The second meeting of the GCBI was held in Missenden Abbey, United Kingdom, from 21-22 October 2013. The meeting was at the kind invitation of the Chairman of the GCBI, also Chairman of the United Kingdom Telecommunications Academy (UKTA), Professor David Mellor.

The Director BDT was represented at the meeting by the Chief, Projects Support and knowledge Management Dr. Cosmas Zavazava. In his opening address to the meeting, read by Dr Zavazava, the Director BDT, thanked the Chairman of GCBI, Professor David Mellor, and UKTA, for not only hosting this meeting, but further, for partially sponsoring the event through the offer of venue, meals and accommodation during the  meeting.

The meeting discussed the tools with which to implement the new Centre of Excellence strategy. In this regard, the operational Processes and Procedures document was discussed in detail. The procedures incorporated a role for the group in the selection process for the new CoEs and in the governance structure of CoE’s by inviting  GCBI members to participate as members of the Steering Committees.

Other issues discussed at the meeting were the work being done under the ITU Academy, and in particular: how to improve content developed under the Academy; how to assure quality of content developed and training delivered; how to support the development of professional standards within the ICT sector; and, how to mobilize partners for capacity building. The group emphasized the need for a mutually beneficial win-win relationship between the BDT and the Academia.