16th August, 2011
Hewlett Packard, HP, Nigeria recently gathered its customers, partners and retailers for a-three day customers forum in far away Dakar, Senegal.
The forum with the themed: “Technology Live”, was an annual event organised purposely for market integration, knowledge gathering, new product demonstration and for stakeholders networking.
This year’s edition, the seventh in the series, and held at the Radison Blu Hotel in Dakar, Senegal, a fortnight ago, was attended by about 120 guests made up of high networth clients from corporate and government establishments in Nigeria. Others in attendance were C-level customers, partners, wholesalers and retailers from its Nigerian and Ghana markets.
At the forum, HP was able to take guests through its market performance, new product development and future plans for the West African market. The occassion also focused on the business and environmental challenges and opportunities as being experienced by both HP and its customers. There was a presentation and product demonstration of some of the latest IT solutions that HP as an industry leader, has recently developed in order to help reduce the gap between customers’ needs and what organisational IT infrastructure can offer.
In the key note address and papers presented at the forum by various chief executive officers, chief information officers and eminent citizens of Africa, HP clients and dealers were able to learn new things and global trends in IT solutions.
One of the outstanding presentations was from the Chairman of Microsoft Africa, Professor Cheick Diarra, who gave an inspiring address on African Technology Vision, touching on the reality of life in Africa, the role of science and technology in accelerating development and how all stakeholders can make a real difference in the socio-economic development of Africa, using information technology to drive the needed growth.
According to him, “I have been, and will continue to be inspired by the work being done by my peers at HP and Intel. The test of the relevance of our science is ultimately in its application for resolving common problems. Today, I ask you to take up our collective challenge to address the practical applications of your invention; it is indeed not only an opportunity, but our responsibilityâ€, Professor Diarra stated.
Others who spoke at the forum include the Managing Director of INTEL and HP representatives who presented images of some of the newly developed hard and software materials.
At the conference HP customers and other stakeholders were able to express their needs and market challenges.