The Information and Communication Technologies Association of Malawi (ICTAM) in collaboration with The Royal Swedish Institute of Technology (KTH) and The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) will host the 6th International Conference on Open Access at Crossroads Hotel, Lilongwe, Malawi from 12th to14th November 2008.  This will be preceded by the UbuntuNet Connect Conference : Driving effective Research and Education Networking in Africa at the same venue on 11 November 2008.

Introduction

Open Access in the context of Communication (Open Communication) means that anyone, on equal conditions with a transparent relation between cost and pricing, can get access to and share communication resources on one level to provide value added services on another level in a layered communication system architecture. There is currently a high momentum in the deployment of infrastructures such as optic fiber, wireless and the like. Also, the advancement in the use of ICT in general such as mobile phones, multipurpose telecentres. If used wisely, we believe these developments can facilitate provisioning of relatively inexpensive, easily accessible, diversified and expandable ICT services. The objective of this workshop is to identify and share experiences on affordable and cost effective ICT technologies around the globe. Based on Open Access principles, the workshop intends to address ICT as a tool that will bring developmental change to the society at large.

Besides sharing of communication resources, the 6th Open Access Conference in Malawi will also address the sharing of processing and memory capacity in terms of grid technologies. The EU-supported EELA-2 project (http://www.eu-eela.eu/) offers a tutorial and an opportunity for interested users as well as providers of computer resources to explore how they could benefit from connecting to a global computational grid.

Target group

The target group includes academicians, professionals, researchers, planners, political leaders, innovators and private sector.

You are invited to share experiences, plans or hypotheses under validation on the following themes and sub themes:

ICT Infrastructure

• Emerging communication infrastructures (local, national and regional)
• Network architectures (backbones and Access Networks)
• Alternative source of power supply
• Technical Solutions (for First Mile & Last Mile connectivity

Strategic ICT Leadership

• Integrating ICT in National Registration, and democratic process, services and productive activities
• ICT governance

Universal Access

• Research and Educational Institutions
• ICT Quality Management & Accreditation
• Rural Development Solutions
• Information & Knowledge centers
• Universal Access Fund
• Accessibility for people with Special Needs

Policy and Social implications

• Legal and Regulatory framework
• Information Security
• The role of ICT on gender socio-economic empowerment
• E-government, E-Inclusion and Local Administration
• Challenges & Opportunities

ICT Usage

• Productive Sector; Service Sector
• Public service; Local content & Access
• Local Content Access, Archiving and Retrieval

Open Source, Media and ICT

• Policy & Regulatory issues on Education & Training
• Software, Content and language
• Curriculum Development and Quality Control
• Community Broadcasting Radios, Newspapers & Magazines.

ICT Entrepreneurship & Supply Chains

• Different Business models to create sustainability
• Financing models for ICT in developing countries

Mobile Technology

• M-Applications in Agriculture, Health, Banking  & Education
• First Mile and Last Mile Access

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