Ms. Sophia Bekele, speaking at the "Infrastructure" session, gave update on the journey of DCA's current project .africa Domain, saying " Our organization has been very much a part of the International conference that was first launched as ConnectAfrica 2007, when we introduced this very important Pan African initiative, to provide Africa an online digital identity. This is evident from the list of projects still hanging as part of the ITU commitment on the ConnectAfrica website...search "dotafrica": At the time we committed 100k USD and 6 years later, we have raised over 1million US dollars and campaigned all over Africa to create awareness and the benefit to all African peoples and organization. We have since been credited by the African people and the African and International Media for our excellent work, over & over again".

Asserting her organization's position in the summit, she said "Our organization has pioneered this initiative and we want to register for the record that this Summit also acknowledges and registers our success. DCA is an African company that has met and exceeded its ConnectAfrica 2007 commitments and 6 years later is Transforming Africa through ICT. We want the Summit to acknowledge our Success."

In yet another session, Bekele posed questions and made comments on what should be included in the 'Smart Manifesto', an ICT vision championed by Rwanda Ministry, as an outcome to the conference. "It is a very topical issue that will be much more relevant in near future will be, what is Africa's articulated position on Global Internet Governance and Policy
vs-a-vis the present divergence of opinion that has become rather evident; whether continuing with the status quo driven by US-based institutions or facilitating a change to the UN/ITU led model as proposed by some countries?", asked Bekele

She also asserted "There needs to be a structured involvement of Youth and Women in ICT within the foundations of a strategy. There is a strong need to encourage women and youth to embrace ICT. Where technology had a base in engineering, which attracted mostly men in the past, now women can get involved in the marketing and social media, a growing segment of ICT. Finally, Public Private Partnerships should be encouraged with balanced and open transparent bidding avenues".

Rwanda's Minister for Youth & ICT, Philbert Nsengimana called for the implementation of the manifesto and ensuring the success of the SmartAfrica agenda. "Let's make the dream of 'SmartAfrica' become true. SmartAfrica will become a reality very soon." He said.

The new manifesto is built on five principles: To put ICT at the centre of our national socio-economic development agenda, To improve access to ICT especially Broadband, To improve accountability, efficiency and openness through ICT, To put the Private Sector First, To leverage ICT to promote sustainable development.

DotConnectAfrica is confident that the future of Africa is secured today by ensuring that proper systems of governance is set up in order to encourage technology development that will transform Africa. Africa is full of potential and through such initiatives as generation.africa and miss.africa, launched by DCA already, more youth and women will be empowered to drive the continent to a new level.

Participants hope to monitor progress through the Smart Africa Alliance, a partnership between participating African states, the Africa Development Bank, the World Bank, the ITU, and the private sector.