Safaricom Ethiopia placed itself as a thought leader at the Innovation Africa Digital (IAD) Summit 2022 that was held on May 11 - 12, 2022 at Sheraton Addis Hotel.
The IAD summit is a Bi-annual signature event of Extensia Ltd that brings together carefully selected international investors, consultants, solution providers, vendors, and senior decision-makers from across Africa, who play a key role in the digital transformation of their country.
At the 10th IAD summit, covering Digital Content and Services, our leadership Matthew Harrison-Harvey (CEARO), Chris Lazarus (CEBO), Pedro Rabacal (CTIO) and Tewedaj Eshetu (PR & Communications Manager) presented and shared their thoughts with participants of the summit.
Matthew spoke on ICT’s contribution to GDP on the first day of the Summit and stated that the Ethiopian government’s decision to liberalize the telecom sector would increase the country’s GDP by 6.6% in the coming decade.
Chris presented Safaricom Ethiopia’s plans for empowering Ethiopian businesses and explained about variables involved in realizing that goal. His identification of himself and Safaricom Ethiopia being ETHIOPIAN was received warmly by the participants.
Pedro spoke on connecting rural communities. He remarked that the challenge for telecom service providers in rural communities is the same everywhere as it is basically the absence or lack of roads and grids. He pointed out that one of the visible differences is population density. The challenge, he explained, is for the operator to find the right model for the reality at hand.
Tewedaj, our PR and Comms Manager, delivered a keynote speech on how Safaricom Ethiopia is building a robust ecosystem to unlock the economic potential of Ethiopia, using key achievements to date as proof points.
The summit has been held for the sixth time in Ethiopia and featured 212 individual companies, 26 countries, 30 vendors, 25 speakers, 14 keynotes and 30 sessions over the last two days.