graphic with blue and white stripes W3C logo
African Advanced Institute for Information and Communication Technology

The Launch of the W3C Southern Africa Office

The W3C and Southern Africa

14 May 2007

W3C Southern Africa Office Opening

Meraka Institute, Pretoria, SA

Dr Quentin Williams (Meraka Institute)

Presentation Outline

General African Objectives

  1. Increase investment in African countries
  2. Compete internationally on equal footing
  3. Broaden participation in Africa and internationally
  4. Build a better world
  5. Improve on the capacity to deliver

Investment– Competitiveness – Inclusion – Better world

Africa and ICT

Why W3C membership?

New African specific ways of Web delivery

Change from adaptation to incorporation

Roles of a W3C office

Vendor Neutrality

A Contributing Member

Established network of Contacts

The Meraka Institute
African Advanced Institute for Information and Communications Technology (AAIICT)

Graphic illustrating that world class research in ICT improves the economy and the quality of life

Meraka

The African Advanced Institute for Information & Communication Technology (ICT):

Meraka Dimensions

This slide contains an image illustrating the Meraka Institute's dimensions. There are two blocks namely Technology Research which highlights the Meraka Institute's objective to achieve critical mass research and focus in key technologies, and the other block titled Application Innovation illustrates the Meraka Institute's objective to improve the quality of life through applied research and innovation within the information and communication technology sector. There are two more blocks that span between the two main blocks that firstly depict the crosscutting aspects of the Meraka Institute's human capital development initiative and secondly the Meraka Institute's commitment to use and promote the use of Open Source software.

Meraka technology R&D examples –Intelligent Environment for Independent Living (Web Accessibility)

To do World-class R&D that changes the lives of people with disabilities for the better

Graphic depicting the transformation to an enabling environment Futuristic scene of and enabling environment

Meraka technology R&D examples – Intelligent Environment for Independent Living

Screen shots of various national accessibility Portal technologies

Meraka technology R&D examples – Human Language technologies (Speech synthesis markup-language)

Flow chart of the Human Language technology activities

Meraka technology R&D examples – MobiLed (Mobile Web)

The Web (ex. wikipedia) can be accessed by sending an SMS with a key word.
School children sending SMS

The service call back and plays the information, making use of text-to-speech conversion
School children listening to reply

Meraka R&D and potential W3C participation

Why be part of W3C?

Diversity, Broad participation, Localisation

Obstacles

Challenge for W3C

How a local office can help:

Power of Community

Mechanisms to help

Structure of Southern Africa office

www.w3c.org.za

Thank You!!

Dr. Quentin Williams Martin Pistorius

We're at the start, but together we'll build the African Web community
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