The 14th annual Highway Africa conference hosted by Rhodes University will be held from 5 to 7 July and will
undergo quite a few changes this year.
The 14th annual Highway Africa conference hosted by Rhodes University will be held from 5 to 7 July and will
undergo quite a few changes this year.
As an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) conference, Highway Africa is the largest gathering of African media professionals in the world and is supported by various sponsors, including MTN, Absa and Telkom.
The conference, which was previously held in September, will now be held in Grahamstown next month in conjunction with the World Journalism Education Congress (WJEC) which was launched in 2007.
Now in its second year, WJEC is a gathering of journalism educators from around the globe and will be held in Africa for the first time.
The number of delegates from these two combined gatherings is therefore expected to total about 550. The theme for this year’s Highway Africa conference is “African Voices in the Global Media Space.”
Chris Kabwato, director of Highway Africa says “We feel that Africa’s time has come. We are growing in our confidence as a people and we want to look at various media institutions such as broadcasting, new media and print.”
The conference also incorporates how “African media entrepreneurs and other parties have sought to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by technology, economics, markets and other factors,” according to the concept document.
Highway Africa also recently launched the Reporting Development Network Africa (rDNA) which aims to assist and improve the way in which African journalists report on developmental issues such as agriculture and climate change.
In addition, Highway Africa has also created its own social media platform called The Network. This is a public space, similar to Facebook, which is used to maintain communication with all the journalists from previous Highway Africa conferences.
“It is for connecting people who are a Highway Africa family,” says Kabwato. Also unique to this year’s Highway Africa is a partnership with Telkom for the Highway Africa New Media awards, traditionally sponsored by SABC.
According to Kabwato, these awards take place in order to celebrate Africans “who have come up with innovative ways of telling the African story”.
Included in Highway Africa’s agenda is the Future Journalists Programme, a programme for students selected form various South African universities invited to take part in the conference.
Annetjie van Wynegaard, a fourth year journalism student at Rhodes University, was involved in Highway Africa last year.
“Working for the Highway Africa publication Open Source under the editorship of Steven Lang was a fantastic opportunity for me as a writer,” she says.
“I came in contact with real media practitioners from all over the world, and I learnt so much about writing about hot topics like Aids, water crises, sexuality and gender.
The rush to produce a daily paper was amazing, and I’m looking forward to Highway Africa 2010.” Highway Africa promises to be buzzing with innovation and excitement.
“We live the United States of Africa dream when we’re at Highway Africa,” says Kabwato. “It’s amazing how people from over 40 different countries can speak the same language – the language of journalism.”
