Johannesburg, 29 Mar 2000
Two officials from the United States of America's Department of Commerce (DoC), Raymond Cho and Daniel Edwards, were guest speakers at the IT industry breakfast session hosted by SITA at the Woodhill Country Club in Pretoria on 29 March.
Raymond Cho is an IT Industry Research Analyst at the DoC, while Daniel Edwards serves as the Department's International Trade Specialist responsible for getting US companies to do business in Africa.
The visiting officials delivered their inputs under the theme: "From Y2K to Information and Communications Technology ". The aim of the session was to draw ideas from Messrs Cho and Edwards on how the Y2K experience can serve as a building block to enhance IT management. Other speakers included SITA Acting MD, Sello Mokale and Chairperson Sello Rasethaba.
"With the remedial work on Y2K done, the focus now moved to ways the IT community can advance into the future," said Modise Ramahala in his introductory remarks.
In his welcoming address Sello Mokale said ICT developments in the United States are of significant relevance to the South African IT community to become familiar with and customise for purposes of development.
Steve Russell, SITA Y2K Project Leader, and Mr Rasethaba recently attended the SADC Post-Y2K Rollover Conference in Tanzania where the US Department of Commerce were also represented by Messrs Edwards and Cho.
"In view of SITA's role in the South African IT arena," Mr Mokale said, "it was thought fit to host a short information session whereby the IT community at large could be given the opportunity to communicate with US government representatives."
In their joint address, Mr Edwards dealt with the state of play of telecoms in the USA, while Mr Cho focused on a model based on Y2K experience for assisting small and medium enterprises to benefit from Information Technology.
For his part, Mr Rasethaba said the great work done to ensure the country's compliance with the rest of the IT world had to find continuity in the areas of poverty alleviation, fighting hunger and in the execution of empowerment programmes. He said the wealth of talent represented by the National Y2K Decision Centre needed to be redirected into combating crime, poverty, hunger and other issues of social concern.
Mr Rasethaba said SITA will set in motion a process where the proven talent and human and material resources of the NYDC could be re-deployed to act in unison with other concerned IT industry players to tackle national issues of development.