Leadership Roundtable sessions

Monday 8th – 1:00-2:00pm SAST

Join Intelsat, Starwin and Tinsky on this Leadership Roundtable focusing on:

• The increase in connectivity demand in Africa and increase to strengthen infrastructure – expansion in rail, mining, energy, business, etc
• The Intelsat-Tinsky-Starwin enables connectivity everywhere
• Why mobility solutions are so important for connecting Africa
• FlexMove/Land Mobility overview
• Starwin capabilities
• Markets that FlexMove serves
• How are the terminals and airtime purchased?
• How does FlexMove integrate into an organization’s existing communications ecosystem?
• How can FlexMove be cost effective for mobility markets?
• What are some use cases and test results/customer feedback you can speak about?
• What is on the horizon next for Starwin, Tinsky and Intelsat?

Monday 8th – 3:30-4:30pm SAST

In this world of multi and hybrid cloud environments, CISOs today are combating much larger attack surfaces, fighting millions of cyberattacks, securing information ranging from intellectual property to personally identifiable information (PII), and complying with a slew of federal and state rules.

This session will provide you with insights from your peers into the security metrics, threat vectors, and solutions to consider as you strive to establish a long-term security roadmap for your company. Your cross-industry peers will share practical perspectives on current cybersecurity concerns, including emerging trends, cybersecurity policy, and challenges and approaches to accelerated migration to multi and hybrid cloud environments.

The session will cover broadly following discussion points:

• What is the current state of cybersecurity in your industry? In your view how has the threat landscape evolved and how can organizations be prepared for it?
• With an increase in cloud adoption, as well as frequency and sophistication of cybersecurity incidents, what are the key solutions and technologies that help secure your organization from cyber threats? What are some of the best practices?
• Give the wide-ranging business impact of cyber-risks, how have you ensured that the executive team and board understand the risk decisions and buy into the success of the cloud security programs?
• Multi Cloud and Hybrid Cloud bring complexities in running, implementation and security. How do you address the challenges around visibility, compliance?
• CISOs are seeing their role expanding in new areas like regulation and data privacy. How do you see your role further evolve in the future?

Tuesday 9th – 1:00-2:00pm SAST

Join Intelsat on this Leadership Roundtable focusing on:

· The evolving role of satellite in Africa’s connectivity map - new strategy and partnerships across the industry to close the gap and the importance throughout COVID in enhanced connectivity for education, healthcare, public sector

· The relationship with African telcos/MNOs, particularly with the integration of new technology like 5G, and the potential role of satellite in their chief challenges: ROI, Affordability, Connectivity Coverage

· Technological developments transforming the satellite offering

· Unpacking most common myths/misconceptions about satellite backhaul

· Ways to address the affordability issue in remote rural areas

Tuesday 9th – 3:30-4:30pm SAST

Africa can no longer be considered the Dark Continent. Given the rate at which mobile connectivity is growing, it seems only natural that the way business is done will change. But how will Telco’s embrace this change and are they even ready for it? While the sector has never stood still, it also has never been easy to make quick or large-scale adjustments within massive companies that deploy well-established business models and capital-intensive infrastructure to serve hundreds of millions of customers. While there will be lots of changes transforming the sector over the next decade, three in particular stand out: Reinvention of asset-light carriers, Rebound of the enterprise and Liberation of network infrastructure

Wednesday 10th – 1:00-2:00pm SAST

Africa has the opportunity to harness the digital economy as a driver of growth and innovation, but if we struggle to bridge the digital divide and our economies risk isolation and stagnation. The locked potential from the unconnected population be seen as an opportunity rather than an obligation to the society. Mobile Service Providers have to play a leading role in closing the digital divide as they have the most ubiquitous infrastructure to access the unconnected population.

Access to Spectrum - Governments and regulators have to releasing spectrum assets. The industry players have to take a more aggressive position in lobbying for spectrum release.

Cost to connect (Device Cost) - Evolution in technology should bring about cost benefits as device become more and more affordable, however services providers also have the opportunity to improve on the tariffs. ARPU’s in Africa are still high $3 to $6. Compared to $1.50 in similar economies like India etc

Cost reduction through sharing infrastructure – There is a missed opportunity by the service providers to consolidate and share infrastructure in order to further reduce the cost of connecting subscribers. Regulators have to play a more active role in providing guidelines

OPEN RAN – Can this be a driver to further bring down the cost to connect a subscriber?

Wednesday 10th – 1:30-2:30pm SAST

Africa’s youth bulge is a major asset, with the potential to drive growth and development for decades to come. But if the continent’s young people are unable to find jobs suited to their education and skills, it could become a serious liability. Mismatches between available jobs and the skills and qualifications of the workforce are widespread across Africa. According to a recent African Development Bank study a majority of young Africans are undereducated for their jobs, and nearly one-third are under-skilled. Moreover, young people who are over-skilled or overeducated for their current positions are underpaid and frustrated by their limited career opportunities and wasted or deteriorating talents. How can we help close Africa’s skills mismatch?

Wednesday 10th – 1:30-2:30pm SAST

Transformation is an ever-ending journey. Dependency on vendors or system integrators can become a road blocker increasing costs and time to market for new business initiatives. One of the key changes in telecoms market is the desire of CSPs to take full control of their business services environment and grow internal expertise to keep high speed of innovation beyond BSS. Join Nexign and MegaFon on this Roundtable to learn about Micoservices Factory project and express your opinion on the following topics:

Modernization of core functionality requires careful approach to reduce risk to business. It is serious project that should be driven by the operator’s goals and capabilities and supported by the vendor’s experience and strong product portfolio. Tight collaboration with the vendor paves the way to an individually-tailored BSS transformation and leads to a true ownership of the systems by the telecom operator.

A digital layer above BSS is more flexible and provides CSP an area for experiments. The concept of Microservices Factory helps operator to develop in-house expertise to freely explore new market opportunities and achieve agility to compete in a hyper connected world.

Thursday 11th – 1:00-2:00pm SAST

Over the past few years, Africa has become a hotbed for FinTech across the board, gulping up investments higher than any other sector on the continent. FinTech in Africa is a growing sector full of opportunities especially in regional markets such as Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya. The emergence of FinTech is not only granting people access to financial services but is also changing the competitive landscape by serving as a catalyst for innovation across other industries, from agriculture and retail to transport and insurance. The pandemic acted as a catalyst in proving that this industry is the future of Africa’s financial sector, with no signs of stopping any time soon. A key question is how fintechs may leverage their unique assets and skills to seize new opportunities in the future.