Monday, October 20, 2008

KOFI ANNAN CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE IN ICT CELEBRATES INNOVATION WEEK

An innovation week celebration have been open by the Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT yesterday in Accra to foster Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in the field of free and open source software through regional networking and strengthening of consulting capacities of ICT associations and training institutions.
Opening the celebration was the Minister of State , Finance and Economic Planning Dr. Anthony Akoto osei said the use of open source technology will allow various company’s in the country understand the inner workings of software solutions, so that they can build on these solutions to develop innovative products more adapted to our market.
He said it was important in redeveloping our agro-industries using technology knowledge base to provide value added services.ICT provide the knowledge a society need to drive a more vibrant agro-industrial economy. The key player in achieving an efficient integrated agro-industrial and service –oriented economic development is Information and Communication Technology. It is important that the appropriate use of information will go a long a way to improve all the initiatives that will help us turn around our half centenary old society into a more prosperous one.Dr. Akoto Osei added that it was very important to empower the entire society in the country in the appropriate use of technology to help maintain a social and economic lifestyle communities, both urban and rural to help improve some our living conditions. ICTs have proven to be the right instruments needed to propel this by enabling us convert data into information, which is needed for appropriate decisions, industrial development and value added production.We expect that ICT will help develop systems that will provide rural production a better access to market and facilitate competitive participation competitively in the global market to their advantage .He said it was the hope of government that ICT will make more positive impact on the private sector and stakeholders to take advantage of these opportunities to help transform our economy. He congratulated Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT and Rancard for championing Ghanaian excellence in the area of ICT.

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