Annual event serves as a platform to expand and develop the Internet in Africa
Port Louis, Mauritius – 13 August 2019 – Mauritius will host the 10th anniversary edition of the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) at the Intercontinental Hotel, Balaclava, from 20-22 August 2019, which is being organised by the Internet Society and African IXP Association (AFIX) in collaboration with Rogers Capital.
AfPIF 2019 will connect and bring key infrastructure, service, and content providers together with policymakers in order to identify and discuss ways to improve network interconnection, lower the cost of connectivity, and increase locally available content, for the benefit of Internet users across the region.
AfPIF is an annual event that serves as a platform to develop the African Internet, and was created to address the fact that most of Africa’s local Internet traffic is exchanged outside the continent. At the same time, Africa imported over 99% of the Internet traffic consumed, which created an “Internet Transit Deficit”. Exchanging traffic locally through Internet Exchange Points (IXP), reduces Internet access costs and network delays and increases content access speeds.
“AfPIF has contributed considerably in changing the Interconnection environment in Africa over the last 10 years. Locally traffic exchanged traffic has increased from less than 1 GB to close to 800 GB today,” explained Dawit Bekele, Africa Regional Bureau Director for the Internet Society. “This is a remarkable The achievement thanks to the strong community established around AfPIF and I am sure that this year’s event will contribute to an even more interconnected African Internet,” he added.
This is the first time that the event is being held in Mauritius and the Indian Ocean Islands region, which is seeking to develop its role as an innovation hub for the region. The Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Hon. Yogida Sawmynaden is due to speak at the event and Rogers Capital will act as the local host.
“We are pleased to host AFPIF 2019 in Mauritius especially with the special privilege that this year’s event will coincide with the celebration of its 10 years of existence. As a diversified and sophisticated business hub for the region, we believe Mauritius may help open new business perspectives for the AfPIF delegates. We are looking forward to welcoming the delegates in August 2019 and to providing our support for the development of Internet Infrastructure in Africa,” said Dev Hurkoo, Managing Director, Rogers Capital-Technology.
Over 250 participants from across the African continent are expected to attend the event, with leading technology providers Liquid Telecom, Seacom and Huawei as Platinum sponsors and AFRINIC, Emtel Business, Linx, Microsoft and Rogers Capital as Gold sponsors. A full list of sponsors can be found at: https://www.afpif.org/afpif-10/.
Concluding on the opportunities ahead, Kyle Spencer, Co-Coordinator of the African IXP Association said “our target is to localize 80% of Africa’s Internet traffic by 2020, and I believe we’re well on our way. Packet Clearing House reports that Africa currently sees the highest growth of domestic bandwidth production in the world, registering a 92% increase from 410 Gbps to 786 Gbps within the last 12 months — and our internal industry benchmarking data corroborates this. It’s an exciting time for Africa, and we look forward to building on this momentum in Mauritius.”
About the Internet Society
Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet. Working through a global community of chapters and members, the Internet Society collaborates with a broad range of groups to promote the technologies that keep the Internet safe and secure, and advocates for policies that enable universal access. The Internet Society is also the organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
About AF-IX
The African IXP Association (AFIX) is a group of Internet exchange point operators from across Africa, brought together by a shared need to coordinate and exchange knowledge. It aims to foster an enabling environment for IXP operators, improve connectivity within the continent, and increase the Internet’s value for all. AFIX was established in 2012, joined the Internet exchange Federation (IX-F) in 2014, and now organizes the annual African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF).
About Rogers Capital
Rogers Capital is a well-established FinTech company in Mauritius and is a subsidiary of Rogers Group, one of the largest conglomerate listed on the SEM 10 on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. Rogers Capital is a leading Mauritian provider of fiduciary, technology and financial services. Its Technology arm is a leading Infocom solutions provider in Mauritius & the Indian Ocean region with a multi skilled workforce of 125 ICT Professionals and with an ISO/IEC 27001 certified Data Centre.
For more information please contact:
Betel Hailu – hailu@isoc.org
This post first appeared on the Internet Society’s website.