Internet Revolution: Google, ISGPP round table conference holds this week

Tech giant Google Inc. and Nigeria’s Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP) have flagged off a partnership over internet revolution in the world and Africa’s response to the development.

The partnership takes off with an international conference on internet policy and governance in Africa, which will hold at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, from Tuesday May 2, 2017.

With the theme: Strengthening Internet Policy through Theoretically Grounded Research, the three-day round table will examine the appropriate ways Africa should participate in the internet revolution with implication for economic diversification, access to technological infrastructure and finance, content, privacy and security as well as knowledge and capacity-building.

In a statement signed by the Executive Vice Chairman, ISGPP, Dr Tunji Olaopa, at the weekend, the conference, which is being jointly organised by both partners, is a multi-disciplinary research initiative aimed at providing a platform to address the research, publishing, teaching and policy development needs of Africa in the area of internet policy and governance with a view to enhancing African contributions in the global internet policy and governance discourse.

The roundtable is a scholarly interdisciplinary initiative that will bring together various researchers of African descent working in Africa and the Diaspora to identify and critically interrogate core issues about internet policy and governance in Africa.

The collaboratory conference will also set the tone for a Pan-African academic agenda for internet policy and governance. Over the three days, African academics and experts, who understand the unique context and challenges of internet governance in Africa, will spend quality time exploring and highlighting specific sub-regional issues from a broad-based conceptual approach.

Advertisements