India to e-connect 20 African Countries

In a joint initiative with African countries, India would make the Pan-African e-network operational to provide several IT solutions like tele-education and tele-medicine in Africa by the first half of 2007, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam said Thursday.

“During my visit to Africa, I addressed the inaugural session of the Pan-African Parliament on Sep 16, 2004. During my address, I made an offer to set up a Pan-African e-network,” Kalam said.

“I am happy to inform you that this offer has been received very well all over the African continent and 20 countries will be connected in the first half of 2007 and the rest will be operationalized by early 2008 at a cost of $100 million,” he said while addressing the first ever India-European Union science conference.

Terming it “hard hard commitment”, the president said the e-network would provide e-connectivity to all the 53 countries of Africa and also connect all the heads of state of the Pan-African countries.

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“The idea was to use the core competence of our country to assist these countries in the field of IT for providing at least one hub in each of the African countries through which various e-services like tele-education, tele-medicine and e-governance could be provided,” Kalam added.

Pan-African e-network project brings together the terrestrial network between India and Africa through the international undersea fibre cable network and also the African satellite network services.

The African universities and super specialty hospitals will also use this network to provide services and content.