During December 2013, Korea¡¯s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning along with NIA opened 3 new Information Access Centers in Africa. The 3 IACs were opened in Morocco, Algeria and Ethiopia, respectively.

The IAC includes a conference room equipped with audio/video equipment and a teleconference system, an IT training facility and High-speed Internet Public Access Office. Thus, ICT experts¡¯ community, as well as the public will be able to benefit from information technology, improve their IT skills and widely use this as a cooperation ICT tool.

On the 17th of December, the IAC in Morocco was re-inaugurated at the Mohammed V University with the President and Vice President of the University present as well as Lahcen Daoudi, the Moroccan Minister of Higher Education and Science in attendance as well. From NIA, Vice President, Kyung Sup Kim was at the opening ceremony for all three African countries. The Algeria IAC opening ceremony took place one day later, on the 18th with Attif, Director of Algeria¡¯s Ministry of Post and Information & Communication Technologies in attendance at INPTIC (National Institute of Post, Technology and Information Communications). On December 20th, a new IAC opened Ethiopia at the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in Addis Ababa with the Minister of Science and Technology, Demitu Hambissa and State Minister of Science and Technology, Mahamouda Ahmed Gaasalso taking part in the IAC Opening Ceremony.

At all three IAC Opening Ceremonies, NIA Vice President, Kyung Sup Kim stressed the importance of the IAC and access to information hub for cooperation between Korea and the IAC countries as well as helping to expand bilateral cooperation in future between the countries. He also stressed that those citizens using the IAC could directly access information directly, utilize the IT training center and help to train IT professionals.

NIA Vice President Kim went on to add, ¡°Over the past 10 years, 38 IACs have been set up in 36 countries that have helped train and give access to 800,000 people in those countries thereby helping to contribute to ICT and economic development and bridging the digital divide.¡± By 2020, the plan by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning through NIA¡¯s support is to expand the number of IACs to over 100 countries helping to form a global information center network across countries through cooperation, strengthening regional information access center operations, and linking domestic and overseas IT companies through the network.