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
- African objectives
- Why W3C membership
- The Meraka Institute
- Obstacles
- The Southern Africa Office
- A Different way of thinking
- Structure & Organisation
General African Objectives
- Increase investment in African countries
- Compete internationally on equal footing
- Broaden participation in Africa and internationally
- Build a better world
- Improve on the capacity to deliver
Investment– Competitiveness – Inclusion – Better world
Africa and ICT
- ICT has demonstrated impact on economic progress and positive impact on development
- Realizing the benefits of ICT require creation and adaptation of technology addressing specific challenges and opportunities in our context
- South Africa has not been investing in ICT R&D, participation and creation as much as other countries
- Consequent lag in:
- Human capacity
- Technological improvement and expense
- Innovation Performance
Why W3C membership?
- International consortium of leading companies
- Keep abreast of and influence the changing directions in the technology domain
- Competitive advantage and ensure continual growth
- International exposure and recognition
- We can contribute:
- Mobile Web
- Mobile Internet Banking
- Web Research
- Wireless Connectivity
New African specific ways of Web delivery
Change from adaptation to incorporation
Roles of a W3C office
- Recruit stake-holders in the region: introducing them to W3C, developing relationships with local technology or policy leaders, and guiding organizations through the steps for joining W3C.
- Provide support for existing W3C Members in the region.
- Provide feedback to W3C on regional issues.
- Promote the adoption of W3C Recommendations
Vendor Neutrality
A Contributing Member
Established network of Contacts
The Meraka Institute
African Advanced Institute for Information and Communications Technology (AAIICT)
Meraka
The African Advanced Institute for Information & Communication Technology (ICT):
- Strategic purpose:
- Strengthen and grow advanced human capital in ICT
- Enable critical mass and focus in ICT research for beneficial impact
- Contribute to strong and robust innovation chain
- SA and Africa scope
-
Timeline:
- State of the Nation Address - February 2002
- Implementation delegated to CSIR – Mar 2004
- Commencement of operations – 1 April 2005
- Launch of Meraka by Dept of Communications Minister 17 May 2005
-
Meraka = common grazing ground (Sesotho)
- Shared space for creative productivity
- Emphasize African nature of scope and needs
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
Meraka technology R&D examples – Intelligent Environment for Independent Living
Meraka technology R&D examples – Human Language technologies (Speech synthesis markup-language)
Meraka technology R&D examples – MobiLed (Mobile Web)
The Web (ex. wikipedia) can be accessed by sending an SMS with a key word.
The service call back and plays the information, making use of text-to-speech conversion
Meraka R&D and potential W3C participation
- IE4IL - Web Accessibility, OWL, Semantic Web ( Web Ontology Language), Multi-modal Interaction Activity, amongst others
- HLT – Semantic interpretation for Speech recognition, Speech synthesis mark-up language
- Mobiled – Mobile Web Initiative
- Remote Sensing – Geo-Informatics
- ICT Access – Web connectivity
Why be part of W3C?
- No doubt W3C membership will bring benefits to government, academia and industry thanks to global participation and exposure
- Vice versa, We have something to add to W3C thanks to our own innovative technologies and local flavour
Diversity, Broad participation, Localisation
Obstacles
- Lack of Cohesion; operating in isolation
- Lack of awareness
- Expense
- Non-Profit or government: 3900 EUR
- Profit with gross revenue 30.6m – 51m: 6500 EUR
- Gross revenue between 51m - 204m: 26 000 EUR
- Gross above 204m: 65 000 EUR
- Distance and travel
Challenge for W3C
How a local office can help:
- A different way of thinking in the developing world context?
- Local Office must act as relay between W3C and local stakeholders
- Bringing stakeholders together to reach consensus, then take their needs, opinions, voices, innovation to the W3C
- Similarly convey W3C standards, policies & recommendations to local stakeholders
- Act as reference point to establish, promote, grow and maintain local network
Power of Community
Mechanisms to help
- Personal contacts, build the network, audience today as start
- Regular local seminars, workshops and conferences
- Continuous participation on W3C working groups & forums
- Feedback through the network
- Use W3C experience, expertise to assist in local technology & policy development and standardisation
Structure of Southern Africa office
- Scope: Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Swaziland, but to grow to all SADC countries
- Currently staffed by 2 permanent Meraka employees, housed in the IE4IL group: Quentin Williams, Martin Pistorius supported by manager, Hina Patel
- Immediate Future: Build a W3C office team to administer and perform all duties.
- Grow participation with W3C working groups starting with the Meraka Institute
- First Workshop today: Putting Africa on the Internet Map (example of things to come)
www.w3c.org.za