The annual African Computing and Telecommunications (ACT) summit took place last week in a weird little spot that could be our very own Bermuda Triangle. As far as I can figure out, the St George Hotel and Conference Centre is in Pretoria. Well, that`s what the map said at any rate - no Telkom operator can say just what the dialling code is, and the road signs are singularly confusing.
An interesting observation is that the international delegates were all out in full force -- it`s the local guys who didn`t pitch.
Basheera Khan, journalist, ITWeb
In any event, I found the place at last, and spent a disconcerting half hour trying to navigate the different session venues. The problem was that there was very little in the way of organisational structure... there were no actual times indicated on the programme, and the locations of the various sessions were strangely unclear.
Looking high and low
Although there was quite a bit of signage propped up around the conference centre grounds, none of the signs correlated with the information to be found on the programmes, hence my frustrated efforts at getting to the session that interested me.
Sad to say, the Aitec staff in attendance had very little clue; all my requests for help were palmed off onto the hotel staff, who were equally unable to direct me anywhere of use. I tried following other journalists - always a reliable backup plan on an away mission - to no avail.
I missed the session I intended to report on, wandering from venue to venue in this strange locale, until Aitec country MD Sean Moroney came to my rescue, guiding me to the place I`d been trying to find.
It`s a shame really, because the conference content by and large appeared capable of imparting value. In truth, there are a number of sessions I would have loved to attend, but for the difficulty in finding out what was going on, where, and at what time. It was almost impossible to keep a track of the constantly changing speaker line-up.
Some of the sessions though had me - and to all accounts, the speakers themselves - questioning the relevance of the topics, or of the speakers chosen to elaborate on their own experiences in that regard.
It appeared that the organisers relied on a number of speakers, whose presentations were welcomed with enthusiasm at last year`s event, to do the same thing this time around, with just a different angle of approach in some cases.
More of the same
I mean no disrespect to Matthew White, owner of Huxley`s Books. His account of taking a business online is interesting, yes, but we heard it last year. Surely, in the year that`s passed, there has been another online success story which can be used to relate lessons to the industry? Smacks of half-hearted organisation to me.
Also, the number of delegates was down by about a hundred from last year. An interesting observation is that the international delegates were all out in full force - it`s the local guys who didn`t pitch. Could it be because the St Georges Hotel is less 'exotic` than Sun City? Or is it that Aitec decided to hold ACT over the very same days that spanned the inaugural African Gartner Symposium, which incidentally drew just over a thousand more people than did ACT?
At face value, it`s my opinion that the content quality overall - the promise of lessons to be learned and insights to be gleaned - was greater for ACT than that for the Gartner do. It`s a terrible, terrible shame then that those expecting something to equal the high calibre of last year`s ACT summit would have been as disappointed as I was.
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