iWeek Drops in on Durbs

12 June 2017

South Africa’s leading annual Internet industry conference and exhibition, iWeek, will be held in Durban this year.

This is the port city’s first time hosting the country’s longest-running Internet event. South Africa’s Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) has held an iWeek event every year since 2001. During that time, Cape Town has hosted two iWeeks and Johannesburg all the rest.

“The decision to hold the 2017 iWeek in Durban reflects the city’s growing importance to the South African and African Internet,” said ISPA chair Graham Beneke. He highlighted the fact that Durban last year became the first South African city to get a multi-site Internet exchange point.

This important milestone was achieved following a public private partnership between INX-ZA and Ethekwini Municipality (Durban Municipality). Internet exchange points enable Internet Service Providers to interconnect their networks, so that users benefit from faster connections and more efficient access to online services.

The event will be held from 4 to 7 September 2017 at the Southern Sun Elangeni and Maharani, a spectacular landmark on Durban’s Golden Mile.

This year, iWeek will be held in conjunction with the Southern African Network Operators Group (SAFNOG), a grouping of Internet industry professionals dedicated to building and sustaining communities of network operators in the Southern African region. Other key partners for this year include INX-ZA, the ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA), the ZA Central Registry (ZACR), the Internet Society and WASPA.

The Internet Society will be hosting their ION conference on 7 September. ION conferences bring network engineers and leading industry experts together to discuss emerging technologies including IPv6 and DNSSEC.

A wide variety of tutorials, seminars, training sessions and workshops running in parallel to the plenary events will be provided by the partners, ensuring that a range of interesting and relevant topics are presented to industry.

The iWeek event attracts the cream of the crop of internationally-renowned experts and speakers who meet to network and share Internet best practices.

Attendance is free to delegates who pre-register and additional information is available here: www.iweek.org.za.