On Wednesday June 8 2016, I had a pleasure to give a presentation on the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to staff members of the Computer Science Department of the University of Botswana in Gaborone. It was a pleasure not only because it is nice to be back in the university environment that I enjoy but also because I like to talk about the IETF and why Africans should participate significantly in the standardisation works at IETF.
Until now, the participation of Africans in IETF was almost inexistent. This has to change if Africa wants to be at the forefront of the development of the next standards of Internet Technology that will define the Internet of tomorrow. And I believe that African Universities can lead the participation in IETF by promoting open standards in courses and researches as well as by encouraging participation of students and staff in IETF and other standardisation organisations’ working groups.
The Internet Society is committed to support anyone who is interested to promote open standards in African Universities because we believe that students and professors will not only benefit from that, but also because this will help promote the future African Internet industry.