Information and Communications Technologies have transformed many aspects of socio-economic offering challenges and opportunities hence creating a demand for knowledge based society. ICT Stakeholders at all levels, Government and Private Sector need to provide every citizen in Tanzania with the knowledge, skills and competences as well as the lifelong learning opportunities required for working in an increasingly information technology reach environment.
Besides the growth of the global digital economy, up to the year 2012, Tanzania had yet to set the national ICT professional continuous skills development mechanism. In the current ICT driven economy, it is important for all technology driven sectors to cop up with dynamics of ICT industry in the country and around the world.
In realizing the developments in the ICT and a need to have competent ICT human resource to compete in the global technology driven economy, in the year 2015 the Government established the ICT Commission (ICTC). ICTC is mandated among other activities, to develop ICT skills and build capacity of the ICT Profession in Tanzania. As stated in the National ICT Policy 2016, the Government needs to collaborate with stakeholders to strengthen the Human Capital that is required for the effective delivery and utilization of ICT’s in Tanzania. This goal will be realized through a multi-pronged approach, one of which is through the promotion of the ICT Profession.
The Annual Conference for ICT Professionals 2018 is among the important platforms used for discussion, networking and raising awareness on the global ICT affairs and skills needed to cope with the dynamic digital economy. The Conference also serves as the platform for the ICT Professionals to discuss and advise the Government through the ICT Commission on technology matters, skills development and enabling environment aspects required by the ICT Human Capital for Tanzania to realise the economic impact of the skilled ICT workforce. The theme of this year’s conference is “Building the Tanzania Digital Industrial Economy”. The 01st Annual Conference for ICT Professionals with the theme”A Perspective on Accreditation of ICT Professionals in Tanzania” was held in August 2016 bringing together ICT experts form both Government and Private Sector, Senior Government and CEO’s of ICT Companies, and the International Professional Practice Partnership (IP3) which is the world known institution working under the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) focusing on professionalism of ICT practitioners.