with the social entrepreneurs that want to close the digital divide, wherever those big companies don't want to go. Right? So it is important to create regulation. It is important to create an enabling environment for everything that all the other panelists have said, it's also important and critical to focus on the last mile, to focus on the excluded, because else the market is only going to focus where eternal investment can be found, and there are a lot of people working In places where return on investment cannot be found. So bringing people together, yes, 100% we've been doing that. We will continue doing that. Building capacities, building communities of practice, is
critical, creating
and enabling regulatory environment, as in the case of Kenya, is critical, because without a regulatory environment, there is no way that you are going to create an a financial environment, an investment, an innovative environment, because there is no security for it. So that's the next point, creating innovative financial ecosystems whereby the small operators can access to funding and to finance in a similar way that the operators do so, those are my points. Thank
you. Thank
you. Dr talus, so now it's time to give the chance to the audience, to ask very few questions. I have been performing that we only have very few minutes left. I'm taking too much time from the next sessions, so I will only be accepting some three or four sessions, so four questions, so
I have to one of you.
Okay, so one of you
here, and
okay, so I have three questions,
so Okay, thank you for the opportunity. My name is Dr Johann skazal. I'm a monitoring, evaluation and learning expert at civil society, and I had to point I wanted to raise. And I first like to thank the presenters for the presentation, also for the actually interesting panel discussion that we just had. So the point that I just wanted to ask is specifically with the presentation regarding the carrier centers was presented on earlier there are some aspects, for example, of the use of AI in optimizing energy usage, especially in other data centers that were that could be mentioned. And so I was just, I wanted to know what aspect if that practice could actually be adopted in the context of wing and also with regards to community network that was presented earlier on. I just, I know maybe the relevant bodies might not be present to respond to this question, but I wanted to know what initiatives actually exist to expand community networks here in Ethiopia, and also, what are the potentials to utilize the universal service access funds to expand them, because I have read what little I have read. Actually, this practice has been quite expansive in Kenya and other neighboring staff working issues, but what exists with the Ethiopian context? Thank you. Applause.
The way.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Ethiopia, my child even know what,
making sure Business Standard stuff.
Sustainable community and local government. Thank you so Yes, sir.
Information System audit Association, security professional by profession, security trainer, cyber security for the past five years. The questions that I direct forward to would be mister Brady said that preparing to your notes, exact skill level force operating money data centers become challenge reading and reiterating this externally from 251, this here is skilled workforce gap, Not only Ethiopia, but that was Africa, right? And success factor for development is definitely cyber security. Like, coming back to my questions and comments, cyber security is really a topic that is completely be understood in 100 cities. The economic such value that is going to contributing and referring numbers Bay search rate of cyber skill workforce gap currently stands at 4.7 million. My question finally is that, what serious, concrete steps you taken, especially, you know, elevating these gaps. Have, you know, equality, standard trading, any last align with the global digital transformation phase, not only in mitigating the risks that we have been facing, also, you know, to do a kind of pizza.
Thank you. I will allow one last question from this gentleman over here. Sorry,
yeah, thank you for getting this opportunity. My name is teshoma. I work in Wingo, Africa, and I'm the volunteer organizer of the Ethiopian Internet exchange addicts. No, it's not a kind of question, but I want to give you some question about the Internet exchange that has been established in Ethiopia. So I don't want to say the importance of Internet Exchange, it has already been said by many analysts and presenters yesterday. What I wanted to say right now is internet exchanges in Ethiopia is much more important than other countries using at least two things. One is Ethiopia is a land Docker country, which is totally dependent in other sea countries. So Internet Exchange, to communicate locally here is very important, and that's why Internet Exchange is much more important for Ethiopia. So that is one. The other thing is Ethiopia is one of the largest public country in Ethiopia, at least the second or even the largest, youngest population in Ethiopia. So does it show it is the youngest population? The usage of like the social network, like content service provider CDNs, are highly encourage you to come to Ethiopia, like meta, Google and everything. So that is the way. So this exact Internet exchange here in Ethiopia, it will be like communicated locally, and someone is cashing his exchange here in Ethiopia. That is the way. So I'm just even advising these CDNs to come to Ethiopia instead of like, I'm not saying they shouldn't go there, but I'm just attracting the business as a very, very attractive market. I'm not mistaken to the social network about meta. About 7 million Ethiopians are accessing meta right now. Shows that highly trafficked, and they are accessing like Ethiopia, where two ways the government will be well benefited, because as the traffic is going outside, we're paying a lot of hard currency because of the gateway. And for the city providers, they will be more highly user friendly usage of by the user. So that is the way. Anyway, we discuss by Friday and more. And just wanted to get information that everything has already been
Thank you. Thank you very much for the added information to the stage. So let's answer, let's I'll give the chance to the panelists to respond to to the questions. So first, I think many questions are related to the data center, so I'll give you the chance to respond.
You have to acknowledge some of the question, I think because of the Echo, I'm not sure if they were captured very well. Comment on a few things that I've actually heard correctly. My brother asked about how win would sort of a data center using the AI to manage, could manage energy. I think that's how what the question is. So the modern data centers, the way they operate, are already in an era where we can say most of the system that are running within the data center are very intelligent systems. So the data centers are automated in terms of decision making. For example, when you look in terms of power supply, we at tier three. We consider three independent source of power, but they go to a room which we called triple change over all the information about the power source. It's intelligently managed by a system which identify which power is clean, which power has phase reversal, which power is not stable. So this intelligent system are able to decide drop this power to take the second one. So this is one of the area where we can say we have already using the systems that are so intelligent, and the sensors that are used are very intelligent. Again, the data center we have is different from the IT room that are being used the IT room, you just cool the entire room, but in the modern data center, you only cool the server, so there are smart sensors that identify that the cooling in this room is now sufficient, so those sensors smartly push down the amount of cooling that is needed. But another area which is very important, of course, is to do with the cameras that we have in our data centers, the data centers, cameras and also lighting, CD are controlled by smart sensors. So if there is no motion within the data center, the lights will goes off, but if there is any motion, definitely they will switch on. But also, the cameras are smart to track your movement. So the camera are not just pointing to the north, but they are pointing where the movement is. So the camera are smart, adjusting themselves the way they are. But going forward, when we go now to the proper AI that will be hosted in different platform and different servers, I think that's another level where we'll need more time to discuss but currently the data center, we have a smart and unable to control the energy usage, energy efficiency within the facility, and even the additional advantage which we have here in Ethiopia, at some point, we Have a technology where we can discover that the cooling within the data center is, for example, the temperature within the data center might somehow be above or below the temperature outside because of geographical position of Ethiopia, so the outside cooling could be better than the Inside cooling. So the systems are smart to detect No, we don't need to switch on any air condition. We just need to use the air flow from outside. And this is advantage in Ethiopia, and for the people who are worried about bringing their services or facilities in the proper data centers, like wink data centers, this is an opportunity for your equipment, your system, to run efficiently, because these are proper design data centers.
Thank you. Thank you. Let me come to you. There are some questions related to awareness of data center and I would say cloud services in general. So could you take one minute to explore what is being done to increase awareness by different stakeholders and by your company.
Thank you so much. Basically, regarding knowledge and awareness, I don't think so much has been done, and we are all responsible for that. I think for this platform that is brought by international as well, I will be thankful for this. Imagine how many of us are here? IT related, I mean, like affiliated, to this business. How many of us are IT directors? How many of us responsible for this, and how many of us really knows the regulations, the policies and everything is there? So the knowledge and the knowledge gap in awareness is, I acknowledge it 100% and I recommend, if Ethiopian communication authority launched the first summit to understand this sector in the presence of His Excellency Deputy Prime Minister, because he's leading the Digital Council, I recommend every stakeholder should sit and have a proper foundation in this regard. That's my recommendation. Thank you. Okay,
thank you. My last point, I'm sorry, we have time, so I'll give you to respond to some of the questions on community. So just two minutes. Okay, alright, so
quickly. There was question that was asked, I think yesterday the deputy director general scenario in Ethiopia, probably I'll not be able to repeat it. There is initiative or interest from the regulator, but there is need for support from the community. If I sum up what he said, I think that was the issue. On the issue of USAC, I'll share the experience in Kenya. We've not been able to tap into USAC, because the way USAC is set up, normally, those who contribute the tier three, tier two and tier one operators are the ones who are entitled to using it. So we've been trying to find a compromise on how those who are outside that Ambit can be supported who are community operators. But it's not been easy. The communications authority of Kenya has been developing a framework through which it will be granting, for instance, community operators, and that is something that has been going on for the last two years. So maybe that's something that I would share, that as a lesson that can be borrowed. Lastly, on the question on maybe the what Ethiopia can learn, or the lesson we can share from Kenya, there can be no community network without community engagement. Community engagement is very because community networks are built on value. They are based on value. So don't assume you understand what the community needs. Engage the community to appreciate what they need, and so that they can tell you what they want and build infrastructure around that times, those who build the infrastructure will be from the community. Those who offer the sites for your points of presence will be from the community. Second issue is capacity building. These are very complex subject energy networks. Is telecommunication, so we need to build the capacity of operators, of those who will be building the network infrastructure and Internet Society, as I mentioned, has done a lot in this area. Lastly, it's the other thing is capacity development. We need people that have the heart for community networks. It's really hard. So mentorship is key, and a forum such as this create a platform or an opportunity for mentorship. There are also other forum that you can attend, like ICANN meetings, where you can get fellowships. These fellowships are very important in creating linkages, and I want to extend an invitation to the chapter coming to come to Kenya. We can embed you in any of the community networks, so that we can learn first hand what's happening and where possible. We can also see where we can hold each other's hands to build community networks. Here, there's also development of sandboxes and proofs of concepts. Let's just try. It's not a must that it will be successful, but we learn from our mystics even as we stumble forward. So let me leave at that. We'll carry on with the discussion in the corridors. Okay, thank you for the time. Okay,
thank you. Thank you again. I'm sorry for rushing you. I'm sorry we have, yeah, we really have extended our invitation here. So thank you everyone. I hope the conversations we had and the presentations we had were very informative and engaging. Apologies for the time civilization, thank you.
I'm very sorry. We're really rushing you. I understand, but we're really delayed a round of applause for the panelists and the moderator, please, can I ask you to join together for a group photo? Please stand together for a group picture.
I would leave my notebook.
And then there are Doctor Dawit or Dr Asra, if you can come up to hand over our coffee and coffee mug to our panelists, please.
So thank you so
much. Please stay on stage. We have a very special gift from the Internet Society to thank you for your evidence, for your contributions. Please remain where you are, and then we'll just You
especially you can tell it by this number.
You and finally, you can show off
your gift, the camera, so we can take together. Please. Dr Aslan, let's for a picture, and then we'll go out for coffee. Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen, we're gonna go for a 20 minutes coffee break now, and we're gonna come back for the next session, which is in Janet's resilience and original integration, which is going to be moderated for us by a talk, Badu, bellacio.
Thanks so much.
And it's going to be a very interesting discussion. And we are going to definitely hope to see you in 20 minutes. Please stay with us. Thank you so much. Enjoy your coffee. 20 minutes.