My Presentation at the African E-Governance Forum 2007

“Understanding how African Youths are Engaging in E-Governance and Influencing its Future: What have been the major barriers to success and how can other African countries best utilize the Nigerian experience”

I got to the venue of the event on the third day to discover that my presentation have been moved up the agenda. From the initial agenda, I was to be the last speaker at the conference. The new schedule meant I will come up much earlier than I had prepared for. Thus, I started the normal mental preparedness towards my presentation.

My session was chaired by Mrs. Dorothy K. Gordon, Director General, Ghana-India Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT and also has other tow young speakers. The first was Mr. Saqib Nazir, CEO of CIS Ghana while the second was the other youth speaker, Nii Kpakpo Sylvester from Leadership Strategic Africa. Saqib was the first to make his presentation which exposed the latest technology that is available for enhancing democracy in Africa. Then came my turn.

As a build up to my presentation, I had hosted a questionnaire online at www.peerenergy.55uk.net/egov.php to get inputs from African youths from different parts of the world on each of the points I wanted to speak on. The response to the questionnaire had been good. I opened with the definition and goals of E-Governance. The other issues of E-Governance I spoke on were Skill and Capacity Building, Transparency and Access to Information, Access to Public Services, Challenges of E-Governance and how African youths are prepared to influence its future. In between these, I also paid tribute to African youths who, despite the challenges they face are still willing to contribute to the development of the continent. I also had the opportunity of showcasing my works in the IET Nigeria Younger Members Network (www.ietnymn.org), AfriHUB (www.afrihub.com) and Peer eNeRGy (www.peerenergy.55uk.net) to the audience.