The third West African Satellite Communications conference is taking place from tomorrow for three days in Abuja, Nigeria, hosted by Global VSAT Forum and UK-EMP.

Businesses from many different markets will be participating, where they will discuss many aspects of the potential of Satellite communications, especially relevant due to the May lauch of Nigeria’s first satellite, Nigcomsat-1. This satellite is geostationary, and can actually cover all of Africa, not just the Western regions. It is stated that broadband through satellite is much more cost-efficient means of access to the web, and has apparently already reduced costs greatly.

Interestingly, the key question to be considered at the conference is ‘Does broadband satellite make sense for West Africa?’ and one of the key areas of discussion is ‘appraisal of the application of satellite communications to the connectivity needs of the public and private sectors.’

This seems a potentially effective conference, where there is being consideration applied not only to the technology itself, but to how it is going to be used, and whether it is the right solution to the problem of connectivity. This is seemingly more positive than the Connect Africa summit, where there did not seem to be much analysis of why the technology is being implemented, and how exactly it can be used appropriately (please see my previous post on the summit).

I will await the results of the conference, and will look closely at the outcomes to see what the next steps in this development are to be.

Relevant links:
My digital life article
Global VSAT Forum
Conference overview from Satellite Signals Ltd

Scheduled for April 2008 in Florence, Italy, this workshop seems to have an interesting slant on the issue of international development. It is a part of the next CHI annual conference (CHI2008), and follows on from last year’s workshop at CHI2007, which was entitled ‘User Centered Design for International Development’. This workshop intends to ‘explore challenges in applying, extending and inventing appropriate methods and contributions of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) to International Economic and Community Development.’

CHI2008 is entitled ‘Art, Science, Balance’ and ‘focuses on the balance between art and science, design and research’.

The key aspect of this workshop is to be the extension of current methods and practices, and how these can be applied to the challenges faced in this area.

Position papers have now been submitted for application to take part in the workshop, and hopefully we should find out the detailed content in the next couple of months.

Relevant links:
The Workshop
CHI2008
CHI2007