SES reflects on a year of good work at AfricaCom
AfricaCom, the biggest technology event in Africa, brings together senior decision-makers from the entire digital ecosystem. This year’s event took place at the Cape Town International Conference Centre from the 11th to 13th November. Ibrahima Guimba-Saidou, SVP for Commercial Africa at SES had a speaking opportunity at the event where he discussed connectivity in Africa and how satellite technology plays an integral part in creation of the required access.
During AfricaCom SES took the opportunity to reflect on the major milestones achieved in Africa this year through its various partnerships. These have focused on how satellite solutions and services can help increase access to e-health and e-education in non-urban areas. SES has added value to its broadcast customers through its installer training programme, Elevate. In addition it also launched a teleport in Djibouti in East Africa and a new digital television platform for West Africa, ASTRA 2F, located at 28.2 degrees East.
SATMED an e-Health platform was launched in partnership with the Luxembourg Government and various NGOs. The aim of SATMED is to improve public health in emerging and developing countries, most significantly in isolated areas with poor connectivity. SATMED will provide a range of e-health services at different levels such as satellite connectivity for remote areas with no internet connectivity; e-health and m-health tools developed with the support of doctors; tools developed by international communities for providing universal access to e-care; e-learning; e-health administration and e-health financing.
A major e-health initiative in Africa is the launch of an Ebola-focused education channel to be broadcast via two SES satellites in West Africa. The channel, called Fight Ebola, is available to both free-to-air TV viewers and Pay TV subscribers and transmitted via the ASTRA 2F satellite at 28.2 degrees East and from SES-5 at 5 degrees East. The channel’s aim is to inform communities in affected areas about the nature and dangers of the disease and how to prevent infection.
A new digital TV platform was launched in West Africa. It offers media and broadcasters end-to-end services such as contribution, premium regional capacity on 28.2° East and ground services to help achieve digital migration, as well as the opportunity to distribute high-quality television across urban and non-urban areas, reliably and affordably. SES also launched a teleport Djibouti which acts as a gateway to East Africa, supporting the continent’s growing demand for modern telecommunication solutions by linking Africa, Europe and Asia.
Africa is now embracing satellite technology for education development programmes and this is successfully contributing to bridging the digital divide on the continent. SES held a live e-leaning demonstration in Uganda that saw Prof. Dr. Gabrielle Gien, President of the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, deliver a lecture from Germany to an audience in Uganda.
SES training programs are seeing thousands of satellite installers trained in Mali and other French speaking countries in partnership with TNTSat Africa, the newly launched Free-to-view platform in West Africa. This regional skills initiative supports SES and TNTSat Africa’s digitalisation goal for West Africa. SES has also contributed to job creation in South Africa through skills development in partnership with SES customer Platco, training 100 OpenView HD (OVHD) Super Installers. These Super Installers are now equipped to train other installers as the national demand for OVHD increases.
More information on Flight Ebola Channel - Fight Ebola is broadcast on ASTRA 2F, Transponder No 2,520, Receive Frequency: 11595 MHz, Polarization: Linear-vertical, Modulation: DVB-S2 QPSK, FEC: 5/6, Symbolrate: 30Msps and on SES-5 at 5 degrees East, Transponder No 4,971, Polarization: Linear-horizontal, Received Frequency:12302 Mhz, Modulation: DVB-S2 QPSK, FEC : 3/4, Symbolrate: 30 Msps. “Fight Ebola” is also available on www.ses.com , www.facebook.com/FightEbolaTV , www.youtube.com/user/FightEbolaTV and www.facebook.com .
