Naace is the UK professional association for those engaged in advancing education through the effective use of ICT and Sir Bob Geldof was in Scarborough on 1st March to address the Naace Conference. Noting that the two continents were only a few miles apart, he spoke passionately for more than half an hour about the need for Europe to consider Africa as a neighbour. He was aware of the work that the Association has done in raising the esteem of pupils in Zakhele School in Mamelodi, South Africa over a number of years and whilst congratulating Naace for this, urged the members to do more than just raise money. Developing a greater understanding of the social, economical and political systems in Africa are needed by all the world's peoples to ensure that real progress can be made to remove so many people from poverty. The standing ovation he received was well deserved and few members of conference were unmoved by his graphical descriptions of conditions that he had seen.

Here was a famous man who wasn't just saying "Something must be done," but knew what needed to be done and was doing something about it. Naace is very grateful to Bob for giving up his time to come to Scarborough and also to GroupCall, a new sponsoring partner of the Association, for arranging for him to come.