ITU Global View at Connect Africa Summit 29-30 Oct

30 October 2007, 4:19pm

At the Connect Africa Summit, 29-30 October, Microsoft and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) are announcing a global agreement concerning skills training and online security, including the development of an innovative tool, ITU Global View, for mapping ICT infrastructure and ICT projects, based on Microsoft Virtual Earth technology.

ITU Global View is a map-based tool to visualise the state of ICT penetration across the world and has been developed to bring ITU’s unique ICT/telecommunications statistics and indicators to life in a more visual way for their stakeholders, such as local authorities and decision makers in government ministries, allowing deeper and more intuitive analysis. The technology will be shown to government officials, representatives of companies and NGOs at the Connect Africa Summit.

Imagery of ITU Global View

One example of ITU Global View is a map of optical fibre networks (blue, green and red lines) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) coverage (yellow shading) in Africa. The image can be seen here:

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/images/
ITU_Global_View.jpg

At Connect Africa, the ITU are bringing together government officials, representatives of companies and NGOs to agree on practical approaches to spread information and communication technology across Africa. To read more about Connect Africa, the ITU and Virtual Earth, please visit the feature story here:

http://www.microsoft.com/emea/presscentre/
pressreleases/29102007ITUConnectAfricaQA.mspx

For further information, contact:
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide
Tel. +44 (0)20 7632 3800

www.microsoft.com

Geo: International