This is coming as ATCON plans its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in the month of April, this year.
National President, ATCON, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem who disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos, said the 13-year old event would henceforth be known as ComBIT beginning with this year’s edition.
This, he said, has become necessary as part of the repositioning of the organisation and its related activities which began since the commencement of his leadership over two years ago.
He also said that the annual international exhibition would equally have its own web portal to be launched soon.
He stressed that the rebranding would bring about change in the brand, refocus and develop a new product that would attract the right calibre of national, regional and international participants, adding that the transformation going on in ATCON was not only in the name.
“But more so in the style, planning, organization, management and execution of the event,” he said.
While decrying the absence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country, Dr. Ekuwem promised that ComBIT has been structured to have international appeal.
According to him, ComBIT would become an event that the whole world looks forward to every year in Nigeria, affirming that ATCON has been propelled by the need to stage a pan-industry event that would bring the global ICT market to the country annually.
The way forward, he said, is the bold step of building a new brand ComBIT Expo, which will be more attractive and rewarding to participants.
As said by him, ComBIT, came about after intensive and extensive consultations with players and other stakeholders in the Nigerian ICT sector.
ATCON’s desire, he said, has been to ensure it comes out with an all-inclusive global appeal.
“It took us some time, but we are happy that the efforts have actually paid off,” Dr. Ekuwem, asserted, adding that his so-called globetrotting last year was a strategy to reposition the nation’s expo for greater international participation.
“ATCON has therefore, taken into serious consideration all the observations and comments made by would-be participants from across the world and will endeavour to reflect on them in the planning, management and execution of the event,” he said.
ATCON’s planning committee for ComBIT 2008 has been drawn with members’ cutting-across the ICT sector in the country, emphasising that ComBIT is not just an ATCON affair.
“It is an event for the entire Nigerian ICT sector and so the planning committee has to be inclusive of all service sub-sectors that make up our ICT industry,” Dr. Ekuwem said.
In addition, he said, ComBIT 2008 will have local as well as international organizing cum marketing agencies to add professionalism in the handling of the event.
Equally speaking, the Executive Secretary, ATCON, Mr. Godwin Morgan, informed that the association’s AGM has been scheduled to hold in April 2008.
Peak on the agenda for the AGM, he said, are presentation of the annual reports and 2007 audited accounts as well as election of new officers into the National Executive Council (NEC).
Champion Infotel recalls that the two-year tenure of the present NEC would terminate in April, shortly before the election of new NEC at the approaching AGM.
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