The countdown to the Africa Geospatial Data & Internet Conference 2019 (AGDIC), holding on October 22-24, Accra, Ghana has begun. The conference themed: “Shaping Africa’s Digital Future”, will highlight the role of geospatial information in development agendas, including Sustainable Development Goals, African Union Agenda 2063; and development sectors for Africa including agriculture, environment, land management; mining, oil and gas exploration, urban planning, natural resource management; utilities, energy, food security; transportation, climate change, financial services and more. It will also deliberate on the integration of geospatial technology with industrial trends such as artificial intelligence, big data, IoT and 5G, as an enabler of smart national infrastructure; and demonstrate the impact of technology convergence towards digital economy and society enabling future-readiness.

Alongside Ghana’s Honourable Minister of Lands & Natural Resources, Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh, the special guest of honour, the conference will also feature speakers from different areas of the space sector.

 The event’s agenda will include the following:

• An opening session focusing on the topic: Geospatial plus Internet: Shaping Africa’s Digital Future.
• Plenaries highlighting Geo-ICT For Development Agendas, Internet Governance: Bridging The Digital Divide and The Next Frontier Technologies: AI, IOT Big Data
• Sessions addressing Agriculture, Natural Resource Management, Mining, Urban Planning, Water, Wastewater, Sanitation as well as Internet Governance: Community Networks, Spectrum, Electricity And Inclusion, Surveying, mapping, and geospatial data analytics.
• Technology tracks focusing on LiDAR, Artificial Intelligence, Learning Machine.
• Concurrent events
• Community engagements
• Hackathon and
• Panel discussion.

About The Conference

Africa Geospatial Data and Internet Conference (AGDIC) serves to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals, in discussions on public policy issues relating to geospatial, open data, ICTs and Internet in Africa. AGDIC informs and inspires those with policy-making powers across sectors in Africa to discuss, exchange information and share good practices.

African Ministers convened for the occasion will hold discussions on the conclusions from the conference, in an attempt to capture the best mechanisms, practices, ideas arising from the event, and crystallize them in a formal declaration pledging a joint action in maximizing the use of these technologies (especially geodata) for the benefit of the region. Several institutions such as GODAN, SERVIR, FAO, GMC, and others will support the implementation pledge, as they have agreed to put their expertise to the service of the nations of West Africa.

The conference is organised by African Open Data and Internet Research Foundation (AODIRF), in collaboration with the National Development Planning Commission Ghana; Ghana Statistical Service, and Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), CTA Netherlands, with SERVIR West Africa as co-organiser. Space In Africa is the official media partner.

For more information on the conference, click here.