IDC Launches East Africa CIO Summit in Nairobi...parades Region's Leading Social Network of CIOs

Celebrating its 50th year of delivering leadership in global IT advisory services, IDC has launched the inaugural installment of its East Africa CIO Summit at the InterContinental Hotel Nairobi. The event opened with a keynote speech delivered by the Kenya ICT Authority and addressing the largest gathering of CIOs, IT thought leaders, and vendors in East Africa. With delegates drawn from across Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania, the Summit explored the pivotal role of the CIO in the new business world of technology transformation.

"The strategic place of CIOs cannot be overemphasized as ICT increasingly emerges as a driver of business and egovernment services," said Mr. Victor Kyalo, acting CEO of the Kenya ICT Authority, in his opening address. "The Kenya ICT Authority recognizes this new reality, and through its ICT Masterplan has identified the development of high-end ICT skills as a key growth proponent. It goes without saying that we believe thought-leadership forums such as this one here today can only add to the development of our collective ICT knowledge as a country."

The Summit also saw the formal launch of IDC's Technology Advisory Council for East Africa, whose fundamental aim is to enable a new wave of IT development across the region. The Council's members will draw on their rich experience to assist upcoming IT talent through mentoring sessions, while they will also head key development programs that recognize breakthrough performances in the field of IT. The founding members of the IDC Technology Advisory Council include esteemed IT leaders from various industries such as government, banking and finance, aviation, education, and telecommunications. Membership is strictly by invitation only and is restricted to senior IT representatives of the region's foremost end-user organizations.

"As IDC celebrates its 50th year of providing international markets with groundbreaking IT analysis, we are profoundly excited to kick start the Technology Advisory Council for East Africa," says Onesmus Mbogo, country manager for IDC East Africa. "The Council will provide a far-reaching source of thought leadership on issues relating to strategic planning, research and development, and technology innovation."

The day's proceedings got underway with an in-depth assessment of the ways in which this new era of transformation is likely to impact the East African IT landscape over the coming years. This was followed by an eclectic mix of insightful presentations and informative panel discussions on everything from cutting-edge information security and telecommunications strategies to CIO best practices and ICT predictions for East Africa.

"The last five years have seen the emergence of a new era in computing," says Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC's group vice president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey. "We call this new era the 3rd Platform. Harnessing the power of key technology pillars such as Big Data, mobile, cloud, and social media, this unstoppable force is transforming entire industries and empowering customers in new ways. It is also driving a fundamental evolution of the CIO's role in the organization, the tasks and responsibilities of the IT department, and the skill sets required by CIOs and their IT staff, and events such as today's play a key role in getting that message across."

The delegates in attendance represented a variety of industry sectors, including banking and financial services, government, oil and gas, construction and real estate, utilities, and healthcare. Senior IDC analysts from across the globe were available for private one-to-one meetings throughout the course of the Summit, offering strategic advice on the most pressing business and technology concerns facing the region's CIOs today. The event came to a close with a lavish dinner and evening of entertainment hosted for the CIOs and IDC's technology partners.

To make sure the very latest technology developments were covered at the East Africa CIO Summit 2014, IDC partnered with some of the world's foremost ICT vendors, including the Kenya ICT Authority as the Public Sector Partner; EMC as Summit Partner; FVC and Polycom as Platinum Partners; Oracle, FireEye, and Kaspersky as Gold Partners; Commvault, Global Knowledge and HCL as Silver Partners; Datagroup and Entrust as Exhibition Partners; and Business Connexion as Gala Dinner Partner.

‘Expect New Things’…Adanma Onuegbu, new Signal Alliance CEO

As part of efforts in maintaining its giant strides as one of the leading IT integration companies in the country, Signal Alliance recently announced Mrs. Adanma Onuegbu as its new CEO. The development which came up in the last quarter of 2013 and made official in 2014, was necessitated by the elevation of the former CEO Mr Collins Onuegbu, as the new Executive Vice Chairman of Signal Alliance Group.

Addressing newsmen in her first media interactive session, Mrs Onuegbu said there was the need to keep the public updated on the activities of the company and her determination to take the company to the next level. She said part of her new job will be to complement the work done in the company so far and to seek out new areas of opportunities that will be of benefit to the company.  

On her top priority, Mrs Onuegbu said, “We’ll aim to improve on the service delivery of Signal Alliance toward its numerous customers with renewed vigour ensure customer satisfaction, which is the biggest challenge most companies in the sector are facing at the moment. “Another area we’ll be focusing on is the area of data security, because of the shift to big data, there is the need to position the company to favourably compete with big players in the industry with regards to cloud computing which is where most organisations are moving into at this time”. She added that the company will be engaged in re-engineering as partners with OEMs such as SAP Microsoft, CA technologies, and Cisco.

Mrs. Onuegbu is presently the only woman CEO in the IT services and integration industry, which she says it is rather a challenge than honour as she will be expected to achieve more and carve a niche for herself in the industry. She is a graduate of Agro-economics and has risen through the ranks in Signal Alliance from inception. In addition to several industry recognitions and trainings garnered over the years, Mrs. Onuegbu is also known to have engineered most of the high-end IT solutions in key sectors of the economy.

These key solutions had also won various local and international awards for Signal Alliance over the years. “I actually see what this company has achieved over the years as a challenge and opportunity to doing more and surpass what the company has been known for” she said.

Signal Alliance is an end to end Information Technology company with specialization in systems integration and has a rank of highly skilled and certified consultants with industry experience cutting across all the sectors of the economy, with core competencies in Business Optimization services, Service Management, Networks & Monitoring, Cloud Computing and Business solutions.