Africa's media heads to meet

Africa's media heads to meet
By Mutuna Chanda
Saturday May 17, 2008 [04:00]

AFRICA'S media leaders are to meet in Uganda for an annual summit to look at how the continent is embracing new technologies to serve the changing needs and interests of their customers. According to a statement, 40 media executives from across Africa would attend the conference co-hosted by Rhodes University's Sol Plaatje Institute (SPI) for Media Leadership of South Africa and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Foundation. SPI director Francis Mdlongwa stated that the conference would be looking at a range of digital media platforms that had continued to emerge and the challenges that media companies in Africa faced in adopting them.

"Given the breath-taking technological changes which are reshaping and even redefining the entire media industry, we felt that Africa should pause, take stock, look at what works and does not work in our part of the world and why, and plan ahead," stated Mdlongwa.

And KAS head of sub- Sahara Africa's media programme Frank Windeck stated that the meeting among others gave Africa's top media executives a unique opportunity to network at the highest level.

He also stated that the meetings gave media leaders an opportunity to examine and find practical solutions to key industry and other issues that affected them.

The conference series was launched by SPI and KAS in 2002 to promote high level interaction among Africa's media chiefs and to seek practical and innovative solutions to challenges faced by the media.