StarTimes to boost digital in rural areas

Pay TV company StarTimes is making plans to enhance agricultural development in Africa by enabling access to digital terrestrial content in rural areas through its digital media platform.

At the 10th edition of the African Green Revolution Forum, StarTimes vice general manager for overseas business Zhang Junqi acknowledged the limitation of digitisation in Africa. He said this was caused by a lack of infrastructure, which leads to low penetration of information communication resources.

“We intend to make it our social obligation to make our broadcast platforms available for relevant educational content targeting the rural population,” he said.

“At StarTimes, we have initiated the broadcast of agriculture-related content from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa and other relevant resources, which have been localised in each country and broadcast in local dialects,” he added.

The Access to Satellite Television for 10,000 African Villages project, which aims to equip over 10,000 villages with satellite television, will be completed at the end of 2019.

Chinese-owned StarTimes intends to leverage this to not only boost cooperation between China and Africa but also to extend television services in rural areas.

The African Green Revolution Forum, taking place earlier this month, brought together stakeholders in the agricultural sector to discuss policies to achieve an inclusive and sustainable agricultural transformation across the continent.