Wharton Africa Business Forum

I’ll be attending the Wharton Africa Business Forum today. I may try to Twitter some/ part of the conference so if you’d like information from a specific session please let me know.

Some of the keynote sessions I’ll be attending include the following speakers:

Mandé Sidibé
Chairman of Ecobank
Former Prime Minister of Mali (2000-2002)

Yibrah Tesfazghi
GE President & Corporate Regional Executive for Africa

H.E. Amina
Salum Ali
Ambassador of the African Union to the United States

Akere Muna
Vice-Chair Transparency International and Member of the African Union Audit Commission

Euvin Naidoo
President & CEO of the South African Chamber of Commerce in America

Football

“The first ninety minutes of a  football match are the most  important.”

- Kalusha Bwalya

First Woman President in Africa

President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was voted in as the first woman president in Liberia. She also happens to be the first woman president in Africa. Some quotes from her innaugural speech:

“It is time for us, regardless of our political affiliations or persuasions, to come together to heal and rebuild our nation”

“This is not change for change’s sake but a fundamental break from the past”

Zambia.com

How do I get zambia.com back into ownership by the Government of Zambia? I’ve tried contacting the current registrants and obviously these efforts have failed. You may or may not remember a Virtual Countries, Inc. verses Republic of South Africa lawsuit regarding the soutafrica.com domain name and how the Republic of South Africa demanded the domain name from the registrants. Unliked this approach, I would rather take the more amicable way yet constantly run into an ethical dilemma on right of ownership. Am I even right in considering that this should be worth trying for as my only basis for argument is that the zambia.com domain is currently used merely as a placeholder for various Overture advertisements. Shouldn’t such a valuable domain name be used for helping a country that is trying to ride a new wave of development? Do you even need a country.com domain name to promote new initiatives from the country when you really should let these initiatives speak for themselves? Thoughts or comments would be appreciated.

The Zambian

Announcing the four month count down to the launch of The Zambian group of websites:

The Zambian Information Network – www.thezambian.info

The Zambian Business Network – www.thezambian.biz

The Zambian Social Network – www.thezambian.net

The Zambian Commercial, Community and News Network – www.thezambian.com

The Zambian Philanthropic Network – www.thezambian.org

44

And while I was enjoying the weekend, the tragic bus accident in Zambia involving the death of 44 students puts a totally different spin on how temporal pleasures are.

Broadband in Zambia

iConnect, an ISP that is based in the UK but has offices in Tanzania, Ghana and Zambia has the priviledge of being able to call itself the first broadband providers in Zambia. I’m surprised that Coppernet or Zamtel have not jumped on this as they’ve been providing services in the region for the last couple of years. The question of cost, reliability and customer acceptance still remain.

President Levy Mwanawasa

The President of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, was recently baptized after accepting and committing his life to Christ.

You may or may not know that Zambia is the only country in the world whose constitution actually declares the country as a Christian nation. Will President Mwanawasa continue his mission of ridding Zambia of corruption based on his new spiritual foundation?