The Director General of the National Communications Authority (NCA), Dr. Joe Anokye, has been acknowledged with two prestigious accolades by different reputable institutions for his exceptional contributions to Ghana’s communications sector.
At the 14th edition of the Ghana Entrepreneur and Corporate Executive Awards 2024, Dr Anokye was awarded the Outstanding Corporate Communications Personality of the Decade.
The event was held on March 16, 2024, at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel.
Dr. Anokye also won the Exemplary Leadership Award (Technology Sector) at the prestigious Ghana Business and Innovation Awards on April 5, 2024.
The public recognition of Dr. Anokye’s leadership contributions to the communications sector through the awards is a testament to the impact of his initiatives, policies and various programmes at the NCA.
Over the past few years, Dr. Joe Anokye has been acknowledged by international organisations for his outstanding leadership in managing Ghana’s communications industry and its impact on the digital sector beyond Ghana.
READ ALSO: NCA Boss Joe Anokye Awarded Honorary Doctorate By KNUST
This recognition has led to his inclusion in the list of Top 50 Digital Economy Leaders in Africa in 2023, as well as the Top 20 Tech Leaders in Ghana and the sub-region in 2022.
This testifies to Dr. Joe Anokye’s dedication to duty, penchant for excellence and visionary leadership over the last seven years as the Director General of Ghana’s electronic communications regulator.
Through purposeful planning, teamwork, thorough preparation, and test runs, he has demonstrated dexterity and achieved flawless execution.
He has overseen the widespread deployment of tools and systems to improve the NCA’s performance in licensing, monitoring, and enforcement, which are the authority’s core statutory functions.
This has led to the successful completion of numerous projects aimed at transforming the NCA’s internal processes and improving the performance of Ghana’s communications industry.
Dr. Anokye’s foresight, technical depth and analytical acumen brought about key regulatory interventions aimed at boosting growth and resilience of the industry following the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing reliance on communications infrastructure for business, social interaction, education and economic growth.
Some of the key industry interventions include the following:
1. Directives to MNOs in 2020 requiring them to establish and maintain physical cable connections to at least three (3) submarine cable providers for redundancy and resilience to avert future internet disruptions. This directive averted a complete internet blackout during the March 14 2024 incident affecting four (4) submarine cables connecting Ghana to the Internet. His steady leadership during the crisis led to a rapid restoration of Internet services before the repair of the faulty cables.
2. Introduction of UMTS 900 (U-900) to enable mobile operators to deploy 3G services in their 900MHz frequency assignments to expand and improve data services in the country.
3. Classification and declaration of MTN as a Significant market Power (SMP) to establish the basis for the application of remedial measures to correct imbalances in the telecom market and to protect competition. Some of the remedies implemented include asymmetric interconnection in favour of ‘smaller’ operators, technology neutrality, national roaming, regulation of the tariffs of the SMP, etc.
4. Successful execution of the SIM card re-registration exercise in Ghana, which established a secure SIM database.
5. Introduction of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) through a pilot project in two cities, Accra and Kumasi, making Ghana a pioneer of DAB in West Africa and the fourth country in Africa to deploy the digital sound broadcasting technology.
6. Introduction of new technical conditions to enable the use of adjacent frequency channels for FM radio broadcasting in the same coverage area. This helped to alleviate the frequency constraints in the major cities of the country.
7. Development of a satellite licensing framework to cater for the new services offered by operators in the non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO).
8. Establishment of a Broadcasting Monitoring Centre to crack down on unlawful broadcasting activities in Ghana.
9. Collaborations with the Ministry of Communications and other international entities to expand Ghana’s internet connection capacity.
10. The implementation of National Roaming by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), supervised by the NCA, and advanced collaborations to deploy roaming services to other African countries to relieve Ghanaians who travel across the continent.
READ ALSO: How NASA Leaders Extolled Anokye’s Prowess In An Emotional Farewell Meeting
Profile of Mr Joe Anokye
Mr Joe Anokye is a Telecommunication Executive well-vested in a wide range of Telecommunication Management, Telecommunication Networks and Cyber Security platforms in both public and private sectors.
He has over thirty (30) years of hands-on technical and management experience across Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America.
From January 1997 to February 2016, Mr Anokye worked on several contracts at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland – the USA, as a Senior Telecommunications Consultant, including supervising NASA’s Global Mission Telecommunication Wide Area Network (WAN) technical team.
During his time at NASA, Mr Anokye worked collaboratively with Telecom and Network engineers from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the German Space Operations Centre, the Canadian Space Agency, Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and many other national Space Programs like the Jet Propulsion Lab in California.
In recognition of his efforts, he received the 2007 Employee of the Year Award from the NASA Information Technology Services contract at Marshal Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville – Alabama, for outstanding technical services to the NASA Mission Telecommunications Network.
Mr Anokye was a premier Cisco Technical Instructor from 1999 through 2016 in Washington D.C, USA Metropolitan Area.
He taught and mentored many telecommunications, network, and systems engineers working with governmental and private institutions within the security, financial, and regulatory areas.
From 1999 to 2001, Mr Anokye consulted for Sprint Nextel (Managed Network Services).
He was the Network Technical Engineer responsible for major accounts like KMART, Charles Schwab, UNICOR and Federal Prisons Industries, to name a few.
As the principal network architect, he developed the Telecommunications Master Plan from which a design was made to install the network infrastructure to support the ICT systems used for the Year 2011 Population Census of Bangladesh, a country with a population of over 140 Million.
In addition to the plan, Mr Anokye provided local and continuous technical support for the implementation in Bangladesh.
He was the Chief Technology Officer of JMAT Systems, LLC, an Information Services company established in 2007 and headquartered in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, offering Information Technology and Security Services to commercial, state, and Federal Government customers.
Within Africa, Mr Anokye has also worked on various Telecommunication Networks projects in Africa, primarily in Ghana and Liberia.
In Ghana, he has consulted for the Merchant Bank and, in addition, trained on behalf of CISCO, staff of Ghana Telecom, Merchant Bank Ghana Ltd and the telecommunication wing of the National Security’s Bureau of National Communication.
Mr Joe Anokye was appointed Acting Director-General of the National Communications Authority on January 24 2017, and confirmed on January 15 2018.
A talented and accomplished Technology Executive who was awarded the Best Telecommunications Industry CEO of the Year 2017 (Public Sector), Mr Anokye has a proven record in leading technology transformation, improvement initiatives and aligning technology services with business objectives.
He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Ghana’s communication industry. He will be instrumental in efforts to expand Ghana’s communication network to support our developmental objectives.
Mr Anokye obtained his first degree in Geodetic Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and his MBA from the University of Maryland University College, USA.
In August 2019, he was awarded a certificate of completion for the Senior Executives in National and International Security Programme from the prestigious John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Executive Education.
He was honoured with a doctorate in recognition of his outstanding achievement and significant contribution to Ghana’s telecommunication industry by KNUST after he headlined the prestigious Dr Robert Patrick Baffour Memorial Lectures with an insightful three-part lecture series in 2023.