Eng. Amirzai Sangin Minister of MCIT, featured speaker at the Leadership Lecture Series at American University of Afghanistan (AUAF)

On 26 November 2011, Eng. Amirzai Sangin Minister of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) of I.R of Afghanistan was the feature speaker at the Leadership Lecture Series at the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). The lecture series invites high government officials to address the issue of their vision of Afghanistan’s future and provide opportunities for students to ask questions and exchange views regarding Afghanistan’s development.

Minister Sangin spoke to an audience of approximately 170 students as well as the administrative leadership of the University including Dr. Sharif Fayez, founder of the AUAF  and former Minister of Higher Education, and Dr. C. Michael Smith AUF president.

The Minister reviewed the progress that Afghanistan has made in the past 10 years. He added that in the past 10 years the coverage of mobile phone networks has expanded to over 80% of the population. Minister has encouraged private sector investment that has now risen to 1.7 billion US dollars.

Minister also reviewed challenges faced by the Government including the high cost of Internet access although he said that prices were dropping substantially this is because of the massive expansion of the optical fiber backbone network throughout the country. The Minister added that advanced communications has become important to the lives of Afghans in terms of social and educations.

At the end of the event, Minister answered many questions from students who raised questions about data security. One question had to do with the growth of value-added network services in Afghanistan.  Minister noted that the past few years had been dedicated to build nation’s communication infrastructure and that now expected to see an expansion in such services.