The critical role of infrastructure for the global interconnection of West African enterprises to achieve borderless growth’ was the main theme of the keynote address at MainOne’s Nerds Unite 2022.
Taking place last week, the event is MainOne’s flagship customer event, bringing industry experts together with MainOne customers to discuss trends and opportunities in the Digital economy.
In this year’s keynote speech by Judith Gardiner, Vice President Growth and Emerging Markets at Equinix, Judith said that Equinix will be a prime mover in interconnecting Africa with the rest of the world on its global digital infrastructure platform, enabling access to virtual network services through the MainOne data centers and network.
She emphasized the role that Equinix has played in other geographies as an industry leader and that the acquisition of MainOne is a key part of Equinix long-term strategy to become a leading African carrier-neutral digital infrastructure company in Africa.
“Businesses in Lagos, Accra, and Abidjan now have equal access to the power of Platform Equinix’s entire data center network, connecting into the same network as some of the biggest multinational companies in the world.” Said Judith Gardiner, Vice President Growth and Emerging Markets at Equinix.
“By supporting the growth and maturity of digital infrastructure in Nigeria and West Africa, we believe that the Equinix acquisition of MainOne will be transformational across several sectors of the economy including financial services, content and digital media and many of the enterprise sectors.” She added.
Globally, the Equinix Platform is comprised of over 240 data centers, providing digital infrastructure, colocation and interconnection services to over 10,000+ companies including more than half of the Fortune 500 and more than one-third of the Forbes Global 2000.
The two-hour virtual event featured two-panel sessions. The first panel included top executives from Meta, Tizeti, Lagos Free Zone, Eko Electricity Distribution Company discussing the theme “Unlocking Growth through an Interconnected Global Digital Infrastructure” – expanding on the opportunities that global digital infrastructure offers to Pan-African focused organizations. The second panel focused on “Maximizing Business Efficiency and Minimizing Talent Drain and Rising CAPEX through IT Outsourcing” and included a discussion with executives from leading businesses such as HPE by Selectium, Access Bank, NIBSS, and Deloitte shed light.
Funke Opeke, CEO of MainOne, an Equinix company, maintained that with the pandemic induced recession and high rates of inflation, technology will be responsible for propelling the growth of many African economies. MainOne will continue to drive this tech-fueled growth through the expanded capabilities now available to West African enterprises. In her words, she highlighted the Equinix entry into Africa through MainOne, with the objective of integrating MainOne facilities into the global Equinix Fabric platform. Businesses can now enjoy borderless growth right here in our region through the power of global interconnection that Equinix brings.
