ITU Global View, a virtual earth-based online platform to track and help accelerate the implementation of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) goals in Africa was launched on 29 October, 2007 on the opening day of the Connect Africa Summit. Governments, along with industry, development banks and international organizations are gathered in Kigali (Rwanda) to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources required to expand the development of ICT infrastructure and ensure it is used effectively in pursuit of the WSIS development goals for Africa.
The International Telecommunication Union and Microsoft signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the Connect Africa summit outlining how they will work together to build a safe, inclusive and inter-operable information society. They agreed to support programmes providing skills development and capacity building along with the delivery of relevant applications and services in Africa. These would include the delivery of a new online solution for all stakeholders to showcase and track the implementation of development projects in Africa. ITU and Microsoft will also collaborate globally on cybersecurity and provide support for regulators in developing countries. As part of the partnership, Microsoft and ITU are launching a flagship on-line visualization platform called ITU Global View, which is being demonstrated at the Connect Africa Summit in Kigali. Based on Microsoft Virtual Earth, ITU Global View integrates a broad range of new and existing data sources on global ICT for development accomplishments in support of the WSIS goals. Easy to view, the software was developed in partnership with IDV Solutions. The online platform will be hosted and maintained by ITU, and will be open to all stakeholders
