Ghana’s Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor has just completed an almost 10-year run as Chairman of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Study Group 12 (SG-12), which churned out some of the world’s best standards on performance, quality of service (QoS) and quality of experience (QoE).
His intended eight-year run became almost 10 years because of Covid-19. But keeping Kwame at the head of ITU Study Group 12 has been worth the while of the global tech industry regulatory body because, under his leadership, the study group churned out loads of standards that has helped to improve performance, QoS and QoE across the world.
He was presented with a certificate of honor as he exits office after what he described as loads of achievements in terms of creating regulatory and strategic industry standards.
Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor presented with a certificate of recognition for his effective leadership of ITU SG-12 for almost 10 years
In his exit speech at an august event in Geneva, Switzerland on Wednesday, Kwame noted that indeed, during his tenure, Study Group 12, which used to be mainly a developed countries’ affair, received a strong representation from the developing countries, leading to an average of 45 countries attending every meeting.
Our most recent meeting had 94 countries present and that is testimony to wide representation we created on Study Group 12,” he said. “We also have some very key representations of experts from a wide range of industries who contributed to creating very relevant standards.”
As testimony to ensuring an all inclusive group, Kwame will be succeeded by a Mexican female member of the group, who happens to be the first female to assume that office, and also from a developing country.
Beyond making the study group an all inclusive one, Kwame noted that they also churned out very key standards that has helped countries to measure QoS under very challenging circumstances and even protect lives.
He mentioned, for instance, that standards produced by SG-12 have enabled an island like Vanuatu to measure QoS across waters and land, and also the in-car communication standards that allows drivers to communicate effectively without losing concentration behind the steering.
The in-car communication standards were particularly important because the records would show that road accidents kills more people than Covid-19 does so it is important to ensure standards that will ensure that drivers can keep their eyes on the road while communicating in their cars effectively,” he said.
Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor mentioned that the internet quality, video quality, speech quality and others that the world enjoyed, particularly during the Covid-19 lockdown period were all based on standards created by SG-12.
A cross-section of ITU leadership at the conference in Geneva
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As the world moves towards digital finance, Kwame is calling on industry players and regulators to make contributions to proposals put forward by SG-12 to ensure proper standards in that fast-growing space.
He was grateful to all the countries who presented delegates to SG-12, and to all the individual experts and organizations who contributed to the many relevant standards SG-12 put out under his leadership.
Watch the full video of Kwame Baah-Acheamfuor’s presentation at the ITU meeting in Geneva