Excellencies,
Distinguished speakers,
Participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, I would like to extend my heartfelt welcome to all the participants of this first kind Symposium, where opportunities and trends in ICT infrastructure, education and applications are discussed and shared. I am indeed honored to be invited to present this official opening address to this Symposium.

I would like to congratulate the organizers of the symposium for their hard work in making this symposium happen in a very short time and bring all of you together from different parts of the world. I also thank those of you who have traveled a long way to join us in this important event.

Please allow me to take this opportunity to briefly comment on the importance of information communication and the role of ICT as it relates to this symposium.

Excellences,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

In the past, liberty, equality, and humanity have been considered most important for humankind. We are now witnessing the addition of one more important thing to this list - communication of information. Increasingly these days, we live in what is commonly referred to as “the information society'' in which information and knowledge surpass all other economic resources; and where information and communication technologies (ICT) are playing significant role in shaping the path towards the information society. In today's world, ICT is helping us to communicate effectively with people overcoming limitation of time and space. It empowers people by providing information and knowledge, provides income- generating and learning opportunities, improves productivity, increases government transparency and efficiency. It also enables people to participate actively in socio-economic activities, thereby helping to ensure national integration and to safeguard the social and cultural fabric of societies.

you are all aware, elsewhere in the developed world, unprecedented developments in ICTS have created more opportunities for citizens and businesses, in terms of creating jobs, facilitating greater flow of resources, including monetary capital, products/services and exports. So far, the situation in developing countries is different. The existence of inequality in access to ICT between continents, between countries and also within countries is widely observed - creating what is now commonly referred to as the “digital divide”. Therefore, the challenges for us
and our development partners are how to change this situation and create digital opportunities by providing all our people with equitable, affordable, quality and universal access to ICT. Among the major barriers to bridge this digital divide are the following -just to mention a few:

One is the lack of connectivity, inadequate infrastructure. As you all know, we are among the least connected. In Ethiopia for instance, over 85 per cent of population lives in rural areas. Up until recently, access to telecom services in rural areas was almost non-existent. What this means is some parts of our country are connected to and other parts are disconnected from the information infrastructure. Such exclusion of people from access is to place them at a disadvantage closing the door to economic opportunity. I believe that this symposium will give us input on how we should meet the infrastructure challenges as relates technology development and selection.

Another major barrier that may be cited is the lack of adequate content and application. The availability of ICT network infrastructure, we believe, is only part of the story. The effort on infrastructure development will only start to bear fruits when we have adequate content and application running on it. That is, more locally relevant content in local languages should be developed to maximize benefits to our local communities. The symposium is expected to particularly point out issues that provide an impetus for actors in the sector to take heed of the Government's initiative and thus embark aggressively on development of content and application.

Another major barrier is low levels of education and paucity of trained manpower. The introduction of ICT-enabled processes no doubt requires the need to learn new skills and processes. More and more, it has become increasingly clear that many of the real problems in the development of ICT lay not so much in intent, thrust and initiatives from the top, as in the capacity to execute and implement and manage ICT development programs from within. These problems are often related to more than anything else on the acceptance of the technology, and availability of core technical and managerial competence. The planning and integration of technology to the existing work culture can not be achieved without the involvement of management at all levels. This calls for the best expertise and practices of the north to be transferred to the south and conceptualized. I believe that you will deliberate on the roles of the management and the Government in the development of ICT to enlighten those of us who are playing such roles.

The field of ICT is dynamic. Accordingly, research and development activities to facilitate the absorption of new technology, to facilitate speedy transfer of know- how, to upgrade the facilities, etc. are to be encouraged. The need to create short, medium and long term plans for the creation of well educated, trained and skilled workforce is imperative. As such, in addition to building management capability to plan and manage the use, application and integration of ICT, efforts must be made to strengthen the education and training programs in various institutions of higher learning, including the Graduate School of Telecommunication and Information
Technology (GSTIT). In this connection, in your deliberations, I hope you will:

-table ideas, models and curricula that are of interest to our context;
- you will point out strategies on how to mobilize international scholarly resources, attract best talents to our learning and research centers;
- you will indicate ways and means of creating an enabling environment for researchers in terms of increasing their productivity, sharing of information, and facilitating collaborative research between colleagues around the country and the world at large;
- you will raise issues on how to exploit the potentials of ICT for opening up a whole new world of possibility for expanding and enriching the teaching/learning process.

Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

The Ethiopian Government is undertaking a number of administrative reforms towards enhancing the efficiency, effectiveness, quality of the public service and tight against poverty. Right from the inception of the reform, the use and application of ICT has been considered as the distinguishing imperative in the poverty alleviation and transformation of the national economy.

Time has brought the opportunity for those who missed the industrial revolution to leapfrog and catch up using the application of ICT. In this connection, we believe, your discussions will no doubt draw out some of the issues and factors that contribute to the ways and means of using ICT to the success of all aspects of our reform efforts: efficiency, decentralization, resource and performance management, magnetization, accountability, democratization and fight against poverty and thereby improve the living conditions of our society. It will give us the necessary and essential inputs to deepen our understanding of the roles and interaction between government, industry and higher learning institutions to jointly advance the use of ICT as a tool to achieve sustainable development through massive involvement of small and medium size enterprises.

Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to assure you that our effort to explore all possibilities to narrow the digital divide and Ethiopia's marginalization from the global information economy will continue with high priority. We are determined more than ever before to develop a sector that will facilitate the mainstreaming of the ICT industry and the use of ICT in all sectors of the economy and at all levels of the society across the country thereby realizing our vision of unfolding people centered, inclusive and development oriented information society. We are determined to take information and knowledge to those who need them - the peasant farmers, small businesses, service providers, etc.

It is in this context that an international symposium of this nature becomes invaluable since they allow for the sharing of ideas and experiences. In this respect, the efforts made to hold this Symposium by ETC is indeed laudable. I hope that this three-day symposium will be a great success.

Excellencies,
Distinguished participants,
Ladies and gentlemen,

On the account of this note, it is now my privilege and honor to declare the symposium open.

Thank you!

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